The acoustics at The Echo were so bad that Lucy could hardly hear Harper over the clatter of her own drums and the misaligned screech of Toni’s amp. The cave-like room was only half full and most of the crowd was milling about at the bar in the corner rather than watching the stage. Not that Lucy blamed them. Tonight’s set had been awful. Just like the set before it and the set before that.
Lucy crashed her sticks down into her last roll, letting the beat drop out as Toni sang the final line of “Soft” with Harper. They were out of tune. Great.
Applause smattered and then died as the murmur of bored voices rose to overtake it.
Harper stomped off stage, followed by Toni, Iza and Robyn, who stumbled going down the uneven steps and nearly fell on her face.
Lucy stayed at the drums for a moment, listening to her own heart breaking.
Everything had been so fantastic before the Hollywood Bowl, but since then Crush had got worse and worse with every passing gig.
Lucy felt more alone than ever. It was like her bandmates had been abducted and secretly replaced by malfunctioning robots. Lucy wouldn’t be at all surprised if one of them simply crumbled into a pile of smoking mechanical parts on one of these disastrous nights.
She finally got up and followed the other girls.
“We’re doomed,” Harper moaned. She slunk over to one of the grim duct-taped chairs in the backstage nook that had been labeled their dressing room, then wrinkled her nose and retreated before her white mini touched the greasy vinyl seat.
“Not only are we stuck playing The Echo for the fourth time in two weeks, the show’s producers aren’t even bothering to film our gigs anymore and the freaking audience isn’t even listening!” Harper continued. “And I can’t blame them! We SUCKED. You were totally off, Robs, and don’t even get me started on how many intros you missed, Toni. Seriously, how can you not remember the melody line to ‘I’ll Cross the World’? How many times have we played that song?”
Lucy couldn’t tell whether her headache was due to Harper’s shouting or due to an extreme case of déjà vu. She knew where this was heading — the same place they always ended up after a show these days. A fight.
“It might help if you could stay in tune,” Toni snarled.
“I wasn’t the one out of tune, you crazy —”
Harper’s jibe was cut off by Robyn diving for the nearest bin and vomiting violently.
“Robs, are you okay?” Lucy said, kneeling to hold Robyn’s hair away from her face and trying not to gag at the sound of retching.
“The screech of our instruments clashing obviously made her sick,” Harper snapped.
Toni looked from Robyn back to Harper and her eyes narrowed. “You insensitive bi—”
“Oi!” Lucy hollered, cutting them off before they did each other actual damage. “Robyn is ill and we’re still in the venue. Stop behaving like children and help me with her, will you? Iza, put your bloody phone away and get Robyn something cold to drink. Luke will understand if you wait more than thirty seconds to reply to a text.”
Iza paled, as though it was the first time she’d noticed Robyn vomiting right in front of her. Lucy shook her head as the pianist scurried off. She was glad Iza was happy, but she was so wrapped up in her new boy that she’d been useless in the past few weeks. And Lucy could have done with Iza’s help — keeping Harper and Toni’s inexplicable feud from going nuclear had been a full-time job. And that was on top of Robyn completely losing the plot.
“If Jason were here,” Harper noted, ice trailing through her words, “we would have a real dressing room and a production assistant to help us. Wait. No. That’s not true. If Jason were on the case, WE WOULDN’T BE HERE AT ALL BECAUSE WE’D HAVE A REAL GIG!”
“He isn’t here, so there’s no point in screaming about it, is there?” Toni snapped back.
“Oh, there’s a point. Whose fault do you think it is that all of a sudden our manager’s dumb-ass assistant is booking all of our gigs and we’ve fallen so far off the radar that they’ve taken one of our camera crews and given it to Dead Kitten Mambo?”
“Given that I am the only one interested in booking gigs for you ladies these days, you might want to be nicer to me,” Ash said dryly as he pushed through the door from the venue into the backstage area. He helped Lucy hoist Robyn into a chair. “Jason promoted me to coordinator, remember?”
“Right,” Robyn said, shaking her head like a wet puppy. “Be nice to Ash, Harper. He’s a lovely boy and he’s doing his best to help us. It’s not his fault he isn’t that bright.”
