Mistake’s Melody: Unquiet Mind Book Four

by Malcom, Anne

  Or ever.

  “She’ll heal or she won’t,” I finished. “And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it but be her friends. Being big and famous and awesome making kickass music couldn’t hurt.”

  “Yeah, well we’re on our way there. Sam would like everyone to think it’s his sex appeal and talent that’s getting us places, but we all know it’s Lex. Her music...it’s out of this world.” Wyatt paused, and I imagined him running his hand through his hair in frustration. “But it’s her pain. She’s fucking bleeding into the music. None of us want success that way. I’d be a starving artist all my life if it stopped this.”

  There was pain in his words. And truth. I knew he would give it up in a second to help Lexie, they would. Even Sam, who’d taken to fame like a fish to water. He’d give it all away for Lexie.

  “Yeah, well, the world doesn’t listen to what we want. And being rich and unhappy is a fuck of a lot more comfortable than poor, happy and hungry,” I told him, glancing down at my sad excuse for sustenance. “Lexie will bounce back.”

  “It’s been a year, she should’ve bounced. I’ve gotten over at least twenty girls since then.”

  I smirked. “Well, considering you did that by getting under twenty more, I don’t think it’s the same thing,” I said dryly. “Plus, she’s Lexie. She feels harder. Loves harder. Falls harder. She’ll pick herself up. She’s just got a fuck of a lot longer to climb than people like you or me.”

  There was a pause at the other end of the phone. “Now, I know I’m shallow, proud of it. But you, you’re not, Ems. You’re one of the deepest—and most confrontational people I know.”

  I jerked at his words. “No, Wyatt, I’m not deep. I’m just...”

  “Deep,” he finished.

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  “We are now.”

  “Wyatt,” I warned.

  “Fine,” he muttered. I heard shouts in the background and a feminine purr.

  That one hit me. Or maybe it was just the residual electric shocks. I didn’t care who Wyatt was fucking.

  “Shit, babe, I’ve gotta go.”

  “Ah, the orgies and blow await,” I replied, forcing my tone to be light and teasing.

  “Something like that.” I heard the smirk in his voice.

  “Wyatt,” I called after a beat, thinking he likely hung up, he had better things to do than linger on the phone with a nobody who insulted him for three-quarters of their conversations.

  “Yeah,” he said immediately.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “For calling. For caring.”

  He paused for long enough for me to think he had actually hung up. But I stayed on the line. “I’ll always call. And I’ll always care.”

  Then he hung up.

  It was a great effort, but I didn’t let his words or his tone affect me. Didn’t let them worm their way into that hopeful little girl that still existed somehow.

  I sat down with my sad dinner, glancing at the second-hand book I should not have bought. The book that meant this dinner would be all I’d consume for twenty-four hours since I couldn’t afford anything else until I got my paycheck tomorrow.

  But it was on David Hockney’s sketches and it was the one luxury I afforded myself, seeing the Yorkshire Wolds splashed through the pages in watercolor and ink fed me more than some terrible pre-packaged dinner.

  I was crap at school. I liked being there, since it was an escape from the utter misery of my home, and I got fed regularly, but I wasn’t naturally smart. English and Math were lost to me. I didn’t give a shit about what some super old and pretentious dude wrote about doomed lovers. In fact, I didn’t give a shit about any kind of lovers. I might’ve been one of the only teenage girls who didn’t binge on epic love stories if my life had gone a different way. But it didn’t and I had never been a girl to lose herself in love.

  Maybe it was because all those girls had been fed fairy tales by their parents, encouraged to escape into beautiful fantasies, to believe in such things. But my parents never read to me, never bought me books. They didn’t want me escaping into fantasies where things might’ve been beautiful and easy. No, they liked to remind me of just how brutal and ugly my life was. Encourage me to think, to know, that nothing more, nothing better awaited me. Hence me not having owned a single book and having no idea who Cinderella was when I met Lexie when we were kids. She’d been horrified, made it her duty to dutifully retell the entire story for me. We’d been friends ever since, despite my abhorrence for the happily ever after.

  I didn’t have Lexie’s love of literature.

  My brain didn’t work with numbers.

  Nor science or any of that shit.

  But art. Art was different to me. It encouraged me to get lost in a fantasy, it forced me to, in a short amount of time where I didn’t need the commitment of reading, running the risk of having my parents find a book I loved and destroy it. One glimpse was all it took and the fantasy inside the painting was mine. One I could make up my own ideas about. Ugly ideas. Paintings weren’t usually made with love. They were an artist’s pain and suffering forced onto a canvas.

  I couldn’t paint worth a shit—but I loved art. It was the one subject I excelled at. Might’ve majored in it in college if my other grades had been good enough to get me there. If I had been good enough for college.

  But girls like me didn’t go to college.

  Girls like me lived in shitty apartments, went hungry more often than not, and they lived the fairy tale that wasn’t written in books.

  One called reality.

  But for a second, looking at Hockney’s famous landscapes, I wasn’t in a shitty apartment eating heated up cardboard-like food.

  I was somewhere else.

  Someone else.

