Chapter 39

Tommy

The restof the week was a blur as we prepared to record two songs, get married, and I squeezed in a physical therapy appointment. On Friday I got good news from the surgeon, who said the knee was healing great and a few days of steroids would probably allow me to play well enough to record the two songs. I still needed to take it easy after that if I wanted to get in shape for the tour, but this was encouraging.

Harley was in wedding planning mode, and I loved seeing her so happy. She and Wynter were giggling like teenagers, and I had a few surprises up my sleeve as well. I was happier than I’d been in a long time, and I hadn’t forgotten that Carter had done this for us. It was odd to think that he’d had to die for us to find our way back to each other, but that wasn’t really the case. His demons were bigger than anything Harley and I had gone through. He’d simply had the foresight to set things in motion for us.

As angry as I was about him ending his life, I missed him like crazy.

And Harley did too.

One of the things I was planning was to see if there was time to record the new song I’d written for her, which we’d decided to simply title, ‘Lies.’ The guys were on board, and I was hoping to have a rough recording to give her as one of her wedding presents. I knew she’d loved the version I’d played for her when we’d been at Harmony Place, but I didn’t know if we could pull together a finalized version in such a short time.

The band was excited for us, and it was great to see Devyn, Presley, and Jesse jumping in to help Harley make plans. There wasn’t a lot to do since we were eloping, but they’d decided to coordinate dresses even though there wasn’t a formal wedding party and apparently us guys were all going to wear similar clothes as well. I didn’t care one way or the other so if Harley wanted us to coordinate for pictures, I was down to do anything she asked.

We’d opted to get married Thursday afternoon since we had all day booked at the studio on Wednesday and we weren’t a hundred percent sure how much time we’d need. It would also give Wynter the time to fly in Thursday morning—and back home again that night with River—so she could go to work on Friday. Harley and I were going to stay in Vegas through the weekend for a mini honeymoon before heading back to L.A.

We were hoping to begin official rehearsals for the tour on Monday, even if my knee wasn’t at a hundred percent. I could still play without using my right leg. It wasn’t like I didn’t know the songs and it would give the others the chance to perfect the choreography. The only thing that would have to wait would be my drum solos, but we could use the timing for that from what I’d done on other tours, so we’d know within a minute or two how long our set would be.

I had no plans to change my drum solo in any significant way. Sometimes I did longer solos if one of the other guys had a technical issue or if someone needed a slightly longer break. We were all human. There had been one night when my stomach was off and we’d had to stop twice for me to go to the bathroom. It was a damn good thing Carter and Z were all about solos.

“Pale pink or emerald green?” Harley asked, coming out of her massive walk-in closet with a hanger in each hand. There was a dress hanging from each, both somewhat long. The pink one was more elegant, made of some kind of silky material that seemed to flow loosely and a scooped hemline that wouldn’t show any cleavage. The green one was strapless and sleeveless, with sequins and a slit up one leg, that seemed more suited to a red carpet than the romantic dinners I had planned for the weekend.

“Pink,” I responded. “But I like both. It depends on what we’re doing.”

“I’ll bring both,” she said after a moment. “Since we don’t know exactly what we’re doing every night.”

“Oh, I know exactly what we’ll be doing every night,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m talking before we go back to the room and get naked. You’ll have to feed me if you want me to have energy for all that.”

“The pink one is more along the lines of what I’m thinking, with quiet romantic dinners and room service, but if you want a night out on the town, we can do that too.”

“I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “We’ll have River with us until Thursday, and we’re having dinner with the whole gang after the wedding. Once River leaves with Wynter, I figured we might hit the casinos as a group, have a little fun. Then when we’re alone, we can decide how we feel on the fly.” She flashed me a smile. “We might not even leave the hotel room on Friday.”

“That sounds like the best way to spend a honeymoon.”

“Okay, I’m going to put these two in my garment bag and?—”

My phone buzzed and I saw a text from Z.

Z: Band meeting. Now. We have a problem.

“Hang on, babe,” I said, picking up my phone and texting him back.

TOMMY: What’s going on?

He responded by sending me a link. I clicked on it and for a moment I wasn’t sure what I was looking at.

It was an advertisement of some kind for Freya Colson.

She spoke for a minute, talking about some law she was trying to get passed that had to do with migrant workers, and I couldn’t imagine what that had to do with Onyx Knight. Then I heard the music.

Judgement Call.

She was using ‘Judgement Call’ in a fucking political advertisement.

And I knew without asking that we hadn’t approved it.

This was Aurora’s doing and the timing was incredibly suspicious.

We were getting ready to re-record the song and she gave permission to a politician whose beliefs didn’t align with ours in any way, shape, or form to use them?

Not to mention, it was a politician I happened to know.

A politician Harley was friends with.

And they’d had lunch a few days ago.

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through the roiling of my stomach.

What the hell had she done?

We’d been clear we couldn’t talk about our plans to anyone. Hadn’t she been listening? Did she not care? What the fuck had she been thinking?

This was a complete slap in the face, both to me and to the band, and so out of character for her.

“Babe, do you think these shoes work with the pink dress?” She was holding up a pair of shoes, but I barely looked up.

“What did you tell Freya?” I asked quietly.

“Huh?” She sounded confused.

“Was Freya at lunch with you girls the other day?”

“Yes. Why?”

I held out the phone. “Hit play.”

She put the shoes down and took my phone from me.

I watched her face as she watched the ad, and it went from confusion to horror to guilt.

Son of a bitch.

“Harley. What did you do?”

“Oh my god.” She’d gotten a little pale. “Oh no no no.”

“Dammit, Harley, what did you tell her?”

“I…” Her voice trailed as she looked at me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t… it just slipped out. We were talking about everything going on and catching up. I…shit.” She closed her eyes. “This is my fault.”

“You told her we were re-recording the two songs?”

She nodded miserably. “I’m so, so sorry. We talked about everything when we were in group. The NDA…”

“The NDA doesn’t apply once we leave Harmony Place!” I snapped.

Her eyes filled with tears. “I should have known better. I just didn’t think… I’m sorry. What do I do?”

“You’ve done enough,” I muttered, yanking my phone back and texting Z.

TOMMY: We’ll be there in thirty. I already know what happened. I’ll explain when I get there.

“I just got a text about a band meeting.”

“Yeah. You’re going to have to explain to the guys.” I grabbed my wallet and stuck my phone in my pocket. “We need to get over there now.”

“Just let me grab River’s bag.” She hesitated, as if waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t know what the hell to say. I was so fucking frustrated.

It felt like she’d betrayed me all over again.

How was this happening after how far we’d come? Had it all been some kind of mind game to get back at me for something? It made no sense, but neither did her talking about private band business.

And just like that, my world started crumbling around me once again.