Counterpoint (Hystoria #3)

4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Luckily, Si remains quiet until we’re on the freeway, holding onto the ‘Oh shit’ handle tightly and cursing under his breath with every merge, brake and turn. I don’t get it. Really, I’m a good driver. And that’s not a delusion. Simon is the first person to ever complain about my driving. Even Grandma has never complained, which is saying a lot because that woman likes to complain about absolutely everything.

Of course, we don’t manage to avoid commuter traffic. As soon as we turn onto the freeway, we are slowed down to basically walking speed, with no end in sight. We sit beside each other awkwardly, the silence in the car only disturbed by one of his sharp inhales when he deems a car too close to mine or my sighs in reaction .

“So… how are you doing?” I try to diffuse the awkward silence in the car.

“Okay,” he presses out. I wait for a moment to see if he’s going to add anything to that, but he doesn’t.

“Me too, thanks for asking.” I roll my eyes and finally merge off the ramp, ignoring his panicked inhale as I change lanes. Is this really how it’s going to be? Heavy air and awkward silence for the next seven days? Not with me; if he’s in my car, I’m afraid he’s going to have to engage in a minimum of conversation.

“What have you been up to since Hystoria went on break?” I glance at him from the corner of my eye. Jake mentioned the hiatus is a sensitive topic for all of them, but Simon doesn’t show much of a reaction to my question besides his shoulders tensing.

“Nothing,” he grunts and pointedly directs his gaze out of the window, away from me.

Wow. Don’t smother me with information. God forbid more than one word makes it out of his mouth.

“Well, do you have any plans? Will you go solo like Jake? Relax like Cole? Whatever Paxton is doing?”

“No plans.”

Okay wow. That was two words. That’s progress, at least.

Traffic comes to a total stop, and I fumble with my console, hooking up my phone in navigation mode so I can see where I’m supposed to drive. Even though I know which exit I need to take, knowing my luck, I’m going to miss it if there’s no robot voice to announce it.

And while I’m at it, I turn on my Bluetooth speaker. As we’re standing, I’m scrolling through my phone to find the right playlist. I’m not going to sit here in silence for the whole six hours I’ve planned to drive today, which I am going to bet are going to become more like eight or nine hours, looking at the bright red line that the map shows on our route. And Mr. Grump, to my right, is obviously not going to provide much entertainment. Love that for me.

Finally, I find my playlist and hit ‘play’. Both of us flinch as a Taylor Swift starts blaring through my car, and I quickly lower the volume.

“That’s the kind of music you listen to?” Si wonders, shooting me a dismissive glance with a sneer playing at his lips.

I glance at him from the corner of my eyes, trying to hide my surprise at his contempt. “Yeah, why? Is there a problem with it?” I ask, raising an eyebrow in challenge. The car in front of us begins moving again at a snail’s pace, so I start Lola back up and catch up.

He shrugs nonchalantly. “It’s just not really my taste, that’s all.”

“Well, I’m sure you know the saying. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole.” I shrug and focus my attention back on the road, slightly irritated by his depreciating response. How dare he make me feel bad for liking Taylor Swift?

Traffic continues to move slowly, and I navigate through the congested highway. I really hope it picks up soon; otherwise, I’ll have to stop and look for a new hotel on our route. I know that eight hours are my driving limit, and I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable letting Simon drive Lola. I wonder if he even remembers how to drive a manual. Wait, are Lambos automatic? I’ll have to look that up later.

As Taylor continues playing, I bob my head along and catch a glimpse of Simon out of the corner of my eye. He seems lost in thought, staring out the window, looking distant. It’s clear that he’s not in the mood for small talk, so I decide to let the silence settle between us and focus on the music .

The minutes pass by, filled only with the sound of the music and the hum of the car engine, until traffic finally picks up after half an hour. Not ideal, but we should still make it to the hotel I’ve picked out.

I steal glances at him from time to time, wondering what’s going on in his mind. Is he still hung up on what happened between us all those years ago? Maybe he is stressed because of his band. Or maybe something entirely different is going on that I have no business asking about. And why do I even care? Maybe I’m more hung up on our lost friendship than I’ve realised. It was easy to bury any negative feelings when we didn’t see each other. I didn’t think it would still affect me so much.

I brew in my thoughts and vibe with the music. Hours pass, and I stop for a quick lunch break.

“What are you in the mood for? Burgers? Pancakes?” I ask him as I exit the freeway at a service area that has both a McDonald’s and an IHop.

