He pulled the covers over his head. A head that was pounding like someone had clubbed him with a cricket bat. His mouth tasted metallic. He noticed, as he tried to move his leg, that he was still wearing his jeans, which he’d obviously tried to remove given they were halfway down his thighs, and . . . yup, only one sock.
But at least in his completely pissed state he’d made it back to the hotel. How, he had no idea.
His phone rang again.
What if not everyone was back. He’d seen Alex making out with a preppy-looking guy at some point.
Fuck.
He reached his hand out for his phone, barely opening his eyes, and tugged it under the covers.
“Yo,” he said, gruffly.
“Jase?” Cerys’s voice hiccupped as she spoke, and his brain fired online.
“Everything okay, sunshine?”
“No, it’s really not. Could you not hold your phone to your ear? It’s a video call.”
Jase pulled the phone in front of him. Christ, how much had he had to drink? “Sorry, babe. Long night. Likely still drunk. What happened?”
“Dad found the song and we fought, and I think I just quit and—”
“Wait. You quit? You fought? And what about the song?”
“I messed it all up, Jase. I guess I didn’t delete your recording off the system, properly. So, I didn’t even get time to set up the conversation with him. I came in on the back foot and just . . . shit.”
When she swiped a tear away, he didn’t care what the fuck she’d done. He just wanted to fix it. To hold her in his arms and make everything all right again. “I’m coming over.”
“But I need to tell you about Jimmy, so the band is—”
“The band is barely alive right now. No one is going to be talking to Jimmy today. I’ll be there as soon as I can get my shit together.”
“Thank you.”
He called room service and ordered coffee, four large orange juices, and a shit ton of toast. While he waited, he popped three painkillers, chugged a bottle of water, and took a frigid shower, all the while palming the walls to stay upright when he closed his eyes.
Shit. It had been an epic bender he hoped had gone some way to healing the fractures between them, even if it meant it would be a long while before he was remotely close to sober again.
But Cerys needed him.
Which felt good. Felt better than the alcohol still flooding his veins, and the painful head, and the spins.
Someone actually needed him. Not as an easily substitutable body.
Specifically, him.
He did his best to eat the toast to soak up the alcohol, chased by the orange juice to dilute it. The coffee gave him the boost he needed to leave the hotel.
When he opened the door, he found Luke asleep in the hallway, his back propped up against his door. Jase chuckled, took a picture, and put it in their group chat.
“Oi, Luke,” he said, shaking his shoulder.
“What the fuck?” he muttered.
“You’re in the hallway. You need to get into your room.”
Luke rubbed a hand across his face then looked up and down the corridor. “Jesus Christ. How are you even standing?”
“Been asking myself the same question for the last hour. Think you hit it even harder than I did. Look, I’ve got to go. Get inside, yeah?”
By the time Jase hit the elevators, Luke had disappeared.
An hour later, after an impromptu stop at a grocery store to pick up essentials, he knocked on Cerys’s apartment door.
When the door opened, he was glad he’d made the decision to come. “Hey, sunshine,” he said as he stepped inside and put the bags down. “Come here.”
“I’m glad you came,” she said as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “But I realised from the messages you sent last night that you only went to bed like, five hours ago.”
“There aren’t many people I’d have got out of bed for this morning, but you are top of the list. I’ll be honest, the next few hours will be bumpy, but I got you some treats to make up for having to deal with my hungover arse.”
They stepped apart, and Cerys looked down at the bags. “What’s in there?”
“Ice cream, chocolate, cookies, and sour candy for sweet. Crisps, salted cashews, and bread sticks for savoury. And a bottle of red wine and some of those fizzy alcoholic pop drinks I almost threw up choosing because I’m hungover as fuck. Wasn’t sure what your go-to comfort food was, so I thought I’d cover all the bases. Oh, and a bunch of flowers. I figured you needed cheering up. And some hangover rescue stuff for me. Want to tell me what happened?”
Cerys carried the bag to the kitchen counter and unpacked it with an efficiency he admired, while he perched on a barstool.
“Dad found one of the recordings we did. My mistake, I thought I’d wiped everything once we’d got it to your laptop.”
“Did he like it?”
Cerys raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t know. He was too upset that I’d crossed a boundary with you. That we’d stayed together. That this would slow everything down. That it wasn’t my job to encourage you to write songs. And you know what? Perhaps he’s right. It’s his studio and you’re his client. But he couldn’t see past his anger with me to actually listen. I may have said some things to him that essentially added up to him being more jaded and less all-star producer. So, I quit.”
She grabbed a container from the grocery bag, pulled a spoon out of the drawer, and ripped the lid off before taking a large scoop of salted caramel ice cream.
Jase winced. “I’m sorry for climbing in your car. That’s what started all this.”
Cerys huffed. “Technically, you jumped in front of it.”
“Tomayto, tomahto. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it if I’d known what followed would ruin this for you.” He reached for the orange juice he’d bought for himself and was about to swig straight from the bottle before Cerys placed a cup in front of him.
“It’s a fucking good song, Jase. No matter where I am in the mix, you need to tell the band to not back down and make sure it ends up on the album.”
“You know what we need?”
“More of this ice cream?”
“Fill your boots . . . it’ll be tomorrow before I feel like eating dairy. But no, not ice cream. We need a bed day. Movies. Shit food. We’ll order pizza. And we’ll ignore the world. Let the energy die down, then think of what to do. It’s hard to make a plan when you’re in the eye of the storm. But know if you find yourself stuck, you can stay with me at the hotel. And I can help you get home if you need airfare.”
Cerys sighed and he saw her shoulders ease away from her ears. “Thank you. I should be okay on that front. I have money.”
“My pleasure. Now, let’s go get you into something more comfortable and climb in bed.”
He walked her into her bedroom and looked around. Everything neatly put away in wardrobes. Makeup stacked on a unit in front of a mirror. Sticky notes adorned the edges.
It’s already yours.
I do not chase, I attract.
I am a magnet.
“What are these for?” Jase asked.
“Urgh,” Cerys said, ripping them off the mirror. “Manifestation quotes. Daily reminders meant to reprogram my neural pathways. Money flows into my life and work, easily and abundantly, in expected and unexpected ways. It’s a way to override negative thoughts, like ‘I’ll not get a loan to start the studio I want for a few more years.’ You say them when you doubt yourself. But look what good they did.”