The rebound, p.1
The Rebound, page 1
THE REBOUND
RED NOTE SERIES
BOOK 1
J. R. ROGUE
CONTENTS
Content Warning
Author’s Note
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Part II
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Epilogue
A NOTE FROM J. R. ROGUE
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Also by J. R. Rogue
Copyright © 2019 by J. R. Rogue
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales
is completely coincidental.
Cover art by Murphy Rae
Print and E-Book interior design by J.R. Rogue
J.R. Rogue
PO Box 984
Lebanon, MO 65536
www.jrrogue.com
contact@jrrogue.com
CONTENT WARNING:
Spousal abuse, anxiety, depression, rape
For Shawn Mendes.
You were a beautiful and pure
muse when life was dark.
Writing this book has helped pull me out of the abyss.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Although this novel was inspired in part by my love for Shawn Mendes, you don’t have to listen to his music to enjoy the story. I do, however, recommend that you listen to his cover of the Kings of Leon song "Use Somebody" when it is mentioned in the book.
PART ONE
ONE
PRESENT
TORONTO
“This is about revenge. He’s leaving so he can fuck his uncle’s wife! Some rebound bullshit!”
Those are the words I hear floating over my shoulder as I board my jet, phone clutched in my hand, vision blurry.
I’m used to the language from my manager, Jesse, so I don’t respond. Instead, I just put one leg in front of the other, higher and higher, step after step, until I’m surrounded by clean white and silence, save for the rapid beating of my heart.
The jet door shuts, and I’m alone with myself. With my thoughts. With the images. The muffled moans I heard just hours earlier.
My first anxiety attack happened right before a show. I could hear the thunder of the crowd, my name being chanted. I felt it, the rhythmic prayer. The demand for my voice. I felt it, but it could not drown out the sounds inside. The erratic beat in my chest. Moment after moment, faster. My throat was dry, and I could hear the voice in my head. The one that made no sound but was so loud I couldn’t breathe when it started chattering and cawing.
I locked myself in my dressing room and grabbed my phone, texting Jo, but she didn’t answer.
She was sick at home—at our home. She was the queen of the world we built together. I would let her rule and rest, and I never regretted letting her have anything she asked for.
The first Toronto show of the weekend would be the end of my tour. My team and I planned it this way. Three nights: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Then we would finally be able to rest. To take a moment for ourselves before I looked forward, to the next album.
I could finally shut out the voices of every single human that demanded my attention, my voice, my input, my energy.
I needed Jo in that moment of panic, as I started to sweat, to go blurry at the edges. I needed her delicate wrist and her full lips. I needed her to touch me in some way so I could feel the quiet. Her phone went to voicemail thirteen times before I shoved it in my pocket and screamed.
I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving. It was unlike me, but I couldn’t settle the buzzing inside.
I felt off.
Then, I felt like something was wrong with Jo. I needed to be near her.
She didn’t hear me when I unlocked the door to our apartment. She didn’t hear me call out her name. She didn’t hear the flick of each light switch I turned on.
But I heard her.
The tragic sound of the air leaving her mouth. The distinct whimpers she made when a mouth touched sensitive peaks. I knew her sounds, her warmth.
I was not pulling these sounds from her.
I stopped in my tracks when I realized what I was walking in on, but I was too far in. My hand was on our bedroom door, and I could see the way the light of our bedside lamp illuminated her. The shadows carved out her shoulders, the cherry tattoo on her hip as it bobbed up and down. Two legs covered in dark hair spread out toward me. The arms that snaked around her were tan, hard. Long fingers pressed into her ass cheeks. The man’s head was back, lost in her.
So was Jo’s, lost in him.
Her pink, bubble gum hair cascaded down her back, and I felt like an intruder in my own home.
It was a flick of the wrist that stopped them. I pushed the door open hard enough to hear the doorknob ruin the sheetrock of the wall it collided with.
They sprung to action immediately. Jo twisted, her face scrunched up in terror. My uncle reached for a black pair of boxer briefs on the floor next to the chair they were fucking on. His eyes met mine, and my vision blurred at the edges. I felt that familiar pain I got when I was holding back tears. A red hot throat and a thundering chest, the sound overtook everything.
It was a nightmare, and I thought I was through with nightmares. I was forced to turn away from them. I left right that moment.
I left to get to Calliope. His wife.
TWO
Apollo
This is what you wanted. You had someone who loved you. And you wanted this. You wanted us apart. You did this. If you don’t tell him that, I fucking will.
THREE
PRESENT
THE LAKE
I didn’t order an Uber for my arrival. I kept my phone off the entire flight, eyes clenched, brow drenched in sweat, knee bouncing in an unsteady rhythm.
When the wheels of my jet hit the runway, I open my eyes, finally.
My hand feels heavy, where it grips my cell phone. I don’t want to turn it on, but I know I must. So I stand once we’ve settled, then run my moist left palm down my black jeans twice.
A strangled noise leaves my throat as I toss the phone in her seat and run my hands through my hair, resisting the urge to pull it all out.