“I don’t give a shit,” he answers as I pull into a parking spot. As soon as the car comes to a stand, he unbuckles, throws the door open and jumps out in record time, cursing under his breath at my parking abilities. I stay seated for a moment, leaning my head against the steering wheel and closing my eyes for a moment.

I take a deep breath, trying to blink back tears. Everything is a bit much right now. I don’t want to spend the next days with someone who can’t stand me and has no qualms about reminding me of that. I don’t have the mental and emotional space for that.

Deep exhale. Remember, Harper. You can’t control other people’s responses, only your own feelings. Maybe food and his highly desired cup of coffee will manage to improve his mood. Maybe it’s not going to be that bad after all.

I take one more deep breath before I climb out of the car, stretching my arms far over my head once I’m standing upright. Ah, that feels nice!

Turns out Simon does give a shit about where to eat because he heads straight for IHop. I trail after him, watching him as he pulls up his collar and tugs his scarf in place so it hides half his face. He opens the door and heads straight for the most hidden booth, keeping his head down and not looking at anyone on the way. I follow and slide into the booth opposite him, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

He’s immersed in the menu, seemingly oblivious to my inner turmoil. But I don’t believe him. No matter how much time has passed, he hasn’t suddenly become dumb and unable to read me. I’m not playing this game, though. I just want to get home and not feel like shit driving there. Is that really too much to ask for?

I take another moment to gather my thoughts and then break the uncomfortable silence at the table.

“Look, I get that this is awkward, but we’re stuck together for the next seven days. I’m not expecting you to kiss my feet, but conversations with more than one-word answers and maybe without curse words or hostility would be lovely.”

“What’s your problem?” He immediately becomes defensive, throwing the laminated menu onto the table and crossing his arms in front of his chest as well.

“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” I point out. “You’re angry for whatever reason and taking it out on me, and I’ve had enough. You can’t even manage a ‘good morning’ or ‘thanks for taking me along’. I’m really only asking for the most basic of civility. Can you manage that for the rest of the ride?”

A waitress approaches our table to take our order, and Simon sinks further into his seat, fidgeting with his scarf. My eyes wander above him and around the room. There aren’t many people in here besides us. No wonder; I mean, it’s not exactly time for holidays yet, so why would anyone be here in the middle of a weekday? A family with small children sits in one of the other corners, and I see an older couple joking over cups of coffee. That’s it.

On the bright side, I guess we’re going to get serviced quickly while we’re here, meaning we’ll get to the hotel faster.

Simon turns away from the waitress when she comes to a stop at the head of our table. She seems pretty young and is fidgeting with the notepad and pen in her hands. This must be her first job.

Simon doesn’t aid her nervousness. He looks out the window and mumbles his drink order, all around appearing like an asshole. The poor girl seems really taken aback by his attitude, so I make sure to smile at her and be friendly to compensate Mr. Grump on the other side of the table.

“Really?” I cock my eyebrow when he finally turns his head away from the window again. “I get that you’re rude to me, but what has the poor waitress done?”

“I don’t want to get recognized,” he mutters and avoids my eyes, a tinge of red coloring his cheeks. I sigh and lean back in my seat, anger on behalf of the girl, calming down. That makes sense. It’s still really rude, but I get where he’s coming from.

“Then let me talk instead of making the poor girl ask you three times in order to understand your order. ”

“Okay. Thank you.” He points at the protein pancakes just as the waitress comes back with our orders. She places his coffee in front of him quickly and then turns to me, handing me my hot chocolate with a friendly smile. “Would you like to order?”

“Yes, Protein pancakes for him and blueberry for me, please.”

“Sure, coming right up.” She gives me a small smile when she realises she doesn’t need to talk to Simon, then walks off.

“Hot chocolate?” He raises his eyebrow at my choice of drink, and I shrug. Reverting right back to the amount of coffee I drank before getting injured gave me the jitters, so I needed to compensate with another warm beverage. Hot chocolate seemed like a no-brainer.

“Yeah. Hot chocolate,” I confirm and direct my gaze back at him. “So. Do you agree? Can we be civil for the next seven days?”

“I’ll try,” he sighs and reaches for his cup, a satisfied groan leaving his lips once he’s taken the first sip of coffee of the day.

“Okay. Good.” I nod and smile at the waitress as she approaches with our plates. Damn, that was quick! She places them on the table, his more vigorously than mine, and shoots me a sweet smile before she leaves.

