No Commitment (Capital Kingsmen #1) - Lisa Suzanne Page 0,7
worth it.
“Suit yourself,” he says, and he heads out of the room with Brett, our drummer.
That leaves me with Dustin—the only one of the four of us in a relationship—and his girl, Amanda, who’s perched in a chair in the corner as she scrolls her phone.
I collapse on the couch temporarily set up for us.
“You okay, man?” Dustin asks. He sits in a chair next to the couch.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Just ready to be home.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
I’m sure he is—we all are, but it’s different for him. He’s got his girl by his side. He’s happy. She came on this tour to be with him, while I left someone behind through no choice of my own.
It was her idea to wait until we could be together to decide the fate of our future. She was the only person on my mind for weeks, and none of that changed when I finally got out of the house and was put on a plane to England before I even had the chance to take a deep breath of California air.
I tried calling her. She blocked me.
I tried to get in touch via social media. She ignored me.
I mailed her letters with my return address to the temporary home we set up in London. She never wrote back.
“But is there something else?” Dustin asks.
I’m about to unload every tiny little thread I’ve been pulling for the last two years when Tommy and Brett return from their smoke.
The four of us plus Amanda and our manager, Karl, head out to the big car waiting to take us to this private show we’re playing tonight. We’ve only contracted four songs, and a small portion of roadies are already there setting us up while the majority of our crew works here to tear down our set from tonight.
“Who’s this event for?” Tommy asks Karl once we’re in the back of the car.
“Some rich guy’s daughter turned eighteen,” Karl says. “He paid out the ass, so don’t fuck up and be ready to stick around afterward for pictures.”
Tommy raises a brow. “Eighteen, you say? Sounds like fresh meat to me. I’ll stick around for more than pictures, if you know what I mean.” He elbows me and laughs the stupid laugh he does when he thinks he’s being funny, but if I’m being honest, the joke’s getting old.
Brett laughs along with him, and I feel like a bit of an outsider. It used to be Tommy and me all the way, but ever since I was forced to go on that reality show, Tommy hasn’t been the same ally to me he once was. He thought it would get our name out there. I wanted no part of competing against people who were serious and wanted a real shot at winning the grand prize when I had zero intention of leaving Capital Kingsmen, but he talked me into it. He made me feel like I was letting everybody down if I didn’t do it.
And you know what? He was right. We did get a fuck-ton of exposure because of that show. I’m recognized everywhere now even though I came out looking like an asshole for going on with the wrong intentions, but at least I told the truth before it was too late.
Tommy has turned into a fame-pimp...not a fame-whore, because then he’d actually have to do something aside from relying on his vocal talents and good looks. Instead, he whores the rest of us out for whatever he thinks will turn into dollars in his pocket.
He’s good at what he does.
In the last two years, we’ve been all over Europe, Australia, South America, and Asia. The four of us created a little home base for ourselves in London, and we’ve never had enough consecutive days off to travel back to the States for a little slice of home.
It’s been a long-ass two years, and this tour wasn’t even supposed to be ours. Tragedy struck another band and they had to pull out. All the arenas were already reserved for our label, so we were asked if we wanted the tour dates. I was locked in a house for a reality show with no access to my phone when the rest of my band made the final call.
We’d been itching to tour Europe, and this was our chance—even though it wasn’t ideal. But the timing of this career is almost never ideal. Personal lives don’t much matter when you have opportunities to build an audience and take