Chapter Sixteen #2
Lara met River’s eyes as he pulled his guitar strap over his head. She was staid, calm, unflappable. They had a couple of the set musicians backing them up, but they’d have to carry it.
They could handle this. River brushed his hair back from his face with his forearm and adjusted his earpiece.
Then he stepped back from the mic and said to Lara, over his shoulder, “Count us in?”
Lara inclined her head and did what he asked.
You don’t let people tell you that the moon don’t shine
And you’re the only one who sees it when the stars align
While they wander in the desert with their eyes on the ground
You’ll be safe in the oasis in your tin foil crown
When the journey’s over and the story’s told
Your sweets will always drown out all your bitters
Because everything you love is brushed with gold
Everything you love is all that glitters
When the day is over and the night unfolds
When I bend and when I break and when I shiver
Your smile can light the dark and burn the cold
And you still don’t understand that you’re what glimmers
When he started writing, he’d meant to take that fresh-faced wonder Jem gave him—just let people like stuff—and turn it into a song.
But his first take ended up being about the transformative effect that had on River.
River had been living in Hollywood for twenty years, and that single conversation washed away two decades of jading and grime and brought back a part of River he hadn’t known he’d lost. He’d felt brand-new.
Even if it had turned out Jem didn’t love him—even if River would feel the sting of that betrayal for the rest of his life—the way River looked at the world had still changed.
As the song wound down, he tried to hold on to that feeling instead of the grief. It half worked; when he tuned back in to reality, he realized the words had come out raw instead of smooth. He’d sung himself hoarse on what used to be a ballad, and the audience was on their feet cheering.
He looked at Lara and gave her an apologetic wince. She grinned back. She had always adapted on the fly.
They were going to make a lot of great music together. But at the end of the show, the day, the tour, River would go home alone. Just like he had for the past twenty years.
He didn’t know how he got through the rest of the show.
Fortunately Ward and Eric covered for him.
By the time he was wiping off his makeup in the green room, Amanda and Ted had both texted multiple times; the Flat Tires and River were both trending on pretty much every social platform, the clip of River and Lara performing had gone viral, and all the remaining tickets to their show had sold out.
River should feel good… triumphant.
His ears rang; he felt hollow.
Lara patted him on the shoulder and wandered off to talk shop with the stage musicians. Eric was in the corner, on the phone to his wife; he had his back to the room and his shoulders were shaking.
Ward spun River’s chair around and pushed it back against the vanity so River couldn’t turn away. “Have you talked to him?”
He shook his head. “What’s there to say?” How could you do this to me? I thought you were different?
Was any of it real?
If he asked, he might get an answer. River didn’t want to know what it would do to him if Jem said no.
“I don’t know, River, maybe you could listen for once.”
River jerked back and looked up to see Ward shaking his head in frustration.
“Look, maybe we all misjudged the guy. Or maybe there’s an explanation for what happened. For example: our fans are obsessed and someone recognized you from your shoes. Weirder shit has happened.”
What if? If River had overreacted and this was all some stupid misunderstanding, and he’d hurt Jem the way he assumed Jem had hurt him—
No.
“He lied to me. He said he was home in California, but he was literally on the other side of the country, showing off at a fancy wedding.” Wearing clothes he could only afford because of what River had given him, rubbing elbows with the kind of crowd he’d pretended to hate.
Ward sighed. “You’re so fucking stubborn.”
River kicked his foot. “Shut up.”
They had the red-eye back to LA, landed at half-past-what-the-fuck, grimy-skinned and gritty-eyed and exhausted physically and emotionally. Lara, Eric, and Ward had drivers to pick them up; River had a driver and Amanda, who’d brought a cold eye mask, a cleansing face wipe, and a bottle of water.
She sat across from him in the back of the car. “So. Show went well.”
River made a third pass with the face wipe, then crumpled it up and put it in the trash. That was a leading tone if he ever heard one.
When he didn’t take the bait, Amanda said, “Do you wanna talk about it, or should I just tell you about your week?”
He opened the water. The crack of it felt like it came from inside him. “Week, please.”
“Okay. You’ve got sessions with Grace the next three days. She’s making you food. You’re going to eat it.”
River didn’t argue. He knew he’d already lost weight. He didn’t need any more rumors right now, especially since weight loss fueled substance-abuse speculation. “Okay.”
