Rampage (A Night Fire Novel Book 4) (9 page)

Eden walked out of the house without another word said, I stood rather shocked and bewildered.

“What's she talking about?”

Evan sighed as he leaned on the door, closing it.

“We fucked up big time.” he sighed. “Jaxon and I, we were out on the town Friday night to drown our sorrows. Saturday was a bad day.”

I frowned, unable to understand why. It seemed pretty good to me.

“Ten years ago we were doing a charity gig in New York, back here Fraser's brother murdered their parents.”

It was like the air was sucked out of my lungs. The poor thing, no wonder he was so doom and gloom.

“Every year on the anniversary we keep him company, he's got like one aunt who lives in Utah and us. That's it, no other family. But this year because it was ten years Eden was doing this thing at the cemetery for him. She'd had these pictures put in the headstones, even managed to convince the aunt to come down for it.”

He sighed as his head rolled back to stare at the ceiling.

“I was there, they just don't know that. I couldn't do it. Not just because I was sober and realized how much I had wronged them by not telling them about us but the whole concept of what they were doing.”

“Honoring life can be a beautiful thing Evan. These people are your family, there's nothing wrong with feeling pain when one of them passes. You are right though, you did fuck up big time and you need to fix it.”

Evan smiled with a lot of pain, one that made me pull him into my arms.

“I've never met my father, don't want to either. Fraser lived across the road from us when we were kids, his father was awesome. He built a tree house that surrounded the tree with massive ramps that we could skateboard on. It consumed most of the yard. Florence said that he did it to get out of yard work but it wasn't the reason. It was because he loved his kids. Not just the two that he had but the others that seemed to hang around a lot as well.”

His grip around my waist tightened as his head rested on my chest. For all that he had a playful nature, I now realized there was one broken and lost little boy.

“We came back from New York, the funeral was a couple of days later. No one heard a peep from Fraser so Jerry our manager went to his place. The whole thing was gone. No tree house or ramps, not even a tree. The house had almost been gutted, Fraser had spent the entire time drunk and taking things out to the back yard. Jerry found him pouring gas over it all, he'd only just made it.”

I knew what he meant by that, I didn't know the kind of grief that would make a person act like that but having lost your entire family could push a person to the limit.

“Walls were punched in, some were ripped off completely. Carpet ripped out, tossed onto the pile that was already high with the furniture. The only room that remained intact was his asshole brother's room. Personally I would have started with that room but not Fraser. No one was allowed to touch it. Even when Jerry got people in to fix the mess he'd made, they still weren't allowed to go in there. Eden helped him.” he sighed wearily, lifting from my body.

“He changed that room from a nightmare into a room for Sahara. Then when Hudson was born he set about making the yard better for them. Eden calls it therapy and I think she's right.”

I nodded and hugged him again, thinking that I might have misjudged Eden.

Chapter Twelve

We had discussed it, over and over again as we drove to this clubhouse, whatever that was. Evan drove as I read out the relevant part of the script. At the end of the ten minute trip we had decided it wasn't as bad as what we had made it out to be.

The hope was that it would be a romantic scene, done with reasonable taste. I noted that Devlin's stock standard virtue clause was in there. It was the one that I maintained my morals and that the director would ensure that there would be nothing untoward happen within the film that would jeopardize my public persona. That was Devlin's way of saying I had to have clothes on under the sheets and the most that anyone would see would be some hot and heavy kissing.

The key to this scene working was the illusion that something was happening, inferring that this couple got down and dirty but never actually showing it.

Evan couldn't understand why they would want him to do the male lead. He thought it was all because of me, that they wanted me and they had to 'put up with' him. He wasn't overly impressed but was swayed somewhat by the thoughts of getting the entire soundtrack for the band.
That he did like.

The clubhouse was a converted warehouse that the band used as a headquarters of sorts. It turns out that Eden is in fact the personal assistant to the band, she'd been with them for four years now and in that time had done a fair amount of things.

She'd straightened Fraser's life out, got him into therapy and helped him deal with the negativity regarding the past. Evan said that everyone else who had tried had failed. Their manager Jerry had been making appointments for Fraser for years, which Fraser would conveniently forget about. He tried to deliver him personally to the appointments but was met with excuses. What finally convinced him was the love of a good woman and a child that needed a stable father.

We walked into the shadows of the warehouse, to the right of the doors was a vast and empty area. Evan led me past the stage to a set of doors. I glanced up to the glass wall above us, we were being watched. I could hear the sounds of children, a lot of children.

