Page 82 of A Ballad of Betrayal and Beauty

I ruffle his hair and he punches me in the arm. “Fuck off, dude.”

“You know, I didn’t realize you were so vanilla. From what I’ve heard of you and Becks going at it, I didn’t think you’d blush at the idea of a threesome.”

“All right, all right.” He waves me off, but I don’t miss the way his cheeks turn maroon. “And Becks and I are hardly vanilla.”

I grin. “Sure, kiddo. Sure.”

The sun begins to set as we reach the edge of the city, officially run out of options, and turn around. “I need to get gas and get home. But if he’s not home in the morning, I’ll come back and we can go out looking again, okay?”

“What if he’s not back by Thursday, James? That gig we have lined up in Concord?—”

“Canceled,” he interrupts.

I turn so fast my seat belt locks. “Canceled? Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“The article?” I ask.

He nods. “Yeah, man.”

“Shit.”

James takes a deep breath. “Listen, I don’t want to seem like a bummer when shit is already bad but . . . this little lawsuit problem? It might end up being a reallybigproblem.”

“It’s just one show?—”

“But it’ll be more. The band’s tied to this shit now. Even if the lawsuit goes away, we might never be able to recover in terms of public opinion unless we can prove publicly that it’s bullshit.”

I chew on the inside of my mouth. “Yeah, I get what you’re saying.”

“Do you?”

Is he for real? “Yeah, James, I do. What the fuck?”

He lifts his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I just—you two never take anything seriously and this is serious.”

“I got it?—”

“I just need to make sure that?—”

“I got it!”

He presses his lips together and sighs. “Sorry.”

My shoulders tense, and my stomach is in knots. I glare out the window and catch the last rays of the sun reflect off the windows of The Sapphire, the theater Dusty and I broke into, as it blurs past. I’m not too far from her place. Maybe she would let me hide out there for a while to get away from the press. Can I really go back to that empty house? Maybe Key isn’t coming back. What if this is over?

“Can you just drop me off here?” I ask when we stop at a red light.

James’s face crumples. “Dude, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said?—”

“No, it’s fine. You should have. But I think I’m going to just walk around for a bit. I can grab a cab home.”

“You’re sure? Can’t be sending out a search party for you too.”

I smile. “Don’t worry, man. I’m not going anywhere.”

He nods and claps my outstretched hand. “Okay.”

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