Legacy & Cameron – Wouldn’t You Just Love That

The scent of cinnamon and cloves drifted through the house, warm and familiar, the kind of smell that made Blaine’s chest ache in a way he couldn’t explain. Lauren stood at the kitchen counter, cheeks flushed from the oven heat, sliding the next tray of cookies in with practiced ease. A timer chimed softly, and she reached over to silence it, brushing flour from her wrist.

Blaine was on the living room floor with Ashton and Easton, untangling a string of lights that had somehow become a Gordian knot. The tree stood half‑dressed beside them, branches waiting for ornaments, for memories, for the kind of life Blaine had always wanted but never believed he could have.

Lauren appeared, sticking a broken cookie with still wet frosting in his mouth, both laughing when the boys automatically both opened their mouths to receive their broken little treats. Lauren bent down to kiss Blaine. He felt like in a dream. A wonderful dream he never wanted to wake from. Lauren went back into the kitchen to silence another timer.

He paused, a glass ornament in his hand which Easton had handed him for some reason, and for a moment Thanksgiving washed over him like a warm tide. Brad carving the turkey with surgical precision. Briar Rose fussing over the boys’ sweaters. Nathaniel and Evie arguing about football, something clearly neither of them knew a thing about. Caroline laughing at something Charlotte said, who had been pouting as Brad had forbidden her to leave that day to go see her forbidden boyfriend Jonas. Lauren sitting beside him at the long dining table, her hand brushing his knee under the cloth, a small gesture that was ultimately calming to Blaine. The boys climbing into his lap, sticky with cranberry sauce. The way Brad’s eyes softened when Blaine caught him watching. The way Briar Rose smiled at him, encouragingly.

It had been loud, chaotic, imperfect — and perfect.

Lauren had chosen to come home with him afterward. No speech. No ceremony. Just a quiet decision, made in the hallway while the boys wrestled with their toys, when Blaine was wheeling his luggage into the hallway of the main house so the driver could take him to the airport.

“We’re coming with you,” she’d said, and Blaine had felt something inside him knit back together. She had already packed them. His heartbeat so fast and hard and he was fighting his emotions. He just grabbed her, pulled her close and held her. “Let’s go home, baby.” she whispered and those words sounded like the most beautiful words to him.

Now, weeks later, the house glowed with Christmas warmth like it used to be when he was still little, but like it never had since his parents … ‘died’. The boys wore matching pajamas. Channing had been invited — Lauren insisted — because nobody deserved to spend Christmas alone, and Channing had arrived with a ridiculous amount of gifts and a grin that made Blaine’s heart loosen.

They baked cookies. So many cookies. More cookies than they all could eat in a year. They decorated the tree. They played music. They taught the boys Christmas songs. They laughed. They lived.

For Blaine, it was heaven.

For the first time in his life, Blaine felt like he was standing inside the dream he’d carried since childhood — a home, a family, a future, not on the outside looking in on it. He slept beside Lauren again, her hand resting on his chest, her breath warm against his shoulder, their baby girl growing inside of her. He woke to the boys climbing into bed, giggling, demanding pancakes. He carried Easton on his shoulders. He watched Lauren wrap presents with a concentration that made him smile.

He was happy.

He was whole.

He was safe.

Christmas came and went in a blur of warmth and light, and Blaine thought — quietly, privately — that maybe he had finally earned this.

Reporting to Duty

Then Stan called.

It was the day after Christmas, the tree still lit, the boys playing with new toys on the rug, Blaine still surfing his happiness high. Channing working out in the gym by the pool. Lauren was typing on her laptop on the couch. Blaine stepped into the hallway, phone pressed to his ear, and listened as Stan explained the situation.

The promoters. The venues. The insurance companies. The booking agents. The sponsors. The NYE event committee. The label. The board. The investors.

Everyone wanted him back.
Everyone needed him back.
Everyone was applying pressure.
Stan had stalled them for as long as he could, now he was out of options.

A singer had canceled the New Year’s Eve celebration in San Myshuno — last minute, catastrophic — and Blaine was the only one who could fill the slot. It was a massive event. Televised. Sponsored. Millions of viewers. Millions of dollars. Millions of expectations. And for Blaine it was his one chance at redemption to all the many people with a lot of money invested in his success. People, who took losing money personally. People who could kill his entire career, for good, without breaking a sweat.

If he didn’t do it, the rest of the remaining tour would be jeopardized. Contracts strained. Relationships damaged. His career — the one he’d fought for, the one he’d nearly died for — would fracture. He would likely go the way of all the other few hit wonders nobody remembered anymore after a couple years. All he would be for all eternity would be Blaine Cameron’s addict son, the loser, who couldn’t quite cut it, despite all the many doors his famous ancestry had opened for him.

He asked Stan for time to mull it over. Just one day. Stan agreed, but the urgency hung heavy in the air.

Blaine returned to the living room, heart pounding. Lauren looked up, then closed the lid of her laptop.

