It was a good thing I've never had to learn to keep a regular schedule. It made things easier when all I wanted to do was lay in bed all morning and dream about the tattooed chest and hard d.i.c.k of a certain rock G.o.d-especially when I'd been up half the night riding that d.i.c.k.

No sooner had my sleepy fingertips wandered down my belly when a knock came at the door, followed by a sarcastic Spanish accent. "Oh, lady, I have your room service!"

The image of Noah in my mind washed away like a cloud of smoke and I growled to myself. "G.o.ddammit, Steve." Then, louder, toward the door: "Gimme a f.u.c.king sec!" It took me a moment to find a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Steve stood outside in the hallway holding a giant tray stacked with food from the morning breakfast buffet. Suddenly, I didn't feel so mad.

"Oh, in that case, yes, come in," I said as I opened the door for him.

Steve scoffed and walked past me to the tiny circular table in the far corner. "'Hey, thanks Steve! You're a real pal, bringing me breakfast after I spent the night getting drunk and having fun at a show without you.'"

I laughed at the way he tried to imitate my voice. "See, we're so good together, you know exactly what's in my heart. I don't even have to say it." I dove straight for the plastic cup of black coffee and drank heartily, then reached for the bacon.

Steve settled in one of the big plush chairs with a round back and took a steaming lid off a plate of waffles. "Got f.u.c.ked, huh?"

Mouthful of bacon, I could only glare at him. How the h.e.l.l could he tell? I'd showered-this mop of blonde mess was legitimate bed head.

Steve just laughed. "That was the plan, wasn't it?"

"That wasn't my plan!" I insisted.

Steve waved a hand at me as he searched for a packet of syrup. "Eh, don't sweat it so much, it's a job. The important thing is you made contact, and just in time."

"Just in time? What's that supposed to mean?"

Dramatic as ever, he had to wait till I asked. Steve got a c.o.c.ky grin on his face and pulled out his smart phone. He tapped around on the screen a few seconds before he handed it to me and went back to his waffles.

A video interview began to play. The reporter was from Roc Press, one of the larger music outlets in the nation; I vaguely recognized him from some exclusive interview he snagged a few years ago with a front man accused of hiring a hitman for his own wife.

Guess this guy had the right connections for exclusive interviews, because I did not expect to see the man he was interviewing: Duke Rogers, lead guitarist of Cut Up Angels. Noah's lead guitarist. Tall and lean, with a baby face and soft, blonde hair, Duke had a different kind of charisma and attractiveness than his singer, and for years, rumors had flown that the two men hated each other behind the scenes.

Suddenly, those rumors seemed pretty f.u.c.king likely.

"I'm sitting here today with lead guitarist and back-up vocalist Duke Rogers, speaking for the first time since the tragedy at Sun Fest. Duke, thanks for being here today. I know it's been a trying time for your band."

Duke shifted in his chair, but his face never changed. He always seemed to wear this same half-ugly smirk, like he didn't take anything seriously. It didn't sit right in my gut. "Thank you for having me, Bryan," he said in his thick, drawling New Orleans accent. "It's been a nightmare, that's for sure."

"Now, we have to get this out of the way first," said the interviewer, reading off some papers. "To clarify, you are still unable to directly address what happened at the Fest, correct?"

"That's correct," said Duke with a nod. "Under the legal instruction of our record label."

"To recap for those viewers who somehow haven't heard, a festival-goer, now identified as Richard Williams, was killed during the set of Duke's band, Cut Up Angels. Williams made his way around security team members and climbed on-stage, where he was a.s.saulted by lead singer Noah Hardy and pushed off-stage. He later died as a result of his injuries." The interviewer turned from the camera to look back at Duke. "What can you tell us about this, Duke? What are you going through right now?"

"Like I said, Bryan, I can't say a lot," said Duke with a modest hand wave. "I can tell you that the band is dealing with all of this the best they can. But I have to take a different approach with how I deal with it."

"Care to elaborate?"

Something in Duke's voice made me feel nervous. Without taking my eyes off the phone, I found the seat across the table from Steve and lowered myself into it.

"Bryan, I've decided to embark on a solo career. I love my band and what we've achieved, but who can say what the future holds now? None of us know what will ultimately happen to Noah-legally or otherwise. I'm an artist. I have to look out for my craft," said Duke.

"That's my favorite part," said Steve from across the table, mouthful of waffle. "You can practically see him smelling his own farts."

"Shhh!" I hissed.

"Does this mean the rumors of Cut Up Angels breaking up are true?" asked Bryan.

"I can't say what's going to happen to the band," said Duke. "I can't see the future, and we are still under contract for the time being. But like I said, I'm just trying to be true to my own vision. I've been thinking about this for a while and it seems the universe has laid open this path for me."

Ugh, did anyone actually believe this douche? Did he believe himself?

"It's difficult not to see this timing as you abandoning your band at its time of need," said Bryan, a surprising challenge I didn't expect. Yet there was something so scripted in how their exchange was delivered that I couldn't swallow it. Would not be the first time a rock star had used a softball media contact to make himself look good.

