Page 6 of Spite Crush

I gave myself a moment to wonder if I’d be angry if a camera threw up a shot of Zak Dempsey during our concert, of hearing people cheer for him instead of for us. And then I decided that no, I wouldn’t care. Because at the end of the day they’d shown up for me, and if they wanted to give a scream for his stupid face, that would be fine. I wouldn’t throw a public tantrum about it.

Hopefully this weird pissing match was over and he and I could both go back to doing what we were best at.

Entertaining the masses.

I’d just taken my place on stage and was strapping my guitar over my shoulder when Craig’s dulcet tones echoed through the arena.

“God damn it, Kellen!”

“Oh, come on!” I blew a heavy sigh into the live mic. “How the heck did she already get it out there?”

“I told you to let this go,” Craig said as he stormed onto the stage. “Did you call her?”

“No!” I recoiled, taking a step back from him. “She ambushed me outside the green room like twelve seconds ago. What did she do, go live from the parking lot?”

“She posted it on the Hockey Tonight website and it’s already been picked up by fucking everyone.” Craig closed his eyes and I imagined he was counting to ten in his head. “Don’t talk to the press. Don’t say ZakDempsey’s name. And for the love of fuck, Kellen—”

“Okay,” I said, cutting across him. “I really don’t think I’m at fault here, but I understand. Did she mention our song, though?”

“Oh, she wrote a glowing review of the band,” Craig said. “And of you.”

I snorted. That was going to get under Dempsey’s skin. The darling of the hockey press gushing over me instead of him. What a world we lived in. And here I thought the internet was only useful for music and cyber-stalking stupid hockey players…I mean, researching new and exciting things.

“Okay, it’s over,” Craig said. “We’re all done. I don’t care if he goes on C-SPAN and insults your mother. No more comments. Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” I said, just wanting this conversation to end. “Would you please stop yelling at me so we can get this sound check done?”

I slid my fingers over my guitar strings, sending a loud vibration of sound through the room, cutting over anything else he had to say to me.We had a job to do and I couldn’t do it while fighting with our manager.

Craig threw his hands up in clear irritation, but turned and stalked off to do whatever it was he did while we were on stage.

****

“You look like shit,” Ford announced.

I was sure I did. I’d been feeling an attack coming on for the last hour and like I always did, I’d been trying like hell to fight it off. But from the tightening in my chest that wasgetting worse by the minute, I knew it wasn’t going to work.

I should have known considering fighting it never worked, but for some reason my brain just refuses to accept the fact that I can’t overcome my anxiety disorder, or a panic attack, just because I really, really want to.

“I need to get out of here,” I said.

“Where did you leave your meds?” Craig asked.

“Probably on the bus,” I admitted, the words coming out like a hiss asthey slithered through my clenched teeth.

“Of course you did,” Ford snapped as Tim huffed out a sigh behind him.

“The locker room is open for you,” Craig told me, his tone thick with irritation. “End of the hall, turn left, head down the ramp.”

I nodded as I walked quickly out of the room. He drove me crazy, but Craig knew me well enough to know that I might forget to take my medication before the show and would probably need somewherecompletely private to calm down. He might not like dealing with my issues, but at least he did deal with them.

The further down I headed, the cooler the air became, and I was so grateful for it because I was starting to sweat through my clothes.

I burst into the locker room and dropped onto the first bench by the door, gripping the wood in my fists as I pitched forward and struggled to catch my breath.

I should have remembered to take my pills. Normally I set an alarm on my phone, but I’d been sodistracted by this whole Zak Dempsey thing, that I’d forgotten to do that, too. And it wasn’t up to the band to remind me about my own basic care.

As they loved to remind me.

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