“What’s wrong?” she pat on the couch next to her, he sat down, put her laptop on the coffee table, then took her hands in his.

He told her everything. The pressure. The stakes. The fear. The guilt. The possibility of losing everything he’d rebuilt.

Lauren listened quietly, her eyes steady, her expression soft.

“We’ll make it work,” she said. “Call him back and say you’ll do it.”

She decided they would stay in Brindleton Bay again. Her family would watch the boys. She would drive over to San Myshuno with him, watch him perform, and they would celebrate into the New Year together. Neither of them could drink — Blaine sober, Lauren pregnant — but that made it perfect. Simple. Clean. Safe.

Blaine felt something bloom in his chest, warm and bright.

He could have both. Family and career. Love and music. Home and stage.

He kissed her, long and grateful, and she smiled against his mouth.

New Year’s Eve was a blur of lights and noise and adrenaline. Lauren stood backstage, hand on her belly, watching him perform. He felt invincible. He felt alive. He felt like he was finally the man he wanted to be.

Once his set was over, they went to one of the organizers’ suites and watched the other performers from there, then watched the ball drop from right there, and kissed into the New Year.

Heaven.

The Grand Tour

January arrived with cold mornings and early flights. The tour resumed. The first show was brutal — three hours on stage, then encores he couldn’t decline. He stumbled offstage drenched in sweat, muscles screaming, throat raw. The next morning began before dawn. Tour bus. All day long till everyone’s butts felt square from sitting on them all day. By late afternoon a new city. New venue. New expectations. And another 3+ hours on stage.

And again.
And again.
Again.

The grind was relentless.

He slept badly. He ate irregularly. He missed calls from Lauren and often miscalculated the time difference, waking her when he returned the calls. He snapped at Stan. He apologized. He snapped again. He apologized again. He pushed himself harder. He tried to be perfect. He tried to be enough.

By the fourth show, he was barely functioning.

That night, someone from the “fix the tour” war room team pulled him aside.
Not Stan. Someone higher. Someone with power. Someone who didn’t care about Blaine’s recovery, his family, his promises, his fragile stability.
He cared about the bottom line.
About liability and contract breaches, about unhappy fans.

They closed the office door behind them.

“You need to deliver,” the man said. “You started out strong and are turning into a lame duck, we can’t have that or you’re done. Happy fans throw their money at us, merch, music, anything you touch man, we can turn to gold. Unhappy fans go and find someone else to unload their cash on. We can’t have that. You don’t want that, I don’t want that. Nobody wants that.”

Blaine swallowed. His hands shook. “I am trying, man … The schedule is too tight.”

“Yeah, we need you to do, not try. The schedule is tight because you wanted it tight, so you can be with your wife when she pops out your next baby. If you want to be there, we have to stick to the plan. We need this tour to happen, we need it to be the best thing all year, and we need everyone to talk about it for years. You need this to be your Holy Grail, buddy. So, make it work, Cameron. This is in your hands. Don’t fuck it up. You get one chance to fix what you broke last year. Use the chance wisely or find another career, cos you will be done in entertainment.”

“Look, all I can tell you is I am doing my best. I am giving you all I got. I leave everything on stage, every damn night. I don’t even know which city or even country I am in half the time, that’s how fast we move. I don’t know what time it is. I just wait for someone to tell me to go for the soundchecks or for the sets. I give every encore I can until the band, the fans and I are about to keel over. What more do you want from me?”

“There’s more in you. You wanna be on top, you wanna be the best, the one people talk about long after you checked out of this ride we call life, just like your father? Well, you can’t expect it to be easy. Nothing that comes easy is worth shit. You want your career to mean something, don’t you? We’re not at one of those talent discovery shows where everyone swoons when someone can manage holding a key for a couple moments, while standing stiffly on stage. My dog can do that. You are on the big stages, the big game, the SuperBowl of music talent here. We expect more. I get it’s tiring. That’s how you know you are doing it right.”

The man slid a small mirror toward him. Casual. Normal. Expected. A rolled bill beside it. Cocaine.

“Here, this will help. It’s no big deal. All of us do it from time to time. Harmless, as long as you don’t overdo it. But it’s like a performance booster. And no need to shoot up, never knowing what you may get. This shit is easy, it’s predictable. Just a crutch to help you along. Once the tour’s done, you are done with it. Just stop. Easy.”

Blaine stared.

He thought:

It’s not heroin. It’s just to get through this. I’ll stop after. Nobody will know. I’m doing this for my family. I’m doing this for Lauren. I’m doing this for the boys. I’m doing this to fix everything. I can handle it. I can manage it. I can control it.

He broke.

He took the rolled up dollar bill, looked at the lines and paused. Exhaled, leaned in and snorted.

Nearly instantly he felt lighter, the worries pressing on his brain lifted and he felt like he was hovering, not walking.

That night was effortless. He flew across the stage, voice clear, movements sharp, energy electric. The crowd roared. He felt invincible. He felt alive. He felt like he was back.

He told himself it was fine. He told himself it was temporary. He told himself he was in control.