"I'm sure plenty of critics will have things to say about that," said Duke. "They have never shied away from telling us what they think about us, about Noah-about anything. I can handle what they dish out." He took a pause like he was gathering courage, but again, it all looked too perfect. "What I can't handle, though, is betrayal from within. And that's why I have to strike out on my own."

"Betrayal? By whom?"

Duke sighed. "I can't get into details, Bryan. Suffice it to say I am just d.a.m.n tired of certain members of this organization pa.s.sing the buck and inventing insane delusions and stories instead of taking responsibility for their actions."

"Inventing stories?" I said. He had to be talking about Noah-but what story? Steve just shrugged at me with raised eyebrows while he chewed.

The interviewer tried to get Duke to elaborate, but it seemed like the guitarist had said all that he had planned to say on the subject. The rest of the interview was basically a promotion for Duke's new project, as-yet-unnamed, but with the polite reminder that he was one of the key songwriters of Cut Up Angels. It was another dig at Noah, whom most people a.s.sumed had little to do with anything but the vocals. A glance at their liner notes told otherwise, but Duke was clearly far more media-savvy than any of us had realized.

I sat back in the chair and listened to Steve eating. Something dark and dreadful was brewing in my gut.

"So," he said, "thoughts?"

I shrugged. "What we get has to be big enough to overshadow that exclusive. That was a h.e.l.l of a get."

"My first thought, too," said Steve, scooping eggs into his mouth. "Will it be?"

Noah. When I used to think of him, all I saw was concert footage, publicity photo, or paparazzi flash bulb versions of him. But something was different now. I felt his breath, his hands, his lips. I saw him in the mosh pit. It was disorienting. It was making it difficult to think clearly about my job.

I cleared my throat before I answered Steve. "Yes. Look, a man is dead, and there's practically no question Noah Hardy killed him. The question now is why, and we're going to figure that out. And then Slipstream is going to publish it before anybody else in this f.u.c.king industry has a clue. I've gotten in with Noah. It's just a matter of time now."

Steve grinned suggestively. "Yeah?"

"h.e.l.l, this Duke announcement probably helps us. Every other rag will be busy trying to speculate on that bulls.h.i.t."

"And while they're distracted, we kick 'em in the d.i.c.k with the first exclusive words of Noah Hardy about being a G.o.dd.a.m.n murderer."

"Alleged," I said with a sarcastic wag of my finger. "Press ethics, dear Steve."

"Right, alleged," he said. "This is seriously going to send your stock through the roof, Laurel."

He meant well, but Steve was cutting open old wounds that instantly sent poison through my mood. "s.h.i.t, it better, or else I'm gonna be serving you coffee at the lobby Starbucks by next year."

"It's not all that bad," said Steve with a sour face. "Domino loves you way too much to throw you to the curb."

Even hearing my editor's name sent my pulse racing. "But not enough to have my back when I make a mistake or two," I complained before I could stop myself.

"Laurel," said Steve. He had that stern, rational voice I'd heard him use on his ex-girlfriend's kids a time or two. "I love you, girl, but don't fool yourself. That Tusk story was not just a mistake."

I sighed, angry, ashamed at his words. I turned my gaze out the window. "So you think I went in to write a hit piece, too, huh?"

"No," said Steve. He put down his fork. "But I think it's clear that you went in with an agenda, and when it didn't go your way, you just chopped up the story to make it look like it did. You lost your objectivity, Laurel. It happens to all of us-you can't pretend you're above it. And we all have to pay for it when it happens. The key is not to make that same mistake twice."

I knew what he was alluding to. If I was sleeping with Noah, then there was a chance my objectivity might get lost again. He was right, of course, but I wasn't about to tell him that. Maybe I was being childish, but that old wound still festered and burned. Being here, now, in Seattle, chasing Noah Hardy-this was the salve to that wound, and I wasn't going to let Noah's big d.i.c.k change my opinion of what happened. I was sticking to the facts this time, whatever they may be. This story was going to fix all the s.h.i.t I had broken, and undo all the bulls.h.i.t heat I'd taken in the past six months. The past didn't matter when I was in the middle of fixing it, right?

"Laurel?"

Steve was looking at me curiously. I sighed. "Fine. Right. You win. I'm paying for my past sins, like I deserve, so all is right with the world. And I won't make the same mistakes again." I got up from the chair and started digging through one of my suitcases for clean underwear. Even though I had just showered a few hours ago, suddenly I wanted another one.

"You didn't even touch your breakfast!" Steve called after me as I shut the bathroom door.

Just before the door clicked shut, I said through the crack, "I'm not hungry."

~ Six ~

Noah

Laurel...

She writhed underneath me, her beautiful body glistening with sweat, pressing her a.s.s against me as I drove inside her only made my c.o.c.k sink deeper. She leaned back with my name on her lips and I kissed it off of them until she was moaning into my mouth. In one hand I held her neck gently, forcing her to face me as I f.u.c.ked her from behind. I kept the other wrapped tight around her waist, holding her close.

