“I know.”
But he was awfully quiet. Raine asked, “You didn’t, did you?”
“Of course not. I’ll call the l—actually, why don’t we talk to the label together after breakfast?”
Once again, Quentin Russo took her completely off guard. Even though she’d panicked, wondering what all this meant, questioning how it had happened, she’d expected Quentin to blame her and let her have it with both barrels.
Instead…he’d been understanding. Not only that, but he seemed to have Mal’s number too.
As she deescalated out of panic mode, Raine arrived back in her body—with her messy, slept-in hair, no makeup, the oversized soft gray t-shirt that all but covered the black sleep shorts, and no shoes. “Um…I’ll go shower first.”
“Want a cup of coffee to take with you?”
Despite her turbulent insides, she smiled. “Just tea if I’m singing. I’ll be back.”
“I’ll heat up some water for you.”
As soon as she was heading back to her room, though, her brain was on fire, absorbed with the mystery of what the fuck had happened and how the label was planning to contain it. Back in her room, she dropped to the bed and tried to decide if she should call or text Mal or the label and decided not to. Her trust was with Quentin now and, as she’d promised, they would contact them together.
Quentin was right. Mal was not concerned about her and never had been. Instead, he cared about what she could do for him and his career. So why the hell should she respond to his messages?
But her curiosity was out of control. She had to see what the buzz was. For the past several weeks, she hadn’t been online much—that was partly because of Quentin’s rules, of keeping her phone in her room during the day—and, after their intense daily music workouts, she hadn’t had the emotional energy to devote to online bullshit. Besides, much of what people had still been saying about her, when they’d bothered, had been lingering on her performance at the charity concert. Last she’d checked in, people were speculating that her online silence confirmed she was in rehab.
She could lurk without participating. First, she went to TikTok, making sure the volume on her phone was low—and her feed was filled with videos that played part of the first song she and Quentin had worked on. She still hadn’t given it a title other than “The Box,” but there was no denying it was her song when she heard her voice in the clip: “My soul, my heart, my bones, my art,/ You’ve ripped it all away from me.”
But people online didn’t know it was her. They hadn’t quite figured it out. Somehow, though they knew Quentin had produced the track. How had they known? There were a lot of videos and posts saying “He’s back from the dead” and “Quentin Russo’s making a comeback,” all while dredging up his own dark past.
As she continued doom scrolling, she saw that there were a few people who were putting two and two together. A few posts said things like “That sounds like Raine Dennison” and “That girl’s channeling her inner Raine.”
She could handle that shit. Good or bad, people were always talking about her online, but Quentin? If he was aware of what was going on, this had to be hitting him hard.
When Raine finally regained her senses, she didn’t miss that it was closing in on seven-thirty. So she quickly hopped in the shower, but while she brushed her teeth, put on her heaviest makeup, and got dressed, she was quietly playing TikTok videos relating to the leak to confirm that most people still hadn’t figured out it was her.
Walking up to the kitchen, she shoved her phone in her back pocket, obsessed again with social media and what everyone was talking about. It was like a fucking drug and she’d just jumped off the wagon with both feet. Because Quentin wasn’t in the kitchen, she assumed he was in the studio getting ready for her. Grabbing one of the travel cups, she pulled her phone out again to watch more videos while getting her tea ready, but she had to reheat the water.
There would be no breakfast today—and that was probably okay, because she doubted her stomach could handle anything solid.
When Quentin came back to top off his coffee, her relapsed social media addiction was on full display. A twenty-something girl was on screen in a TikTok video, speculating in a Valley Girl voice that maybe now that Quentin Russo was back on the scene, he just might be working on his second solo album.
“Oh, sorry.” Raine tapped her phone screen to pause the video. “I was just—”
“I know. But that shit’s disrupting our peace.” His face was firm but expressionless and Raine didn’t have a word to say because he was right. “I’m shutting off the WiFi. We don’t need this shit.”
As he left the kitchen, he said, “We’ll turn it back on after this bullshit is over.”
For a second, Raine got ready to protest. How dare he not ask? But he was already gone. And, as the pissed off feeling subsided, she noticed something else.
Lighter shoulders, less constriction in her chest.
No WiFi meant she would be protected from the onslaught of news about them. Sure, she could have tried watching anyway, but she had no idea what kind of reception she had here. And now that he was out of the room, she closed the window on the phone, sensing how huge a weight was lifting off her shoulders.
So, before going to the studio, she went back to her bedroom, depositing her phone back on the nightstand, flipping it facedown so she didn’t have to see all the new notifications she was getting from Mal.
When she got to the studio, Quentin was listening to his own voicemail from the label. Although she walked into the control room, she stood back a bit, hoping he didn’t think she was invading his privacy. After all, the call was about the song they’d created together and the leak affected them both.
Turning to her as the message stopped playing, Quentin’s jaw tightened again. Raine knew that look immediately—he was angry. Jesus. She’d felt that fury before…but she knew that now, at least, the anger wasn’t directed at her.
When he spoke, though, his voice was calm and controlled. “I’d like to say we should work first and then call the label, because it would be better for creativity. That would be ideal. But I don’t think we’re going to be able to get anything done until we address this.”
