While stranded in a nightmare, Kaj had become a hostage to the envy, the fear, and the uncontrollable need to possess Noah when they’d met again after two and a half years without seeing each other. His heart was torn. He didn’t know when it’d started exactly, but it clearly wasn’t over yet. Therapy was supposed to have helped him heal, but the wounds were still festering under his skin.
“Yo,” Aksel snapped his fingers in front of Kaj’s eyes. “You there, fuckface?”
“Fuck you.” Kaj slapped his hand away.
The guitarist rolled his eyes and gestured to the waitress beside their table. “What do you wanna drink?”
“Sorry.” He offered her an apologetic smile. “Black coffee. No sugar.”
“Alright. Be right back.”
“What’s up with you today?” Aksel clipped, his voice muffled under the waves still rippling in Kaj’s mind. “Ouch! What the fuck?” He glared at Xander.
“Leave him be,” the bassist said, gaze fixed on the window right above their heads, where the last rays of sun seeped through.
“Shut it, Xan,” Aksel said, rubbing his leg. “He’s been cranky as fuck lately. Like okay, yeah, he’s broody and shit, but I’ve never seen him this angry, and we’ve been together for almost a decade.”
“I know.” Xander simply nodded.
Aksel turned to Kaj, ignoring the bassist. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell that to the permanent scowl on your face.”
“Haven’t slept much this past week. That’s all.”
Not a lie, just not the full truth, either.
“I know it’s easier said than done, but don’t worry so much, dude,” Aksel offered. “It’s not the first and it won’t be the last time the label has to deal with this type of shit.”
“That’s not—” Kaj glared at Aksel. He couldn’t care less about what the label had to do to temper the drama. His problem was that since they’d learned what their former vocalist had done, the nightmares had returned. It was disorganized snippets of his past. Weird, psychedelic shit he never remembered in the morning. But any day he didn’t wake up drenched in sweat, panting like he’d run a marathon, was rare. “I’m just… I have no words to describe how I’m feeling about what Emil did.”
“Yeah… That.” Aksel ran a hand over his light brown hair, uncomfortable.
“How can you be so nonchalant about it?” Kaj raised his voice slightly, dragging a few curious glances toward them.
“I’m not,” Aksel bit back. “It’s fucked up.”
“Yeah, almost as much as those women being assaulted and feeling like the NDAs they’d signed are some sort of binding silence,” Kaj gritted, lowering his tone again. “It’s disturbing that they talked to each other to come forward about the abuse and still spoke to the label first instead of reporting it to the police.”
As the waitress approached with their drinks, both Aksel and Xander clenched their jaws, silently agreeing with him. The relaxed atmosphere at the café swamped the space around them. But, ironically, it made Kaj feel hopeless.
In the music world, solitude was a stranger that fed on your dreams, leaving you hollow. Bonds. Trust. Respect. There was no room for those fantasies when you were on the top. People’s need to be acknowledged, hate, and obsession were some of the side effects of success; everyone wanted a piece of you and there was nothing you could do about it.
Kaj wished the world knew the real him and just how mundane his life was offstage. Maybe then people would stop pretending and idealizing him.
At least he had his bandmates and their crew—his family. Being around them gave him a purpose. A reason to move forward even when living felt like he was fighting with broken bones. But sometimes, some days, something was missing. And right now, the severed fragments of him that belonged in the past were craving a disaster.
“You good?” Xander asked, a knowing glow in his eyes.
“Yeah, sorry.” Kaj nodded after taking a swig of his coffee. “I’m just sick of all the schemes and plans and lies.”
“That’s showbiz for you.” Aksel lifted a shoulder, eyes glued on his mug as his hands tightened around it.
“Do they even care aboutthem?” Kaj shook his head. The fact that the bigwigs were more worried about how to tackle media scrutiny when the sordid details of what Emil had done were dragged up in public than the victims made him sick.
It wasn’t that they had any issues with the record label before. Everything had been smooth from the start. The band had never been forced to hide who they were, follow trends, or make music just to sell. Their contract and royalties were fairly good, too. However, this situation proved that the machinery that moved this industry was vicious. It could chew and spit you out in seconds. At the end of the day, you were just numbers on a spreadsheet.