The next five dozen plus shows went flawless and when he got off stage, he had energy left to call Lauren, talk to the boys. He was able to eat. Sleep. Function. Even stepped out and signed a few autographs and took a few Selfies with screaming fans a few times. He was rocking it. In control of himself and everything.

He wasn’t.

The pattern began.
The descent followed.

Irritability. Paranoia. Insomnia. Mood swings. Defensiveness. Overconfidence. Inconsistent sleep patterns. Some nights he didn’t sleep at all in between performances. Other nights they had to wake him with three men shaking him, dragging him out of bed.

Lauren noticed in his voice.
Channing noticed in his texts.
Stan noticed in his behavior.
They attributed it to exhaustion, touring fatigue.

He kept going.
Night after night.
Show after show.
Line after line.

Blaine thought he was handling it.
Thought he was in control.

He wasn’t.

Crash and Burn

The last show of the tour, the grand finale, was in San Myshuno — a massive arena pulsing with heat and noise, the kind of crowd that swallowed sound and spit it back out ten times louder. Blaine could feel it before he stepped onstage, the hum of thousands of bodies vibrating through the floorboards, through his bones, long forgotten were the honest resolve to never use drugs again, forgotten was the exhaustion he’d been carrying for the first week. He was crushing it. And it was crushing him.

But tonight, he wasn’t tired.
He wasn’t worried.
Tonight, he was wired.
Tonight, he was almost home.

One more show.
One more night.
One more performance and he could fly back to Del Sol Valley, back to Lauren, back to the boys, back to the life he’d rebuilt so carefully. And then he would rebuild himself into the man he wanted to be. Just one more night.

He burst onto the stage like a man launched from a slingshot, lights exploding around him, the roar of the audience slamming into him like a tidal wave.
He fed on it.
He soared on it.
He felt unstoppable.
Invincible.

He tore through the first songs with a ferocity that startled even the band. His voice was sharp, bright, too bright. His movements were fast, too fast. He bounced across the stage like he was made of rubber, springing off monitors, spinning, laughing, shouting into the mic with a wildness that felt good — too good.Backstage, Stan watched from the wings, arms crossed, brow furrowed.

“What are you doing, dude…” he muttered, leaning forward as Blaine sprinted across the stage, nearly clipping a lighting rig. “Hey — does anyone know why Cameron is going fully off script?”

A stagehand shrugged. “Dunno, boss. I just haul cables.”

Stan dragged a hand down his face. “If he comes in this hot, he won’t last to the end — let alone a single encore. We’ve done so damn well this tour. We gotta finish strong. This is the part people remember.”

Blaine launched himself into another improvised run across the catwalk.

Stan groaned. “Not because our superstar here is crawling around dragging his tongue halfway through the setlist. Jesus H. Christ… celebrities are toddlers that never grow up. That man drives me to drink and I am twelve years sober. What the hell is he trying to prove and to whom?”

A stagehand shrugged. “Dunno, boss. I just haul cables.”

Another tech glanced up from the soundboard. “He’s just improvising. Most artists I’ve built sets for do it. Maybe he’s just being extra ’cause it’s the final show — make it memorable, like you said. First and last shows are always special for every act I ever worked.”

Stan didn’t look convinced. Blaine wasn’t improvising. Blaine was detonating.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Stan muttered. “He’s been chomping at the bit to go home, so that might be it.”

Onstage, Blaine grabbed a bottle of water, twisted off the cap, and sprayed it over the front row.

“You all look hot!” he shouted, grinning, drenched in sweat and adrenaline. “Cool off!”

The fans shrieked, reaching for him, reaching for the water, reaching for the manic joy radiating off him like heat.

He felt invincible.

He felt alive.

He felt like he could do anything.

He didn’t feel the way his body was starting to misfire beneath the rush.

He tore into the final songs of the original set with reckless abandon, ignoring the choreography, ignoring the marks, ignoring the cues. Sweat poured down his chest, soaking through his shirt until it clung to him like a second skin.

Halfway through the final chords of the second to last song, he grabbed the hem and yanked it over his head, flinging it into the crowd. The arena erupted. Blaine laughed — too loud, too bright — and wiped his face with the back of his arm.

Backstage, Stan’s voice sharpened.

“Okay, seriously — what is he doing? That’s not in the set. Why is he giving away his damn shirt? They’re supposed to buy merchandise, not walk out with a Blaine‑sweat‑soaked trophy to frame or throw on eBay!”

He threw his hands up, pacing.

“Jesus Christ. He’s not a souvenir dispenser. Someone get him to STOP before he strips off his pants next and I end up with a citation for public indecency stapled to my forehead while a bunch of cops book all of us into Club Feb for a complimentary night’s stay!”

A stagehand shrugged. “He’s vibing, man.”

But Blaine wasn’t vibing. Blaine was burning. Like napalm — bright, volatile, impossible to put out once it touched oxygen.

