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I smile to myself, absolutely elated that Van and I decided to go through with our worst idea ever.
Chapter 11
Van
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
How am I going to break the news to Rhys that I’m sleeping with Alyssa now? It’s obvious that he has some real feelings for her, no matter how misguided they are. Honestly, I’m not even sure heknowshow to have feelings for a woman, but even so, I still don’t want to be the asshole that causes him to leave the band for good. As much of a wingnut Rhys might be at times, he’s still a fucking star, and we need him.
If there’s a way that everyone can just be adults about this, everything can keep going along. It’s not like we’d be the first band in history to have romantic inclinations bleed into the behind-the-scenes lives of its members, and it’s not like Rhys and Alyssa were engaged or something before we slept together.
Really, the way I figure it, Rhys simply has a little crush on Alyssa and nothing more. The only reason he’s pursuing her so much is because she’s the one woman who’s no longer responding to his advances. If she were to return his affections, he would chalk it up as a win and move on.
Or maybe that’s just what I need to keep telling myself so that I don’t feel like there’s a big storm waiting for us right around the corner.
* * *
“…Are you okay?”Alyssa whispers from her place right beside me. We’ve just sat down in a quiet corner of the hotel’s rooftop, an exclusive section mostly reserved for people willing to shell out a few thousand dollars for the opportunity to get a view of the San Francisco skyline.
Before this, we picked up a dinner to-go from the hotel lobby, courtesy of the symposium staff. Worried about running into Rhys again, I convinced Alyssa to come up to the rooftop with me for a private meal, hoping that she wouldn’t be able to read between the lines of the impromptu invitation.
“You’ve been quiet most of the night,” she whispers again, her eyes trained on mine. “…You’re not like…you don’t regret what we did earlier, do you?”
“No,” I quickly respond. “No, princess. I don’t regret anything we did. Not even a moment of it.”
“Then what’s wrong, Van?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I start, before letting out a loud sigh. “It’s just…Rhys.”
“What about him?” she presses.
“I don’t know what’s going through his mind,” I admit. “Earlier I spoke to him at the songwriting session…and he was so pissed off over you. He thought that we were already hooking up, and it was like…there was just this dragon fire behind his eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him get that way over a girl before, Alyssa. And I guess I’m just worried about how he might respond.”
“How he might respond?” she repeats. “What do you mean? Like, do you think he’ll try to beat you up or something?”
I chuckle at her assumption. “No, nothing violent, nothing like that. I’m way more worried about him doing something drastic like…quitting the band in protest.”
“You think he might quit the band?” Alyssa frowns. “Really? But we’re just starting to do so well. Concerts are great, and we’re getting an album together. There’s too much at stake for us. Besides, you guys have been together for years—”
“And for all of those years, Rhys always got his way,” I explain. “He’s not used to someone else getting the girl, or even the possibility that a woman would choose someone like me over someone like him.”
“That’s kind of funny,” Alyssa muses. “You’re talking like you’re both on opposite ends of some spectrum.”
“You don’t think we are?”
“Not. At. All.” Alyssa chuckles. “I think all of you are just three different dimensions of the same circle or something. You belong together. You make sense together. And I can’t imagine how shitty our band would be if a single one of you split off from the other ones. The circle would collapse.”
“Well, if we’re three different dimensions of the same circle orsomething,” I reply, “I think that makes you the…fourth dimension? I don’t know. I don’t know if that even makes sense.” I smile over at her before I go on. “But you really are the missing piece, Alyssa Smith. I don’t think we would’ve ever gotten out of the studio if it weren’t for you. We sure as hell would’ve never been working on putting together a debut album.”
“I think you guys would’ve gotten around to it, eventually.” She beams at me in return. “Or maybe not. You definitely have the talent for it. I just don’t know if Rhys would’ve ever made it to enough recording sessions on time to actually finish all the songs for a full album.”
We share a conspiratorial laugh as Alyssa takes a small sip of the red wine in her glass. The color of the wine seems to match the color of her burgundy cocktail dress and toenail polish perfectly, her strappy high heels scattered a few floor tiles from us. She’d practically pulled the heels off as soon as we’d made it to the rooftop, her frustration with the footwear palpable from the moment she’d slipped the heels on in the hotel room. She looks great in them, but the girl belongs in sneakers.
A few moments later and I open my mouth to add something else to the conversation, wanting to throw out a flirty line about peeling Alyssa out of her cocktail dress when we go back to the room tonight, but I’m soon interrupted by a sudden sound from somewhere right behind me, like someone just stumbled onto the rooftop.
I turn my head to see where the noise is coming from, and my eyes go wide with surprise when I spot Rhys on the rooftop too, an acoustic guitar gripped in his hands. His attention is fully on Alyssa, and I let out an annoyed groan, an embarrassed knot in my stomach already forming on Rhys’s behalf.
