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Feuds and Interludes (Rock ‘n’ Romance Legends #1) Chapter 32 94%
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Chapter 32

Thirty-Two

B oone

I did have to leave, and Shane and I only managed to partially process what had happened. That meant spending the three nights I had left before I had to embark on a three-month-tour lying next to him in bed, where we only managed awkward conversation and chaste kisses good night. Gone was our easy way, our funny banter, our combustible chemistry. I could only imagine what was going on in his head. Had he just panicked and ran? Did he really not want me after everything we went through? Neither of us seemed brave enough to talk about what was really going on.

My assumption? It finally hit him that his band was over and he was left adrift, wondering what to do next. Me going out on tour was a reminder of what he didn’t have, and he wasn’t ready to put into words how he felt about that. And whatever his mother said to him in that hospital room really threw him for a loop. Shane seemed to be a stewer, and that’s what he was doing. Stewing. And until he was ready to talk about his feelings, there was nothing I could do. Except yell at him, or beat him over the head with the reality that we’d found something incredibly special and that we could survive this setback.

That didn’t seem to be the best option.

So instead, on day four, I packed up my shit, left him a note as he’d been gone when I woke up, and I drove over to Gran’s.

“How long will you be gone?” she asked.

“The next three months. There are a few dates where I can come back if you need me, but our schedule is pretty tight.”

She nodded and smiled sadly.“And what about Shane?”

“I don’t know about Shane. I know he loves me, but I don’t know if it’s enough.”

“I do believe in the saying ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ Give him some space to figure out what he wants to do next. He’s had the rug pulled out from under him, and men tend to need a bit more effort to bounce back.”

“Tell me about it. I feel like I just got my numbers under control and now I’m going out on the road. I’m afraid. I don’t want to be sick like I was before.”

“What can you do to make a difference?” She was always good at making me think through things.

“Let the tour manager know about my dietary needs. Keep up with exercise. The twins won’t let me go off the rails. Now that they know, we’ll face it like a team.”

“Then you’re already in better shape than you were when you were out on the road last time.”

“Yeah.” My chest just hurt all the time. I missed Shane already and I hadn’t even left yet.

“Come on, then. Chin up. Tits out. You can do this, dear boy.”

So that’s what I did. For three months solid. I sold Stellar to the world. I took the stage beside my two best friends and poured my heart out to audiences four to five nights a week. We traveled to more places than we had before, and conquered the hearts of fans around the globe.

But I took time for me. I ate the best I could. I worked out at every opportunity and when there was no hotel gym, I walked for miles with Annie and Bran.

And every stop of the tour, I bought postcards and wrote to Shane. Sometimes I sent three or four at a time. I didn’t know if he’d care, but I had to get them out. Sometimes they were angry, sometimes they were about something I wished he was there to share with me. But I signed every one of them, “Yours. Still. Boone.”

A month into the tour, I got a call while we were on a ferry heading from Helsinki to Stockholm.

“What do you mean, I twitch in my sleep?”

I barked out a laugh. One of the postcards I’d sent to Shane had been a diatribe about my adventures sleeping next to a puppy.

“You’ve heard of restless leg, right? You’ve got restless body, Shane. You twitch. Sometimes it was cute, sometimes you pulled my hair, and one night you even managed to knee me in the nads.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

Annie and Bran both had their headphones in, and I doubted anyone else understood my conversation. The talking around me had all been in different languages.

“Because it’s one of my favorite things about you.”

He made a disbelieving huff on the other end. “Why the postcards?”

My heart stuttered. “Why? Are they bothering you?”

“No, babe. I love them.” He hadn’t called me babe since everything happened. “But you have so much going on, why bother?”

I got up from my seat and took the opportunity to stretch my legs. I was winding up to let him have it, and I didn’t want to take the chance that someone listening might recognize me and understand the conversation.

“Are you serious right now? Why bother ? Oh, I don’t know, Shane, because I’m halfway around the world and I miss you like crazy? Maybe because I’m trying to plant seeds in your stubborn, hard head that even after everything, I fucking love you? For all the reasons?”

“I love you too, Boone. I was an asshole. I’m sorry I lost my shit. It was a wake-up call that I still have some shit to deal with and you, unfortunately, were on the receiving end.”

“God, I wish I was there with you right now.”

“I don’t know if I could be this honest if you were here, though.”

“Then tell me everything.”

