Thirty-Nine
THIRTY-NINE
NOT EVEN brYAN ADAMS CAN FIX THIS MESS
We have four days off from the tour. Four days for me to figure out how to fix the downward spiral that is my life. I know I need to confront my mother about Don Sparrow, but I’m not sure I’m ready to hear it. Especially if the truth she finally reveals is the person I believed to be my father my entire life is in fact not my father.
I spent the drive back to Nashville hiding in my bunk, staring at the photo of what I now believe to be Don Sparrow, my maybe-father, questioning my entire existence. There’s no way he doesn’t know who I am. Emily’s ominous words to their mystery investor keep rolling through me: We wanted Kick, but the Sparrow brothers wanted Mari. Don was adamant about it. Does that mean Don Sparrow knows who I am? And that’s why he asked me to audition for the tour? And if he knows who I am, why hasn’t he said anything? Why hasn’t my mother said anything? Why is everyone walking around acting like everything is completely normal when the entirety of my life just blew up in my face? Did Don Sparrow think getting me on the tour would make up for never being in my life? Did he think reassuring pats on the back before going on stage every night, offering to record a demo for us, would make up for a lifetime without him? Does Jasmine know? Have she and Don been talking about it behind my back the whole tour?
I’m sitting on the couch at Granny G’s eating pork potstickers Cass made in the air fryer. We’re half-watching a show from Cass’s Essential Viewing List.
When I got home, I told Cass the whole sordid tale about Emily and Cheddar’s plan. She was horrified, worried for me, ready to fight Emily and burn down the tour, all the essential emotions. When I moaned what’s the point of going back out on the tour , she ranted for a full hour about how I deserve to be there no matter what evil scheme Emily and Cheddar cooked up. That I should take advantage of their insidious motivations. That I should continue to kill it every night and then convince their investor to spend all of their money on my career instead of Kick’s.
I haven’t told her about Don Sparrow. About the cowboy shirt with the orange flowers. Saying the words out loud would make them true, and I’m not ready for it to be true.
Instead of thinking oh-my-God-Don-Sparrow-is-probably-my-father on an infinite loop, I’m trying to decide if Cass is right about Emily and Cheddar. But that feels too hard to think about. I could think about Kick, but he’s impossible to think about. Instead of thinking, I’m wallowing. I haven’t showered and my hair is in a messy knot, no make-up, Chop pants and Kick’s vintage Bryan Adams t-shirt. He left it in the front lounge one night and I…took it. I didn’t know why at the time, but now I’m glad to have it. It feels like he’s here with me even though I don’t want him to be here with me. As strong as my feelings are for him, I also question every moment we’ve had together, if any of it was genuine or if we just blindly played into Emily and Cheddar’s carefully structured narrative. I want to believe things between us are real. I want to believe the song he wrote for me was real. But it’s too convenient, too perfectly timed, too much. A part of me believes I should shut him out forever, should protect myself from falling any further. Should burn this t-shirt .
But it’s crazy soft and smells like Kick. So.
The doorbell rings and Cass and I eye each other.
“I didn’t order anything.”
“I’m not communicating with the outside world so you know it wasn’t me,” I say.
Cass jumps up to find out who it is and I hear him before I see him. Kick Raines at my door. I lean forward and see he’s filling up the doorframe like a hero sent to save the damsel in distress. He’s wearing loose sweatpants cut off above the knee and an oversized black t-shirt, running shoes on his feet. He’s effortlessly cool and so beautiful it makes my teeth ache. But I don’t want to see him.
I sink lower into the couch, hoping Cass will adios him right as I hear her say, “Come on in.”
Traitor.
When Kick walks into the living room, Chop hobbles over to him, sniffs his shoe, barks once, and hobbles away.
“It’s Chop,” Kick says, “from your pants.”
I ignore him and make a big show of putting a huge bite of potsticker into my mouth.
“I’ll just,” Cass says, leaning her body towards the hallway, “go see if Granny G needs anything.”
“No,” I mumble, mouth full, pointing my chopsticks at her, “you stay.”
Cass slides down into her favorite armchair, her butt making an exaggerated fart noise against the worn leather on her way down. It does nothing to break the tension. Kick hesitates longer than is comfortable, but eventually sits on the couch, scooting as close to the opposite end as he can.
