The Man, The Myth, The Nerd
High School Billionaires #3
Maggie Dallen
Contents
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
Epilogue
Audible Love
About the Author
Chapter One
Tieg
Daisy L. Whittaker.
The name at the bottom of the email stared back at me. It was weird to see her name typed out like that. I stared at the text on the screen, but in my head, I could see that same name scrawled on the bottom of a Valentine’s day card or scribbled on the front of her notebooks. When it was handwritten, the i in Daisy always sported a little heart over it.
Or it did back then.
Probably not anymore.
She’d be eighteen now, and she’d likely outgrown little hearts just like she’d have outgrown me.
The air was too thin in this hotel room. I couldn’t quite catch my breath. I should say something, I should do something…but instead I sat where I’d collapsed at the sight of her email on my screen.
The email wasn’t addressed to me. It hadn’t been meant for me at all.
The cursor blinking on the tablet and the whir of the air conditioner in my hotel room the only reminders that I was here. Now. In a London hotel and far, far away from my hometown.
Far, far away from Daisy.
And yet, some part of me was spinning out of control. I was barreling into that Twilight Zone spiral, and any second now I’d open my eyes and realize that no time had gone by at all. It was just another day in Jordan Springs, Montana, and the last three years of rock stardom had been just a dream.
“So?” My best friend’s voice broke the stifling silence in my room, and I stiffened. I’d almost forgotten she was still on speakerphone. “Will you do it?” Jamie asked.
I could hear her urgency, mixed with breathlessness. She sounded like she was walking…hurrying. It was morning in New York and, if I had to guess, she’d either be running to her private school on the Upper East Side, running off to run her new nonprofit organization, running to see our mutual friends Liv and Oliver, or running to meet up with her boyfriend—who was, in fact, a runner.
My best friend was always busy, which meant she was always on the run. Right now, that was a relief. She sounded distracted and frazzled, maybe she wouldn’t even notice that I was freaking out over here.
“Tieg?” she said, her voice less distracted and far more alert.
I let out an exhale. She sounded concerned.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Nope. No. Not even a little bit. “Yeah. Of course.”
“I hate to even ask,” she said. “I know how busy you’ve been with the tour this year, but Travis Malcolm was supposed to do it—”
I think I shocked us both with the growl that slipped out. Travis Malcolm. I’d spotted his name, too, about halfway through the first email in this chain that Jamie had forwarded along.
I’d love it if Travis Malcolm could take part in our fundraising concert…
Travis Malcolm. Since when was Daisy a fan of Travis Malcolm? She didn’t even like country music.
“I thought you liked Travis,” Jamie said.
Travis was to the country world what I was to rock. A young up-and-coming star who’d taken the scene by storm. We’d paired up on a couple projects over the years. I’d been the one who’d introduced him to Jamie and her nonprofit since I knew he was always looking for ways to give back. Performing at benefit concerts seemed right up his alley.
“Tieg?” Jamie prompted.
“I did like him.” I gave my head a little shake. “I mean, I do.”
But Daisy doesn’t. Or, at least, she hadn’t back then. But that was three years ago. A lot could have changed since then. She’d been fourteen when I’d left, maybe she’d turned into a country fan since then. Maybe posters of Travis Malcolm had replaced The Beatles nostalgia she used to collect.
I stared blankly at the screen as a million emotions threatened to drown me. Guilt. Regret.
Longing.
I let out another weird sound, but this one was half sigh, half moan, and one hundred percent pathetic. I scrubbed a hand over my face. Get a grip, man.
“I wouldn’t be asking if Travis hadn’t come down with the flu,” Jamie said. “And then it just seemed so fortuitous since you’re getting a break from the tour anyways, and…”
I barely heard the rest of her explanation. I was too busy staring at the L in Daisy L. Whittaker. Despite all the nasty emotions swimming beneath the surface, the sight of that L initial made my lips twitch up with amusement.
The L stood for Lou. Daisy Lou. She used to hate it when I called her that.
I’d bet Travis-pretty boy-Malcolm didn’t know her middle name. Bet she would never have even told him.
But she’d asked for him.
The thought really shouldn’t have made my chest hurt like this. What had I expected? That after three years she was still pining away for me? She probably hadn’t pined for a whole day after I’d left. Not after the way I’d ended things. Not after the things I’d said, or the—
“Tieg?” Jamie’s voice cut into my trip down memory lane. “You don’t have to do the concert if you don’t have the time. I just thought, well…you grew up around there, didn’t you?”
Her voice was tentative. Sweet. Concerned. I didn’t talk much about my childhood in Montana, not even to Jamie, and I told her just about everything.
But I never told her this.
She had no idea what she was asking of me.
I didn’t grow up ‘around there.’ I grew up there, in Jordan Springs. With Daisy.
Jamie was asking me to go back home.