He blew out a breath. “Okay.”

Over that conversation, and the others we had during the next few weeks, he shared the things I wished he would have on that ugly day, but he hadn’t been ready. He told me what his mom said to him. He told me he’d gone back to therapy and Al-Anon. He admitted that he’d hoped we would record our music together, and the fact that me being out on tour when he had nothing lined up was tough for him to swallow.

It went a long way toward healing the rift between us.I just wasn’t sure it was enough.

“Come to London,” I said during the last week we were in Europe. “Before I go to Australia and can’t see you for another month.”

“I wish I could, but I can’t leave Pops right now. His cardiologist referred him to cardiac therapy as an extra precaution. He admitted he hadn’t been working out regularly like he did with me, so it’s good for him. I’m taking him four days a week. We’re also in crunch time for the gala. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I know you have your hands full. How are the wedding arrangements going?”

“You know? They’ve been close-lipped. I think those two are going to elope after the gala. They haven’t said as much, but I think they might do it.”

“How do you feel about that?” I asked him. I knew he’d struggled with the fact that it wasn’t Bruce and him alone against the world anymore.

“Glad I won’t have to wear a damn monkey suit.”

I burst out laughing, and Annie and Bran groaned. We were packed into a tiny hotel room because of some mix-up. Bran and me in a twin bed, and Annie in one alone with her gas. Not ideal.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“Bloody hell, Butler. Get your arse on a plane and do this in person.” Bran’s British accent was actually quite good. We’d been practicing all over town, which had Annie so done with us.

“I already tried. Go back to sleep.” I climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom to give them a break. “I’d like to see you in a monkey suit. You were devastatingly handsome last year at the induction ceremony.”

“I was an asshole at the induction ceremony.”

“But look where we are now?” I joked about it, but we still hadn’t made any firm commitments to each other. I was still concerned that I’d return to LA and he’d tell me he’d rather we just work on being friends, or whatever the fuck you were when your grandparents married each other.

Love’s a fucking brutal bitch.

“Where are we?” he asked.

I whispered to him what he’d asked me all those weeks ago. “Where do you wish we could be?”

And he repeated my words to me. “Ask me when this is over.”

Not a resounding, “I love you, I want us to be together, I want to wake up beside you whenever humanly possible, I want to grow old with you.” Nope. Something was holding him back, and until I knew, I was the one adrift.

“Wake up, Boone.”

I stretched in my first-class cubby on our flight back to the U.S. from Tokyo feeling like a defrosted and reheated twice airplane meal. Didn’t look quite right, didn’t taste right at all.

“Sir, we’re making our final descent into PDX. Please put your seat up and stow your belongings.”

The flight attendants had been wonderful, thank goodness. We’d been delayed two fucking days getting out of Japan because of weather and I felt like shit. My voice was gone, my blood sugar had been high the whole time we’d been stuck in the airport, and I’d broken my phone in the process. Bran and Annie had done their best to take care of me despite my shitty attitude.

We were likely going to miss the gala, and I felt like the worst grandson on the planet.

We deplaned and thankfully, there was a driver waiting for us.

“Your associates are collecting your bags,” he said.

“Associates?”

“Greetings!” Rowan and Martin came trotting up. “We’re going to get your belongings for you. Do you have your tags? We’ll bring them in the van. You guys get out of here. You should make it in time for the gala if you leave now.”

The driver hauled ass out of the airport and onto I-84 toward Bolder Breed.

“This sucks. I feel like I’ve been living in a dumpster for a week,” Bran said.

“Or shaken up in a Honey Bucket shitter,” Annie offered.

“God, you’re gonna make me puke.” I felt better being off the plane, but yeah. I was so gross. “I’d almost rather miss it than have anyone within a fifty-yard perimeter of me.”

“Better make it a hundred,” Annie said. “You reek.”

“Thanks. You smell pretty sour yourself.”

The driver piped up. “I’m supposed to let you know that there are clothes in your rooms in the lodge and you should have time to clean up. Ms. Collins says not to worry, they’ll wait for you to begin the performance.”

“Shit. I can’t even sing, we didn’t get a chance to practice. Fucking weather.”

“It’ll be fiiine ,” Annie said.

“Will you text Gran and tell her I don’t have a phone?”

“Already done. She and Shane have been texting me the whole flight. Thank goodness the plane had good Wi-Fi.”