Granny G sweeps into the room. She’s in a hot pink muumuu, giant gold hoops and bright pink lipstick. “Girls, has anyone seen my, oh, hello.” She bats her eyes at Kick. “You’re the handsome young man from Mari’s concerts.”
“Yes ma’am,” Kick says. He stands up to shake her hand and towers over her. “I’m Kick Raines. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard many wonderful things.”
Granny G smiles at me, her tiny hand still in Kick’s massive grip. “I like him.”
She excuses herself to the kitchen where she will inevitably eavesdrop.
“Looks like you’re having a great day off,” he says, sitting back down and motioning to The Vampire Diaries on the TV. When I saw it on Cass’s list, I remembered Kick’s comment about loving Ian Somerhalder which made me want to watch it to somehow feel closer to Kick. Pathetic.
“How did you know where I live?”
Kick’s cheeks go red and he glances at Cass.
“You told him?” I bark at her.
She’s defiant when she says, “You two need to talk about…things. I thought this would be a good place to do that.”
This time I say it out loud. “Traitor.”
Kick rests his long arm across the back of the couch. “I wanted to explain why I never said I knew you were LOVEJOY’s sister. I thought in person would be the best way to do that.”
I eat another potsticker and keep my focus on the TV. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cass motion to him like, go on .
“When that guy at Jackson’s party mentioned you were Polly Lovejoy’s sister, my very first thought was wow, Polly’s lucky to have a sister like her.” I don’t react so he keeps talking. “I also laughed because of the way you turned your nose up when we heard her song.” His fingers tentatively graze my shoulder. “But it meant nothing to me that you were her sister. All I cared about was seeing you again.”
I risk glancing at him. His eyes are puppy dog soft, which is totally unfair, and I wonder for the millionth time how I got mixed up with a guy like Kick Raines.
“Then when you introduced yourself as Mari Gold at the audition, I figured you didn’t want anyone to know who you were. So I waited for you to tell me on your own. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I thought it might hurt you that I knew. And I’m going to keep saying this until you believe me but, I don’t care that your legal name is Penny Lovejoy or who your sister is.” He waits until I look at him and says, “I am not using you to get to someone else or whatever else it is you think I could be doing. I never was.”
If I tell him what I know about the record deal, it will confirm whether or not he’s lying. If he’s telling the truth, maybe we can find a way out of this whole mess. If he’s not, goodbye Kick Raines and goodbye my heart.
“I found out,” I start, quickly losing my words. I’m scared to take this step, scared to put it all out there. Scared of finding out something I don’t want to know. Scared of losing him. I bite my lips and keep going. “I overheard some things at the Dallas show. Things I’m hoping you don’t already know. Because if you do...” I let that hang in the air for a moment. Kick doesn’t say anything and I wonder if it means he does know. I eat another potsticker, take my time chewing, stare at the TV. Kick’s right. Ian Somerhalder makes a sexy vampire. I swallow my bite and take a long drink of water before I look back at Kick.
“Emily and Cheddar are starting their own record label.”
I wait a beat to see if he’ll say he knew. He doesn’t.
“I overheard them meeting with an investor. They,” I swallow, not wanting to say it out loud, “manipulated the votes from the audition. Neither one of us won. We didn’t get the most votes. Cheddar manufactured the posts on socials talking us up, which means the momentum we thought we had isn’t real.”
Kick looks shellshocked. A good sign, at least for me.
“They told the investor they wanted to go with just you, make you the winner of the competition, but the Sparrow brothers wanted me, so they thought up the duo. They planned to make us popular as a couple with their fake social posts and meet and greets and, just, all of it. They believe fans will buy into you because of the couple thing and then at the end of the tour they’re planning to announce you as their first artist, as a solo act. Without me. It’s all been a lie, the contest, us, the whole thing. It was just a ploy for them to get what they wanted. Which was you, apparently.”
Kick’s taking it all in, his lips parted in shock. It’s quiet, the low murmur of sexy-vampires-who-are-brothers on the TV. Cass and I look at each other and wait. Kick’s quiet long enough for me to come up with a plan to suggest we watch this every night on the bus instead of vampire movies.
“Who won?” he asks.
I almost laugh because that’s the exact question I would have asked if the roles were reversed.
“Shades of Grey.”
“Fuuuuuuuuck.” He takes a long, deep breath and scrubs his hands down his face, pulling the corners of his lips down with his fingertips. “You’re sure?”
