Key Change
Common Threads Book #3
Heidi Hutchinson
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, rants, facts, contrivances, and incidents are either the product of the author’s questionable imagination or are used factitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or undead, events, locales is entirely coincidental if not somewhat disturbing/concerning.
Copyright © 2021 by Smartypants Romance; All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, photographed, instagrammed, tweeted, twittered, twatted, tumbled, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without explicit written permission from the author.
Made in the United States of America
eBook Edition
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Sneak Peek: Code of Ethics, Book #3 in the Cipher Security series by April White
Sneak Peek: Learn to Fly by Heidi Hutchinson
Learn to Fly: Chapter One
Other titles by Heidi Hutchinson
Also by Smartypants Romance
to Charlie
you are my gift
Prologue
ASHTON JAMES BARES ALL AT NMA
“It’s all fun and games until your tits come out—then it’s a party!” Ashton James was quoted as saying on the red carpet just hours before she had to be removed from the evening’s activities by local police.
Party indeed.
Backstage video has surfaced of the pop music bad girl’s bizarre altercation at the National Music Awards over the weekend.
CelebX originally broke the story that Ashton James, stripped naked and threw punches backstage before having to be escorted out by police.
Ashton James, known for her outspoken and abrasive personality, had been nominated for three awards that evening, including album of the year. She was slotted to perform during the show but sources reported that she never showed up for rehearsals and her set was scrapped.
Witnesses claim to have seen her arguing backstage with her longtime manager, Terrence Shields, right before she announced the winner of Best New Artist (Zara Lorna).
When Album of the Year was presented to Michelle Keith, a clearly intoxicated Ashton James stormed the stage and physically attacked the album’s producer, Coach Riley. Security intervened, carting Ashton away.
New video provided by an anonymous source shows Ashton backstage arguing with several unnamed persons. The argument quickly escalated when Ashton removed her dress and shoes, and began throwing punches.
Police were called to the venue, but no arrests were made.
Attempts to get a statement from Ashton James’ publicist have gone unanswered. Terrence Shields and the National Music Award Association also declined to comment.
Chapter One
How I Roll
HANNAH
The hardest part about reinvention?
The motherfucking paperwork.
Hannah’s left eye twitched involuntarily. She shoved her glasses to the top of her head and rubbed her face with both hands.
The glasses weren’t prescription. They were large, boldly framed, blue light filter glasses that she only wore for work and in public.
They were absolutely hideous and she loved them.
Most of her wardrobe consisted of blacks, grays, and boring.
At first it hadn’t bothered her because boring meant invisible—which was the entire point.
But after a few months she began to incorporate ugly things into her wardrobe daily.
Personal experience and subsequent observation confirmed her theory—ugly was a different kind of invisible.
Taking a deep breath, she reread the text she’d received and stifled the sigh.
It was from a number not saved in her phone; therefore it could only be one of four people. The context of the message narrowed it down to one.
Unknown: Two more things popped up this week. Meet me in the usual place at the usual time.
She tapped out her affirmative and slipped the phone back into her bag. She probably wouldn’t get fired if she got caught breaking the rules, but she also didn’t want to attract any extra attention.
Lowering her glasses back onto her face, she unmuted the headset.
The customer was still yelling, but Hannah sensed it was coming to a close.
At least she hoped.
“Have you disconnected the surround sound?” Hannah asked when the woman paused to take a breath.
“I already told you!” Ms. Fairbanks shouted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“The surround sound will be connected at the—”
“Repeating yourself isn’t going to do me any favors, you little hot dog. What I really want is to speak to your supervisor!”
Hannah scrunched her nose and silently bared her teeth at the computer monitor. This would be her second supervisor referral this month. One more and she’d get a written reprimand.
“Absolutely. Please hold.”
Hannah pressed the button on her headset, suspending the call.
She hadn’t even had a chance. Ms. Fairbanks had been on hold for thirty-seven minutes before she’d ever gotten to Hannah’s line.
Which meant that she’d had an extra thirty-seven minutes to stew in her distress.
The distress being that her surround sound was fucked up, but she thought it was the television. Hannah had tried to talk her through resetting the system, but it hadn’t worked. Nine times out of ten, it was user error. But the user wanted very badly to yell at someone for it.