He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his pants, teasing them down just enough to make the crowd scream and Stan’s blood pressure spike. Then he snapped them back into place with a mischievous grin that sent every girl in the arena shrieking at a deafening decibel level, Blaine slowly wiggling his index finger like he was winding them up on purpose.

The crowd roared, begging for more.

Blaine lifted one hand — index finger to his lips.

Instant silence.

Tens of thousands froze, breath held, the entire arena suspended in a single, electric heartbeat. You could’ve heard a pin drop.

He leaned into the mic, eyes wild, chest heaving.

“Wouldn’t you just love that?”

The arena detonated.

“That’s right, San Myshuno! You know what’s next!”

The eruption was instantaneous. They did know. Wouldn’t You Just Love That? was one of his biggest hits — the exact title he had just thrown at them — and the band snapped to attention as Blaine turned sharply toward them, giving the signal.

The already screaming crowd somehow screamed louder when the first notes hit — a punch of sound, unmistakable, the opening of the song they’d been waiting for. Blaine swung his guitar forward and ripped into the riff, the familiar melody exploding through the speakers, the audience losing its collective mind.

Stan muttered under his breath, pacing like a man watching a slow‑motion car crash only he could see.

“He’s going too hard. This is a tough song — if he spends it all in the intro, he won’t have anything left for the crescendo. I gotta stop him before he gives himself a fucking heart attack, and he isn’t even thirty.”

His eyes stayed glued to Blaine, jaw tight, every muscle in his face telegraphing the same silent prayer: slow down, kid… before you burn out right in front of the whole world to see.

He scanned the arena, searching for the camera teams — every major network, every streaming platform, every outlet that had shoved a lens into the building tonight. A dozen red tally lights blinked back at him from the pit, the wings, the rafters. All of them live. All of them capturing Blaine’s unraveling in real time.

Stan swallowed hard.

If Blaine crashed, he wouldn’t just fall. He’d crash and burn globally.

Ben, whose cryptic title was Artist Relations Director for the Promoter — or Stan’s biggest pain in the ass, as Stan liked to think of him — seemed to materialize out of nowhere, his hand clamping down on Stan’s shoulder.

“Chill, Stanley. He’s on fire. That’s how we need him.”

“We need him alive. You know what sucks worse than a lame-duck Blaine? A dead one. I know him, I have known him for over a decade. He’s going too hard. He still has one song left after this one and there have been at least three rounds of encores throughout the entire tour, per show, guessing since this is the final show, it’s gonna be at least five. That is another hour, hour and a half easily. He can’t burn the candle on both ends now. He will never get through it. This will be a disaster, not the crescendo we all need.”

“Stan, your job is to make sure he gets on stage and knows what to do. His job is to do what he does on stage. My job is to make sure he sells well. Right now I can’t hear myself think over the kach-ing that man is generating. If he wants to improvise a little, let him. He’s fucking that monkey now, and I say we let him.”

Onstage, Blaine felt invincible.

He felt alive.

He felt like he could do anything.

He climbed onto a speaker stack — higher than he’d ever gone before — and the crowd roared. He spread his arms wide, laughing, chest heaving, sweat dripping down his temples. The lights flashed across his face, catching the wild gleam in his eyes.

Backstage, Stan’s voice rose.

“That’s not in the set. Someone get ready to spot him—”

But it was too late.

Onstage, Blaine thought — with absolute conviction — ‘Last show. I’m home tomorrow. Just in time to be there when Lauren gets ready to give birth to our first daughter.‘

Blaine jumped.
It wasn’t a planned jump.
It wasn’t a safe jump.
It wasn’t a jump he’d ever practiced.
It wasn’t a jump Stan would have ever greenlighted.

It was a jump fueled by the lie in his bloodstream.

He launched himself off the stack, aiming for the lower platform he’d hit a hundred times before. But his timing was off. His foot slipped. His angle was wrong. His body twisted midair, and the crowd’s scream shifted from excitement to horror.

He hit the stage hard.

A sickening crack echoed through the speakers.

Pain shot up his leg, white-hot, blinding. He collapsed, clutching his thigh, breath ripped from his lungs. The music faltered. The band froze. The crowd gasped, then screamed.

Backstage, Stan’s face drained of color.

“Jesus Christ—Blaine!”

He sprinted toward the stage as Blaine tried to stand, his leg buckling beneath him. He went down again, the world tilting, lights blurring, the roar of the audience becoming a distant, distorted hum.

The lights on stage cut out, speakers asking the screaming fans to stay calm.

Ushers and guest services staff rushed into the aisles, waving their arms, shouting for people to stay calm as they guided the crowd toward the exits, promising free merchandise to keep panic down.

Stagehands rushed toward him. Someone shouted for medics. Someone cut the music. Someone grabbed his shoulders, trying to keep him still.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t understand how everything had gone wrong so fast.

Stan reached him first, dropping to his knees beside him.

“Blaine—don’t move. Stay still.”

Blaine tried to speak, but the pain swallowed the words. His vision tunneled. The lights dimmed. The world narrowed to a single point of agony in his leg. Red, hot, blinding and deafening pain. He screamed.

