Had the lightning struck? Was the storm really gone?
It sure looked like it.
Tears started streaming down my face as the realization hit home, and the next thing I knew, I was locking myself in so that no one could find me like this, and I cried and cried. All the while wondering how I’d allowed myself to fall for a guy like that.
Chapter 17
Caleb
The L.A. shows had been killer the last couple of nights, and I was trying to catch up on sleep before we headed out on the rest of the tour. Lounging by my pool, I had a cold beer and a new album by one of my favorite lesser known bands loaded up to listen to.
It was a clear day, and I could see all the way to the ocean, the sun beating down on my skin when I moved out from underneath the umbrella I’d pulled my lounger under. I was settling in for the long haul when I heard my front door slam.
There was only one person with a key to get into my place without my opening for them.
Jared was here. Of all people.
Seconds later, he was stepping out onto the deck and sliding his sunglasses from his forehead to his eyes as he squinted into the bright sunlight outside from inside the living room.
He was smiling like a crazy person, heading right to the bar. “Few more days and we’re hitting the road for our next tour spot. Life’s good, ain’t it, little bro?”
“Don’t call me that,” I grumbled, getting up and joining him at the bar. I longingly glanced at my earphones, ready to blast some awesome music, but I knew that Jared hadn’t just dropped by. Whatever reason had brought him here, he wasn’t leaving until it’d been dealt with. Which meant my music was waiting until we were done, as was my nap.
He uncapped a beer, took a long swallow, and then turned to me. “But you are my little bro.” Jared smirked. “Why are you so grumpy? Did you miss the aforementioned bit about life being good?”
“I’m not grumpy. I just wasn’t in the mood for company. My life was good… until you got here. If you’re referring to the tour, you know how I feel about all that.”
“You telling me you weren’t amped after these last few shows? They’ve been the fucking bomb, and we haven’t even left L.A. yet. Loosen up, Caleb. Enjoy the ride a bit, you know?”
“Never said I wasn’t amped. I just still don’t get why we have to keep aiming to sell out bigger and bigger venues. Did you hear that one stadium Alicia and her team are looking at can seat over eighty thousand people? Then there’s one in Spain that can take even more than that. That’s insane.”
Dom called me earlier with the news. I’d been half convinced he was fucking with me until he’d started reading me some e-mails we’d been copied into that I’d ignored. I really had to start paying attention to this shit. If I had been, maybe I could’ve vetoed some of those venues.
I wasn’t nervous or afraid to play crowds that size. Okay, I was maybe a little nervous, but that wasn’t what my hesitation was about. Once we’d played to 80,000 or more people in one city, what the hell did we do the next time we went there? Would there even be a next time? Why would there be when every fan in the city had already seen us?
Jared pushed his sunglasses into his hair and set his beer down. “It’s not insane. Alicia knows what she’s doing. She’s looking at those sizes because that’s the demand she’s been getting for us. It’s fucking amazing, not insane.”
“And it would be colossally stupid to fucking do it,” I told him. I knew that I was being stubborn about this, and I knew how crazy people thought I was for it, but it wasn’t the kind of thing I could just let go.
Jared took a step closer to me, still smiling. I didn’t see his fist form or fly toward me until it was too late. His knuckles connected with my stomach, and I was going down, struggling to breathe but managing to curse him out all the same.
“What the fuck, Jared?”
My knees hit the deck, and I clutched at my abdomen, wondering if he’d punctured one of my lungs with one of my ribs for the burn there. “What the hell are you doing?”
He