AXEL

Three days of pure hell followed. I sent her texts and left her voice mails, getting more and more pessimistic as time went on with no reply. All this because I’d had to cancel a date? Or had something happened? I seriously considered showing up at her office, but I knew that would come off as creeptastic, and I knew if I showed up at the mansion unannounced Reeve would enjoy smearing me up and down the landscaped driveways. Sakura said she’d try to find out more about what was going on and told me to wait.

I’m not good at waiting. I finally texted Hey, I love you, you know late one night. No reply. Not a single word. When even Sakura couldn’t get an answer I plunged into a dark funk. It was as if I had flown off to England and the place I’d left no longer existed. We’d returned to a Twilight Zone universe where nothing was good; everything was sinister.

I tried to keep my angst to myself instead of inflicting it on my bandmates, but I screeched the brakes on the CR-Z as I pulled too aggressively into the parking lot in front of our rehearsal space.

Chino and Mal were already inside, playing what looked to be a rather cutthroat game of pool—then again Mal always looked like he was about to murder something. His dark eyebrows drew together as he lined up his shot. “Where are Ford and Samson?” I asked.

“Stuck in traffic,” Chino said, standing back with his stick on the ground between his feet, tipping it from hand to hand so it looked like a metronome swinging. He pumped a fist into the air as Mal missed his shot.

Chino sank the next shot and the game was over. We decided to get started on some stuff without waiting for the other two. Mal and I were both in moods apparently, so we picked a song we’d been working on called “Fracture,” which was dark and aggressive.

And loud. I think we would have both been happy to just thrash as hard as we could on it, but since we were still learning it, we had to keep stopping and going over various parts.

The third time he flubbed the chord progression in the pre-chorus I blew up at him. “For fuck’s sake, Mal! Get with the program!”

“That’s how it goes,” he hissed back, holding up the neck of his guitar as if I needed to see his fingers.

“It isn’t. The transition through A-minor is in that triplet, dun-dun-dun-dahhhh,” I sang.

Mal was about to argue back when Chino cut in with a little cymbal crash. “You know what I think would sound cool? I was listening to those old M-three albums while you guys were gone, and Mal, what do you think about doing the same thing, but you switch to the twelve-string guitar?”

Mal’s eyes lit with an unholy fire. “That would be … delicious.”

“I thought so, which is why I brought it up,” Chino said smugly.

Mal grumbled a little and went to tune up the twelve-string, and if he noticed we’d been derailed from our argument he didn’t let on.

That was pretty much how it went, though. After the others got there, I managed to jump down each of their throats at least once, and we ended up deciding not to pick up again after dinner. The rest of them went off to see a show at the Whiskey and I decided to take a long drive to try to clear my head. From Mal’s place in Santa Monica I headed up the Pacific Coast Highway, but I was too distracted by my thoughts to enjoy the scenery.

I called Sakura again. “Any word?”

“You could say that,” she said. “Ricki called me a little while ago to say she’s changed her number.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” I said, my heart sinking.

“I asked her right away, is this because of Axel? And she said yes. So I basically blew up at her and said she was acting childish and if she wasn’t going to tell me what was going on she at least owed it to you to explain.”

My palms grew sweaty against the steering wheel. “You convinced her she owed me a break-up conversation?”

“I’m sorry, Ax. It was the best I could do.”

I sighed. “And I really thought I’d gotten through to her. We were really getting somewhere. I don’t mean with BDSM, I mean—”

“Well, don’t talk about the relationship in the past tense just yet. Maybe you can make her see the light.”

“Okay, how, when?”

“She wants me to conference you two together so you won’t have her number. Once you’re connected, I’ll put the phone down and walk away.”

“That’s seriously what she wants?”

“No. What she wants is to hide with her head in the sand for the next twenty years, but something tells me you’d rather talk to her now.”

Angst churned in my gut. “Okay. You’re right. It’s a chance. It’s better than nothing.”

“I’ll dial her right now. Hang on.”

I wasn’t about to try to stop her or tell her to wait for a better time. After days on end of nothing at all I wasn’t going to push my luck. I did pass a slow-moving SUV, though, to get clear road in front of me for a while.

Sakura’s voice came back on the line. “Axel, you still there?”

“Right here.”

“Okay, here you go, guys. I’m about to make a smoothie so I’m putting my phone on mute and leaving it on the kitchen table. I love you guys.”

I heard Ricki’s soft voice. “Bye, Sarah. And thanks.”

I had a lump in my throat. I wasn’t expecting that. “Ricki.”

“Hello, Axel.” She sounded resigned, tired, as if she were tired of arguing with me when we hadn’t even started yet.

“I miss you,” I heard myself saying. It was like I couldn’t stop myself from blurting it out. “I’ve done nothing but think about you since I last saw you.”