“Are you okay, Robyn?” Ash asked, ignoring her slurred chatter.
“I’m fine,” Robyn said, waving off his concern. “A few too many cocktails, that’s all.”
“Good,” Ash said, his tone flat. “I’ll get started loading up the equipment.”
He turned on his heel and left.
Great, thought Lucy. Now they’d alienated Ash as well. Just what they needed.
Iza returned with a bottle of water, a wet bar towel folded into a compress and a mini bag of pretzels.
“Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I had to beg for something that even resembled food.”
“You’ve got to stop this, Robs,” Harper said, taking the compress and applying it to the back of Robyn’s neck. “We can’t have you nearly collapsing all the time on stage. It’s not good for the band.”
“It’s not good for you either,” Lucy said, shooting Harper a look.
“Well, yes, that too,” Harper agreed. “I know you think you need to lose weight, or whatever, but you also have to eat. You know that.”
“I’m fine!” Robyn said, her voice already clearer after a handful of the pretzels. She took the compress from Harper and nudged her away. “I’m fine. You guys worry too much.”
“Well, excuse me for trying to help,” Harper snapped. “Whatever. Don’t we have another party to get to? At Darkroom? I’m going to find Rafe and Skye and we’ll meet you there.”
“Oh sure, you just run off with Rafe. Leave us to load up all on our own. Again,” Toni said. “That’s fine, Harper. We don’t need you anyway.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault we’re here at this dive. You know whose fault that is,” Harper threw back at her.
What the bloody hell was she on about? Lucy knew that Harper somehow blamed Toni for Jason’s inattentiveness of the last few weeks. Without him, Crush had gone from the Project Next favorite, making waves at the Hollywood Bowl, to last place on the internet polls, playing the same crummy gigs. Something had happened, and they clearly knew what, but Lucy hadn’t been able to get an explanation out of Harper or Toni.
“Why do you keep putting it all on Toni?” Iza asked, her voice quivering. “It’s not Toni’s fault that Jason’s abandoned us.”
More to the point, Lucy thought, why isn’t Toni denying it?
“She knows why,” Harper snapped.
“Shut it, all right?” Toni hurled back. “And you stay out of it, Iza. You can just go back to texting your boring boyfriend and pretending you care about the band.”
“I do care …” Iza’s voice broke. She scrubbed tears from her eyes. “I do care,” she whispered again, though Lucy could barely hear her over Harper.
“See, now you’ve made Iza cry, you witch. I wish I’d never let you join my band. You’ve ruined everything!”
Toni was practically trembling with rage. “What do you care about the band being ruined? You’ve got what you wanted, haven’t you? You’ve wormed your way back into Rafe Jackson’s life. Why don’t you go cry to him? A touch of sympathy might be just what you need to finish stealing him from right under his girlfriend’s nose.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Skye Owen’s sharp voice cut in. “She won’t be stealing anyone.”
Lucy’s stomach dropped like a stone. Skye and Rafe were standing right behind them all, and they’d clearly heard every unfortunate word of Toni’s vicious little speech. Skye was practically glowing with rage.
“I can’t believe you just said that!” Harper shrieked at Toni. “I can’t believe … after what you’ve done … How do you have the nerve?”
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Toni snapped back, without a hint of apology.
“What’s the truth?” Skye snapped. “That Harper is trying to seduce Rafe and doesn’t care that she’s doing it right in front of me because she’s an evil slut? Did you think I hadn’t noticed?”
“Babe,” Rafe said, looking a little panicked in the face of his furious girlfriend. “That’s not true at all. Harper and I are just friends, you know that.”
Lucy could feel Harper tense beside her at the words “just friends.”
Please, Harper, Lucy prayed silently. Please don’t say anything foolish right now. Please.
“You know what?” Skye said to Rafe, voice still snapping with anger. “We’re going home. I’ve had enough of your friends tonight.”
“Don’t you want to go to the party, babe?” Rafe wheedled. “I think we should go. We’ll all feel better after a nice round of shots.”
“No,” Skye said firmly. “We won’t because we are going home. Now.”
Then she turned and marched away.
Rafe shot Harper an agonized look. “I’m sorry, Harp. I gotta go. I … I’ll call you.”