Enter Hannah.
For eight hours a day she took calls from people who couldn’t get their shit to work. She’d run through the troubleshooting script so many times, she could program televisions in her sleep in four different languages.
But that didn’t mean the person on the other end had to listen to her. Or be nice to her. Or even kind of respect her.
And Hannah was fine with that.
Mostly.
Respect wasn’t something she expected from faceless strangers.
She couldn’t say the same for her coworkers. They always took being bitched at so personally.
Hannah didn’t give a shit.
And she wasn’t paid to give a shit.
Speaking of…
“I have a request for a supervisor,” she spoke into the headset.
Collin swore under his breath before taking the call.
See, Collin did get paid to give a shit. So he was usually pretty pissed off.
Part of her sympathized with him, but that’s why he made the big bucks and she made minimum wage.
Hannah glanced up in time to see the time clock hit the fifteen after mark and she logged out.
Some people stayed late. Super late. Trying to hit numbers and reach records that might reward them with a gift card to a sports bar downtown or a plaque wi
th their name on it in the break room. Some were working their way up to middle management so as to leverage the promotion and get hired out of the cesspool that was Superior Electronics Inc.
Not Hannah, though.
Nope.
She was more than content working in the customer service call center of the mediocre television manufacturer. They didn’t suck. And she couldn’t really ask for much else.
She’d wanted a job where she could be invisible but productive and leave at the same time every day. It wasn’t food service and she didn’t have to interact with people face-to-face too often. She was paid on time and she could leave work at work instead of it being her entire life.
Though she knew she’d lucked out with her locked in schedule.
She’d heard what her coworkers whispered about her. Having a consistent daytime shift when the others had to rotate meant they assumed she’d slept with someone at the top somewhere to get what she wanted.
Which, hilarious.
Hannah had no issue being labeled the “office slut” so long as it meant they left her alone and no one tried to be her “friend.”
Though she often wondered what it would be like to sit with her coworkers and swap best and worst call stories, talk about their day, share personal information about their lives…
But it was too risky.
She couldn’t make any close connections for two main reasons. First, she’d have to lie. And no healthy relationship could be established, let alone survive, without honesty. Second, telling the truth would be the kind of distraction that could harm Piper.
And protecting Piper was rule number one.
“Hey, Hannah.”
She nodded at TJ as she slid on her generic black coat and buttoned it up to the top.
“Do you have plans for lunch tomorrow? I was thinking of going over to Wylde Pub. Would…” TJ cleared his throat and shifted on his feet. “Would you like to join me?” The question came out like a squeak.
Hannah pulled her knit cap over her head, covering most of her long dark hair, the rest of it tucked inside her coat.
She didn’t know TJ outside of the fact that his cubicle was two down from hers and he sometimes smelled of cigarettes. She suspected he only smoked when nervous because she could smell it now.
Ah, vices.
Everyone had them, but no one talked about them.
A person’s private shame.
She could relate.
She slung her bag over her shoulder—not a purse, more of a cross between a messenger bag and a small backpack—and secured it to her person as she contemplated how best to decline his invite.
“I appreciate the offer,” she said quietly with a small half smile. “Maybe some other time.”
But probably never, she added internally.
“O-oh.” TJ shifted, not sure how to proceed.
Had that been mean?
Hannah replayed her response again. He’d asked a question and she’d answered. She didn’t snort or laugh in his face. She also hadn’t commented on his clothes or hair or posture. In fact, she hadn’t even thought of any insults that had needed to be stifled.
Hey! Growth!
She hadn’t been mean! (Internal high-five!)
But rejection was awkward. That’s probably what he was feeling and why he couldn’t meet her eyes anymore.
Was that unprompted empathy for a stranger she was experiencing?
Whoa. Big day for Hannah.
“See you tomorrow,” she said, trying to soften the moment and also end the conversation for both their sakes.
TJ nodded, the tips of his ears turning red.
Man, that sucked.
For him.
That had actually been kind of a cool moment for her and what she’d been working on. But TJ was probably feeling the opposite of cool.
Hannah exited the building, and the cold, crisp air of an early Chicago winter blasted through her thoughts and had her refocusing to the next part of her day.
