One Kiss from the King of Rock (The One 2)

No need to perform. No need for anyone to even know her songs were on the air. “But I’d have to keep writing?”

“Yes. That’s a detail we need to work out, but the idea is you’d write more songs that Layla has the exclusive rights to, whether she records them or not.”

The kettle burbled. So did her brain. “I don’t need this.”

She switched the kettle off. It wasn’t as easy to settle her head.

“No, you don’t. You have a good business. You’re already doing something you love.”

“Why didn’t Jay get that?”

“I don’t think he was trying to manipulate you. He wasn’t being malicious. He made a mistake. Unfortunately, on a grand scale.” Errol sighed. “Much like I once did. Evie, Jay has stars in his eyes about you. He always did. I know how he feels.”

What a day. Here was her dad with an offer to do the thing she’d wanted to do all along and denied herself. And he was defending the man he’d once set her up to give up.

“If Jay loved me he’d have known not to put me in the spotlight like that.” Maybe tea would be good. She switched the kettle on again.

“I would step in front of a speeding train for you and I wounded you and Jay terribly. I couldn’t have gotten it all more wrong. Loving someone isn’t insulation against hurting them. We sometimes hurt the people we love the most. That’s a fucked-up thing but I know it’s real.” He waved a hand at her. “You’re going to boil the bottom of that kettle out if you don’t turn it off.”

Right. She turned if off again. “We’re done, Dad. It was never going to work long-term anyway. Jay is a touring rock star, and I have my business.”

“I’d tell you those were small barriers to get around. I’d tell you to follow your head but listen to your heart, but I’m worried you’re going to throw boiling water at me.”

Not even close. She made tea. While it steeped, she washed her face and cleaned her teeth and thought about whether she wanted to write songs for Layla Flower and what that meant for her and Jay if the answer was yes.

TWENTY-TWO

Jay didn’t get on the scheduled flight to Auckland. The band did. Mum did. He’d follow, he told them. He needed to see Evie. He called and messaged her incessantly, though it was obvious she’d turned her phone off or was screening or would never speak to him again.

He called Abel and Isaac and Oscar and didn’t expect them to answer either, but he used up message bank time to rant, apologize, plead and rant some more.

He called Errol, only to learn Evie was okay and didn’t want to speak to him. He couldn’t fault the Tice’s for closing ranks on him.

He deserved it.

The rescheduled flight left without him.

He wasn’t giving up without talking this out one last time, and if that meant waiting till Evie could stand to hear his voice and be in the same room with him, he’d wait.

It took him too long to realize that Evie would be with Teela and two minutes on the phone to get Teela’s address and a warning not to fuck things up again.

The next scheduled flight also left without him. Mum’s messages shifted from emphatic to understanding to concerned. Next stop barely concealed impatience on the way to outright demands he get on a plane, even if it meant chartering one.

He stood at the door to Teela’s old apartment and knocked, and when he heard movement on the other side, he said. “I’m not leaving without talking to you, Evie.”

She didn’t fling the door open and shout at him. She didn’t tell him through the door to go fuck himself. She didn’t answer at all and that was the moment his despair almost throttled him. “I’m going to wait here in case you change your mind. If you tell me you want me to go, if you’re done with me for good, I’ll go.”

He didn’t hear another sound.

Using the door as support, he went to the floor where he sat for who knows how long, sunk into his own misery. He’d never meant to force Evie’s hand. Never anticipated she’d feel that way and that was a supreme failing. He’d misunderstood. It was so obvious now, and the only thing keeping him functioning was self-hatred and hope. And the longer it took for her to open the door, the more tattered that shred of hope became, the darker his thoughts.

His back was stiff and sore when Abel arrived with a black eye and massive pizza. The eye gave Jay twinge of guilt until the smell of the pizza overwhelmed him and turned his stomach.

“Might’ve figured you’d try this,” Abel said. “You’re done, mate. You fucked it up. I hate that you did so much, I want to kill you.”

“Wait.” That sounded almost kindly in a twisted way. “What?”

“You think we’d use so much energy hating you if you didn’t mean everything to Evie.”