“If you don’t have time—”
“I could make the time.” The words just sort of slipped out. What was I doing? I should stay away. I’d promised myself I’d stay away. I’d spent three years staying away.
“Oh,” Jamie sounded surprised. “Well, great. So, does that mean…” She hesitated, understandably since I’d probably been sounding super weird during this whole conversation. “Does that mean you want to go?”
I opened my mouth and shut it. My BFF had no way of knowing how loaded that question was. Did I want to go?
Yes! No.
I wanted to, but I shouldn’t. Curiosity was just about to kill me as I tried to imagine what she looked like now, what she was into, how she’d turned out…what she thought of me.
Funny. Every day I was surrounded by girls who told me they loved me, but not a single one knew me. There was only one girl who’d said she’d loved me and meant it.
But she’d been just a kid.
We’d been little more than children.
And now?
Well, now three years had passed and I’d turned eighteen but when it came to Daisy? I was just as mixed up as the day I’d left.
All I knew was that her pretty green eyes had never once stopped haunting me. No amount of fans or fancy hotels or crazy paydays could erase the look in her eyes when I’d said I didn’t need her anymore, that she was holding me back right before I’d walked away.
Regret was a nasty thing. It had been eating at me for years, and now here was a chance…
Fortuitous, that was the word Jamie had used. Maybe it was fate
giving me a chance to say I’m sorry. I scanned the words on the screen for the millionth time. Better yet, this would be a chance to help her. To be there for her the way she’d been there for me back when we were kids.
Jamie sighed on the other end of the line. “Look, I really hate to ask you to do this since you’re so busy and all, but this girl is kind of desperate and—”
“I’ll do it.”
Her silence lasted a beat too long. “Yeah? Are you sure?” And then, as if realizing she shouldn’t give me a chance to back out, she added quickly, “Cool. Thanks, Tieg.”
I didn’t respond, just listened with half an ear as she rattled off the details of this concert that was supposed to raise money for the schools in my hometown. It shouldn’t surprise me that Daisy had organized something like this. In fact, it didn’t surprise me at all. When Jamie had first told me about her idea of creating a nonprofit that revolved around teens helping teens, my first thought had been of Daisy.
She’d have loved something like that. She didn’t have Jamie’s fortune to do something on that big a scale, but ever since we were toddlers, she’d been the bleeding heart of our little band of friends. She was the one who took in every stray dog, every wounded animal, every foster kid who needed a friend…
She’d taken me in whenever I’d needed a place to stay. Which was often. She’d given me a home whenever I needed it.
Who was I kidding? She was my home.
I was the poor foster kid from the broken home and she’d been good to me. So very good to me.
And look where it got her. My old friend Brady’s voice rang in my ears as if we’d had that conversation yesterday and not three years ago. We’d both been waiting for Daisy to get out of detention.
Again.
I was the reason she’d gotten in trouble.
Again.
Brady might have been the one to point out how bad I was for her, but by then I’d already known. He hadn’t been a jerk about it, just honest. He was stating the obvious. She’d follow you into battle, man. She’d go to hell and back for you, because she can’t bear to watch anyone suffer. Brady had given me a sad look—one that said what he didn’t want to say aloud. She felt sorry for me. I was that stray puppy she couldn’t bear to walk away from.
Which meant it was up to me to walk away for her. It was up to me to make sure she didn’t follow me any further. Of course, at that point, no one could have known that the ridiculous audition my foster mother had signed me up for would lead to such crazy success. But that was beside the point…
Brady had been right. The fact that Brady had a thing for Daisy probably had something to do with his lecture that day, but his crush didn’t change the fact that he’d been right. Daisy had been too good for me. Always had been and always would be.
I’d been a wreck as a kid, but she’d followed me from one bad situation to the next because she never wanted to see me go it alone. She’d always had my back, and all she got for it was detentions and punishment.
You’re dragging her down with you. You’re being selfish, man.
Brady had been right. I had been selfish…but not anymore.
I skimmed over the email. But now she was the one who needed help, and this…
This I could do.
Chapter Two
Daisy
Life in the Whittaker household was always chaotic. That was what happened when there were six kids, a single dad who worked all the time, and more pets than was absolutely legal—not without a kennel license, at least.
“My pancakes are soggy!” Beth, the youngest of my siblings was wailing this at the top of her lungs, as though soggy pancakes was truly the worst part of this day.
It was not.
Not even eight o’clock in the morning, and my day was already a disaster. As usual, Dad was already at work, and I had to make sure the kids got breakfast. Dad had pretty much checked out after our mom died, and someone had to fill Mom’s shoes.
These kids needed me.
“So, what are you going to do?” Keith, my brother who was only one year younger than me was grilling me from where he sat on top of the counter.
