Surviving (Surrender 2)

“Oh, yeah, tell me about your new position.”

For the remainder of lunch, Charlie and I catch up about her new job, and I tell her about Finn’s job and decision to stay in France. I skip over the whole Finn and Raven thing because Robbie is right, Finn is proud and I don’t need to share our story with anyone else.

I encourage her to talk to Blake regarding all the upcoming events and I also warn her about the lifestyle. Band Bunnies are not fun and I have personal experience with them. Hence Sami. After a few hours we leave to and make plans to meet at my house tomorrow night.

When I get to The Steamroom, there’s a crowd of people watching Sayge rehearse. Jay is at a table so I go to him first and unload my laptop and notes. He looks up at me with sadness in his eyes.

“Hey, Raven, thanks for meeting me here.”

“No problem, Declan pretty much insisted we get together here instead of your offices.”

“Yeah, he told me as much. He’s not too keen on letting you out of his sight right now. Especially with me.”

I shrug not letting him get to me. I’ve let it go. With everything else going on, I can’t hold a grudge against Jay for trying to do what he was told. His disloyalty to me may be hard to digest, but he was looking out for Sayge.

“Jay, let’s move on. Yes, you hurt my feelings, but I know you why you did it. I’ve got too much on my plate right now to harbor resentment. We have a lot to look forward to in the next few months and I don’t plan on tip-toeing around you. Declan respects you way too much, and we both have Sayge’s best interest at heart.”

He lets out a breath shaking his head. When he looks at me his face is relaxed. “You don’t know how much I needed to hear that. I am sorry for what happened, but I’m even sorrier for losing our friendship. Declan has made it clear to me, you are his number one. I will never fuck up like that again. The only thing I want is their success. And it will be hard if I’m breathing through a tube because you leave again.”

“I’m back for good, now let’s get started. First off, let’s discuss how much control Kelly has over the website. I don’t want to sound like a jealous bitch, but she was not happy with my presence and I think we should keep an eye on her. For some reason I have a bad feeling. I don’t trust her.”

Jay agrees and we spend the next hour outlining the changes to the media sites and the updating schedule. Because of our high speed timing, I found a group to recommend to MJ to handle any merchandise orders and confirmed we could link out purchase page to their online system. Then we make notes on who exactly handled each site. The guys took over the Twitter mostly, so I would update Facebook and the blog, and Kelly had the whole website for now.

Declan joins us and orders a beer for everyone declaring work time is over. He plucks me from my stool and seats us in the booth with me on his lap. The crowd has lessened, and I find out they are the employees invited to watch today since they are working tomorrow night. No one approaches us as we talk about the upcoming weeks and go over our travel schedule for Vegas. Kelly was able to get us into the Hard Rock with daily passes to the MGM.

Declan has a shit-fit when he sees she booked suites which means we have to share space. He picks up the phone to cuss her out but I stop the call and explain maybe it was her only choice. We can question her later.

&n

bsp; I get ready to leave because I still have to stop by the grocery store. Declan tries to come with me, but I insist he stays and make him promise to give me a few hours alone with Abbi and Ella. Even though he is unhappy about it, he agrees.

“I’ll be there soon. Once we finalize tomorrow night’s set I’m outta here. So get the gossip out of the way fast.” He yells as I walk away.

*****

“So let me get this straight, Charlie cusses you out, makes you cry, insults my brother, and you get her a job?” Abbi asks me.

“Yep, we talked through it today. Believe it or not, I understand a little of where she was coming from.” I answer and sip my wine.

It is just the three of us tonight for dinner. Declan got caught up with some old friends at the bar so I put his leftovers in the fridge. So far we discussed my trip in more detail, the upcoming trip to Vegas, and my fight with Charlie. I purposely shut them down when they tried to talk about the tour this summer. I explained that I had enough details from Declan and Charlie and unless they wanted to tell me something awesome that I didn’t already know, it was a closed subject.

Even though our conversation was light and fun, I felt the elephant in the room.

“I know y’all know about Finn, and it’s alright to talk about him.”

Ella twirls her glass nervously but looks at me. “Rave, we know what your leaving did to Dec, and in a way we feel responsible. We should have told him how much you were hurting, but we wanted to stay out of it. Abbi and I wanted you both to be happy and are thrilled you walked back in that door together. But how far did it go with Finn?”

“It didn’t go. Finn is one of my best friends. I don’t want to go into specific details because they are private. But what Finn and I shared will always be special to me and to him too. In the end, he pushed me right back here to Declan. He supports me one hundred percent.”

“Do you miss him?” Abbi asks quietly.

“More than anything in the world. Truly, you have to believe me. Things with us are good. I felt terrible for a while, but he didn’t let me dwell. He’s the same overprotective hot badass he’s always been.”

“That’s a relief! Jimi misses him, and I was scared it would be awkward.”

“Nope, and speaking of Jimi–tell me how things are with him.”

We open another bottle of wine and I listen to every detail of their summer. By the time Declan shows up, we’re almost drunk and talking about Abbi and Jimi’s newfound love for shower-sex. As soon as he catches on to what we are talking about he tells us to shut up so he can finish his dinner and not throw it up.