Levi’s words made sense, but Frank was a wreck, and I couldn’t fathom asking him to emotionally commit to my project.
“Why aren’t you managing rock stars?” I asked with a smile. “You’d be pretty good at it.”
“I already have a baby to grow and nurture. Besides, now that his mom is taking a break, it’s double duty for me.” He grinned.
“Asshole.” I punched his shoulder. “Mom is on vacation. She’s coming back.”
“She better.”
I drove home with the music blasting full volume. My choice of album was almost symbolic. I had an overwhelming urge to live through the pain of my first teenage heartbreak, so naturally, I played Breathe Crimson.
The first thing I saw when I pulled up to the house was the Navigator parked in the driveway and its owner smoking on the terrace. Roman stood nearby with his hands locked together. I called it his war pose.
I cut the engine and stared at the picture before me. It made no sense. Dante Martinez hadn’t been on this property since the day he and Johnny came over to tell Frank they wanted a new singer. All the communication between the band members was done strictly via lawyers.
“What’s going on?” I asked, stepping out of the car.
“Hey, short stuff. How are you doing?” Dante hollered from the chair. His right leg was swung over his left one and he was mouth-torturing a cigarette.
“Do you need a knife?” I gritted my teeth and began my approach.
“A knife?” He quirked his dark brow.
“Last time I checked, cigarettes weren’t cutting it if you planned on stabbing someone in the back.” I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and matched his hard stare.
He blinked at me a few times, then laughed. His laughter was rough and deep. Smoke puffs floated from his mouth and nose. “You’ve got some dark humor, darlin’.”
He pulled the cigarette from between his lips and brought his body forward. For someone who smoked so much, Dante had awfully perfect teeth. White, shiny, and even. I wondered if they were real. I wondered if anything about him was real.
“Well, what can I say? Life taught me all my jokes.” I couldn’t read his expression. He was every bit the mess he should have been. Eyes bloodshot, cheeks sunken, hair tousled. Only, he wore his vices proudly. He didn’t hide any of his bad habits, be it cigarettes or drug addiction. He didn’t look high to me right now, but I couldn’t think of any other somewhat logical explanation behind his visit.
“Frankie-boy isn’t letting me inside.” Dante motioned at Roman. “I want to talk to him. Can you get your man to come out?”
“I wasn’t sure if you were on something.” I hopped up the stairs and stopped in front of the door. “But I am now.”
Dante’s gaze followed me. “Come on. I drove all the way from the West Side.”
“You should have called first.”
“I did. Asshole hasn’t picked up his phone since last century.” He stared down at the tip of his cigarette and ashed it into the planter near the chair. His manners were nonexistent. Just like his compassion and sense of brotherhood.
“I don’t want to be the middleman. If you need to talk to him about something, don’t ask me to take messages.”
“Come on,” he groaned in frustration. “You’re already the middleman. You’ve been one for a while now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I brushed him off.
“I’m not that stupid, Cassy. I understand you more than you think. You’re a young, idealistic, full-of-drive, never-bitten-in-the-ass-by-the-big-guys-before woman who thinks the world is still worth saving. I know he was open to my offer because of you. Because you agreed with me the first time around. Because you’re scared for him. Because your judgment isn’t clouded by all the love he’s been feeding on all these years. He’s so fucking terrified of letting all the people who worship him go because he still thinks he needs to keep making them happy in order to validate his existence.”
My heart leapt into my throat. I turned to face him and took a step in his direction.
“Guess what?” Dante’s gaze roamed my face. “He doesn’t. He just doesn’t see it. But I do. I have for a while now. You do too.”
“And what do you see?”
Dante slipped his cigarette back in his mouth and took a long drag. “The world can’t be saved, darlin’. As long as there are people like Lilly, your father, or my parents. The world is going to burn one day. We probably won’t be here for the final countdown, but who’s to say we need to carry its weight on our shoulders until our dying days. Especially if we systematically contribute to the reduction of our own term here, on this planet. Frankie-boy made history. He’ll be fucking forever remembered. Now it’s time he takes it easy.”
Worry and confusion pulled at my chest. This conversation was more than I’d bargained for. “Why are you here, Dante?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with the label’s decision to fire Frankie-boy. I stood by my original offer. I want to keep writing music with him. We make good shit together.”
“Made,” I corrected.
“That’s only if he wants to play the victim.”
“I don’t think victim is the right word here.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” A grin flashed at me.
I rolled my eyes. Dante’s attitude was a crossbreed of narcissism and arrogance, a whiny illegitimate baby of two really horrible personality traits that could never figure their shit out, but my feet remained fixed.
“If you want to be upfront, let’s be upfront.” I crossed my arms on my chest