Then everything went black.

He passed out.

The medics arrived seconds later. They stabilized his leg, their faces tight with urgency. One of them touched his thigh and felt the unnatural shift beneath the skin.

“Femur fracture,” someone said. “Bad one.”

They lifted him onto a stretcher. The crowd watched in stunned silence as he was carried offstage, limp, unconscious, oxygen mask pressed to his face.

Backstage was a blur of voices and cold air. Stan followed the stretcher, pale and shaking, phone pressed to his ear.

“Brad, he jumped. Off a high speaker box. Full height. And when he landed—Brad, everyone heard it. That crack – that sick sound will haunt me forever, his femur snapping clean. EMT already confirmed it. They’re taking him to your flagship clinic now. He’s unconscious. You need to get there. I’ll meet you.”

Stan’s voice was tight, fast, terrified.

“Something was wrong with him all day. He wasn’t himself. I checked him—no punctures, nothing fresh. Unless he’s hiding it somewhere weird, he’s not back on the H. But he was on something. He had that wired‑and‑empty look, like he was running on fumes. No booze on his breath either. Just… bad breath. Like his whole system was shutting down. Like he hasn’t eaten in days.”

He didn’t know if Brad heard him. He didn’t know anything.

The ambulance doors closed. The sirens wailed. The city lights streaked past the windows.

Blaine didn’t see any of it.

He lay unconscious, leg stabilized, vitals erratic, the cocaine still burning through his bloodstream — a truth the hospital would discover within minutes.

Wake Up, Break Up

The world came back to him in fragments.

A distant beeping. A cold draft across his skin. A weight on his leg that felt wrong, heavy, foreign. The sterile smell of antiseptic. The faint hum of fluorescent lights.

He tried to move and immediately regretted it. A bolt of pain shot through his thigh, sharp enough to rip a gasp from his throat. His hand twitched, and even that hurt — his wrist wrapped, stiff, throbbing.

He blinked, vision swimming, ceiling tiles blurring into a pale mosaic. His mouth was dry. His tongue felt thick. His chest rose too fast, too shallow.

He didn’t know where he was.

He didn’t know how long he’d been out.

He didn’t know what had happened after the fall.

He only knew he was alive, and everything hurt.

The door opened.

Brad stepped in.

He didn’t rush. He didn’t speak. He closed the door quietly behind him, the soft click somehow louder than the monitors. He pulled a chair to the bedside and sat down, posture controlled, face unreadable.

Blaine swallowed, throat raw.

“Brad…?”

Brad’s eyes didn’t soften. “You’re lucid. Good. We need to talk.”

Blaine tried to shift again, winced. “Where…?”

“San Myshuno Medical Center,” Brad said. “My flagship. You had a rather peculiar accident on stage and were brought in unconscious. Trauma took you immediately. You were in surgery within the hour. We’ll talk about the rest.”

Blaine stared at him, disoriented. “Surgery?”

“You broke your femur,” Brad said. “Badly. They put a rod in. You have contusions across your ribs, a sprained wrist, and a concussion. You coded once during transport. And Blaine… your system was already depleted. Severe exhaustion. Weeks of it. Your body was running on fumes long before you fell. Without the accident you might have made it through the night, but a total collapse was imminent.”

Blaine’s stomach dropped.

He didn’t remember any of it. He remembered being on stage — and then waking up in the bed. Nothing in between.

Brad leaned back slightly, folding his hands. His voice was calm, but there was something underneath it — something tight, something controlled.

“Got anything to get off your chest, Blaine?”

The question hit like a slap.

Blaine’s breath stuttered. He looked at Brad — really looked — and saw it. The knowledge. The disappointment. The fury held behind professionalism.

He knew.

Of course he knew.

Trauma protocol. Loss of consciousness. Major fracture. Pre‑op labs. Toxicology. Anesthesiology clearance.

There was no hiding cocaine from a hospital. Not from Brad. Not from a doctor. Not from Lauren’s father.

Blaine closed his eyes, shame burning through the fog.

“Does… does Lauren know?”

Brad exhaled through his nose, slow, controlled. “She does not. Yet.”

Blaine’s voice cracked. “Please don’t tell her. Brad, please. This isn’t me trying to be stupid. I swear to God, I did it for us. They were going to drag out the tour, I couldn’t get out of it without ruining my career, and I—”

Brad cut him off.

“I am not telling her,” he said. “You will.”

Blaine’s eyes snapped open.

Brad continued, voice low, steady, mercilessly honest.

“You will explain it to her. And if you think it was justified, you can try to convince her of that. I am a doctor. I will not lie about tox screen results. Especially not to my daughter, who is also a doctor — and an excellent one, I might proudly add.”

Blaine’s throat tightened. “Brad… please… please…”

Brad didn’t look away.

“You almost died,” he said. “Again. And you almost left her a widow. You almost left your sons without a father. Your daughter would have never known you. Again. All of this is like terrible deja vu.”

