by Shandi Boyes
“You said the door on the left.”
Lola’s eyes widen in fear when I fling her around to face me. The tears streaming down her face dampen some of the fury burning me alive, but they don’t completely erase it.
“You said the door on the left,” I repeat as my watering eyes dance between hers.
When she nods, my teeth grit. “Why would you do that?” My voice cracks with emotion as my grip on her arm tightens. “Why would you do that to your own sister? If she had never met me, she’d still be here!”
Before she can answer, Jacob appears at her side. “Noah, let her go.”
I release Lola from my grip before my burning gaze drifts to Jacob. “Did you know? Did you know she sent me straight to Emily’s fucking room?!” I point to Lola during the “she” part of my question.
Jacob steps closer to me while tugging Lola behind him. “Yes. I knew.”
His urge to protect Lola surprises me more than his words. I'd never put my hands on a woman. Him, though, he might not come out of this unscathed. He kept things from me. Vital things. Things that could have saved Emily.
“Why, Jake? If we had never met, she'd still be here, but no, you had to force her into my fucked-up life, and now she’s gone...”
My words trail off when someone places their hand on my shoulder, encouraging me to calm down. It has the opposite effect. I’m too angry to settle down. All of this could have been avoided if people just left me the fuck alone. They knew Emily wasn’t a girl you’d forget meeting. She imprinted herself on everyone she met; you couldn’t help but fall in love with her, but that wasn’t their choice. They shouldn’t have fiddled with fate—then she would still be here.
Asphyxiated with bitter anger, I grab the scruff of Jacob’s shirt and drag him to within an inch of my face. More emotions than I’ve ever handled slam into me at once. Regret, sorrow, heartache, anger. They all have my fist rising to the occasion without a negative thought crossing my mind.
I’m seconds from dispelling some of my anger on Jacob’s face when Lola’s faint voice stops me. “What would you rather have? Two years with Emily, or none at all?” She places herself between Jacob and me, reminding me that her eyes aren’t the only thing identical to her sister’s. She’s just as strong. “Because Emily would have picked to have two years with you than to have never met you.”
I stare into her eyes, seeing nothing but Emily’s reflecting back at me. They give me the same pleading look they did any time my anger got the better of me. They soothe me as only she can, except they’re not really soothing me at all. They’re tearing my heart straight out of my chest, because as much as I wish it were true, Lola’s eyes aren’t Emily’s. They’re similar, yet unique, because nothing could ever replicate the love Emily’s eyes held when she looked at me.
That look is gone now. Forever. Never to be replaced.
As I take a step back, a sob tears at my throat, begging to be released. I shut it down. This is more than I can handle, but I’m done looking like a fool.
After shrugging off the person holding my shoulder, I storm through Emily’s house until I reach the front yard. Jacob yells for me to stop, but I can’t see sense through the madness surrounding me. It’s too much—it hurts too much. I need to go home, back to the one place I’ve always felt at peace.
I need to be with Emily.
Upon spotting Nick’s truck at the end of the driveway, I run over and jump into the cab. I search for the spare key he always keeps. I throw open the glove compartment, heave down the visor, then check under the seat before finally locating his key in the sunglasses compartment beneath his rearview mirror.
Nick’s black beast fires to life on the first turn of the ignition. It’s more alive than I’ve felt the past four days. When I rev the engine, Jacob yells for me to wait, but I pretend I can’t hear him. He doesn’t take my ignorance in stride. He bolts for Nick’s truck, his speed remarkably quick for someone his size. He gets within an inch of Nick’s bed when I flatten the gas pedal. I’m so busy watching his large frame shrink in the rearview mirror, I almost collide into a shadowed figure standing at the end of the driveway.
Dust kicks up around me when I lock up the truck’s brakes. I skid along the loose gravel for several terrifying seconds before jolting to a stop, narrowly missing the person I was trying to avoid.
