“Thanks for the offer,” he finally said without looking at me. “Maybe tomorrow. Right now I kinda want to be alone.”
“Oh, okay,” I said after swallowing a few times. It hurt that he didn’t want my comfort, but he sounded so dejected that I couldn’t be mad and I left him in the living room to his thoughts.
At first, I didn’t know where I was going—maybe the office where I originally planned to slip off to or one of the many balconies where I could get some fresh air—and I wandered down the hall slowly, trying to process what just happened.
This most recent fight helped clear up some of the mystery surrounding the band’s breakup rumors, filling in details that I’d been oblivious to, but I wanted the full picture. Xander hadn’t returned to the hotel with the rest of the band, and with JJ gone and Oliver not willing to talk, there was only one person I could ask.
I hesitated when I reached Alec’s door. He was a hard person to gauge, and I didn’t know if he’d even be willing to talk to me. I twisted my nose stud around a few times before taking a deep breath and knocking on the door. There was no answer, but the light was on and I could hear someone moving around inside.
“Alec?” I called, knocking again. I bet he had his headphones in and couldn’t even hear me. After a moment of silent debate, I twisted the doorknob and poked my head in. Sure enough, Alec was pacing the room, buds in his ears. “Sorry,” I said, when he turned to me. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer.”
“Hi, Stella,” he said, and I took that as an invitation to come in.
“What’s going on?” I asked, not beating around the bush. As the question left my lips, a million more came forward. “I mean, with the band. Why were JJ and Oliver so mad at each other? Is the label making you do something you don’t like?”
Alec turned toward the window and fixed his gaze on the city outside. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“I don’t have anywhere else to be,” I said, which wasn’t entirely true. My latest blog post was almost due, but I still had some time. I needed to hear what Alec was going to say.
“All right,” he said, breathing a long sigh; it wasn’t one of exasperation, but of weariness. He gestured toward the bed. “Do you want to sit?”
Nodding, I tucked a leg under my butt as I plopped down. Alec sat next to me, but instead of diving into the story like I thought he would, he pulled his headphones from his neck. Without a word, he handed them to me.
Curious, I stuffed one of the buds into my ear. It was silent as Alec searched for something on his iPod, but then he clicked a button and a song started to play. It was grungier than the music I usually listened to, but the feedback effect with the song’s slow tempo and gruff vocalist worked well together. My eyes closed as I enjoyed the rest of the song. There was something strange about it—I knew I’d never heard it before, and yet I had.
When the music faded out, I handed the headphones back to Alec. “It was good. Who is it?”
“Infinity and Beyond,” Alec said, watching me closely.
“Bull,” I said, but I knew he wasn’t lying. It was Oliver’s voice that I recognized. Without the backdrop of a sickly sweet melody, his voice opened up, the sound throatier and layered with edge.
“This is one of their old songs,” he said. “Before we were the Heartbreakers.”
“They were so good,” I said. What happened? I almost asked, but I didn’t want to insult Alec. I carefully worded what I asked next: “Why’d they change?”
Alec ignored my question and chose to respond with another. “Did anyone ever tell you how this all happened?” he asked, waving his hand around.
“You mean the band?” I responded. “Yeah, Oliver did. Isn’t your dad the CEO of Mongo Records?”
He nodded. “Yeah, and he didn’t want me to be a musician.” Oliver had told me that too, but I wasn’t going to interrupt Alec’s story. “And he definitely didn’t want to sign me.”
“Why not?”
“Ever heard of Jackson Williams before?” he asked, and I shook my head. “Not surprised. He was a one-hit wonder. My dad took him on a few years after he started the record label. He helped Jackson produce his first single. It did really well, but then Jackson wanted to do his own thing, take his music in a completely different direction.”
“So what happened?”
“My dad let him because he’s family. Jackson is my cousin, his nephew. When the record flopped, my dad blamed himself.”
I frowned. “It was just one record, right? That happens to artists all the time.”
“Yeah, but this…” Alec said, shaking his head, “this one was bad. Like destroyed-his-career bad.”
I suddenly realized where he was going with this. “And he didn’t want that to happen to you.”
Alec nodded. “He wouldn’t even take a chance.” His eyes flashed with a rage so fierce that I leaned away—not because I was scared, but because I’d never seen such raw emotion from him before—but Alec clenched his fists, reining in his anger, and it passed as quickly as it appeared. “I was good, really good, and he wouldn’t even listen.”
I pursed my lips as a growing annoyance for Alec’s father built inside of me. “What’d you do?”
“I wasn’t willing to let it go,” he said. “I told myself there were other labels, different producers, more chances for me, but nothing seemed to work out. Nobody wanted to take on a kid whose own dad didn’t believe in him. That’s when I found Oliver, JJ, and Xander. It was totally by accident. I was just surfing YouTube, watching music videos and stuff, and then I came across this band. They were sick, and I knew my dad would want them, so I emailed Oliver saying I could get them a meeting, but only if they let me join.”
“You were right,” I said, and for the first time since Alec started his story, a smile spread across my face. “Your dad liked them.”
