Gemma’s angry face softens slightly when I pass her, our eyes meeting, and the look makes my cheeks warm. However, the moment is short-lived as Reed continues speaking, and Gemma’s jaw clenches, her body language stiffening completely.
“He wanted to know about getting in on the game with us tonight,” Reed says, his gaze flickering to Gemma who’s setting her bag on the counter. “That was shut down really fast, though.”
Gemma doesn’t say anything.
The entire ride over, she was quiet—A scary quiet. Zeb and I chatted about what Rad could possibly want, each idea as horrible as the last. I don’t know Rad as well as they do, thank fuck. Still, I’m not fond of him being back in the picture.
None of the stories I’ve heard were ever good stories.
“He says he’ll be at Radio Eleven, too,” Reed goes on, pacing. “Said he wants to see us and wondered if we could get him backstage.”
“Fucking typical.” Zeb settles on the arm of the sectional. “Guy just wants to pretend he’s important.”
“Yeah, fuck that. I’m not asking to give him a pass so he can tell girls he’s in a band and then drug them later,” Mads says.
I sit up, a knot forming in my stomach. “Wait, what the hell?” I ask, trying to recall every encounter I’ve ever had with him and whether I was a sloppy mess or not.
Who am I kidding?
I was always a sloppy fucking mess back then.
“Yeah,” Mads says with a scoff. “It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if that night he OD’d on the kit, if he’d tried to drug some girl and drank the wrong drink.”
“Seriously?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Zeb mutters.
“Wait, was heactuallydoing that? Like you knew about it? I thought it was like a running joke that he drugged girls—or, obviously not a joke, but just… Just a way to emphasize how creepy he is,” I go on. “Heactuallydid it? And you let him stay in the band?”
Because it’s hard to believe Mads allowed anyone like that near him after his past with his own rapist father.
Mads and Zeb look at each other, yet it’s Reed who speaks.
“Mads beat him to the point of hospitalization when he found one of the girls in Rad’s bedroom passed out,” Reed says. “Spent a few nights in jail because of it.”
“I went to jail twice because of that fucker,” Mads says. “Remember that second night when he tried to start shit with Bon? At our album party?”
God, I barely remember that night.
“Oh yeah,” Reed remembers. “And then, the next day…”
Reed’s voice trails as he looks at me, and I remember why.
That was the morning my stalker left a girl’s fingernails in a box on my bunk.
“Fucker,” Mads mutters, and I’m grateful for the subject change.
No one else knows about the fingernails.
“He’s not allowed anywhere near Andi. No one…” Mads sighs, head hanging. “I won’t put someone like that near her. And you shouldn’t let him near Wren, either,” he says to Reed.
“She won’t be at Radio Eleven,” Reed says.
“You shouldn’t be entertaining him atall,” Andi tells her brother. “You’re being too nice. Every time he comes near any of you, all hell breaks loose. Do you really want that to happen at a festival that you’re one band fromheadlining?”
“Her name was Amanda,” Mads says suddenly.
All of us look at him, silence falling over the room. Mads is bent over his knees and staring at his hands as if he can’t think of anything but her face. My chest aches as Andi reaches out and squeezes his shoulder, and when he speaks, I can feel every ounce of pain laced through the words.
