“No.” I tucked a curl behind my ear and wrapped my arms around my stomach. It was eighty degrees out, but it felt more like sixty-five right now.
“Just calling it like I see it.”
“Don’t remember asking you to.”
He sighed, stopping mid-stride and turning to face me. “Look. I’m sorry, but you’re way out of that guy’s league, and I think he knows it.”
Rolling my eyes, I took off by myself. What the heck was I thinking? Trying to play nice with Kyle was like trying to play nice with a hyena, and I couldn’t make myself do it. At least, not right now.
I wound up eating in a sub shop alone, and after I sat at a table by the window, I pulled my phone out to see two messages from Tay.
Taylor: How’s it going down there, girl? Meet anyone famous yet?
Taylor: . . . That text was so lame. I don’t care if you’ve met anyone famous. I just want to know how my bestie is.
I hit the reply button, staring at the cars passing by outside.
Me: Doing good. Recorded our first song. Still can’t stand Kyle.
I scrolled through my contacts until I found Cory’s number. I hovered my thumb over his name, fighting off every last ounce of my self-destructoid soul to keep from texting him. That’s all it would lead to, right? More rejection. And if there was any taste I was tired of, it was the bitter taste of being the repeat reject. And as much as I thought I loved Cory, I had to love myself more, even if loving myself more meant preserving what little bit of self-respect I had left. I’d waited for him to come around for almost a year. As amazing as I thought we were together, apparently, he didn’t think the same thing, and I couldn’t handle the torture of trying to get him to see it a second time.
This was it for us. Nolan had to be right. We just weren’t good for each other, and for whatever weird reason, I just couldn’t get a grip on that fact.
But I had to.
My phone pinged.
Taylor: Ha. I knew you guys would come off your bestie status fast. Have you heard from Cory?
I groaned internally and blew a deep breath.
Me: I’m so over it
Taylor: Liar
Me: How’s Ryyyan?
There, maybe that would get her off my back about him.
Taylor: Nice try. You crushed on that guy for over a year, and you professed your undying love for each other a week ago. I know you have to be dying . . .
A lump formed in my throat, and that ridiculous ache was back in my chest.
Me: I texted him twice. No answer. I have to be over it.
Taylor: I’m so sorry, Lee. Girls’ night the next time you’re home?
Me: 100%
Another text came through.
Kyle: Ready to get back? I’m waiting outside your sub shop.
Me: I guess, creeper.
Kyle: Knight in shining armor’s more like it. There’s a weirdo out here, and I’m not letting you walk back unprotected.
Me: Omg.
Kyle: Genevieve just called. They’re ready to roll.
Me: Hold your horses.
I scrolled back to Cory’s name and opened a new text. My last two texts were borderline psycho-clingy-ex level. I think I’d even told him I couldn’t be happy without him in my life, but that was a big crock. I could be happy without him after I healed, and I needed him to know it.
Me: Not sure why you’re doing this again, but I respect you enough to leave things where they are. I’m heartbroken, but I know I’ll bounce back someday. Just know I’ll be praying for you, and Bridgeport this year was my favorite of all time because of you. I hope you’re somewhere fishing. I guess this is goodbye.
My eyes blurred, my thumb hovering over the reply button, but I didn’t want to press send yet. What if he’d snapped out of it in the last hour, and he was about to call? What if sending this text meant closing the door on us forever?
“Sorry, but we gotta go, Lea.” Kyle’s voice came from behind me.
I sighed as my thumb connected with the screen and the message sent. I drew a deep breath and swallowed the pain, blinking back against the sting in my eyes as I met Kyle at the door.
“You okay?” he asked, holding it open for me.
“Fine.”
“I know girl code. That means the opposite. I’m sorry for earlier. I guess I should’ve kept my mouth shut about that guy.”
“It’s fine, Kyle.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I motioned toward the recording studio. “We have to go, remember?”
Running a hand through his hair, he nodded, but he didn’t budge. “You deserve someone who’ll be there, no matter what.” With that, he took off toward the studio.
I rushed to catch up to him. “Maybe it’s not that simple sometimes.”
He shrugged, grabbing the handle on the studio door. “Don’t see why it can’t be.”
Of course, he couldn’t. He’d never had to go through anything major in his life, and his parents waited on him like he was legit next in line for some kind of throne.
“Let’s just try and stay focused from now on,” I said over my shoulder as I passed him.
“For sure.” He cleared his throat. “Ready to rock this thing?”
“I was born ready, Keller.”
He barked a laugh and nudged me with his arm. “No joke there.”
“And thanks,” I added, because maybe I’d overreacted back there.
“For what?”
“The whole knight in shining armor thing. I know you’re trying. I appreciate it.”
He winked.
I rolled my eyes, and we got back to work, and the whole time I kept my thoughts about Cory at arms-length, right where I could still see them, but they couldn’t hurt me anymore. At least, not as much as they wanted to.
Nineteen
CORY
Pastor Gregg waved a hand out over the staffers sitting in our morning devotion on Tuesday. “Remember now, no matter what you’re going through, God’s just a prayer away.”