Then he turned and dashed after Skye.
When they were gone, Harper rounded on Toni, eyes flashing and looking like she was about to punch Toni in the face.
Lucy reached for Harper’s arm. “Harper, come on. Let’s pack up. We can talk about this when we get home.”
“No, we’ll talk about it right now,” Harper said.
Toni snapped, “Finally. It’s about time that we stopped pretending you weren’t using us to get Rafe back.”
“Oh?” Harper hissed. “Is it? Then maybe it’s also time to stop pretending that you haven’t ruined our chances completely by hooking up with our married manager.”
Toni’s face went white so quickly and completely that Lucy was afraid the bass player would faint.
So that was it, thought Lucy. That was the missing piece that made it all make sense. Jason’s disappearance. Toni and Harper’s arguing. All of it.
“You … and Jason?” Iza said, staring at Toni. “You actually …”
“Yes, actually,” Harper snapped. “I interrupted them at Blvd3 after the Hollywood Bowl. Our last decent gig, if you’ll remember.”
“You didn’t see —” Toni tried to say, but Harper cut her off.
“I didn’t have to see. It was obvious. And it should have been obvious to the rest of you. Why else would Jason drop us just when we were really taking off?”
“The hard work was done,” Iza said. “That’s what Ash said. Ash said Jason always passes easy stuff off to him. Always.”
“Ash wishes,” Harper said, shaking her head in disgust.
“I …” Toni was crying now, fat, awful tears running black streaks of mascara down her cheeks. “I didn’t know …”
“You didn’t know he was married?” Harper snarled. “You ruined our chances because you’re too much of a moron to use Google, or pay attention to anyone but yourself. He called his wife three times a night when he was out with us. You really are the blindest, deaf—”
Before Harper could finish, Toni turned and fled.
Lucy was going to be sick. She’d known something was wrong. She’d seen the texts, noticed the flirting … but she hadn’t thought it was anything serious. And now … now it was too late.
“So what are we going to do?” Robyn asked quietly. She’d been so silent, sitting in the low, cracked chair with her bottle of water and her bag of pretzels that Lucy had almost forgotten she was there. “We can’t just give up because Toni made out with the wrong guy.”
“What can we do?” Iza said, near tears. “Without Jason …”
“We’ve still got Harper,” Robyn said. “Harper got us to Los Angeles; she’ll get us to Las Vegas as well. Right, Harp?”
Lucy turned to Harper, desperately hoping to see the familiar, diabolical light of a plan being hatched behind her best friend’s eyes. But Harper looked as lost as Lucy felt.
“Right,” Harper said, with enough assurance that Lucy thought the others might believe it. “Of course I will. I always think of something, don’t I?”
“And thinking is best accomplished while relaxing,” Robyn said, grabbing Iza’s hand and hauling herself to her feet. “Which means we need to find a nice drink and a loud dance floor, in that order. We’ll all feel better after a good, happy night.”
“I don’t know,” Iza said. “Maybe we should find Toni. She was really upset.”
“No,” Harper said, straightening up. “Robyn’s right. Toni needs to sulk and we need to have a good time and forget about this craptastic gig. Right, Robs?”
“Right!” Robyn declared, hooking her arm through Harper’s. “Let’s do it!”
Lucy trailed the others out to the SUV, her brain racing. Robyn and Iza might be fooled by Harper’s bravado, but Lucy knew better. This time, Harper McKenzie didn’t have a plan. She didn’t have a clue how to save Crush.
If something was going to be done, Lucy would have to do it herself.
Robyn hesitated just inside the heavy double doors of Darkroom. She hoped she could talk the bouncer into letting Tomas through, but what if she couldn’t? She didn’t want to have go to Harper for help. She was sure Harper was beginning to suspect that Tomas wasn’t just showing up at all the Crush shows and parties lately to cheer Robyn on.
Not that Tomas was Harper’s biggest concern at the moment. Robyn couldn’t believe that Toni had actually been seeing Jason. No wonder their manager had been making like the Invisible Man lately. Robyn had been terrified that the others wouldn’t go for the idea of relaxing at Darkroom after Toni and Harper’s blowup. But it was a good plan for them all to relax, even if it had just been an excuse to get her there in time to meet Tomas. They needed some fun after these weeks of disaster. Maybe now that everything was out in the open, life in Crush House would settle down again and things would go back to normal. She really hoped so.
