Page 145 of Second Sets Omnibus

Me

Anything? Can we get out of it?

Constance

Short answer? No.

I grit my teeth,my fingers tightening around my cell phone. Anger storms through my body, tensing every inch of me. But that’s nothing new.

Me

No?

Constance

It’s in the contract, K. Nothing you can do about it unless you walk.

Me

Any other offers?

I drum my fingers on my thigh, nervously bouncing my leg. All we need is another offer, and we can flip West Records the finger and walk. We don’t need them. We don’t need her.

Constance

I’ll keep my eyes open. But right now? No. Good luck. Stay nice.

“Fuck,” I mumble, pinching the bridge of my nose, eager to lash out at the gym and relieve myself of all this anger festering inside me. It’s the only thing that chases any sort of feelings away. I can’t afford to feel around her.

“Didn’t go well?” Rad asks, staring down at his phone with longing in his dark eyes.

The edge of his finger runs over the picture he doesn’t think I know about. The one he stares at day in and day out like a hurt puppy dog, waiting for his master to come back and claim him. It’s never escaped me that he’s still madly in love with her, even after what she did.

Rad sighs heavily, biting into his bottom lip as we pull up to Callum’s condo. The limo comes to a complete stop, idling on the curb as we wait a solid three minutes for him to appear. Callum’s bulky form comes into view with his hands tucked in his pockets. A large, black hoodie swallows his body whole, and the hood covers his eyes. The moment he flips it down, I know the evidence will be on his face in the form of blackened bruises and swollen flesh.

Callum doesn’t utter a word as he shuffles into the limo and finds a seat next to Rad, not bothering to meet our curious gazes. Leaning back, he rests his head and closes his eyes, tuning us completely out with his earbuds snug in his ears. Like so many years before, Callum only speaks when spoken to, but worse. He only opens his mouth if it pertains to the band, and that’s it.

Lead fills my stomach at the onslaught of memories banging around inside my head. Five years ago, something fundamental fucked us all up. We’ve thrived in our own ways. Some more than others, finding hobbies to take our wandering minds off the woman who crushed us with one single action. We don’t speak her name. Or mention our past in passing. Together, we’ve avoided the topic altogether and moved forward. Well, mostly. Sometimes the ghost of my past comes back to haunt me, pulling me into unwanted memories.

Marching through the parking lot of River’s apartment building, I tightly ball my hands into fists. Rage consumes every molecule in my body when I see the familiar red Mustang parked right in front of River’s apartment. I stand, frozen next to it, when the front door of River’s apartment slams open, and out walks Van with a victorious grin spreading across his face. His shirt hangs over his arm, and he whistles gleefully under his breath.

“You fucking her?” I accuse, stepping out of the shadows with a scowl and folding my arms over my chest.

Seeing the picture Callum had taken didn’t satisfy my curiosity one bit. I had to see for myself. River and I have way too much history for me to just walk away without investigating what the fuck is going on. But now, the scale is sliding in an unfavorable direction, leading me to believe that everything is true.

“For a few months,” Van says with a cocky grin, pulling his shirt over his head.

My fists clench at my side, and before I know what the fuck I’m doing, I grab Van by his arm and throw him against the side of his car. “You’ve been fucking her for months?” I hiss, getting right in his face.

“Yeah, bro. Aren’t you happy I told you? God, she was going to let you all think you were hers when she’s fucking half thetown,” he sneers, pushing his forehead against mine. Without a thought, I throw my fist into his temple, crumpling him to the ground, and taking my frustrations out on his curled-up body.

As the memory ebbs away, I come back to the reality of it all. I never made it inside to talk to River after witnessing Van walking from her apartment. For the next few days, I snuck away from the guys and watched him come and go from the parking lot, convincing me that the truth was right in front of my eyes the entire time. She cheated and felt nothing for us.

“We’re stuck,” I say, sucking in a ragged breath. “My agent says it’s in the contract that we have to put up with this for the full six months, unless we get another deal from somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else?” Rad asks, raising his brows. He heaves a sigh, shoving his phone into his pocket. “Like that’ll happen.”

“Like where?” Callum mutters, peeking an eye open.