by B. Celeste
My hand gestures toward the booth, free hand pressing to the small of Rylee’s back until she slides in. Her body is tight, her eyes not lingering to look around like they did the first time she was here. Not much has changed over the years, so she isn’t missing much.
Despite the space, I press the side of my body against Rylee’s and am glad she doesn’t object. Instead, she seeks the comfort I offer and lets me drop an arm around her shoulders to pull her closer. Neither one of us seems to care that Zayne is staring between us with a raised brow.
“So, this is happening, huh?” he says casually, no judgement in his tone as he grabs the drink in front of him and takes a long sip.
It’s me who says, “It’s been happening.”
Nobody says a word, but Rylee shifts beside me—not away but not closer either.
“I’m sorry,” my best friend says, eyes focused on the squirming blonde to my right.
The discomfort radiating from her makes me want to hold her tighter, but I don’t. Giving her space, I look to Zayne. “Nobody has anything to apologize about. We’ve been through this before and we’ll get through it.”
“You know that’s not true,” the wary woman beside me says, and I know Rylee isn’t talking about our ability to make it past the hard shit.
Ice clinking in the glass of who knows what, my drummer loosens a sigh. “Don’t say it, okay? It’s in the past. Apologies aren’t going to do anything at this point. We’ve all clearly moved on.”
Have we? I don’t voice the doubtful question. I know that Zayne isn’t pining over Rylee, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t hurt over what happened.
A waitress comes by and asks us if we want drinks. I eye Zayne when he shakes his glass for a refill but press my lips together to stop myself from saying anything. He’s a stress drinker, and always has been. The night of our Halloween party, I didn’t see him open his beer once or slip away behind closed doors to do something he shouldn’t. He kept to himself, hidden away, mostly outside staring at the flowers Rylee planted. But something’s triggered him, and I have a feeling I’m part of it.
Rylee and I skip on the offer to join him, but I ask for two waters despite this conversation needing something stronger.
I decide to start the conversation as soon as the busty waitress walks away. “Grace and Michael have been fielding all our social media posts to make sure they’re weeding out the comments on our pages.” When Grace joined our last meeting, I could tell Rylee was drained. But there was something that loosened as soon as Grace, our best social media specialist who runs all of Violet Wonders pages, started explaining our plan of attack.
As much as it pained me to agree, she proposed Rylee shut down her private social media accounts for a while because it was hard to control all the messages, comments, and other derogatory things being posted once her name was found. And as hard as Grace tried clearing her email, that ended up being shut down too.
“They still want us to do a few sit-down interviews because Michael doesn’t know what the word ‘no’ means,” I continue, rubbing Rylee’s arm.
Zayne snorts. “You do realize he’s going to schedule them anyway hoping the pressure will make it impossible for you to back out of, right?”
It didn’t work for him before when I cancelled on Penny Gomez. “Considering he’s still trying to mend his relationship with Hot in Hollywood, I’d say he’d be smart to stay cautious and actually listen to me for once.”
“Violet Wonders needs to start planning for the first single drop,” my drummer counters, sitting back in his spot and dragging his glass along the table with him. “They’re on all of us to start posting.”
“We just finished recording.”
“New bands come out of the woodwork every single day,” he points out. “Thanks to social media, more and more people are rising to the top with massive followings without a label attached. I hate to agree with the shit people have been saying, but we’re not new news anymore. We’re a band with a big following but we’re not getting the same attention we were just by dropping an album date and nothing else. There’s a lot more competition out there now.”
Scrubbing a hand down my face, I shake my head and lean forward. “That’s not what we should be talking about right now.”
“No?” he doubts. “You say you bought a ring and put it on a girl so you could draw attention away from the press coming at the band. But look where that got us.”
Teeth grinding, I reply, “I was helping you. Do you know how many times I was asked by everyone on the team what happened between us to make you quit again? Again, mate. I had to find out from fucking TMZ that you got drunk and started rambling to some stranger about Violet Wonders. I didn’t get angry. I asked you where your head was at, and you told me it was all bullshit. You said not to worry, so I didn’t.”
“I didn’t ask for your help, Garrick.”
Rylee shifts uncomfortably from the rising tension.
Sighing, I accept the water the waitress passes me and slide it in front of Rylee, then take the second for myself. “You never do. I’ve tried giving you space, but I’m worried. Your head isn’t in it. I don’t think it has been since we came back and started touring again.”
The worst thing he could do is stay silent and offer no reassurance. That’s what he does.
“Look,” I reason, eyeing the waitstaff on standby before turning back to him. “We’ve had our issues. We go about things our own way and don’t consult each other first. So, I’ll ask you one more time, Zayne. Where is your head at with the band? Is this really what you want to do? Because the more you refuse my help dispersing the media coming after you, the more I’m starting to question if you wanted them paying attention to begin with.”