In the back of the room a phone rang, distant and foggy.

Laurel...

The dream began to break up in my mind like smoke rising into the sky. Every chime of the phone yanked me further into consciousness without mercy. The warmth of Laurel's skin faded away, replaced with the cold white sheets of my own empty bed. The only sweat was my own.

I should have turned my f.u.c.king phone on silent before I crashed, but I was so deliriously drunk on both booze and l.u.s.t that it slipped my mind before I fell into bed. I hazily remembered ignoring its beeping hours earlier, rolling over and going back to sleep. But there was no ignoring it this time. The ring was incessant.

I rolled until the bedside table was within reach, and pulled my phone to my face. A picture lit up of my guitarist, Quinn, standing with a beer bong next to angry tourists at the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio. My thumb slid across the screen. "What?"

"Dude," said Quinn, "I've been trying to reach you for hours."

Quinn grew up with me in Thornwood, and there wasn't a single band I had ever been in without him. He was as close to a brother as I was ever going to get, and currently the only f.u.c.king member of my band who gave a single s.h.i.t about me.

Even being a hardcore kid, Quinn had never been particularly alpha. He'd fight if he had to, but he was a worrier before he was anything else. Something in his voice today sounded very worried, even by his standards.

"I had a long night. What's going on?" I said, checking the clock on my bedside table. Man, when was the last time I slept past noon?

"So you haven't been online yet today?"

I rubbed my face and ran my hand through my hair. "You literally pulled me out of a wet dream, bro, so in consideration of that, maybe we could get to the point..."

Quinn sighed and muttered under his breath. "It's Duke. He says he's going solo, starting his own thing. It's all over the f.u.c.king Internet."

My blood stopped pumping for a split second. Skin cold, I said, "He f.u.c.king said what?"

"That's why I've been trying to call you, man! He did an interview with Roc, said he's gotta look out for himself and find a lifeboat off the t.i.tanic before whatever happens to you goes down. What the f.u.c.k are we gonna do, Noah?"

I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to pull in all my focus from the remnants of sleep, the memories of Laurel, and the hangover threatening the horizon of my mind. "He's not supposed to be talking about any of this s.h.i.t-how did he get away with it? Where's Gavin?"

"That's the thing, dude-technically, he didn't talk about it. He talked about everything he could without breaking the agreement like the f.u.c.king little troll he is."

Rage bubbled up in my gut, under my skin. I never should have ignored my instinct the day we met Duke Rogers at that studio in New Orleans. Life to him was a Shakespearean drama and he was just trying to stab his way to the top of the mountain. He didn't give a single f.u.c.k about anyone who was in his way. I never should have trusted him with my life's work.

I rubbed my hand over my face. "He's doing this to undermine me. He can't talk about the festival, but he can do something that says what he would've said, anyway. This is him finally throwing me under the f.u.c.king bus."

"He's a cowardly p.r.i.c.k," growled Quinn. "And he's gonna get what's coming to him."

"We're too famous to be beating the s.h.i.t out of dudes anymore, Quinn," I said, but it was with a bitter laugh. Quinn's loyalty and fire for his friends went a long way on a dark night.

"We can't do nothing," said Quinn.

I didn't reply. I wanted nothing more than to agree with Quinn and dive head-first into a black revenge fantasy, but it wasn't there. My mind felt like a raging storm, formless.

Quinn was quiet a moment. Then he said, "I don't f.u.c.king get why they don't believe you, Noah."

I sighed. Of all the thorns splitting open my proverbial flesh through this whole nightmare, that particular thorn was buried deepest, threatening arteries and organs. At first it had felt like only blind anger, but now... now it was starting to feel like numbness. Like death.

And I knew that numbness would be death if I didn't find a way to stop it. A cornered animal only has two options, when it comes right down to it. They can either lie down, hoping for the mercy of a quick death, or they can charge and fight with every last breath. The former option was despair, and the latter required anger.

Anger has always kept me alive. And it was going to keep me fighting now. Even if I had to start imagining Duke's smug, stupid face every night before I went to bed, I was going to find a way to stay angry and save myself.

It was getting tiring, carrying all this weight alone. In all the chaos... in all the confusion and horror of what had happened at the festival and since, not a single person-not even Quinn-had even bothered to ask me how I'm handling the fact that I've taken a f.u.c.king life.

People think I'm just a cold-blooded killer because that's what they want me to be. They're all wrong, but they don't care. Truth doesn't matter to them. They'll take what makes them feel good to think about. And somehow, I'm the f.u.c.ked-up one in this equation.

"Noah?" Quinn's voice broke through the cloud of thoughts swirling in my brain.

"I don't know," I finally said. "I don't know why they don't believe me, Quinn."

We both fell silent. I guess Quinn wasn't eager to talk about the answer to that, either. He knew me better than anyone on this planet knew me, and I know it killed him to see what was happening. We were both equally powerless-and we were not men who were used to being powerless.

"Look, I'm going to hit up Gavin and find out what he's doing about all this," I said. "I'll call you a bit later and check in."