She didn’t even sit down or take a sip of the champagne. How rude of me, was the sudden and unwelcome reaction.
Logan was regarding her with a patience that was wearing thin. “You'll change your mind.”
“You think I’m being stupid about this?”
“I think,” Logan said, his voice tight, “you’ve been punishing me too long for something I already apologized for. What kind of groveling do you want to see?”
“I don’t want anything, oh god.” Haley pressed a palm to her forehead. “I’m not playing hard to get. I’m not putting you through a damn test. Please believe me.”
This couldn’t be what he wanted either. How could she tell him that so that this wouldn’t seem like a gesture wasted?
No, there was no way. She should just go.
***
She didn't even have to call Oliver to find out where he was. As she started walking, at first aimlessly and away from Logan, she heard two street musicians (working at the fair) talking about “the guy from the talent show.”
“...fighting a pirate. At the Irish pub.”
“Who's winning?”
“Hard to say.”
Haley panicked a tiny bit. She knew where that was and was breathless by the time she got there—only to find him arm-wrestling a guy who was indeed dressed as a pirate. Her sudden presence in the pub disoriented him, and it was all the pirate needed to throw him down. Cheers and hoots erupted from all the other tables, and Haley jumped a little.
“Talent Show loses again!” someone said.
Oliver managed to ignore the entire ruckus though. “Hey,” he said, meeting her where she stood. “I'm sorry—were you calling me? Maybe I didn't hear it. I think I got carried away here.”
She could barely hear him right then, with all the laughing, hooting, and the jig medley playing in the background. Every table had an oversize beer mug.
“I want one of those,” Haley said.
“Give Talent Show's girlfriend a beer!” someone yelled.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Haley told no one in particular, “but I’ll take that beer.”
She didn't pay for a single drink all night.
Chapter 27
Sunday
“I was thinking Hollow Couple,” Oliver said.
The comforter was draped over most of Haley's body and face, but he could have sworn he heard her snort. It wasn’t an unattractive sound anyway, despite her making it to express what he interpreted as disapproval.
“What?” he pressed, nudging her.
“It's one of your songs.”
“Yeah, one of a bunch. Because I write them for a living.”
“It's also old.”
“It was very well-received. What’s your point?”
She burrowed deeper under the blue fabric. “Your decision.”
He let her get away with that one. It was past two a.m. and they needed sleep, but he was still sitting up, thinking of what he'd perform at the Sunday concert. In about sixteen hours. His head was still clear at that hour, owing to the realization that his day was not bad at all. Despite fantastically losing at arm-wrestling to an overweight pirate and being heckled by an entire pub, including a family dressed as clowns.
He also felt over himself.
Song choices were set aside as he finally picked up the phone and started going through the messages, the emails, the voice mails.
“Is this the first time you're looking at it?” She was peeking at him from under the covers, her voice slightly muffled.
“It’s been a day or two at least,” he said. “It took a while to scroll down to the beginning. I wanted to read it in the right order.”
“How is it so far?”
He grinned, more at the phone, but he knew she was watching. “Riveting. Do you want me to read a selection?”
“Yes please.”
“This is from my publicist. 'I have to find out from fucking Twitter that you're in some town fair right now. Are you even coming back to NYC?' This is funny, because I didn’t hear from her at all when the press was on me. But I guess she likes to pretend that she was keeping me in the news anyway.”
The messages weren't as bad as he thought they would be. It was definitely worse when he wasn't looking, and he imagined the hell raining upon his actual world as he hid in this hotel room that looked like a library.
His landlord, for instance, was actually quite professional about his eviction.
“'Mr. Minot has been working on the relocation of your possessions on your behalf. I assume you will contact me directly if you prefer other arrangements,'“ Oliver read aloud. “So I guess my stuff isn't on the sidewalk.”
“I'm sure they would have been picked up by people who like free stuff anyway.” She was lying on her stomach, arms stretched over the pillow. He spied sleepy eyes and half a smile. He didn't get a detailed recap of what went down with Logan, but it couldn't have been too bad if she was looking like she was about to purr.
Maybe he could take credit for that too. Even though it had been her idea to have him take her from behind.
But anyway.
To his mother, he replied that he indeed visited Mama, that she was awesome as usual, and that they should visit during the holidays. He skipped over some friends asking about him with varying levels of concern.
Tomorrow’s Talent producers, three of them, tried to contact him, but all said the same thing. “’Did you talk to Trey? What did he say?’”
He read that aloud to Haley, and she laughed into the pillows.
The most recent message from Chris was interesting. “Hmm.”
“Hmm?”
“'New Jersey didn't book, but Arnie Bolton’s people called about a New Orleans show. Or would you rather wrestle pirates now?'“
“Arnie Bolton? The producer who’s here, too?”
He hadn’t spent nearly enough time with the guy. “Yeah. He and my folks go way back. He didn’t mention anything about this to me.”
“You’ve been busy running around too much. Too busy spending time with me. You should have been shaking hands and making deals.”