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, too,” she said. “Axel, I’m sorry, but there’s no way to work this out. There’s a lot going on in my life right now. My father, my sister, the club, Blue Star … I’ve got so much to figure out.”

We can figure it out together, I thought, but I tried to listen.

“I never wanted to be famous.” Her sigh was heavy even through the phone. “And I definitely never wanted to be infamous. I’ve got things I want to accomplish in life. None of them are helped by me being in the public eye.

“I like you, Axel. I like you a lot …”

Oh no. The L word. The other L word, I mean. You know what always comes after that? The other F word …

“… and I think we could be great friends.”

Yep, there it was. Friends. My heart began to crack into dozens of jagged pieces. Had she been practicing this speech to give to me? Is that why she’d made me wait three days to hear it?

“But I just can’t do the relationship thing right now. Especially not with someone in the spotlight. It’s not you; it’s me.”

The pieces began to sink into the morass of despair welling up. Was I winning at break-up bingo here or what? Let’s be friends. It’s not you; it’s me. What else was on that bingo card? I just can’t do this anymore? It isn’t the right time?

“The Sun-Lee thing—I want you to understand I’m not upset about anything you did. It’s not your fault. But if I’m going to feel like this even when I know perfectly well I’ve got nothing to be upset over? It’ll just make me crazy. I … I can’t do this.”

Ouch. It really was like bingo. I clung to the one thing that didn’t make sense to me at all. “Wait. The Sun-Lee thing?” What Sun-Lee thing?

“I mean, I get it. How much would an ad in The London Times cost? Twenty thousand dollars? And The Hollywood Reporter? Entertainment Weekly? If you bought that page space you’d have spent a hundred thou easily. So, you know, if it was all just a publicity grab, I get it; that was smart business. Well worth the price of a round-trip ticket to London.”

“Ricki, back up. What Sun-Lee thing? What photograph are you talking about?” I had a creeping feeling of dread, though. Sun-Lee had been in London. We’d said hello. I’d been acting like the outrageous playboy rock star I was supposed to. Half a dozen photographers had followed me around the after-party. “Is there one of us kissing or something?”

“Or something,” Ricki said, trying to sound quietly cool, but I could hear she was hurt.

“Ricki, honestly, the only reason I talked to her was because I didn’t know anyone else at that damned after-party.” A little voice in my head chided me: that and your manager told you to do something photo-worthy.

Her voice was turning icy now. “I’m texting you some photos. Maybe you’ll see what I mean.”

“I’m driving,” I said.

“So am I,” she snapped. “I’m pulling over to text these to you.”

Okay, fuck. I looked for a place to pull over, too. I was headed toward Malibu but hadn’t gotten there yet. A scenic overlook was coming up. I pulled off into a gravelly half-circle and jammed the engine into park. I got out quickly, pacing beside the car, unsure what to say until I could see whatever evidence she was about to produce.

The photos began to pop up. “Oh shit,” I said, before I could stop myself. There were two in particular that looked really bad, taken a second or two apart. In one it looked like I was pulling her hair back and biting her neck, and in the other, from a slightly different angle, my hand was so well-plastered under her butt cheek I might have been finger-banging her.

Which I wasn’t. “I literally only grabbed her to say hello for a couple of seconds,” I said. “Have you seen video of it? There must be video. You’ll see. I didn’t know she was going to wrap her leg around me like that and I grabbed her to keep her from falling over.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what? That you’re jealous? Ricki, that’s normal. That means you care—”

She made a dismissive sound. “Jealousy I could deal with. What really matters is that even if this is nothing, completely innocent, look at how the tabloids blew it out of proportion! Would I have to put up with that every day if I were in a relationship with you?”

I froze. The answer was, probably, yes. I tried to argue it out, anyway.

“Ricki. I understand if you don’t want it to be public, I understand if you even want me to keep my hands to myself when I’m in public—if that would help, really, I can do it!—but please—” Don’t tell me it’s over and I’m never going to see you again. I didn’t get to finish what I was saying, though, because she jumped in.

“It’s a detriment and a distraction,” she said. “If I’m going to have a relationship at all, I need someone I won’t be worrying is going to end up on stage or, or … stealing women’s garters at corporate events.”

What the fuck? “When have I ever stolen women’s garters? Now you’re just making shit up.”

“Not that exact thing but you know what I mean.”

I probably got a little angrier at that point than was healthy. But when your heart’s broken and lying in pieces at the bottom of a well of despair, and you’re afraid you’re losing the one person in the world who suddenly matters more to you than anyone, it’s difficult to look on the bright side. “No, I don’t know what you mean. Ricki, you’re confusing who I am with my image.”

