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Kieran leans forward with a scowl, taking the phone from Callum’s hand. Without a word, he throws it back into Callum’s hands and storms out of the house without a glance back, going to do whatever it is he’s doing.
My dinner threatens to come up my throat and out my mouth for everyone to see. From where Callum stood, she looked so willing and compliant to Van’s advances. That’s all it takes for them to never question the accusation again. It is the nail in the coffin and all the motivation they need to pack their bags and turn their middle fingers up to the city we are leaving behind. There’s no going back now. I’ve set everything in motion to get us to the Battle of the Bands without a distraction. Without the woman who helped get us there.
So, why do I feel like the human equivalent of a pile of shit in the front yard on a rainy day? This is my shining moment. The point I’d hoped to get to when I discovered that they’d stay behind and live normal lives for her. Only it’s not.
By the time we made it to California and won, I knew I had made the biggest mistake of my life, leaving her behind. A wide crevice developed behind my ribs. Nothing in this world could fill it besides her. The love I gave her, without knowing it, shattered the moment we left town, leaving my insides a mess. I prided myself on not developing feelings and keeping my distance, but I was not only a liar to my best friends, but to myself. After our departure, something fundamental changed within the guys and in me. Almost as if they developed the same black mass inside them that ate away at everything it could get its hands on. We were never the same as we were in the small town of Central City, where we became famous.
Monumentally, I fucked up the best thing in our lives with one single lie that blew everything away. That tiny white lie was only the beginning of our story. Staring at River now has more thoughts and plans formulating in the back of my mind. I epically fucked up their lives by tearing them apart in the worst way possible. Maybe now that River is in front of us, I can fix this all. Maybe, just maybe, I can weave our lives together again and confess my bloody sins.
Even if they hate me—they’ll still have her.
“You’re dismissed.A limo will pick you up at your respective homes, and they will escort you to the Band House. There we will have another meeting of expectations, rules, and another six-month contract for you to sign,” River declares, turning her back on us with her head held high.
My heart sputters, threatening to pop out of my chest. Until she slips from sight out the back door, leaving the four of us to wallow in the anger brewing like a dangerous storm around us.
“Well, this has been entertaining. Said no one ever,” Rad snarks, lazily climbing to his feet. With ease, he grabs his motorcycle helmet from below the table and cradles it under his arm. “Apparently, I have a house to pack up. See you nut jerkers later.” Pulling his phone from his pocket, he stares at it as he walks out of the room without a backward glance.
Since we settled in East Point, he’s had this unaffected air about him. Almost as if River was just a blip on his radar and nothing more than some floozy, he messed around with on the Ferris wheel. Not the love of his life.
The thing about Rad is, he’s put a mask on since the moment we left Central City. And now, he never lowers it and lets us see the pain he’s hiding away from us.
The walls press around me. Over and over, I’ve lived with the damage I inflicted on four other human beings due to my selfishness. I, alone, crushed the love from Rad’s veins the moment I pointed my fingers at her with my cheating allegations. More guilt builds in my chest, crushing me where I sit rigidly in my chair, basking in the silence of the other two who stay in their seats.
“Does this not bother him?” Kieran asks with a deep scowl, watching as he disappears through the door leisurely. “We left for a fucking reason. We…” Kieran grunts, jumping to his feet and throwing the chair across the room until it bounces off the wall with a thud. We don’t even blink at his outburst. Kieran’s been nothing but fumes, waiting for the match to strike. And here it is…
“We left because she…she…fuck!” he shouts, pounding a fist into the edge of the table. Releasing a pained grunt, he stands tall, gathering his emotions. Emptiness fills his blueish eyes, and he shakes his head. “I’m out,” he says, clearing his throat and taking off out the door at a quick pace.
This is going to go swimmingly. The four of us, stuck in a house together. Throw in the girl they think cheated on them in the worst betrayal ever. What was past me thinking?
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I huff and climb to my feet. “You coming?” I ask Callum, who sits ramrod straight in his chair, most likely reliving the worst night of his life on repeat.
I swear I’ve never seen a man go from one extreme to another. From full of love and life, to an empty, speechless shell of a man. River’s ghost may have haunted me from the moment we leapt on stage at The KC Club and swept the competition, but the remnants of what I did stood right before me, slowly falling apart at the seams.
All of this is my fucked-up masterpiece of manipulation. I took good men and molded them into angry beings. I robbed them. I fucking robbed her of our promise. God. If I could create a time machine, I’d go and change the past. We may have our freedom and money, but at what cost? I take a deep, painful breath, begging the oxygen to fill my glass-coated lungs and squeeze my eyes shut.
Callum solemnly nods, slowly rising to his feet with the contract we signed years before clutched tightly in his hands. Slowly, he makes his way out of the room with his head hanging low, leaving me here in the silence of the conference room to suffer in the hell of my own doing.
Tears burn the back of my eyes as I stare at the tile ceiling with self-deprecating thoughts swirling a million miles a minute. I take a few moments to gather myself and push the looming guilt to the bottomless pit of my soul.
As I walk out the door, shoving my hands into my jeans and balling them, massive amounts of guilt swim in my gut, churning until bile hits the back of my throat. My only sensible solution after all these years is to set the truth free. I squeeze my eyes shut, assaulted by another memory lurking in the shadows and ready to strike.
“Are we ready for this?” I ask, flexing my fingers around the steering wheel of my Tahoe, eagerly awaiting the moment we leave Central City behind.
“Fuck this town,” Kieran grunts, shoving his middle finger into the air. “Fuck her,” he mutters with venom lacing his tone. Nothing but hurt sits on his twisted-up face. Proving to me that pushing River away was the best option for us. Eventually, I’ll have my brother back. Eventually, I’ll have my best friends back.
“Yeah, let’s roll,” Rad grumbles with less enthusiasm, staring out the window with a blank expression, losing all the spark he once held. Hell, he’s barely blinked since the night they discovered what River’s been up to. Or, what they think she’s up to.
Peering at Callum through the rearview mirror, I note the nod he gives me. Not bothering to say a word. Since he’s come back from watching Van kiss River, he’s spoken less than usual. Nearly turning mute in our presence. If I can get them out of this River funk and into our bright future, we could turn ourselves around.
I swallow thickly and pull out of the driveway, driving us toward our new destination—East Point Bluff, California. Where dreams come true. My mind endlessly wrestles with me on the rights and wrongs of this entire situation.
“Let’s start a new chapter in our life,” I say with confidence I don’t exactly feel.
The more distance we put between River and us, the more my heart aches in my chest, cracking from the wool I pulled over my friends’ eyes. Even though it’s for the best. It’s necessary. It needed to be done. Right? I had to do it. She would have just slowed us down. They would have turned away from our mission—the Battle of the Bands.
“Fuck,” I gasp out, clutching my chest as the pain engulfs me once again from the inside out, hollowing me further and opening the dark pit of despair inside me.
The world tilts when I collapse against the wall, holding my face in my hands. No matter how hard I tried to tell myself it was the right thing to do, I knew in my heart I had thoroughly fucked up and made a sticky fucking mess of the whole thing. I took each of their trust and crushed it in my hand. And for what? This? We’re fucking miserable together. Sure, we’re still making music, but apparently, we’re on our last leg. It’s only been five years. And our career is already in the damn toilet. Worst of all, we haven’t been brothers since we stepped foot in California, because we left our glue back in Central City.
