Author: Cassia Leo

Me: I want to apologize properly and I can’t do that in a text message.

Claire: I don’t want to hear your apologies. Just tell me what Tasha told you.

Me: I can’t. It’s too important.

Claire: You’re an asshole.

Me: I know, but I’m trying really hard to change that.

Claire: I don’t want to see Tristan.

Me: He never sticks around after the shows. You know that.

The thirty-eight minutes she makes me wait for her response are pure torture.

Claire: When and where is the jam session?

Chapter Twelve

Chris

“I’M TELLING YOU, THAT’S NOT my mic. That’s Jake’s. Mine is the 5200. Please get my mic.”

The new crewmember keeps mixing up my mic with Jake’s. This is the third time he’s done it this week and I’m about to lose my shit. Xander had the brilliant idea of hiring local sound and backline crews we’ve never worked with for this Home Sweet Home tour, to support the local economy, but I don’t need this kind of stress right now. I just want this tour over with.

I’m nervous as hell. Not only am I going to be jamming with the legendary Neil Hardaway, but Claire will be out there watching me. My palms are sweating and I haven’t even tuned up.

Keith brings the correct mic this time and I slide it into the mic stand. I sit down on my stool and rest Lucille, my Gibson SG electric guitar, in my lap. I only use the stool for acoustic sets, but I’m feeling a little unsteady on my feet today. Keith hands me the amp cable and I plug in.

I brush my fingers lightly over the strings and the sound echoes through the empty club. Nothing in this world is more soothing to me than holding a guitar in my hands, except being inside Claire or even lying next to her. The worst part of being apart from her this past year was the knowledge that I probably never would have gotten where I am if we’d stayed together. My songwriting improved by a million percent after we broke up. There really is nothing more inspiring to an artist than a shattered heart.

By the time I’m done tuning the guitar, Jake and Tristan are on stage and ready for a warm-up. We’re not performing any of my songs today. The studio put too hard of a pop spin on most of the songs on the Relentless album. Neil Hardaway is a local blues legend. He can’t play that shit. He actually called me himself last night, and I nearly pissed my pants, to tell me what we would be playing. We rehearsed last night in his home studio and I swear I had an out-of-body experience, as if I were watching someone else living their dream.

“Firefly,” I say over my shoulder and I immediately hear the clack of Jake’s drumsticks behind me and the shuffle of Tristan’s feet to my left as they prepare.

“Firefly” is one of the many songs I wrote about Claire where I changed a lot of the details so she wouldn’t know it was about her. This song is about a girl I call Firefly who writes me love notes and leaves them in random places for me to find. Of course, in the end, she leaves a note that’s not a love note at all. Claire used to send me random texts with random words—anagrams. I had to rearrange the letters to figure out what she was trying to tell me. It was one of our favorite games. She always tried to use the longest words to make it difficult for me to guess. The last text she sent me after we broke up was a one-word text, but it wasn’t an anagram: Sorry.

When we finish warming up, Neil Hardaway strolls in looking like a fucking pimp. He’s got more soul than any white man I’ve ever met. And, man, is he white! I don’t think Neil Hardaway’s face has seen a ray of sunshine in fifteen years. He’s wearing a midnight blue suit with a thin black tie, sunglasses, and black newsboy cap. I hope I’m that cool when I’m fifty-seven years old.

“What’s up, brother?” he says in that smooth, soulful twang. “You ready to turn these girls inside out?”

We shake hands then I nod at Keith for him to take my stool off the stage. Neil laughs, a raspy laugh, as another crewmember races up the steps onto the stage and hands him his guitar: a baby blue ES-345.

“Them girls waiting outside are about ready to tear the doors off this mother,” Neil continues.

I’m a little star struck, though not as bad as I was when I first met him yesterday. “Not interested,” I mutter as I pull a fresh pick out of my pocket and rub it between my fingertips to warm the plastic.

I’m not interested tonight, not when one of those girls waiting outside could possibly be Claire. I told her to come through the rear entrance, but she insisted on not getting special treatment. She probably doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about us, afraid it will get back to surfer boy.

“Chris?”

Keith is looking at me weird as if he’s been trying to get my attention.

“What’s up?”

“There’s a girl out back asking for you.”

I can’t help but smile as I toss the pick to Keith and he catches it in one hand. “Take me to her.”

I set Lucille down before we cross the empty space designated for general admission ticket holders then past the bar. He takes me through an adjacent lounge with a few pool tables and then through a corridor with some restrooms. At the end of the corridor, we arrive at an exit door and I push it open slowly in case she’s standing on the other side.

The cool night air blasts me in the face and I get a strong whiff of garbage and cotton candy. Claire is leaning with her back against the back wall of the club with her eyes closed. We haven’t had any long conversations since we got back in touch last month, but she did mention to me that she started meditating after we broke up. The way she dismissed me when I asked her about it made me think it wasn’t something she liked to talk about.

“Hey.”

She opens her eyes and turns to me. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail and the light of the streetlamps paints an angelic glow over her skin.

