AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He shrugged. “Maybe so.”
With a grunt, I shut his bedroom door and wandered out to the living room of the apartment the record label let me crash in whenever I wasn’t touring, which wasn’t often. I’d bought a place out in LA a year or two ago, but only laid my head there a handful of times a year. It was too big and too damn quiet. My thoughts echoed off the marble floors and vaulted ceilings. Nobody wanted that.
I hadn’t seen Jin in a while. Probably months. We were both busy, moving in opposite directions, but I’d asked him to come up to New York for the weekend anyway. I hadn’t expected him to accept, but I’d been more than a little pleased when he did.
The thing was, I wanted it to feel like old times between us, but it wasn’t happening. He’d smoke a joint now and then, but he’d mostly given up the entire lifestyle I was pretty well ensconced in. And he didn’t say it, but I could tell he looked down on me. I was at the top of my game musically, and he was in fucking grad school, buthelooked down onme.
At the end of the hour, I pounded on Jin’s door. “Car’s outside. Let’s go grab some food.”
We were meeting up with Jeremy and Seven at the club, so just Jin and I stopped at a little hole in the wall pizza joint. The walls were covered in Sharpie graffiti and the tables always seemed to be sticky, but the pizza was the best I’d ever had.
Jin folded his piece in half and took a bite, groaning as the flavors hit his tongue.
I nodded, grinning at him. “Right? I’ve been all over the world, and nothing has even come close to topping this place.”
He glanced around at the grimy windows and rundown booths. “How’d you find it?”
Some of my smile drooped. “Tali. She brought me here when we were recording the first album.”
“And you never shared it?”
“Nope. I saw the three of you way too much back then. Had to keep something for myself.” My knee bounced, fingers tapping the table. “You ready to hit it?”
He frowned at me, then at his half-eaten piece of pizza. “Chill. The club’s going to be there when we get there.” He jerked his chin toward my plate. “Eat your damn food, Jude. You’re like a skeleton. And not a cute one like Casper.”
“Casper’s a ghost, man.”
He laughed. “Just making sure you’re paying attention.”
I shouldn’t have done a line before leaving the apartment, but that wasn’t anything new. Getting high at inappropriate times. Becoming agitated when I couldn’t. I knew it was a problem. I was facing down thirty and wondered if it was time I finally did something about it.
I’d tried rehab two years ago. And failed. My heart hadn’t been in it. Hell, most days, I wasn’t sure I still had a heart. If I did, it was madly in love with cocaine, and their love affair was abusive as hell. Coke lied and cheated and beat my heart black and blue.
Finally, Jin finished his food and we headed over to the club. It had been rented out by a record label—Shine Records. They weren’t my label, but I had friends there. Knew a couple bands and a few producers.
Tali worked there.
I found that out last week. I’d been in a meeting, discussing a possible collab with another artist. My presence hadn’t really been necessary, so I tuned out the discussion, glazed eyes staring out the glass walls of the conference room, wondering what kind of people worked in the bank of cubicles beyond.
Just as I lost interest and started to turn away, I saw her. Tali Stripes DiPietro, standing at a cubicle, talking to some asshole.
No, I didn’t know him, but he was talking to my girl, so he was automatically an asshole.
Except she wasn’t my girl. It had been five years since I’d had the privilege of calling her that. Five years, and it could’ve been yesterday from the sharp pain in my chest.
The meeting wasn’t over, but I got up and walked out anyway. My feet carried me closer to her without any conscious thought. That pain in my chest, it was the connection between us. It’d been hacked to shit, but it was still there.
Like a creepy stalker, I lurked in the shadows, watching. Tali’s voice filtered above the general din of the office, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying.
She looked serious. Her long hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail. Black motorcycle boots on her feet, loose floral dress on her body, moto leather jacket on top. She used her phone to tap something out before speaking to the asshole again.
As he responded to her, her eyes darted up, finding mine. My chest nearly burst from the flooding of emotion her gaze unleashed. Sadness and regret poured from the cracks in my walls, longing and desire spilling over the top. Anger trickled through microscopic holes in my facade.
Her hand flew to her throat. She didn’t smile, but she didn’t turn away either.
“Hey, Tali,” I mouthed.
I waited for her to respond the way she always had, but it never came. Instead, I got a subtle shake of her head before she walked away like the ground had turned to lava and her feet were on fire.