  Chapter Two

  Six Months Later

  “Wyatt,” I said into the phone as I rushed through the crowds on Michigan Avenue.

  I was late.

  Because I had been trying to get a stain off the one black semi-professional blazer I owned and color in my black heeled and scuffed boots with Magic Marker.

  I didn’t even know if I’d been successful in making myself look more than I was—trash. But even if I had, I was going to arrive red-faced, most likely sweaty and my carefully pinned bun probably messed up. I didn’t even know why I was making the effort to rush. But I did know because I would do anything to rip myself out of the life that was grinding me down. I was determined to do it.

  “I’m kinda busy,” I puffed.

  “Why’d you answer then?” he returned, smile in his voice.

  It hit me. I wished it didn’t. But something in his voice calmed me slightly whenever we had our sporadic phone calls. They were mostly about Lexie, but he made a point to ask me about my apartment—the same, but the oven had completely broken now. My job—also the same, but they’d reduced my hours at the print shop to the point where I was on the verge of being evicted again and I could barely afford a meal a day. My love life—non-existent. But I fucked a good amount of men. That was not included in my love life, because what I did with those men had nothing to do with love.

  I made sure of that.

  It was about an orgasm.

  A warm body touching mine, for a short amount of time, before I plunged into solitude once more.

  The empty feeling of being wanted—even if it was just for sex.

  None of those consisted of love.

  I didn’t give Wyatt this explanation. “My bed likely doesn’t see as much action as yours, but I also haven’t had to go on penicillin for a variety of STDs, so I’m okay with that,” I teased the last time he’d asked.

  “I answered because I have time to hear about how my best friend is doing,” I said.

  There was a pause. “She’s...much the same,” he said. “Been nominated for a Grammy.”

  I knew that. Lexie had called me. And then Mia had called me, screaming and crying and talking about how she had to have final say so on
Lexie’s acceptance speech. “If she doesn’t talk about her amazing, supportive, and deceptively young mother for at least five minutes I’m selling her baby photos to TMZ,” she babbled.

  I was beyond proud of Lexie.

  For the fact they were moving into some mansion in L.A., getting magazine covers, Grammys. And I was near enough to being homeless and living on food stamps I could taste the poverty.

  No way would I resent her.

  Or ask her for a fucking dime, no matter how much she offered. Well, I did take her up on her invite to the Grammys, because it was the mother effing Grammys and I needed to support my friend. I just did not let her pay for my flights. I used next month’s rent. Hence the outcome of the appointment I was currently turning up to late, sweaty and with Magic Marker covering up the scuffs in my Payless shoes, being pretty fucking important. Not just because it could be the start of me finally wiping the stain of poverty from me, but because it might mean I would be more.

  “Lexie’s the same,” Wyatt continued as I waded through the crowd. “But that’s not why I’m calling.”

  “No, I’m not breaking up with another girl for Sam,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Not that either. I know you’ve got your interview today. Wanted to wish you good luck. Let you know I’m sure you’re gonna ace it. They’d be lucky to have you.”

  That made me pause.

  No, that made me stop, right in the middle of the sidewalk I’d been pushing my way through, doing the thing I used to curse people for. I heard muttered insults flung my way as people roughly brushed past me, but I was used to having insults and jostles directed at me. What I wasn’t used to was rock stars calling me to wish me luck for a job interview.

  Even if I’d known this particular rock star when he was just a boy with a flirtatious grin and mischievous eyes.

  I shook myself off and kept walking, remembering my need to rush. “Who told you about that?”

  “I have my ways.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Lexie told you.”

  “That too.”

  “You didn’t need to call me,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied, voice strange and soft. “But with you, it’s not about need.”

  His words hit me again, but I didn’t stop this time. Though my mouth did. What does someone say to something like that?

  “Fuck, babe, I’ve gotta go,” Wyatt said, saving me. “Break a leg.”

  And then he hung up.

  Another girl might’ve spent hours, days, a freaking lifetime dissecting the call, the softening of his voice, the words. She would’ve lost herself in fantasies about one of the most attractive and famous men in the world falling for her. Wanting her.

  I wasn’t another girl.

  I wasn’t working on illusions that Wyatt—who had the whole world at his feet—would be interested in a girl from the gutter.

  So I put the call from my mind, shoving away fantasies of a man saving me from my life. And I set about saving it myself.

  Three Years Later

  “I can fly there,” I said, resting my cell against my shoulder so I could scroll through the available flights. Of which there were very few. “Fuck that asshole for dying when I’m in the middle of Mongolia sourcing one of the rarest pieces of art I might see in my career,” I cursed.

  Not that my career really mattered in the face of Lexie’s famous actor boyfriend dying. I would’ve been there yesterday if I’d thought for a second she had even a sliver of affection for the man. If she even had an ounce of the connection she had with Killian.

  But that was the thing. The whole point of her being with the square-jawed, manicured asshole was because he offered no chance of connection. He was the antithesis of Killian. Even if she dated someone who wasn’t a complete tool, who might foster a little bit of affection, I wasn’t sure if Lexie was physically capable of it.