She flashes me a tight smile. “Hey. Is it okay that I came back here? The sidewalk was packed out front and I started panicking that Joanie was gonna show up.”

“You can do whatever you want. No one here is going to mess with you. Come on.” I hold the door open for her and try not to be too obvious that I’m breathing in her scent as she passes me. “And Joanie’s not welcome here, so you don’t have to worry about her.”

She follows me through the corridor and into the lounge area.

“Have you seen some of the signs those girls are holding out front?”

“Nope. I’ve been warming up. We’re about to warm up with a few songs then they’ll open the doors.”

“You should really go see those signs. They’re kind of gross and fascinating all at once.”

“Like Jake’s sixth toe or worse?”

She laughs for a split second before she remembers she’s still pissed at me. We pass the bar where the bartenders are busy setting up. I grab her hand and she quickly yanks it back, throwing me a shocked look.

“Settle down. I wasn’t trying to hold your hand. I was just trying to stop you. Do you want anything to drink?” I ask, nodding toward the bar.

She shakes her head quickly. “I’m fine.”

I narrow my eyes as I try to figure out why the hell she came here when she knows damn well that she could have worn me down and I’d have given up the information from Tasha. I didn’t want to say anything about this when she called me this morning to verify the address. I was afraid questioning her motives would make her change her mind. But I’m getting the feeling that there are more problems in her relationship than just the stupid scuffle we got in last week.

“Christopher Michael Knight,” Jake booms into the microphone in his deep voice. “Get your sexy ass on this stage.”

“You guys remember Claire,” I shout at them from the bar then turn back to her. “Come on. You can sit on the side of the stage so you don’t get squished.”

“I don’t want special treatment,” she insists as she follows me toward the stage.

Jake waves his drumstick at Claire and she waves back, but Tristan doesn’t acknowledge her. Tristan and Claire have never gotten along well. She always insisted he was trying to corrupt me. Tristan always insisted that I was whipped and Claire was the reason I went solo. They’ll probably never speak again after this fight with her boyfriend.

“This place is going to be packed,” I insist.

“So.”

“You don’t have to pretend you don’t care.”

I shake my head as I climb the steps onto the stage and pick up my guitar. I can’t see Neil’s eyes through the sunglasses, but I glimpse a barely-there smile on his lips. We warm up with “Gimme Shelter”; I take the first guitar solo and we go back and forth on the second one.

The whole time we’re warming up, Claire stands off to the side of the stage with a scowl on her face. After a couple more songs, we head backstage so they can open the doors. Claire follows me backstage with a pissy pout on her face.

Once everyone’s out of earshot, I grab her arm and pull her behind an equipment rack. “You want to tell me why you came here if you’re still so fucking pissed?”

Chapter Thirteen

Claire

I WRENCH MY ARM OUT of Chris’s grip and push him back. He’s standing way too close. His dark eyes are burrowing into me and making me nervous. I almost forgot how much of an asshole Chris can be when he thinks I’m hiding something from him.

I am pissed at him over what happened with Adam, but I know Adam is the one who opened the car door to get at Chris. Chris didn’t even hit him.

“You’re the one who bribed me into coming here. Why don’t you just give me the information so I can leave.”

He smiles, that you-don’t-have-it-in-you smile, and I’m seriously considering punching him to wipe the grin off his face. But somehow I can’t stop staring at his lip ring. I wish I could forget the memory of the metallic taste of it in my mouth.

“Come on, Claire. I’m your best friend; at least, I was your best friend. You can be honest with me. Are you having problems with your boyfriend?”

“You can lose the smug grin, Chris. I came here because you bribed me with your information and because you looked like I’d smashed your guitar in half when I told you I couldn’t come.”

He lowers his head a little as if he’s ashamed then lets out a soft chuckle. “Sorry. I guess I’m just a little on edge about seeing you after what happened with Abigail’s parents. I thought you’d blame me. Then that shit happened with your boyfriend and I thought for sure I’d lost you forever.”

Suddenly, the muscles in my chest tighten and I feel as if I’m about to have panic attack. I have been trying not to blame anyone for the mess I’m in with Abigail’s parents, especially not Chris since I do believe he’s only doing what he thinks I want. But I can’t help but feel like Chris’s fame is the main thing that tore us all apart. If he hadn’t been in Los Angeles recording the final tracks on the Relentless album when I found out I was pregnant, I might actually have told him about the pregnancy. If I hadn’t been completely certain that having a baby would have ruined his career, none of this would be happening.

I don’t want to blame Chris. After all, I was the one who encouraged him to leave. But hearing him say that he thought I would blame him for what happened with the meeting makes me feel as if he’s giving me permission to hold him accountable. I take a few long, deep breaths to keep the anger from exploding out of me.

I need some serious therapy.

“I don’t blame you for what happened with Abigail’s parents, but it is really frustrating.”

“That they backed out on us or the reason they backed out?”

“Both.”

Before he can respond, Xander jogs toward us with a panicked look on his chubby face.