He scuffs in offense. “You think I honestly want them talking about me all the time? I liked my life before Violet Wonders happened, Garrick. Before the five of us met at that fucking concert all those years ago, I was just a guy nobody gave a second glance at. Content with being obsolete. I never pictured us seeing each other again, much less exchanging numbers. I figured we’d talk once in a while about music and different bands, but not about starting one. I was left the fuck alone to do whatever the hell I wanted without anyone dissecting my every move before I agreed to meet up with everyone in Los Angeles. Is that what you want to hear? Christ. The only thing I like more than my privacy is money, so here we are. Years after being idiotic enough to move across the country to start a band with you guys without any knowledge of what would come out of it. I could have stayed in Massachusetts and avoided this whole goddam mess.”
Staring at him, I grip the glass of water a little too tightly and hear it crack. “If you’re only in it for the money, then why did you even agree to come back? If you were that unhappy, why bother saying yes for a second time instead of staying on the east coast? You invested enough money to live off of for a long time. You have plenty of—”
“Because this is what you wanted. Me and the guys didn’t care either way when you decided to get back together. Jax, Cal, and Manning all love living here. They don’t think about New York or Mass or what they left behind because they don’t have that much to focus on back home. You know damn well that I do. But they all do whatever the hell they want without giving a shit what people have to say about it. The reason they bent so easily when you reached out was because you’ve always been the glue to this group, always pushing us to be and do better. You’ve always wanted more and were happier when you had shit to work toward. And when you went to rehab, it was obvious that we’d breakup if you didn’t recover. We needed you to survive. But when all was said and done, it was easy to see we would’ve been fine if we all chose to let it go for good.”
Rylee clears her throat. “Maybe we should—”
“No.” Zayne cuts her a look. “I’m not trying to be an asshole, but I need you both to hear this. For too long, me and the guys have done whatever you wanted because we knew how much this meant to you. The m
oney is nice, hearing people love our music is rewarding, but that’s it. Nothing else about this lifestyle is something we wanted. Me especially. We were relieved when it was called. We did our own things and lived in a way we couldn’t before.”
How the hell am I just hearing about this now? It’s been years of hard work building us back up to where we were. “What happened to us, mate?”
The table is quiet. Too quiet.
Eventually, Zayne’s shoulders lift. “I don’t know. We grew up, I guess.”
Staring down at the cracked glass, I push it away and try figuring out how we got here. “I suppose the recordings in the press were right, then?” I ask him, brows arched in wait for his response.
He evades my eyes. “What people were saying wasn’t wrong.”
I swear under my breath and feel Rylee’s hand rest on my thigh, right above my knee. I drop mine on top of hers and keep it there, needing the contact. “Were you ever going to tell me, or were you going to let the tabloids do that for you?”
Rylee’s fingers tighten on my leg.
My best mate says, “You’re not being fair, and you know it.”
Maybe I’m not, but I simply say, “Neither are you.”
We’re at a stalemate that I’m not sure how to get out of. I look to Rylee. “We should go. I promised Chase I’d help him finish packing the rest of this things.”
“So that’s it?” Zayne asks as I slide out of the booth. “You’re just going to walk away even though we’ve accomplished nothing here?”
Eye twitching, I give him a terse nod. “I had to watch you walk away the first time, maybe it’s my turn.” Turning on my heels, I reach out for Rylee’s hand and reply, “I don’t know where this is going to take us. That’s up to you, I guess. Until then, I’d like to leave with my wife.”
It’s a low blow, one that he takes exactly as its meant. I’ll feel bad about it later, but all that erases itself from my mind when Rylee slips her fingers around my hand and stands beside me.
Zayne calls out, “Right before we called it, we’d silently agreed not to talk about the reason. Maybe that doomed us from the start. You struggling with your addiction and me battling mine was tension that should have never stayed bottled up. We broke up because we weren’t fucking into it anymore. The music. The people. The attention. The control everybody had on us. Let’s face it, Garrick. We all knew then that this would happen eventually, I just made the decision sooner before it completely destroyed us. Everybody has their limit. What’s yours?”
I don’t grace him with an answer. The fallout was a heated argument that led to us not speaking for way too long, and I thought getting back together was an olive branch that he’d accepted because he knew he was wrong. Clearly, that wasn’t his thought process at all.
Rylee and I take the back way out to avoid the people I’d undoubtedly fight with if they approached us because my patience is thin.
“I’m sorry,” Rylee tells me quietly.
“Don’t be.” I raise our hands to my mouth and press a kiss against the back of hers. “Are you ready to go home?”
My chest lightens when she says, “Yes.”
28
Rylee
My purple Snuggie is wrapped around me as I watch a movie on the couch, the house a little too quiet except for the pitter-patter of light rain coming from outside. I normally like the solitude, but recently it’s been lonely.
With Chase in his own place now, it’s almost too quiet during the days when Garrick is out doing whatever his band needs him to. He hasn’t spoken about his conversation with Zayne, and I’m afraid to press on how things are going because he comes home tense and only willing to talk about my day. But considering my days are full of routine nothingness—gardening, cooking, checking in with Moffie and my parents, and searching the internet for potential writing gigs that won’t look like a conflict of interest to the public eye—there’s never much to report on that’s different from the day before.
