Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Whit
“ N o, thank you,” I said as diplomatically as possible.
“What do you mean?” Nikki said, her voice calm, but the little twitch at the side of her cheek told me she was getting tired of me. This happened daily, but it was early to be there already.
“I mean what I said— no, thank you .” I poured steaming coffee into a bowl-sized mug and let the too-warm feeling heat my hands as I cupped it.
“That’s not a response. Try again,” Nikki clipped.
I felt it. It’d been inching its way to the top of me, about to spring loose, and Nikki was the one who kept poking at it. My restlessness, my irritation, my general feeling of being off was about to explode all over her.
I wasn’t a diva. I never had been. But I was stubborn; I could be inconsiderate in my single-mindedness, and I knew that.
But times like these, when someone who worked for me couldn’t take a beat and understand what I was saying… Lord help me .
“Okay. I’ll try again.” The coffee cup went on the counter. I drew in a slow breath, willing the ragey righteousness to calm. “No, thank you, I do not want to perform with Colton Danes at the Grammys.”
Her jaw hardened, and I could practically hear her grinding her molars into pearly rubble.
“Whit. Use your brain for a minute here. They want a Country medley, and you’re going to do it. You say no, you’re going to look like the biggest diva out there. You don’t need that on your list of questionable qualities.”
My hand was on my hip now, and if I’d had the presence of mind to be chagrined, I might have been. Instead, I lost the tether on my off ness.
“Nikki. What. The. Hell. Are you talking about? Am I a convict? Am I some notorious lech or drunk or princess? Am I some kind of criminal and I don’t even know it? Why can’t I say no to something that would have me cozying up to that spineless creep?” My voice hadn’t raised—not much—but I was spitting mad, and she could see that.
She pressed her lips together and stretched them into a sour smile, the expression one I’d seen before, but maybe not with that glint in her eyes.
“Let me explain this to you so you understand. I’m doing my job—a job you pay me for, and which I do well. You have a reputation—whether you’ve done anything to actually deserve it or not—that you cheated on Rock and Roll’s beloved son. As you pursue working with Johnson, a man who is notoriously old-fashioned, you have to do everything I say. You made the goals. You asked for this to be carried out.”
She took a breath, and neither of us spoke.
“I’m sick of this. There’s no way rumors should affect my career like this.” I stared down into the black coffee in my mug.
“Yeah, well, there’s the price of fame, right?” Her bitterness rang clear and had me checking her face.
“Is there anything we need to talk about… beyond this?”
It wasn’t uncommon for us to disagree, or even to fight a bit. But lately, the edge between us had been sharper.
“It’s fine. I’m just stressed.” She gathered up her notebook, computer, and phone. “Am I telling the Grammys yes?”
I let out an audible sigh. “Fine.”
She left minutes later. I plunked onto a stool and let myself turn over the last half hour, trying to figure out how it’d ended with a fight and me still performing with that nightmare of a man Danes.
Nikki was right when she said I’d set the goal up—I needed to work with John Smith Johnson because working with him, more than anyone else, would give me opportunities I wanted. If I ever wanted to transition to soundtrack and scores, he was my way in, and I needed his whole-hearted backing.
To get there, I had to play the game. I had to do what needed to be done, and if that meant tolerating a few rehearsals and sharing the stage with Colton Danes, I could do it. At least a bunch of other people would be suffering along with me.
Ben probably wouldn’t be too happy about it, either. But he’d understand. And it wasn’t like it was an intimate duet—that was saved for me and Jamie, which didn’t seem to rankle Ben in the same way, but maybe that was only because they hadn’t been in the same room together.
I wondered what would happen when Ben and Jamie did meet. They’d both been through a lot, and a large part of me thought maybe they’d become friends.
At that thought, my friend and my boyfriend meeting, a pang of longing for Ben hit me. We hadn’t even used that term— boyfriend— but that’s what he was, and I hoped he’d think of me as his girl.
I rolled my eyes at myself and gulped down the last of my coffee, then rinsed the mug, set it in the dishwasher, and wiped down the sink. It was time to face Kendra and my workout. I’d see Ben soon, and after more than a week apart, I wanted it to be good.
Ben
Strumming guitar traveled down the hall and into my mind, right to the place where I felt joy and pleasure. Knowing I might get to glimpse Whit in the act of practice or creating had my feet moving faster. Kendra had let me in, mentioning Whit was upstairs practicing in her room.
