But, even though I wasn’t supposed to, I did anyway. It had hurt when he had done the same thing when he’d been on the other side of my bedroom, and it hurt with him thousands of miles away. Hell, it hurt more and more with each passing day.
I kept telling myself that it was just a crush, a huge one on the guy who had always watched over me and tried to protect me from the real world. I would get over it one day. Some guy would eventually come along and wipe every thought I had of Gray out of my head.
Until then, I had to pretend like I only loved him as a friend so I didn’t ruin our relationship. Because Gray needed me just as much as I needed him.
I started to drop the phone back beside me onto the bed when it rang, which made me jump in surprise. After rolling my eyes at myself, I glanced at the screen and had to remind myself of all those things all over again, even as I my heart melted at the picture on my screen. I was hugging Gray and he was smiling at the camera.
Swallowing hard because I still hadn’t figured out how not to miss him, I hit connect.
“I need you to wish me luck, little caterpillar,” he said by way of greeting. “Our first show is tonight.” He was nervous, but he wouldn’t have ever admitted it to anyone but me.
I grabbed one of my extra pillows and hugged it to my chest as I turned onto my side with the phone pressed to my ear. “You don’t need me to wish you luck, Gray. You know you’ll bring the house down.”
He blew out a hard breath. “I wish you were here.”
I clenched my eyes closed to prevent the sudden sting of tears from escaping. “Me too. But I’m sure I’ll see it on YouTube later. Someone is bound to post it to the Tainted Knights’ fan page.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he grumbled half under his breath, and stupidly, my heart melted a little more.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t say stupid stuff like that. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
We both didn’t speak for a long pause, and then he blew out another hard breath.
“So, what are your plans tonight, caterpillar?”
I grimaced and rolled onto my back, glaring up at the ceiling. “I thought I would stay home and binge something on Netflix. Maybe order some Chinese and then gorge on all the extra ice cream now that you aren’t here to help me eat it.”
“Why not go out with friends and watch a movie or something?”
“Because all my friends are gone right now. Camp, or vacation with their parents, or in L. A. with my brother, playing kickass music.” And I was stuck in Bristol with no one to keep me company. No friends, no family. Just me, myself, and I.
Alicia had been spending more and more time at the office, working out her emotions from missing Gray and Jace. She hadn’t even gotten home until nearly midnight the night before, and it hadn’t been far from that any other day she had worked since the guys had left. Meanwhile, I was all alone, slowly drowning in the quiet and loneliness of a house that was way too big for just one person to inhabit.
But I wasn’t going to tell Gray any of that. I didn’t want to give him a reason to worry about me. If he thought I was miserable, he would blow off everything to come back to me, and I wasn’t that kind of girl. I would be fine—was fine—just lonely. And no one had ever died of loneliness… Right?
“What about that boy who lives on the corner of our street? The one who liked Jace a little too much?”
I could hear the smirk in his voice and found myself grinning. He got off on pissing my brother off.
“Aren’t you two friends?” he asked.
“He’s one of my closest friends and you know it. But his dad has taken him camping in hopes it will make him realize that he’s not actually gay, just going through a phase or some BS.” My mouth twisted in disgust because I really hated David’s father. He couldn’t accept his son for who he was and thought he could “fix” him. “They won’t be back for two weeks.”
“That sucks for the boy.”
I snorted at his description of my friend. Gray called him a boy as if David were twenty years younger than he was when there was only a four-year age gap between them. “You make yourself sound like a bitter old man. Has the big-city living aged you so much?”
“Being without you has aged me, Kas.”
Hearing things like that from him only confused my heart. Words like that only made my heart sob when my head reminded it that Gray only thought of me as a friend and nothing more.
“Kas?”
At the sound of the concern in his voice, I realized I hadn’t spoken for a while, having been lost inside my own head.
“Sorry. I saw someone running by the house,” I lied and cringed at how high my voice was. I didn’t lie well when it came to Gray. “It reminded me that I needed to get some exercise in before I turn into a cow.”
“You could eat everything in the house and not gain an ounce. I don’t like the idea of you out running by yourself. Go to the gym if you want to get some exercise.”
“Don’t worry. I wasn’t going to go running on my own. I think I’m going to go down to the gym and spend an hour on a treadmill or something. Maybe take a Zumba class later.” I hadn’t been to a class in months, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. At least I would be around people.
“Okay, then I’ll text AJ and let him know to expect you. Have him walk you to your car tonight when the class lets out.”
My heart smiled at how protective he was even on the other side of the country.
“Hope you have fun, caterpillar. Love you.”
“Love you more,” I whispered.
“Not possible,” he whispered back.
I closed my eyes tight, but the tears fell anyway. I hit disconnect before letting the sobs free. Curling into a ball in the middle of my bed, I hugged my pillow tighter, needing it to cushion the jarring force of my broken sobs as I cried and cried until my throat was hoarse and my eyes were swollen.
