Jenna
It took everything in me not to look back at Felix when Alec proposed. I couldn’t, or I’d give it all away. I couldn’t look back at Felix, I couldn’t say hell no to Alec, not there on stage in front of all our fans and the world. I couldn’t do anything but hold onto the mask, the story, and pretend to be happy, even though I am anything but.
Through the encore and the publicity and the whisking away hand-in-hand with Alec into the limo, I force myself to cling to that mask—the ecstatic, giddy, newly-engaged-and-oh-so-happy-about-it mask the fans want to see, that the story demands, now that Alec fucking proposed on stage—
Keep it together, I tell myself. Brian, the limo driver, is still watching.
I try to calm my breathing, to settle back into the smooth leather seat and Alec’s arm around my shoulders, but all I can see is Felix’s torn-up expression. All I can feel is my heart slamming against my ribs, and this twisting in my stomach.
And the desire to leave a massive princess-cut-shaped indent in Alec’s face.
I unclench my fist and squeeze Alec’s knee, in what hopefully looks to Brian from the rearview mirror like a loving gesture, but is hard enough to make Alec wince.
“Congratulations, you two,” Brian says. He’s our usual post-show driver in LA, and normally we chat with him for a bit, catch up on how his kids are doing, or his latest grievance with his mother-in-law.
There’s no way I can handle small talk right now, but Alec steps in. “Thanks, Brian. I’m a pretty lucky guy.”
He’s lucky I have a low predilection for murder, is what he is.
“We both are,” I say as sweetly as possible, beaming up at Alec and squeezing his knee harder. “Brian, you mind if we have a little privacy?”
Brian chuckles. “Of course! There’s some champagne in the back. You two kids celebrate.” He winks at us and then the partition slides up. The second it’s locked into place I jump away from Alec like I’ve been burned.
Because I sure as hell have been.
“What the fuck was that?” I growl.
Alec rolls his eyes up to the limo ceiling in this sort of weary “oh, here we go” look that makes me even more furious. “It was a pretty damn romantic proposal, I’d say.”
I don’t want to hear anything about what Alec thinks is romantic. “You had no right!” I say, my voice creeping into a yell. Alec shoots a pointed look at the partition, which is probably soundproof enough, but I’m rapidly losing my ability to care what Brian hears. “You had no right to do this without talking to me first!”
“Yeah? Is that what we’re going with?” Alec’s voice is snide, like he’s so justified he can’t be bothered to get worked up about this. “You had no right to move in with our cellist, but you didn’t care what the hell I thought about that.”
“That’s my personal life. It’s different.”
“Is it?” Alec’s blue eyes are cold as ice. “It affects me, too, doesn’t it? You didn’t even bother asking me if it was okay if he lives with us.”
There’s a flicker of guilt, but I’m so mad at him, it’s not hard to quash. “It’s my house, bought and paid for by me,” I say, even though I hate myself a little for playing that card, petty as it is.
But after what he did . . .
“Do you think I love living in my ex-girlfriend’s closet? Trust me, that’s not exactly the dream,” Alec says. “But I do it for the band. For our future. Something you could stand to think about more often.”
My body flushes. I have been thinking about the future, but not in the way he means it.
I see Felix’s expression again in my mind, angry and gutted, and my heart aches. He had to know my reaction wasn’t real. He had to know I had nothing to do with this.
But what if he decides that all this isn’t worth it? That having to deal with Alec, and this whole messed-up situation, is too much?
I can feel my eyes burning, and blink away the tears furiously. “So, what, I don’t consult you on our roommate situation and you do this . . . as revenge? Because we didn’t stick to the damn rules, you go ahead and—”
“Oh my god, Jenna. Seriously. That’s what you think of me?” I think the wounded look on his face is sincere—Alec isn’t great at faking emotions, ironically—but it doesn’t mean it’s not true, that this isn’t some spiteful way to get back at us.
“I wouldn’t have before, but given what you just did—”
“What I did?” Alec’s eyes flash. “You’re the one who seems hell-bent on throwing everything away on some guy you just met!”
I should tell him I’m not just throwing everything away, that if I was, I sure as hell would have said no on that stage and been done with all of this. But what comes out of my mouth instead is, “He’s not just some guy, Alec. I’m in love with him.”
“In love with him.” He shakes his head, glaring at the ceiling. “God, Jenna, you barely know him.” The judgment in his tone knifes me. I know he doesn’t understand. I know he doesn’t really believe something like this, so soon, is possible. But I know Alec, and there’s more than that to his judgment—he’s thinking I’m falling back into old patterns, being irresponsible, rushing headlong into self-destruction.
My heart squeezes, but I remember the feel of being in Felix’s arms, of how natural and pure and right it feels every time I’m with him, like I’ve finally found this person I didn’t even know I was desperately searching for all along.
What I feel for Felix isn’t like the past, not at all. It’s a future, one I want with all my heart, for me and for Ty.
Not that I’m going to tell Alec that.
“Okay, fine,” Alec says, running a hand through his hair. “Sure. You’re in love with him. Like you were in love with me.”
I’m not even going to get into how different things are with Felix, especially because there’s no nice way to say that to Alec. “I am,” I say firmly. “And he’s in love with me. And, god, Alec, did you even think about what that must have been like for Felix, seeing that? Did you even—?”
“Felix?” Alec laughs incredulously. “Felix signed on for this! Felix joined our band knowing he was going to have to watch us pretend to be in love.”
My mouth opens and closes helplessly. He’s not wrong about that—Felix and I have talked about that, and how difficult it might be. But this is different, somehow, and not just because we were caught completely off-guard by it.
I’m not sure how to put to words what line it crossed beyond just the personal betrayal of Alec throwing me under the bus like that. But my eye catches the glint of the big-ass diamond on my finger, and I feel queasy.
“Look,” Alec says, leaning forward. “You guys aren’t going to last four years. He admits it. Are you going to deny that? Especially now that you’re in love with him? Our plan isn’t going to work anymore, is it?”
I take a deep breath, the guilt back. I should have brought this up with Alec sooner, sometime in the last day or two. I knew I needed to, but the anxiety of it, of letting him down after all he’s done for me . . .
Though if I’d known he was planning a proposal, I might have felt a lot less conflicted.
“No.” I look down at my hands, and then away again.
Alec nods. “So we need to escalate the story, get out of it faster. Which means we need to be building to an ending. This will be our engagement tour, and when it’s over, we’ll figure out what’s next—cold feet or something. A story that lets us both get out with what’s left of our dignity.” He holds his arms open wide. “It’s not as good as the other plan, but I’m not the one who decided to abandon it.”
The fury from before has settled into a cold pit in my stomach.
“You still should have talked to me about it first,” I say.
“Maybe,” Alec says. “Would you have agreed?”
We’d needed a new plan, and though I don’t love this one, it’s hard to say how I would have taken it had Felix and I actually been given the option. But we weren’t, and now it’s done.
“I guess we’ll never know,” I say.
He glares at me and then looks out his window, and I look out mine. There’s nothing more I want to say, not right now and not to him.
Felix, though . . . I think of the way he asked if he should come home tonight, like he actually thought I might not want him there after what just happened. My heart aches and my hands tremble as they clutch my knees. And I can only hope this connection, this possible future, is still worth it to him after all this.