Tell Me Why It's Wrong

by B. Celeste

  Contents

  Playlist

  Other Books by B. Celeste

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Bonus Scene

  Kyler + Lenny’s Story

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  © Copyright 2021 B. Celeste

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Letitia Hasser, RBA Designs

  Editing: KBM Editing

  Formatting: Vellum

  Shout out to Micalea Smeltzer for letting me steal Daddy Cannon

  Playlist

  “Bad at Love” – Halsey

  “Beautiful Crazy” – Luke Combs

  “Body Moves” – DNCE

  “Cruel Summer” – Taylor Swift

  “Demons” – Imagine Dragons

  “Feels Like Tonight” – Daughtry

  “Just a Kiss” – Lady A

  “Lonely” – Justin Bieber, Benny Blanco

  “The Only Exception” – Paramore

  “Yours (Wedding Edition)” – Russell Dickerson

  Other Books by B. Celeste

  The Truth about Heartbreak

  The Truth about Tomorrow

  The Truth about Us

  Underneath the Sycamore Tree

  Where the Little Birds Go

  Where the Little Birds Are

  Into the Clear Water

  Color Me Pretty

  Tell Me When It’s Over

  Dare You to Hate Me

  1

  Garrick

  “Turn that off,” I tell the curly-haired squatter taking up residence on my leather sectional couch as I enter the room. There’s a permanent imprint of his ass on it from all the time he spends watching the flatscreen.

  My little brother is watching some bullshit gossip show where my bandmate and best friend Zayne Gray’s face is plastered across the screen. Whatever they’re saying likely isn’t good, and probably bordering the truth knowing the crazy shit Zayne has done. When he still lived in Boston with his family, he’d constantly get into trouble with the cops and luckily was always let go with warnings. The shit he does now is usually ten times worse since he has money and a name for himself.

  “It’s getting good though,” Chase says, pointing toward the TV with the remote as my face appears in a side shot with some chick I picked up after a gig a few weeks ago. My open palm is blocking the camera from getting a good picture, but the girl is soaking up the attention with a flirty smile that I’m now realizing isn’t even that pretty. At the time, she was a means to an end—relief for my aching cock, which she took care of the second we got into the car.

  I groan and walk over, reaching for the remote to shut it off myself. “Don’t you have better things to do with your time than waste brain cells on shit entertainment, mate?”

  “I think you’re confusing us, big bro. I’m not the one who’s done experimental drugs for years. Unlike you, I can’t risk any brain cells.” I can hear his light Australian accent really come through as he wrestles me for the remote. He manages to bolt out of my reach and crank the volume higher.

  Chase knows my past struggles with drug use and how hard the recovery process has been over the past couple of years. Two stints in rehab have left me four years sober, a feat I celebrate daily because there were days I sure as hell never thought I’d reach 32. He’s supportive, just like our mother is, but he doesn’t always think before reminding me of my poor decisions that left my mother crying at three a.m. because she thought I was wasting my life with white powder and smoke.

  We turn to the screen when some petite blonde with perky tits barely contained in a skintight dress begins talking about the Violet Wonders world tour that ended last week. “Sources have told Hollywood Entertainment that a possible split is in the horizon for the eight-time Grammy winning group Violet Wonders. This news comes just three years after the band got back together following the public fight between frontrunner Garrick Matthews and drummer Zayne Gray. An insider says that the breaking point occurred during the last leg of their world tour that ended last Thursday.”

  I scoff at the woman’s brass balls for making such a ridiculous claim. “An insider? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  My brother snorts, the dark eyes that match his chocolate hair bright with amusement over the latest attack on the band. “You mean there’s not trouble in paradise? I haven’t seen Zayne around here lately.”

  Images of a bare ass thrusting forward into a random chick flashes in my head that make me internally cringe. “I had the unfortunate pleasure of catching him screwing a random at the welcome home party we had this weekend. Right over the back of the couch you’re sitting on. Made the fucker pay to steam clean it. You’d know that if you left your room instead of brooding over a girl.”

  Chase glares at me, the three-day-old scruff across his jaw looking like the shadow I take a razor to every morning. “I’m not brooding over anyone, dickhead.”

  Eventually, I’m able to swipe the remote from him and hold it where he can’t snatch it back since I have a handful of inches on him and far more muscle since I work out with my trainer routinely while he chooses to vegetate. He’s lucky he’s got a solid metabolism—he’s always been a lanky kid and that hasn’t changed now that he’s 21 and eating all my food. “If that were true you’d take a shower, clean the room I so graciously gave you when you wanted to get out of Mum’s house for a while, and go outside to get some sunlight. You’re paler than my bare ass, and that rarely sees any sun.”

