Page 70 of The Heartbreakers
Chapter 19
A week later the fighting started again.
“God, you’re such a pretentious asshole!” JJ shouted, the hotel door slamming open and bouncing against the wall. I knew from the tone of his voice that, for once, he wasn’t joking around.
This morning, the band had some type of meeting with their label to discuss the new record that would go into production as soon as their tour was over. While they were gone, I hung out at the hotel and worked on my post that was due later today.
“Me?” Oliver shouted back. “I’m not the one who kept mouthing off the whole damn time. Were you trying to piss him off?”
Alec was the first to appear in the living room. I jumped to my feet when I saw him, but he didn’t stop to tell me what was going on. He swept by silently and disappeared down the hall without a word.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” JJ said, clearly anything but. “I didn’t realize asking for a little creative freedom was considered mouthing off. Next time I’ll consult you before thinking or breathing.”
“Dude, why are you mad at me?” Oliver demanded.
“Because! I want to do something different for our next album.”
I had a strong feeling that neither Oliver or JJ wanted me to hear their fight, so I decided to hide in the suite’s office before they saw me. I scooped up my laptop and dashed across the living room, but when I reached the edge of the room, I realized that their voices weren’t getting any closer.
“What’s wrong with what we have?”
“It’s not us, Oliver,” JJ said as the two continued to fight in the front hall.
“Of course it is,” he shot back. “I wrote it.”
“No, it’s not. You only wrote what they wanted to hear. I’m sick of the sucking up and the sugary music and the stupid clothes. I want things to be like they used to when we had fun and you wrote killer songs.”
I held my breath and tried to ignore the slow burning feeling of guilt in my stomach; I knew I shouldn’t have been standing here, eavesdropping on an exchange that was probably private, but I was tired of not knowing and I couldn’t make myself move. Whenever there was some kind of tension with the band, I always felt like I was catching the tail end of the conversation. Not because I was literally only hearing half of what was said, but because the Heartbreakers seemed to have all these little secrets that everyone knew, but weren’t willing to talk about.
“I’m not sucking up!” Oliver shot back.
“Yeah?” JJ said. “Prove it. Let’s play one of our old Infinity and Beyond songs tomorrow night.”
Oliver’s voice dropped, and I almost didn’t hear his response. “You know we can’t do that.”
“Why not? Because they don’t want us to? Don’t you get it, Oliver? We made it. We don’t have to take their shit anymore.”
“The set list is already set and—”
“Screwthesetlist! Screw them!” JJ shouted. “And you know what? Screw you too!”
The door opened and slammed again. It was quiet for a moment and then, before I realized that the fight was over, Oliver stepped into the living room. When he saw me, he scowled.
“Were you listening to that?”
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, my cheeks warm. “I wasn’t trying to, but you guys were shouting and it was kinda hard not to hear.”
“God dammit!” Oliver swore and kicked the armchair in front of him. Then he dropped down in the seat and buried his face in his hands. After three painfully long seconds he said, “Sorry for yelling, Stella. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
As I looked at him I was hit with another wave of guilt, but I pushed the feeling away. “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked tentatively, and he was quiet for so long that I thought maybe he hadn’t heard my question.
“Thanks for the offer,” he finally said without looking at me. “Maybe tomorrow. Right now I kinda want to be alone.”
“Oh, okay,” I said after swallowing a few times. It hurt that he didn’t want my comfort, but he sounded so dejected that I couldn’t be mad and I left him in the living room to his thoughts.
At first, I didn’t know where I was going—maybe the office where I originally planned to slip off to or one of the many balconies where I could get some fresh air—and I wandered down the hall slowly, trying to process what just happened.
This most recent fight helped clear up some of the mystery surrounding the band’s breakup rumors, filling in details that I’d been oblivious to, but I wanted the full picture. Xander hadn’t returned to the hotel with the rest of the band, and with JJ gone and Oliver not willing to talk, there was only one person I could ask.
