He throws his hands up before turning around, gripping the sides of his neck. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Am I meant to be happy that you married a girl I introduced you to when I was seeing her?”
Instantly, I know what he’s implying, and I don’t like it. Eye twitching, I clench my fists that are tucked into my armpits where my arms are crossed. “I wouldn’t have done that to you. I’ve never touched a girl you laid claim to. You or any of the guys.”
His eyes snap to me, raw anger challenging me. “That’s hilarious considering you married the one I actually saw something in.”
Shit. “You really liked her?”
“You know I did.”
“I—”
“I went to you, Garrick.” One of his hands flies out toward the guys watching through the glass, all looking like they wish they had popcorn right about now. “The guys all told me I was fucking crazy for going after her because it wouldn’t last with our crazy schedule, but you told me to do what made me happy. And up until the day those goddam photos surfaced she was the thing that made me happy. I felt normal. Not like some guy from Violet Wonders. A dude who liked a girl and wanted it to work. That’s it. She didn’t ask about the band or the money or the fame. I could talk to her about anything and not feel judged or used. You told me that was something special when I went to you about her.”
I scrub a hand down the side of my face. It’s no secret that I’m a tool when it comes to women—a cheat, a player looking to have fun for a while before growing bored. And, sure, I’ve been known to steal women a time or two from others, but that was when I was out of control. Younger. Stupid. I never once went after someone that I knew a bandmate was into.
The day I met Rylee…
It’s a blur. Everything from that period was because I’d been so focused on trying to pull myself out of the pit of overwhelming anxiety I’d buried myself so deeply in. I was ten times more selfish than usual, only concerned with myself, on trying to get healthy and fight the intense need to seek out anything to ease the craving.
The world had taken a backseat to my sobriety—Chase, Mum, my friends, my career. I don’t recall a lot of the shit that happened because it wasn’t what I wanted to concentrate on then.
Not Zayne’s problems.
Not what Rylee did to him.
All I remember is the way my eyes always found hers from across the room the night Zayne introduced us. How I’d twitch whenever one of his hands touched her waist, or when she’d brush up against his side to get closer whenever he’d talk over the loud music. They didn’t stay long, and that made me irrationally angry.
The feelings I recall vividly—the keyed-up intensity that I blamed on the detox. How the emotions fed into my need to escape. I begged myself to call someone to get me out of there before I did something stupid. Like use. Like go after them because, deep down, I knew where Zayne was going and what he was doing every time he slipped into the bathroom.
I’d been there.
Fuck. I taught him the ropes.
I’d relived those exact moments constantly over the years, but the woman’s face was always out of focus. Her hair was brown, her body was fucking sinful, and those eyes…
I didn’t want to believe it was Rylee.
It wasn’t until she even told me we’d met before that it clicked into place.
All those feelings, those choppy memories, because of a girl I didn’t even know.
I dropped the ball on my best mate’s feelings in favor of my own, and clearly crossed a line by giving her my last name. And as much as I want to feel bad, to tell him I’d take it back or make it better, I couldn’t do either. I’d given Rylee my word.
“Zayne, I’m sorry,” I tell him honestly, voice rough but sincere. I’m sorry for more than just what happened with me and Rylee. I gave him the drugs that night, making me partially responsible. I’m the reason a lot of shit has happened to him—to all the guys. “I was going through hell back then. You know some days were worse than others, and I was struggling.”
He looks like he wants to grab the microphone and smash it through the glass. Face red, he distances himself from me. “That’s the thing, Garrick. You may have been struggling, but so were the rest of us. We put everything on pause for you. We stopped touring. Stopped recording. Took a hit in the media. In sales. As long as you got better, we didn’t care about any of that shit. But it’s always been about you and what you wanted. The few times any of us have tried getting something for ourselves, you have to do something that pulls it back to you because heaven fucking forbid anyone else is happy around here.”
He barely takes a breath before continuing, and I know better than to try speaking, to reassuring him anyway I can. “Did you know I was sick to my stomach when the tabloids blasted my photos everywhere? I thought you’d relapse if you saw them. I thought I’d ruined everything for you because I wasn’t done having fun yet. I felt like the shittiest friend, the most selfish ass I could have been because of what I’d been caught doing. And what was worse was that the first girl who seemed normal, who granted me a sense of peace, was responsible for the biggest regret in my life. Yet here you are, all this time later, with the same woman I poured my heart out to you over.