I pointed a spatula in his direction. “Go grab Beth another pancake and make sure she doesn’t drown this one in syrup.” I took a deep breath as I turned back to the stove. “And I have no idea. I mean, without Travis Malcolm—”
“You have nothing.” My younger sister Eliza had always been a pain in the butt but lately she’d adopted the super annoying tendency to finish everyone else’s sentences.
I sighed. “Exactly.”
Months and months of hard work, and for what? If we lost the headlining act for this highly publicized fundraising concert, we’d be left with a bunch of local talent. And while Willie Boyd and his friends had a pretty awesome cover band and played Def Leppard songs like nobody’s business…they didn’t exactly draw the same kinds of crowds as Travis Malcolm. No offense to Willie, but Travis had won a Grammy. Oh yeah…he’d also sold out Madison Square Garden. If he could do that, surely he could draw the kind of crowd we’d need to make this concert a success.
And I needed this to be a success.
A honking in our driveway cut through the anxiety that was about to take over. Focus, Daisy Lou. I could practically hear my mother’s voice in my head. Ever since she’d died I’d been hearing her voice—I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Maybe I’d officially gone crazy, or maybe it was just a normal part of grieving someone…I didn’t know. Maybe if we’d had the money for a shrink they could tell me. But since Goldilocks, our golden retriever, was the closest thing I had to a therapist, I was just going with the voices in my head thing and calling it good.
Eliza snagged a piece of toast out of the toaster beside me and slathered on too much jelly. “So what are you going to do?”
Keith was watching me too, waiting for the answer. The other kids were all bickering over who got to play a game on my phone. As the oldest, I was the only one with a smartphone and it was always in demand.
I focused on flicking off the stove and dumping the pan in the sink. “Keith, start clearing the dishes.”
Neither he nor Eliza commented on the fact that I hadn’t answered. I couldn’t answer. What would I do if Travis didn’t get better in time?
No idea.
Jamie, the girl who was helping with the funding for this concert, and the one who’d hooked us up with Travis in the first place—she’d promised that she’d find some solution. I believed her. I took a deep breath as I helped Keith snag the dishes out from beneath the grubby, sticky hands that were currently fighting to gain control of my phone.
“My turn,” Jason said, his brow furrowed as he held on for dear life.
“Daisy,” his twin brother Matt howled.
“Tristan’s dad will be here any minute to take you to school,” I said. “Go wash your hands and grab your bookbags.”
Our family’s ranch wasn’t on a bus route, so our neighbors dropped the little ones at the grade school each morning along with their own brood.
Another honk sounded.
“Brady’s here,” Beth called out unnecessarily. We all knew who was out there. Brady had been giving me rides all year even though our house was out of his way in the mornings.
I glared at the boys who were still holding on to my old, used phone. “Get going.”
They both dropped it at once so it clattered onto the tabletop where Beth promptly grabbed it. “Daisy, you got an email.”
“What are you doing reading my emails?” I snatched it back from her and gave her a nudge. “Hands. Clean. Now.”
The next few minutes were a whirlwind of washing hands, dumping dishes, handing out bookbags, throwing food into lunch bags and shouts of goodbyes. When everyone but me had gone out and piled into their respective cars, it was my turn.
I gave Brady an apologetic grimace as I raced out and hopped into his passenger’s side seat of his truck, Keith and Eliza already bickering
in the backseat over what radio station we’d listen to on the drive.
Brady ignored them both as he put on the country station. Eliza groaned. She hated country. I wasn’t a huge fan either, but it was better than the alternative. Yesterday Brady had caved to Eliza’s demand and put on the pop station that played the current mainstream hits and we’d had an awful, awkward moment when his voice had come through the speakers, filling the car with a mountain of memories.
Brady had shut it off quickly and we’d driven the rest of the way in silence. There was no need to talk about Tieg—that conversation had been worn thin years ago. How could he leave without saying goodbye? How could he walk away and leave us all like that? How could he never ever look back?
Whatever. Useless questions that would never get answers, and I was fine with that. Good riddance. I had bigger problems than an old friend who’d abandoned me, and they wouldn’t be solved by stewing over the past.
“Any news on Travis or his replacement?” Brady asked.
I glanced over at his profile, so stern and so serious. So very familiar. “Nothing yet.” Then I remembered the email I’d gotten but hadn’t yet read. I tried to refresh my inbox even though I knew the attempt was useless. I had zero reception between the ranch and school.
Sure enough—no bars, no email, no news.
I took a long slow breath and stared down at the phone in my lap as if I could summon cell reception by sheer force of will.
Brady’s hand reached over and squeezed mine. “We’ll figure it out, Daisy. Don’t worry.”
Don’t worry. Easy for Brady to say. As one of two sons of the local doctor, Brady never had much to worry about. He never had to stress about money or making ends meet or making sure his five siblings were fed and bathed and doing okay at school.
He never had to worry about leaving them behind.
The Man, The Myth, The Nerd: High School Billionaires #3 Page 1