It’s getti
I see it now, the warning. The way she always held her age over me like a weapon. Calliope was right, and I wonder what she’ll say when I arrive on her doorstep. I know she’s there, in the woods of the Ozarks, in the large house they visit in the summer months. The first house that felt like a home to me.
Burning up from the weight of everything, I give up, grab my phone, and power it on.
My eyes are tearing, and I want to tell the captain to take off again. To take me somewhere remote where no one knows me.
The device vibrates in my hand. One alert after another. I scroll quickly. Texts from my best friend, manager, Jo, even my fucking uncle—Apollo.
Apollo
Don’t you fucking tell her.
I feel a shiver move through me. Then I delete the text and block his number.
The walk to the estate is too short. I need the sounds of the country around me, but I see the lights of the driveway too quickly. The words I’m practicing over and over in my head feel heavy in my mouth, not ready for her ears, not ready to be spoken at all.
I didn’t turn my phone back off after the onslaught of messages coming in, but I did turn it on silent.
It sits in my pocket like a heavy weight, a dark carrier of false words and manipulation.
When I reach the property, it looks like every light in the house is on.
I can see Calliope in the living room.
She looks nothing like I remember her.
Her once short brown hair is long, far past her shoulders. My crush is reignited, conflicted, as little hints, small offerings from the Calliope of the past, flash in my mind. A kaleidoscope of clues I’d pushed away.
In front of me, the Calliope of the present spins in the dining room to a song I cannot hear. Her eyes are closed, but maybe she senses me. She opens her eyes, and her steps falter. She grabs the dining room chair next to her and clutches her chest. I see her lips say my name. Sean.
I smile, but I know it isn’t reaching my eyes. My hands dig into my pockets as I watch her go through the house. Too many large windows, too many secrets seen. Fifteen-year-old me loved that about this house. Twenty-year-old me, constantly chased down by paparazzi, wonders how I’ll hide here. I have to hope no one will leak my location.
I hear Calliope before I see her again, and dam the tears I can feel streaming down my face. I turn when I hear the name I saw her mouth earlier.
“Sean, what are you doing here?” She looks around, her small arms wrapping around her chest.
It’s late April, and a chill clings to the air. I saw through the glass what her modesty now protects.
“How did you get here?” She glances over my shoulder. “I don’t see a car.”
I turn, run my hand through my messy hair. “I walked from the runway.” I was once a runaway showing up on her doorstep. I’m running again, and this is where the compass pointed.
“What’s wrong?” She grabs my hands from my hair; the left was joined with the right, and I was tugging before I could stop myself. She is so damn close to me.
I look at our connection, two pairs of pale hands. I feel it—us—in the pit of my chest. “Have you talked to Apollo tonight?” I ask her.
She blinks at my words, dropping my hands.
My uncle, Uncle, Unc. I never called him by his name. The way a child never calls his father by his birth name. My uncle was the title, the authority, the one who took me in and changed my life.
“No,” she says. “Why?”
Her cheeks are pink, like I’ve struck her, and I wonder where their relationship has taken them since I last saw them together at Christmas.
“I caught him…” I can’t finish. The words lodge in my throat, and I suck in a breath when I feel Calliope’s thumb on my cheek, just over the scar that lingers there.
“Your tears always pooled there,” she says, pulling her hand away.
Touching me like that isn’t something she has allowed herself to do in years.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “What did you catch him doing?”
She looks resigned. As if she knows why I’m here. As if it cannot wound her.
I look at her hands. There is no wedding ring.
“Fuck!” I scream. The woods swallow the sound of my grief, and Calliope startles. “You know?”
“I don’t know why you’re here. Tell me why you’re here, Sean.”
I look over her shoulder to the guest house Jo and I spent the summer in before our lives changed. Inside is the bed I lost my virginity in. The bed Jo told me she loved me in.
I pull my eyes away and stare into Calliope’s. The opposite of Jo’s. Deep dark to her clear blue. Calliope’s eyes look even darker against the pallor of her skin.
“He fucked her,” I say. “He fucked Jo.”
Calliope nods and grabs my hand, leading me inside.
FOUR
PAST
THE LAKE
We all have weapons we can use against others for survival, to cause chaos. My mother made it clear she would use hers, and I should use mine for escapes, for amusement. For pleasure and whatever else I saw fit. It was my right as a woman after everything men took.
I always watched my mother for clues, for practice. The incessant chatter she spilled and the lack of boundaries she erected left me with little else to do. And I knew my mother was right, in the end. I wanted out of the life I was born into.
Shady Croc’s was on the water. Rich and tan, loud and smelling of sweet liquor—those were the men who frequented the bar. I watched and waited for the perfect meal ticket. The opportunity on two legs to take me away.
My two-bedroom trailer was closing in on me every day, and I relished the thought of suiting up for work every night, craving the noise of the crowd, the demand for what I could offer. I served drinks—an easy job—and the flesh that reached for the escapes I offered served, in return, as my reward.
I saw him as soon as he walked in. Tall and dark, with the darkest brown eyes I’d ever seen.
His friends smelled like money, and he was the leader. There was always one. They stand taller, talk lower, and the others lean into every syllable they speak.
