by Piper Lawson
“He’d been planning to do it sooner. He talked to my father about it and they agreed, but once Cross died, Jerry stayed to help with the transition. I ensured he was always compensated well.”
“‘Well’ is a number guys in suits cooked up around a square table,” Jax muses. “You don’t pay a guy like Jerry well. He’s a genius. Fucking Mozart. I can make them show up, but he’s the one who makes them cry.”
I hate when Jax goes all sentimental. Or his version of it—compliments doled out with the kind of certainty that preempts any objection. It reminds me how deep-down decent he is, in a way few people will ever truly appreciate.
“You love him,” I murmur.
His gaze turns on me, surprised. “I’m not sure it’s a good thing, being loved by me.” I want to ask what he means, but before I can, he goes on. “The guy’s going to have a hard time leaving this place. What I don’t know is why you’re still here. You sold the company. You can’t move on?”
I hesitate. I hadn’t wanted to involve him in this, but now that he’s asking, it’s hard to say no. “Cross started a program years ago. I took it, changed it. We help kids who don’t have access to music get a chance to play. To record. To find their voice.”
“Who’s we?”
“Okay, me,” I admit, taking another sip and shifting so some partygoers can pass us. The consequence is we’re close, inches apart. “This one kid would blow your mind. His family situation sucks, but he’s got incredible instincts for music. It’s like all the shit he goes through pours out of him. I’d love for you to meet him. Tyler looks kind of crazy, has blue hair—”
“Tyler?” Jax’s face darkens, and I wonder what I’ve said. “That little shit was on my couch this afternoon. With Annie.”
My brows shoot up. “What were they doing?”
“Talking.”
I wait a beat. “That’s it?”
“Laughing,” he amends pointedly. “Together,” he says, as though I’m being deliberately obtuse.
“They go to the same school.” I’d helped him get into the private school on a scholarship last year. Though most of the kids I work with are in public school, I convinced his mostly-absent parents this would be an opportunity for him. “I was hoping to introduce them, but it sounds like they already met.”
Jax glares and I try to hide the smirk because damn, he’s entertaining when he’s protective.
“You’re being a hardass,” I inform him. “Trying to control things you can’t control.”
“I don’t want her screwing up.”
“Screwing up or growing up?”
Jax rubs a hand over the pressed line of his mouth.
“You know, part of growing up is being able to admit your mistakes,” I murmur. “What happened in the rehearsal room… it was unprofessional. I’m sorry.”
Jax moves closer. “I asked you to blow me in exchange for songs—admittedly not my finest moment—and you’re apologizing to me?” He raises a brow.
“Yes.” I feel the flush crawl up my cheeks under the intensity of his stare. “Come on, Jax. You know I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t want to.”
His mouth twitches. “In that case, apology accepted. You left me with the worst case of blue balls in history.”
I can’t resist laughing when a man says ‘balls’ in a five thousand dollar suit.
My nerve endings are tingling all over again, partly from his dry comment and partly from thinking about what went down between us.
“I got the sense you were more than enjoying yourself,” I counter.
“I was. Until I wasn’t.” He shudders as if he’s remembering the moment I pulled back. It would’ve been funny if it hadn’t taken everything in me to do it.
He reaches into his pocket and holds out a flash drive. “A deal’s a deal. Mace and I spent all day on the songs. But I’m not sure they’re what you want.”
“I can’t wait to listen to them.” I take the drive from him.
“They’re not right, Hales.”
His brows draw together under his hair in worry, not anger.
My chest constricts. Seeing him in this kind of self-doubt is agonizing. “Jax… I get that it’s hard. Coming up with something new. But it’s always been in you.”
He jams his hands in his pants. “Oh yeah? You going to share some eternal wisdom from some dead white guy?”
“I don’t need it. I always had faith in you.”
Jax’s jaw works but he stays silent, as if he’s weighing the words in his mind.
“I was surprised to hear from you after two years,” he says finally.
“It wasn’t two years. I tried to get in touch with you the winter after you went back to Dallas.”
“You’re right.” Jax looks past me at the room of people, the laughter, the partying. “I should’ve called you back.”
I take a drink, remembering the first text in January. The second in April. The bourbon blazes a soothing trail down my throat.
“I was fighting for my kid,” he continues. “At least, that’s how I rationalized it. But I was nursing my ego too. You walked away from me and it took me a long time to come to terms with that.”
“You were the one who stopped us,” I correct, going on before he can interrupt. “But you were right. We wouldn’t have worked. I wanted to build something that was mine. You wanted to step away from it all. We were out of sync.” My chest squeezes as I turn it over for the millionth time. The pain is nearly gone after two years, and what’s left is just an echo. “But it’s okay, Jax. We can spend our lifetimes regretting. Atoning. For the things we chose, the ones we didn’t. That’s not why we’re here. Our job isn’t to regret. Our job is to live.”
“That’s very mature for a woman with a Betty Boop clock.” His amber gaze searches mine, serious and intense and full of an emotion I can’t decipher. “What would you have said if I had called you back?”