Blaine felt the words like needles under his skin.

Brad leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“She’s on her way,” he said quietly. “Six‑hour flight. She insisted on coming despite being weeks from her due date. I tried to talk her out of it, but I knew it was gonna be pointless. She’s terrified and I don’t blame her. She doesn’t know why you fell. She doesn’t know why you passed out. She doesn’t know why your heart was unstable.”

Blaine’s breath hitched.

Brad’s voice softened — not with sympathy, but with truth.

“She will ask me what happened. And I will tell her to ask you. And you will tell her, the truth, Blaine, nothing but the truth and all of it. I know what you are afraid of happening and I guarantee you it will if you lie to her now. Tell the truth and she may well be so happy you are still alive that she will forgive you. Don’t press your luck, that’s my advice, take it or leave it.”

Silence settled between them, heavy, suffocating.

Blaine stared at the ceiling, tears burning behind his eyes.

“Brad… I didn’t mean for any of this. I just wanted to get home. I just wanted to be there when she gives birth. I thought I could handle it. I thought—”

Brad’s voice didn’t rise. It didn’t soften. It simply cut.

“You thought wrong. You tried to cure one poison with another. And while I’m no performing artist, I’ve been married to one long enough to know what is and isn’t reasonable. This schedule should have never been this tight, and it should have been obvious to you that cocaine was not the fix.”

“I know that,” Blaine choked. “I was trying to be home for the birth of our baby.”

Brad didn’t blink.

“Then you should have structured the tour at a sane cadence. Split it. Do part before the birth, resume after. That’s what professionals do when they want longevity instead of collapse.”

“You can’t do that, Brad,” Blaine whispered. “It was scheduled like that for a reason. They bought tickets for certain dates, took time off, you can’t just postpone it with a few weeks’ notice. You lose fans.”

Brad’s reply was immediate, mercilessly honest.

“And now you may lose your family. Tell me which loss matters more.”

Blaine swallowed hard, chest shaking.

Brad stood slowly, adjusting the blanket over Blaine’s leg with clinical precision.

“She’ll be here soon,” he said. “You should rest while you can. And start working on your story, because you will have to tell it. Make it good, Blaine.”

Brad paused at the door, then looked back.

“And Blaine? When she walks in… don’t lie to her. I urge you to be genuine and honest. She deserves the truth. If you distort even one part of it, she won’t let it go again. My daughter is no fool, even though she seems to be blind to the truth whenever you are concerned.”
Then he left, the door closing softly behind him.

Blaine lay there, staring at the ceiling, heart pounding, leg throbbing, wrist aching, the weight of everything he’d done pressing down on him like a second cast.

Lauren was coming.

And he had no idea how to tell her.

Telling Her

Lauren arrived in a rush of cold air and winter fabric, her breath uneven from the long walk through the hospital corridors. She looked exhausted, swollen, weeks from her due date, her coat stretched over her belly. Brad met her just outside Blaine’s room, and for a moment she simply leaned into him, eyes closed, shoulders trembling.

“I left the boys with a nurse downstairs,” she said quietly. “They’re fine. They’re coloring. Bri is on her way to pick them up.”

Brad kissed her forehead, then hugged her carefully, mindful of her belly. “He’s stable,” he said. “And he’s awake.”

Lauren’s eyes flicked to the closed door. “Dad… talk to me.”

Brad’s expression shifted — father to surgeon in a single breath. “Mechanism was a high‑impact fall from height,” he said. “Right‑sided load. He came in hypotensive, tachycardic, barely responsive. We took him straight to OR.”

Lauren’s posture straightened — the automatic stance of a physician receiving a case handoff. “Femur?”

“Right mid‑shaft,” Brad said. “Comminuted, not clean. Ortho plated it. Good alignment. He’ll be non‑weight‑bearing for weeks.”

Lauren exhaled slowly. “Any vascular compromise?”

“No,” Brad said. “We were lucky. No popliteal involvement. No compartment syndrome. But he lost a lot of blood. He’s post‑transfusion, still anemic, still exhausted.”

She nodded, absorbing it. “Neuro?”

“Mild concussion,” Brad said. “Brief LOC. CT clean. No subdural, no epidural. He’s oriented, but slow. Headache, photophobia, nausea — all expected.”

Lauren’s eyes tightened. “Facial trauma?”

Brad nodded. “Plenty. Forehead abrasion, right cheek contusion, split lip, mild periorbital bruising. No orbital fracture. No mandibular involvement. Scalp tenderness, occipital swelling. He hit hard.”

Lauren swallowed. “Did he brace? FOOSH pattern?”

“Yeah,” Brad said. “Classic reflex. He threw the right arm out when he realized he was falling. Swelling from wrist to elbow — mostly soft‑tissue. No distal radius fracture. No scaphoid tenderness. Radial head looks clean. Shoulder took some of the load but no dislocation.”

Lauren exhaled, relieved but still tense. “Clavicle?”

“Intact,” Brad said. “Just bruising along the lateral chain.”

