Tears filled my eyes. “Miller…”
“No, I get it. It’s not enough,” he said and I could hear the words he didn’t.
I’m not enough. Again.
The thought was loud in his eyes, swimming with memories of another time someone left him.
“Miller, wait,” I said as he began throwing on his clothes. “We need to keep talking. Sort this out.”
“I can’t. I gotta go. Mom’s dealt with Chet long enough.”
He drew on his boots, shouldered his bag, hefted his guitar case. When he was dressed, he stood in front of me, his tone hard.
“We’ll talk later.”
He bent and kissed my head, a short peck, and started to turn. I grabbed his hand and stood up, facing him, and waited until he met my unflinching gaze. Immediately, his steely blue eyes softened. He dropped his bags and case and wrapped his arms around me.
Wordlessly, we held each other. At an impasse. Our love for each other melding us together, while circumstance pulled us apart.
After a few moments, he picked up his bags again and left.
I sank back down on my bed, where my blood stained the sheets. Vivid evidence that last night had happened, though it felt like I’d woken to discover it had all been a dream.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“It’s a highly unusual circumstance for us to cut a check to a new artist on the same day we meet him.”
Jack Villegas reminded me of Andy Garcia. Tall. Sharp. Authoritative but kind. We sat on opposite sides of the polished desk in his office that had a view of the Hollywood sign. His brown eyes went to the abrasion on my cheek and the fingerprints on my neck. I’d tried to keep them covered, but LA was hot, and I’d left Holden’s scarf in the hotel.
“But your situation is a little bit special, isn’t it?” He rose to his feet and paced around the desk. Cufflinks glinted in the Los Angeles sun, and his gray suit probably cost more than six months of my rent. “You’re a rare talent. A little more angst than Shawn Mendes, a little less than Bon Iver. But you have that intangible quality, that magnetic pull that makes listeners feel connected to you. You have a story to tell, don’t you?”
He didn’t wait for an answer because he already had it. I heard his words before he spoke them; a reverse echo that felt like a dream until he made it real.
“That’s why we’re signing you, Miller. And because we like to consider all of our clients part of the family, you’re leaving here with some money.” He put his hand on my shoulder, like a father might to his son. “We take care of our own.”
On the bus from Violet’s neighborhood to mine, I could practically feel the check for $20,000 sitting heavy in my wallet. I felt like a thief and imagined the police surrounding the bus and pulling it over, hauling me out and arresting me. Jack Villegas would somehow be there, saying it had all been a huge mistake.
Stupid shit to be thinking about, but it was better than facing the reality of Violet moving to Texas. I needed to keep my mind occupied. The first order of business that morning was to get rid of Chet and sign over that check to Mom.
But Violet saturated my thoughts. Sense memories of sleeping with her for the first time seeped in and pushed out everything else, even the memory of sitting in a record exec’s office as he tells me he’s going to give me a brand-new life.
The bus rolled and jounced, and in my mind, Violet was under me in her bed. Beautiful and perfect. I’d loved her for so long, fantasized about that night in a hundred different ways. But being naked with her, being inside her, was better than any fevered imagining. She’d created sensations in me a million times more potent than anything I’d ever been able to give myself in all those fruitless years of wanting her.
And now, I was losing her.
Again, I yanked my thoughts away from her.
One shitstorm at a time, thanks.
The bus stopped at Lighthouse Apartments. I got out but kept walking down to the Shack to stow my bag and my guitar. I took my insulin with a meal of an apple, a bag of Fritos, and a bottle of water I’d bought at the airport the night before. Breakfast of Champions.
When I finished, I pulled out my phone and texted Ronan and Holden.
Let’s roll.
In front of my apartment door, I sucked in a breath, blew it out on a shaky exhale, then cracked my neck from side to side, like a fighter getting ready for a match. Holden stood pressed against the wall on the left. Ronan on the right. He gave me a nod, his eyes flat and emotionless, but I felt the power emanating off of him like a low heat.
Holden was dressed as impeccably as ever, although his clothes look rumpled and slept in. His eyes were red rimmed and swollen, and he stunk of stale alcohol and bonfire smoke. As if he’d passed out on some beach last night.