For some reason, I had a feeling that his definition of a good time and my definition of a good time weren’t the same thing. And the only person I wanted to be with was Grant. Even if he was off with someone else tonight, I still wanted him.
“Appreciate the offer, but—”
My words were cut off when Donovan bent down and brushed his lips against mine. Fire alarms went off in my mind. This was wrong. This wasn’t Grant. Even if Grant was with someone else, I didn’t want to kiss someone that he knew. I didn’t want to be around people who were associated with Grant. I needed to get out and get out now.
I pushed against the door I was leaning on and opened it into the cold. Donovan stumbled through it with me, breaking our kiss. His green eyes were fierce.
“I appreciate the offer, but no, I’m not interested,” I said, my voice hard.
“You’re wasting your time on Grant.”
“If I’m wasting it on a man who loves me, then I’d obviously be wasting my time with someone who doesn’t.”
And with that, I shoved past him, back inside, back through the crowd of girls, and out into the arena. I texted Cheyenne to let her know that I was getting a cab back to the airport. She seemed frantic, but there was nothing else she could do at this point. I just wanted to be back in Boston.
The clock chimed midnight soon after the plane touched down. I waited anxiously for a text message from Grant, like I’d gotten over Christmas, but it never came. I hadn’t wanted to believe he was with someone else, but somehow, his silence convinced me more than anything else ever could. When I got home, I crawled into bed, determined to forget Grant McDermott.
Chapter 45: Grant
I typed out ten messages to Ari but deleted them all.
She didn’t want to hear from me on New Year’s. She hadn’t wanted to hear from me on Christmas. She hadn’t wanted to hear from me every day before that. I should just give up and let her move on with her life, but I couldn’t.
I’d been onstage, singing the song I’d written for her, when it just hit me how fucked-up all of this was. I was in love with her. I’d said as much onstage, but the lyrics had just driven it home. I was in love with Aribel Graham, and she wanted nothing to do with me.
After I’d finished the song, I’d stormed offstage, unable to continue. I was over it. I’d just wanted to be alone.
But no, even then, I couldn’t get what I’d wanted. Hollis had stopped me at the exit, wondering what the fuck I was doing. We weren’t signed with Pacific, and I was ruining my chances of ever getting picked up with them.
That was fine with me. If we got picked up, who knew when I’d get to see Ari anyway? Didn’t seem like a fair trade to me.
Hollis obviously hadn’t seen it that way. He couldn’t understand how I felt about Ari. He never would. He talked about girls the way I had before Ari. I might be a total fucking asshole, but Ari came first. If by some fucking miracle I could salvage this with her, then I was going to do everything I could to make sure that was a possibility.
I’d had it out with Hollis backstage, and then I’d gotten into my truck and driven straight home. The drive had taken fucking forever since everyone and their mother was out in New York City for New Year’s, but I hadn’t cared. I’d just needed to get out of there. I’d needed to think, and I couldn’t do it surrounded by thousands of people.
Being all alone, holed up in my house, didn’t seem to help much either. I just wanted Ari here with me. I wanted to get a New Year’s kiss I’d remember. But if Ari didn’t want me around, I wasn’t sure how much more of my antics would change her mind. If it came down to that, I’d have to resign myself to move on.
Hollis hadn’t been the only one pissed that I’d walked out of the show. The guys had returned from the city early afternoon on New Year’s Day, and they had promptly gone about ignoring my existence every time I tried to talk to them. I’d fucking wanted to be alone to think, and now, they were giving me all the space I needed.
I wandered into the garage, and everyone seemed to have calmed down by the time regular band rehearsal was supposed to start. They were seated on the couches. McAvoy had his laptop open. He was the tech-savvy one of the bunch, and we generally just left him alone when he got in the zone. Miller looked up when I walked in, but Vin didn’t even spare me a glance. He must really be pissed.
I took a seat next to McAvoy. I decided to take a direct approach. “Sorry about last night.”
“What the fuck happened?” Vin asked. He looked like he’d doped up on steroids this morning, and he was even more of a loose cannon. “You just fucking left us out there. We had three more songs to go, and you ditched us! What the fucking fuck kind of band member ditches his band onstage with no motherfucking warning?”
“I know. I should have told you guys.”
“You fucking think? You humiliated us out there!”
“I didn’t humiliate you,” I argued. “We played the majority of our set. No one even knew the difference.”
“Hollis knew the difference,” Miller cut in. “He was pretty pissed.”
“Fuck Hollis,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’m so tired of these label people thinking they can mold us into these perfect shapes. They can’t define us by dangling a contract in front of our eyes.”
Vin cursed under his breath, but Miller was the one who spoke up, “Hollis isn’t trying to fit us into a certain mold. He’s been pretty lenient as far as I’m concerned, and I like him. Now, after that performance and your argument, we might not get signed.”
“Good. I don’t want to get signed,” I said without thinking.
The silence in the room was deafening. Even McAvoy stopped clicking away at his computer to look up at me. All of the guys stared at me with a range of shocked expressions. I’d never voiced that thought out loud to anyone before. I hadn’t even really thought about it much until recently. After the Frank Boseley incident, I’d been feeling more and more constrained by the pressure of fitting into a traditional record mold. Then, with the added fear of losing Ari, it had only amped up that feeling.
“You what?” Miller asked.
“I don’t want to get signed.”
“Since when?”
“This whole experience is ruining me for wanting to sign with anyone.”
“Is this about Ari?” Miller asked, just laying it out there.
“Oh, come on, man. Just forget that girl,” Vin complained.
“I’m not forgetting about her!” I yelled back at Vin. “Can we just drop the subject?”
“You just dropped a bomb on us, and you want to just walk away from that?” Miller asked in disbelief.
“Guys,” McAvoy said, speaking up, “you might want to shut the fuck up and look at this.”
“At what?” I asked. I leaned over his computer and tried to make out what I was looking at. It just looked like a spreadsheet with random words and numbers on it.
“Well, we sold about ten-thousand more copies of our ‘Life Raft’ demo than we’ve sold of every other song combined.”
“What? Since when?”
“Since…today,” McAvoy said.
I looked at him, stunned. “How is that possible?”
“I can only assume it’s because of the show last night.”
My mind ran away with me. Ten-thousand more copies. Of course it had to be that fucking song. It had to be that one. I didn’t ever want to sing that song again at this point, but it was the one that over ten-thousand people had purchased within twenty-four hours. Fuck!