Falling Out of Hate with You (The Hate-Love Duet 1)

Sometimes, I admit I want to break my routine to say yes to Kendrick’s frequent invitations to hang out with Fugitive Summer after their show. I adore everyone in that band, other than Savage, and lots of staff and crew members, too. But there’s no way I’m going to subject myself to partying with Savage these days. Not when I’m on the bitter cusp of exploding like a bomb and word-vomiting all over him about his horrible behavior throughout this tour, but especially since New York.

“Thanks, Katrina,” I say, handing my assistant my empty water bottle. We reach my dressing room and open the door . . . and discover Savage inside the room. Sitting on my couch while flirting intimately with a groupie who’s sitting on his lap. Again. Jesus! This is the third time in two weeks I’ve stumbled upon this exact vignette in my dressing room, immediately after my set! “Get out!” I shriek, the past weeks of aggravation boiling over into an uncontainable flood.

I’ve been biting my tongue for weeks. But this time, I can’t contain myself. I don’t care if I’m embarrassing Mr. Rockstar in front of his new fuck buddy. I don’t care if nearby staff and crew can overhear me shrieking like a madwoman. I don’t care if Savage is the star of the headliner and I’m the peon opener. I don’t care about any of it! He’s turned into a monster these past few weeks—the biggest jerk I’ve ever met—nothing at all like the surprisingly cool dude I shared a bottle of whiskey with in Providence. And, truly, someone has to put this jackass in his place, once and for all. So, it might as well be me.

I shout, “The much bigger dressing room assigned to the headliner isn’t big enough to contain your massive ego, so you needed to take over both yours and mine?”

Savage languidly twirls a lock of the woman’s hair around his fingertip, his dark eyes boring holes into my face. “I took a wrong turn, Fitzy. Chill out. These hallways can be confusing.”

God, I hate him. Literally growling with frustration, I bolt out of my dressing room, toward his. If Mr. Rockstar is going to hang out in my teeny-tiny dressing room with his latest groupie, then I’m going to hang out in his much larger one, with his band, all of whom I like a million times more than him. But before I’ve reached my destination, as I enter a large backstage area where lots of crew and staffers are busy getting ready for Fugitive Summer’s entrance onto the stage, I feel Savage’s body heat immediately behind me, sending tingles across my skin, against my will. I hear his footfalls and ragged breath. Sense the shift in the air that always happens in his presence.

He grasps my arm. “Laila. Stop.”

I whirl around and face him, breathing hard . . . and immediately lose it. I’ve been biting my tongue for several weeks now, ever since New York, when we tore into each other on the sidewalk in front of that restaurant—and I can’t hold in my contempt for this rude, selfish man-child a second longer. In a torrent of angry words, I let loose on him, ripping him a new asshole for his selfishness, rudeness, and extreme unprofessionalism, especially over the past couple weeks. I rail against him for all the times he’s been insanely late for soundchecks and the buses. And then, I scream at him even more passionately about the time, just last week, Savage kept a room full of VIP fans waiting a ridiculously long amount of time.

I wasn’t there to see Savage’s bad behavior at that VIP event, and it didn’t affect me, personally. But I heard about it and it pissed me off! Apparently, when Savage finally arrived, after keeping those poor people waiting far too long for their demi-god, he only half-heartedly rushed through his duties in lightning speed. Totally unacceptable!

Wrapping up my diatribe, I shout, “Remember in Providence, you told me you feared becoming a rockstar cliché?” I take a step forward and shove my nose into his face, my breathing hot and heavy. “Well, guess what, Adrian? Transformation complete!”

Savage’s dark eyes drift to my lips for the briefest moment. But then, he takes in the shocked faces of the crew and staffers who’ve witnessed my tirade. And, suddenly, he transforms into a raging lunatic, before my eyes.

Practically vibrating with rage, Savage grits his teeth and lets me have it for a full five minutes, basically telling me in every conceivable way I need to know my place, mind my business, and shut the fuck up. As the cherry on top, Savage also tells me I’m lucky to be on this tour at all—that, in fact, he didn’t want me here, and told Reed as much, from the get-go.