It wasn’t her fault. At all.
“I can’t believe I did that.” Tears flooded my eyes again.Holy shit.I was not fit for public consumption today.
I should’ve just stayed in bed.
Maybe if I’d done that, this whole terrible day would’ve just passed me by. I’d wake up tomorrow and none of it would’ve happened.
But I knew, no matter what I did tonight, when I woke up tomorrow morning, Flynn would not be mine.
He’d never be mine again.
“I’m so sorry,” I gushed, as Courteney and Larissa mobilized to help Merritt pick up the mess and Shayla wrapped an arm around me. Our eyes met.
“You will be okay,” she asserted.
“I know.” I didn’t, but I forced the words out.
“We’ll get another round,” she said solemnly.
I laughed.
When Merritt came back with another tray full of drinks, I was careful not to knock it out of her hands. Clearly, I didn’t have much of a future slinging cocktails. At least that was settled. I could tackle the rest of my unemployment dilemma tomorrow.
Until then… I drank the night away with my girls.
I told myself that maybe if I went home late enough and drunk enough, I wouldn’t have to run into Flynn or think about him at all. I’d just see the closed door of his man cave and know he was where he wanted to be—alone.
And I could just cry myself quietly to sleep in my couch nest.
But as it turned out, that plan, like the rest of my life today, went to shit.
ChapterFour
Johnny
The sky was a deep blue-black as I drove south from my house in Kitsilano toward Noah’s house in Dunbar-Southlands. My drummer and one of my best friends, Noah Vaughan was currently in L.A. but I’d spoken with him on the phone this afternoon. Over FaceTime, he’d straight-up told meI’m staying with Breakneck. If JC wants to leave, that’s his choice.
Unfortunately, not everyone was so clear on where they stood.
My bassist, Miles, who was at home in Toronto, told me over the phone that he was waiting on updates “from everyone” to “see how things pan out.” Because he was a pussy like that.
After the little intervention or whatever the fuck that was in Trey’s office, I’d stopped into Dane’s office to use one of his boardrooms to make some calls. To my bandmates. To my lawyer. To my dad, who was the only one I went to, besides Yash, for business advice.
Talk to him,my dad advised me.You’re business partners and friends. There’s nothing between you that you can’t work out.It was a nice vote of confidence, even if my dad didn’t know half the shit that had gone down between JC and me over the years.
After making those calls, I had a late lunch downtown with Lamar and my friend, Shane; Dane was too busy with work to join us. Then Lamar and I headed home, where I paced the fuck around while I tried to reach JC. He was the only one of my band members who didn’t answer my calls all day. But when I was leaving Trey’s office building—and I told Yash never to fucking blindside me like that again—Yash basically told me that if I could stop JC from walking out, this was fixable.
We can salvage this,Yash said.What he meant was:You can salvage this.
Because sometimes, Yash was a fucking pussy, too.
He also told me that Trey Jones was more concerned than he was letting on.Without JC,he said,we lose the voice of Breakneck. We lose that trademark sound.
Are those Trey’s words,I asked him, point blank,or are they yours?
Both,he told me.We all know the songs don’t sound the same without him. Look at every established band who’s ever tried to replace their lead singer. How many have stayed successful? And how many have endured criticism for the rest of their careers because ‘he doesn’t sing like that other guy.’
And fuck him, but he was right.
