by Salsbury, JB
Strike a Chord
JB Salsbury
Copyright © 2020 by JB Salsbury
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: Pixel Mischief Design
Edited by: Joy Editing
To those who believed in me.
…and to those who didn’t.
Contents
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by JB Salsbury
Prologue
Ten Years Ago
Taylor
Mom always says a watched pot never boils. From my stepstool in the kitchen, I look down into the pot of water as tiny bubbles float to the top. Another lie. Mom has lots of them.
I haven’t eaten much since school lunch on Friday. The calendar hanging crooked on the kitchen wall says today is Sunday. With Mom gone on weekends, I only have the little bit of food left in the cupboards. My tummy has been making noises all day. I saved my last box of macaroni and cheese because Mom always comes home on Sunday nights.
Part of me wishes she wouldn’t come home so I could have the entire box to myself, but Mom wouldn’t like that. She’d call me selfish. I can hear her yelling at me even when she’s not here.
“You don’t appreciate what I go through to put food on the table!”
Macaroni noodles sink to the bottom of the pot and I stir them with a wooden spoon. The clock on the microwave says it’s eight thirty at night. Mom should’ve been home by now.
Maybe I’ll get the whole box to myself after all.
The door explodes open just as I’m scooping my dinner onto a plate.
“Taylor!” Mom rushes in with her purse in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. “Taylor, get in here—” Her words come to a stop when she sees me on my knees on a chair at the table.
The buttons of her shirt are open at the top and it’s falling off her shoulder to show part of a black bra. She drops everything on the table. The scents of hot food and spices waft out of the bag and I lean in to look inside.
“Hurry, we don’t have much time.” She pulls bowls out of the cabinets and the scrunchie in her ponytail falls farther down her back with each jerky movement.
She frantically fills bowls with mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and finally she dumps a bucket of fried chicken onto a big plate. I reach for a drumstick. She smacks my hand. My gaze snaps to hers and I tuck my hand into my belly.
“Not yet.” Her words are rushed as she scurries to stuff all the food containers into the already full garbage. “Hurry. Get yourself cleaned up. He’ll be here any minute.”
I know she’s talking to me even though she’s not looking at me. I climb down from the chair and place the empty macaroni pot into the sink. What does she mean by “cleaned up”? Walking away from a table of hot food just to take a shower seems stupid. My stomach makes another rumbling sound. I’m about to ask if I can take a shower after I eat when she freezes and stares at the front door. Heavy footsteps get louder as they come up to our second-floor apartment.
“Shit,” she mumbles. Her hands shake as she gathers her blond hair into a tighter ponytail.
Mom looks like a Hollywood actress with tan skin, blue eyes, and long legs. She says all women have to use what God gave them to get by in life. But God gave her brown hair and freckles she’s always covering with makeup. She says God sometimes makes mistakes. I don’t understand, but Mom swears it’ll make sense when I grow up.
She fumbles with her shirt buttons as the door opens. I watch her expression change into something calmer. “Elijah! What on earth are you doing here?”
My dad’s shoulders are as wide as the doorway and he’s just as tall. He drops a duffle bag inside, and even though the lower half of his face is covered in a thick beard and mustache, I can see in his eyes he’s not smiling.
“Left you a message sayin’ I’d be here in thirty minutes,” he says calmly enough, though his deep voice makes the hairs on my arms stand up. He closes the door and heads toward me. I see his mustache lift at the corner. “Well look at you. You’re growing like a weed, Tommy—”
“You haven’t seen her in eight months, of course she’s grown. And would you please stop calling her that?” My mom smooths the front of her shirt, but my dad doesn’t take his eyes off mine.
He steps closer to me and squats down to my level. His eyes sparkle as they move around my face, but he frowns when he looks at my hair and my shirt. I try to cover the stains, and he stares at my hands. My nails are dirty and need to be cut. I feel hot while he studies me.
Finally his mustache twitches a little and he goes back to looking at my eyes. “Eight years old. Did you get the birthday card I sent you? I picked it up when we went through Memphis. I know how much you like Elvis.”
I look up at my mom because I never got a birthday card and I don’t know how to answer.
She rushes to us and places a hand on my dad’s muscled shoulder. “We never got a card. Must’ve been lost in the mail.”
He stares at her hand on his T-shirt through squinted eyes. I step back, worried that the yelling is about to start. When my dad comes back to town from work, there’s always a lot of yelling.
He looks at me, frowns, and with a tiny nod, stands back to his full height. “Smells great in here.”
“Yes, well, we’ve been cooking all afternoon, haven’t we, Taylor?” Her eyes are big as though she’s begging me to agree.
Mom always makes me a liar too. Like when she makes me pretend to slip and fall at restaurants so we can get free food.