My nostrils flare when I realize I shouldn’t have bothered. His life is as worthless as mine. “Move!”
Instead of moving, my dad plants his feet before folding his arms in front of his chest. If it were any other day but today, I would have appreciated his determination. That’s not happening this week.
With the roar of a deranged man, I throw open the truck's door before jumping down from the cab. Anger surges past my heartache as I storm toward my dad. His sorrowful eyes follow my every move, but he doesn’t object to my pathetic display of remorse.
“Get out of the way, or I’ll move you out of my way. I’m not the little kid you left behind anymore.”
“No, Noah,” he answers, not the least bit concerned about the fury in my tone.
He doesn’t even flinch when I raise my arm to take a swing at him. He won’t shelter himself from the abuse he’s suspects I’ve dealt with the past eight years. He knows all too well about the witch he left me with, what I suffered because of it—because he was once married to her.
Just before my fist connects with my dad’s jaw, I’m walloped from the side. We hit the ground so forcefully, my lungs fight for air as violently as Jacob struggles to pin me to the ground with his weight.
“Stop, Noah! Please stop.”
He tackled me so hard, he’s knocked me back the twelve or so feet I stormed to confront my dad. Although impressed by his stamina, nothing stops my onslaught. I scream at him to get off me while throwing fists into his body on repeat, but no matter how hard I fight, our difference in size will always have me at a disadvantage.
“I’ll let you go once you calm down.”
He keeps his word when I give up a few minutes later. I’m exhausted, sweating like a pig, and on the verge of crying instead of fighting.
Under Jacob’s watchful eye, I scamper across the gravel to brace my back on Nick’s truck. My heart is beating fitfully, and my eyes are brimming with moisture, but I give it everything I have to keep my tears at bay. It’s only been four days, but I’m already sick of feeling weak.
When Jacob plants his backside next to mine, my watering eyes stray to anything but him. I’m not angry at him; I just don’t want him to see my tears—again.
He mistakes my request for privacy as anger. “You can hate me all you want, but I’m not giving up on you.” He throws his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into his body as only he can. “You aren’t the only one grieving, Noah. I’m lost; they’re lost. We’re all struggling.”
When he nudges his chin to the door I stormed out of nearly twenty minutes ago, remorse clutches my heart. Patrice, Lola, and Jenni are standing on the front porch staring at me with worry lining their usually smooth faces.
I feel terrible that I’ve created more pain for Patrice. She nurtured me more the past two years than my mother did my entire life. She accepted me into her family as if I were her son, and when Emily was roofied, she thanked me for defending her daughter.
I would have thought busting me ravishing her daughter’s mouth the following morning would have changed her opinion of me. I was wrong. Instead of being angry about what she’d walked in on, she told me I was the best thing that had ever happened to Emily, and that she would be incredibly proud to call me her son-in-law one day.
I was shocked. Excluding Emily and Jacob, I had never made anyone proud before. I honestly didn’t know how to reply. I was left speechless. But in true mothering style, Patrice kept her word. I was included in every family event since that day and was treated with the same respect as her other four children.
As memories hold my emotions hostage, I slump down low against Nick’s truc
k before cradling my head in my hands. It’s the battle of my life to keep my emotions in check, but I give it my best shot. If I don’t start getting a grip of reality, Jacob will continue nagging me about going to see a shrink.
I hate talking about my feelings. Talking won’t change anything. It won’t make things better, and it won’t bring Emily back, so why bother? One day, I’ll climb out of the bottomless pit I'm sitting in. It won’t be today; it certainly won’t be tomorrow, but I’m sure it will arrive eventually.
When gravel crunches underfoot, I raise my eyes, taking in polished black shoes, stocking-covered legs, a modest black dress, and the tear-filled eyes of Emily’s mom on the way. Patrice has the same dark hair as Emily, but she has Lola’s beige skin. She gave them both their turned-up noses, but her eyes are hazel—and reflect her pain.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out via a sob. “I’m sorry for pulling your daughter into my miserable life by falling in love with her. I’m sorry for not being there to protect her this time. And I’m sorry you lost your baby girl.”