It was a long time later before I was able to bring myself to get out of bed. My head was throbbing so badly that my face hurt. I climbed into the shower and washed away all signs of my emotional meltdown. By the time I had gotten dressed in my favorite well-worn yoga pants and a faded old shirt that had belonged to Gray before he had gotten serious with weightlifting a few years before, I felt a little better, but my heart felt even heavier than it had before Gray had called.
This shirt still smelled of him, his sweat seeming to be a physical part of the shirt now no matter how many times it was washed. Not that I cared. I loved the smell and would have lived in that shirt if I could. After pulling my hair into a ponytail, I grabbed my car keys and my gym bag.
AJ’s Gym was where Gray had lived whenever he hadn’t been taking classes at the local college or doing something with the band. It wasn’t just to hook up, either, because the majority of the women who worked out there were married or close friends of Alicia’s.
No, Gray had saved his hookups for the groupies that seemed to stalk and follow him around at the bars Tainted Knights performed at on the weekends. When he worked out, he zoned out most of the people around him. It was where he burned off his frustrations and anger at whatever life was throwing at him.
He had bought me a lifetime membership as a Christmas present when I was fifteen. For a while, I had gone a few times a week, but over the years, that had dwindled down to every few weeks. School and extracurricular activities had gotten in the way, so going to the gym had been a rarity for me this past year.
As soon as I walked through the door, AJ came around from behind the desk, where he had been on the phone. A welcoming smile graced his weather-leathered face as he hugged me. His arms were massive even at the age of fifty-seven, but he took great care of his body. AJ was like a mentor for Gray, a father figure he had always needed without being judgmental about his lifestyle. And, for that, I would always love AJ.
“I just got off the phone with Gray,” he confessed as he stepped back. “He tex
ted me earlier to let me know you were coming in, but when you didn’t show up right away, I got worried.”
Even before he had finished talking, my phone went off inside my gym bag. I grimaced and let it go to voicemail, unable to hear Gray’s voice right then without having another meltdown. “I took my time getting ready.” Not a lie. I had spent forever letting the hot jets of the shower ease the aching muscles my earlier sob-fest had caused.
AJ scanned my face for a long moment before he gave me a gentle smile, and with his arm draped over my shoulders, he guided me into the gym and over to the cardio equipment I mainly used when I came in. “Take your time, Kassa. Let me know when you’re ready to leave and I’ll walk you out.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, trying to assure him, but the look on his face told me not to argue.
“Gray would slit my throat if I let you leave on your own.” He gave my shoulder a firm but tender squeeze. “Don’t be the reason I get murdered, sweetheart.”
I rolled my eyes at him, making him laugh, and ducked under his arm. “You win. I’ll find you when I’m done, but I’m thinking of staying for the Zumba class tonight.”
“I’ll still be here. Hell, I practically live here.” He turned to go back to the front desk. “Enjoy your workout.”
I took my time stretching and getting warmed up. The place was only half full, and most of them were guys who were lost in the zone of pumping iron over in the weights section. There were two other women there, one on the stair climber, the other on an elliptical. Both had earbuds in, so I knew I wouldn’t have anyone to talk to.
Once I’d pulled my phone from my gym bag along with my bottle of water, I saw that Gray had called four times, and each time, he had left a message. Sighing, I unlocked the screen and shot him a quick text.
I’m alive. Just took my time getting to AJ’s. Relax.
I stepped onto one of the treadmills that faced a mirrored wall and put my earbuds in. Before I could hit start on the touchscreen of the machine, Gray had replied to my text.
I was worried. Answer your phone when I call you! Hope you have fun. Love you.
I traced my thumb over his words before replying.
Love you more.
I put my phone on the treadmill’s screen and hit start, but as I began a slow buildup to my normal speed, I got one last text.
Not possible.
Even though my heart was heavy, I felt lighter from reading those words.
SEVEN
Gray
I pushed my sweat-soaked hair out of my eyes and used a towel to wipe my face. The lights on stage had made me sweat worse than if I had spent three hours in the gym, but I had barely noticed while we had been performing. Now, I realized I was drained and needed to rehydrate. At the same time, I couldn’t stop buzzing after the high of being on stage with my bandmates.
The crowd had seemed almost skeptical when we had taken the stage. Some of them had seen us on our YouTube channel, but that wasn’t all that many. I had felt the majority of the crowd’s tension as they’d prepared to love or hate us. But, halfway through the first song, their tension had turned into awe, and by the second song, they’d started singing along despite not knowing the words.
We were all feeling the buzz, our adrenaline high as the sky. Cash and Kale were already talking about leaving after they found some girls to take with them, while Sin had an almost grin on his face. Jace was buzzing just as hard, but he hid his reaction a little deeper than the rest of us these days.
Once I’d put a fresh T-shirt on, I pulled my phone out of my bag, wanting to text Kassa before I went with Cash and Kale. I had just swiped over her name, noticing that there were no new messages, when Harris came into our dressing room. He closed the door behind him and waited until we had all turned to look at him before speaking.