November came and went with cold snaps that left my joints sore and plants sad, and Thanksgiving was spent with Garrick, Chase, and their mother because my parents had their very first cruise planned that they’ve been talking about since forever. It’s the first holiday we didn’t spent together, but the Matthews clan put me to work in the kitchen where Elaine taught me new recipes and the boys cleaned up after us.
With the new year approaching fast, Garrick has been nonstop with helping Chase get settled into his house, the band prepare for their album drop in the spring, all while fending what remains of the tabloids against me. Things have quieted down considerably, and from what Moffie says, the things still lingering in the media are barely anything worth being upset over. Although we have different interpretations, so I don’t know if I fully believe her.
Once in a while Mrs. Matthews will pop in, and it’s always when I’m alone. I used to think she was keeping an eye on me to make sure I wasn’t doing something I shouldn’t when her sons were away, but quickly learned she wanted to make sure I was okay. One time she came over with a freshly made cobbler that she said she’d teach me how to make, and another time she’d brought over crochet materials after I’d mentioned wanting to learn in past conversations.
She told me Garrick knows how to knit, crochet, and sew if I ever needed help, and I banked that information to smile over when I have days like today when I’m feeling off.
Laying on the couch aimlessly listening to some old black and white classic movie, I turn onto my back and stare up at the high ceilings. They’re plain with little personality, but everything else in the house makes up for it—the pops of purple and blue and black and yellow throughout the huge estate, the random photographs of Garrick with his friends and family, the mixture of fake and real plants scattered in the house that Yasmin showed me in case the real ones needed water and she wasn’t around. He even has a few awards on his shelves and walls that I’ve been caught staring at one too many times. But when else am I going to be that close to a Grammy or Billboard Music Award?
When Garrick found me staring at a few one time, he’d told me that he liked the reminder of all the hard work he’d put in that’s led him right where we are.
He let me look.
Linger.
Snoop.
“What’s mine is yours,” he’s told me countless times. It doesn’t make me feel any better about accepting the money for my medicine or being put on his insurance. The money I got from my last article ran out a few days ago when I paid for groceries and got Chase a housewarming gift. The youngest Matthews blushed when I handed it to him. All I could afford was a small care package that had a box of Captain Crunch, an Elsa coffee mug, and a set of hand towels that say I like it nerdy.
Exchanging presents and laughs that day made me feel like part of their family for real, and when I decided to leave Chase’s house to give them time together just the three of them, nobody had fought me on it. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that Garrick didn’t even try convincing me to stay with the allure of junk food or movies, but I don’t blame him.
We still haven’t had sex, and only fooled around a handful of times since he admitted he wanted to make this relationship work. And while I enjoyed every earth shattering, limb tingling orgasm he’s given me by fingers and tongue, I haven’t given him any indication that I want to do more. On a spontaneous whim one night when we were watching late night infomercials when neither of us could sleep, I’d given him a fumbled hand job that was mediocre at best even if hot spurts of cum shot from him after he’d guided my hand to squeeze him harder and pump him faster. Beyond the few times that followed, we haven’t done more even though I know where he goes and what he does in the bathroom the mornings he wakes up in bed with me and I don’t make a move to relieve him like part of me always wants to.
At some point during my movie marathon, I fall asleep cuddled into the warm fleece material. It isn’t until I feel the couch dip that my lids flutter open, and I sme
ll the faintest scent of wild cherry wafting around me.
“Are you feeling all right?” Garrick.
I offer him a tired nod. “Sleepy.” He helps me untangle myself from the Snuggie to reposition and face him. “How’d recording go?”
The smile he offers is full of contentment and relief. “We’re officially done. Good thing, too. My mates were about to kill me. But I think everyone will be happy with it.”
I know Moffie will. “I’m glad to hear.”
He’s about to say something when my phone’s alarm goes off. Reaching over, I turn it off and lay back onto the couch and stifle a sigh.
He guesses, “Medicine?”
I frown. “Injection.”
His eyes soften. “Would you like my help? Sad to say I know my way around needles.”
Garrick doesn’t often bring up his past drug use, so I don’t either. The last thing I want to do is remind him of it, so I always make sure I’m in my room whenever I need to administer my methotrexate.
“I can handle it,” I tell him, sitting up. The rain has stopped, and the sun is out, so I’m tempted to try enjoying it before my body demands rest.
“I know you can, but I’d like to help if you’ll let me.” I’m about to ask if that’s a good idea when he says, “If it makes any difference, it isn’t going to set me off. The first time I saw you…”
We both make faces at the memory of him kicking me out, but I don’t let him finish his thought. “I would have done the same thing.”
He brushes hair out of my face and looks at my eyes, studying them with great interest. I’ve noticed how much he’ll stare and play with the fallen strands of hair like they’re taunting him, and I may even leave them out of my updos from time to time hoping he’ll reach over and move them away.
“I worry about Zayne,” he tells me quietly, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward to rub his neck. “He used to overcompensate to make sure he didn’t trigger me, and he meant well, but it made things worse sometimes. Like him trying to hide what he was doing only made me ten times more aware of him doing it.”
