Fever

by Carnal, MJ

  “Yes,” I whisper, wondering why he didn’t ask me this before.

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” he says, his voice a whisper against my lips, so close yet so far.

  “Why not?” I ask, my heart strumming loudly against my chest.

  He smiles against me. “We can’t talk about that,” he says.

  I close my eyes and bite down on my lip. He totally got me. When I flick my tongue out to wet my lips, it hits Nick’s and he groans, grabbing my face and finally kissing me. When he’s made sure that we’re both breathing heavily and can’t take the lack of oxygen, he lets me go and we continue walking.

  “Charlotte,” I murmur, looking at one of the dolls on the storefront. “That’s a nice name.”

  I always notice names. I think because mine is uncommon, I’ve always been slightly intrigued by the more “normal” names. Not that it matters, I’m sure I’ll end up naming my kids weird names anyway when the day comes.

  Nick tilts his head and smiles. “What other names do you like?”

  “Hmmm … for a boy I like Jorel,” I say.

  Nick stops walking and makes a face that makes me laugh.

  “What? You don’t like it?” I ask, laughing.

  “It sounds like a cleaning product,” he comments.

  “It does not!” I say, slapping his shoulder playfully. “I bet Isaac would like it.”

  Isaac is into comic books, much like Hendrix, and I know for a fact that Superman’s dad’s name is Jorel.

  Nick scoffs. “Isaac’s a nerd. And yeah, it does sound like a cleaning product.” He adds, mimicking a female voice, “You have a stain on your shirt? Oh, spray some Jorel on that, it’ll take it right off.”

  I laugh at his impersonation and the face he makes as he says it then put my hand in his again as we continue walking.

  It does sound like a cleaning product. Damn him.

  I’ve had so much fun with Nick that I haven’t given much thought about Shea’s performance last night, but when I do, my heart breaks a little.

  ***

  I’m stirred awake from our nap by pounding on our door, followed by shouts from Shea calling out my name. Nick stirs beneath me, muttering for him to shut the fuck up, and pulls me into his chest again, cradling my head on him as if he were carrying a baby. Placing a kiss over his heart, I untangle myself from him and sit up.

  “Don’t go,” Nick groans sleepily.

  “I have to,” I respond, brushing my lips against his. “I’ll be back soon.”

  He turns over in the bed as I get up to look for something to wear. I pull on a pair of sweats that I brought just in case I decided to work out and a loose T-shirt over my head. Pulling my hair up into a ponytail, I make my way toward the door.

  “Brooklyn, please open the door,” Shea says as he pounds on it once more.

  Rolling my eyes, I open it and stand beside it as he walks in. He’s wearing a black T-shirt, camouflage cargo shorts and Jordan flip-flops. He walks to the couch and plops down on it, ruffling his hair nervously without looking at me. Assuming he’s not going to leave any time soon, I let the door shut close and make my way over to him, crossing my legs as I sit on the couch across from him.

  He lets out a breath, wiping his face roughly with both of his hands and looks at me, his muddy green eyes no longer glazed over with intoxication. “I’m so fucking sorry, Bee,” he says, swallowing loudly.

  I shake my head, biting the inside of my cheek to contain the emotion that’s threatening to come back. “That was an asshole thing to do,” I whisper brokenly. “And you know what, Shea? I don’t even fucking care that you hurt me like that. But what about Nick? Did you ever care to stop and think about what he might have been feeling? He’s your friend too.”

  Shea narrows his eyes at me. “Fuck him. He should’ve told me what was going on. YOU should have told me what was going on. I’m not fucking blind, Brooklyn. I see the way you guys look at each other. I hear the way you talk to each other. How long have you known him?”

  I gape at him. “You introduced me to him!” I remind him. I’m not about to tell him about the bridge and about Nick’s brother. I don’t even remember Nick being there to begin with so I can’t count that as the first time we met.

  Shea laughs, though it’s with little amusement, and then stops and furrows his eyebrows when he sees I’m serious. “You’re not kidding.”

  I shake my head. “Why would I be?”