I straighten, drawing in a breath and holding it. “You really want to know?”
“Yeah. I really do.” His gaze is open and curious, and this Jax is the one I remember. The one I can’t say no to.
“The first time was because I was pregnant. The second time was after I miscarried.”
10
Music fills the ballroom. A third progression, my brain says. I hate that part of it goes there even as Haley murmurs an excuse, turns on her heel, and vanishes into the crowd.
Pregnant.
Miscarried.
Go after her. My body is heavy. My feet are lead, my stomach an anchor.
“What’s with the monkey suit, son?” The man stepping between my target and me is the only one who could slow me down.
Jerry is a foot shorter than me, but it feels like I’m looking up to him.
Always has.
I force myself to focus on his lined face. “Heard some famous guy is retiring. You know who it is?”
He laughs.
“What’re you going to do with all your time?”
“Garden.” His knowing eyes search mine. “You’ll be okay.”
“I will if you will.” But my gaze drifts back to Haley across the room, my fingers flexing. Her back is straight, her face focused on what she’s hearing.
I wonder if he can read my mind. “She was a hell of a girl. Now she’s a hell of a woman. She’s had to take on a lot. For all his faults, Shannon wanted the best for her. He would’ve been bothered by how much she’s been through. But proud of how she’s handled it.”
“How do you do it, Jerry?” My voice is low enough only he can hear.
“What’s that?”
“Decide you haven’t screwed everything up.”
His milky gaze crinkles at the edges. “That knowledge is beyond us. All we can know is that we’ve done the best we can. Made some good music along the way.”
I want to claw at my collar. To rip off my jacket and run outside and bellow. Because this is wrong. All of it. We shouldn’t be in here, drinking expensive champagne. Pe
ople shouldn’t be smiling at me and prodding me for info about the new album.
I’ve fucked up. In a way you can’t come back from.
I start toward the door but get interrupted by industry execs.
It’s half an hour later when I spot her again. Surrounded by a group of suits.
I start toward her, intending to interrupt, but pull up halfway there.
She’s smiling. I can’t tell if it’s forced or real but regardless, what am I going to say to her?
She’s past it.
This is mine to live with, to wrestle with.
The car takes me home, and I ride up the elevator. I jerk the bowtie off, unbuttoning the top of my shirt.
When the door opens, I see Annie and Mace playing cards on the coffee table. Her smile falls away when she sees me, and she stalks into her bedroom, slamming the door.
“Thanks for the save,” I tell him.
“No problem.” He rises, brushing off his jeans as his gaze runs over my tux. “You okay?”
I strip off the jacket, hanging it on the back of a chair in the dining room. “Forgot how intense it is.”
“I bet.”
“You want to stick around for a drink?”
“Nah, I gotta go do some schoolwork. A paper to write on Caracci’s Hercules.”
After Mace leaves I go out onto the balcony, a crystal glass in one hand and Lita’s bottle of bourbon in the other. I pour two fingers into the glass, inspecting it. It’s good liquor. The kind I never had until I started on this twisted, beautiful journey.
I toss it back and pour another. The glass dangles from my fingers as I look out over the skyline, twinkling in the night.
“The first time was because I was pregnant. The second time was after I miscarried.”
I feel it. The instinct to regret, to atone. The one I’d never noticed until she pointed it out.
“We can spend our lifetimes regretting what happened. Our job isn’t to regret. Our job is to live.”
Jerry’s retired. Haley’s spent two years alone. Annie hates me.
All I ever wanted was to protect the people in my life. Where does that leave me?
Alone.
I’m alone in the dark with the feelings I can’t keep inside. Nothing matters. Not the money, not the recognition.
I drink the second glass, noticing every bit of flavor.
The empty crystal clinks on the glass table.
I go to my room and pick up my guitar.
Two moments fight in my memory for the worst moment in my life.
Neither was when my mom was arrested for dealing drugs and I learned she was going to jail, though it felt like that at the time.
No.
One was when I found out about Annie, that Grace and Cross had been hiding her from me.
The other was when I realized I couldn’t provide for myself and my sister. I made her go to school, where she’d bum food from friends. We tried to put on a brave face. We used to joke that the sounds from our stomachs were monsters trying to get out. I spent the days in the library, which was open until midnight, where there were private rooms with computers. This one woman let me bring in my guitar.
One night, I went home to hear my sister crying in her sleep.
I swore I’d protect her and do anything it took to stop her from being in pain.
That reality is a million miles from this hotel. The expensive carpet under my thighs. The soft lighting overhead.
But the emotion connects me to it.
My fingers move over the strings, and it might as well be my first guitar that I got from a secondhand store and learned to tune and play myself.
I croon under my breath, nonsense mostly.
The door creaks at my back but I can’t stop. It’s spilling out of me as though I’ve sprung a leak.
“Jax?”
Annie’s timid voice makes me stop singing. But my fingers continue, floating from one chord to another. I look up. She hovers in the doorway. Probably trying to make sense of her father sitting on the floor, back to the wall, playing his guts out.
