Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit

25. Rivers

25

RIVERS

M y Sunshine Girl didn’t look like she was enjoying her breakfast very much.

I watched as her face went from red-hot—she’d been looking at me like she was trying to shoot flames right at me before Taylor caught her—to pale, to... something that looked like it was carved from stone.

Whatever Taylor was saying wasn’t sitting well with her, and I could see her expression reflected on Anna’s face. True, I didn’t know Anna as well and doubted she thought very much of me, but she was also Lila’s best friend. The girl who watched out for my girl. And she’d gone nearly as still and stony as Lila herself. Like they’d both just heard something they hadn’t been expecting, and they didn’t appreciate it.

Taylor’s face, on the other hand, was all business, and she was talking a mile a minute. She’d obviously gone to that meeting already knowing what she was going to say and how she was going to say it. She’d been prepared to do whatever it took to talk Lila and Anna into her newest scheme. And if I knew Taylor, she’d presented it so clearly that there was almost no argument to be made. Then, once she’d had her say, she’d put the cherry on the top.

Lila and Anna had followed this tour to try to win a contract, and Taylor had promised them one if Lila pretended to date me. The dating thing…

Well, it was still going on, but it didn’t take a genius to guess that Taylor didn’t think it was going well. Lila and I had been in front of the cameras, but I’d been having more and more trouble summoning a smile for those flashes, and she and I weren’t spending as much time on our own anymore. Taylor had been all over Lila, which had kept her from my side. Counter effective, really, but knowing Taylor, she had a reason. Still, if this kept up, our story was going to go from ‘young and in love’ to ‘she couldn’t fix what was wrong with him.’

That didn’t suit Taylor’s plans at all. Or at least not the ones I knew about.

I was betting that the meeting they were having now had a whole lot to do with that problem, and whatever Taylor had come up with as a solution. And I was also betting that Taylor was letting them both know that the contract she’d promised them was now on the line unless Lila did exactly what she wanted.

My eyes shot back to Lila and I took in the too-pale skin and eyes that had grown several sizes larger. Right. Taylor was definitely demanding more of her, then, and I could guess what that was, too. The girl was incredibly talented and beautiful and charming, and she was wasted if she was just standing around in the audience. Taylor had already marked her out for a contract, after only hearing her sing once, and she had to be telling her now that she wanted Lila and Anna up on stage more often, playing to the crowd and building their fan base. Earning that contract she’d been dangling in front of them.

I didn’t mind that part at all. I’d had her up on stage with me once, and it had been one of the best shows of my life. The girl could play to the crowd and had pipes like I’d never heard before. The audience also loved her. She played to them exactly the way they liked. If Taylor wanted the girls on stage with us more often, I’d agree to it in a heartbeat. The whole band would. They’d already taken her under their wing and started treating her like the little sister none of them actually had.

But she hadn’t brought this to us. She’d gone to the girls.

Maybe she was just telling them exactly what I was thinking. It wasn’t a leap to think she was suggesting Lila and Anna play with the Authors when we were on stage. She might even be offering them time with Olivia and Connor and their band.

I wondered if there was even more, though. Maybe she was suggesting they actually replace me. She’d already told me more than once that I was a waste of time and could no longer throw around the weight I once had. Maybe she though Lila would be better off forgetting about me. Even pulling the whole fake dating scheme off the table, telling Lila that she had better things for her to do with her time.

And if she was telling her that I was a waste of time, and that Lila would be better off without me?

Well, would she be so wrong?

Hadn’t I been thinking the same thing about myself for the past week? For the past few years?

For my entire life?

The last week, of course, had been even worse. I couldn’t seem to get it together, couldn’t get myself back on track. My focus had left me and any momentum I’d had coming into this tour had flown right out the window. True, it had flared for a bit, when Lila first entered my life, and I’d had a taste of hope for the first time in... well, ever.

And then I’d come to my senses and pulled away. Given up on something that could have dragged me out of the hole, and sent myself right back into that darkness.

The thing was, this wasn’t the first time I’d gone through something like this. There were too many spirals to count over the years, too many almost-made-it moments, and too many times when I’d intentionally turned back into the shadows.

But this was the first time I could pinpoint the specific thing that had almost healed me… and then hadn’t.

Lila Potter. I saw her talking to another guy, and it broke me. I’d been flirting with labeling my feelings for her at that point and seeing her with someone else had hurt so badly, affected me so deeply, that I’d shut down. Sure, I’d tried to fight it. Tried like hell, and worked to keep her on the tour when she wanted to leave. But I’d ended up losing the battle, because I couldn’t stop thinking about her and that other guy.

I couldn’t stop thinking that she’d be better off with him than she was with me.

It wasn’t conscious or intentional. These streaks never had been. I never knew when they were coming, and once they arrived I couldn’t control them. They were like a defense mechanism I couldn’t control. A shift from one end of the spectrum to another, where I’d go from thinking everything was going to be okay to wanting to destroy the life I’d been building.

In Lila’s case, I’d realized how much I treasured her, even after only a week, and how much I’d suddenly come to depend on her. That smile. The laugh. The ability to eat nearly an entire pie by herself.

I’d seen how much I’d opened up to her and realized how dangerous it was. And the dark side of my personality had decided we were too close, and smashed the connection.

Really, it was for her own good. I was twice as dangerous to her as she was to me. She was meant for the sun, and I was a creature of the shadow. She’d been falling in love with me, and I was not the man for her. I would only hurt her, the way I’d hurt so many other people in my years. She’d think she had me, only to watch me slip through her fingers without any reason. She couldn’t afford to have me in her life, and I didn’t think she’d ever see that—or go through with cutting me out.

So I’d done it for her. I’d made sure she’d be safe and clean, and I meant to keep it that way.

Sure, it was killing me. And I was sinking into the blackness. But I didn’t see any way around that. Was I worried that I was damaging the Global Authors’ chance at staying on the tour? Yes. I worried about my bandmates—my best friends—every day, and knew that by damaging myself, I might also be damaging them.

Which was why I’d been working on a plan. It wasn’t a good plan. It wasn’t something I’d even fleshed out yet, and I certainly hadn’t committed to it. I didn’t know if it would work. But it was starting to take up more space in my mind.

And if I could pull it off, it would save not only my band, but Lila, as well.

I watched her turn toward me, her eyes narrowed in thought, and I caught her gaze and held it for a long, tense moment.

When she nodded and turned away, I knew she’d already made up her mind. She was going to do whatever Taylor was asking her to do. She was going to play to the audience and get her fans. She was going to win her contract.

I closed my eyes and breathed out slowly, feeling my heart break and then mend itself together again.

And in that moment, I made up my mind. I didn’t know exactly what Lila was agreeing to, but I knew what my next steps were. She deserved everything. The fame, the fans, the contract. She deserved to be happy and successful. She deserved all the things she’d set out on this tour to find.

And I was going to make sure that happened.

Even if it meant I had to leave the picture, myself.