After lowering my head to my knees, I cry over everything I’m sorry for. It’s a long and painful twenty minutes spent wrapped up in Patrice’s arms as she tells me repeatedly that I have nothing to be sorry for.
“Isn’t it better to have loved for only a minute than not to have loved at all?”
Chapter 46
Noah
The next morning, I wake up lying flat on my stomach, drooling on my pillow. When I lift my head, I have to shelter my eyes from the blinding light streaming through my curtains. It’s so bright, I feel like I’m at heaven’s gates, waiting for them to open.
My brow cocks when I peer at the alarm clock on my bedside table. It’s 1:53 in the afternoon. Confusion engulfs me. Today is the first day Jacob hasn’t thrown my drunk ass into the shower to sober me up.
Did I drink last night?
After my brain struggles to sort through the facts, I study my body for clues. My head is thumping, and I feel like I’ve swallowed a dozen razor blades, but other than that, I feel relatively normal.
Hope overtakes my confusion when I scamper up my bed.
Was it all a dream?
Is Emily still here?
After scrubbing the sleep from my eyes, they drift over my room. Excluding the odd sterile smell, it looks like it did before Emily left. My bed is in the same spot, my drawers still covered with random musical knickknacks Emily collected over the years. It’s only after stumbling upon a crumpled suit in the corner does my hope vanish into thin air.
My beautiful Emily is still gone.
I sit for a few moments, reflecting on everything that has happened. When that fails to settle the unease in my gut, I throw on a pair of jeans and a shirt, then head out of my room in search for Jacob. He hasn’t left my side the past five days, so I’m somewhat concerned about what changed his routine today.
When I reach the end of the hallway, I overhear part of a conversation.
“Not in a million years would anyone expect him to do that.” I recognize the deep twang. It belongs to Marcus.
“It was written in the contract,” retaliates another male voice, which may belong to Cormack. “We can’t just ignore it.”
When I round the corner, my eyes stumble upon Nick, Marcus, Slater, and Cormack conducting a meeting on Jacob’s dining room table. Marcus is glaring at Cormack like he’s on his hit list. Cormack is unaware of his fury; he’s too busy scrutinizing a document in front of him to pay him any attention, and Slater and Nick are watching the charade unfold with slanted heads and folded arms. That’s not unusual; when they’re not creating tension, they’re spectators.
Slater is the first one to jump back into the ring when the tension between Marcus and Cormack grows too great to ignore. “Enough semantics. Can you get us out of it?”
When Marcus swivels his torso to face Slater, he spots my stalking stance. He ribs Cormack with his elbow before jerking his head my way. In less than a second, all eyes in the room are on me. Usually, that wouldn’t bother me, but today is different. Their panicked expressions have my nerves sitting on the edge of a very steep cliff.
They’re heard in my voice when I ask, “What do they want you to get them out of?”
Glancing down, I discover the contract we signed to do a six-week tour with the O’Reilly Brothers is scattered across the table.
“It’s nothing.” Marcus gathers the loose papers in a stack. His neatness isn’t surprising, but his inability to maintain eye contact is. That’s not like him at all.
With my suspicions high, I flick my gaze to Slater. My curiosity piques even more when his eyes dart down to the table. He is as cocky as fuck, meaning he maintains eye contact even when he’s lying. Although Nick has no issues keeping his eyes planted on mine, he’s always been a little hard to read, so I still can’t tell what they’re discussing.
My bandmates might be skilled at keeping things from me, but I bet Cormack doesn’t have the same set of talents. I walk around the table until I’m standing across from him. “What do they want you to get them out of?”
Cormack returns my stare for several heart-clutching seconds before shifting his eyes to Nick. From the corner of my eye, I watch Nick shake his head to Cormack’s silent question. When Cormack’s eyes float back to mine, I arch a brow, goading him to man up and make his own choices. He’s a big boy. He doesn’t need to run with the bullshit excuse the guys are giving.