She looks like me, like Grace. Her hair is redder, but her eyes are the same. They lighten to caramel when she’s excited or upset.
I always thought Annie was like Haley. A little serious. Way too smart.
We could’ve had a child by now. Haley and me.
Would he or she have grown up like Annie? Would they look like me? Like Haley? Would they call me dad, like Annie won’t?
Annie’s gaze drops to my guitar. “I haven’t heard you play in… ever.”
Instead of defending it, I tell her the truth. “I haven’t needed to.”
She pads inside and shifts onto the corner of the bed.
“Tyler and a couple of other guys from school play at Wicked. Like you do.” She hesitates. “I know you think it’s weird that I don’t hang out with girls. But the girls don’t like me.”
My jaw tightens. “What do you mean?”
She plays with the cover. “They say things. About you.” Annie looks up and misery fills her expression. “They talk a lot about famous people. Famous guys especially.”
I have to stop myself from shutting my eyes. Leaning my head back against the wall. “And that’s why you don’t make friends with them.”
She nods.
“Was it the same in Dallas?”
Another nod. “It didn’t used to be this bad. Just this year.”
The tentativeness in her voice makes me wonder how many thousands of thoughts go through her head every day that she never shares. How many experiences she never lets me in on.
I see her each day but it’s as if she’s a stranger.
My fingers switch, and I’m playing something else. There are no lyrics. It’s just chords, vibrations. The kind that take hold of your heart. That shine a lantern on the path ahead and tell you where to go.
Haley might disagree with me, but when you’re spilling your guts through a song, that’s not healing pain. It’s opening it up, exposing it to the light. Diffusing it through a crystal so you can see it and share it and decide what it means.
I don’t know the words that make pain go away. If I did, I could rule the world.
“Sometimes I think I hate you.” Annie’s small words are uttered quietly. “But even when I think that, I still want to know you.”
Her earnest face has my heart squeezing. “Because I have three Grammys and got you that signed Timothée Chalamet picture?”
“No. Because you’re a good cook. You bite your nails even though you try to hide it. You think watching documentaries counts as homework. You hum when you drive.” She shifts closer, bracing her elbows on her knees to bring her face level with mine. “And because you care. Some of the other kids at school… they have all this money, but it’s like their parents don’t even care what they do. Sometimes I wish you cared less. Then I take it back. Because I don’t. Not really.”
My chest expands, stretching my ribs until it hurts. If there’s a way you’re supposed to handle this I have no fucking clue what it is.
So I stop trying.
I brush my thumb over her chin. “Good,” I say finally.
I go back to playing, and she shifts forward to lie on her stomach, a smile painting the edge of her lips as her eyes drift closed. “That’s pretty.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s still pretty.”
My song finishes, my fingers stilling.
“Are you writing it down?” she asks as the final sound waves die.
“No.”
She leaps off the bed and runs out the door. A moment later, she’s back, dropping on the covers again. Annie sets her phone on the floor in front of me. “Play it again.”
11
Haley
“You out for lunch?” I ask Serena when I call her on Monday afternoon.
“Yeah. You want to join?”
She gives me directions, and I meet her at the fast-healthy place. A familiar black-and-wh
ite fluff ball is in her arms.
“We had to go to the vet this morning,” she informs me when I sit down.
“He looks very healthy.”
“I think he’s depressed. He doesn’t play like he used to.”
I debate how much to say. “He is…” I lower my voice as if it makes a difference, “…old.”
“No way. Skunks live two to three years in the wild, but they can live up to ten in a loving home. It’s proof!”
“Of what?”
She sighs. “That all you need is love.” I can’t help but laugh at her over-the-top gushing. “Although it also occurred to me that maybe he needs another kind of love. You know.” Her gaze narrows. “Something more physical?”
Oh, God.
“I thought about putting an ad on Craigslist for someone with a female skunk who wants to—”
“Don’t finish that sentence. Or that ad,” I beg her.
Serena sighs, looking past me. “Fine. I’ve put in our order, but you need to go pick it up. They won’t let Scrunchie in.”
I reach over to stroke a finger over his soft head. “Sorry, handsome.”
I go in and grab our food, then come back to the metal table and chairs outside.
Serena lifts her sandwich off the tray and I reach for my salad. “So Jerry’s party was bomb,” she says. “It’s been written up on five blogs in the last forty-eight hours.”
“I saw you with a guy. Scratch that. A man.” I think of the tall, dark and confident form I’d seen her laughing with at one point.
“Jacob Prince. He’s got a jewelry company.”
The name scratches at my brain as I stab a forkful of lettuce and cheese. “Prince Diamonds?”
“The one and only. He’s a New Yorker, happened to be in town for the weekend. We went to boarding school together.”
“Really?” I chew, studying her face.
“The man’s got issues, but all the good ones do. The stories our crew had... Skunk sex has nothing on boarding school, believe me.” She grins and I’m almost tempted to ask. “But speaking of men too handsome for their own good, I saw Jax in a tux.” She fans herself. “Tell me you were unaffected by that.”