We eat our pancakes in silence. Simon snags the bill when our lovely waitress brings it before I can interject.

“Your brother would kill me if I let you pay for a meal,” he lets me know and throws a wad of cash on the table. “Come on, let’s go.”

He ushers me out of the restaurant, but I can’t help but look back inside through the window as we walk to the car. I see the waitress arrive at our empty table, with a look of panic on her face when she realises we’re gone. Then, her shoulders visibly sag in relief when she sees the money on the table. She takes the bills and counts them, her eyes growing wider and wider with each bill she uncovers. I didn’t see exactly how much he left, but I know that it was way too much for two drinks and two plates of pancakes.

Good for you, girl. She seemed really nice, and I’m sure she’s going to have a good use for it.

“Come on. Let’s go on. I can’t wait to reach the hotel,” Simon urges me and all but pushes me into the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, yeah,” I concede and get into the car. Luckily, traffic dissipated while we had lunch. For the first time, I can drive the speed limit when I’m on the freeway. Now, that is a lot more fun than creeping down the street at a snail’s pace.

Si gets comfortable in his passenger seat and leans his head against the window. Coffee seems to have no effect whatsoever on him because he is conked out and drooling against the passenger seat window after not even five miles. I wonder if his poor attitude landed him a decaf coffee. Whatever, at least that means I can listen to Taylor without unsolicited comments.

As soon as the door to my hotel room falls shut behind me, I extend my arms to the ceiling to stretch my back, groaning when something in my body cracks loudly. I might only be twenty-seven, but damn, I’m getting old.

All in all, it took us two hours longer than planned to arrive here, and I am so unbelievably tired. The only good thing about this route is that the hotel is in Bumfuck, Nowhere, which means that we should be able to have a quicker start tomorrow morning. Hopefully. And hopefully, tomorrow, Mr. Rockstar will set his alarm clock correctly so we can leave on time. I’m giving him a ten-minute grace period, and then I’m leaving without him.

He slept most of the time it took us to get here after lunch, but on the rare occasion when he was awake, he wasn’t any more talkative compared to this morning, and it’s slowly but surely starting to get frustrating. Then again, if he doesn’t talk, he can’t spew dumb comments about my taste in music, so there’s that.

And, on the bright side, I’ve had a lot of time to come up with ideas on how to fuck with him from here on out. If he’s going to be a grumpy asshole, I might as well have some fun with it.

Will he find it funny? Very likely not. Do I care? Not in the least.

I change into my pajamas and lie down, sighing, relieved. This mattress is comfortable and bouncy, but not too bouncy. It’s like a cloud is hugging me from below. The AC blows a gentle, warm wind into the room, counteracting the chilly air outside. It’s lulling me into a trance, and I am just about to fall asleep when my phone starts ringing and wakes me up.

I groan when I see the name on my display. “What’s up, brother dearest?” I stifle a yawn.

“How are you, Harper?” It’s sweet that he’s showing concern. Ever since he came to my apartment, he’s made sure to visit or call me once a day to ask how I’m doing, and it never fails to bring a smile to my face.

“Tired, but you will be pleased to know that both Simon and I are still alive. I’d say ‘alive and well’, but Si doesn’t seem all that well,” I admit and sit up. If I remain laying down, I will absolutely fall asleep mid-conversation, and I still need to get the makeup off my face before I go to sleep. Otherwise, my skin will complain for the next two weeks.

“Good, you see it too.” I squint my eyes at the bare hotel room wall. Good? What is good about that? As though he’s read my thoughts, he continues. “I’m worried about him. He’s closed himself off from all of us.”

“Well, thanks for the info, but what does that have to do with me?”

He clears his throat, and by the slightly higher pitch in his voice, I just know he has planned something.

“He’s not well.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” I roll my eyes.

“I mean, we’re really worried about him, Harper. He barely eats. Whenever we spend time together, he seems like a shell of himself. He’s always pale, always grumpy, and even if we order him his favorite pizza, he’s not eating it.”

“Have you tried talking to him about it?” I mean, they’re guys. They have a good head on their shoulders, but I know my brother isn’t really blessed with emotional and social intelligence. It’s gotten better since he got together with Layla, but he still has a long way to go. There’s a very real possibility that he’s talked about Simon but not to him.