I nod.
“All afternoon, huh?” My dad pulls out a chair, then holds his hand out to me.
I don’t take his and ball my own at my belly, but I do sit in the seat. He scoots me closer to the table. As he moves behind me, his big fingers squeeze my neck and it feels like a hug.
“Yes, pretty much all afternoon.” Mom takes her seat, puts a napkin on her lap, and dishes up my plate with mashed potatoes and chicken.
Dad sits at the other end of the table. His weight makes the tiny chair squeak. He puts his elbows on the table and stares over the food at Mom. “When I walked passed your car, the engine was hot.”
I take my plate from her and my fork doesn’t move fast enough as I shovel bite after bite into my mouth. Potatoes mix with slaw, mac and cheese too, but I’m too hungry to care.
“Jesus, Tori.” He curses under his breath. “When was the last time Tom ate?”
“Would you stop calling her that! She’s a girl. Look!” She yanks my arm away from my plate, scratching me with her long nails. “She’s getting boobs.”
Morti
fied, I rip my arm away from her and cover my chest. My face flames and I can’t make myself swallow the food stuffed in my cheeks.
My dad curses, five or six in a row. He stands, forks an extra piece of chicken onto my plate, and hands the plate to me. “Sweetheart, why don’t you finish dinner in your room? Your mom and I need to talk.”
I take the plate and race from the kitchen with my head down.
This is when the yelling starts. They think I won’t be able to hear, but our apartment is small. I can even hear Mrs. Evans next door, talking on the phone, through the wall. With the taste of food fresh on my tongue and my stomach still empty, I sit on the floor in my bedroom to finish my dinner.
“You’re not taking my daughter out of the country.” That came from my dad. He didn’t yell, but the words sounded even scarier the way he spoke them.
“Oh, come on. This is Mitchell Van Buren we’re talking about. We’ll be living at his villa. He has more money than God—”
“Doesn’t matter how much money he has. You’ll leave her alone in a fucking villa just like you do here in LA.”
I don’t know what a villa is and grab my drumstick, eating every bit of meat off the bone.
“Mitchell loves her like she’s his own—”
“Do not bullshit me! He’s just another one of your Hollywood dicks, he doesn’t give a shit about Tom!” He’s yelling now.
“This is one of the reasons why we never got married! You’re the most inflexible person I’ve ever met.”
“No, we never got married because we weren’t in love. The only reason you had sex with me—”
“You want to bring this shit up again?”
I know how this fight ends, so I crawl into bed and put a pillow over my head so I don’t have to listen to what comes next.
He’ll say she’s a “shitty mom.”
She’ll yell about being “left behind while he’s off touring the world and fucking anyone who’s willing.”
He’ll get really angry then and say if he didn’t work, she wouldn’t “have a roof over her head” and how maybe she should “consider getting a job rather than being LA’s most undesirable gold digger.”
Then things will get quiet. The front door will slam and I’ll finally be able to fall asleep.
That’s how it always is on the nights he’s here. I’m thankful it only happens once or twice a year.
My stomach is so full it hurts. I finally fall asleep, but not for long. I wake up to big, strong hands pulling me upright.
“Tommy, honey, wake up.”
My dad’s big body is a dark shadow at the edge of my bed. “What’s wrong? Where’s Mom?”
“Your mom is fine. Get up and pack what you need. As much as you can fit, but not more than you can carry.”
I slide off the bed and take the garbage bag he hands me. “Where are we going?”
“I’m getting you out of here.” His deep voice rumbles as if he’s still angry from his fight with Mom. “Shoulda done it years ago.”
“But Mom, she’ll be worried and—”
He shakes his head. “How long you been living on your own here?”
I lick my dry lips. “I…”
“Don’t lie to me.” I feel his eyes boring into me even though I can’t see them.
“I don’t know.” My hands shake and my stomach feels uneasy. The last thing I want to do is have my dad angry with me. “Mom says no one can know she sleeps at Mitchell’s—”
“Fuck.”
I flinch at his scary curse.
“I’m sorry, I’m not mad at you.” The words come fast as if he’s afraid if he doesn’t hurry and say them, I might run away. His hand moves toward my shoulder as if he’s going to touch me, but he drops it to his side and growls. “Eight years old and you’re raising yourself.” He turns his bearded face toward me. “Things are going to be different from now on. You’re going to live with me now.”
“Live with you where?”
Mom always says Dad lives on the road. When I asked if I could go visit him, she’d say, “The road is no place for a kid.”
He motions for me to follow as he shoves whatever clothes he can find in the trash bag.
“We’ll go to a hotel for now. I need to make some calls, line some things up. We hit the road in five days.”