“That’s what I’m saying. Does that even matter, Axel? The next time you do whatever outrageous sexually charged thing the media glom onto, how am I supposed to feel about it?”

“Okay, you know what, though? The thing you like about me is that I’m outrageously sexually charged.”

“I know, Axel, I know.” She sounded a lot more sympathetic now, but no less firm about it. “And that’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t need that. It was fun while it lasted and I’ll never forget you, but I’ve been doing a lot of deep thinking and … I’m really sorry.”

How deep? I almost said, but I realized it would sound childish. Like I was arguing for the sake of arguing. If I was going to change her mind, I needed a better argument than that. I kicked at the gravel, feeling helpless. “Ricki, did something happen while I was gone?”

“Nothing that really matters,” she said. “I realized some things that I should have known all along, I guess.”

“Look, where are you? I’m heading north on the PCH. Let’s just meet. For coffee. Talk about this face to face.” Being on the phone was killing me. Was I imagining all the conflict I heard in her voice? I wanted to sink my fingers into her hair and give her a bruising kiss. Show her how I felt: how it felt to both of us when we were together. How could she have forgotten that? Maybe it was my imagination. Maybe it had always been better for me than it had been for her.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Axel.”

Of course you don’t, I wanted to say. Because when we’re apart you can fool yourself that you don’t need me, that we don’t need each other.

I felt a cold stab of fear. Maybe that was exactly why it could never work between us, because every time I went on tour or was separated from her, without me here to constantly remind her, she would forget—or just plain realize—she didn’t actually need me. That was what she had just said, wasn’t it? That she didn’t need me.

I leaned against the hood of the car, my body feeling numb. “Is this my fault?” I heard myself asking.

Maybe this was the payback for taking things too far that very first time. I put too much of my heart into things. Isn’t that what Mal always said?

“I know we didn’t exactly get started the way most people do—”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with that,” Ricki said. “It was fun, Axel. I don’t regret it. It was a fun fling. But I didn’t want to lead you on anymore. I can’t be what you want. I can’t do what you want.”

I seized on that. “Wait a second. A minute ago it was that you couldn’t stand dealing with me being a public sex symbol. Now it’s that you think you can’t satisfy me?”

She backpedaled right back to her checklist, clearing her throat. “No. It’s that my goals and you being in the public eye are incompatible. I’m doing everything I can to keep my life from being nothing more than a train wreck in the tabloids, can’t you see that?”

I was desperate, I admit. I tried again. “Seriously, Ricki, though. You can’t treat this relationship like something your spreadsheets and pie charts show you should divest yourself from.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not a fucking pie chart!”

“I’ve tried to tell you before and it’s just not getting through. You don’t listen!”

“You can’t break up with me on a conference call!” I screamed.

“Everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I’ve ever worked for, I’m afraid of losing it all!” she screamed back. “And for what! Some kinky sex?”

“This isn’t about kinky sex! This is about the fact that I love you!”

“And I love you!” she shouted. “Get over it! It’s over, Axel, over!”

I was too stunned by hearing her say the words “I love you” to be able to answer. I didn’t come up with the magic thing to say that would have kept her from hanging up, either. I could hear her sobbing and then the connection went silent as she disconnected.

I cocked back my arm to throw the fucking phone over the cliff. But it dinged with a text coming through. I hurried to look at it, hoping it was Ricki.

It was from Christina. We got it!! Deal is in the bag! A cool one million! Texting you bc yr phone isn’t picking up. I bet no one was ever so disappointed to hear they’d made a million dollars. I stared at the text, stunned and unable to move. Ricki Hamilton had just admitted she loved me and told me to get lost at the same time. I had no idea how to feel about that. I sank to the ground.

Then I heard Sakura’s voice saying “Axel! Axel!” from the tiny speaker.

I pressed the phone to my ear, huddling in the gravel against the door of my car, the wind off the Pacific suddenly seeming cold and inhospitable. “Hey,” I croaked, my mind still reeling. “I take it you didn’t go make a smoothie.”

“No. Sorry.”

“It’s all right. It’s good you eavesdropped because right now I need a serious reality check.”

“I think it’s Ricki who needs the reality check.”

The tightness in my chest loosened ever so slightly. “Is it my fault she wants to leave? Am I completely wrong for her? Am I driving her away from me?”

“No, no, and no,” she said. “Which is why I think we need to come up with a different strategy for getting through to her.”

“You women and your strategies. Are you going to break out the spreadsheets and pie charts, too?”

“Watch it, mister. I’m trying to help you. And Ricki. Are you ready to listen to me?”

I got to my feet, brushing gravel from my jeans. “Yeah.” I got into the car and shut the door behind me. “I’m all ears.”