Fractured Beat (Meltdown Book 1) (36 page)

“Promise what?”

“That you’ll stay.”

“I swear it,” I answered. I knew he didn’t believe me, but that was okay. I planned on telling him every day for as long as we were together.

Grant made love to me that morning and it was both heartbreaking and beautiful. On the one hand he was showing me he loved me, but at the same time I could see how much I’d hurt him.

Later, while lying in his arms, he told me what happened with Blane the morning I left. I was shocked to say the least.

“So it’s over? Kirkland’s out?”

“Once we get verification from LASH that the files are legit, he’s gone,” Grant confirmed.

“Do the guys know?”

“Only Nash and Hank. We didn’t want to get everyone’s hopes up. There’s still a chance Blane could be playing us.”

The thought of Blane hurting him made me tense. “Do you think he’s playing you?”

“No, but after everything that’s happened I no longer trust him.”

I was confused. “So why let him work for you?”

“Because he’s good at handling the shit no one else wants to deal with. He’s good with PR and dealing with the day to day stuff.” He placed a kiss on my lips and said, “Trust me when I say he’s getting nowhere near the finances.” Somewhat mollified by his answer, I placed my head back on his chest and he rubbed the back of my neck. “Babe, I have to get back soon.”

I jerked my head up in surprise. “So soon?”

“It’s already two. Hank is outside waiting and I told the guys I’d be back in time to play tonight.”

My eyes bugged in surprise. Surely he was kidding. “Hank is outside my house… right now?”

“Yes, and as much as I want to stay, I can’t.”

“Oh my God, poor Hank!” I screamed, as I shot from the bed and began searching for clothes to pull on.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I whipped my shirt over my head and glared at him. What does it look like I’m doing? You left Hank in the car for the past two hours while we’ve been up here…having sex,” I whispered the last part. “I can’t believe you!” His lips twitched with humor. “This is not funny,” I warned.

“It sure as hell is,” he replied.

As I pulled up my shorts, I rolled my eyes in exasperation. Then I went down to the driveway to get Hank.

An hour later I was dressed, packed and headed to the airport with Grant and Hank. By takeoff, the truth had come out.

Grant bet Hank he would get me back.

Hank bet he wouldn’t.

Grant won, Hank was a sore loser, I was happy and nothing was going to ruin it.

Game On

Grant

W
ithin minutes of
boarding the plane Mallory was nuzzled against my shoulder and fast asleep. As I sat there watching my girl sleep I realized that I was breathing easy again. The moment I walked through her door and saw her sitting there on the sofa with her blanket wrapped around her like a protective shield and staring up at me with those dark circles under her eyes, all the anger, hurt and frustration I’d been carrying around all week was gone and I could finally breathe again. Not wanting to wake her, but needing to touch her, I gently ran my hand back and forth over her leg. Slowly I felt myself begin to relax.

The morning Mallory took off, Hank and I rushed to the airport only to find her already gone. I just about lost it when I discovered we’d missed her. Had we arrived ten minutes earlier, she would have been in my arms instead of on a plane bound for Dallas.
Ten fucking minutes.
At first I wanted to go after her. I made it halfway to the ticket counter before Hank stopped me and started lecturing me about obligations. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I had promises to fulfill. Not only that, but if I went in full force, Mallory would most likely dig her heels in and I would lose her for good. While I wanted her with me, Mallory required a little time and some subtle coercion. On the way back to the hotel, we came up with a plan. As a show of good faith I enlisted Blane’s help.

“Did you tell her about CiCilia?” Hank quietly asked.

I tore my eyes from Mallory long enough to answer, “Nope.”

“Do you plan on telling her?”

Mallory swore not to run, but I wasn’t sure if I believed her or not. The last thing I wanted to give her was an excuse to bail on me again. “Nope,” I answered, and scowled at his surprised expression.

