“Mmmm, I like the sound of this. What kind of favor?”
I could envision his flirty smile as he patted his purposely messy blond hair. “I have a meet-and-greet for my VIPs in an hour.”
“Okaaay?” he drawled.
“You’re in town, right?” I chewed at my freshly manicured nails.
“Levee,” he warned.
This wouldn’t be the first time I’d asked Henry for a favor. He wasn’t exactly shy about asking me for them, either. And he always had the same answer I had for him.
I lowered my voice and said softly, “I’m at the children’s hospital.”
“Jesus, babe,” he breathed.
I love him.
“There’s still a line. I can’t leave. But I’m supposed to be at the arena in an hour.”
“I’ll go,” he said, quickly answering the unspoken question.
And he loves me.
Henry Alexander was the biggest name in music. Well…besides mine. He’d started off songwriting, the same way I had, which was how we’d initially met. We’d become fast friends. He helped me with the music, and I helped him with the lyrics. We brainstormed, jammed, and eventually moved in together. We sold more songs than any two twenty-one-year-old kids could have fathomed. But it wasn’t enough. Selling songs was one thing. Selling yourself as the singer was something totally different.
But we both had dreams.
Huge ones.
Thanks to YouTube, we had accrued a massive following. We wanted to be individual artists but realized quickly that cross promotion and appearing in each other’s videos every few weeks earned us the most views. People loved Levee and Henry together, but his gruff, sultry R&B voice didn’t mesh well with my soulful-pop feel. A duo was out, but our fans began to expect us as a team. So we did what we always did: We got creative.
At twenty-three years old, we released our dual debut album. Fans went nuts. We threw our hearts and souls into that project, spending day and night in the studio to make it cohesive but different enough that people saw us as solo artists. Dichotomy ended up being six of his songs, six of mine, and two together. But, oddly enough, those weren’t what people fell in love with.
My first single, “Isolation,” hit number one on the charts almost immediately, while Henry sat at number two with “Belonging.” Three months later, his single “That Night” took the top spot, while mine, “Another Day,” sat right beneath it.
Less than a year later, Henry held me on his arm as we swept nearly every category we had been nominated for at the Grammys. It was the same night we made the announcement that, from that point on, we were strictly solo artists. We expected backlash, but if there was any, we didn’t feel it. Both of our sophomore albums were certified diamond, securing our spot not just in the music industry, but at the forefront of it all.
Henry was my best friend for a ton of reasons, only one of them being his agreeing to go to the VIP meet-and-greet without even needing an explanation.
“Do you have Carter with you? Or do you need me to send Devon for security?” I asked.
“I’m good. Don’t worry about me, sweetheart,” he replied warmly.
With a huge smile, I gave Stewart a thumbs-up. His reply was a string of expletives.
“I owe you. You want to go out tonight after the concert?”
“Nah. But you can pay me back in other ways,” he murmured suggestively.
“How’s that?” I whispered, playing along.
He cleared his throat dramatically. “Don't play games. You know what I want.”
“No. I'm honestly clueless.” I walked over to the mirror, scrunching my long, brown curls back into shape then adding more makeup to cover the dark circles under my eyes.
“Levee,” he scoffed before blurting out, “Let me fuck your bass player.”
I burst out laughing. “Henry! He’s straight.”
“So? I thought I was straight once too.”
“You are such a liar. You were never straight.”
“This is probably true, but come on, Levee. Just tell me I can try,” he pleaded.
There was no point in telling him no.
“Sure. By all means…go for it. Make sure you say hello to his fiancée first though,” I teased.
Henry didn’t find it humorous. “Damn it. Why is heterosexuality such a cock block?”
“It really is.”
And it really was for Henry. He was tall, with a lean, muscular body that even I couldn't help but notice on occasion. Women adored him even though he was openly gay. However, Henry's biggest problem in the love department was his obsession with straight men. I couldn’t even count the number of times Henry’s heart had been broken by a guy who he’d convinced to give him a chance but ultimately went right back to women.
“All right, babe. I need to get dressed. Tell Stewy I’ll meet him at the venue in an hour. Ask him if he wants a little action during the show tonight.”
I smiled before calling over my shoulder, “Hey, Stewart. Henry wants to know if you want some man-loving?”
It was supposed to be a joke, but Stewart took an angry step forward, his eyes boiling with rage. “I swear to God! I’m a married man. He starts spreading that shit around…” He paused to run a hand through his thinning hair.
Still holding my phone to my ear, I gasped. “Oh God, please tell me you didn’t really hook up with Stewart.”
Henry burst into laughter. “Fuck no! But he hates me already, so I figure why not pretend? Drives him fucking nuts.”
It was my turn to laugh. Stewart continued to fume.
“Okay, go get dressed. I’ll see you in a few hours,” I told him while straightening my long dress and preparing to go back out.
Henry’s gentle voice caught me before I hung up. “Hey, Levee. Do me a favor. Take it easy, okay? You’ve got a show tonight. I know you want to be there…but don’t get lost in the past. They aren’t Lizzy.”
He was wrong.
They were.
Every single one of them.
I didn’t tell him that though. Instead, I replied, “Thank you.”
He sighed at my non-answer. “See you tonight, babe.”
“Yeah. Tonight.” I dropped my phone into my bag and began rummaging through the boxes of CDs and T-shirts we’d brought to give away. “Are we out of the copies of Dichotomy that Henry signed?” I asked.
“Yep. We’re out of damn near everything, Levee. Yet another reason you should come back another day.”
“Oh, shove off!” I called as I headed to the door. With the VIPs sorted, I had a little girl named Morgan to properly apologize to.
AT LEAST IT wasn’t raining. That had to be a good sign, right? Turning my back to the wind, I lit a cigarette. I was staring off the bridge just as I had done every night for months. The chill was still in the air, but thankfully, the depressing, grey clouds had moved out of the bay overnight. Some people loved a good thunderstorm, but to me, the dreariness that accompanied them was stifling. I was already grappling to find the light in the whole struggle known as life; I didn’t need the weather making it that much dimmer.
“Shit,” I cursed to myself when the gauze I had wrapped around my palm unfurled. Biting the cigarette between my lips, I quickly rolled the bandage back around my hand. I attempted to secure it in place with the worn-out tape but ended up tucking the edge under when it refused to stick.
I was such a pussy.
The moment that splintered wood had sliced my palm open, the whole world had begun to spin. It was a miracle I’d even stayed upright as the sight of the blood dripping from my hand had forced my ass to the dusty floor of my workshop.
Slitting my wrist was officially never going to happen.
But killing myself was never going to happen, either. With my luck, Hell was real and I’d only end up spending an eternity longing for the emptiness my life was already full of.
My life was fine. My job was fine. My house was fine. My love life was fine. My friends were fine. God, I was sick of fucking fine. I needed something—anything—to be great.