I rubbed the callous on my palm, more than ready to get out on the lake again. My plane landed late last night, and Tucker’d come to pick me up, recounting Lea and Kyle’s performance line-by-line for me. Apparently, they blew the roof off the place. Didn’t surprise me in the least, and I’d bet my future on the fact that they’d do well in the big leagues, too. Dang, that burned a hole through my gut.
But better like this than having Dad find out I was with her and hunt her down as payback.
Not a chance.
“All bow.” Pastor Gregg closed the devotion out with a prayer, and as soon as he said “Amen,” I was out of my seat and out the door. I’d called Mom before breakfast to make sure she was all right. The ring in her voice led me to believe she was more than all right, and she couldn’t stop talking about the new boss man.
If there was any reason to be happy about missing Lea’s performance, Mom’s safety was.
I’d missed thirty-seven calls from Dad, and I’d ignored about a hundred texts from him. All of them threatening me with the one crime I’d ever committed. He’d said that if I didn’t call him by the end of the day with Mom’s location, that was it. He was reporting me. I’d do him one better.
I shot straight for the pay phones. Dialing the recruiter’s number was easy compared to waiting out the rings on the other end. This could mean the end of my biggest dream, but I’d make a new one if I had to. Crabs weren’t fish, but in a pinch, they’d work.
“This is Neil.”
“Cory here, sir.”
“Cory. Hey, bud. How’s it goin’? You ready to sign on that dotted line?”
“More than ready, sir, but I have something I need to talk to you about.”
“All right? Lay it on me.”
“I, uh . . . There’s something in my past.”
Silence followed, and I wasn’t sure how much he needed to know.
“What kind of something, kid?”
I drew a deep breath, turned my shou
lder to the road, and did my best to ignore the chills coating my skin at the memory. “A fire.”
“Huh. Did you put it on your application?”
“No, sir.”
“Mm.”
I strained to get a deep breath, but this was the end for me. The sheriff would show up here within the hour once he found out, and I’d be hauled off to jail the same as Dad was, because no matter how hard I’d tried to take a different path than him, there was no escaping the reality. I was a criminal. End of story.
“I didn’t see anything on your background check.”
“No. We never—I mean, I never got caught.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the terror that always came when I was forced to recount that day. “I, uh . . . I came home from a bike ride with one of my friends after school––”
“Didn’t have a license?”
“I was eleven, sir.”
“Eleven?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Continue.”
“My dad was raging drunk. He was mad at me for going for the ride. Then night hit, and he told me I had to set my neighbors’ barn on fire. I told him no, but he didn’t care. He snuck us in and made the molotov. Then he made me lock the doors and showed me where to throw it. Told me he wanted all their cattle dead. I didn’t want to do it, sir, but I did.”
He sighed. “That’s rough, son. I’m sorry you had to go through that. Your dad sounds like a class-A citizen.”
I grunted.
He cleared his throat. “Truth of the matter is, you were an unwilling minor, made to do something illegal. That’s not on you, kid. That’s on him.”
A cold wave washed through my veins. Did he just say I wasn’t at fault? “But I burned their barn down . . . and everything inside.”
“At your dad’s command, right?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“And you were eleven?”
“Yes, sir.”
“End of story right there. Now, if there’s something else on your record you want to disclose right now, you’d better get it out in the open, but if that’s all, then I look forward to seeing you in my office in a few weeks to sign that oath. Understand?”
He had to be confused. I’d started that fire. Watched that barn go up in smoke. Heard my dad’s maniacal laughter. Heard all those cows suffering. And he’d always said I’d be put in prison for it one day. “But, sir, it was my faul––”
“I’ll say this one last time, but I don’t want to hear you challenge me again, recruit. There’s no legal grounds for anyone to go after you on it. Understood?”
My whole body froze, something cold washing through my veins. No legal grounds? That wasn’t possible. But this was a Naval officer I was talking to, and Dad was a liar. Always had been. Always would be.
“Yes , sir.” I shook my head, gripping the frame of the pay phone because it felt like the ground was tilting sideways beneath me.
“Anything else you want to discuss?”
I shook my head again, and my vision blurred, my chest inflating with an amount of air I’d never been able to breathe. “No, sir.”
“See you at processing, then.”
“Yes, sir.”
His end disconnected, and my whole world was coming off its hinge, the reality of what he’d said spinning back around in my mind, hitting me harder than I’d ever been hit before.
All my life, I’d been believing a twisted lie.
All my life.
I slammed the receiver back on its cradle, pulled my hat down tighter, and shoved my hands in my pockets, all of the times Dad had threatened me with that line of trash swinging back through my head. When I told him I was offered a baseball scholarship, that I wasn’t sticking around to take over the ranch, he’d threatened me with it. When I’d tried getting a job at the gas station instead of working for him. When I told him I was turning him in after he hurt Mom the first time, and the second time, and every time after that.
My breaths pounded hard, and I forced my feet toward the lake in a hurry, bending down on the dock to plunge my head underwater. I closed my eyes, listening to the clicks and the ticks, trying my best to forget reality. To forget every stolen opportunity, every missed dream.