She looked at him — not as a doctor now, but as a daughter. “Oh, good grief. Dad… how bad is he really?”

Brad looked through the window at Blaine, lying pale and wired, then shook his head with the heavy honesty of a man who has seen too many bodies break.

“Bad enough,” Brad said quietly. “And not just from the fall. His system is wrecked. He’s been running on severe exhaustion for weeks — the kind that masks itself until the body finally gives out. He’s going to recover, but he’s dinged up everywhere. He’s in pain. He’s scared. And he’s not thinking clearly yet.”

Lauren’s breath trembled. “I think that’s his default.”

Brad’s voice softened, shifting back into father. “I think you are right. Normally it’s almost amusing at times, but now you’re weeks from delivery. You can’t be carrying all of this alone.”

Her eyes filled. “Look at him, he can’t. So, I have to.”

“I know.” Brad touched her arm gently. “And as much as he pisses me off… I can’t help having a soft spot for him. Above all, because I know how much he means to you, and he is a great father — if he’s around and not left to his own devices, because then he turns into an oversized toddler. But I will say I do give him some credit, and he’s trying. He’s just… very Blaine. More so than usual of late.”

Lauren let out a shaky breath. “Yeah. He is.”

He squeezed her hand once, then stepped aside so she could enter the room. “I’ll be nearby if you need me.”

He opened the door for her, then left, gently closing it behind him.

Lauren stood there for a moment, staring at Blaine in the hospital bed. His leg was elevated and wrapped, his wrist braced, his skin pale, his face mottled with bruises, his lip split, his eyes glassy with pain and guilt. A faint abrasion cut across his forehead, and the right side of his cheek was already darkening. He looked like someone who had been hit by gravity and luck at the same time.

She dropped her winter coat onto a chair without looking at it and crossed the room in three quick steps.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, leaning down to hug him. He winced, and she pulled back instantly. “I’m so sorry, baby. Oh look at you…”

Her hands hovered over him, touching his face, his hair, his shoulder, as if she needed to confirm he was real.

Blaine swallowed hard. “Laur…”

She kissed his forehead, her voice trembling. “I thought—” She stopped, breath catching. “I thought you died. This time for real. God, Blaine, you need to quit scaring me like this.”

He couldn’t look at her. The guilt was too heavy, too sharp.

She sat on the edge of the bed, one hand on her belly, the other on his arm. “Tell me what happened.”

He closed his eyes. “You’re not going to like it.”

“I’m a doctor,” she said softly. “I can handle not liking things. Dad already dropped a few hints about us having to have a long, inconvenient talk. What did you do this time, baby?”

He took a shaky breath. “I… I didn’t fall because I slipped. I mean, I did misjudge the height and the landing, but the jump … I did that on purpose thinking I could do it, but—Laur, I wasn’t … sober.”

Her hand froze.

He forced himself to continue. “I was wired. Too wired. I thought I could get through the last show. I thought if I just pushed hard enough, I could get home in plenty of time before you went into labor. I thought—”

She pulled back slightly, her eyes narrowing. “Wired how?”

He couldn’t say it. Not at first. His throat closed around the word.

“Cocaine.”

Lauren stared at him, stunned into stillness. Her mouth parted, but no sound came out. She looked at his face, then at the monitors, then at his leg, then back at him, as if trying to reconcile the man she loved with the truth she’d just heard.

“Cocaine?” she repeated, barely audible.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t know what else to do. I was fucking up, sucking balls up on stage, I was running out of steam halfway through the set. That guy, Ben — something liaison, I don’t know his title — but he was riding me about how if I didn’t get my shit together, I could kiss my career goodbye. I told them the schedule was too tight, I couldn’t do three hours of a scheduled set plus another hour or so of encores night after night while being in a new town every damn day. I didn’t even know where I was anymore most of the time or what time it was. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep.”

His voice cracked. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry. I thought I could handle it, just needed to get through it.”

Lauren’s hand hovered near his cheek, afraid to touch the bruises.

“But then that Ben guy told me they needed me to up my quality and they were going to drag out the tour. I couldn’t get out of it without ruining everything.” Blaine swallowed hard, eyes unfocused. “So he gave me the coke, said now I had a choice. Take it and get through it and be home for the baby, or not take it and… well… best case scenario I miss the birth of our daughter, or continue to suck until they all drop me and all I’m left with is busking on street corners for pocket change.”

He shook his head, wincing at the movement. “I felt cornered. I felt trapped. I thought if I could just get through the last shows, I could come home and be here for you and the boys and the baby. I thought I could hide it and then detox myself—”

His breath hitched, and he looked at her with a kind of broken honesty he never let anyone see.

“—I thought I could fix it before you ever found out.”

He stopped, breath shaking.

“I thought I had no choice, baby, I swear it. The way that guy made it sound was like he was gonna blacklist me forever. I can’t do anything else, except go back into acting, but we both know that’s just the same shit with different terms. And I did it, it’s not what I want, I want music. This wasn’t me looking for an easy button. This was me trying to come home to you without being a total loser. Laur, you have to believe me, this wasn’t me just being stupid, this was pressure and no way out this time.”

