“You look completely f**ked-up. Are you even going to be able to play?” He sounded furious.
“Bro, lay off. I can f**king play this set blindfolded, high as a kite.”
Miller shook his head. “Well, you can’t sing with this in your mouth.” He took the cigarette from me and stubbed it out under his foot. “And if you don’t get your head out of your ass about the shit Vin said, then I’m going to f**king cancel tonight.”
“You can’t f**king cancel!”
“I can do whatever the f**k I want! I book the shows. I write the songs. I keep your dumbasses in line. You have feelings for Aribel. She’s f**king knocked some humanity into you. Don’t let Vin convince you that’s a bad thing. That would make you even more of a f**king idiot than you already are, and I don’t want to see what that would do to my best friend.”
“I think she’s seeing someone else,” I confided.
“Fuck. You sure? You talked to her about this?”
“Nah, man.”
Miller glared at me. “You f**k this up for no good reason, and you’ll regret it. Play our set, and then talk to your f**king girl.”
Chapter 26: Aribel
I was running late. Gah! I hated being late to anything. I’d barely even seen Grant this week since I’d been back in town. Now, I was showing up late to the last ContraBand show of the semester. Sure, I would get to see him perform again in a week, but this felt different.
Cheyenne, Shelby, and Gabi had left for the show an hour ago, but I’d had to finish my calculus assignment that was due on Monday, so I could spend all day tomorrow studying for chemistry. I was clearly a shit girlfriend.
Grant’s dog tags clattered around my neck as I jogged across the parking lot and into The Ivy League. Just by catching a few chords, I knew that they were already on the third or fourth song. I eased my way through the crowd, using Cheyenne’s bright red hair as a guide.
“Sorry,” I said when I finally reached her.
“You missed ‘Hemorrhage,’” she shouted over the cheers.
I shrugged apologetically. “But at least the homework is done.”
“You’re insane.”
Like Cheyenne is one to talk.
I turned my attention away from my friends. There were more important things to look at. When I glanced up at Grant, he was staring right at me. His gaze burned through me like a firecracker igniting every inch of my body. I flushed at the intensity, but I didn’t dare look away. There was something in his posture, in his stare, that was stripping me bare.
Being without him for a week had been a bit like suffocating. Going home to see my family had made me realize that I’d been living in a bubble. I loved my parents and my brother, Aaron, but the world was more than the kind of job I had, the kind of car I drove, and how big my house was. I’d felt stuffy and restricted in the world I’d always felt most comfortable in.
Maybe I wasn’t part of Grant’s world—a world run by how high someone could get on the next adrenaline rush—but I wasn’t part of mine either. I’d never thought I’d be comfortable in a middle ground, not that I’d ever even given myself an option.
Grant ended the set, and then without a backward glance, he stormed offstage with his guitar still slung over his shoulder. Odd. He was never careless with equipment and certainly not his baby.
“What’s up with him?” Shelby asked. “He didn’t seem into that at all.”
“What?”
He’d seemed into me, but now that I was thinking about it, Grant hadn’t been invested in the crowd like he normally was.
“Your boy looked f**ked out of his mind,” Cheyenne said. “I wonder what he’s on.”
“He’s probably just had a few drinks.”
“More like a bottle to drink, if not something harder,” Cheyenne said.
Hmm…well, only one way to find out. “I’ll meet up with you guys later,” I told them before making my way to the stairs on the side of the stage.
I hopped up to the top and then was stopped by solid muscle.
“Band only, sweetheart,” Vin said.
“Oh, Vin, it’s just me, Aribel,” I said with a smile.
Vin shrugged, ignoring me. What the…
“Vin, let her through,” Miller said, shaking his head.
“Fine.”
Vin stepped aside, and I darted past him. I didn’t know what that had been all about, but I was too focused on Grant to care.
No one was standing around in the backstage hallway.
I walked down to the break room and knocked on the closed door. “Grant, are you in there?”
No answer. Huh. Maybe he’d had to go to the restroom or he’d gone outside for some cool air. I knocked again just to be sure. “Grant!”
The door swung open. “Get in here,” he growled.
I jerked at his tone. What the hell is wrong with him? And why did he look so angry? Did I misinterpret what he had been feeling while onstage?
“Ari, now.”
The way he’d said that made me want to plant my feet on the ground, grit my teeth, and act as stubborn as possible. “Don’t order me around.”
“I don’t have time for your shit right now, Ari. Get inside. We need to talk.”
My heart sank, and my stomach dropped out of my body. Every thought I’d had up until this moment flitted out of my head. We need to talk. I’d heard that before. Is he going to break up with me? Had our time apart been the time he needed to see that this was a mistake? I’d always been strangely detached from my relationships, especially from my breakups, but just the thought of Grant leaving me made me feel like I was being fed through a meat grinder.
I struggled for that neutrality, for a shred of my indifference. I wanted that desperately because when he broke my heart, I wouldn’t be able to walk away with a feeling of disappointment that he’d looked good on paper or filled a checklist. I would walk away shattered, destroyed, and empty, knowing I’d given him a piece of myself that I’d never known I could give. In turn, I’d let him f**king own me in every way that I ever found important. My body was just a vessel, but my mind, my soul…he’d taken over those, and frankly, I didn’t want them back.
Somehow, I made it into the cramped break room, and Grant closed the door.
“What do we need to talk about?” I knew I sounded anxious. I was anxious.
Grant was staring at me with that same power he’d had onstage, but now, I saw what the girls had been saying. He was definitely drunk, if not high, and he looked pissed.