Oliver shook his head. “I don’t do that anyway.”
“But you made an impression. New Orleans sounds good.”
“I think I'll actually reply to this one.”
“When is that going to be?”
He checked the rest of the message from Chris. “A month or so.”
“Awesome,” Haley said, pulling herself higher up on the pillow and closing her eyes. “Too bad I'll miss it.”
“It's not that far.”
“It's not that,” she said. “I'm not seeing you again after tomorrow.”
“Not even at a show?”
“Especially not at a show.”
So this was how it was going to be. Still overall a good day.
“So what's wrong with Hollow Couple?” he said instead.
Chapter 28
Truth be told, Haley’s very first time at Breathe Music wasn’t all that outstanding. She wasn’t the best singer there, she tanked an attempt at songwriting, and her song choices during performances were weak at best. But then the last day happened, the concert featuring the students and mentors, and it was a turning point in her life. Or more succinctly, “Awesome!” Because she was a poet that way, back then.
Despite the larger audience at the Sunday concert, the pressure was considerably lifted for the students. They were merely an opening act to a dozen more seasoned performers, and that kind of thing put whatever talent you thought you had in perspective. No matter how good a student was, someone with even a year more of experience sounded better for some reason, and someone with a lifetime’s worth was a joy to witness. That first “last day” for Haley left her hopeful, that the work had only begun, and a weekend of so-so was not going to signal failure. That feeling sustained her enough to keep her coming back to volunteer.
Oliver talked about specific times in his life, dates he knew were respo
nsible for the what, when, how, and why of his life right now. If Haley were to begin tracking her life the same way, her last day at Breathe Music, that first time, at age fourteen, would be one of those moments.
Haley knew that she had to give that same feeling to Mia somehow. Had to let her know that it could get better, that she shouldn’t quit.
She started with donuts.
“Good morning,” she said cheerfully, ignoring Mia’s obviously nervous mood. Haley had snatched a couple of fresh donuts from Victoria’s personal stash and had no qualms turning them over to someone else. Her student deserved the sugar boost more. “This is my own personal Breathe Music tradition—heavy, carby breakfast, because today’s going to be big.”
“I don’t eat donuts,” Mia declared, hugging her mug of hot cocoa as if to protect it from the intruder.
“These are special donuts,” Haley said. “Have you decided on your song for the concert?”
She knew what mood the girl was in. What’s the point? Why bother. I want to go home right now before I humiliate myself further. Mia had done well enough last night, but not enough to change her overall mood. Mia and that mood, they were old friends.
“If you haven’t,” Haley continued, “I think you should do Dreams. Fleetwood Mac.” Haley had a good feeling about it for her.
Mia’s eyebrow turned up. “What?”
“Do you know it?” Haley suspected she did. “I think you do.”
“Of course I do.”
“I think you should try it. Can you do it on guitar?”
“I…” Mia looked down at her cocoa. “Yes, I can. But it’s old. None of these kids know it, I’m sure.”
“Do you need me to explain why I want you to do it?”
Haley also suspected that for all Mia’s self-scrutiny, she had absolutely no clue what she actually wanted to be and was looking for someone to tell her. Haley resisted doing that, as a rule, because no one wanted to be told what to do here, and it wasn’t her place. But maybe when you were sixteen you wouldn’t mind hearing it.
“Please,” Mia said.
Haley smiled. “I think you should do it because it’s a great song. A great song is never old. And I don’t mean you should go around choosing old songs because they’ll automatically be better. Better means better. It fits your voice, you know it, and you shouldn’t care what it’s supposed to mean for you as an artist. What you do as an artist is what you are as an artist. Does that make sense?”
Mia poked at one of the donuts. “You’re telling me to shut up and sing?”
Haley almost hugged her. “Yes.”
***
Haley didn't mean to make it sound like her parents were so against her music. That was one thing she would get from the Breathe Music people sometimes, especially the hardcore ones who did breathe their art and had no other life apart from it. They would be overly sympathetic, wishing that she could free herself from those who “suffocated her muse.”
It wasn't like that. Her parents didn't get it. Music was something other people did. The Reese family and their kind got up each morning, had breakfast, and clocked in somewhere.
This was one time though that she wished they did get it, that they understood what she was feeling and told her what to do. Haley wasn't daring enough to be the family pioneer at things. She briefly envied Oliver's family of artists, with at least three generations of people who could tell each other what to do when this happened.
At Sunday lunch, Haley's family talked about the weather, her brother at college, the Lee daughters, the hospitals, and not much else.
While squeezing the lime wedge into her pho, her finger started to sting like crazy, as if from a paper cut she didn't know she had, and Haley cursed under her breath. It sounded like a whimper, because it became a whimper, and she wanted to cry and confess everything.
I'm unemployed! I rejected Logan for good! I'm having sex with a broke rock star!
And then she started laughing.
“You seem happy,” Haley's mom said. “Is it because of Logan?”
“What? No. God no. What do you—did he tell you?”
