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“Nobody’s thinking about the world right now, Oliver. I’m talking about your world. This is the comeback album for you and your soul.” He clapped his hands together. “So what about Emery? Did you figure out how you’re getting her back?”
I grimaced, because I wished it was that easy. I wished I could just play her a few songs, and everything would fall back into place. But I knew better than to give myself that false hope. Emery had too much to lose in order to keep me. I wouldn’t get in her way.
“I can’t have her back, Tyler. She can’t be in my life.”
“Wrong.” He clasped his hands behind his head and gave me a smirk as if he knew something that I didn’t. “I saw you with her, Oliver. I saw how she was with you. It’s not that she made you better . . . you made her better too. You’re stronger when you both are together. So, now’s not the time to respect her wishes, because these aren’t her true wishes. Now’s the time to fight for her. To fight for each other. We only get this one shot at life. Please don’t stop fighting for Emery’s love.”
“What do I do?”
“Don’t play dumb, Oliver. I think you already know, and you’re just too much of a little bitch to do it. So go ahead. Just do what you think needs to be done.”
I hated him, because he was right. I knew what I had to do, but I also knew I would be crossing some lines.
But for Emery and Reese?
I’d cross every border, if it meant I could keep them in my life.
“Thanks, Tyler.”
“Yup. Always here,” he said, repeating the words my parents often said to me. “Alex would love this, you know,” he said, waving toward the soundboard at the tracks I’d played for him. “This is what he wanted from you all along. To go back to the basics. Now, figure out a way to let those two girls hear this too. Don’t let your music die in the studio.”
After speaking to Tyler, I knew I had to do something for Emery, even from a distance. So I went to the last person I wanted to see in order to try to protect Emery from losing Reese.
“I’m surprised you called,” Cam stated as we sat down at a table outside a restaurant. I wanted to meet in private, but of course, Cam wanted to go somewhere public. Probably for the opportunity of the paparazzi to get their photographs of us together. “Now, what do you want, Oliver?”
“We need to talk.”
“Oh, now you want to talk? You sure didn’t when you broke up with me for your bullshit reasons.”
“They weren’t bullshit, Cam. We both knew that we weren’t compatible.”
“Yeah, but I was sticking it out because I saw the opportunities that could’ve come from being with you. You could’ve really helped my career.”
“Don’t you see why that’s a shitty reason to stay in a relationship?”
She rolled her eyes. “What exactly do you want, Oliver? If you’re here to just waste my time, congratulations. I’m already bored.”
I clasped my hands together and placed them on the table. “I need you to tell the truth to the news outlets about our relationship. I need you to tell them that I wasn’t the monster you made me out to be.”
She huffed. “Yeah fucking right. You think I’m an idiot? That would make me look insane in the public eye.”
“Don’t you care about how you made me look?”
She laughed. No shit, she actually laughed. I couldn’t for the life of me believe that I’d been so low in my past that I’d settled for someone as cruel as her.
“I couldn’t care less about how it makes you look. Haven’t you seen? Ever since those interviews, my career has taken off. I’ve had the number one single for the past three weeks. Not to mention, I’ve been on almost every magazine cover.”
“You’ve also ruined my life.”
She smirked and shrugged. “That’s show business, baby. We’re in the entertainment industry, Oliver. This is what we do. We tell the world a story. The story I’m telling is that I’m the country sweetheart, and you’re the dark, damaged musician who lost his way.”
“You don’t feel remorse for doing that to me?”
“Not a lick. The truth is, the only reason I stuck around with you was because of the payoff I was supposed to get. The fame and celebrity-couple status.”
And there it was.
Cam’s true colors.
“What you’ve done is affecting other people’s lives, though, Cam. In a very serious way. I don’t care about me anymore. You’re hurting people that I love.”
“Like who? It’s not like you have anyone in your life that actually cares for you, except for your pathetic parents. Is it Tyler? Kelly? Whose life?”
