Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 129207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 646(@200wpm)___ 517(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 646(@200wpm)___ 517(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
I’m a fucking joke. A fraud.
I look the part. Ripped black jeans with a barely buttoned shirt. Tattoos on display. Chains and rings and my signature messy hair. I’m the exact picture of what that roaring crowd out there has come to expect, but inside, everything is crumbling. Every day, I lose another piece of myself, and I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.
If Ax were here, he’d know how to make it right. Hell, if Ax were here, I wouldn’t be in this position. The tour would be over. We would have already released another album and already be hammering out the details of another world tour.
A knock sounds at the door before a woman with a headset barges in. “Five minutes,” she says.
I nod and let out a heavy breath, crashing back against the couch cushion as she hastily disappears, leaving me to endure the loneliness of my pity party. There’s only one thing, one person, capable of making this pain recede in my chest, but despite being only a few feet away, she’s so out of reach that I’ll never be able to catch her.
Another knock. “Two minutes, Ezra.”
Fuck.
Getting up, I make my way back out, feeling as though that moment of solitude did nothing but make everything worse. I’m a fucking wreck, and now I somehow have to get out there and perform for fifty thousand people.
I’m not ready. No amount of rehearsals or training is going to prepare me for having to face this without Axel.
“Woah,” Dylan says, clapping his hand on my back and looking me right in my eyes, forcing me to focus on him. “You good?”
“I can’t do it without him,” I say, feeling the world crumbling from under my feet. I’m sinking. I can’t do it.
“Snap the fuck out of it,” Dylan says, his fingers tightening on my shoulder. “You can do it and you will. There’s no time for this self-doubting spiraling bullshit. You have fifty thousand people out there screaming your fucking name.”
“You don’t think I know that?” I hiss.
He pulls away, bracing his hands at his temples. “FUCK.”
He paces for a second before looking back at Rock and Rae, but before he even gets a chance to call them over, Stacey and Jessica make themselves known. “What’s wrong? We’re still going on, right?”
“Yeah,” Dylan says, trying to sound as though he’s got this under control, as he eyes the execs from the label, trying to keep this from reaching them. “He just needs a second to relax is all.”
“Oh, ummm . . . ” Jessica says, lowering her tone as she cautiously looks around. “Call it unprofessional if you will, but sometimes I struggle with the same thing. I get really worked up before a big performance and need a little something to relax.”
“Keep talking,” Dylan says.
She pulls out a small bag of powder from within her costume, and I look at it longingly. That’ll more than do the trick.
“Fucking hell,” Dylan mutters, but knowing we have no choice, he nods. “Line him up, but be fucking discreet about it.”
“Okay,” she nods.
“I swear, Jessica,” Dylan warns. “If this gets out, I’ll protect my boy a million times over you. I’ll say you coerced him into doing it and you’ll be fired before you even get a chance to say I allowed it.”
“Yeah, okay,” she says, gripping my arm and starting to pull me away. “I’ve got it.”
I let her pull me away, and as she moves to the side of the stage, covered by a big, thick curtain, she pours the powder on the back of her hand. It’s not exactly the easiest line up, but she makes do with what little we have.
“Here,” she says, lifting her hand toward my face.
I go to lean in when a ray of fucking delight storms into us, shoving Jessica’s hand away from my face. “The fuck do you think you’re doing?” Rae demands, staring up at me with such anger and disappointment in those beautiful big eyes, it kills me.
“Don’t fucking start with me, Rae. I need this.”
“Like hell you do,” she spits, shoving Jessica right out of her way to get in my face. “You might be willing to go out there and ruin the legacy Axel left behind, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever allow you to do it. Pull your shit together, Ezra.”
“You don’t fucking get it,” I tell her, feeling myself slipping. “I can’t go out there without him.”
“Yes,” she says with the kind of confidence that pulls me up short. “You can. I know you, Ezra. You can do this.”
I shake my head. “You might think you know me, but you don’t. Not anymore,” I remind her just as Rock, Jett, and Dylan’s cue to take the stage comes through our inner ear speakers.