I kept moving to her doorway, feeling that same sense of the forbidden while approaching the entrance to her space. I’d been in there before in the whirlwind of the first month of our dating but hadn’t been back since—hadn’t been back to her house, in fact, since we actually started dating.
I hadn’t stopped thinking about Flint’s concerns for me and his cousin. He seemed so sure she would hurt me, but I hadn’t felt that. My own doubt over why she’d want me was real, but I didn’t know if I could broach that subject with her without sounding weak and whiney. I’d just climbed out of the hole where I felt weak and sad and scared so often, so not exactly chomping at the bit to get back there, especially in front of Whit.
I stopped in the doorway, leaning against the frame to enjoy the view. Whit sat on her sofa in jeans and a T-shirt, looking out the window at the wintry blue-gold light of the afternoon, her fingers strumming the guitar. I could hear faint hums, but she wasn’t singing words. The sounds she made, the focus, the cant of her head to one side—all of it had me feeling a hopeless kind of drop.
When the last chord sounded, she let it resound, then gently laid her fingers atop the strings to quiet them.
“That’s beautiful,” I said, meaning everything about the moment.
She set aside the guitar and jogged across the room to me. She pulled me into her arms and hugged me—warm, solid, sweet. How I’d missed her.
“Hey, you. How long’ve you been here?” she asked, but before I could answer, she pecked my jaw, my cheek, but regrettably stopped before she reached my lips.
I smoothed a hand over her hair, which was still a little wet underneath. “A few minutes.”
“You should have said something,” she said, pulling me after her back to the couch.
“Never.”
Just as she bent to grab the neck of her guitar, I swooped a hand around her waist and pulled her back to me, twisting her around and pressing her against me. She wasted no time cooperating—she rose to her toes, wrapped her arms around my neck, and met my lips with hers.
She pulled away and looked at me, my pulse thrumming in my ears just standing next to her .
“You’re so pretty,” she said, her voice breathless.
A loud laugh escaped me.
“Thank you. So are you,” I said, letting my eyes sweep over her in appreciation.
Her smile was bright.
“Was that a new song you’re working on?” The notebook with unintelligible scrawl on it lay next to her mechanical pencil, close to the guitar.
“It was. Just a melody so far. The words are just out of reach,” she said, a little frown on her face.
“Is that how you see them? Something you have to grab for?”
She flopped down on the couch and pulled me down next to her. “Sometimes. Some songs are right there, all at once—just… the whole thing practically unraveling itself for me as I write it. But others are more elusive. This one’s doing that to me. I’ve had the melody, and I keep thinking if I play it, the words will come, but they’re stuck.”
“That sounds frustrating. Any of your Grammy nominees the easy kind, or are those all the blood, sweat, and tears kinds?”
It was a fascinating process, and the fact that she really did do the majority of her writing was one of so many things I liked about her.
She looked up from her guitar, her fingers moving over it easily, picking out some tune I didn’t know, until I did. The melody of “Stolen Moment” came through.
“This one. This one hit me like a bullet train.”
She kept strumming, and I’d never wanted anything as much as I wanted to hear her sing that song for me, right this moment. “Will you sing it for me?”
Her head had been ducked, but she looked up at me and gave me a sweet, relaxed smile. Then, her playing intensified, a fuller sound vibrating out of the instrument of which she was clearly a master.
The words floated over us, all sense and meaning feeling new, stronger, more personal as she sang the words to me. Every part of me wanted it to be for me, wanted her to feel that way for me, even if I’d dispatched the brutalized part of me months ago.
She held the last note in a pure tone, then let the guitar finish the song. She dampened the strings and took a deep breath, not looking at me for a few minutes. When she finally did, the look on her face made something in my chest twist and sigh.
“I’ve sung that song probably a thousand times in the last year, and that was definitely the most intense.” She wiped her mouth and set the guitar on the stand.
“Why?”
“The song’s about you. It’s exactly about what you’ve been through, and singing it to you, it’s just… intense.” Her voice a little shaky, she smoothed her hands over her pants, tucked a strand of hair back from her face, took a sip of water.
I’d felt that, the intensity, and I’d felt it was about me—it related to my experience, or it could. It was a song I knew many soldiers valued, and I was no different.
“It’s incredible, Whit. It’s an amazing song, and I’m honored to have you play it for me.”
Her brow creased, two lines marring the expanse, and she started to speak. “No, it’s actually?—”
My phone rang. It was my mom.
“I’m sorry,” I said while showing her the phone.
“Don’t apologize. Say hi to your mom for me.”
She gave me a too-bright smile I couldn’t decipher as I tapped the phone and answered.