Page 92 of Follow the Rhythm
I gathered my courage again. “I’m not ready to give up on Jess,” I said. “I’m not ready for you to give up on her, either.”
Ellis sighed softly and laid his hand against my chest, over my heart. “I fear that’s a hopeless prospect.”
“No, it’s not.” I dropped a kiss on his hair. “We can talk about it tomorrow. But first, we need to fix this bed.”
After changing the sheets, we fell asleep with Ellis curled behind me, one of his knees between mine. As usual, he fellasleep before me, his breath soft and steady against the back of my neck.
I didn’t know how it would work out, but I knew we needed to be honest with Jess about how we felt before it was too late.
I woke the next morning, early, to Ellis cursing. He sat at the edge of the bed, hunched over his phone.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my voice craggy with sleep. I scooted towards him until I could touch his thigh.
“It’s all fucked.” His voice was as desolate as I’d ever heard. “Someone leaked it.”
I swallowed hard, imagining the worst, that somehow the press had found out about the truth of Michael’s death. “Leaked what?”
“The album. Reward. Everyone’s speculating about it now, whether his death was really accidental,” he said. “And they’re saying it was me who leaked it.”
He showed me a text from Kieran.
How could you?That was all it said.
“I’ve got a ton from Johnny, too,” he said, his voice empty. “They all think it was me. And honestly, I can’t blame them. I’ve been a complete dickhead.”
He turned to look at me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. It felt like an inadequate response.
“You know it wasn’t me? Right?” Silver rimmed his eyes in the blue light from his phone.
I sat up fully and pulled him close, hooking my chin over his shoulder. He just let his arms hang limply at his sides. “I know. I know it wasn’t you. And I’ll talk to Kieran about it, and Johnny too.”
“You don’t need to do that. They won’t believe you anyway,” he muttered.
“They will. We’ll handle this.” I could help him with this. I couldn’t fix his pain over Michael, but this I could handle.
He sighed and finally hugged me back. “I don’t deserve you.”
I nipped his shoulder. “Stop that. Now let’s pack up and make a plan.”
Chapter 28 - Jess
Ihad a strange sense of déjà vu riding the train back to the label office to start work with Ursula. I was listening to The Valkyries at full volume in my headphones, exuding as much “don’t fuck with me” energy as possible.
I’d called Grace over the weekend to talk about the news of the album leaking. I couldn’t talk about it with Kieran and Ellis, so we dissected it together for over an hour.
“It was Ellis,” Grace had said with confidence. “He wants more publicity for his solo album. This keeps him in the spotlight.”
It was what everyone was saying online, on the Velvet Howl subreddit, and in the music press. But that made no sense. Kieran and Ellis had done everything they could to keep the album from being released. Why would he suddenly change his mind? Ellis was an asshole, but he wasn’t cruel for no reason.
I refused to listen to the album out of respect for what Kieran had said about it. But the discussion online was all about how dark it was, and everyone speculated that Michael’s overdose wasn’t accidental after all.
It fucking sucked. I wanted to call Kieran and tell him I was sorry for the stress this had to be causing him, but I was alsoterrified he wouldn’t want to hear from me, not when I had stayed away.
And it was easier to understand what Ellis had meant about leaving things too long. It felt impossible to reopen the door now, even if I wanted to.
A man sidled up to me, bringing my thoughts back to the present. He gestured for me to take out my headphones. His grassy scent was almost acrid in my nose. I clenched my jaw. Despite my resting bitch face and my clear “leave me alone” body language, this Alpha thought his designation entitled him to my attention. I had doused myself in industrial-strength descenter, but it wasn’t always enough.
