I ran down the long hallway leading to the entry, threw open the front door and ran down the path toward the street. I spotted Ky at his truck and called for him to stop. He crossed his arms and waited for me to join him.
“Why did you call him?” He shook his head and huffed derisively. “I told you not to contact him and you did it anyway ’cause you’re Charlie and you do whatever the fuck you want. And then you blabbed details about shit you didn’t intend to tell anyone because you got flustered or upset and you can’t keep anything to yourself when you get backed into a corner. Am I right?”
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood and nodded briskly. “Y-yes. I had to call your father. I had to—”
“No, you didn’t fucking have to call him,” Ky yelled.
“Someone had to. If you weren’t going to confront him, it had to be me. I had to know if he was a threat to Zero or—”
“Zero,” he repeated, sounding suddenly deflated. “Right. The band. The band comes first. I told you about him. I told you why I didn’t trust him, why I needed to keep a distance, why I never wanted him to touch anything that belonged to me. You didn’t listen.”
“No, that’s not true.” I wrapped my arms around my body to ward off the chill from the inside out. “I did listen. I told you I couldn’t let it go, and you said you didn’t want to know, so I didn’t tell you. The only way I could protect you was to know what he was doing and—”
“I don’t need you to protect me, Charlie,” he growled. “I’m not your project. You can’t fix me or make me better. This is who I am. You can’t fight battles that happened decades ago. I don’t need you to defend me from my past. There’s no do-over. I can’t erase the bad stuff and even though it sucked, I wouldn’t erase it. Every blow was a lesson. It’s my armor. It’s not perfect, but I get by. And I get stronger every day. He has no power over me. None. Why would you try to give it back to him?”
“No, no, no. I would never do that. Never. I would never let him hurt you.” Tears welled and spilled down my cheeks faster than I could stop them. I sniffed loudly and swiped at my eyes with my sleeve. “I thought if you had closure, you’d feel better and you wouldn’t miss your chance to make things right with your father before he died and—”
“Char, my father is a chronic liar. There’s a very good chance he’s not dying,” he huffed. “He likes to play games. You can never tell what’s real with him.”
“He said he wasn’t sick at all,” I admitted.
“Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. All I know for sure is that he’s not a nice guy.”
“I told him not to come to Zero’s shows anymore. I told him I’d have him arrested. I told him to stay away from you. I think it would be better if you talked to him. Someday. When you’re ready. But I won’t let him in, Ky. I promise.”
“Char…” He went still.
I could almost feel some of his anger melt away, no doubt replaced by confusion. But I couldn’t stop talking. “It’s going to be all right. Nothing’s going to happen overnight and Nelson’s story isn’t exactly earth-shattering. A new labels might be interested in the twist. But maybe that’s not a bad thing, right? It’s going to be—”
“Char, this isn’t gonna work.”
“Sure, it will. I won’t let—”
“I mean us,” Ky said softly.
Except it didn’t sound soft. It sounded like a bomb going off in my head. The noise resonated and ricocheted between my ears. My breath caught in my chest. I licked my dry lips.
“Please don’t say that.”
“You told me months ago that you didn’t think I was invested in the band. You said I was holding something back. Maybe I was. I didn’t want you to know where I was from. I didn’t want you to see that kind of ugliness. But things happened and you got so far under my skin and now…fuck, I can’t even breathe when you’re in the room sometimes. I want things from you I don’t have a right to ask for. And you want something I can never be. I’m not perfect. I’m the guy who is always starting over. The two things at once…they’re too complicated. We can’t do it and not leave out something important.”
“Yes, we can. We can have Zero and we can be together. We can do both,” I choked.
“I can’t.” Ky’s nostrils flared. He looked as unhappy and upset as I felt. “I don’t know how to have both. And I’m not stealing your dreams so I can fumble through a relationship we both know I’m gonna fuck up.”