The ride was bumpy and loud. I was just about to fall asleep when the car stopped abruptly.

“Go, go, go!”

Annie and Bran dragged me up the stairs to our rooms and we all split off to shower and change. I was in a daze, like that spacy feeling you get when you’re woken up from a deep sleep, and I tripped over my pants trying to get out of them. I pulled myself up by the bedpost and got a look at what was laid out for me.

Gran had brought my blue velvet suit and my sparkly gold Converse shoes.

The outfit I’d worn to the induction ceremony.

It felt like a good omen.

That night had been the start to me getting my life together, and tonight I was going to at least look put together.

There was also a white box next to the suit with no markings on it. I opened it up and there was a beautifully crafted boutonniere made with dark flowers, nearly black. Not exactly Gran’s taste…

I had no time to ponder. I took a shower, washed my hair three times to get all the funk out of it, and scrubbed my skin raw. I banged on the wall, knowing Annie was on the other side, since I didn’t have my phone. A minute later she was banging on my door.

“What is it?”

She was dressed in a slip dress in a gorgeous blue to match my suit. Bran came trotting over too. “Come on, man. We gotta get out there.”

They both had their hair braided in Australia before we left, and they were able to pull their braids back to look decent.

“Can you guys French braid my hair, please? It will take me forever to blow dry it.”

They both went to work on either side of my head and then Annie joined the two braids together at the base of my neck.

“Damn this shit is long. It goes almost to your ass.”

“I haven’t had it cut in forever.” It had thickened, too, since I’d gotten better with my food and medicines.

The three of us crowded around the bathroom mirror, applying makeup, and then they rushed me through getting dressed.

“Uh,” I said, moving the pile of clothes around on the bed. “No one brought me underwear.”

“Fuck it. Go commando, come on, we gotta go.”

Fuck it was right. There were also no socks, so I was going to have to go barefoot in my Converse, which I hated. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to be dressed like this for long. I wanted to crawl into bed so bad, but the show must go on.

“Let’s do this,” I croaked, and my besties patted my back as we made our way out to the covered amphitheater.

The grounds were packed. There were loads of people wandering around the path that led to where the studio and rehearsal rooms were, looking at all the displayed items available for silent auction. There were servers carrying drink trays and hors d’oeuvres, and I was tempted to snag a whole tray.

“You should drink some water,” Bran said. He grabbed a server and asked them where there was bottled water. He pointed toward the bar, where I found Bruce.

“Hey, you made it.”

He pulled me into a hug, which felt nice, but weird. We didn’t hug. Hadn’t. Was that about to change?”

“Barely. Is Gran okay?”

“Boone, darling.”

I turned to find Gran coming toward me in a gorgeous royal blue sparkly gown…and a cane. With a boot on her foot.

“Gran! What happened?”

She grinned at Bruce, who winked at her.

“It happened weeks ago, I’m almost out of this dreadful shoe.”

Bruce took her other hand and led her to me for a hug. “We went snowboarding after Christmas in Lake Tahoe. We had a fantastic time.”

“Well, it was fantastic until I twisted my foot getting off the ski lift and managed to fracture it. I never even made it onto the slopes.” Gran laughed.

“What the h-e-double hockey sticks were you doing snowboarding?”

Gran put her hand on my arm. “We’ve got a bucket list of things we want to do together. As soon as I’m out of this boot, we’re going to try hydrofoiling.”

“Hydro what ?”

“Yes! Shane bought boards and we’re going to take them to Hawaii.”

“Hawaii?” My head had already been spinning, but now I was in full-blown shock. “Where is Shane?”

Just then, applause sounded from inside the amphitheater and everyone hurried to their seats.

“Come along, Bruce. Boone, we’ll see you after. Kiss kiss.”

Bruce led my gran away to the backstage area while I stood there in shock.

“Come on,” Annie said, taking my arm. Bran took the other. “Rose has seats reserved for us down front.”

“What about performing?” I needed to stretch, warm up, I?—

“Just hurry up.”

We took our seats as Shane took the stage, and my breath caught.

He was wearing a pair of form-fitting black slacks and a black dress shirt with the arms cut off.

Close enough to a monkey suit.

He was stunning. He was also wearing a matching boutonniere to mine.

God, I’d missed him.

I wanted to cry.

Instead, I chinned up and titted out and hoped I could make it through the gala without swooning.

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