“I’m so glad I saw you by the pool.” I kissed her forehead. “Who are you working for down here?”
“I’m promoting this awesome jewelry line.” Alex held up her slender arm and shook her wrist. The silver bangle bracelets she wore jingled, tiny stars, moons, and planets sparkled with diamond chips.
“These are cool.” I reached up and touched the bracelets.
Alex laced her fingers with mine. “You’ve never asked me about anything I’ve ever promoted.”
“Maybe it was me that needed to grow up. My head has been buried up my ass long enough.”
Alex giggled.
“Hey, you aren’t meant to agree!” I tickled her, causing her to squeal.
Alex turned on her side and circled my nipple with our fingers, causing it to pucker. I brought our clasped hands to my heart.
“Is this real?” Alex whispered against my chest.
“You better fucking believe it.”
The next three days were a real whirlwind.
After a night and morning of passion, we moved Alex’s things into my bigger room and christened it everywhere. We spent the next day at Coachella decidedly together, holding hands and taking in a few bands using my All-Access pass to watch from the side stage. Alex looked stunning in a white, crochet halter top and long, flowy skirt with her ever-present black Frye boots, a floppy hat, and long, colorful scarf protecting her from the dusty terrain. She also wore dozens of her client’s dainty astrological chains around her neck and wrists.
After she got her posts done on the second day, we decided to skip Beyoncé, who was headlining. Instead, we spent the next twelve hours reconnecting and revisiting every position we could think of in my hotel suite.
On the final night, since we were headlining, I had to duck out early in the morning to do a soundcheck before the gates opened. While I was gone Alex planned on posting the final shots she needed for her client. Needless to say, we got caught up and I was late for my drum check.
Two years ago, headlining Coachella would have been the most important thing in my life.
This year . . . Well, every year from now on, it was Alex.
Whistling, I strolled backstage where everyone was waiting for me. I took my place on the drum riser without saying a word.
“Nice of you to show up, J.” Ty boomed into the mic, looking over his shoulder at me.
“Must have been a pretty good night,” Connor replied into his on mic.
Ignoring the peanut gallery, I grabbed a pair of drumsticks from my bag and began warming up without feeling any need to explain. After we finished our quick soundcheck, we headed to our dressing room before we began the first round of press.
“Jace, where have you been? You haven’t blown a gasket, so I guess you haven’t heard the news.” Zane said quietly as we made our way through the maze of production to the band area.
“Stop making it such a big deal.” Ty caught up to us.
“What happened?” I was confused and still pretty giddy from my Alex reunion.
“Ty and Ronni broke up,” Connor said gruffly. “It was quite a spectacle.”
“We staged the whole relationship, she’s in love with someone else,” Ty protested. “We were both sick of the lies.”
I grabbed my reading glasses and pulled up the gossip sites and LTZ’s Instagram after being blessedly free of social media for the past day. “Jesus, I leave you alone for a minute.”
Immediately I was inundated with reports and images of Ronni and Ty screaming at each other outside of Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills. Booze and sex paparazzi pictures of Ty from a few years before had also made a comeback. Article after article about their breakup cast Ty in the asshole role. Sure enough, Ty had blown his good-guy image up again.
“For fuck’s sake.” I leveled a glare at him. “You’re determined to ruin your own life.”
“No, I’m trying to take control back. I’m not a liar.” Ty stared me down. “It was wrong of you and the PR team to make me have a fake girlfriend.”
“Well, you certainly managed to get yourself in the press again.” I showed him a gnarly picture of him passed out somewhere with his cock getting sucked by some random groupie. “Nice work.”
“God damn it!” Ty handed my phone back to me and stalked toward the dressing room. “I’m not going to the press room.”
I yelled after him, “You sure as fuck are.”
Sighing, I flipped through the coverage. Headline after headline of what a fuck-up Ty was and how he broke the pure-and-innocent Ronni’s heart inundated my feed. Ty had become so famous that this breakup had pushed all the other headlines of the day into the background.
After placing a quick call to Sienna and Andrew, I began feverishly scrubbing the stories and pulling down the old pictures again in between interviews before the show.
Of course, the “breakup” was all the press wanted to talk about with us, so we probably seemed lame when we kept repeating, “no comment.” Needless to say, we were all a little testy by the time our set rolled around.
I texted Alex to give her the heads-up about the situation and the mood backstage. She decided to watch from the crowd and meet me back at my room after the show. Years of being on the road and suffering through bad press had made us consummate professionals, and our show was the best we had played in months. When we finished our last encore, all I wanted to do was shower and get back to the hotel and Alex.
“Dude, I’m sorry.” Ty was waiting for me in the lounge area of the dressing room.
I sat down next to him; he deserved a break. “Don’t sweat it.”
“I just couldn’t do it anymore, I’m so sick of feeling like a fuck-up.” He sighed, leaned back into the couch, and stared at the ceiling.
“I’ve got a team taking down all of the photos.”
Ty peered over at me. “You don’t need to do
