Chapter 13

“You can seek the advice of others, surround yourself with trusted advisors. But in the end, the decision is always yours and yours alone. And when it’s time to act and you’re all alone with your back against the wall, the only voice that matters is the one in your head. The one telling you what you already knew. The one that’s almost always right.”
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Lacey’s P.O.V.

“You sure you want to do this, Lace?” Jay asked, looking down at me and the dismissal papers which were laying on my desk. “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life before, Jay. I contacted Ne-yo and asked him if he could send some of the guys from his compound to work with me. Did he call you back?” I answered in a monotone voice, not looking up at him. “Yeah he did. He’s gonna send RaVaughn down to meet you next Thursday, 11 am” Jay answered with a little sigh. I looked up at him and cracked a little smile before I reached out for a biro and read the whole contract again.

Jay still stood next to me with his hands in his pockets. After a few moments of silence he suddenly let out a deep sigh. I looked up at him, knowing what he was going to say. “Lacey, I don’t think this is a good idea. You’re still mad at him, you need to over think everything. The dismissals could destroy their entire career as a produ-” I interrupted him “I don’t care what happens to them, Jay. He was about to HIT me. Why are you on their side anyways, aren’t you normally the overprotective person that wants the best for me?” “He was drunk Lace, a person isn’t fully conscious when he’s drunk. He had no idea on what was going on!” I crossed my arms.”That is not an excuse, Jay. He was fully sober by that point.” Jay rolled his eyes. “Why can’t you just give them another chance?”

I sighed, why couldn’t he just shut up? “I won’t, Okay? Why do you want me to still work with them though? They had their chance and Bruno fucked it up for them.” Jay raised his voice “Because it was Bruno’s fault, what about the other two? They don’t deserve this. More importantly I just want the best for you Lace. Don’t you see what the guys have done for you? You’ve been a lot happier since you’ve been working with them, you laugh more, you’re not as stressed anymore. Your eyes lit up every time you told me about how much fun you had at the studio or how funny or goofy the guys were! I understand Ne-yo is like your elder brother and it would be great for you to work with him again because I know how close you two are and how much you miss having him around as a friend, but don’t give up on the guys just yet. I just want you to be happy, Lace.”

I looked down. Jay sighed. “Besides their huge talent, they’re good guys, Lace. You know that Bruno wouldn’t lay a finger on you. He-“. The sound of his message tone interrupted him. He took his phone out of his pocket, read the message within seconds, and back looked at me. “Look, I gotta go now. Just think about it before you sign the contracts, please.” He touched my shoulders with his hands and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll call you later.” He quickly added before closing the door behind him.
I ran my hand through my hair while I repeated everything that Jay just said to me in my head. He was right. These guys are great and I’ll never find guys like them ever again. Other than that, I really liked them. As friends, not just co-workers.

Bruno wouldn’t even harm a fly and the things I said to him were just rude. He was drunk when he told me those things and I saw his facial expression afterwords, he regretted everything he said. I mean he really meant what he said about me and Aiden and I’m still mad about that, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get over it sooner or later. I’m a dumb bitch I just had to find a comeback and of all things it was about Amy. I don’t know if I want to go through with all of this again. 

“UGH!” I screamed as I threw the biro against the wall.


Bruno’s P.O.V. 

“Alright Ari, what do you think of this beat, is it too fast? Should we add in some backing vocals or..?” I asked as I pressed a red and a green button, causing the tempo of the beat to slow down. I turned around after a minute of waiting for an answer and I saw Ari sitting down on the couch, his eyes lingered on his phone screen. I sighed and looked at Phil who was sitting with a laptop on the coffee table in front of him. “Phil?” No answer. I sighed again. “Okay. Why the fuck are you acting so childish, you haven’t talked to me all day! I told you I was sorry, what the hell am I supposed to do? Kiss your feet?”