He scratched at his chin as if he needed the extra time to figure out what he was going to say to us. Then his face split with a huge grin and he shook his dark head at us. “I knew tonight was going to be good. I wasn’t expecting it to nearly bring the club crashing down when the crowd started screaming for one more song.”
“Momma said always leaving them begging for more,” Kale laughed. “Or maybe that was my sex ed teacher in high school.”
Sin tossed his towel at Kale’s head. “Dude, no way you hooked up with that slut monkey.”
“Everyone hooked up with ho-zilla,” I told him, practically choking on my laughter.
“I have something to tell you guys,” Harris interjected before we could start trading insults over the lovely Miss Young, who had been the twenty-one-year-old sex education teacher our freshman year.
The seriousness of the guy’s voice had my laughter dying, and I silently watched him for any sign that maybe we hadn’t been good enough after all. Maybe he wanted out of our contract. Maybe we didn’t have what it took. Maybe—
“Emmie Armstrong was here tonight with her husband and a few other family friends,” he informed us.
We all jerked to attention at the mention of that name. A name that had managed some of the most famous names in the rock world. Ember Armstrong was just as much a legend as her Demon husband was.
Harris grinned again, and my stomach clenched in anticipation. “She wants to talk to you all, if you have a few extra minutes?”
All at once, my bandmates and I looked at each other, shock and excitement written on their faces just as I knew it was on mine. But it was Jace we all eventually turned our eyes on. He stood as still as a statue as we all seemed to mentally tell him what we wanted him to do.
Then he nodded at Harris. “We have time.”
Harris smirked at him. “I thought you might say that.” Leaning behind him, he opened the door and waved someone inside.
We all stood up a little straighter when the small, hot-as-hell redhead walked into the dressing room. Her big, green eyes were assessing us, but her face was completely neutral, as if she were still summing us up. After a few minutes of no one speaking, she finally shook her head, making her long, auburn hair cascade over her shoulders.
“You boys have really been hiding under a rock in Bristol, Virginia?” she finally asked skeptically.
“Yes, ma’am. That’s where we’re from,” Jace informed her. “We’ve been playing at several different bars for the last few years.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “You know where Demon’s Wings are from?”
We all knew the story of Demon’s Wings, but before any of us could figure out how to make our voices work under the assault of this hot chick’s eyes, she answered for us.
“They’re from some trailer park in Ohio. They worked their asses off to get to the top. If you guys have been paying your dues, working your asses off to get here, then I respect that a hell of a lot more than if you just showed up on some crap talent show and a bunch of talentless fucks gave you the golden ticket.”
“Umm, thanks?” Jace muttered, looking at a loss for words.
Emmie smirked up at Harris. “They seem a little nervous. Am I scary?”
He chuckled. “My dad always said you were. To me, you’re a little goddess with a clipboard.”
She laughed and turned her attention back on us. “Okay, I get it. You’re still a little high off of that show you guys just rocked the house with, and I’m draining all of that away. I’m known for doing that a lot. So I’m going to make this quick and painless.” She clasped her hands together in front of her, all signs of amusement absent now. “I want to represent you guys. Once your contract with Harris is over, I want to sign you. Anyone could easily get Tainted Knights a record deal, but I can get you the right deal. I see a lot of potential in you five and I want you to give me the chance to push you past the top of the charts.”
“Really?” Cash spoke up for the first time, his voice full of awe. He was usually able to keep his emotions from showing in highly emotional situations, but right then, not a single one of us could have remained stoic. “You’re serious about
this?”
Her face even more serious as she looked him straight in the eye. “Very. I don’t make offers like this to just anyone. If I think you have what it takes, then you fucking do. I’m in the business to make money, to make you money too. If you put yourselves in my hands, I promise you there won’t be anything you can’t accomplish.”
It was a hell of an offer, and we all knew she wasn’t just blowing smoke up our asses. If anyone but this woman had just said that, I would have scoffed and told them that we’d think about it. But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Emmie fucking Armstrong.
Harris shifted beside her, rocking onto the balls of his feet as he watched the five of us closely. “I told you all that I would be able to get you either a manager or a record deal before the year was up. I didn’t expect to make that happen so soon, but Emmie is the best of the best. If she wants you, I suggest you think really hard about accepting. She managed my dad’s band. I grew up with her busting his ass every damn day of the week when it came to his music career. I can honestly tell you that you won’t ever get an offer as good as the one she’s offering.”
He looked down at the little redhead and grimaced. “That being said, you should know that she won’t put up with the bullshit that some other managers would. She will make you bust your ass for every step she helps you climb. She doesn’t put up with drugs, and if you get into bad habits, she will straighten you up really quick. And, if you piss her off, she will probably eat your heart for dinner.”
Emmie shrugged, apparently not in the least offended. “All true.”
“But she only does it because it will help you in the long run. She will only ever have your best interests at heart, because once you sign with Emmie, you aren’t just a client. You’re family to her.”
“Aw! I knew I loved you for a reason.” She hugged him with one arm but turned those big, green eyes on us. “Again, all true. But I’ll give you guys a few days to think about it. When you make a decision, just give me a call. Harris has my number.”