“Look at these streaming numbers, guys. And the shows are selling out like crazy.”
I glanced at a screen with a blur of numbers on it, unable to muster the appropriate level of excitement our manager was expecting, the level of excitement Dan and Kelly made effortless because it was genuine.
So I faked it. “That’s awesome!” I chimed in.
If it felt forced, they could blame it on the early start. I wasn’t known for being a morning person on my best days, but they were all on the East Coast right now, so I had to adapt to their schedule.
We were in the final stages of preparing for a massive world tour that started in a few months. They were touting it as a comeback of sorts, though we’d barely been off the road for more than a season for the last decade. It was the kind of tour schedule I would’ve salivated over as a kid, selling out stadiums across the world, more than one show in some of the stops.
I was tired just looking at it.
Which made me feel like an ungrateful piece of shit.
My phone rang. Our publicist Gabriella was calling, probably to talk about promo for the tour, which was the absolute worst part of my job.
“Hey, babes,” she said when I muted myself on the video call and answered. “Just making sure you know what you’re wearing to the gala tonight. I sent some options over to your place in New York yesterday, but they said you weren’t there, so checking in.”
“Shit,” I said looking at my watch. “I’m in LA. My family’s doing dinner tonight.”
She spoke to someone in the background, but I couldn’t make it out. To me, she said, “If I can get you on someone’s plane who’s scheduled to leave in an hour, could you do family dinner another night? With the tour about to start, I really need you to be visible andeveryonewill be there tonight. You’re already confirmed.”
I sat down heavily, torn between what I wanted to do and professional obligation. I’d spent the last few weeks with my mom, helping her after she injured her shoulder, so it wouldn’t be that big a deal for me to miss dinner, but the three of us brothers so rarely managed to align our schedules at the same time to actually have dinner like normal people.
I craved that normalcy for a night before going on the road. But too many people were counting on me to make sure the tour was a success. We needed to prove we still had it.
“Let me call my brother and call you right back,” I said, resigned.
He didn’t answer, so I started throwing the stuff I needed in a backpack. I had an apartment there, so I didn’t need to pack much. Gabriella would probably have someone meet me at the airport with my tux.
Alex called me back and I got right to the point.
“Hey, man, I’m gonna have to miss dinner tonight, but I can send a driver to take Mom and Ryan to your place. I forgot the gala thing is this week and I need to catch a flight to the East Coast.”
He sighed, “You’re serious? I need you here. I just convinced Elena to come meet Mom and you said you’d be there to make sure it doesn’t go off the rails.”
Guilt consumed me. I’d fucked this one up and was going to be letting people down either way.
“You’ll be fine,” I said lightly. “Your girl looks like she can handle herself. I’m sure she’ll have no trouble charming Mom.”
“You know that’s not what I’m worried about,” he said, sounding frustrated.
He was technically in a contract relationship with a dominatrix, but our mom thought it was real, so they were having to convince her. From what I could tell, it wasn’t as fake as he wanted us to believe anyway.
“You’re seriously going to bail on family time for some bullshit dog and pony show?” he said.
Now I was annoyed. “As though you don’t perform in that show every time you’re promoting a new movie? Come on, Alex. You know how this shit works.”
He sighed. “I know. It just seems insane to fly last minute for it when you’re already here. I need tonight to go well. Maia will be here to handle the food and Ryan and Rami are coming, but neither of them are going to be suave enough to steer things right if it starts to go to hell in a hand basket. Come on, man. I never ask you for anything.”
I froze the moment he dropped Maia’s name, only half listening to the rest of it. I knew she worked for him. Hell, I’d been the one who put the idea in his head when I heard through the grapevine she was looking to take on private clients.
I lied to myself and said I was just trying to be the bigger person by doing her a favor, but the truth was that I thought it would give me a chance to see her. How much of my adult life had been spent pining after her, just hoping she’d fucking notice me?
Could that be at the core of most of my issues? Maybe if I stopped pussyfooting around and just talked to her, I’d be able to move the fuck on with my life.
She’d never been at Alex’s place when I was, which admittedly wasn’t as often as I would’ve liked. I’d eaten her food on a few occasions, but she was like a ghost who cooked and vanished before I got there. I wasn’t self-centered enough to think it was on purpose. There was no way she could’ve known when I was going to be there.
But she’d be there tonight.