“He still hated the idea of my involvement, but eventually he agreed to sign them, me included. Of course, there was a catch—we had to agree to a whole list of conditions.”
I’d gathered as much from past conversations with Oliver and his fights with JJ, but I wanted to know all the details. “Like what?”
“Everything. He wanted complete control—the music, our image, even the name of the band. He wanted to make sure what happened with Jackson wouldn’t happen again, and we went along with it,” Alec said. He was speaking quickly now, the words flowing from his mouth. His voice was on the verge of cracking, and I knew the more Alec spoke about this, the harder it was for him to hide his mounting anger. “But now, even though we’re more successful than anyone ever thought we’d be, my dad won’t loosen the reins. He’s strangling us.”
“What’s that got to do with JJ being pissed at Oliver?” I asked in a gentle voice.
“JJ’s sick of doing whatever the label says. He wants us to write our own music again. Actually, we all do, but Oliver…” Alec grunted in frustration. “It’s like he’s on my dad’s side. He refuses to go against him, even though we all know he misses how things used to be. JJ and Oliver started fighting when we left for the tour. It got so bad that rumors started spreading about us breaking up. Things cooled off for a little bit when you joined us, and I thought maybe they’d settled things, but then…well, you heard what happened.”
When Alec finally finished, he glanced at me with an old-before-his-time look. My heart sank as I stared back at him, and it was impossible not to sense the pain wafting off him in waves. He thought he was responsible for this whole mess—the rules, the arguing, the rumors. I desperately wanted to say something, anything that would ease his guilt, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t matter what I said.
I tried anyway. “It’s not your fault, you know,” I said, reaching out to comfort him.
Alec looked down at our touching hands before making eye contact with me and shaking his head. “But I forced them to let me
join their band.”
“You didn’t force them to do anything,” I told him. “They could have said no.”
“I guess,” Alec said. “It doesn’t really matter though, does it? Oliver and JJ are fighting, and my dad is still being an asshole.”
“Maybe,” I said, a small smile forming on my lips, “but I think I have an idea. Do you mind if I borrow your iPod?”
• • •
“You did what?”
It was early morning, and I was sitting at the kitchen counter, legs dangling from the bar stool, in the boys’ current hotel suite. They had a show in the evening, so we were all fueling up before the busy day. Courtney’s assistant had dropped off breakfast, an assortment of Panera bagels, four different flavors of cream cheese, and orange juice.
Yesterday’s fight still lingered in the air, and everyone was relatively quiet. That was, until I told Oliver that I’d added an Infinity and Beyond song to my blog update last night. It was the first time I’d added music to a post, but Paul had shown me how to do it when he first taught me how to use the blog, and it had been simple.
I didn’t do it to piss off Oliver or cause more drama. I wanted to know how the Heartbreakers’ fans would react to such a different style of music. Alec helped me select which Infinity and Beyond song to use, and I prompted the boys’ fans to give me feedback once they’d given it a listen. I didn’t once mention that the song was Oliver, JJ, and Xander’s from pre-Heartbreakers days, because I wanted an unbiased opinion.
“Why are you so angry?” I asked, calmly spreading veggie cream cheese on my last bite of bagel. “I’ve been meaning to add music to my posts, and I thought using one of your old tracks was the perfect way to start off.”
“Well, you thought wrong,” Oliver snapped.
“But it’s a great song,” I said, defending the music and myself. “Besides, it’s not like I told people it’s yours.”
“You still shouldn’t have done that,” Oliver was saying, but JJ had a completely different reaction. He leaned forward in his chair and actually set down his bagel.
“You really liked it?” he asked. “No joke?”
“I did,” I told him. “Promise.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think, Stella,” Oliver said.
That hurt, but I ignored his comment. “Would you care if your fans liked it?”
“No!” he said, shaking his head, and I knew he wasn’t really hearing what I was saying. His knuckles were white from gripping the countertop, and beads of sweat were gathering on his forehead. “You need to take it down. Now.”
“Would you just shut up and listen to her for a moment?” JJ said to Oliver.
And that’s when Alec took over. He had his laptop ready to go, my latest blog post already pulled up, and all he had to do was turn on the volume. When Oliver’s voice started playing from the speakers, Alec spun his computer around and pushed it across the counter. “Just read what people are saying.”
JJ’s chair squeaked as he scrambled up to get a good look. Oliver, on the other hand, was glaring at Alec and me. There was a harried look about his eyes, but then JJ said, “Oh wow!” and his gaze flickered down to the screen. Slowly, as JJ scrolled through the hundreds of comments that had amassed in one night, his face lightened.
“Oliver,” I said, and then the words poured out of my mouth as fast as possible. “Look at all the people who love your song. They don’t even know it’s yours, but they still want more.”
Oliver stayed quiet, but JJ slapped the counter. “I told you,” he said, waving his finger in Oliver’s face. “Didn’t I say people would like it?” I shot JJ a look that said “not helping,” and he instantly shut up.
Then Alec took his turn appealing to Oliver. “I know you don’t want to piss my dad off, but aren’t you tired of playing the same old crap? We need to show him we can be more than the boy band he’s written us off to be. We need to shake things up, make some kind of change, but we can’t do that without you.”