“I heard all of it. They were in my dressing room right before our set. In Dallas.” I repeat that part, waiting for him to put it together.
He drops his head to his chest and takes another deep breath before looking at me. “So when I did that song for you.”
I hold his gaze. “Yeah, when you did that song.”
“I didn’t know.” He looks over at Cass and then back to me, emotion all over his face. “About any of it, I didn’t know. I had no idea. Mari,” he reaches out and wraps his hand around my arm so gently I nearly whimper out loud, “I didn’t know.”
The tightness I’ve been carrying in my chest since hearing the whole sordid plan loosens like the pulled end of a Christmas bow. I’ve been so worried I was being played by everyone, including Kick, that I haven’t taken a full breath in days.
Kick lets go of my arm and leans forward, elbows on his knees, fingers raking through his hair. He gives me a sideways glance. “I feel like an idiot.”
I raise a chopstick full of potsticker in salute. He eyes my plate, hesitating for a yes. I nod. He grabs a potsticker and nearly swallows it whole and wow, I might be in love with him.
I clear my throat and brace myself. “I believe, now, your intentions were good. With the song. And it was really good. Like, really, really good.”
“You liked it?” He looks so hopeful I might burst into tears.
“Kick, I loved it.”
Cass played the song for me when I got home from tour. She’d been recording every livestream in case there were any I wanted to watch back or use clips to post online. I hadn’t really heard the song when he’d sung it, too in my head with everything else going on.
“It wasn’t fair of me to get so angry with you,” I say. “I thought winning the spot on the tour was this life-defining moment for me, something I’d achieved on my own when for so long I haven’t…” I pause, not ready to fully spill it all. “My life hasn’t been my own for a long time. Maybe ever. And winning the competition—that was mine.”
Kick nods. He gets it.
“Then I heard Emily and Cheddar’s plan and realized I hadn’t achieved anything at all, that I’d been stepped over once again by people in pursuit of their own agenda. And in that moment, it felt like, like maybe you’d been playing me too.” He starts to butt in but I stop him. “And then that song. It was like I didn’t have a choice, that you’d decided we were going to go public for the spectacle of it, like you were doing that song for the investor and not for me. That maybe it was all part of the plan to charm people into buying your debut record.”
“Mari, I could never, ever…would never?—”
“I know. Now, I do. But you can see how it would feel that way to me, right?”
His eyes go soft, his voice even softer. “Yes.”
“It felt like every other person was pulling the strings of my life and that I had no say in anything that was happening or was going to happen. It wasn’t at all what I wanted. And then… ”
Kick scoots closer to me, trails his fingers on the back of my neck. “There’s more?”
Cass quirks an eyebrow, curious.
I cup my hand over my marigold tattoo and squeeze.
“Last night. Don Sparrow. On stage he was…he was wearing a cowboy shirt with orange flowers. And he was playing a mint green Les Paul. I’m pretty sure it’s the same shirt and the same guitar from the photo I have of my father.”
Cass inhales a loud breath and Kick pulls his hand away from me, shocked.
There’s a muffled cry from Granny G in the kitchen.
I set my plate on the coffee table and pull my legs up underneath me. Kick leans forward again, elbows on his knees. He leans back, his head against the back of the couch. Leans forward. He’s a seesaw of shock.
“You think Don Sparrow might be your father?” he asks.
“The shirt and the guitar could be a massive coincidence, but there’s something Emily said when she and Cheddar were talking to that investor.” I look at Kick. “She said they only wanted you, but the Sparrow brothers insisted on me winning too. Don specifically. She said he was adamant. That has to mean something, right?”
“Damn,” Cass says.
“Just to review,” Kick says, “you’re Polly Lovejoy’s sister. And Don Sparrow is your dad, maybe. Probably. And we didn’t win the contest. And Emily and Cheddar are…I don’t even know.”
We all three stare at the TV, unseeing, absorbing the mountain of info I’ve just unleashed.Granny G walks back through the living room shaking her head in disbelief. All of us are stunned speechless.
Elena’s invited Damon Salvatore into her house by the time I find my words again.
“What do I do? If Don Sparrow is my father? What do I do with the fact that we’ve been on tour together for weeks and weeks and he’s never said anything to me. If he knows who I am, why wouldn’t he say something?”
“Maybe he doesn’t know,” Kick says.