The first step in our plan was for Blane to convince Kirkland that Mallory had a family emergency in Dallas. This would keep Kirkland off of Mallory’s back and buy us some much needed time. Next, he needed to convince CiCilia that either Mallory would rejoin the tour or Happenstance would take legal action against their practice for breach of contract. This would never in a million years happen, but we needed both CiCilia and Mallory to believe it was a definite possibility. Blane would give her a deadline of one week. With or without CiCilia’s help, in one week’s time, I was going for Mallory. Everything after that was up to me. I was pissed at Mallory for running, but I understood why she did it. My girl had gone above and beyond the call of duty to make it right for the family she’d wronged. I had a strong suspicion they had no clue as to the depths of her suffering. In the end, all it took was one phone conversation. During that conversation Mrs. Jacobs recounted everything that happened. According to her, the accident took place on a two lane winding road at night. Mallory was speeding and missed a curve. She swerved head on into their lane and clipped their front left bumper as she tried to right the car. The Jacobs’ car spun off the road and into a ditch. Mrs. Jacobs wasn’t wearing her seatbelt and the impact of hitting the ditch propelled her out the front windshield. The girls both needed stitches, one on her hand and the other on the side of her face. Mrs. Jacobs, however, didn’t fare so well. After the doctors managed to get the swelling on her brain to subside, she needed extensive therapy in order to learn how to speak again. Five years later, she’d made a full recovery and felt she owed it all to Mallory’s generosity. Yes, Mallory was at fault, but she could have walked away, let the insurance company’s lawyers handle it and never looked back. Mrs. Jacobs’ take on the whole experience was that they both made mistakes, but they learned from them. It would have been a very different story had she been wearing her seatbelt. She felt bad for what the press was doing to Mallory and when I asked for her help, she eagerly agreed. In the end, it was Nash who suggested the interview and Blane who helped to make it happen.

“Have you spoken with your parents?” Hank asked.

“I spoke with Dad this morning.”

“Melba sure can hold a mean grudge,” he muttered.

Boy, he wasn’t kidding. When I was fifteen, I took Mom’s car for a joyride and accidentally ran into a stop sign. After screaming at me and grounding me for a month, she didn’t speak to me for two whole weeks. When she called the morning Mallory left and I hung up on her she went ballistic. According to Dad, she was calling to hear my side of what happened in Houston. As she hadn’t seen the news yet, she had no idea what was going on with Mallory. Apparently hanging up on her was icing on the giant turd cake that Kirkland Fucking Hamilton had baked for us. In typical Mom fashion, she blew her lid, packed her bags and demanded they leave immediately. So, while Hank and I were on our way back from the airport, my parents were in route to catch the next flight back to Texas. It was a good thing they weren’t going to Dallas or there’s a chance they would have come face to face with Mallory. Mom would have come unhinged. The moment we hit the hotel and Marcel told us they were gone I tried to call, but only got her voicemail. I asked her to call me back so I could explain. She didn’t call me back and we hadn’t spoken since. She’d eventually get over it, but would I? After how she’d treated Mallory, I wasn’t so sure. Dad said to give her time. As far as I was concerned she could take as much time as she needed. I had much bigger shit to deal with, such as hearing back from LASH and finally taking Kirkland down.

“Have you heard back from Garrett?” I asked.

Garrett Lanier was the founder and head honcho at LASH. He was on a case and had to miss the show the night we visited Dragonfly in Charlotte. According to Bobby, the minute Garrett caught wind of my situation he wanted in on it. We would pull in the lawyers as soon as the guys at LASH gave the go ahead. Then it would be showdown time.

“Not yet,” Hank replied.

“What the fuck is taking them so long?” I was done with waiting. All I did anymore was wait on shit to happen.

