Preston glared at me. I could fill his ire bubbling up. He was still pissed that Lena knew about the underground fighting. I didn’t waste my breath explaining that she wouldn’t betray my trust. I knew it in my soul, and that was enough for me.
“We need to find Eli,” I said instead. He was the final piece to this bullshit jigsaw. It didn’t make sense how he was throwing his career away, and possibly, by extension, ours.
He had some explaining to do.
Chapter 23
Lena
Two weeks after the morning Gabe abruptly left to go to his office, I sat in his kitchen, alone, eating the breakfast he’d prepared. I was far from bored since I had two songs that I planned to arrange some melodies for. But I missed him.
Though Gabe had awakened me with his head between my thighs, he still left early, yet again.
It’d been a month since our trip to New York, and I’d come back to a ninety-something degree house. Jodi had found a repairman to fix the air conditioner, but anytime I even brought up the idea of going back to the house, Gabe had some reason why I should wait.
When the AC first got fixed, the reasoning was that the house needed a few days for the temperature to lower. Then he said he suspected there might be an issue with the security system since the power had gone out. There was another reason like it would take too long to relocate all the equipment I’d brought over to his place back to the cabin.
The truth was, I let the excuses slide because I didn’t want to leave. Yet, as I sat there, eating my breakfast, alone for the third time that week, I missed him. But I knew things at No Sweat were happening that he needed to focus on.
I stabbed my last piece of waffle with my fork before swirling it around in the remainder of my syrup. After stuffing the fluffy goodness into my mouth, I slowly drifted my eyes shut. Ever since Gabe’s declaration on why waffles were superior to pancakes, I had to say I appreciated them more. Or maybe it was because he’d made the waffles before he’d left for work.
Either way, the food was good. I felt thoroughly satisfied as I cleaned up the kitchen, placing the dishes in the dishwasher, before heading up to the empty bedroom that Gabe seamlessly converted into a studio for me.
The room sat two doors down from the master bedroom. Barefoot, I padded down the hall, running my fingers along the wall, smiling at the pictures of Gabe with his father and brothers and a few pictures of him with a guy he pointed out as Preston.
Preston, I knew, was his business partner, though I had yet to meet him in person. I looked at one image of Gabe and Preston standing side by side, arms folded in their wrestling spandex. Gabe, though about ten years younger, still looked imposing and as handsome as ever.
Preston was about an inch shorter than Gabe but slightly more muscular. His dark eyes were tough to read, and he appeared as much of a force as Gabe.
I shook my head and continued into the room. There was a melody that kept replaying in my head, and it wouldn’t leave. I thought it would go perfectly with the song I’d written a week earlier.
I sat down and began humming the melody. I played a few keys on the keyboard, liking the tune, at which time I pressed the record button. The lyrics floated from my lips, and I lost myself in the song.
After tweaking it here and there, I replayed the song, and that giddy excitement overcame me at hearing what I knew would be my first completed song for this album.
I started work on another arrangement, and before I knew it, a few hours flew by. It must’ve been a few hours later when my phone buzzed. I rolled my eyes before heading over to the bed where my phone laid.
It was probably a text from my parents asking for money or for me to get them reservations at someplace where they had no business dining.
Possibly, it was Demetria, emailing me something that I needed to know.
When I turned my phone over, I realized that the buzzing I’d heard wasn’t a text or even a phone call but a social media notification. I kept most of my notifications off and only had downloaded one social media platform to my phone since I received it.
The photographer I worked with in New York wanted to send a few shots via Instagram. I silently hoped that was what the notification was about.
That wasn’t the case.
As I stood there with my phone in my hand, repeatedly buzzing with new notifications, my belly flip flopped. I knew something wasn’t right. The last time I awoke to so many messages had been when that video of me setting fire to Nate’s belongings had gone viral.
I hovered my finger over the phone screen, mentally going back and forth on whether or not I should ignore whatever it was. I glanced back over my shoulder, looking at my production equipment and the notepad next to it.
I was finally back to writing again. And, though I hadn’t shown my songs to anyone else, I felt like my writing was on another level. The last thing I needed was to get distracted with whatever caused my notifications to blow up.
More buzzing in my hand from the phone. Two new email notifications popped up. My stomach filled with dread, and I knew there was no way I could go back to writing without finding out what was happening first.
“Welp.” I shrugged my shoulders and decided to rip the Band-Aid off. Hell, whatever it was, it couldn’t be that bad. I hadn’t burned up anything lately, so I had that going for me.
I pressed the button to open my email and saw two emails from Demetria. When I opened the first one, a somewhat blurry picture in a darkened nightclub stared back at me. I blinked a few times before zooming in on the photo.
