Fandom (Famous #3) - Eden Finley Page 0,2

with either her pimp or her dealer, so yeah, the first few years of my life were delightful. Luckily, I was too young to really remember much before my grandmother reluctantly took me in.

She raised me and cared for me right up until she passed away when I was sixteen.

By that point, I was in a famous boy band and could prove to the courts I was able to provide for myself.

Pro tip: don’t let sixteen-year-olds dictate their own lives.

When I was eighteen, I needed a financial advisor to keep my spending under control.

I had the habit of shopping for expensive and meaningless things to fill my house. Because when you grow up with nothing, the constant reminder you can afford a twenty-thousand-dollar duck statue fills that void. His name is Bill, and he’s essential to my mental well-being.

Harley says the one thing that could tempt me into caving to this stupid idea. “We were like family. Even families have reunions.”

All I ever wanted was a proper family. When I did visit with Mason, his life was so … normal. He might have lost his dad at a young age, but his mom, sister, and he are the definition of close family.

I’ve told myself for years that the bond I had with Mason was pure envy over what he had. That I was somehow confusing admiration for attraction. But I can’t help acknowledging the hole his absence has left in my life and in my chest.

I long for someone who was my best friend even though I haven’t had the balls to contact him since Eleven broke up.

I can’t face him after what I did.

I turn to Harley. “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I’m out. I guarantee the others will say the same.” Especially Mason.

Chapter Two

Mason

The deep voice on the other end of the line is soothing yet authoritative, and I find it hard to say no to the man who had been like a father to me for seven years. Cameron Verikas, Eleven’s manager, was the replacement dad for me after having lost mine at ten years old. It was nice having that fatherly figure in my life again after going through my teen years without one, but right now I’m remembering why overbearing parental figures can be annoying.

“Just take a meeting with Harley. It’s one meeting. What have you got to lose?”

My dignity, for one. “I don’t think you can hear me, old man. Have you got your hearing aids in?” I bite my lip to stop from laughing because I know what’s coming.

“I’m fifty-two. I don’t need no damn hearing aids.”

I’d believe his anger more if he wasn’t laughing with me. “I think you do because you clearly can’t hear when I say I’m not going back.”

I breathe in the Montana mountain air and stare out at the vast land before me. There’s a comfort in knowing that while it’s isolating and lonely out here, it’s consistent. Unlike Hollywood and everyone in it.

I remember back to when Eleven broke up, when I couldn’t wait for creative freedom and to take responsibility over my own career. I was a naïve motherfucker.

Apparently, when trying a new sound, surrounding yourself with yes people is a bad idea. Everyone on my team showered me with praise to the point I thought I was doing amazing things, and while I love the album I ended up cutting, seeing it from an industry perspective, it wasn’t a sellable record. It was all over the place with no real theme or genre.

It’s great to have a creative outlet, but I wish I’d hired a manager who could rein me in when I went too far out of the mainstream box. I wish I still had Cameron, but he made it clear when the boy band broke up that he wouldn’t pick sides.

The only person I have to blame for choosing the wrong team of people is myself, but I’m still salty about it anyway.

When everything fell to pieces, it was the first time I realized I was truly alone in the industry, which is why I came running back to Montana with my tail between my legs and why I have absolutely no interest in what Harley has to say to me now that it’s convenient for him.

“Are you going to make me shlep all the way out there again?” Cameron asks.

“Hey, you’re always welcome to visit.”

Cameron’s the only one from my old life I’ve kept in contact with over these last eighteen months