For the first time in all my years of touring and concerts, I couldn’t wait to get off stage. When the setfinallyended, I all but ran off, needing air. Rhett was right behind me, though, shouting for Tom, who waited in the wings with a big shit-eating grin on his face.
“Where is she?” Rhett demanded, pushing me aside so he could grab Tom by the shirt and slam him against a wall. “Where’s Billie?”
Panic rippled through me. “Whoa, bro, she was in VIP remember?” I pointed out, placing a hand on Rhett’s arm. “She was just—”
“No,she wasn’t!”Rhett snarled, still holding Tom by the shirt like he was about to kill him. “She disappeared halfway through ‘Frozen in Time’ and never came back. Sowhere the fuck is she, Tucker?” He bellowed that question so hard that Tom flinched like the little bitch he was.
“Rhett, put him down!” Flo screamed, handing off her bass to one of the roadies. “This is insanity; Billie is literally tearing our band apart! Maybe it’s better if she’s gone.”
Tom hit the floor in a pile as Rhett abruptly dropped him.
“What the fuck did you say?” Grayson asked in a low, dangerous voice, towering over Flo. “Why would she be gone?”
Tom coughed a nervous laugh, picking himself up off the ground. “It’s true, though. She left, just like we knew she would. Jace, you said it yourself, when the going gets tough, Billie gets going, right? Why are you all so surprised? I clearly hit the nail on its head earlier, and she panicked.”
Flo looked like she was going to be sick but pasted on a fake smile anyway. “Guys, we need to get back out there for the encore. We can sort this out later.”
Rhett and Grayson were coiled so tight they were just one step short of murder, but they looked to me, nonetheless. No matter how much alpha male energy our band had, they still treated me as their leader.
“Fuck the encore,” I snarled. “Tucker, answer Rhett. Where is she?”
Tom dusted off his t-shirt with indignation. “I told you. She took off the first chance she got. Don’t believe me? Ask Little Jonny. He let her out of VIP; I saw him.” He raised his arm, indicating for one of the huge security guards to join us, and repeated our question about where the fuck Billie had gone.
Jonny gave Tom a frown, then shrugged. “Dunno, boss. She said she wanted to use the crapper, and Tom said she had other security tailing her, so…” He shrugged again. “Then she didn’t come back.”
“Thank you, you can go.” Tom dismissed him, then turned back to me with a smug expression.
Rhett wasn’t in the fucking mood, though, and his fist cracked across Tom’s face in a vicious punch. It sent the skinny man flying back into the wall, but he was lucky Rhett didn’t kill him.
“Yousaid to let her go?” my best friend bellowed. “Why?”
“Because it’s better this way!” Tom shouted back, tears in his eyes as he nursed his face. “She wanted to go; I wasn’t fucking stopping her! Look what she’s done to us in just one week.”
He pushed up from the floor and gave Rhett an accusing glare likehewas the victim.
“Tom, that wasn’t your fucking place,” I said, feeling like my stomach was lined with lead. “You don’t get to make decisions about—”
“Yes, I do!” he cut me off. “You were holding her captive, against her will. Bellerose doesn’t need that PR nightmare, soyeah, I let her go. As a test. And what a shock, she didn’t come back. Face it, Silver, sheusedyou.” He reached out for Flo, dragging her over to him as he shot Rhett another hate-filled glare, then stormed off.
For a moment, the three of us just stood there. Stunned silent. Then Rhett screamed a curse and snatched his guitar from his back.
“Rhett, don’t—” I started to shout, but it was too late. His guitar smashed into the concrete floor with enough force to damage the instrument irreparably.
“Shit,” Grayson breathed at my back.
Rhettlovedthat guitar; it was the first thing he’d ever spent “real” money on when we got our first paycheck. It was his lucky charm. And now it was little more than trash as he tossed it aside and turned to us in despair.
His eyes were huge and pleading as he shook his head. “She wouldn’t,” he croaked, seeking validation. “She wouldn’t justleave.”
I wet my lips. I wanted to reassure him, but all I could think of was that day she’d broken up with me eight years ago. I’d just signed my contract with Big Noise Records—Angelo had declined his—and I’d gone over to Billie’s house to celebrate.
She’d answered the door with red-rimmed eyes, like she’d been crying all day, and wouldn’t let me come inside. Instead, she sat out on the front steps of her house with me and systematically dismantled everything I thought I knew about love. She told me that she didn’t love me anymore, and that her and Angelo wanted to beexclusive.
I’d been so gutted I barely even heard half the bullshit excuses she spat out at me. All that mattered was that she wasleavingme. I had a fucking ring in my pocket. It was her sixteenth birthday, and I was going to give it to her as a promise. A commitment tousthat we’d get married one day. And she was sitting there telling me she was in love with my best friend and that we wereover.
So when Rhett turned to me with that utterly crushed expression, I didn’t have it in me to lie to him. Not when I’d been in his shoes.
“It’s just what she does,” I heard myself say, my own voice echoing like I was in a tunnel. “Just be glad she didn’t stay longer. Then it’d really break your heart.”