  He shrugs. “I dunno. I just figured the way you act together …”

  “Whatever. Even if I’d known him for years, which I haven’t, that doesn’t excuse what you did.”

  Shea agrees, nodding his head. “I fucked up.”

  “You did,” I say softly, beginning to forgive him for the little show he put on.

  He moves over to the couch I’m sitting on and takes me into his arms. I lay my head on his shoulder when he squeezes me tight. “What about us?” he asks, his voice quiet.

  “What about us?” I whisper.

  Shea exhales, burying his face into my neck. “I don’t wanna lose you, Brooklyn. I can’t,” he says, his voice wavering.

  “You won’t, Shea. Never,” I reply, picking my head up to look at him.

  He nods, searching my eyes. “You promise?” he whispers.

  “I swear it,” I whisper back, feeling my chest tighten as tears form in my eyes. I hate that I have to reassure him of this. I hate that he feels so alone in his life that he needs me, of all people, another lonely soul, to cling to. I hate that we couldn’t make it work because we were both too miserable to bring true happiness to each other.

  Straightening out in my seat, I cup his face so that he’ll look into my eyes. “You’re my best friend, Shea. You can’t get rid of me. Haven’t you learned that by now?” I ask quietly.

  His eyes glisten. “You’re more than my best friend, Brooklyn,” he whispers. “You’re family,” Shea continues, breaking the dam that was holding in my tears.

  I lean in, hugging him tightly, unwilling to let him go. “I love you, Shea.”

  “I love you more, BK,” he responds. “I’m sorry I can’t be more to you.”

  My throat closes in at his words, making it impossible for me to speak, so I nod instead. Sniffling back tears, I let go of him and wipe my face quickly. “You weren’t meant to be more to me,” I say, my voice wavering. “But that doesn’t mean you haven’t been enough.”

  He blinks rapidly, his lashes now wet as he smiles. “You always know the right thing to say.”

  I smile back and tap his toes with mine. “I’m cool like that,” I joke, smiling brighter when I make him laugh.

  “Well, you kind of have to be cool to hang out with me,” he counters.

  “Stupid,” I mumble, shaking my head with a laugh, feeling lighter than I have all day.

  Shea props his feet up on the table, crossing them at his ankles. “You missed my best fucking song,” he says. “It’s a new one. I just recorded it last week.”

  “Oh yeah? How does it go?” I ask, laying my head on his shoulder and closing my eyes when he starts humming the beat of it. I drift off with a smile on my face as he croons to me about life, love, and forgiveness.

  The next time I wake up, I’m balled up on the couch, and Nick and Shea are talking in the kitchen behind me. I stay still as I listen to them discuss songs they still have to record and smile, grateful that there’s no bad blood between them. Sitting up and stretching my arms over my head, I hear my phone ringing and get up to get it from my room. I shoot a glance over at Nick who smiles and winks at me, running his fingers through his ruffled hair. I let my eyes trail over his naked chest one time before blinking them away and heading into the room.

  We decide to go out for pizza, just the three of us. Well, the three of us and two huge bodyguards, but still. After the initial awkwardness of the three of us being together and Nick claiming me by holding my hand the entire time, we end up having a good time talking about music and people they
’ve worked with that I know. Shea tells me about the next part of the trip. The bus got in last night and will be leaving after the show tomorrow night, taking us to Berkeley for his next show. Nick will be touring with him until the record is finished, which he says should be soon, as long as they’re able to get three more solid songs. I agree to stay until they head to LA on Wednesday. I’ve wanted to see Allie anyway and check up on some things in regards to Fab, so it’ll be perfect.

  The following morning I wake up in Nick’s arms again, breathing him in deeply as I cuddle into him. Picking up my head, I notice that it’s only eight o’clock in the morning and the bus isn’t leaving until this afternoon. I stand up carefully and walk to the bathroom, deciding that I should head to the gym today. I normally don’t work out when I’m on vacation, but I’ve been eating way too many good things and feel a little bit guilty over it. Standing sideways in front of the mirror, my gaze drops to my plump butt and I decide that I definitely need to do squats today. Once I’m dressed in my workout clothes and sneakers, I grab my purse, stuffing it with clothes so I can hit the showers in the spa when I’m finished and head out. I doubt Nick will be up early today. He and Shea stayed up way past the time I went to bed working on the album. I find my phone on top of the kitchen counter where I left it, frowning when I see a little note from Nick, which I’m assuming he left when he got back from the studio last night.