Her favorite part of the day.
In the beginning, riding the train to and from work had been…uncomfortable. She’d had to battle huge spikes of anxiety. But she’d pushed through and now her daily train ride was just another part of the routine.
She recognized the usual commuters even though she didn’t interact with them. Not directly.
A smile for the toddler balanced on her mom’s lap; saving the seat for the grumpy man with a WWII emblem on his hat; making room for Napoleon the service dog and his handler.
Small occurrences that she had become accustomed to and had fit into her comfort zone.
Being able to recognize everyone around her added to her sense of security. If ever anyone new showed up, she knew how to avoid direct eye contact and which stop to get off in case they tried to follow her.
But the likelihood of that happening grew smaller with each month that passed, and her life was relatively undisturbed.
She was surrounded by people all of the time. They were in her life in a safe and careful way. But not in a way she might hurt them.
Because she would hurt them.
It was just in her nature.
So, she stuck to the routine.
And the longer she kept the routine, the more space existed in between who she was and who she was becoming.
The routine was the key.
A necessary evil for humans to maintain healthy and balanced lives.
(Even though Hannah had watched several true crime shows that argued it was a set routine that had led to the victim’s grisly murder.)
And where did her routine fall on the spectrum of healthy and balanced?
Good question.
One she asked herself at least once a day.
She was somewhere between life and death.
The ever-important middle space.
The subway lurched through the stop before hers and she moved closer to the exit.
Routine and rhythm had been natural skills she’d been blessed with and had continued to cultivate her entire life.
It had been an invaluable skill in her previous life—the one of which they did not speak.
And now it kept her on track.
Kept her clean.
Well…clean-ish.
She doubted she’d ever be truly clean.
But clean enough would work just as well.
When the subway stopped again, she was already at the door. Then she was on the platform and moving with the small crowd to the CTA exit, where she would continue on her usual route to the sidewalk and on to her apartment. First thing she’d do when she got home was take off her bra. Then make dinner for her and Piper, do a load of laundry, and shower before bed.
Maybe some meditation before she went to sleep.
Which was so different than it had been a year ago.
Being alone with herself in the beginning had been terrifying.
Too many nights she had ended up just watching anything she could find to keep her mind occupied and keep herself from thinking about all the things.
Running away from reflections and echoes.
But these days there was less running and more rumination.
She kept track of heartbeats, home-cooked meals, steps to her door—the first place she’d ever called home.
She tried to keep the things that mattered at the forefront of her mind.
Her determined stride toward the CTA exit was interrupted when a sound hit her ears. She was so startled by the intrusion she stopped short.
A clear tenor voice permeated the din of other buskers and CTA passengers. It was accompanied by an acoustic guitar that picked its way through the melody instead of strumming along, creating two singers out of one.
The person behind her collided with her back and pushed off her to go around without so much as an apology.
But Hannah was too caught off guard by the song to care.
She tilted her head in the direction of the music and moved toward it.
; Her stomach clenched with the deviation from the routine, but she had to at least answer one question.
Who would be singing this song?
Her eyes scanned the buskers on the platform, her experienced ear picking through the sounds until she found what it was that had caused her pause.
The busker wasn’t new.
A young man she had passed more times than she could count. Probably in his late teens, maybe early twenties. Brown, glossy hair, square jaw that hadn’t finished revealing its future glory, fingerless gloves, strumming a used but lovingly cared for guitar. His jeans were clean and so was the gray hoodiethat accompanied his “starving musician” look.
She paused in front of his open guitar case and listened to a song that was more than familiar to her.
Chills raced over her arms and she was glad to be wearing thick layers.
More than just straight covering the song, he’d sped it up a half step and switched the pronouns, putting his own stamp on it.
The song picked up in intensity at the bridge, and Hannah smiled to herself because she’d always loved this bridge and she’d never heard it sung with such conviction.
Again. Chills.
Ooh, I’m over my head
Trying to be clever,
My heart is underfed
Because my love doesn’t matter.
And you say that you need me
But you’re giving hope to things that can never be…
If I kiss you with my eyes closed tight
I know our bed won’t be cold tonight,
Key Change: A Slow Burn Rockstar Romance (Common Threads Book 3) Page 1