I hadn't done much research into Evan or the band. There were five male members, they'd been friends for years. They were from Vegas and refused to move anywhere else. That was the grand total of my knowledge.

We walked up the stairs, a young man passing us with a nod.

“Hey Nate, this is Harmony.”

“Hi.” he grinned and turned onto the next set of stairs.

“Nate is Jerry's son. He's a whiz at the mixing board.”

“And he's better than Brad too.”

“Unlikely.”

I turned to the sound of another male, following Nate's path.

“Brad, Harmony. Jerry's other son.”

“Hey.” he nodded with a grin.

They were pretty much the same in the smile department, it could have a girl swooning. The two brothers didn't look the same. One had black hair the other brown. One was a narrow build the other had a built frame like Evan.

“Hey Kaylee.”

I hadn't even had a chance to move, yet I was faced with another person. She was really young, dark auburn hair pulled back with bright green eyes.

“This is Harmony.”

“Hi.”

“Everything okay?”

Her eyes darted to me, flinching for a second. It made me wonder why. What was I missing here?

“It's fine. Thanks for the invite dickhead.”

Kaylee continued down the stairs, muttering something about killing parakeets.

“She doesn't kill birds.” Evan said as he frowned at where she had once been. “Kaylee helps Eden out and well, you've met Eden so you can probably understand. Pregnancy hormones.”

He shrugged with a smile and a light laugh as we continued to walk up the stairs.

“We've all offered to pay for a vasectomy but Fraser said that no one is touching his monster.”

“Maybe he wants lots of kids.”

“Probably, only problem is they're still living in the family home and it's only got three bedrooms. He'd have to move and I don't think he's going to do that any time soon.”

I nodded as we turned for the final time, ahead of us was a child gate and a lot of children. Twin boys stood at the gate, their little hands wrapped around the poles as they watched us. Evan had been holding my hand, I was curious about something so I pulled it back.

“What do you think about having kids?”

He shrugged.

“Whenever you want. It's you that has to think about your career. Me, I'm just their for the fun at the start and the dirty diapers at the end.”

“Really?” I asked, rather shocked.

“Sure. I'll go bare whenever you want. How is it going to go with your movies? You're talking about this new role which sounds like it's a lot of stunt work.”

“I'd have to have a double. Never had one before.”

He smiled at me as we walked up the stairs, lifting one of the children and putting him into my arms.

“Levi this is Harmony.”

“How can you tell them apart?”

The child frowned at me, I looked down at the one who was in Evan's arms. He smiled at me with a grin that consisted of his two canine teeth.

“That's how. Smile Levi.”

He grinned at Evan and showed off his two front teeth.

“This is Jett. They belong to Curtis and Frankie along with the other three over there.”

I scanned the room to the young woman sitting on the lounge against the far wall, two young children were sitting at the table in front of her, the other was in a baby carrier. Good lord, the poor thing had five of them.

Seph was sitting beside her talking all things vegetarian and the woman beside her was nodding quietly. I'd been in that same situation, I'd listened to Seph talk about it and I'd even told her not to bore people with her recipe ideas. Clearly she hadn't listened to me.

A middle aged man crossed the floor, stopping when Sahara ran across his path. He huffed and took a deep breath.

“Eden.”

She walked out and stopped at the view that was a chaos of children.

“Yes, I know. Not a crèche. Frankie, do you mind?”

“Not at all.”

The woman was out of her seat fast, eager to get away. Levi and Jett were out of our arms and eagerly cleaning up the crayons and papers.

“Liam.” Evan said as one of Frankie's kids lined up at the gate, another soon following. “Mia and Quinn who is in the carrier.”

His attention turned a little girl with chubby cheeks that were tinted the softest pink, thick black hair surrounded her olive skin.

“And Isla. Where's daddy?”

She silently pointed to the room with the glass wall, behind it was a long table with chairs. A blonde woman came out of Eden's office, rounding up the children.

“Abbey.” Evan crooned “This is Harmony.”

“Hi.” she smiled as she picked up Isla.

“She is the lovely mother of Isla and very understanding wife of Austin.”

Oh yes, the front man. I watched him cross the room with so much grace and poise it was ridiculous. Isla held out her hands as he approached.

“Sorry baby girl. Daddy's got work to do.”

She giggled and grinned as he kissed her cheeks. Isla looked like her father, the same black hair, the same soft olive toned skin

“Aus man, this is Harmony.”