I picture myself sleeping on the side of the road like the people I see downtown when Mom makes me come with her to run errands. I don’t want to cry in front of my dad, but tears burn my eyes.
“On the road?” I’m happy my voice doesn’t crack.
“’Fraid it’s the only option. Much better than leaving you here.”
“What about school?”
“School of life, kiddo.” He ties up the bag and throws it over his shoulder like a dark Santa Claus. “Last chance to grab anything else you want.”
I pull my pillow off the bed and slip my bare feet into my sneakers.
“You ready?”
I nod, worried if I speak, my voice will shake. I don’t see my mom often, but I see my dad less. I hardly even know him, and now I’m supposed to live with him on the side of the road.
What if he’s mean? What if he gets to know me and doesn’t like me? What if he tries to give me back, but my mom moves and I can’t find her?
I follow my dad through the apartment. Mom isn’t there to say goodbye, or to grab me and refuse to let me go. Her purse and keys are gone.
Outside, the air feels heavy and makes it hard to breathe. The spot where my mom parks her car is empty.
“Come on, Tommy.” His voice is quieter. Maybe he’s sad too. He squeezes the back of my neck. “Don’t give her another thought.”
My lips quiver and the tears in my eyes get too heavy to hold. Dad leads me to a shiny blue pickup truck. He tosses my bag in the back and opens the door for me to climb inside. The seats are soft and smell like perfume.
We pull away from my apartment building and I ask, “Where’s Mom?”
His forearms swell as his hands hold on tighter to the steering wheel. “She made her choice.”
What he’s really saying is she didn’t choose me.
Chapter One
Present Day
Ethan
Story of my life.
I’m sitting at a table in the basement of the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, minding my own fucking business. The entire touring team for Jesse Lee—everyone from the tour manager to the backline crew, opening band, and assistants—is gathered in one place to eat dinner. I’d been looking forward to a club sandwich all day.
“Your attitude sucks.”
Those three words are the only warning I get before I’m smacked in the back of the head, sending my three-layered sandwich to my plate in pieces.
“What the fuck!” I’m not even upset about the hit. I’m upset because I dropped my fucking sandwich and I’ll now have to figure out how to stack it up again. And let’s be honest, you can never restack a perfectly stacked club.
Jesse drops into the seat next to me, places his forearm on the table, and leans in close. “Our first week on tour and you’re acting like a petulant pussy bitch.”
Bread, turkey, bacon, bread, lettuce… shit, that’s not right. Bread, turkey, lettuce, bacon, bread… dammit! I push away the ruined food and cross my arms like a… well, like a petulant pussy bitch. “Can’t a guy have a meal alone?”
He frowns, glares, tilts his head. Feeling as if I’m being judged by my dad, I look away.
“It’s Ben,” Jesse says. “You’re pissed Ben is here instead of Chris.”
Now it’s my turn to glare. “No, dickhead. Your brother is ten times the musician Chris was, and I’m glad the dude is home, healing and trying to stay married. It’s just…” I shake my head. “I don’t fit in over there anymore.” I jerk my chin toward the table where Jesse’s wife, Bethany, sits along with Ryder, our drummer, and his wife, Jade. And Jesse’s brother, Ben, our new guitarist, and his wife, Ashleigh.
“I’ll b
e damned,” Jesse says with a smile. “You really are a little pussy bitch. Get your ass up and go eat with your band.” He stands and smacks me on the head again.
I clench my jaw and resist the urge to throw my bottled water at the back of his head. If we were alone, I would’ve done it, but in a crowd this size, someone is bound to share the story online. We don’t need to be brought down by rumors that the band is breaking up on week one of our tour.
I grip my water bottle tighter and reluctantly stand. I bring my ruined sandwich to their table. Jade sees me coming and pulls over a chair for me.
“You done with your pouting sesh?” Jade says through a smirk as I take the offered seat.
“How long are you riding with us again?” I ask.
She pinches my cheek. “Two weeks.” She puts up her hands in prayer position. “Or as long as our tour nanny holds.”
Ryder smiles adoringly at his wife. I wonder if he knows how pussy-whipped he looks? “Katie’s in good hands. Tammy is the best in the business.”
“Tammy the nanny?” I snort. “How adorable,” I say sarcastically and then ask, “She hot?”
Jade smirks. “She’s in her fifties.”
“And hot?”
“Ethan!” Bethany throws a wadded up napkin at my face.
A small, travel-sized bottle of tequila is set in front of me. I follow the hand that placed it there to see Ben’s wife, Ashleigh, giving me a knowing look. “It’ll make it more tolerable.”
“Wait, do you mean us? Make us more tolerable?” Bethany says—seconds before Jesse kisses her. With tongue. God, they’re disgusting. They take PDA to a whole new level.