  Smiling, I unravel my earphones from my phone and put them in my ears, and ignore the missed calls I have as I search for the song, which I’ve never heard, as I walk toward the elevators. The smile on my face is huge by the time I get on the treadmill for my warm up, and as much as I would love to listen to the song again, I begrudgingly begin to sort through my gym playlist, trying to find a good song to start off to. Once I have one, I sort through my missed calls noticing they’re mostly from Nina and Hendrix, but there are some from my mom, dad, and Sarah, which instantly fills me with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I begin to panic slightly, walking off the treadmill and heading toward the lady’s locker room, because when that many people call you in the early hours of the morning, it can’t be good news.

  I call Nina first, knowing she’ll tell me what happened before she even says hello to me. Nina knows no bounds when it comes to formality, and I appreciate that, especially if she’s going to tell me somebody died.

  “Brooklyn!” Nina says shrilly.

  “Oh my God. What happened? Just tell me what happened!” I say, my words piling into one another as I’m close to hysterics. It didn’t go unnoticed that Uncle Robert was the only person that didn’t call me and he’s usually the first one there. If anything happened to him I would die.

  “Have you talked to Allie?” Nina asks, still sounding uneasy.

  I feel my stomach plummet as my chest struggles for air. “No. Oh my God, what happened to her? Is she okay?” I know I sound frantic, but I don’t do well with death or accidents or anything of the sort.

  “What?” Nina shrieks. “Brooklyn, calm the fuck down! Shut up and listen to me! You’re eating my sandwich.”

  When she says that, I calm down slightly. We use that phrase to refer to when we’re finishing each other’s sentences wrong. There was a commercial about it at one point, and we started making a bigger joke of it when it aired.

  “What happened?” I ask. “Why is my mom calling me?” I say quieter.

  “Fuck,” Nina mutters under her breath. “Well, if you read any gossip magazines, you would be informed. It’s being reported that Allie is suing you for half of Fab Enterprises.”

  I frown, my mouth drops, I gasp, and blink rapidly all at once before I plop down on a bench behind me. Thankfully I’m in a little private room where nobody can see me. “What?” I ask dumbly, needing her to repeat that for me.

  “You may want to call her, Bee, because your microphones are all over the place and everything says she’s suing you.”

  “That’s impossible,” I say under my breath. “Allie wouldn’t … I have to call you back,” I say, hanging up quickly to call my friend. Allie’s phone rings and rings until it reaches her voicemail.

  “Hey, Al, call me back. I’ve been trying to reach you for a couple of days and Nina just called to tell me something ridiculous … so yeah, call me back,” I say before hanging up.

  My phone vibrates instantly, and I look at it expecting Allie, but see Hendrix’s name instead.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Hendrix says as soon as I place the phone to my ear.

  I exhale a breath. “Hen, please don’t bitch at me. I’m sure you can imagine the kind of morning I’ll be having.”

  “Damn it, Brooklyn,” he mutters. “You need to get to LA, as in yesterday. The plane is on standby waiting for you, you leave in an hour. I swear to God, I feel like I’m your fucking assistant sometimes. Maybe I should take over for your brain so shit like this doesn’t happen.”

  “Wait. What? Back up. What do you mean LA? Why is the plane standing by? I’m waiting for Allie to call me back. Are you seriously buying into the rumors? You, of all people?” I ask incredulously. You would think that with the amount of rumors reported about our family they would know that more than half of the things they say aren’t true. He can’t be serious.

  Hendrix lets out a laugh. “Well, when Drew calls telling me he has papers for a lawsuit in his hand, I stop listening to gossip magazines, Brooklyn. Allie or someone she knows must’ve contacted the magazines as soon as those papers left her because Drew got them last night. It started getting reported right after.”