  I’m not surprised to hear him grumble something under his breath before giving me the finger. He hates tough love, but I’ll never stop giving it to him if it means seeing him live his life again. He’s had a rough go of things, being broken up with by a girl he really liked, losing half his investors in the tech business he founded, and then getting a lawsuit filed against him by some mogul claiming Chase copied code from his company.

  “You’re an ass,” he informs me, turning on his heel and walking out of the room.

  “An ass who’s right,” I call after him, shaking my head as he disappears up the stairs.

  I was more than happy to let him crash here when he first asked. With 11,000 square feet, my international-style home has plenty of space to accommodate him. When I first showed him and Mum the large, square, white-washed home I’d purchased, I could instantly tell they weren’t impressed.

  In an Australian accent far thicker than mine, Mum had said, “It has no personal
ity.” To which my much younger brother had happily replied, “I think he has three times as much personality than this cinder block, so it all evens out.”

  I’d snickered, our mother smacked Chase’s arm, and they finished the tour of the, admittedly, lacking architecture. But I knew once I moved furniture in and hired a friend of a friend who was known for her interior decorating, Mum especially would see just how fitting this massive house is for me.

  And I’ve made good on that.

  My favorite room is the kitchen since me and Mum spent a lot of time together there growing up. She made sure both her sons knew how to cook, clean, and fend for ourselves. Even if I have the resources to pay others to do it for me now, which I do indulge in after hiring a housekeeper to clean the six-bedroom, four-and-a-half bath house, I still enjoy playing around with the recipes I’ve adapted over the years from both my parents and their families that were passed down.

  It’s come in handy since Chase’s ‘few day’ stay has turned into months of him being my roommate. I don’t mind giving him a room and a few meals a day that we both enjoy. It’s nice having another person around to talk to and torment, especially one as easy to tease as him, but he barely leaves anymore.

  When I hear his door slam upstairs, I loosen a sigh and turn down the TV. I’m about to shut it off when one of the hosts starts sprouting more rumors to everyone tuning in. “Zayne Gray had spoken to reporters about going solo in the past, then agreed to reunite with Violet Wonders only months after teasing the public with the possibility of his first album. What do you think, Hollywood Entertainment? Check out the poll we posted on our website and tell us if you’d rather see a solo album from the sexy Zayne Gray or a new album from the once-was boy banders Violet Wonders.”

  Once-was? Clicking the power button, I curse under my breath and drop the remote onto the couch. I’m sick of people always pitting us against each other—not just Zayne, but all my mates. It’s always a competition. When we announced our comeback, it became trending news for weeks. When we announced our first tour back together and the album releasing soon after, it was all anyone could talk about for months. But the buzz always ends eventually and that’s when things get complicated.

  Fame is a drug—it gives you a temporary high that’ll leave you crashing and craving more.

  But not as much as wanting a legacy does.

  That’s when integrity makes or breaks a person. It’s why Mum makes sure to keep me humbled so I don’t lose myself in the shit talk my name takes in magazines, tabloids, and media every single day. If it’s not drama between bandmates, it’s scandals of how we live our lives.

  Too much partying.

  Too many women.

  The world looks at us like we have too much of everything, but most of us work our asses off for everything we have. I won’t let anyone take that from me. Not with their petty words or mindless polls.

  I’m walking toward the kitchen after a long shower to wash off the sweat from my workout earlier when Chase enters wearing jeans and one of his ridiculous t-shirts—this one saying white and nerdy across the front. Accurate for the five-eleven, pasty dork Mum adopted when he was a baby. He only has an accent when he’s angry and exhausted and doesn’t share any of me and Mum’s looks. He says that’s why he stays out of the spotlight, so people won’t bring it up even though his adoption has never been a secret. He even refuses to talk like us, catching himself on little things that me and Mum tend to say every so often, adapting to Cali instead of embracing where his family came from. It used to irritate me that he seemed adamant on being nothing like the people who took him in, but Mum always made me brush it off saying, “He wants to be his own person. Let him be.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask, glad to see him look more like himself.

  He grabs his keys and stuffs his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans. “Meeting up with a couple people since you obviously don’t want me around.”

  I roll my eyes, unable to stop from smirking at him. “I thought I was supposed to be the melodramatic one of the family.”