I screamed my guts out under that water, and when I lifted my head, I slammed my hat back on, ignoring the stares of all the staffers on shore.
Someone cleared their throat on the dock behind me. “Hey. You okay, bro?”
I frowned, swiping a hand across my face, and pulling my hat down lower.
“I mean, you look about ready to rip someone's head off.” Tucker crossed his arms over his chest, and I swallowed hard, nodding.
“I’m fine.”
“I know you better than that.”
I shrugged and turned toward the shore. “Got a fishing tour in a minute.”
He sighed. “Get it out, man.”
I shook my head, fighting the urge to shove him in the lake. I looked at him over my shoulder instead and gave him a curt nod. “Said I’m fine.”
He lifted his hands out to the sides. “Whatever you say.”
Turning back to the shore, I clamped my jaw and set my mind to do what I had to: fishing tours through August, and then I was out of here.
LEA
“So, this is Brody and Georgia,” Genevieve said as we shook the hands of a willowy, tall blonde and Mr. Tan and Muscly next to her. “These guys run different parts of our production department, but they have a couple vacancies in the house they’re renting, and we thought you guys would be the perfect fit.”
Kyle gave me a wink before he started talking to Muscles about production and old-school records
Wispy Girl shot a smile at me. “How’s it going so far?”
I drew a deep breath and lifted my chin. “Really great . . . At least, I think it is?” I bit my bottom lip and tucked my hair behind my ear.
“Awesome. I heard the rough cut of your first song, and it sounds ah-mazing.”
“Yeah?”
Her blue eyes sparkled, and she stole a glance at Kyle over there, geeking out over a record Muscles had pulled from one of the cabinets at the other end of the room. “So, he’s cute, right?” she half-whispered.
I frowned, because eew. But then I remembered that Kyle actually was cute at first, until you spent the last five years battling him at every turn. The cuteness level dropped off the face of the earth at that point. “Uh. Yeah . . .”
“You should hook a girl up.”
I hid a chuckle behind my hand, but it didn’t help the snort that came with it. Everyone in the room looked at me as I doubled over.
Kyle shook his head, said something to Muscles, and turned back around.
“What?” Wispy asked.
I wiped my tears, shaking my head. “Nothing. Just . . . you’re basically gorgeous, right, and you’re in the production department of Zion. Which means you must have some skills.”
She grinned and lifted a shoulder. “Well, I mean, if the shoe fits.”
“Right. Just. The fact that you put a word in for Kyle is . . . uh . . . hilarious.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Because he’s . . .”
Her eyes narrowed, and she watched me like I’d just insulted her grandmother. I glanced up to see Kyle staring at me, arms crossed, brows raised. “He’s, um . . . a little annoying at first.” His brows dove down deep. “But he’s actually pretty great once you get to know him.” He shook his head and turned back around.
She cleared her throat, looking totally offended, but she had no reason to be. It wasn’t like I said something bad about her. “Look . . . Lea, right?”
I nodded.
She stood at full height and tilted her head. “I get that you’re new around here, so I’ll tame the harsh, but Kyle’s your colleague above all else. Especially in this building. And,
no, not every band ever gets along perfectly, but you should really work hard at staying positive about him. I won’t leak what you just said, but as your name gets out there, random people crawl out of the woodwork, just begging for trash to throw around the internet about celebrities.”
“Oh. I wasn’t, like, trying to throw him under the bus, but I mean, we have a less-than-stellar history, and he hasn’t been Mr. Perfect or anything. I thought you were trying to get his number or something.”
“No, I totally get it, but whatever feuds you’ve had before now, they’re over. You’re Kyle Keller’s number one fan now, baby.”
Gah! What the heck was even happening? “Okay? Sure. I guess I can do that.”
She nodded. “Perfect. So, let’s go check out our place and grab some dinner. I’m starving.” She said something to Muscles, and Kyle and I followed them out.
“Still annoying after all we’ve been through?” He side-mouthed it as we walked down the sidewalk behind them. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Lea.”
“Sorry.” I shrugged. “She was trying to get your number.”
A proud grin turned on his lips. “That girl was?”
I sighed. “Listen, Keller. We’re making a career out of this chance, and you don’t have time to mess it up over some LA fling. Especially not with someone from production.”
He rolled his eyes, but he didn’t say anything.
“Please try and remember me when you’re thinking about stuff like that,” I added.
“Oh. How? The way you just remembered me when you were talking to her? If I’m so annoying, why’d you agree to our contract?”
I swallowed, remembering Cory’s smile when he gave me the jewelry box he’d made. Losing him meant honing in on what I needed to do, not what I wanted to do. “Necessity’s a beast sometimes.”
“Oh. Nice. Thanks a lot.”
I sighed. “And because of what happened during the competition.”
He sighed, too. “Still can’t get over it.”
“Me, either.”
“Okay. I have a proposition for you.”
“No. There’s no way I’m going for one of your brilliant ideas, Kyle.”
“No, seriously. Give a guy a chance to explain. You’ll like it. Promise.”
Falling In Hard: Book Four in The Bridgeport Lake Summer Series Page 17