Page 72 of The Heartbreakers
“Everything. He wanted complete control—the music, our image, even the name of the band. He wanted to make sure what happened with Jackson wouldn’t happen again, and we went along with it,” Alec said. He was speaking quickly now, the words flowing from his mouth. His voice was on the verge of cracking, and I knew the more Alec spoke about this, the harder it was for him to hide his mounting anger. “But now, even though we’re more successful than anyone ever thought we’d be, my dad won’t loosen the reins. He’s strangling us.”
“What’s that got to do with JJ being pissed at Oliver?” I asked in a gentle voice.
“JJ’s sick of doing whatever the label says. He wants us to write our own music again. Actually, we all do, but Oliver…” Alec grunted in frustration. “It’s like he’s on my dad’s side. He refuses to go against him, even though we all know he misses how things used to be. JJ and Oliver started fighting when we left for the tour. It got so bad that rumors started spreading about us breaking up. Things cooled off for a little bit when you joined us, and I thought maybe they’d settled things, but then…well, you heard what happened.”
When Alec finally finished, he glanced at me with an old-before-his-time look. My heart sank as I stared back at him, and it was impossible not to sense the pain wafting off him in waves. He thoughthewas responsible for this whole mess—the rules, the arguing, the rumors. I desperately wanted to say something, anything that would ease his guilt, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t matter what I said.
I tried anyway. “It’s not your fault, you know,” I said, reaching out to comfort him.
Alec looked down at our touching hands before making eye contact with me and shaking his head. “But I forced them to let me join their band.”
“You didn’t force them to do anything,” I told him. “They could have said no.”
“I guess,” Alec said. “It doesn’t really matter though, does it? Oliver and JJ are fighting, and my dad is still being an asshole.”
“Maybe,” I said, a small smile forming on my lips, “but I think I have an idea. Do you mind if I borrow your iPod?”
• • •
“You didwhat?”
It was early morning, and I was sitting at the kitchen counter, legs dangling from the bar stool, in the boys’ current hotel suite. They had a show in the evening, so we were all fueling up before the busy day. Courtney’s assistant had dropped off breakfast, an assortment of Panera bagels, four different flavors of cream cheese, and orange juice.
Yesterday’s fight still lingered in the air, and everyone was relatively quiet. That was, until I told Oliver that I’d added an Infinity and Beyond song to my blog update last night. It was the first time I’d added music to a post, but Paul had shown me how to do it when he first taught me how to use the blog, and it had been simple.
I didn’t do it to piss off Oliver or cause more drama. I wanted to know how the Heartbreakers’ fans would react to such a different style of music. Alec helped me select which Infinity and Beyond song to use, and I prompted the boys’ fans to give me feedback once they’d given it a listen. I didn’t once mention that the song was Oliver, JJ, and Xander’s from pre-Heartbreakers days, because I wanted an unbiased opinion.
“Why are you so angry?” I asked, calmly spreading veggie cream cheese on my last bite of bagel. “I’ve been meaning to add music to my posts, and I thought using one of your old tracks was the perfect way to start off.”
“Well, you thought wrong,” Oliver snapped.
“But it’s a great song,” I said, defending the music and myself. “Besides, it’s not like I told people it’s yours.”
“You still shouldn’t have done that,” Oliver was saying, but JJ had a completely different reaction. He leaned forward in his chair and actually set down his bagel.
“You really liked it?” he asked. “No joke?”
“I did,” I told him. “Promise.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think, Stella,” Oliver said.
That hurt, but I ignored his comment. “Would you care if your fans liked it?”
“No!” he said, shaking his head, and I knew he wasn’t really hearing what I was saying. His knuckles were white from gripping the countertop, and beads of sweat were gathering on his forehead. “You need to take it down. Now.”
“Would you just shut up and listen to her for a moment?” JJ said to Oliver.
And that’s when Alec took over. He had his laptop ready to go, my latest blog post already pulled up, and all he had to do was turn on the volume. When Oliver’s voice started playing from the speakers, Alec spun his computer around and pushed it across the counter. “Just read what people are saying.”
JJ’s chair squeaked as he scrambled up to get a good look. Oliver, on the other hand, was glaring at Alec and me. There was a harried look about his eyes, but then JJ said, “Oh wow!” and his gaze flickered down to the screen. Slowly, as JJ scrolled through the hundreds of comments that had amassed in one night, his face lightened.
“Oliver,” I said, and then the words poured out of my mouth as fast as possible. “Look at all the people who love your song. They don’t even know it’s yours, but they still want more.”
Oliver stayed quiet, but JJ slapped the counter. “I told you,” he said, waving his finger in Oliver’s face. “Didn’t I say people would like it?” I shot JJ a look that said “not helping,” and he instantly shut up.
Then Alec took his turn appealing to Oliver. “I know you don’t want to piss my dad off, but aren’t you tired of playing the same old crap? We need to show him we can be more than the boy band he’s written us off to be. We need to shake things up, make some kind of change, but we can’t do that without you.”
Seconds passed before Oliver said anything. He was so still and quiet that I thought he was trying to contain his anger. The rest of the guys looked nervous: JJ was rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet, Xander kept chewing on his bottom lip, and Alec’s mouth was set in a hard line.