  His lips flatten.

  Sniggering, I shoot him a grin. “I’m messing with you, bro. It’s good you’re getting out. I worry about you.”

  “Well don’t.”

  I hold up my hands in surrender at his clipped tone, feeling my phone buzz in the pocket of my loose athletic shorts. “Fine, have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t. Your options should be vast.”

  I’m not sure what he says when he walks out because it’s spoken under his breath. I let it roll of my shoulders as I pull open the refrigerator. My phone goes off again as I grab a bottle of water, and when I pull the cell from my pocket I snort at the messages in the group chat I have with the guys.

  Manning: You hear the news everywhere today?

  Cal: The world wants Zayne for themselves

  Jax: Greedy bastards

  Zayne: Ur all just jealous

  Me: You’re all twats

  I set the phone down and guzzle half the bottle before digging through the pantry and taking what I need to make a late lunch.

  When my cell goes off with rapid succession, I turn it on silent to tune out the noise. I’ll regret it when I have over 100 unread messages waiting for me, most which won’t amount to anything more than petty banter from the guys.

  The only one I see pop up before busying myself with cooking makes me snort.

  Kyler B: Once was, huh?

  “Bugger off,” I muse aloud, picking up the device and typing a quick reply to my biggest solo competitor. We have a history that the media used to love highlighting, but he took the outlets by storm with news of the budding romance with his current fiancée. It was nice to have the heat off me while it lasted, but it appears the newest cycle is back and more determined than ever to get a rise out of Violet Wonders.

  Me: Checking in on me, lover?

  Kyler B: You wish

  Me: Aww you love me. Try not to make little Bishop jealous

  Kyler B: I regret texting you

  Me: Your life would be boring without me in it and you know it

  I don’t get a response back, but we both know it’s true. He can pretend he hates me all he wants, but the past is the past. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, things I can’t change, but I’m not that person anymore. I tell myself as long as I remember that it’s all that matters. But when the world is constantly against you, the truth blurs with the mixture of everybody else’s perception of who you are.

  Talk about a mind fuck.

  My mind wanders back to what the world wants to know regarding me and Zayne. We’ve had our fair share of arguments, but it’s expected. Close quarters even with friends grates on you after a while and being with four other guys in close proximity like we were on the bus can wear a person down.

  We swore when Violet Wonders got back together that if we called it quits for good, it’d be a mutual agreement with amicable terms. Something all of us agreed on after taking time to consider the come-back. Nothing the media could use against us, even if they tried their best, would tear us apart then.

  Sometime later I glance at a few messages that the very same drummer the media is suddenly obsessed with sends me. I know everything is okay between us despite what the sharks want everyone else to believe when I read what he says.

  Zayne: Lazy Croc tonight?

  Me: Count on it

  2

  Rylee

  The heat blowing into my 2001 Nissan Altima is the only thing filling the silence around me on the halfway abandoned street I’m parked on. The car is a hand-me-down from Grandpa Al that he gave me on my sixteenth birthday. Even though he offered to co-sign a loan to help me get a better vehicle years ago, I hold onto the one gift that still reminds me of my favorite person in the world.

  Since his passing, all I have left is the blue beaded necklace hanging from the rearview mirror that I gave him when I was little, a picture of him, Grandma Birdie, and me taped to the passenger da
shboard, and the oddly comforting smell of his favorite cigars lingering in the gray upholstered seats.

  I’m sad not having him around to tell me corny jokes or check in on me all the time because he’s overprotective, but toward the end he kept saying, “I just want to see Birdie again.” And he did. Knowing they’re together makes the pain settled into my chest worth it.

  Blowing out a breath, I bring my hands to the heating ducts that blow measly lukewarm air onto my shaking palms. I know the unsteady quake of them is from more than just the cold 59-degree weather California has been plagued with far too early. It’s not even October yet, and Mother Nature is already doing whatever she can to make things more difficult for me. You’d think growing up on the east coast would make these temperatures manageable, but I’ve always been cold blooded according to my mother and have the sweatshirt collection to prove it.

  Thanks to my job writing for the L.A. Free Press, I was able to move to a warmer climate and soak up the sun like I’ve always dreamed of. Unfortunately, the sun doesn’t even out Cali’s many cons. Like the price of living. I know the area well enough to be okay sleeping in my car for the night until I figure something better out, because spending money on a hotel room is out of the question when I have more important things to use my funds for.