Perhaps she should just text Tomas and make some excuse for why she couldn’t get him in. Then she could focus on helping Harper brainstorm ways to dig them out of last place on Project Next. It would be nice to have a night with just the girls for once. Robyn had missed that since they’d come to LA. When they’d still been just Project Next hopefuls back home, a lot of nights had been spent that way. Just the five of them, chilling out together, planning their destiny.
The big double doors swung open and Tomas strolled in.
“There you are, beautiful,” he said in his liquid Swedish accent. “I was beginning to worry.”
“I’m sorry, Tomas,” Robyn said, straightening up and sucking in her stomach as she followed him to a dim corner of the club’s entry hall. She didn’t want him to see how bloated those pretzels had made her. “I was just going to speak to the bouncer.”
“No worries,” Tomas said smoothly. “It’s handled. I had to slip him a hundred but that’s cool. We’ll put it on your tab.”
Robyn swallowed back a protest. It seemed like her “tab,” as Tomas liked to call it, got bigger all the time.
“Don’t look so glum,” Tomas chided her, tickling her gently under the chin. “I’m not upset. We’re going to have a fantastic time tonight.”
He pulled the red canvas pouch he kept his drugs in from an inner pocket of his soft white jacket and set to sorting through it, pulling free little ziplock bags of pills.
Robyn’s stomach flopped hard against her ribs. The sight of the little red bag out in public always made her edgy, particularly when Tomas was officially a guest of Crush.
“Just be careful,” Robyn said, trying not to sound too much like a nervous schoolgirl. “Security is pretty tight. If you get caught … and you’re a guest of Crush …”
“It’s cool, babe,” Tomas said. “I’m like a ninja; no one will even know I’m here. And if they stop me, I’ll just tell them I’m here with the band. They won’t bother me.”
“But if they search you …”
“They won’t,” he said. He pressed a quick kiss to her mouth and dropped a bright green pill into her hand. “We’ve been doing this for weeks, Robs, and everything has been fine, hasn’t it? Now go, have another round and drop this in it. It’ll help you relax and get ready to tear up that dance floor with me.”
Then he was gone.
Robyn stared at the pill. She shouldn’t take it. After all, she’d no idea what it was. But if she didn’t, Tomas would think she was turning uptight on him. She didn’t want that.
Besides, he wouldn’t give her anything bad. The little pink pills had worked well and the square yellow ones had worked like rocket fuel. The weight was just falling away. She’d be at her goal in a week, tops. When the finale came around, she’d be exactly the person she’d always dreamed she’d be when she walked on stage. And it was all thanks to Tomas.
She would take it, she decided, closing her fingers over the pill. Then Tomas would see what a rock star she really was.
Harper let the pounding music fill her brain and clear her mind. Maybe then she’d be able to find a way out of this mess.
“Harper!”
Harper decided to ignore Robyn and keep dancing. She needed to think. So far she had no clue how she was going to save Crush — and she was going to save Crush. Somehow. She had to. If she didn’t, she’d have officially ruined Lucy’s life for nothing and Lucy would never forgive her. As it was, Lucy had barely spoken to Harper since the big fight at The Echo, and she’d disappeared as soon as they’d arrived at Darkroom.
She’d make it up to Lucy. All she had to do was come up with a way to send Crush from last place to first place in the three weeks they had left. She could do that, if only she could just think.
But instead of spinning a crafty plot to rescue the band from the bottom of the Project Next barrel, her brain kept drifting back to Rafe. He’d texted her a few minutes before.
Clearly, he wasn’t all that upset by the thought that she might be trying to steal him back from Skye. In fact, she thought he’d looked pleased when Toni had blurted it out in front of everyone. Of course, he’d also given in when Skye had thrown her little temper tantrum and insisted on him taking her home, but that text … that text said he was ready and waiting to be stolen.
But she didn’t need to be thinking about Rafe right now. She didn’t even want to be thinking about Rafe, which surprised her. She wanted to figure out how she was going to turn Crush’s sinking ship around and win Project Next.
