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“We’re signing with Hellfire!” She screams at the top of her lungs as my own deflate, throwing her hands up in the air and then jumping off the top of the bar to jump up and down. “We’re fucking signing with a label, Spence! The meeting was the other day, after our show. I was hoping we would be able to announce it at tonight’s show, but it still hasn’t gone through the legal team yet. We’re already talking about touring and records and everything else that big ass bands do!”
I jump off the bar and take her in my arms, plastering a fake smile on my face.
It isn’t totally fake. It’s just so fucking far from good news for me that my chest aches with complete and total misery. God, I want to be happy for her. But this changes every fucking thing. She pulls away from me, and I kiss the top of her head to hide my face from her. The light in her eyes when she told me was enough to suffocate me. She’s so fucking happy. She’s going to be living her dream, the dream I always knew she could reach if she just kept on going.
The dream I fucking encouraged her to go after because I knew how badly she wanted this.
There’s no chance I can tell her. No chance I can ruin this moment or all of the insane changes that are about to happen for her and the guys.
A nagging thought swells in my mind as I try to push it out.
Everything I’ve done is for nothing.
Once she’s calmed down and I’ve congratulated her, I grab two shot glasses from behind the bar so we can cheers. I already know what I have to do, even if I know it’ll kill me in the end. Once I do this, I won’t be able to second-guess myself or change my mind.
“It’s not nearly as exciting as your news, but I have some news of my own.”
I bite down the vomit threatening to come up my throat. I wasn’t going to take the internship. But if I don’t, I’ll just convince myself to tell Declan how I feel. I’ll ruin this for her with my own fucked-up feelings that I shouldn’t ever have had in the first place. This is for the best.
“You know that internship with the nature magazine?” I ask her and she nods, a smile spreading across her face as she takes the whiskey I poured her. “I got it.” I force a smile with the words, and her hands cover her mouth in shock.
“We’re both going to be living our dream lives! I’ll be making music, and you’ll be taking photos. Talk about a freaking one-eighty from a few weeks ago, huh?”
She doesn’t realize just how true those words are.
* * *
Declan’s made it to my parents’ house, and we’re eating dinner. It was an afterthought to invite Declan, but she and my mom used to be super close. I know they haven’t seen each other in a while, and I thought it would be nice for them to get back together. Noelle’s comment earlier came after I had already invited Dec, and I probably wouldn’t have if she had said it sooner. I don’t need things getting weird between Declan and me before we can even reconnect again.
She and I never crossed any lines, especially not after she started dating Kade. There were times—even when we were dating other people—that I could have sworn I saw a look of something in her eyes. A quick flash of lust, a hunger that matched my own. But I’m pretty sure it was nothing more than my imagination getting the best of me.
The first few minutes after Declan arrived were filled with Noelle, Mom, and Dad fawning all over Declan like they thought they’d never see her again, and their behavior was one hundred percent reciprocated. Declan’s always had a soft spot for my family.
“Declan, babe, can you pass the corn?” Mom asks. Declan, Mom, Dad, Noelle, and I all sit around the same rectangular wooden dinner table that we used to sit at back in high school. I look over at Declan as she scoops corn onto her plate, then passes it to my mom, smiling. She’s got one of my favorite smiles in the universe. The kind that just makes you feel like everything is going to be all right. The kind of smile that makes men fall in love with her and women jealous.
Her smile was one of the first things Mom noticed about her, too. After she started smiling, that is. I brought her home with me the first day I met her. We were just kids, fourteen years old with nothing better to do than sit around listening to old vinyl and playing music together. That was one of the things that first bonded us—her playing bass and me writing lyrics. I was a stupid teenage boy, and my lyrics were incredibly tragic, but Declan never made fun of them.
Mom saw Declan’s scars—literal scars that lined her arms—the first day she came over. I think she felt the gravitational pull toward her, too. We just wanted to be there for her. We didn’t know we’d all fall in love with her.
“Sweethearts, your dad and I got some news today.” Mom looks between Noelle and me, ripping me from my nostalgia, then sets her sights on Declan. “We don’t know how to tell you guys this, but we figure we’d better just come out with it.”
I look over at Declan, who sets her fork down before nervously tucking her dark hair behind her ears.
“Mom, honestly. What?” Noelle says, pushing her plate away. Her signature green Reid stare grows dark and worried. “Which one of you is sick?”
Seems my baby sister and I are on the same wavelength.
“No one is sick, sweetie. We just aren’t sure how to say this without upsetting Declan.”
Upsetting Declan?
Dad interjects, placing his hand over Mom’s on the table. “Kade is in a moving truck driving home from Minnesota right now.” He lets out an audible breath of air, as if he’d been holding it in since we all sat down for dinner. My chest constricts even further because, yeah, it’s great that no one has cancer, but fuck. Kade. Declan is definitely not his biggest fan. Not after he broke her heart when she and I were seniors in high school. Her eyes dart from my parents down to her dinner plate as she visibly swallows the lump forming in her throat.
The room falls silent at my dad’s words, and Declan goes from her usual shade of bronzed perfection to at least three shades lighter. Her eyes find mine, her gaze searching mine like she wants to know if I knew, but I didn’t. I would have told her.
“He just called us from the road a few hours ago,” Mom says. “I’m just as surprised as all of you.” Her blonde pixie cut stays in perfect place as she shakes her head, her hoop earrings swaying.
“I’m fine, you guys.” Declan resumes eating, looking down at her plate and stabbing a bite of her meatloaf with her fork a little too hard for me to believe she’s okay. “That was a long time ago. What has it been, like five years since all that went down? I’m good. I promise.”
