She put her hands on her head. “Could he type responses so they can at least get pictures of him?”
I let out an exasperated breath, beginning to understand why Zane felt like he couldn’t prioritize himself. “Which would be worse? Him cancelling the appearances he has today or cancelling the show tonight?”
That finally shut her up. “I’ll see if I can push them back a few days.”
“No. Absolutely not,” I said. She was just going to compress the rest of his schedule and make this worse. “If it’s just an interview, offer them Kelly.”
“They don’t want Kelly.” She looked over her shoulder at the drummer in question and shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, babe. Nothing personal. It’s just…he’s the lead singer, the charismatic one.”
I didn’t give a fuck. “Figure it out if you want Zane to be able to perform.”
I didn’t wait for her response to rush back to Zane.
He was dressed and tying his shoes when I got into the bedroom, so I tried to push him back down onto the bed.
“An hour. Rest for a goddamn hour, baby. You just put your body through a lot and you need to perform tonight.”
Someone knocked on the suite door and I swore if it was Gabriella I was going to pull her extensions out.
Zane lifted me off him and let an older dark-haired man with medium brown skin into the room.
“Gabby mentioned trouble with your voice?” he said, pulling some medical tools out of a leather bag.
“My voice is fine, doc. It’s my head that’s a mess,” Zane said.
The doctor looked at me and hesitated.
Zane said, “You can speak freely in front of Maia. She’s an old friend.”
He nodded. “Did you bring the medications I prescribed? I’m sure we can find one that works for you, but we won’t know until you commit to trying.”
Zane paced. “The first one I tried made it worse. I can’t afford to be worse right now.”
I had to dig my fingernails into my palms to keep from speaking up. This wasn’t my place. I didn’t have any right to interfere in Zane’s life, but this was madness.
The doctor checked him over and left three more prescriptions for him.
“This promo schedule is ridiculous. Gabby needs to be more reasonable,” I said, unable to stay quiet once the doctor left.
“She’s just doing her job,” Zane said.
“Her job is to get you as much coverage as possible with no thought to your well-being.”
He reached for me, looking vulnerable and raw. I wanted to comfort him, but he already had too many people in his life telling him what he wanted to hear instead of standing up for him.
“It’s better when you’re here,” he said, pulling me close.
I asked the question he didn’t want to hear. “What are you going to do when I leave?”
Zane
* * *
An houror so after my panic attack, I felt ready to handle the rest of the interviews that were on the schedule for the day.
The doc had given me something to help with the immediate aftermath, and I felt significantly better. I was always nervous about taking anything to mellow me out in case it impacted my performance, but if it would get me onstage tonight, I was willing to risk it.
“This is fucked,” Maia said, having made her displeasure known already. “There’s no shame in anxiety or panic attacks or taking medication for either. But medicating without addressing the obvious and extreme cause is never really going to solve it. Anyone would buckle under the pressure of your schedule over years. You can’t keep living like this, Zane.”