“We’ve had thirtysomething requests for interviews. I narrowed it down to three and told them we’d get back to them. They’re going to want to know about Jem, but we can tell them to fuck off, same as we told Fallon.”
Sooner or later he was going to have to tell people. Eventually it would become obvious he wasn’t spending time with Jem anymore.
But not yet, please God.
“Ask me again next week.”
Amanda moved on without pausing. “And Bella at the Steamy Bean wants to know if you and Lara are interested in doing a popup on Friday.”
That made River open his eyes. “You want to let us?”
He loved giving surprise shows, and the Steamy Bean had the perfect atmosphere—small enough to feel intimate, big enough for people to spread out, great coffee and specialty cocktails.
Live performances ranged from nobodies playing in public for the first time to spoken-word poets, mimes, and Grammy-winning artists.
They were never advertised. They cultivated a crop of regulars and a word-of-mouth network.
The Flat Tires hadn’t done a show there in a decade. Ted said it was a security nightmare, but River figured he preferred to concentrate on things that made money instead of buzz.
“I think it’d be good for you,” Amanda said. “Don’t play ‘Glitters,’ okay? Pick a couple others.”
“Okay.”
“And then obviously the day after….”
The last Flat Tires show.
River swallowed. “I’ll be ready.”
“Great.” Amanda put her phone away. “Also I booked you a massage for tomorrow afternoon.”
River leaned his head against the window. “Have I given you a raise lately?”
Jem watched the Jimmy Fallon segment with his hand pressed against his mouth.
Did other people see what he saw, with River sitting quietly on the far end of the couch? Could everyone see the shadows under his eyes? The tension in his arms?
Then River got up and sang, and Jem knew for damn sure everyone could hear his heart breaking.
“Jem.” Ivy pulled his hand away from his mouth and put something in it.
It was a cookie.
“Eat your feelings.”
Looks like you already did enough of that for both of us. Jem didn’t have a death wish, so he didn’t say it. She looked like one of those little kids’ pool toys, the ones that were basically spherical but painted to look like seals or fish and that squirted water from their mouths.
He didn’t tell her that either.
He did eat the cookie. When he finished it, she handed him another one.
Jem had barely left Tori and Ivy’s couch since Amanda had called him. He’d slept on it, even. With summer vacation in swing, Tori was teaching improvisational jazz at a week-long kids’ camp, and Ivy liked the company, or so she said.
“Have you tried messaging him again?” she asked when the second cookie was gone.
Jem shook his head. He didn’t think he could handle seeing that belated notification pop up again.
Your message could not be delivered. He hadn’t even been able to touch the pajamas.
They felt like a scarlet letter. Every time he remembered they existed, he heard Amanda’s voice all over again. He’s hurting right now.
All because of Jem’s stupid pride. Because he’d cared more about the thoughts of people he’d probably never see again than about River’s feelings.
“Okay. Well.” She squished closer on the couch and handed him her tablet. “I know you said it doesn’t matter, but I did some digging.”
He didn’t follow. “Digging?”
Ivy pursed her lips. “About how the rumors started, about River’s TikTok and everything.”
Jesus Christ. “You found out how an internet rumor started?” Fuck, was she angling for a Pulitzer? “Ives—”
“I was up for two hours in the middle of the night with heartburn,” she said dismissively. “What else was I going to do? Anyway. There it is. The Reddit thread that started it all.”
“I knew that place was evil.” Jem glanced down at the tablet, not sure what he was looking for.
“It’s a subreddit about the Flat Tires specifically,” Ivy said, as if she was reading his mind. “And here, this post from just over a week ago, that’s what kicked it off.”
He scanned down the page. I know someone who knows River Wild and I swear he had a clip of River playing this on his phone, but I couldn’t prove it, so I watched the TikTok like fifty times. If you look closely, you can see the scar on the side of his third knuckle.
“Oh fuck.”
So not only had he lied to River and broken his heart, he was also the reason this rumor came out.
Jem felt sick.
Ivy caught the tablet before it could fall to the floor. “So it was you? The person who showed this redditor the clip?”
“I mean, I didn’t exactly show him.” Jem ran his hands through his hair. “I was hungover as fuck and Colton asked about my lockscreen because he’s a big Flat Tires fan, so I let him look through my camera roll—”
Ivy gave him a startled look.
“I don’t keep anything I wouldn’t want a kindergartener to see on there!”