Ari still showed no emotion whatsoever, Phil just sighed and looked at me. “You should be doing more than that, seriously Bruno.” I wrinkled my forehead. “What?” He crossed his arms and looked at me again. “Don’t you fucking get it? You screamed at Lacey yesterday, you were even about to put a-” “We’ve already talked about this Phil.” I said raising my voice, cutting Phil off. “Whatever Bruno, shut up and let me do the talking now!” I looked at him. Phil isn’t the angry type nor has he ever shouted at me in such a pissed off voice before. I looked down and heard Phil breathing deeply.

“She was our boss Bruno, she hired us to help her with her album. We’re lucky that she treated us so nicely and not like complete trash. You argued with her, said things about her that you shouldn’t have said and what shocks me most is that you almost hit her. We’re only little producers who got the huge opportunity to write some lyrics with someone as big as her. It could’ve been a huge chance for us to become famous, many people would have appreciated us and they would have hooked us up after they found out that we worked with ‘The Lacey Sparks’. But you just had to go and ruin everything, Bruno. We’re basically waiting for our dismissal notes to come through.And you know what? If you weren’t my friend right now I’d kick you out of here before you could even say another word.”

That hit me hard.

I swallowed hard and tried to answer, but nothing came out. I had a lump in my throat.

He was right.

I fucked up big time and I disappointed two of my best friends just because of one argument. I let out a little groan as a sudden headache took over me.

Why did I act so stupid? Lacey will never forgive me, the things I did to her yesterday were just unforgivable.

I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder, it was Phil who was standing in front of me. His facial expression softened. “Hey man, sorry I didn’t mean to be so rude to you.” “Nah, I deserve it. Urg, I’m so fucking stupid!” I said between my teeth while I rested one of my hands on my temples, trying to soften the headache. My eyes were burning, it was like I only just realised what really happened.

“Bruno, what is up with you lately? You’ve changed so much since Amy’s passing. It’s almost been a year now, you gotta get over it at some point. I know it’s hard and all and I will probably never understand how much pain you went through and how terrible it is, but there’s going to be a point where you have to leave her behind and look forwards.” He looked at me with an empathetic look. I looked at him and then down at the floor again. “I’ve changed?”
“Yeah, you have.” Ari suddenly replied from the couch. I turned my head to look at him. “You ain’t funny anymore, no you’re acting serious. You’re only ever at home or in the studio, you’ve gotten more secretive than you have ever been. And the worst thing is that you try to cover everything up. Did you think we wouldn’t notice that? Whenever you laugh or crack a joke we know that you’re only doing it so we don’t have to worry or get suspicious, but we noticed everything. We know you’re broken in the inside, but don’t make up shit to cover it up.” Phil nodded. “He’s right. We actually haven’t talked about her, or you never wanted to talk about her. We just dropped the topic because we didn’t know how you’d feel about this whole, Amy thing. But after almost a year now, I guess talking about it is what will help you the most. Let’s talk about her Bruno, you’ll feel better when you let it all out. We’re here for you. But after this, I gotta suggest you do something.” He held my shoulder.
“Go and apologize to Lacey for what you’ve done. She won’t bite you, and you won’t have a guilty conscience building up inside of you anymore. Nothing worse could possibly happen anyways.” He shrugged slightly, putting a reassuring smile on. “Yeah, I think I should do that.” I looked at both of them. Ari smiled. “That’s moi goi! Now come on man, tell us everything. What happened with Amy that day..” I sighed, blinked a few times and looked at them.

I’ve got the best friends.

Lacey’s P.O.V.

I sat on my couch while I picked up the remote control to switch to a good TV show to watch, an ice cream jar and a spoon in my hands. It was 11pm and I wasn’t tired at all. I miss Aiden, he was supposed to be back from Florida today, but he couldn’t make it back. He isn’t going to be back till next week. I want someone to make me smile. The rain was pouring outside and I made myself more comfortable on the couch. I found a good show and watched it for about 20 minutes until the sudden sound of my doorbell made me cringe a bit. It was almost 11.30 pm, who would show up at this time? The doorbell rang a second time and I stood up slowly and made my way towards the front door.

I slowly opened the door ajar to see who was there and nearly choked on the air when I saw who was standing in front of me.

How dare he come to my house after what happened?