Page 12 of Knot Their Opening Act

CHAPTER6

Holden

I shrugmy gym bag on to my shoulder and head to the hotel ground floor. The band’s just checked into our rooms for opening night tomorrow night here in Glasgow. Tomorrow there are meetings and press stuff, but that’s tomorrow.

Tonight, it’s me and the gym. And the baggage in my head.

This hotel is pretty posh but the gym is lacking. Small, low-ceilinged room with some free weights, a few treadmills, and one really knackered-looking exercise ball. I give it a gentle kick as I walk past it to one of the benches.

“I feel ya, mate.”

I straddle the bench and suck on my water bottle, then adjust my earbuds. This playlist will never get old. Usually it’s my go-to chill, calm, contemplate list. But right now it’s all I can listen to. Nothing else will do.

I grab some dumbbells and start with overhead presses followed by rows. The mirror in front of me is slightly smudged about a foot off the ground with tiny handprints. Someone’s toddler joined them for a session, I guess.

I smile. Someday, pups would be sweet. I’d love a little mate I could train up and bring to the gym with me. If he or she enjoyed it, that is. But little kids enjoy everything, really. A whole world of newness, every experience a wild adventure. Most days, I still feel like that. But on the days I don’t, it’s hard to remember what they’re like.

I focus back on the inhale and exhale. This tour’s going to be a wild adventure, especially if we even make it past a week. We have to, really. No backing out. Not for our opening act, either. But ever since Kai told us Jez’s status as an unattached Omega, everything has felt on a knife’s edge.

I crank my volume as I switch to rows, but grab heavier barbells for these. I wince at the dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep, and a fairly conflicted-looking expression in the mirror.

The truth I’ve kept from the others is digging into my gut. Admitting it now wouldn’t change much, but the reason behind it would. Everyone always thinks the chill, calm guy is the one with no worries, no anxieties, nothing to lose sleep over. And in my experience, we’re just the ones who stuff if all down the furthest.

I never felt the same about Nyah as Kai, Nico, and Thomas. I mean, she had a rocking body, and she was extremely clever and conniving, which I could sort of appreciate. But she sure as shit pulled the wool on us.

I never wanted her. And I wasn’t sad when she left—sad for the guys, but not for me. Because I wanted to find a scent match, not just an Omega who could drink us under the table, play guitar like a fiend, and take our knots all at once.

It was great, don’t get me wrong, but it was a season I could’ve done without. In honesty, it was a relief when it ended, because it felt like wearing a mask I couldn’t remove without hurting my pack.

Then when we all met in Ash’s office last month with Jez Jacobs and her old manager-slash-school friend, it was like someone had carved out my insides like a jack o’lantern. Just left a big fucking pile of my guts on the floor. Like the very thing that was supposed to fill me up—the thing I was meant for—was the thing we had all destroyed three years earlier.

I have barely slept these past four weeks, but I don’t know how to tell Kai. I don’t know whether Jez has any interest in a pack. Hell, for all I know, she could even be our scent match. I’m still on suppressants, like we all agreed, even if Kai isn’t. Now I wish I hadn’t bothered.

But either way, my heart’s drawn to that woman like no other, just as it was three years ago.

I adjust my earbuds and turn up the volume on the playlist that I haven’t stopped playing for three years. It’s Jez’s songs. Her confessional style, her yearning vocals. To me, it’s everything. And I don’t know how I’m going to hide it this time around.

CHAPTER7

Jez

It’s finally here.Opening night ofFable on Fire Running Amok Tour with Special Guest Jez Jacobs,as it’s officially been titled, and my biggest crowd ever.

It’s kicking off in Glasgow. I’ve been to Scotland before, on holiday. It was about a seven-hour drive from Bristol. But right now I feel a million miles away from Viv.

I’ve never played a gig without Viv. And if anything, I feel the opposite of claustrophobia right now; I feel like I’m lost at sea. Instead of blood racing with exhilaration and anticipation of an amazing four months to come—that feeling of doing what I was born to do in front of people who want to see me do it—I’m on the verge of vomit every few minutes.

“Please pick up, please pick up,” I mumble. My phone’s beside me at the makeup table in my band’s dressing room, and I’ve punched speaker phone.

Shay and the boys are watching a video of our last rehearsal, smushed together on a sofa behind us, and Ash has been pacing back and forth texting people and speaking to Liana, our road manager, who’s been in and out of the room. Security has been in and out reporting to Ash as well, who’s promised to be with us for this first month of UK gigs, but after that, he’s handing us over completely to our soon-to-be full-time manager, Ferny.

Real name, Ben Fernwood. From the ten minutes I spent with him in catering, he seems friendly and showed no favoritism toward the Fable guys in his language. Although they were certain to eat at a different time from me, so I actually haven’t seen them so far today.

As a rule, my makeup isn’t over-the-top, but I wanted to spice things up a bit on this tour. My assigned assistant, Caylee, is doing my hair. For tonight I decided on an easy style, gathering sections of my aqua-colored hair from the sides and braiding the top layer down the middle. Out of my face but also a bit more volume.

“Trying to braid my own hair has always been a mega fail,” I say, catching Caylee’s eye in the mirror. “Thanks so much for doing this.”

Strictly it’s not her job, but thus far I haven’t exactly figured out what her jobis, other than telling me what time I need to be where.

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