But then Harper realized with a start that she didn’t have to save Crush. If Rafe was actually hers to steal, as he seemed to be, then she didn’t really need Crush anymore. She had what she’d come back to Los Angeles for.
But somehow, Crush had become more than just a means to an end. It was just as important to her as Rafe was. Maybe even more important. She’d started out to get Rafe back, but in the process she’d built a really awesome band. She’d done it all on her own. The others would never have started playing together if she hadn’t begged, tricked and cajoled them into it. She’d done something kind of amazing, she thought, and not even realized it.
“Har-per!” Robyn called again. “Come dance with me.”
Harper sighed. It wasn’t as though she was having any luck thinking deep thoughts anyway. She might as well go and calm her drunken bandmate.
Harper turned to see Robyn dancing on one of the low tables beyond the velvet-roped VIP section that lined the far side of the black-tiled dance floor. Iza was watching her from their corner sofa, looking as though she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or be super-nervous about the whole thing.
“Table dancing?” Harper asked, crossing to perch on the hard gray sofa beside Iza. “Seriously?”
“Yes!” Robyn said. “Definitely!”
She was going to bounce right through the table if she wasn’t careful.
“Robs, come down here,” Harper called. “You’re going to fall otherwise.”
“I think she looks beautiful,” a gooey voice purred in Harper’s ear.
Ugh. Tomas Angerman was here.
Harper was pretty sure Tomas was her least favorite person in the world. And that was saying something, considering that he shared a planet with Skye Owen.
“Tomas!” Robyn chirped, half diving off the table into his arms. Soon her tongue was halfway down his throat. Gross.
“We have an ice bucket,” Harper said, trying to convey her total disapproval in her flat tone. “Don’t make me use it.”
“Give it up, Harper,” Iza said. “They’re not on the same planet we are at the moment.”
“Are, too,” Robyn said, coming up for air. “I just needed a proper greeting. I missed him!”
“You walked in with him, like, twenty minutes ago,” Harper said, rolling her eyes and reaching for the carafe of cranberry juice in the bottle service caddy. “You really are wasted.”
“Wasted on luuuuuuuvvvv,” Robyn wheezed, giggling as she collapsed onto the sofa beside Tomas.
Tucking Robyn against his side, Tomas pulled out a roll of cash bigger than Harper’s fist and started counting.
“Wow,” Iza said. “That’s a ton of money.”
Tomas simply smiled. “I did well tonight.”
Robyn actually cooed.
“You made all that tonight?” Harper said, trying to ignore the saccharine fest. “How?”
“I provide certain substances that improve the party spirit,” Tomas said, still counting.
“Excuse me?” Harper snapped, straightening up in her chair. “Are you trying to tell me you’re a drug dealer?”
“I provide recreational enhancements,” Tomas corrected.
“And you used Crush’s name to get into this club to do it?” Harper added, glaring at Robyn. It wasn’t doing any good. Robyn was too busy cuddling against Tomas to notice or care.
“Drugs?” Iza said, wide-eyed. “You made all that money tonight selling drugs?”
“No, I made it selling Pokémon cards.” Tomas kept counting.
“Have you been dealing at all the parties Robyn’s brought you to?” Harper demanded, dividing her best death stare between Robyn and Tomas. Tomas just grinned back and didn’t answer. Robyn ducked her head and reached for her drink to avoid Harper’s gaze.
“How can that be safe?” Iza asked. “Aren’t you afraid to walk around with all that cash and, um, stuff?”
“Nah,” Tomas said, separating the bills into several smaller piles. “I know how to protect myself.”
“He’s got a …” Robyn leaned forward and stage-whispered, “… gun.”
“What?” said Iza, her eyes wide.
“Robs,” Tomas said, “you’re not supposed to tell anyone about that.”
“You’re armed?” Harper said, incredulous.
“Only when I’m carrying this much cash or product,” Tomas said, casually tucking his folds of cash into various pockets. “It’s the practical thing to do.”
He looked Harper in the eye. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. Robyn is totally safe with me.”
“You think?” Harper asked.
