Truth

I stood on the concrete floor like an idiot, the crowd chanting so loud it was making even me nervous and I was behind the damn curtain of the stage. I was in the shadows, unknown to the outside world. Yet I felt like I was being thrown into a pit of fire. So much chaos.

“Wh… what?!”

“Go get Reid!!” Then, the woman with the earpiece rolled her eyes like I was incompetent.

I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t part of their crew. I mean, didn’t she see that I wasn’t wearing all black and that I didn’t have a matching earpiece like her? Plus, there were like five hundred of these minions running around the arena. Why on earth was I getting barked at? I suddenly wished I was in the stands, looking out onto the stage like a normal fan, but I wasn’t a normal fan of Reid King. I was his collaborator, which meant that I got to be behind the scenes. It was a culture shock, even without some lady barking at me.

I spotted Jackson and Finn standing near the entrance to the stage just behind the curtain, each of them looking as if they downed five Red Bulls in a row. Finn was hopping up and down, swinging his drumsticks around and around, and Jackson was cracking his neck every few seconds, holding his guitar tightly in his grip.

Although I barely knew the pair, I still walked over to them and smiled. “Good luck out there!”

Jackson’s cheeks rose as he pushed his long, red hair behind his ears. “Thanks, but have you seen—”

“Hey! I told you to go get Reid!” The small, feisty woman with her headset was back.

I finally turned around and placed my hands on my hips. “I don’t even work here, lady!”

Finn tried to hold back a laugh but fell short in the end. The woman’s face turned red as she looked at the group of guys standing behind me, but I huffed and shook my head. “You know what? Fine. I’ll go get him.”

“Good luck again, guys,” I muttered before turning and storming down the long hallway to Reid’s dressing room. So much for being in the shadows and trying to stay out of the way.

I felt like I was a little Bambi walking on bony, shaky legs every second of the day. Meeting Reid King was enough excitement for an entire year, but add that to being on a tour bus with him, feigning a collectiveness around him that I truly didn’t possess, and now, here I was at one of his shows acting like I was best friends with his bandmates, wishing them good luck. Insane. The entire thing made my head spin if I even gave myself time to process it all.

Honestly, I had no clue what I was doing.

I’d been to one concert my entire life, and it was when I was eight and I saw Martina McBride. Our seats were in the nosebleeds. She was like a tiny ant onstage. Yet here I was, walking down a long hallway to go find the lead singer, the guy whose name I kept hearing from fans in the arena. Am I even going in the right direction?

Why wasn’t Rod back here gathering Reid? Why was it me? This most certainly wasn’t in the contract I’d signed with Vinny.

I let out a sigh of relief when I realized that each of the doors had names on them. Reid’s was the very last one, of course. With each step in the direction of his door, my blood pressure spiked a little higher.

I pushed my hair behind my ear before raising my fist to knock. But that’s when I heard his voice. Even through the door and low chanting of fans, I could hear him plain as day.

“Offer them money, then! Money for an answer, that’s all I want.”

Whoa. What?

I took a tentative step back before allowing my nosiness to get the best of me.

I pressed my ear against the door to get a better listen.

I sooo shouldn’t be doing this.

“Carissa, I really don’t give two shits about what you think. You keep asking what you can do to make things easier for me and this is it. Maybe if I fucking knew the truth, I wouldn’t be the way that I am right now.”

What truth?

Reid’s voice was raspy, almost painful to listen to. “Yeah, well, that’s the last thing she said to me and everyone just expects me to get over it. I have her telling me one thing, and then her parents withholding any kind of information possible, then everyone else in the world telling me to move on, to put my music first. Well, I put my music first last time, and now look at where I am.”

Then I heard something break. My heart jerked, and every limb on my body started to tingle. I was certain my knees were shaking.

“It is my fault, Carissa. It is. I should have listened, paid more attention toward the end.” Then I heard another loud crash, right beside my face, like Reid had thrown his phone right where my head was, as if he knew I was listening.

I jumped back instantly and started to walk down the long, narrow hallway because there was no fucking way I was getting caug

ht by him after hearing that conversation. I only got a few feet away from his door before I saw Miss Headset making a beeline for me. I stopped where I stood, confused on what I was supposed to do. Fight or flight? What do I do?

How in the hell did I get into this situation? I kept asking myself that. I was supposed to be collaborating with Reid as he wrote music, yet somehow, I stepped into a tornado of what-the-fucks.