  My mouth falls open. “But why would she sue me?” I whisper, not entirely believing what he’s telling me. She’s my friend. I was the maid of honor at her wedding. I paid for her honeymoon. How could she just sue me over half of a company that I started and brought her on board for? Is that even legal? I make the designs; she’s more of an assistant than a contributor.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in, Bee, but the faster you let it sink in, the better. Your best friend fucked you over and is suing you for half of the company that you created with your own hands. If you want to stop all of this, you need to get to LA as soon as possible. Chin up, sis. Chin up,” Hendrix says, sounding like a little league coach.

  “Yeah, chin up,” I mumble dejectedly as I hang up the phone.

  I change my clothes numbly, my hands moving of their own accord as I mull over everything Hendrix told me. I think about Allie and my last conversation with her, studying every word said, every tone it was said in, and finding nothing out of place. I take a seat again, burying my face in my hands, taking deep shuddering breaths to calm down. I hear the doors to the locker room open and shut, the room filling with the laughter of women, and am thankful this hotel has these individual rooms so that I can have my moment by myself.

  “So you just got here?” one of them asks, her loud voice and the sound of the faucet drowning out my heavy breathing.

  “Yep. Just landed. My show is tonight,” the other, whom I know is Gia responds. “I can’t fucking wait to get this leg of the trip over with,” she says with an exaggerated sigh.

  They both walk into the stall beside me and I consider leaving until I hear Gia speak again.

  “You’re still hooking up with Nick?” she asks.

  “I haven’t seen him yet,” the other says. “But it’s what we do, so I’m sure I will,” she says with a laugh.

  My blood boils at her words, even though I feel like she’s punched me in the stomach.

  “I heard he’s dating Brooklyn Harmon now,” Gia says before I hear her sniffle loudly. She coughs right away. I don’t have to look over the stall to know what they’re doing. “Did you see that her friend is suing her for those microphones?”

  The other girl scoffs. “I saw that. I’m not worried about Nick, he’ll get bored of her soon enough. Besides, if she’s not here …” she says, letting her words drift.

  I feel like screaming that I am, but I’m motionless; I h
ave no words.

  “Maybe,” Gia says, not sounding interested.

  “And if she’s Chris Harmon’s daughter, I know exactly what he wants,” the girl continues, sniffling. “He’s starting his own label, he probably wants her to get him people or something. Who knows? Nick is smart. Very calculated,” she says.

  I didn’t think I had it in me to be shocked after just hearing about Allie, but her statement did it again. Adrenaline begins to shoot laser beams within me. Placing one hand over my rapidly beating heart, I massage it, as if that will help ease it. As if anything could. I take out my phone and Google Nick Wilde but find nothing about a record label, just photos of him at different events. I try again: Nick Wilde, record label. A couple of gossip sites claim that there’s a rumor to it, but I find one that catches my attention.

  Michael Wilde tries to outdo Chris Harmon with label. Fails. Surprised, I click that one open and browse through it. It pretty much says that Nick’s dad was trying to steal artists from my dad in 1986, but somehow they both ended up on friendly terms. As I scroll down the article, I see Nick’s name mentioned, saying that he has a couple of artists that he’s been seen scouting to sign.

  My mouth still agape, I open the stall and leave the girls gossiping, heading up the elevator and back to the room. When I step back in the room, he’s still sleeping, so I pack my bag quickly and take it to the kitchen. I’m sorting around the living room, trying to see if I’ve left anything, when Nick startles me by walking out of the bedroom wearing a pair of khaki shorts and no shirt. His light brown hair is wet and his bare chest is glistening so I know he just showered. I wonder how I didn’t hear it, I wonder how long he’s been awake, but it doesn’t matter, between my phone call with the attorney and trying to sort things out, I wouldn’t have noticed it either way. Nick looks at me and gives me a smile that would probably leave me breathless at any other time, but not right now when the emotions inside me are stirring. So many things are going through my head that I don’t even know where to start. He looks at my packed bag sitting on the kitchen counter and frowns, his smile disappearing.