If this guy thought he was going to use her friends like this, he had better be prepared for a surprise. Harper might not have a clue how to salvage her band, or get her best friend to speak to her again, or make the boy she loved admit he loved her back, but she could do something about Tomas Angerman.
“Iz,” Harper said, turning to smile brightly at Iza. “You wanna dance?”
“Yes!” Iza said, sounding super relieved to get away from Tomas. She bounced to her feet and held a hand out to Harper.
“No,” Harper said. “I’ve got something to discuss with Tomas first. But Robs will come with you now, and I’ll be there in a minute.”
“No, Robs bloody well won’t go with her,” Robyn protested. “Robs is happy where she is.”
“Just go, Robyn,” Harper said. “Tomas and I need to talk.”
“It’s fine,” Tomas told Robyn, eyeing Harper curiously. “Go.”
“Whatever,” Robyn pouted. She rolled to her feet and grabbed Iza’s hand, pulling her toward the dance floor.
“You have something to ask me?” Tomas said, after Robin and Iza were gone.
“Not ask,” Harper said. “Tell. I have something to tell you.”
“I’m listening.”
“You’d better be, because if you’re not, you’re going to regret it.”
Tomas took a sip of Robyn’s abandoned drink. “Am I really?”
“You have no idea how much,” Harper assured him. “You’ve had your fun with Robyn. You’ve made a few bucks. But that’s over now.”
Tomas burst out laughing. “No, I assure you, it’s not. I intend to have a long, close friendship with Robyn. And with Crush.”
“Then prepare to be disappointed,” Harper shot back, “because if I see you around Robyn, or I catch you using Crush’s name for anything ever again, I will destroy you.”
“You think you can do that?” Tomas said with a condescending smile.
“Let me tell you a little story, Tomas. When my ex-boyfriend broke up with me last year because he was moving to LA for university, I considered getting over him. Then I decided that I didn’t want to. So you know what I did? I formed a band, wrote a whole album’s worth of songs, made a demo, became a Project Next finalist and soon, very soon, I’m going to win Project Next and I’m going to be the kind of rock star who can have any man she chooses. Including the ex-boyfriend. So, Tomas, don’t underestimate what I can do to get what I want.”
Tomas just raised a pale eyebrow.
Harper raised one right back.
Tomas burst out laughing.
“You’ve got a lot of self-esteem, don’t you?” he said. “But it takes more than a little girl making threats to scare me.”
“What about a reality television star shouting ‘gun’ in a packed club?” Harper asked. “I’m sure you don’t want to have a conversation with security about the concealed weapon you’re carrying. Or all that cash.”
“You wouldn’t,” Tomas growled. “Crush would be all over the news for being with a drug dealer in a club. You don’t want that.”
“Crush would be all over the news for pointing out a dangerous, armed dealer in a club,” Harper said firmly.
“I’ll tell everyone Robyn’s on drugs.”
“I’ll tell everyone you’re lying. It’ll be great press for Crush, actually. Just enough scandal to make us interesting. In fact, no time like the present …”
Harper turned and strolled over to the bar. When she got there, she waved down the bartender.
“Excuse me,” she said, making herself sound flustered. “Excuse me!”
She twisted to point at Tomas, who was already stalking toward her. She grinned at him. This was too easy.
She turned back to the bartender, her voice quavering just enough to make the bartender think she was terrified.
“That man, right over there, he’s got a —”
Tomas grabbed her arm and pulled her back to face him, irritation glowing from every pore. “Fine, bitch,” he hissed. “Have it your way. But you’ll regret this.”
“Hmm.” Harper pretended to consider it. “Will I? Maybe we ought to call security and test that theory.”
“Miss?” the bartender said. “Is something wrong?”
Tomas shifted his furious glare to the bartender’s direction, but the bartender didn’t back down.
“Is this guy bothering you?”
“No.” Tomas spat the word out, like it tasted bad. “He isn’t. He was just leaving.”
He looked back at Harper again. “This isn’t over, Harper.”
“Yes,” Harper said sunnily. “It is.”
With that she turned and strode toward the dance floor, making for the flash of Robyn’s red hair she could see through the crowd.
That was almost fun. Shame that figuring out how to give Crush a chance at winning Project Next won’t be as easy as getting rid of our little Tomas problem, Harper thought. Crush had fallen apart, and Harper had no clue how to put them back together again.
