Page 176 of Wicked Angel
“Yeah. And you know what all those artists had in common? They sang lead vocals. If you sell yourself as Tom Petty or Jimi Hendrix or Elton John, someone else isn’t singing your songs.”
Angeline stared at me. Maybe she knew I was right.
Maybe she knew I was just defeating myself before I even considered what she was saying.
“Well, then maybe you can sing lead vocals. I’ve heard your voice on Breakneck’s songs—”
“Everything doesn’t have a happy ending, Angeline. And maybe it doesn’t have to. Just let it go.”
She moved to sit on the corner of the coffee table in front of me. “Well, you’re not letting it go, are you? You can’t just pack up and quit.”
“I’m not packing up and quitting.”
“Good. I should finish the press release for you now. I can talk to Yash—”
“Yeah. Why don’t you go call Yash and write your press release.” I wasn’t even sure why I was so… pissed off. At her. But everything she said was grating at me right now.
She said she’d been holding off on actually putting out a press release for me so far because there wasn’t anything newsworthy to put in it. Well, this was news. But fuck if I cared who put it out there or how. Didn’t change facts. And the fact was, my career was dead in the water right now.
“I mean, I just thought—”
“I don’t care about the fucking press.”
“But we should really get a statement out there, before JC—”
“Fuck JC. I don’t give a shit what he says about me.”
“But if we get ahead of it—”
“There’s nothing to get ahead of. You can’t outrun the truth.” I looked into the shimmering fake flames of the fireplace, my heart beating too hard as the truth of that statement resonated in my bones.
I knew what I was doing. Pushing her away.Running.
Yash was right about me running away when things got hard. I was itching to run right now.
But I couldn’t stop myself.
Why the hell did I even come home tonight?
“Is this really about the band?” she asked me. “The record deal? Or is it about what happened last night?”
I didn’t even look at her. “What, you think fucking you is so transcendent that I couldn’t actually want you to get out of my face right now?”
I felt her silence like a stab.
Fuck, you hurt her.
“I wasn’t talking about the sex,” she said in a small voice. “I meant the nightmare.”
I stared into the fake fire, letting the light burn into my eyes. “What nightmare.”
She leaned into my line of sight and met my eyes. “The one that woke us both up in the middle of the night.”
“I didn’t have a nightmare.”
“Maybe you don’t remember it now,” she said gently, “but you did.”
“I don’t have time for this, Angeline, okay? My entire career just stopped in its tracks, so I have slightly more important things to deal with right now.”
