I head over to my desk and take my seat, trying to feel at home, but my chair feels different. It’s very obvious to me that someone has been sitting in it. Someone other than me. It’s as if the cushions had betrayed me by molding in to Luke’s butt… but it didn’t matter. I was back now. It would be okay soon enough.
I sigh loudly and start looking through the stack of paper work on my desk, trying to get back into the rhythm of it, trying to find that passion I had for this. The time off hasn’t helped me at all.
Maybe I don’t need to read about all that I’ve missed. Maybe I need to focus on what’s next.
“So, Luke,” I call out to him. “What are we working on at the moment? What are the big stories?”
He arrives at my door and leans against the door frame. “Well, I don’t know if you know this, but that guy from The Puppeteers was here recently. I think he comes from here actually.”
My heart stops dead in my chest; my blood runs ice cold. This has to be a joke, there is no way in hell that he can be talking about Jace as well. The universe really is against me. It’s almost as if no one wants me to recover.
“Y… yeah?” I stammer back, trying to hide my real feelings. This isn’t Luke’s fault; he can’t possibly know my history. I need to see where this is going.
“It’s a shame, because we could have got an interview with him while he was here. That would have been incredible, wouldn’t it? An interview with Jace Fairs.” I smile thinly, all the strength that I built up for today melting away. “Well, it hardly matters now. But the band are working on a new album, and there’s all that stuff about Gary with Ari, the pop star, so it seems like a good time to run a story about his life here. For the entertainment section. I thought that would be pretty cool, what do you think?”
My automatic reaction is to shake my head no. That sounds terrible. It will put me right in the middle of what I’m trying so hard to escape. Not only that but it might also drag up my connection with him which will only create issues. But I can’t say no, I don’t really have a reason to.
“Erm, why not discuss it in the morning meeting? See what everyone else things. What is going on with the other sections of the paper? Is there anything else I might have missed out on?”
Luke fills me in with just as much enthusiasm as he talked about Jace with but I can barely hear his words. My brain is tumbling and jumbling everywhere. I’m never going to escape him. I’m never going to fully get over him. It might be for the best to just accept that I am going to be alone forever. I will never have love.
That just makes it even more imperative that I get to keep my job. Whatever it takes, I need to be professional at all times.
I can do this; I try to tell myself calmly. I can… I have to. I don’t have a choice.
26
JACE
“J ace…? Jace…?”
“Huh, what?” I snap from my thoughts and try to refocus. I was somewhere else for a moment there, somewhere I keep finding myself drifting off to and it’s silly because it’s a place I’ll never be for real. Not now. The dream of the cottage by the ocean with the love of my life is done. “Were you talking to me?”
No, not the love of my life, I scold myself while Gary talks. We were never meant to be.
“Mate, your heart just isn’t in it today, we can all tell. We’re wasting valuable studio time here.”
“Oh no, I will get my head in the game,” I insist. “I don’t want to be here longer than we need to.”
I watch Gary and Andrew exchange a look. They’ve been doing this a lot recently, silently communicating about me, and it drives me insane. I blow out a ragged breath, pissed off to be in this position once more.
“What is it, you two? Is there any reason why you’re obviously keeping stuff from me?”
“It isn’t that…” Jed joins in, trying to keep his tone calm. “You just don’t seem like you want to be here and we’re worried, that’s all. Towards the end of our last tour you seemed distracted, but we all thought that’s because your mom was sick, but now you say she’s better and you seem even less happy.”
“Mom was never sick,” I bite back spitefully. I don’t know why but I want them to feel my wrath. Even though none of this is their fault. “I just needed to get away from this never ending bullshit.”
“You mean us?” Andrew asks with one eyebrow cocked. “The band or the life? Because this doesn’t just affect you. Whatever the hell you’re going through affects all of us. We need you to talk to us.”
“Talk to you?” I throw my hands in the air, accidently knocking over a mug sat on top of one of the speakers. I’m in such a bad mood that I don’t even bother to pick it up. “I can’t talk to any of you. You aren’t my friends.”
Andrew steps back looking like I’ve hit him in the face. “Not your friends? Jace, we’ve been in your life for seven years. Even before The Puppeteers got big. We’ve all been through all sorts together. How can you say that we aren’t friends? That’s absolutely crazy. I don’t even know what to think about that…”
“I can’t talk to any of you. I’ve never felt able to. We’re band members and party mates, that’s it.”
Andrew steadies himself. I’m pushing him past the point of explosion, which isn’t easy for Andrew, he’s the calmest out of all of us. It gives me a sick pleasure to bring him down to my level for a moment. I want him to experience the negative cycle that I’m spinning in. I guess misery really does love company.
“If you are unhappy, Jace, then do something about it. Talk to us, talk to Billy, talk to someone else. Don’t fuck up all of our lives because you’re having a bad patch. You talk about not being our mate, well maybe you aren’t. After all, you don’t know that Jed’s grandfather is sick., do you?”