Rise (Rock God 1)

“I can’t go to LA.” Her face is pale.

“Um, as my best friend, you ha—”

“Sebastian is your best friend,” she states and leaves the room.

“Fantastic,” I groan, looking at her phone. Leaping up, I follow her to the only normal spot in this monstrosity of a kitchen. It’s state of the art, but it has stuff that would be better suited to some creepy French castle.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I scream because she’s dumping ice into a blender.

“Nothing.” She grabs the Jose Cuervo Gold.

“God, no, not that.” I take the bottle away from her and hand her Cazadores.

“Whatever,” she mumbles.

I’m wearing one of her cute little silk pajama shorts sets and leaning against the marble island. It’s freezing against my bare legs.

“Julianna, I can’t deal with this today. Do you understand that—”

She turns on the blender and my mouth drops open. She might be snapping, which is pathetic. She couldn’t stand Matthew. He was a balding gay guy she married because he was rich. Not wealthy, but rich, and he had a title. Oh, and her dad loved him. I begged her not to marry him, but did she listen? No.

So this crazy behavior is throwing me. During one of our drunken rants, she confessed about the cringeworthy sex they had, but I’m the one whose life is ruined. I’m the one who’s nursing a broken heart. Who can’t seem to move, breathe, eat, sleep without feeling his touch. I’m madly in love with a man who has completely destroyed me twice, or maybe I fucking left prematurely. It doesn’t matter now. I’m gone and he’s fucking other women, if the Internet can be believed. And let’s not forget that I’ve been so self-absorbed, I completely forgot about my brother’s wedding.

I suck.

I take a deep breath and wait for her to finish. As soon as her finger is off that blender’s button, she says, “No.”

“What has happened? Because I—” Droplets from the wet, freezing margarita hit my hand while she dumps it into two glasses.

“Julianna, are you okay?” I walk over to the sink to rinse my hands.

“I can’t go.” She brings the margarita glass to her lips and starts downing it.

“You have to, I need you. I can’t go by myself. Everyone in that wedding party is happily married. I’m calling in the best friend card,” I announce and proceed to chug my margarita, only to get brain freeze. I’m blowing out air to stop the pain when her phone rings on the island where I left it.

“That’s stupid. What does that mean? Best friend card?” She rolls her eyes and grabs her phone.

“It’s Sebastian. What do you want to do?” I look at her and mime no by shaking my head.

“Hey, Sebastian,” she answers, looking straight at me. “Yep, here she is.” She hands me the phone.

I glare at her. “You’re going with me,” I mumble, grabbing the phone. “Sebastian.” I clear my throat. My voice is raspy from too much crying, along with all the booze and cigarettes.

“Gia? What the hell? I’ve been calling.”

“I destroyed my phone,” I snap, still on the fence about my feelings toward Sebastian. I’m starting to worry I overreacted.

He sighs. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened. I probably could have handled it better, but seeing you walk out of that bathroom with him… and hearing about the groupie getting pregnant.”

I take a breath. “I don’t understand. Do you know how many times I look the other way when it comes to your… shall we say, bad behavior?”

“You bitch at me all the time,” he says. “Have you forgotten Jenny?”

“She was insane. Whatever, it’s done.” I rub my forehead with the icy glass.

“You need to get your ass to LA. Axel has been calling.”

My eyes snap open. “What? Why would you talk to him? Where are you? You need to come back and go with me.” I sound crazy, but at this point I don’t care.

“Christ.” He sighs again and I grit my teeth because I can just see him shaking his head. “You’re a fucking mess, aren’t you?”

“I can’t deal with you right now, Sebastian. I can’t turn off my heart like that. I love him, always have. So excuse me if I’m not perfect at this moment.”

“Then you shouldn’t have left. I’m not having you put all this on me,” he says tightly.

“I’m not putting anything on you. That’s your own conscience talking,” I retort.

“We’re in Rome. Take Julianna. I’m sure you’ve dragged her down to your level anyway. Call Axel and tell him you can’t get your shit together to go to your only brother’s wedding. That ought to go over well.”

“Sebastian, I swear to God—”

“I have to go. We’re filming.” The line goes dead. I look at Julianna.

“Well, that went well.” She reaches for the blender to top off my glass.