“L.A.? Is this another commercial?” she asked, clearly confused. Then she got angry. “Did you just quit the band to sell alcohol on TV?”

Closing my eyes, I decided it was time to tell her everything. She was already mad anyway, how much worse could it get? Please don’t let it get any worse. I need my chill wife right now. “Well…I actually didn’t film a commercial while I was there. It was more like a pilot…for a weekly show…which is great for us. You wouldn’t believe how much money hot shows pay their actors. This will make what the D-Bags paid me look like minimum wage.” It was only then that I wondered just what my salary was…I couldn’t remember what I’d agreed to in the contract. It hadn’t seemed important at the time.

“I don’t care about the money, Griffin!” she snapped. “The band…they’re family. You can’t just quit them!”

Her voice was superheated now; the volcano was spewing ash. Well, I had my own storm brewing inside me too. My gaze snapped to the television screen showing the stage. The guys were storming off it, while Johnny was standing at his desk, clearly asking them to stay and talk.

I scowled at the screen and let that dark fury take me over. “Yeah, they’re family…family that’s been jerking me around, Anna. They don’t listen to me, they don’t take me seriously, they never give me a chance. All they do is hold me back. Sometimes you have to get out from under your family’s wings to really fly.” Damn that was good, almost poetic. And the guys say I can’t write lyrics. Impressed with myself, I added, “Honestly, babe, I’ve been thinking about quitting the band for a while.” Maybe just as a wish, or a fleeting thought that never went anywhere, but yeah, I’d been contemplating it. And now that it was done, I felt great about it.

Anna’s breath was shaky, like she was hyperventilating, and I swear I could hear her heart thudding, even over the phone. She was having a panic attack, and there was nothing I could do about it. Except possibly make it worse. “Griff, I don’t think this is a good idea. Talk to the guys, tell them you were joking. Then when you get home, we’ll sit down and…discuss your options.”

Joking? She wanted me to tell them I was joking? Fuck that. This was the most serious I’d ever been in my entire life. And “discuss my options”? In other words, “you’re incompetent, so let me map out your life for you.” No, thank you. I might have gone about it the wrong way, but I was right about this. I felt it in my bones. “I need this, Anna, and I need you on board with it. You’re my wife.”

She took a long time to answer me, and when she did, there was an unmistakable note of pain in her voice. Fuck, I’d hurt her. “You said you filmed a whiskey commercial. You lied to me.”

Seeing where this was going, I quickly interrupted. “I said it was sort of like a commercial, and it is sort of like a commercial. A really long, complicated commercial…and my character does order whiskey in the pilot…so that’s not really lying.” Even I knew I was full of shit, but what else could I say to her? Yeah, I totally lied to get my way. Sorry. She was already hurting. If I confessed what I’d really done, she’d change the locks at the house and call a lawyer. A brief wash of ice water filled my veins. God, I hoped she wasn’t so upset that she wouldn’t let me come home.

Her tone was frostier when she responded to my outlandish excuse. It actually relieved me to hear the anger. Fury was better than pain. “Fine. Then you skated around the truth so you could do what you wanted, regardless of the consequences. I don’t like that, and I don’t like what you’ve done. You should have told me the truth about this opportunity so we could have talked about it before you up and quit the band on live TV. Ugh! You fucking suck, Griffin, and I’m so fucking mad at you right now! Why the hell didn’t you just tell me about this earlier?” Everything she was saying was completely true, which was exactly why I didn’t want to hear it right now. I just wanted her on board, with me 110 percent, no matter what.

The residual ball of anger inside me wanted to tell her that it was my career, and I didn’t have to run anything by her, but I had enough sense to not say that at the moment. I quit the band on an impulse but I didn’t want to quit her. As calmly as I could, I answered her question. And admitting it took a lot of fucking willpower. “I thought you’d say no if I asked, so I didn’t. But it’s done now, and I need this. Are you with me?”

She let out a loud growl of frustration into the phone, then she barked, “We’ll talk about it when you get home!”

She disconnected and I stared at my phone. Anger and guilt were still taking turns battering my insides, but oddly, the thing I felt the most at the moment was relief. I wasn’t hiding anything from her anymore and she was allowing me to come home. That was something.

As the door to the greenroom burst open, my temporary relief vanished. “What the fuck was that, Griffin?” Matt’s face was so red, he looked sunburned.

Boxing up all the conflicting emotions I’d felt while talking to Anna, I puffed up my chest and focused on my indignation. “That was me standing up for myself. Taking charge of my life.” Vindication swept through me as I spoke. I had earned this shot at greatness; they couldn’t take it away from me this time.

Matt tossed his hands into the air. “Unbelievable.” He indicated Kellan standing beside Evan. Both men looked just as upset as Matt, although they hadn’t started in on me yet. “So, when you were pitching a fit about Kellan doing a side gig, that was just hypocritical bullshit. Right? The rest of us better put the ‘team’ before everything else, but you can just do whatever the fuck you want! Right?”

He had a point, but I didn’t want to admit it. They’d wronged me too many times; I owed them a little payback. “That’s just it. We were never a team! There was you guys and then there was me. You never gave me a chance, so I had to go make one on my own.” I pointed at myself with my thumb. “It’s my time now.”

“You’re an asshole!” Matt snapped.

“Fuck you!” I retaliated. “You put me in a box and I’m suffocating. You can’t blame me for wanting a little air.”

“Yeah…we can.” Matt’s eyes were cold pebbles of steel in his blazing face. I’d never seen him so pissed.

Even though his hand was shaking with rage, Evan placed it on Matt’s shoulder in an attempt to soothe him. Kellan shook his head. “Did you even think about what this would do to the band? The media circus you’ve just created. The album, the tour, the future…Did any of that enter your mind? Or were you too busy thinking about how awesome you were to care?”

I shot Kellan a glare. “It’s really easy to be super judgey when you’ve got the entire world eating out of the palm of your hand. You’ve never had to be in your shadow, so you have no idea how I feel.”

Kellan raised his hands. “Do you think that maybe you could have talked to me about it? Instead of being…well, you?”

“This is pointless.” Grabbing my jacket off the couch, I swung it over my shoulder and prepared to leave. “What’s done is done.”

Evan was blocking the door. Looking up at his stone face, I snipped, “Want to get out of my way?”

He shook his head. “You’ve been a part of this band since the beginning. You can’t just up and leave.”

My lips compressed. If they’d wanted me to stay so bad, they shouldn’t have treated me like I was an irritant. Something they all just put up with. “I never swore I’d stay.”

“You signed a contract,” Matt countered.

Glancing at him, I shook my head. “Not the same thing. We both know I can get out of that easily enough. I’m free to come or go as I please, that’s how I live my life.” I raised my chin, defying him to tell me what to do again.

Matt sniffed, then indicated the door. “Well then, by all means…go and be free.”