Page 23 of Guitars and Mistakes
Then the song ended and they went fucking wild. I mean they lost their ever-loving minds, screaming and jumping up and down and turning to each other and sobbing like they’d just realized how to achieve everlasting life.
It would have been ridiculous, and I would have been making fun of it, if I hadn’t turned and seen Lila smiling so hard it looked painful, a single tear making its way down her cheek. She turned to me, still grinning, and then ran at me and jumped into my arms, laughing maniacally at the euphoria coursing through the building.
The audience started screaming even louder at that, like they’d finally got what they’d come for, and I had to laugh. I couldn’t help it. The combination of Lila being so happy and the amount of love and excitement in that building, the reaction of the crowd to the song we’d just written that afternoon and the fact that they were screaming for us... It all hit me like a water balloon full of the feels, and for just a moment I let myself fall into it. Let myself feel all that excitement and glee, the warmth of the girl in my arms and the adrenaline and love rushing through my body.
For just a moment, I let myself believe that this could be my life. On the stage with Lila at my side, the audience screaming for everything we did and the colors of my world going from gray and black to something a whole lot more technicolor. Falling asleep at night with her by my side and knowing she’d be there in the morning when I opened my eyes. Writing on our days off, getting into the studio, weaving her into the songs we already had.
Building a family like I’d never known before, and finally, finally being safe.
And then I put her down and let her take those thoughts with her as she made her way back to the microphone. The audience followed her with their eyes as I knew they would, because this was about her, not me. It was about Lila and Anna, not Lila and Rivers. I’d been her path to success, but that was it. No one really believed I was going to reform my reputation with her at my side. Hell, I was drinking more now than I had been before I met her, it was just for a different reason. I was miserable because I’d seen the light in Lila Potter and realized that I couldn’t reach it.
I was a man who’d seen the oasis in the desert and then realized that someone else needed the water more than he did. Because I was the guy who people didn’t bother sticking around for. I was the guy who had broken the first home I’d ever had, and then proceeded to break every chance I’d had at a family after that.
My mother had known she’d be better off without me, and that part had never changed. I was an anchor around a person’s neck. A black hole where there should have been a heart. Even now, I was sinking my band with my behavior.
They were going to be better off without me.
Lila was going to be better off without me. Because once I was gone, she wouldn’t have to worry about her contract depending on her acting like she loved me. My band wouldn’t have to depend ontheircontract dying because I couldn’t pick myself up and keep smiling for the crowds.
I leave and everyone wins. Everyone but me.
Luckily, that was a sacrifice I was willing to make.
LILA
“Amazing!” Noah shouted, grabbing me up and swinging me in a circle around him. “You had them eating out of your hand! The audience adores you!”
I laughed and wiggled to be put down, more than a little bit uncomfortable at this particular member of the band manhandling me. He was hot, don’t get me wrong, but he also made Rivers look like a choir boy. Ragged blond hair, eyeliner, and more tattoos than bare skin, Noah also smoked like a chimney and drank enough to knock out any normal human being. I could smell the whiskey on him now and wondered if he was actually coated in it.
Though I wasn’t going to lie. It was nice to be admired by someone that good-looking.
“They just liked the song,” I laughed, staring up into his ice-blue eyes.
He snorted. “They like a lot of songs. Theyadoredthat song, and I’m thinking it was because you were singing it.”
I made a face at him, blowing it off, and turned to look for Anna. She’d been a part of that song too, but I hadn’t seen her since we got off stage. The band had hauled us both to one of the meeting rooms backstage, where we’d found every food you could imagine and way too much alcohol. We’d been eating and drinking—some of us more than others—ever since. This was evidently where the party started.
Not that I would know. I’d never even been on tour before, and certainly not with a band like Global Authors. They seemed like they got everything they wanted—including their own microphones, if that situation with Rivers was to be believed—and they didn’t even have to ask for it.
I could only dream of a career like that. Although Noah was right about one thing: I was right at home on the bigger stage, in front of a bigger audience. I hadn’t even thought twice about performing tonight, and when Rivers had insisted that we play the whole set with them, Anna and I making it up as we went along, I hadn’t argued with him. When we finished up on the song that he and I had written together...
It had been perfect.
At that moment I finally found Anna, and I started laughing. She was backed up against a wall with Matt standing over her, one hand leaning on the wall behind her and the other tucked behind his back like he was trying to keep himself from touching her. She had her face tipped up to his and I could see from the look she was wearing that he’d been teasing her. She looked half furious and half amused, but like she was definitely going to give him some trouble for whatever he’d just said, and I wondered—not for the first time—when those two had started this thing between them. And then I felt guilty for having to wonder. I’d been spending every night in the same room as Anna but hadn’t exactly been asking how she was spending her days.
I’d been too busy watching Rivers and trying to figure out what he was up to.
Speaking of...
I looked from my best friend and the guy who looked like he’d stolen her heart around the room, trying to find a certain brooding figure. The place was packed, though, with roadies and agents and the band members from The Leathers, plus Olivia and Connor and their band, and I realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to see Rivers if I just stood here and looked. He might be tall but I was short and there were too many people.
No quick, stolen glances of amusement about Anna and Matt right now. I had to actually go find him if I wanted to talk to him.
It didn’t take me long to do just that. He was standing against the wall with a tumbler of whisky in his hand, looking so dark and dangerous that he was practically pulling the light out of the space around him. His face was covered in a scowl, his eyes on the floor, his lips turned down. The shadows under his eyes were deeper now, like he’d been carrying exhaustion around for days, and I tried to remember whether he’d looked that way earlier in his room. God, I’d been right next to him. I’dkissedhim. Had he looked so devastated then?
I didn’t think so. He’d looked wide-eyed and excited about the song we’d just written, and like he was floating on good feelings.
Now he looked like heartbreak would look if it was a person.
