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“Is everything okay?”
“Shit,”he grumbles, rubbing his hands over his furrowed brow. “Fuck. How long have you been out here?”
“About an hour.”
“Jesus, Brinley.”
“It’s alright. It doesn’t matter. What happened? Is everything okay?”
“No. Nothing’s okay,” he says, walking toward me. He’s changed out of his stage clothes, and now he’s wearing a pair of slouchy gray sweatpants, a white hoodie, and a black beanie on his head. “I’m sorry, I… uh, things got crazy after the show, and I… I’m in a shitty mood now, and fuck… I’m so sorry I left you standing out here all by yourself.”
“It’s alright.” I shrug. “We can do dinner some other time.”
He scratches his chin, staring at the ground for a few seconds. And then he tears the beanie from his head and wrings it between his hands. “The whole thing is just a fucking train wreck, Brin, and it’s all my fault.”
God, he looks so conflicted, so mad, at whom I’m not entirely sure. “What do you mean?”
Reed squats down on his haunches, right there in the middle of the deserted parking lot, balancing on the balls of his feet. He drops the beanie onto the concrete while his fingers work back and forth through his damp hair. I assume it’s damp from taking a shower after the show, but who the hell knows.
I give him the time he needs to work through whatever it is that’s going on inside his head. He sighs and closes his eyes, and I can tell he’s in pain, or maybe he’s just so furious he looks like he’s in pain.
After a few deep breaths, he eventually stands up again and looks at me, and his blue eyes are turbulent with emotion. “You know I went to bail Kael out the other night…” He hesitates, looking unsure of himself. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen such uncertainty in his usual confident demeanor, and it makes my skin prickle with anxiety. “When I got there, he was still drunk, and he’d been in a bar fight, and he was in a fucking mood, and then…”
“And then what?”
“And then he said some stuff that got under my skin, and I took a swing at him.”
“You hit Kael?”
“Yeah,” he scoffs, shaking his head. “I almost broke his jaw. Thank fuck I didn’t though, or tonight would have been totally screwed. Anyway, some guy from a newspaper must have gotten a tip-off, and they got a video of the whole fucking thing. Nick just got word of it being leaked to the press, and apparently, it’s going live tomorrow on one of those entertainment programs.”
“Oh, no! I’m so sorry, Reed,” I tell him, reaching my hand over to touch his cheek. He leans his head into my hand and contemplates me for a moment. “What does this mean for the tour?”
Reed takes my hand in his, pressing a soft kiss to my palm. “The record label is losing their shit completely over this. They’ve been warning us for months now to stay out of trouble and concentrate on the music. Nick just gave the pair of us a spray like he never has before. I’ve never seen him so angry.”
“God,”I mutter under my breath.
“He’s ordered us all to lie low for a few weeks. He doesn’t want our faces in the news, and he’s forbidden us to make any comment to the media about the altercation. That’s what he’s calling it… analtercation. Jesus Christ! He’s canceled rehearsals until further notice. Quinn and Jaxon are livid. This affects all of us, so I don’t blame them. Nick said he wants us to make ourselves scarce, stay out of the public eye. He even suggested we get out of town for a while. Can you believe that?” He throws his hands up in the air in frustration. “Out of town? Yeah right. I don’t know where the fuck he expects us to go.”
I stare at him for a long time, trying to wrap my head around the situation. Trying to wrap my head aroundhim. This might just be the craziest thing I’ve ever done, and I might live to regret it, but I’d rather regret something I did, rather than something I didn’t do.
“I might have an answer to your problem,” I say softly.
“Oh yeah?”
I smile, nodding. “Yeah, pack your bags. We’re going on a road trip.”
Reed
The wind blows through my hair, the black road and white lines disappearing beneath the wheels as we make our way along the highway.
How I ever let Brinley talk me into this crazy idea I’ll never know, but here we are, on our way to her parent’s property in small town Hicksville, Ohio, in some lame attempt for me to disappear for the next couple of weeks.
Did we drive the entire way?Hell no.
Brinley’s plan sucked, so I bought us an extra day in New York to get our shit sorted and our bags packed and being that I ruined my dinner date with her after the concert, I took her to lunch the following day, a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Little Italy.
The guy who owns the place was a good friend of my dad’s. He has a secret room out back that he keeps reserved for special clients, and he’s never let me down. His fettucine is to fucking die for. It was just me and Brinley, and a waiter that knows better than to open his mouth to the paparazzi.
