Page 97 of Just My Type of wrong guy

“It may seem like I’m being a bad friend after what happened...”, He’s clearly talking about Friday, but I’ve got enough stuff on my plate.

“Nothing happened, A.J...”

“After what didn’t happen,” he adds, the mocking smile making me want to grab his dimples with my hands. “Maybe it sounds weird for me to say I’ll take care of you, but if we’re sticking to the family topic...” A.J. says, scratching his neck without looking at me for the first time in a long while. “I need to tell you some things about my story, and I won’t be able to do that sober,” he explains, and the heavy tone scares me.

“Well, if I’m finally going to find out what’s in your closet, I guess I can drink a little.”

“I’ll go out with Hammer to grab the drinks, and you take care of some snacks, then?” he asks, already taking his phone out to call the security.

I nudge A.J. away like I would’vebefore… But this time, it’s not about pretending everything’s normal. It’s not just to stop him from feeling awkward. It’s more than that. It’s this almost cruel need to understand exactly what it is that leaves my shameless, boundary-less partner speechless.

Chapter Thirty-one - A.J

You're on your own, kid

You always have been

You’re on Your Own, Kid - Taylor Swift

I watch Alexandra’s eyes wandering around the room, but I don’t rush her. I let her take her time before responding. Alexandra asks me the time, knocks back her beer so fast it startles me, and, after placing the glass on the coffee table, she takes a deep breath.

“Why the question?”

“Before I tell you about my story, it’s important for me to understand why you agreed to come with us to the United States. I mean, I know the money was good and all, but it felt like you were putting your career on the back burner, you know? That freaked me out a little.

If I’m going to be completely honest with her, I need Alexandra to trust me the same way. As painful as it is to touch this wound, it’s necessary.

“There are videos of me singing when I was eight months old. And I didn’t start talking until I was over a year old.” She smiles, showing all her teeth. “It seems impossible, I know, but my parents were musicians, my house belonged to music, we breathed songs, so I became the girl who sang before she could talk.”

Alexandra falls silent for a few seconds, tapping the tip of her foot on the floor.

“After my mom died, in a car accident coming back from a show, my dad lost the will to sing. The light music brought him turned into darkness, and he isolated himself from theworld, from his friends… Seeing me wanting to sing just over a year after that was an affront to him.” Alexandra swallows and clears her throat. “We started fighting every day, we were both grieving, and I didn’t want to keep stressing, you know? I moved into the apartment my mom left me and lived with my choices.”

“And between that moment and you coming on our tour…”

Alexandra takes a sip of her drink, and I do the same, don’t want it to get warm.

She starts off by dropping a bomb on my lap and explaining that her parents had been swindled by their former manager and label. This alone made her dad become jaded with the music industry, so she tells me that during that time, she had to hold things down at home and take care of the legal expenses, which were not cheap. To make matters worse, her mom’s death, right after a show, was the last straw in her dad’s anger towards everything they once loved.

So, Alex couldn’t count on him, or even the people she’d known since childhood in that world, because her dad had forbidden everyone from helping her “stay in this rotten world.”

“I lost a lot of money with all the setbacks, and even though I can live comfortably with what I still have, investing in a music career is really expensive,” she says, taking another sip. “Staying with you guys wasn’t about giving up on a dream, but understanding that you guys don’t tour for a whole year, being with VB gives me more visibility, and some opportunities need to be seized,” she finishes, shrugging with a peaceful expression.

Apparently, it hurts her a lot less now than it did two months ago, when Alex spent a lot of time feeling miserable.

“I didn’t understand at the time, I even got a little pissed off, didn’t want to say anything, but I kept wondering if Victor wasn’t just keeping you with us for his own selfish reasons…”

“Maybe the guy has horrible reasons, but I’m still on top, our music is successful in all languages, my followers just keep growing…” she lists, turning back to look at me. “So, in the long run, it was the best choice. And deep down, I feel like our generation has two fears: Growing up and doing things slowly, both of them are killing us. Being with you guys was choosing stability and a safer path,” she insists, more like she’s accepting it than telling me.

Or maybe she just needs to remind herself of this sometimes to ensure she hasn’t lost focus. I nod, studying her calm face while finishing my first glass of beer, and Alexandra is halfway through the second.

“I invited you to the party at the penthouse after the first show because I heard you talking to Thalia.” I sigh, running my hands over my legs. “I didn’t understand everything, my Portuguese was still horrible, but I could tell your dad’s love was like mine, conditional on which career we’d choose. And I didn’t want that to affect you, you know? It was such a special night… Your first big show in years…”

“It was an incredible night. You guys were happy for the first show in Brazil, and I was radiant to sing for so many people again…” she smiles with the memories.

“The first thing my parents said when I dropped out of med school for music was something like ‘This isn’t going to get you anywhere.’” Alex finishes her drink and slams the glass on the table, muttering “classic,” but doesn’t interrupt me. “But there’s one thing they said that I ignored: ‘The music world is rotten, and good people like you will never grow in this industry.’”

“And still, here you are…” she says, not understanding the tremble in my voice.

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