“Of course we did!” He sounds insulted by the fact I’ve asked. “Well, we tried.” Ah, there it is. I grin. “He wouldn’t let us. Whenever we breached the topic, he basically ran away. And we’ve tried it often, Harper; all of us are worried about him. It’s been this way since we’ve announced Hystoria’s break, and that was like half a year ago.” I remember how hard that decision was for them, but ultimately, Paxton kept fucking up things for the band with his attitude, be it professionally or privately. Thanks to him, their reputation in the industry is a mess, and Cole and Eve almost broke up after only finding each other again after eight years. So, in the end, they gave Paxton an ultimatum. I don’t know what the ultimatum was, but all of them deemed it the right choice to give Pax a year to get his shit together and then re-evaluate Hystoria’s future.

“I take it with ‘all of us,’ you mean Cole and you?”

“And Eve.” My eyes grow wide. Eve is Cole’s girlfriend. She was part of the Hysteria clique in high school, although her name back then was Vivian, until she suddenly disappeared after the guys went to Los Angeles. I always thought she followed them, but I only learned the real story much later. To make it short, the song that Hystoria became famous with was hers. Paxton made everyone believe she gave it to them. I still remember the day that Jake stood in front of my apartment door, pale as a ghost, and told me that Paxton had lied.

I’m still not exactly sure what happened to Vi-Eve after she left. I just know that she’s an artist manager now and helped Jake get signed. Why she even talks to the guys, I’ll never understand. If I were her, they’d be dead to me. I’m glad, though, because I like her.

“Even Layla is worried, and she’s only met him once,” he continues. “She said he looked like he’d been chewed up and spit out again twice.” A smile tugs at the corner of my lips. She’s not wrong. “At least we can be pretty sure it’s not drugs because he’s acting lethargic and not erratic.”

“Yeah, that description fits. And he doesn’t seem stoned or reek of weed. So you’ve all tried to talk with him, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. What exactly does that have to do with me?” A deep sigh escapes me as I realise that this is Jake’s agenda. This is why he’s offered to do the dishes. He wants me to do the heavy lifting for him and get to the root of Simon’s behaviour.

He clears his throat again. “You’re in a car with him. He can’t exactly run away while you’re driving.” A deep sigh escapes me, and I nod, even though he can’t see it. I was right.

“Really? That’s your agenda? Couldn’t you have taken him for a random ride?” I ask, annoyed. I hate it when he springs stuff like this on me. I’m not their damn babysitter; I’m not even friends with Simon anymore.

“You realise that the last time I sat behind the wheel was years ago, right? Simon wouldn’t get in a car with me as the driver if you paid him seven figures for it. Trust me, we’ve tried everything else. When we locked a room, he kicked the fucking door in. I hoped talking to a stranger would help if he didn’t want to confide in his friends, but Layla also had no luck. She tried talking to him when he accompanied her to the vet for Mochi’s vaccines.”

I roll my eyes. “Simon is also really fucking dramatic as a passenger. No wonder they couldn’t hold a productive conversation.”

The silence on the other end of the line tells me that he is absolutely aware of that. “You asshole! You knew he’s the worst passenger to have!”

“Well, there might have been situations that could have made this a predictable outcome.”

“Listen, Jake, you’re already on top of my shitlist. Every single word you’ve said this far has only pushed you higher on it.” Anger bubbles in my stomach. “No. I will not be your little mediator-slash-therapist for poor, poor Simon. As you may have noticed, I have enough on my plate as is. I just want to get home.” My voice cracks as I say the last word, and I blink away tears. I just want to snuggle in my bed at Grandma’s home, eat her pancakes and not feel like I’m on the run or have responsibility shoved my way. I want to feel at home and the same kind of safeness I felt there as a teenager, as though the world outside doesn’t exist.

“What if I-”

“No,” I reiterate and hang up. He calls me back only seconds later, but I put my phone on ‘do not disturb’ and lay it on my nightstand screen down after setting my alarm for tomorrow morning. Fuck him. Seriously, fuck him. First, he talks me into taking Simon along with me, which sucks enough as it is right now—but making plans for me behind my back and springing them on me like this? When I’m already on the road with him? No. Absolutely not.

Seriously. My temples pound as anger builds inside me. This whole situation is so fucked up. I wanted to take this trip to… heal. To order my thoughts, to take the time to think about what I want to do from now on. Not to play babysitter to a manchild with emotional constipation. I hope he at least gets a grip on his mood swings.