Madison's POV

My head was killing me when I woke up. I never drink that much and now I was paying the consequences. I knew there had to be aspirin somewhere on this bus so I crawled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and began searching for the elusive aspirin.

I noticed Ryan's bunk was empty, but then I looked up towards the living area and saw he and Chase were both crashed on the couches. Then I noticed the nearly empty bottle of Jim Beam lying on the floor. Oh no. He didn't.

In my shock, the bottle of water fell from my hand and the cabinet door slammed shut.

Ryan snapped up and glared at me, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Could you make just a little more noise? I don't think the rest of the city heard you." He growled.

"You...you were drinking." I said appalled, my eyes going back to the whiskey bottle on the floor.

"I wasn't the only one sweetheart. I heard you got pretty hammered yourself." He smirked.

Oh God. What if Chase told him about what had happened between us? I was mortified. Unfortunately, I remember all of that. My poor attempt to try and seduce him. How was I going to look him in the eye?

"Don't worry darlin', your secret is safe with me. There is no reason Kevin has to know about any of this is there?"

His implication was pretty clear. He didn't care if Kevin found out about me, he just didn't want Kevin to know about him.

"No." I said softly.

"Aspirin top cabinet next to the stove." He added.

I muttered a thanks, found the aspirin and shook two pills out of the bottle. I held it out to him, but he shook his head declining the offer. He actually didn't look hungover. I still couldn't believe he was drinking last night though.

"Why Ryan?" I asked.

"Why what?" He raised an eyebrow at me.

"Why were you drinking? You were doing so good. What happened that made you take a drink?" I asked.

"I just felt like drinking that's all. It's none of your business anyway. You don't know me so you don't get to judge me. All of you can stop acting like I have a problem and just let me live my fucking life. As far as you princess, you can stop acting like you are so pure and wholesome because we all know better." He snapped.

I willed myself not to cry. He was back to being an asshole again obviously. His words hurt. I had thought that we moved past this.

"Would you two keep it down? Some of us are trying to sleep." A grumpy, groggy Chase mumbled from his spot on the couch.

"On second thought, give me those aspirin." Ryan said, taking the bottle from me. "You might want to clean yourself up too. You wouldn't want to show up at sound check looking so rough." He added over his shoulder, as he walked back to the living area to give Chase the aspirin.

My head was spinning, and I felt sick. Sadly, it had nothing to do with being hungover. Somehow, I felt like this was all my fault and I couldn't help but wonder what I possibly did to cause Ryan to fall off the wagon and go back to his old attitude. Was it because of what happened with Chase? Maybe he overheard us, or even worse, Chase told him.

I fucked up. I let Blakeleigh get in my head and it caused me to make some bad decisions.

🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶

Ryan's POV

I felt like shit. No, I wasn't hungover in the slightest. I had one drink last night, but Madison didn't need to know that. The reason for me feeling like shit was the look of hurt and devastation on her face. I let her think that I had gone back to my old ways. It was better that way. A little hurt now would save her a lot of hurt later on down the road.

I went back to the song I had started working on last night after Chase's drunk ass passed out on me. This one may never see the light of day because it was Madison who inspired it, and I just had to get it out of my system. But at least now I knew, and Chase knew that I could drink without going overboard. That should count for something.

I been doin' good, so good
I been on my best behavior
I been livin' by the book
I shoulda known that sooner or later
You'd walk in this place and I'd break
Take two steps back and say
What's one little taste gonna hurt?

This one was coming together pretty quick, but since rehab I've been a writing machine. It's amazing what you can accomplish sober. I guess I never really looked at it that way, especially since all of these new songs I've written since then were about drinking. The irony of it all was not lost on me. If I'm not drinking I'm writing about drinking. Go figure.

You're burnin' hotter than a bourbon with no water
And I want your buzz in my veins
Girl, in the mornin' you'll walk out the door, and
I'll pour us back down the sink
But tonight I deserve a drink

"Whatcha working on?" Chase snuck up behind me, looking over my shoulder. I tried to cover up the words I had written.

"Just something I'm playing around with." I answered, nonchalantly.

"Dude...that's good. Really fucking good. You've been on a roll." He said, looking pretty damn impressed.

Shit. He saw it.

"Yeah well, this one's for me, so don't get too excited." I cautioned him, I couldn't help but be a little perturbed that he had seen it.

"Why the hell not? You can't keep that to yourself Ry. It's too good." He protested.

"It's a little too personal." I replied.

"But those are the best ones. You weren't lying when you said everything you wrote while in rehab was your best work. The shit is deep man, and it's all personal. You really did get something out of that place, whether you want to admit it or not."

All I could do was shrug my shoulders. I really didn't know what to say. Old me, super cocky, asshole me would be eating up the praise. Letting it go to my head and bragging about it, like I did in the beginning. Now, all I could think about was how I had gotten inspired by other people's personal turmoil. Or was it my own turmoil too? Who the hell knows anymore. I was proud of the work I had done, don't get me wrong. I had dug deep to find the emotions for the music, but was I opening myself up too much? Did I really want people to see this side of me?

"What's the problem?" Chase asked, looking honestly perplexed. "I thought you would be more excited. You're doing great Ry. You should be proud of yourself."

"I was a dick to Madi, like I said I would be, and I hated it. I know it's for the best, but the look on her face when she realized I had been drinking last night just didn't sit right with me, not to mention the attitude I copped with her even though I said that was what I was going to do." I admitted.

"Did you tell her you only had one drink and left me to finish nearly the entire bottle?" Chase asked me.

I shook my head. "Better for her to think the worst of me."

Chase then had the fucking nerve to slap me upside the head. "You are such a fucking idiot Ryan. You have it bad for her. That's why you don't want anyone to see this song isn't it?"

"First of all...ow. Was that really necessary? Second...I don't have it bad for her, but I think you do, which is why I think you should go after her." Okay, the second part was a bold face lie.

"Bullshit! You just admitted that you feel bad for being a dick to her." Great. Leave it to Chase to call me out on that.

"Just because I feel bad for it doesn't mean I have it bad for her...it just means..I feel bad. Okay?" Sure that was a lame response. I was kinda hoping Chase didn't remember much about our conversation from last night.

"I probably need to talk to her about what happened last night." Chase sighed.

"You do. And you also need to tell her how you feel about her?" I said.

"I don't even know how I feel about her Ryan. I told you that. If I'm feeling anything it's me being horny because I haven't gotten laid in a while and she's the only female I've had any contact with. I bet I could go pick up some random girl in a bar and get all of that out of my system. In fact, that's probably what I should do."

"I hate you sometimes." I chuckled. I was joking. I was definitely relieved a bit, and Chase was sounding more like the old Chase that I had sorely missed. Hell, we should probably both go out and pick up a couple of women like we've done in the past, but of course I couldn't do that because if the press found out, I would be in breach of my contract since I was in a "relationship" with Madison.

"I probably do need to talk to Madi though. I don't want her to feel embarrassed about what happened last night. I am also curious to find out more about what happened with Blakeleigh. I want to know what Blakeleigh is up to. Make sure she doesn't cause trouble."

"Yeah. You really should." I told him. "At least one of us should be the good guy in this whole fucked up situation."

For at least the hundredth time I was questioning myself on whether or not I was doing the right thing. At least I was right about one thing: this was most definitely a fucked up situation.