We still had two more nights in New York after Mallory left. One was at the same venue as the night before and the other was a two hour bus ride north. Kirkland attended both shows and each time he flashed his smug smile I wanted to kick his geriatric ass from one end of the arena to the other. Even though it wasn’t said, we both knew he was the reason Mallory was gone. If it was the last thing I did, I would make him pay. As if Kirkland gracing us with his presence wasn’t torture enough, I also had to deal with Chelle, Leah and Kaci as well. Whenever Chelle and I were in the same room, which I tried to avoid at all costs, I felt her eyes on me. Unlike the previous night, she kept her distance. I was pretty sure it was because Blane was present. Being that Blane was the one who’d banned her from Meltdown, she was smart to keep a low profile while he was around. Leah and Kaci were in their usual high spirits. Thankfully they also stayed away. By this point everyone had seen the news. It was obvious why Mallory wasn’t there. Whereas Blane helped run interference with the press, Kirkland fed the flames. I spent the whole night fielding questions. I didn’t blame the guys for being pissed at me. The focus should have been on the band, not my love life. In all, New York was a fucking shit show and a media nightmare.

Mallory stirred under my hand and I rubbed her leg. Once she settled, I quietly said, “The minute we land, call and find out what’s taking the guys at LASH so long. This should have been settled by now.”

“You need to focus on your girl and tonight’s show. Leave the rest to me,” Hank chided. He was right. I had a lot riding on this show, but I also had a lot riding on Kirkland’s exit from Happenstance.

“Did you get a chance to call Ava about the notebook? If not, I’ll call when we land,” I asked Hank. The spiral I used to write my songs in was missing. The last time I remembered seeing it was at my house – on the floor in the studio – where I tossed it before jumping Mallory. I glanced down at her beautiful face and, for the thousandth time, couldn’t believe she was actually here with me. Someone was looking out for me when they sent me Mallory. There was no way in hell I was losing her again.

“I spoke with her earlier and she said she’d take a look around and call me if she found it,” Hank answered. It was a good thing I’d played the song as much as I had and could remember all the changes or tonight wouldn’t be possible. “If you don’t mind me asking, what went down with Luke yesterday?”

“Fuck if I know. One minute we were practicing and the next he was chewing me a new asshole.”

“Normally that’s Chaz’s job,” he joked.

“Tell me about it,” I muttered. Then I explained what happened.

Yesterday in practice I knew I was acting like a whiny bitch. In all fairness it had been a shit week and I was at the end of my rope. CiCilia was frantically trying to come up with the money to buy Mallory out of her contract, which is exactly what I didn’t want to happen, and we were waiting to hear word from Blane’s friend at Channel 22 News that the interview with Mrs. Jacobs was a definite go. I was in the middle of bitching about us not having our shit together when Luke slammed his hands down on the keys.

Once he had our undivided attention, he said, “Do you realize that if you’d spent half as much time worrying about Dale as you’ve spent chasing Mallory’s tail, he would still fucking be here?”

“Luke,” Nash warned.

“No, I’m serious. This whole week your total focus has been on some chick you barely know. Dale was one of your best friends. I just don’t fucking get it.”

Had it been anyone else, I would have told them to fuck off, but since it was Luke and he was grieving, I gave him the benefit. “I’m in love with her,” I admitted to the entire room.

“You’re in love with her,” he repeated dismissively. He was starting to piss me off.

“Yes, Luke, I’m in love with her,” I stated in a matter-of-fact-tone.

“Well goody for you,” he snarled before storming out of the room.

Once he was gone, I turned to Nash and Chaz and asked, “What the fuck?” They both shrugged.

“Was he cool to you this morning?” Hank asked.

“I didn’t see him this morning. Did you?”

“Yeah. He seemed fine to me.”

Mallory’s eyes drifted open. Once she focused on me she smiled and asked, “Have I been out long?” The Captain came on the loud speaker and told us to prepare for landing. “Well, I guess that’s my answer,” she mused as I helped her sit up and secure her seatbelt.

Meltdown did a quick stop over in Connecticut after New York. We played to a packed arena. Blane was there but Kirkland was not. The next morning the bus was heading for Boston. CiCilia was no longer answering Blane’s calls, Mallory still hadn’t responded and I was fucking done. So, with Blane’s help, Hank and I commandeered the Happenstance jet and headed for Dallas to get my girl back.