Page 3 of Give Me What I Want

“This!” He shoved his phone under my nose, and I grabbed it, holding it so that I could read the screen, the article with a bold headline.

Is Deity on the verge of a split?

Everyone loves them. Even your grandma, but how much longer will we have with the Queen Bea, and her royal rockstars? Fans are worried after witnessing frontwoman Beatrix Bolton (29) in a heated argument with bassist Ronan Lane (32) two nights ago after the first show of their longest tour to date. Could this be the last chance the world will get to see Deity in all their glory? Perhaps.

Bolton and Lane have always come across as the perfect team, along with drummer Cole Hart (31), and guitarists Maverick Swift (31) and Jordan Marwell (30).

The band, who formed when Bolton and Marwell were finishing up their first year of college, have risen to success so rapidly over the past…

I didn’t bother to scroll down the page. I had read enough already to get the point. We had always been so careful to hide our arguments from the world. Drama followed us, but never revealed the private moments between us all. We put on a front for them all to see, acted like the picture of solid friendship through every headline, rather than a mess of people who loved each other like family and fought in the same manner. Our love hung by a thread, but the world didn’t know that.

Apparently, Ronan and I had been sloppy. Either someone had noticed our stand-off in the shadows by the bar last night in London, or the backstage doors hadn’t quite fully closed before I had blown. Either way, this was bad.

“Fix it!” Garth demanded, snatching his phone back from me, and replacing it with a chubby finger that was hovering way too close to my nose. It shook as he spoke. “Fix it now, Beatrix.”

“Me?” I baulked, taking a step backwards to get away from his accusing finger. “Don’t you meanus? It wasn’t just me who was in the—”

“No. I mean you. You have twenty-four hours to turn this around, otherwise, I’m quitting. I don’t need this shit.”

“You’re what?” Jordan spoke up, coming to stand on my other side. “You can’t just quit.”

“I can, and I will. I’m tired, and quite frankly you don’t make it worth my while anymore. Especially since you told Sabrina that she couldn’t join us on tour,” Garth snapped, glaring at me.

“Sab has a job, she can’t just join us on tour,” I explained for the hundredth time since we had left London this morning.

Apparently, my friend had decided to blame me for the fact that she was staying behind. She had told our manager—from a cheap hotel bed—that I wouldn’tlether come along because I didn’t want her to be happy. The truth though, was that Sabrina had only wanted Garth for a quick fuck whenever she was bored, and she wasn’t the type of girl to be honest when letting a guy down. She could have told him the truth, but instead, she had decided to turn me into the bad guy so that she could walk away a little more easily. Garth couldn’t argue with her about it, couldn’t convince her to take some holiday to join us for even a week, ifIwas the reason she was staying behind.

I had been glad to leave London this morning when he had come crashing through the door of the bus, face turning purple as he threw all of the blame my way. I was glad to be getting away from a girl who I had thought was a better friend than that. I guessed my judgement wasn’t great, and it made me wonder if I could ever make friends outside of the band. Sure, I had Elijah, we had been close since we first met in college, and then there was his band, a group of awesome guys… Their girl was great too, but would I let her get close? I wasn’t sure. What if she turned out to be just like Sab? Using me as an excuse and leaving me to deal with the bad temper of a man that she didn’t want anymore.

“Whatever. We could have made it work if you’d stayed out of it,” Garth complained, and I let him, pouring my focus into not rolling my eyes at him, the last thing I needed was him getting all shitty about my attitude too.

I was tired and desperately wanted to go back to the bus, sort myself out, and change into something comfier than the itchy fishnets I was currently wearing under my mini skirt. Although, the longer I stood with Garth giving me the evil eye the more my arousal faded.

“How bad is it?” Cole asked, his usually calming West Yorkshire accent not doing a damn thing to ease the tension as he joined us and grabbed Garth’s phone from his hand, entering his passcode, and scrolling through the article. I wondered for a moment if all of the guys knew Garth’s passcode, or if it was just Cole. I caught Ro’s eye as the question ran through my mind. His smirk was all the answer I needed. Of course, I was the only one kept in the dark there.

Well, fuck him. I didn’t need to know our manager’s passcode anyway. I could find out anything I wanted with a quick google search just as fast as he could, and I could easily set up alerts if I wanted to get ahead of him. Although—like I had to keep reminding myself—that wasn’t my job. But I still made a mental note to set up those alerts anyway, just so that I could read things in my own time…

The hiss that sounded through Cole’s teeth brought me back to the present. He pushed his long, chestnut hair back away from his face then turned to me, placed a hand on my shoulder, and squeezed gently as he gave me a pleading look. Cole didn't need to say a single word, his expression spoke louder than anything he could’ve said.

“Okay, I'll fix this,” I sighed, then looked back at Ronan. I took in the curl of his lips, and placed my hand on top of Cole’s, needing to steal a little calming energy from my drummer to stop myself from slapping that stupid look off of Ronan’s face. Cole’s hand twisted beneath mine and our fingers locked together as I drew in a long breath and extended an olive branch.

“Ro,” I began, putting on the sweetest tone of voice I could manage. “I'm sorry for shouting at you, and for—”

“No, this isn't fixing things, Beatrix. How will anyone know that you guys are good if you make up behind closed doors?” Garth interrupted, shaking his head at me.

I dug my sharply pointed nails into the base of Cole’s fingers and ground my teeth until my bandmate pulled himself out of my grip with another hiss. “Jesus Christ, Bea,” he muttered under his breath.

Ronan caught my arm as I went to turn and apologise to Cole, yanking me back to face him. “Fix one problem at a time, Bumb—”

“Don't!” I snarled, cutting him off before he could call me by the one nickname that he knew he shouldn't. The one that was reserved for use by my little sister, no one else.

“Sensitive today aren't you, Your Majesty,” Ronan chuckled, taunting me with the rise of a single brow. “But as I was saying, you should really fix one problem at a time. You can start with me, then Mav, then Cole, and then...” He paused as his gaze diverted away from me to meet with Jordan’s. “Has she pissed you off too?”

Glancing over my shoulder I caught Jordan shaking his head with an uncomfortable look on his face as he picked at the label on his beer bottle. With a small burst of satisfaction, I met Ronan’s gaze once more. He was acting as though I was a complete bitch who had managed to piss off every member of her band, when in fact it was pretty much only him. Cole would forgive me in a heartbeat for hurting him, he no doubt already knew that it hadn't been my intention. Mav would take time, but how he was feeling at the moment was not all on me, there was more to it, and we’d have to all work together to keep his head above water.

A pang of guilt hit me as I realised that we had all become so swept up in the tension Ronan and I had caused that we had neglected to check on Maverick. Where even was he? I scanned the backstage area, but my blond-haired, emerald-eyed bandmate was nowhere to be seen.

“Top Gun’s gone for a smoke,” Ronan declared, reading my mind with yet another satisfied smirk.

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