Page 32 of Dirty Rock

Jesus.

Midnight.

That was after I rejected her.

I stood again, feeling weird. “We all know she wasn’t herself yesterday. The way she kicked off with that interviewer wasn’t like her. Maybe she just needed a day away from this shitshow.” I was on the defensive, and I knew it. I could hear it in my voice; feel it in the gentle quiver that ran through it as I spoke.

Tessa’s eyes narrowed a little. “Do you know anything, Rhett?”

“I know that we don’t have time for this today. We’re playing Staples Center, man.Staples! With or without Jules, we need to get our shit together and focus on tonight. If we don’t, we’re going to blow the very thing we’ve been working towards, and none of us want that.”

A phone began to ring, cutting me off.

Dicky reached for his but shook his head when he pulled it out. Tessa reached for hers, too. When she studied the screen, she pressed a finger to her lips to silence us, and she accepted the call.

“Hey, Jules, where you at?” she asked casually, her eyes roaming around the room. My chest tightened.“Yeah, they’re all here. No, nobody’s mad. Everyone just wants to know you’re okay.”

Dicky motioned for Julia to be put on speaker, but with a shake of the head and a scowl from Tess, he quickly retreated, a heavy sigh of frustration falling from him. He knew better than to fight with her. Tess always won her battles.

“England?” she gasped. “Today? But, Jules. This is their last gig of the tour. They need you. What’s happened?” Tessa glanced up at me sharply, as though she hadn’t meant to. “Yeah, why?” Her eyes never left mine, but a weird sense of acknowledgement washed over Tessa’s face as Julia spoke, and I swear I saw her nostrils flare slightly. “I’m sorry to hear that. No, I get it. Yeah. I’ll take care of whatever you need me to. Don’t. Don’t worry about that. It’s nothing we can’t handle.”

“Shit, what the fuck is going on?” Hawk whispered angrily as he shuffled to the edge of the sofa and cupped his hands together.

I was certain someone had my heart in their grip and was twisting it into fancy knots I couldn’t undo.

“I understand,” Tess said quietly, her attention falling away from me to the floor. “Take care, Julia. See you when we get back home.”

Tessa ended the call to cries of, “What?”from those around her.

She stood tall and held her hands in the air. “Listen, guys. Don’t shoot the messenger, okay?”

“What’s going on, Cherry?” Presley asked in that seductive fiancé voice that always got his woman to do what he wanted her to do.

“Julia didn’t want to tell the band, and she tried to hold it together yesterday, but she’s had a family emergency and needed to go back home to London as soon as possible—”

“London!” Dicky growled. “Julia is inLondon?”

“Not yet, but she’s at the airport now and she’s not going to be with us for the rest of the tour. She said something’s come up, Dicky. It sounds serious. She’ll explain it once she’s back in England. She also said that I have to tell you all that she’s sorry, she didn’t mean to let you down, but if she stayed another day…” Tessa’s eyes found mine, and she held my gaze. “She may have done something she’d come to regret.”

* * *

“That’sthe bestyou haveeverplayed, rock star!” Tessa cried out right before she ran towards Presley, jumped up in his sweaty arms, wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him. He caught her easily as he walked off the stage.

I rolled my eyes and looked away from their sickening happiness.

The crowd of Staples were chanting for more, unwilling to step outside of the bubble we’d created for them. They didn’t want to walk away from Youth Gone Wild. They wanted to stay in the midst of it all—for their bodies to be pressed together as they looked up at the stage, bounced under the lights, and listened to lyrics that meant something to them.

Concerts were the greatest of escapes. Not even your own mind can outperform the artists on stage. Every worry you have is silenced by loud, soul-inspiring music, and the audience we’d just walked away from were desperate to stay trouble-free for a few minutes more.

Their cheers should have made me feel a buzz.

The fact the guys had brought their A-Game to the gig should have made me high.

The realisation that there were literally thousands of women willing to throw themselves at my feet out there should have made me feel powerful.

Instead, I couldn’t shift the nausea in my stomach.

The note I didn’t hit duringProject Halowas plaguing me, pissing me off so much, it was all I could focus on. Not that the crowd or band had even heard it.

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