Then he walked out of the room, not even slamming the door behind him, which somehow made it even worse.
Trevor couldn’t move for a second, his heart in his throat, choking him.
Then he marched over to the vanity mirror on the wall and punched his fist into it. Shards of glass sprayed everywhere, and blood began to drip down his knuckles.
“FUCK!”
It took everything in him not to punch it again.
Wrapping his bandaged handaround the microphone hurt. Trevor tried to hide each wince, but while the audience may not have been close enough to notice, his bandmates were.
Oli had already seen the bandage before they went onstage, and Trevor had mumbled a brief explanation, hoping he didn’t sound like too much of a psycho as he admitted to putting his fist through glass. It didn’t take long for Noah to spot it out here. When he did, he gave Trevor a concerned eyebrow raise, which, from Noah, basically equaled a hug. When Jermaine noticed during a musical interlude, he mouthed, “Are you okay?” and Trevor nodded, because physically he was.
As the show went on, even the guys in their backing band were shooting him glances.
The only one who hadn’t noticed yet was Skyler, since he was pointedly avoiding looking in Trevor’s direction. Which made it more difficult for Trevorto let go of his anger.Hewasn’t the one who’d issued an ultimatum and walked out.
Also, he wouldn’t say Skyler was drunk, but from the way he’d stumbled a couple times, Trevor could guess he’d taken a few shots in between their fight and coming onstage.
When Skyler finally did look at him, his eyes fell to Trevor’s injured hand and then went wide as he accidentally let out an audible squawk into his microphone.
Skyler kept trying to get closer to him after that, shooting him pained looks, worrying at his lip with his teeth. And it was when Skyler sang the chorus of one of the songs they’d written together directly to Trevor, his eyes starting to water, that Trevor’s anger crumbled.
As they finished their final song and rushed offstage, Trevor spotted Skyler making his way toward him, but Noah got to Trevor first. He yanked Trevor by the elbow, pulling him a little way down the corridor before stopping and fixing him with a very serious look.
“You two need to get your shit together.”
Trevor bristled at that. Not what he was expecting. And he’d had enough of being yelled at in these freaking corridors. “Excuse me?”
Noah glanced at his bandaged hand and frowned, eyes softening a bit. “Look. I know you’ve been going through a lot. I know you both have. But we can’t keep giving strained interviews, and we can’t have the two of you either glaring at each other onstage or making wounded puppy eyes.”
“We’re not—” he started to say, but snapped his mouth shut when Noah held up a hand to show he wasn’t finished.
“We can’t have Skyler drunk onstage, and we can’t have anyone injuring themselves. We’re all trying to be supportive and help you guys out however we can, but the drama between the two of you is starting to get in the way of performances. You need to figure it out.”
Oh, hell.
Trevor leaned back against the wall, carelessly smacking his head into it, so now his head throbbed along with his hand.
Maggie had spent years suggesting that he and Skyler’s relationship could negatively affect the band, so he’d done whatever she’d asked of him in orderto avoid that. Now despite his efforts, his bandmate—hisfriend—was telling him that it was affecting them anyway.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I didn’t realize—I mean, I know with his drinking… But I didn’t know you guys felt this way.”
Had Noah, Oli, and Jermaine been discussing his imploding relationship behind his back?
Noah sighed and told him, “Ask for help if you need it. Tell us what we can do. But mostly, I think you guys need to really work things out between you. None of us can help you with that.”
“Right.” Trevor nodded dumbly. “You’re right, yeah. We will.”
“For what it’s worth, Iamrooting for you two.”
He glanced up in surprise. But before he could thank Noah, Skyler found them and proceeded to fuss over Trevor like a mama bear, aggressively trying to grab his bandaged hand and then pulling back abruptly like he was afraid to hurt him.
“What happened? Are you okay? Babe, what can I do?” he babbled. “Here, let me take a look, we need to find a first aid kit.”
“Breathe, Sky,” Noah interjected. “He’s not dying.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Trevor agreed.