Lauren pressed her hand to her mouth, eyes wet, trying to process. She wasn’t angry. She was shocked. Hurt. Confused. Her medical brain was firing, but her heart was lagging behind.

“Cocaine,” she said again, as if the word itself was foreign.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Laur, please PLEASE don’t leave me.”

She looked at him for a long moment, her expression shifting — not forgiving, not condemning, just trying to understand. She reached for his hand, squeezing it gently.

“You felt trapped,” she said quietly.

He nodded, tears burning.

“You felt like you had no way out.”

Another nod.

She hesitated, her voice barely above a whisper. “Were there… other women this time?”

His head snapped up. “What!? No! No, Laur, no. Not even close. Just the coke. No women, no booze, nothing else. I just needed a performance booster. Nothing else. I swear on my life.”

Lauren exhaled slowly, her shoulders dropping as the tension eased out of her posture. “Yeah. I believe you.” She swallowed. “And what you’re saying checks out. They knew you were a recovering addict. They knew how important going home on time was to you, and they used that to control you.”

She rubbed her forehead, thinking. “I talked to Iris about this not long ago — and what happened to you is exactly the kind of thing she sees all the time. High‑profile clients pushed past human limits, told to ignore their bodies, told to ‘push through,’ told to do whatever it takes because the machine needs them to keep producing. Illegal shortcuts, dangerous stimulants, impossible schedules… all of it framed as ambition.”

Her voice softened, not with forgiveness, but with understanding. “And when they break, everyone acts shocked. Iris says it’s almost impossible to hold anyone legally accountable unless someone dies. The contracts are written to protect the promoters, not the people on stage.”

Lauren looked at him, eyes tired but clear. “So no — I’m not happy you used again. I’m not pretending it was okay. But I can contextualize it. I can see how you were cornered, exploited, exhausted, and terrified of missing the birth. I understand how you got there, even if I wish you had chosen differently.”

Her eyes softened, but her voice stayed steady. “Blaine, we’re a team. You should have told me. You knew you were at higher risk than anyone. I might have even prescribed you something to temporarily get you through a slump, give you a bit of a boost. But baby, not illegal drugs again. You are gambling with your life each time you do that. Do you not understand how dangerous those things are?”

She reached for his hand, squeezing it gently. “But you were honest. I appreciate that. I didn’t have to look at your chart to find out the truth this time.”

Her thumb brushed over his knuckles. “That being said… I cannot stress enough that it was wrong. And very dangerous.”

“I know,” he whispered.

She brushed her thumb over his knuckles. “You’ll go back into rehab. No way around it. You’re not feeling it now — they have you on painkillers — but you will feel the withdrawal. It’s gonna hit hard. And you’re already in pain. It’s gonna get much worse.”

He nodded, ashamed.

“You will take a long break from performing while we patch you back together. That femur break will take a long time to heal anyway, but even after. You will listen to me. No working unless I greenlight it. Okay? I don’t give a crap what they threaten you with. Enough is enough. No more. You had a contract to finish the tour, you are finished with the tour now, they even got a new headline out of it to have even more publicity now, they wanted it to be memorable, and I hardly think anyone will ever be able to forget that. So, if that doesn’t make them happy, nothing will. Now you belong to me and to our children.”

He swallowed. “Okay.”

She hesitated, thinking. “Maybe… maybe I could rehab you at home, so nobody finds out.” She shook her head immediately. “No. I can’t. I’m about to give birth. I’ll be postpartum and down for the count when it’s starting to hit hard. The boys could hear you. I can’t do it alone and not at home.”

He looked at her, terrified she was pulling away.

She wasn’t.

She was thinking.

“We’ll figure it out,” she said softly. “I have to think about this. Maybe talk to Dad about it. Maybe that could be a project for Nate, figure out what it would take to add a few Cunningham Rehab facilities to our portfolio. Dad was looking for some ideas to get my brother’s feet wet in his new job.”

She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his, her breath warm against his cheek.

“I love you,” she whispered. “But you scared me. You scared all of us. Blaine, you gotta be more careful. Your guardian angel is about to walk off the job.”

He closed his eyes, tears slipping down his temples.

“I know. I am so sorry, Laur. I don’t even know how to say how much.”

She kissed him again, gentle, trembling.

“We’ll get through it,” she said. “But not like this. Not with secrets. Not with you hurting yourself. That has to stop, Blaine. I do not like secrets between us. I will help you through anything, but I won’t forgive lies anymore.”

He nodded, unable to speak.

Lauren rested her hand on his cheek, her belly brushing the side of the bed, her eyes soft and exhausted.

“We’re a team,” she said again. “But you have to let me help you. And you will have to listen to me, even if you don’t like what I have to say.”

He nodded, gripping her hand like a lifeline, kissing it.

He felt like he had come too close to losing everything again.