Lucy stood on the pavement and looked up at the graceful bungalow. The house was old but well kept, surrounded by flowering trees and bordered with fragrant rosemary bushes that crowded around the front door and ran down either side of the flagstone path. It wasn’t at all where she’d imagined Jason Darrow would live. The little house in the hills of Silver Lake was beautiful but distinctly cozy. Not at all like the futuristic steel-and-glass penthouse she’d assumed a Hollywood power player like Jason would call home. But then again, she hadn’t believed that Jason would make a pass at a seventeen-year-old client either, until she’d seen the look on Toni’s face. There was clearly a great deal they didn’t know about Jason Darrow.
But that didn’t change the fact that Crush needed him.
Badly.
Lucy marched herself up the front path to the little bungalow and rang the doorbell before she had a chance to lose her nerve.
There was no response from the darkened house. Was no one home? No, it was nearly midnight and Jason’s car was parked just in front of the house. He was here.
Lucy rang the doorbell again.
This time a light switched on inside. After a few moments, Jason opened the door. He was dressed in pajamas, but he clearly hadn’t been asleep.
“It’s the middle of the night, Lucy,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“We had a gig tonight,” Lucy said, fighting the urge to apologize. “What are you doing here? Why weren’t you at The Echo with us? Why haven’t you been at a single show since the Hollywood Bowl?”
“Ash had you play The Echo?” he asked. “Again?”
“Yes,” Lucy said. She took a deep breath. She couldn’t believe she was doing this but someone had to. “We played The Echo. Again. And we blew it. Again. We’re a disaster, Jason, and I think you know why.”
Jason stepped through the door and closed it behind him. He walked past her and sat down on one of the steps that led up to the porch, gesturing for her to join him.
“Toni told you?” he asked finally.
“No,” Lucy said. “Harper figured it out for herself. She and Toni have been at each other like cats and dogs for ages, and tonight it finally came out why. I should have guessed but I didn’t think …” She couldn’t believe she was saying this. She couldn’t believe she’d ever have the nerve to speak to anyone this way, much less their manager. But what did she have to lose? “I didn’t think you were that stupid.”
Jason stared out at his front garden for a long time. Finally he shook his head. “I didn’t think I was that stupid either. I don’t know how it happened. It just … did. And then I got even more stupid. I couldn’t face Toni so I told myself that Ash could handle you girls. He’s been bugging me to promote him for a while. But … I knew he couldn’t really handle it. I knew I was letting Crush fall apart. And I knew that Sir Peter wasn’t going to miss the fact that it was my fault. He’ll fire me, and Leah — that’s my wife — she’ll find out why. I’ll be ruined. I can see it coming but … I don’t know what to do about it. It’s too late.”
Lucy tried to think of what to say to the older man. He sounded so forlorn. So helpless. This wasn’t what she’d thought she’d find here, although now, sitting with Jason under the luminescent gray of the Los Angeles night sky, she wasn’t sure what she’d really thought would happen. But she knew one thing. She couldn’t just let him give up.
“I didn’t tell my parents that I was joining Crush,” Lucy said finally. “Did you know that? I started out hiding it from them, and then … and then we kept getting further and further along on Project Next and suddenly I was lying to them all the time. For months. And I didn’t know how to tell them. So I did nothing, and the secret just got bigger and uglier. Then they found out on their own and it was awful. They may never speak to me again — all because I didn’t do something about my mistake before it was too late. It’s not too late for you. You can still do something about this. You can still help us salvage Crush. You’re the best, right? You told us so yourself. So prove it. Be the best. Fix this.”
Jason didn’t respond. He just sat there. He didn’t even seem to have heard her.
Finally, Lucy stood and walked back down the path toward the cab that waited for her in the road. She hoped he’d stop her, but he didn’t.
Lucy slid into the cab and whispered the Wonderland Avenue address to the driver. It was the loudest she could speak without bursting into tears. She’d been a fool to think she had a hope of talking him into coming back. She wasn’t Harper. She couldn’t talk people into things. She was just Lucy Gosling. No one ever listened to Lucy Gosling. And now, Crush was doomed because of it.