Furthermore, if the boys’ faces are anything to go by, this meeting is about the band. If it affects the band, it affects me, because I created it!
Just when I think Cormack will never answer me, he finally grows some balls. “You signed a contract agreeing to do a six-week tour with the O’Reilly Brothers.”
“Yeah, then my fiancée died. That didn’t just stop the tour; it upended my entire life.” I flatten my palms on the table, prepared to launch over it if he says the tour is more important than Emily.
“It did, and that's why you need to let us handle this.” Jacob enters the room from the kitchen. “You don’t need to be a part of this—"
“A part of what? There is nothing to discuss. We can’t do the tour; it’s not that fucking hard to explain.”
“It doesn’t work that way—” Marcus’s backhand stuffs more than Cormack’s words into his throat. It comes with a heap of a spit, and a stern warning from Slater.
“Shut the fuck up, man.” He adds to his threat by directing a stern finger point at him. Confident he has Cormack on a short leash, his eyes stray to mine. “We’ve got this.”
“Got what exactly?”
When my question is met with silence, I turn to face Jacob. He has the worst poker face. Even a little lie, I’ll know about its arrival before he can deliver it.
“What’s going on?” When he scratches his brow, my anger gets the better of me. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Jake. I’m at the end of my rope.”
His hand drops from his face. “The contract had a financial clause attached to it. The promoters wanted to ensure they weren’t liable for any loss of revenue in the event of another accident, like what happened to Redemption’s lead guitarist.”
Redemption’s lead guitarist broke his leg in three places, meaning his band was unable to finalize the last half of their tour on the East Coast. That’s why Rise Up was brought in as the opening act, but this is the first I’m hearing about added stipulations to our contract.
I thought our agreement was the same as Redemption’s; that’s why I didn’t read it when the promoters gave it to me. I was so excited about securing our first tour, I signed anything they requested without asking questions. It was stupid of me to do, but at the time, I thought I was invincible.
How fucking wrong was I?
“What does that mean?” I ask Jacob, whose face seems gaunter today than it was five days ago.
Cormack answers on his behalf, “It means if you fail to meet your obligations as stated, you’ll be required to compen
sate them for any loss in revenue for your contract period.”
“So we have to pay to leave the tour?”
That can be arranged. Our album went to number one on the Billboard charts two weeks ago, so the checks from that should cover the concert costs, shouldn’t it? “How much of a loss do they expect?”
My heart pounds into my ribs when Cormack rifles through the papers Marcus just stacked. Once he finds the document he’s seeking, he peers back at me. The worry in his eyes has my gut paying careful attention to everything he says, and although they’re only three little words, they hit me like a ton of bricks. “Two million dollars.”
My stomach lurches. “Two million dollars?! How the fuck are the costs so high?” I slump into the chair in front of me before my legs give out. I must have heard him wrong. There’s no way their loss could be two million dollars for a six-week tour.
Cormack double-checks his figures before nodding. “It’s right.”
“How? When we signed up, we were offered two hundred thousand dollars as the total payment for the entire six weeks, so how can two hundred thousand dollars blow out to two million dollars?”
“After your press conference last week, ticket sales rose by over 30%. Your acoustic performance on MTV created quite a buzz in the industry; your fans flocked to get tickets to your very first concert.” Cormack glances down at the piece of paper in his hand. “You were scheduled for nineteen concerts over six weeks. Ticket sales alone were over one point four million dollars. Then they requested compensation for finding a replacement band, and full payment for the canceled concert in San Francisco that was supposed to be held yesterday.”
He curses under his breath when he realizes his error. We didn’t perform yesterday because it was Emily’s funeral.
After squeezing my shoulder in support, Nick continues chipping at the shit storm raining down on us. “How much have we made from the album so far?”