No matter what we said to each other after the show, I don’t belong.
On my way out, I swipe an unopened bottle of champagne from behind the bar while Craig isn’t looking. I don’t want to be alone tonight, and I don’t want to leave things with Avery on bad terms, I guess it’s a good thing I know what hotel she’s staying at.
12
Wesley
January 2025
With the bottle behind my back, I knock. After a moment, the bolt turns. My pulse thunders.
“Shit! We were just at your show. Patrick, come look who it is,” the woman calls over her shoulder, holding her robe shut with one hand and the door open with the other.
I keep my smile in place as my shoulders fall. I had a good feeling about this room. I also had a good feeling about the last ten rooms, so that’s not saying much.
A man about her same age fills the rest of the doorway. “Oh, hey.” He squints.
“Is this a prize? Oh my gosh, did we win something with our ticket?” The woman practically bounces.
“Just wanted to thank you personally for being here. It means a lot to all of us,” I lie. Eighty-four hotel rooms didn’t sound so bad when I first looked it up, though I’m still on the upper floors where the most expensive suites are located. Avery must be in one of them. Unless she packed her bags and left, but I refuse to think like that. I need to make this right before she pulls away from me completely.
I take a picture with the couple—a security risk Derek will kill me for, but right now I’m not sure I care—and then head to the next room.
Just as I’m about to knock, the door behind me swings open, followed by a familiar velvet voice saying, “What are you doing?”
“Trying to find you.”
“By knocking on every hotel room? At two in the morning. How has no one called security on you?” There she is, makeup still on, but she’s changed into flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top. And from the tilt of her mouth, I know she’s amused, if not impressed, by my efforts to hunt her down.
“Technically, only eleven. And you’d be surprised what this face can get me out of,” I say. I hold out the champagne as a peace offering. “You left before the party got good.”
She grabs it, our fingers brushing. “Thanks.”
The door slams in my face. I shove my hands in my pockets.
I guess this is how it’s going to be then, with her shutting me out even more swiftly than before.
I’m about to leave when the door cracks open. “It was a good concert.”
“It was great.”
“Don’t push it,” she says as she steps aside, giving me a view of her hotel suite. “You hogged the stage, and you rushed the second verse of ‘Ronnie.’ Don’t smile like that.”
“You know I love it when you’re honest with me.” I take her silent invitation and step inside. It’s smaller than I expected. A king-size bed takes up one room, her clothes flung across the end and overflowing out of the dresser drawers. In the other is the stiff couch in front of an impressive TV. “I thought you’d have a different room.”
“Anything bigger just feels empty. I don’t need that much space.” A pop reverberates through the room as she frees thecork. She doesn’t bother to find glasses and just takes a swig, her hand clenched around the bottle’s green neck.
“I’m sorry about the documentary. You’re right, I should have asked first. I thought I was doing the right thing to support you.”
“If you asked, I would have said no,” she says, handing me the bottle, my fingers brushing over her knuckles in the exchange causing me to move slower than needed to extend the zip of pleasure originating at the point of contact. “Which would have been stupid. From a business perspective, getting more funding is smart. And adding your name to the production will boost its credibility.”
“Why do it in the first place? The tour is going to be crazy enough without a camera crew.” It’s something I’ve been curious about since the start.
With a sigh, she collapses onto the couch and takes another drink. “After what happened with Jamie, I realized how much I’ve lost touch with myself. I want a chance to reclaim my story. Our story. Not the way the media tells it, but the way only we can. It’s the same reason I need you to sign those papers when this is over. I want every aspect of my life back.”
“I know how hard it is to have so many eyes on you after something like that. Are you okay?” I ask the question I needed to hear when I was in a similar place.
No matter what you do, it seems to be the wrong choice. There’s no regard for how raw you feel, just demands for answers. In a lot of ways, what happened with Maddie and I was different. It’s not like I wanted to be in that relationship in the first place, but no one knows that. I try my best not to think of her, but after finding the lilies in the dressing room, the memory of our relationship is close to the surface.