“Or maybe you’re right and the shirt is a coincidence,” Cass offers. “I mean, how many cowboy shirts with marigolds are there in the world? Gotta be what, at least a few hundred? He and your dad used to be friends. Maybe they bought them at the same time.”
“I thought about that. But it all lines up so neatly, doesn’t it? My father had a huge falling out with the band. Mom said he died of a broken heart. The shirt. The guitar. The fact that Don wanted me on the tour. But how do I confirm it? It’s not like I can climb onto his bus and say, hey, I noticed your shirt the other night. I think you might be my father.”
“We could get a DNA sample,” Cass says, “send it to be tested.”
“Sure, I’ll just run on stage and swab his cheek when he’s singing ‘Meltdown.’”
“Emily would pass out if you did that,” Kick says with a laugh.
Cass scoffs. “I would honestly love to tell her the girl she’s manipulating to ultimately reject is actually Don Sparrow’s daughter.”
“I bet she’d suddenly find a way to release two artists instead of one,” I say.
Kick and I look at each other, both of us thinking about what comes next.
“So, you’ll sign with them?” I ask.
Kick sinks back into the couch and crosses his arms over his chest. He blows out a long breath and closes his eyes. When he opens them, his face is twisted in conflict.
“It’s never been the dream, never been my dream. I thought this tour would be this one amazing experience, you know? That I’d fulfill Steven’s long-held passion and move on. I’m not a frontman, not a solo act. And it feels wrong, how it all came about, how they’re using us for their little plan. I’ve never had a problem with Emily and Cheddar, but the sneaky way they’re putting this whole thing together.” He shakes his head. “Besides, if they don’t want us both, I don’t want them.” His eyes fall on me. “You’re what makes me good.”
A sharp pain pinches inside my chest and the future dances in front of my eyes—me and Kick on stage as headliners, singing together every night. It’s not something I’ve truly considered a possibility until now. But what if we could keep the magic going?
“Mari,” Cass says. “You said you feel like you haven’t been able to make any of your own choices. And Emily and Cheddar are both massive dicks, obviously. So, speaking as your pretend manager, I think the important question to ask yourself is, what do you want?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you had the choice, the ability to make the next step happen, whatever that is, what would you want it to be?”
This feels like a trick. “Like, anything?”
“Everything.”
It’s such a simple question but it lights my brain up like a string of spotlights. I haul myself off the couch, needing to move. I circle the living room, Kick and Cass’s eyes on me and each other.
What do I want?
What do I want?
What do I want ?
I used to be so sure. I wanted to write songs that connected with people, like my father did, or, the man I thought was my father. I wanted my mother to take me seriously as an artist, not just another opportunity-maker for her to use at her own discretion. I wanted to someday find someone who wanted me for me, one hundred percent. After everything that’s happened, my foundation has shifted, but the roots of those wants are still there .
“I want to write and perform my own songs and make it in the industry, but on my own terms. I want to know for sure if Don Sparrow is my father and if he is, I want to figure out a way to have a relationship with him. I want to find a way to heal what’s broken between me and my mother and my sister.”
I stop in front of them, hands on my hips.
“I want Cass to be my manager, but not pretend. For real.” She makes a face like no way . “You’re the smartest person I know and can talk to anyone about anything. That’s essentially what a manager is, right?”
“Could I still do hair?”
“Obviously.”
Her face scrunches up, skeptical. “You’d seriously want me?”
“I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”
“Me too,” Kick says. “I want you to be my manager.”
Cass, for once, can’t think of a single thing to say.
My eyes move to Kick. If I say this next thing, it’s me taking the biggest risk of all. It’s me throwing the doors of my heart wide open and finally inviting him all the way in.
“I never thought I’d ever want to be anything other than a solo artist. But singing with you every night is my most favorite thing, the best thing I’ve ever done. You bring out something in me that’s special and powerful and so, so good. We’re good together. Great. I can’t imagine ever doing this without you. I don’t want …”
I’m about to say to do it without you but Kick leaps off the couch and envelops me in a hug before I can get the words out. He’s pressing close, fully engulfing me in his arms. The way he’s holding me erases the last few days and sets everything right again.
“Well,” Cass says, a smile in her voice, “my first decision as acting Real Manager is going to the store to get ingredients. The three of us are going to film a new Sapphic Sammies video.”