I didn’t want a break. I wanted to keep going. I wanted to keep recording, keep playing, and keep being relevant. I didn’t want to go away and become forgotten. Our managers wanted us to write more music. I had more music. I had music coming out of my asshole, but our managers said this was needed. The band had to relax and replenish, whatever the fuck that meant. I just knew that I wasn’t happy to go back home. The guys were, though. Braden was ecstatic. Gunn dropped a bombshell and said he had a girl waiting for him back home, and then there was Emerson. He was a different type of bomb waiting to go off. He’d been a chore to deal with the whole time.

Emerson spent most of his time getting high. At first, concerts had to be rescheduled because he was sent to do a quick detox. He’d finish and come back in time to play. When this started happening too often and when he couldn’t play, they hired a guy to play as his replacement. His nickname was Em2.

Priscilla and Peter thought going home would solve Emerson’s problem, but it was the opposite. I had no doubt it’d only get worse. Hell. We all had our own problems there. Mine came in the shape of a heart-shaped face with long black eyelashes, lips that made my dick stand up in a salute, and long legs that could wrap around me in a fucking pretzel.

We hadn’t talked since I left. I thought she would’ve come out to visit. Braden flew out their mom multiple times, but Brielle never came with her. I didn’t know how to deal with her. Going back and seeing her made me feel like I was signing up to ride a tsunami as a carnival ride. Fun in theory, but dangerous from the get-go.

She gutted me. Three years. She had lied to me for that long.

“Yo, man.” Emerson plopped into the seat next to me. He leaned over, looking out the window of our jet. “Still nothing, huh?”

“We don’t land for another hour. There won’t be anything until we start to descend.”

I watched him closely. He was sweaty, and his speech was jerky. He was jonesing for a fix. “So, what’s the plan?” he asked, bouncing his knees and wringing his hands together. When he noticed I was watching them, he stuffed them inside his pockets. His leg picked up its speed. “We have that radio interview, right? Then what?”

Then he was going to get high. “Then we go home for a vacation.”

Priscilla came up the aisle and paused at our seats. She and her twin brother, Peter, had been managing us since we left Grant West. We weren’t their first band, but we were the first to hit it big. She’d been so giddy back then, but now there were worry lines around her eyes, and she pursed her lips together for a moment. Her gaze lingered on Emerson, and I knew what she was thinking. I was thinking the same thing. How long until the next disaster? “You guys need to take a month off and then head back into the studio. We can’t wait too long before your next album goes out. Time is money.”

He shot her a dark look. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“No problem.” She patted my seat twice. Her voice was high, and her smile was forced. “That’s why you guys have me.” Then she glanced at me. “We’ll be arriving in an hour, and a car will be there to pick you up. They’ll take you guys straight to the interview.”

Braden popped up from the seat in front of us. “Then home? After that, we go home, right?”

“Of course.” The forced smile looked etched in plastic. “You’re eager to see your family?”

He remarked, “No, I’m eager to get laid in my hometown.”

“You guys are so funny.”

As she moved forward and disappeared into the front section where her brother had set up their office, Emerson extended his middle finger in the air and muttered, “I hate that bitch. When can we fire them?”

Braden got up and took the seat across from us. “We can’t. We’re under contract.”

Emerson groaned, slumping further down in his seat. His hands covered his bald head. “I can’t handle another album with them.”

“Album and tour,” I corrected. The anger had been simmering in me. They weren’t the only ones tired of the ‘Peter and Priscilla Show.’ They agreed to anything for a buck, whether or not we wanted to. “My lawyer’s looking into the contract. They’ll get us out.”

“Maybe Bri can be our manager then?”

I stiffened, but made sure not to show any emotion. Feeling Braden’s gaze on me, studying me, I relented, “Yeah, maybe.”

Emerson grunted. “Fuck that. My cousin’s a bitch. No offense, Bray.”

“Fuck you.”

Emerson ignored him. “Bri’s not exactly the friendly type, you know. Her personality sucks. My mom says she’s never at home; she’s probably whoring around.” As he said the last line, he was watching me, and when I didn’t react, a smug smirk appeared on his face. “You know how Bri can be.”

“Really?” Braden shot back at him. “’Cause from what I hear from my own sister is that she’s working two jobs, ass-wipe. She won’t let me help her out. She’s still helping at Rowdy’s and drumming for Callen.”

Emerson shrugged. “I’m just telling you how I hear it. Elijah’s my brother. He and Bri are still tight.”

Narrowing my eyes, I threw at him, “But not dating tight?”

“What?”

“They’re not dating again?”

His jaw clenched, and he rolled his eyes. “Who cares? My cousin’s a slut. We’re all thinking it. Why can’t we just say it? Luke, you bought that old bar. Come on, you can’t tell me you bought it for any other reason than to get away from her? The place is a dump. I’ve seen the pictures. Be real. You got the place because you don’t want to go back and live so close to her again. Am I right?”

It was a spur-of-the-moment purchase and part of the reason I’d bought it had been to get away from Bri, but that was after our first big paycheck. When I was still angry with her. Hearing it now, having it thrown in my face—I started to get up from my seat. Emerson had overstepped one too many times, but Braden stopped me as he said, “Because we’re not all thinking it. Only you’re thinking it, so shut up.” He leaned over and punched his leg. “Would you just shut up, Emerson?”

I lowered myself back down.

Gunn grunted, moving back to his seat, “I can’t say a bad word about the girl. She’s a kick-ass drummer, and it’s because of her that I got to play with you guys.”