Page 29 of Ravaged For You

She stops. And there’s another long pause as everyone digests her words.

I’m the fucking problem? Me? For being a goddamn rockstar? For continuing the tradition set for decades?

“What do people want from their musicians?” I ask the room, outraged. “Do they want fucking morality? No. I don’t buy it. This all sounds like level-A bullshit to my ears.”

I cross my arms and sulk.

Bishop raises his arm. “What about Drake? He doesn’t exactly have the cleanest record. Is he as bad as Axel?”

Maddie shakes her head. “No. People like Drake. With Axel, they think his arrogance is the problem, not just the girls. They consider him worse than Drake because of that.”

“I’m a problem?” I ask, my teeth bared. “Is that all who I am now? A fucking problem?”

Maddie doesn’t say a word. Her mouth opens and closes.

Drake delivers another aggressive pat on my shoulder, reveling in all this.

“Yep. Seems like you’re a problem, Axel.”

I flick Drake’s hand away from my shoulder and stand up. I take one long look around the room. I’m not putting up with this bullshit.

No. Way.

“Fuck this,” I say before I storm straight out of the room and out the office.

14

AXEL

Lucas manages to stop me before I get the chance to duck into the waiting taxi. I turn to him slowly as he calls my name, pissed about everything. Pissed about Maddie. Pissed about my bandmates. Pissed about that emo girl from last night. The leaked footage.

“What is it, Lucas?” I growl like a caged animal.

I can’t stay out here on the sidewalk in public for long. A fan might spot me or, even worse, the paparazzi might get tipped off and swoop down like the vultures they are. I just want to get back to my hotel suite. I can’t be dealing with the bullshit spewing forth from the pretty little mouth of the short tea-spilling girl in that fucking marketing office room.

“Axel. Just stop.”

I sigh and nod at the taxi driver to just continue driving on past. I face back to Lucas with my arms crossed defensively.

Fuck all this.

“You’re going to shout at me, I know. I shouldn’t have stormed out of there, blah, blah, blah. Let’s get it over with.”

My manager and close friend merely shakes his head sadly. “Look, I’m not going to go crazy at you, Axel. This whole situation doesn’t warrant that. Besides, I don’t have the energy.”

“I’m not going to put up with a girl like that insulting me or with my own bandmates being complete dicks,” I say. “We’re here to find a solution to the problem, not rub it in my face like shit.”

I bet they’re still up there now, gloating over how I’m such a wuss who can’t handle a few jokes. But I’m not going to sit idly by in some shitty office meeting room when everyone in said room is making me the butt of their lame-ass jokes, even if they’re my best mates. No, sir.

I’m a rockstar, not a punching bag.

“Well, you have kinda caused this whole mess, Axel.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m being serious.”

“You’re as bad as Drake and Bishop and Caspian, Lucas.”