A quick wardrobe change later, Jeff led a very subdued group back onto the stage. Between their concern for Max and their substitute guitarist, they never did recover the energy. Jeff would’ve rated their performance a C+ at best.
Naturally the tabloids would be all over Max leaving the concert too. It wouldn’t matter that he was feverish and dehydrated. He had a history of drug abuse. That was all trashy websites needed to generate clicks.
He was already pissed when he returned to the green room, so when he opened the door to find Tim—who should’ve been at the hospital—holding Jeff’s phone, Jeff went nuclear.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Tim swore and fumbled the phone. It fell to the floor.
“First of all, that’s mine,” Jeff said. “And I’ll be asking for your pathetic excuse of a lie in a minute. But more importantly, why aren’t you at the hospital?”
Half a second later, he felt Trix and Joe behind him. “What’s going on?”
“Tim was just about to explain why he’s not with Max,” Jeff said, deadly calm now. “Considering he left here with a high fever and barely conscious.”
Tim huffed. “Max is fine. When I left he was sitting in the ER with an IV drip, waiting for admitting.”
Alone, in a hospital, where the doctors might not know about his history of drug use. Where no one would know the contact information for his family if he lost consciousness. Fantastic. Jeff strode across the room and picked his phone up from the floor.
The screen glowed with a request for his password.
He gritted his teeth. “This was off when I left it.”
What if Tim had cracked his password? Jeff didn’t doubt for a second that he’d go through all Jeff’s messages looking for leverage. Anything he could find in order to force Howl to sign another shitty contract once this one was up. Anything to keep them under his thumb.
Jeff didn’t have anything about Trix’s past in there, but he couldn’t remember everything on his phone. Eventually Tim would have found something he could use—something someone had said out of context, a sext from an old boyfriend.
His stomach turned. What if Carter had sent something? Jeff would do anything to protect him from the fallout a dick pic would bring. And doubtless there were a few on Jeff’s phone if you looked hard enough—not Carter’s, but he didn’t exactly expect Tim to be truthful about it.
“The fuck,” Trix said. “Should I call Security?”
Tim bristled and reached for his ID badge. “You can’t—”
“No,” Joe interrupted. “I think Jeff should call his lawyer.”
That sounded like a better idea. “On the way to the hospital,” Jeff decided. “Max shouldn’t be alone. He should know we have his back.”
Chapter Fifteen
JEFF UNLOCKEDhis phone as Trix called a cab. No new text messages, but he did have an email from Carter:
I’ll give you $20 if you cover “Rock Star” instead.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Jeff smiled. But that faded after a moment too, when he thought about what it might be like for Carter to exist in a world where all the songs Jeff wrote about wanting him played on the radio and everyone knew they were about him.
Jeff admitted to himself with a mounting sense of guilt that it might be awkward. At least the newer songs were full of love and longing. He didn’t need to write any more teenage sex fantasies, subtle or overt, when the actual real-life experiences went so far beyond anything he could’ve imagined.
He could probably even convince Trix and Max to pare them out of the setlist too. And Joe would understand.
It was late in Toronto, but maybe having an expensive lawyer on retainer meant they’d take your calls at all hours, or maybe she was just still awake.
“My favorite rock star,” she said. He could just picture her in her uptown high-rise office, drinking a glass of wine with her feet up and watching the lights through the floor-to-ceiling window. “What can I do for you, Jeff?”
He exhaled slowly as he marshaled his thoughts. He didn’t want to come across as reactionary or overly emotional. He was fed up with Tim’s machinations and he wanted them to stop. But if they could use that behavior to get out of their contract, so much the better. “Max caught some kind of virus and had to go to the hospital. Tim was supposed to be with him, but when we got offstage, I caught him in the green room with my phone. It was off when I left to play the concert and he’d turned it on. I’m pretty sure he was trying to get into it.”
“That’s a serious accusation,” she said, but her voice was level. “I don’t suppose you have proof.”
“Not unless the green room’s under surveillance, which I doubt.” He glanced beside himself at Trix. “Joe and Trix were there, but they didn’t see anything until he dropped the phone. And there’d be no way to prove what he was trying to do with it anyway.”