Her parents exchanged looks, and yeah, they seemed to know something. “He came over,” her dad said, “and said he intended to ask you to move in with him.”
“That’s what he said?”
Her mom cracked a smile. “And that he’d marry you eventually.”
“Oh my god. I’m so sorry.” Haley was still laughing, and kept laughing, despite herself. “That’s… that must have been really awkward.”
“Only because we hadn’t seen him in months and then he surprises us with that,” her mom said. “And…we actually didn’t know if that was something you wanted. You haven’t even talked about him.”
“I said no,” Haley told her. “I said definitely no.”
She said that without thinking, because she was still a little loopy from the giggles, and wasn’t expecting her parents to look relieved.
Mrs. Reese admitted it first. “I think you’re too young. And you just started a job, and moved. It sounded like Logan was looking to keep you around.”
Right, they didn’t know that she had lost that same job. She wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, but Logan was not a part of that deal anyway.
“It does sound that way.” Haley nodded. “But that’s not how I want to do this. I mean, we’re over. We really are. Me being in Florida or not won’t change that. I’m still…figuring out what I want to do.”
“And you seem to look happier, even though you’re ‘figuring’ it out still.”
“I do?” Haley said, genuinely shocked. “I'm okay, I guess.”
Her dad was smiling. “Your shoulders are actually relaxed. Do you still get back spasms?”
That got her wanting to sit up straight, only to discover that her posture was perfect. And her back did feel better. “I don't think so.”
“Are you getting enough sleep? It's probably the sleep,” her mom said. “I thought your job was giving you stress, but maybe you're used to it now?”
“I don't know.”
There was a quick rundown of signs of physical well-being: better muscle tone, no dark circles under her eyes, eyes that were bright and not glazed over. Was she maybe not playing the piano with a horribly hunched back anymore? Was she getting enough exercise?
No, not really, not at all, and what?
“You didn't tell me that I looked like a zombie, like, by default,” Haley complained.
Her dad shrugged. “People look tired when they work. I thought you were tired. And maybe it was the webcam.”
“No, it looked like you were tired a lot,” her mom said. “But you're doing something right. I think it's the sleep.”
That, or she was actually free from certain things that gave her stress.
Maybe her parents “got it,” more than she gave them credit for.
Chapter 29
Oliver did not see Haley all day, which was a good thing, because he was practicing Hollow Couple and didn't want to hear snark about it. It was a solid song, damn it. It hit platinum in twenty countries. And all these kids who didn't remember what he was famous for, well, he'd show them.
When he got to his practice room first thing that morning, everyone was there—the siblings, Trey, and his student Ash. Trey, from the looks of it, didn’t quit. He and Ash were huddled together, working, and they seemed to have worked out any feelings of betrayal from yesterday.
Kari and John were at the keyboard, which was thankfully still in one piece, and working.
“So what’s it going to be today?” he asked them.
“It actually might be Aerosmith,” Kari said, her smile sly and not at all like she was deciding against her will. “What do you think?”
He thought it was an excellent idea. “Don’t be afraid of growling a little,” he told Kari. And then to John, “Don’t do it at all.”
At breakfast, he found out from Victoria that he didn’t need to stay with his s
tudents today. Mentors had to perform too, and could use the day to practice if needed. He had brought Cornelia down with him, intending to check in on Kari and John and then go his own way and practice somewhere. Not his hotel room, in case Haley stopped by hers and heard him.
So yes, he had settled on performing the song that Haley was ambivalent about. He had a tried-and-tested acoustic arrangement of it up his sleeve. Trey was probably going to do his hit, and this would be miles apart from it in the direction of awesome. In his humble opinion.
“Hey, Oliver.”
Because Trey sounded nice and sweet whether he was being an ass or not, Oliver wasn’t sure how to react.
“Hey,” Trey said. “So, what went down yesterday. Sorry about that.”
Oliver searched the kid’s face for signs of mockery. Sorry for what? Sorry I said something we both know is true? But he didn’t see it, at least right then.
“I know you don’t want any advice from me,” Oliver said, “but best to watch that temper. It’s not fun, when this happens often.”
Trey had his hands in his pockets, and he nodded. “I know, I know. I…I’m not usually like that. I did want to be friends. I actually wanted to talk about…stuff. What it’s like. I know I need to talk to people who’ve been here.”
“And done that, sure.” Oliver looked him over again and noticed something else. The kid had done some reflecting of his own, for sure. They all did. If these students were his past, then someone like Oliver was his future.
Might have scared him like shit.
“Let’s hang out when this is over,” Oliver said. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know. But you might want to have your security tell the girls outside to go back home. It can’t be safe out there.”
“They don’t really sleep out there,” Trey said. “They’re on couches and sleeping bags at fellow Treynatic houses in the area, in shifts. But yeah, they shouldn’t be out there. I let my people decide what to do when it gets like this.”
Playing Autumn (Breathe Rockstar Romance Book 1) Page 15