“Hey.”

Oh I bet they cry when he smiles. Yes, I could see this one being a fan girl favorite. In fact all of them could have their own legion of fan girls.

He was off helping the tribe of children down the stairs before I could respond, Evan dragged me into the boardroom where the meeting was waiting to happen. Jaxon and Fraser were sitting at opposite ends of the table, as soon as we stepped into the room I knew there was a lot of tension between them.

“Has mommy two ripped your head off yet?” Jaxon grinned at us.

“Yes.” Evan said rather annoyed.

I turned to him and waited for him to remember our conversation. He sighed lowly and with a lot of pain.

“I'm sorry I bailed on you on Saturday. I was there but not at their graves, I couldn't do it. I don't even know how you can do it.”

“I can do it because I do it all the time. You'll get used to it.”

The door beside me pushed open further, I turned to see at yet another man. This one was Curtis the drummer, I knew that from the stalking I had done on Saturday.

“You know the rules.” he said softly. “We don't abandon, we don't give lame ass excuses. You failed when he needed you.”

“I wasn't the only one.”

Jaxon huffed. “Don't think I haven't coped the same lecture. Suck it up and take it like a man.”

Evan rolled his eyes and dumped himself into a chair. It was awkward to say the least.

“I said I was sorry and I said that I was at the cemetery. Don't go getting all freaked out just because I can't handle standing next to a grave.”

“But you didn't even acknowledge us or wait by the gates. How would we have known that you were there Evan?”

He turned to Eden who had just walked into the room followed by the older fellow that had been cut off by Sahara a few minutes ago. The man smiled at me as he held out his hand.

“Hi I'm Jerry. You must be Harmony.”

“Yeah, that's me.” I smiled as I shook his hand.

He closed the door as Austin walked in, everyone settling into a seat. I took all of the documents that Devlin had left behind and sat beside Evan.

Jerry was at the head of the table, Eden beside him with Fraser on the other side of her. There was still a lot of tension in the room, one that I couldn't get past. Aside from the issue regarding Fraser there was the fact that Evan had got married and there was only one in this room who had seen it. Though I doubted he remembered much of it.

I set the documents to the table and took a deep breath, starting before Jerry could stop fussing with his own documents.

“Okay, I'll start. I know that you're all pretty pissed at what happened. I doubt that Evan would have wanted to cause this kind of grief to the people he loves. Everyone handles their grief differently, ten years might have passed but that doesn't mean that the suffering fades. You talk of the suffering for Fraser and I understand that you all have positive motives for this and only want him to move forward in his life. But I ask you, what of the one of you that might have unknowingly suffered? We all have burdens from family issues but none more so than the child that grows up without a parent. What if he looks to others as a role model and loves them as his own? How should he react when they die, it's not his place to be upset, is it? It's not his parent that has passed on but it feels that way.”

Evan offered a slight smile when I looked at him. I turned back to the table, to the two that sat opposite. Fraser and Eden. She was still angry at Evan and Jaxon and I agreed with her anger. Evan should have told her that he had issues regarding this matter and Jaxon should have at least gone over and said something. But they didn't and it was in the past, everyone had to move on.

“But he still feels the loss, to the mother and more importantly to the father. A man that replaced the one that he was lacking in. Who welcomed the neighborhood children into his home and his yard, constructed things for them and showed them how good life can be.”

I gripped Evan's hand with a soft smile, his mood was still the same. Down.

“He's sorry but he understands that you have every right to be angry at him. For the sake of everyone here I think that moving forward is the only option. To dwell on negative thoughts will only lead to further heartache and maybe even words that we will regret.”

Fraser nodded slightly, not offering any words. No one said anything about it and I guessed that maybe he was a man that didn't say a lot. Maybe losing his parents had caused him to be a more reflective and thoughtful person.

“Now regarding Saturday night. It wasn't something that either of us had really planned, obviously. I know that being drunk is a lame excuse but that's it. So I guess at some point real soon we'll do something better. Production will begin soon so the clock is ticking. We are going to be rather busy.”

I turned to all of the blank faces around the table, all of them pinned to me. It made me want to check for food on my face. Letting go of Evan's hand I searched through the pile of documents, finding the one I wanted I passed it to Jerry.

“The production company will be in contact with you soon. They are going to offer the entire soundtrack to the band first.”

Jerry raised his eyebrows as he stared at me, as I glanced around the table and saw a lot of stunned faces. Yep, I had just blown them away.