AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes. Give me a minute.” Faith got up and disappeared from view. But not for long. She sat back down and waved a document at him.
“Can you remind me what exactly it says about Blacklight members’ rights? And about the secret slot?” His memory of those couple of days was hazy. Raw fury apparently stopped him remembering.
Faith shrugged, flipped a few pages, and then looked down, reading intently for thirty seconds or so. “It says the Blacklight guys have a right to any slot they want. It doesn’t actually talk about the secret slot directly. Grey started that as a one-off thing and it became a tradition. I don’t think it ever got added into the trust agreement. Why?”
“And Harper Inc. controls the scheduling—the guys don’t have any veto power on that?”
“No. We’re currently appointed by the trust to do the administration. I guess the three of them could vote to change that but they can’t pull any extra strings as things stand.”
He didn’t think that was likely to happen. He’d had an e-mail from Danny telling him that he thought Billy was being a world-class shit. And Shane would probably side with Danny over Billy if push ever came to shove.
Faith was looking curious now. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I was wondering if there was any way you could squeeze in another secret gig. I mean, Billy gets the traditional spot for the secret gig, before the closing act, fine. But there’s nothing to stop you giving me a surprise slot as well, is there?” Two secret acts at CloudFest would generate some buzz for him. He could get the CloudFest social media machine behind him. Get them to drop a few hints that there might be some extra surprises this year. After that, if he was good enough on the day, the buzz might take care of itself. And if it didn’t, well, screw Jay, screw the record companies. He wanted Leah. He’d figure the rest out.
Faith’s eyes widened. “No-o-o,” she said. Then she began to smile. “No, there isn’t.” She paused for a moment, frowning as though she was trying to figure something out in her head. “I think I could make it work. If you came back, that is.” Then her head tilted. “Is your stuff with Davis ready, though?
He didn’t care about Davis. Not anymore. Maybe he never had. He’d made a bad choice. But he was going to fix it. “No, but the stuff I did with Leah is. I can keep the arrangements simple, that’s how they’re built. Come home. Fix things.”
Faith’s squee of approval almost deafened him. But it also gave him a shred of hope that his plan wasn’t crazy. It sounded easy on the face of it. Come home, perform. Launch his music the way he wanted it to be. Win back his girl. It sounded easy, but it would be complicated. Leah might not forgive him. But as he thought about it, he suddenly knew that complicated with Leah was better than simple alone.
“You feel like this every year,” Leah muttered to herself as she lay in the middle of her living room and watched the ceiling fan spinning lazily above her. She was so tired she’d gone beyond aching body parts into a phase where her body didn’t feel entirely real any more. She’d thrown herself into CloudFest preparation with a vengeance—needing the distraction—and whenever she’d found a spare minute from that, she’d been working on her L.A. plans and cleaning out her house. Every part of her ached. And in about twenty minutes she needed to pull herself up off the floor, and put on a pretty dress, and go and make nice at Faith’s CloudFest Eve party like she wasn’t exhausted and brokenhearted.
She needed a shower, about two gallons of coffee, and then a margarita or three. At least at the party, she could hang with Ivy and Mina and Will and her other friends. Who all knew how she was feeling and wouldn’t mind if she wasn’t totally the life of the party.
But until she had to move, she was going to lie here, watch the ceiling fan, and try not to think. It was a skill she’d been working hard to perfect since Zach had left. Sometimes it even worked. Sometimes, for a moment, she forgot exactly how many days and hours and minutes it was since he’d left her behind. Sometimes, for a moment, her hands didn’t itch to pick up the phone and call him or beg Faith to tell her where exactly he was so she could run to the nearest airport and buy a ticket and go there.
And each of those moments that she managed not to think about that gave her a little bit of hope that she could make it to the next moment. That there would be more moments. Longer moments. That she wouldn’t always feel this crappy.
“See the ceiling fan. Be the ceiling fan.” She wasn’t exactly sure if watching the spinning blade was soothing or making her vaguely queasy. She closed her eyes. Maybe she could nap instead.
A power nap. That was a thing that people did. Normal people. Not the kind of people who’d let themselves fall for Zach Harper all over again. Maybe if she napped, she could be normal too.
But just as she was wrestling with the idea that, if she was going to nap, she needed to tell her phone to set an alarm, someone knocked on her front door.
Her eyes flew open. “Dammit.” She kept her voice down. Maybe whoever it was wouldn’t hear her. Maybe they’d go away. The knock came again.
Whoever it was, it had better be good. She got up with an effort and walked to the door, trying to summon a polite expression. When she opened the door and saw Zach standing there, her attempt at a smile vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by sheer blinding panic.
She shut the door instinctively, trying to think through the sudden deafening roar of blood in her ears. Zach was here. Why the hell was Zach here?
“Leah?” Zach called through the door.
She opened it again. “What do you want?” She tried to sound angry rather than shocked. She wasn’t sure how well she was pulling it off when all she could do was stare at him, taking in every last detail. His clothes were rumpled and he needed a shave. The dark circles under his eyes matched her own. And she wanted to throw her arms around him and never let him go.
She stayed where she was. She couldn’t wreck herself a third time.
“You’re mad,” he said.
“No shit.”
“I should have brought doughnuts.”
He was trying to charm her. She wasn’t going to let him. “There are not enough doughnuts in the world, Zachary.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” He spread his hands. “You may have noticed I tend to fall back on charm and baked goods when I’m nervous.”
“I find myself immune to your charms. And we already covered the baked goods.” She stopped. Played back his sentence in her head. “Wait. Why are you nervous?”