  Four years had gone by and that gaping wound in her chest hadn’t even scabbed over. Her pain was as fresh and as agonizing as it had been when Killian had broken her heart when she was eighteen. She’d gotten slightly better at hiding it, and we’d all gotten better at pretending we believed her when she said she was okay.

  “Em, this is one of the most important moments of your career,” Wyatt interrupted the string of names I was calling the not-so-dearly departed ex. “You and I both know that Lexie isn’t hurting over this. Nothing can really hurt her, no one can really hurt her except...” He trailed off. “That fuckhead I won’t speak the name of.”

  I scoffed. “He’s not Voldemort, Wyatt, just an asshole in a leather jacket and a target on his back as soon as I find the perfect hitman.” I paused. “Though that’s a grave that Lexie would throw herself in, even after all this time.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “She fucking would.”

  I continued scrolling. “But still, she’s my best friend, the boyfriend she was pretending didn’t disgust her is dead. I should be there for her.”

  “You are there for her,” he replied. “You have been. She knows you’re a call away. She knows you’re gonna be there if she needs you. And she may not tell you she needs you, but I will. And as much as she’d love to see you.” He paused. “As much as I’d love to see you and hear the stories about Mongolia, Russia, Ghana and wherever the fuck else you’ve been this month, you are becoming a rock star in your own right. We’re proud as fuck of you, Em. I’ll not let that fucker screw with your shit from beyond the grave.”

  I blinked, long and slow, and not just because my eyes were watering from the smell in the hut that was serving as my makeshift office. I had no clue what to say when Wyatt said things like this. And over the years, he’d pepper strange and intense comments into our conversations, and one thing or another would come up before I could address them. Or more aptly, create a way to avoid them, and the feelings they created.

  “Okay,” I said when the silence between us had stretched on. “I won’t come. But you keep me posted on the situation.”

  “I always do.”

  “I know,” I said, my voice as soft as it could be.

  Again, silence yawned on. Like neither one of us wanted to speak, but neither one of us wanted to leave either.

  Someone called out at me, jerking me out of a moment not meant for me. “I’ve gotta go,” I said. “My donkey’s ready.”

  “Donkey?” he repeated.

  I rolled my eyes, though he couldn’t see that. “Goodbye, Wyatt.”

  “Bye, Em, be safe,” he murmured back, as had become his norm as I got promoted and my new job took me to all corners of the world.

  “Never am,” I replied dutifully.

  “Good,” he said.

  And then he was gone.

  And the moment was too.

  Three Weeks Later

  “Is it true?” I demanded as I shoved my way through the airport.

  A woman scowled at me as I kicked over her toddler’s suitcase.

  I ignored that, airports were a free for all. And also, toddlers didn’t need fucking suitcases.

  “What? Climate change? Depends on who you ask, but I’m pretty sure it is.”

  I clenched my teeth. “Don’t fuck with me, Wyatt,” I hissed.

  “Yeah, it’s true,” he sighed, sensing my tone. We’d spoken enough on the phone these past four years for him to be in tune with such things. I was the same with him, though he didn’t fly into a rage as easily.

  He had when he found out I’d gone into Afghanistan through Yemen in order to source a sculpture for a client. Yeah, he’d screamed on that one and promised he would send a security team in to extract me if I didn’t get my “stubborn, infuriating and beautiful fucking ass outta there.”

  I’d been too mad at him for thinking it was his right to demand such things to even realize he’d called me beautiful.

  “You didn’t think to call me and tell me that her ex is back in the picture, breaking her fucking heart all over again?” I snapped.

  “I was honestly worried abou
t you getting put away for murder,” Wyatt said. “And I was hoping we could get rid of him before it came to that.”

  “There’s no getting rid of him, idiot,” I hissed, elbowing a man in a suit to get to the front of the line. “He’s come back for her. And fuck if he’s letting go this time. But not without drama.”

  People were scowling at me for pushing in front of them, but I had a ‘don’t fuck with me’ look plastered on my face that had served me well in a lot more dangerous places than an American airport, so no one stopped me. I was in my seat in first class and had downed the champagne they gave me in record time. All the while I was swearing at Wyatt into my phone.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to get off the phone,” the flight attendant said, her tone professional and patient, which was what you got when you paid for first class tickets. That and free champagne and real cutlery.

  I glared up at her. “I’ve just been informed that my best friend is back with the man who would die for her but who broke her heart four years ago,” I snapped.

  Her carefully polite expression wavered slightly. “Okay, continue,” she said, moving to help some asshole who was trying to shove an oversized suitcase in the overhead compartment.

  “Where are you, babe?” Wyatt asked.

  “I’m on a fucking plane, of course.”

  There was a pause. “You’re comin’ here?”

  I smiled as the flight attendant from before filled up my glass. “Just try and stop me.”

  “Nuclear bomb wouldn’t stop you, Em. And I wouldn’t want to let it,” he said softly.

  I frowned at the tone of his voice, but like always, we were interrupted from too much close inspection of such moments.

  The plane was about to take off.

  I finished almost an entire bottle of wine so I could pretend I wasn’t excited to see Wyatt.