Seconds passed before Oliver said anything. He was so still and quiet that I thought he was trying to contain his anger. The rest of the guys looked nervous: JJ was rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet, Xander kept chewing on his bottom lip, and Alec’s mouth was set in a hard line.
Finally he said, “What do you suggest we do?”
I let out a breath of relief, and Alec quickly answered him. “We do what JJ said. We start by playing one of your old songs. Tonight. At the concert.”
• • •
“So we’re going to do something a bit different tonight,” Oliver said near the end of the concert. “How does that sound?”
Finally, I thought. I had been waiting all night for this moment. The boys refused to tell me when they planned to perform one of their old songs. They wanted it to be a surprise even for me, and no amount of begging had swayed them. As the concert inched closer to the end, one song at a time, I was starting to fear that the boys had chickened out and changed their minds.
Oliver paused as he waited for a response, and he was answered with cheers from the crowd. A light feeling took hold of my chest, and I surprised myself by letting out a quick whoop of excitement and cheering with them.
I felt someone come up beside me. “Do you know what he’s doing?” Courtney asked me. “Why are they deviating from the set list?”
“Sorry,” I said. “Haven’t the slightest idea.”
I bit my lip as I tried to contain my smile, and then I crossed my arms and leaned back against the wall as I settled in to listen. Courtney was grumbling to herself and frowning down at her clipboard, but when Oliver started to speak again, she looked back up to watch him.
“This next song might seem new, but it’s actually an oldie,” he was saying. “We’ve never performed it before.” He paused for a brief second. “Until now.”
A ripple of anticipation swept through the arena, and everything got really quiet. It was electric how in sync the audience was with the band. From my spot backstage I could see everything the boys could, and I was starting to understand how playing gave them a rush. I could feel the adrenaline start to flood through my veins, and I rose on my toes and leaned in closer.
My eyes stayed on Oliver. I could see how nervous he was from the rise and fall of his shoulders as he took a deep breath and the way he gripped his guitar tightly. There was a long moment of hesitation, and he looked back at the rest of his bandmates. Xander offered him a thumbs-up, JJ raised his drumsticks in salute, and Alec gave him a quick nod of encouragement.
Oliver bowed his head. I could see his lips moving as he recited something to himself, and then he turned back around to face the crowd. “This song is called ‘The Missing Pieces,’” he said as he flipped his bangs out of his eyes, “and I’d like to dedicate this to a special person who gave me the courage to stand up here tonight and share it with you all.”
My gasp was inaudible over the sound of Oliver starting to sing, but I could feel the tightening in my chest as I sucked in a sharp breath.
Courtney glanced at me with a pointed look. “Haven’t the slightest idea, huh?” she said, but I was too shocked to care if she was mad.
I glanced up at her with wide eyes. “Did he just…”
“Dedicate a song to ‘someone special’?” she finished for me. “Yes, he did.” Something about her own words must have struck Courtney, because she tilted her head to the side. “You know, he’s never done that before.”
“Ever?”
“No,” Courtney said, her lips forming a smile. “Not for anyone.”
When the boys came offstage three minutes later, leaping and bouncing and slapping each other’s shoulders, I was still frozen. Everyone loved the song, and by the end of it, most of the audience was swaying back and forth with cell phones and lighters held high in the air. My mind was still reeling from what Courtney
had said, so most of the lyrics washed right over me, but I knew I loved the song.
“That was frickin’ awesome!” Oliver shouted, punching his fists in the air. When he saw me standing a few feet away, he rushed over, and before I realized it, he scooped me up and spun me around in the air. “Did you hear us, Stella? We killed it!”
“I can’t believe we just did that,” Xander exclaimed. “That was crazy.” He was shaking his head in disbelief, but his eyes were gleaming. Alec stood next to him with a full-blown grin stretching across his face.
“You guys were amazing,” I said when Oliver set me down. My voice was high and giddy.
“No, you’re amazing,” Oliver said, cupping my face in his hands. He quickly pressed his lips to mine before pulling away to continue jumping up and down, still celebrating the moment.
“Guys, listen,” JJ said, turning back toward the stage. There was an encore at the end of every concert, but this was different. The chant from the crowd was thundering, and I could feel it pounding against my heart.
Courtney appeared again, hands on her hips. “I have no clue what the hell just happened,” she said, her face tight. Everyone stopped. She turned her stern glare on each of the boys, and I was afraid she would lash out, but then she smirked. “But you four need to get your butts back out there.”
Nobody spoke for a long second, but then JJ started laughing, and then we were all laughing. The stage crew handed the boys’ instruments back to them, and they started moving toward the chanting crowd, wild smiles commanding their faces. Just as they were about to step back onstage, Oliver spun around and reached out to me.
“Thank you,” he said, grabbing my hand. He squeezed my fingers and gave me one last dazzling look. Then he was racing out toward the stage, and the crowd was chanting his name.
Chapter 20
“I like that one,” Paul said, using the pen in his hand to point to my screen. “It’s priceless.”