Chapter Seventeen. Mackenzie
chapter seventeen
MACKENZIE
We are definitely not going to make it back to New York tonight.
Even after a few miles of Sam’s aimless wandering through Boston, he is so vacant that I’ve barely gotten a few words out of him.
Not even words like, Hey, by the way—my secret dad is Caspar Quentin, one of the most famous rock stars in history.
Or at least I assume it was, given the guilty look Caspar cast Sam before he slid into a black car and drove out of sight.
Not that it matters who he is. Whoever put Sam in a state like this deserves to rot.
We alternately walk and sit on benches by the river. Nobody’s expecting us to be here, so with my hair tucked into my cap and our sunglasses, we’re left alone. At some point we pass some shop owners closing up for the night and Sam startles at the sound of their keys.
“Shit,” he says. “It’s so late.”
“I booked us an Airbnb earlier,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “If you’re tired, I can drive—”
“There’s a big storm coming,” I say. “I don’t think my clunker is built for it.”
Sam runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry. Fuck.”
I take his wrist and squeeze it lightly. “New rule. No apologizing,” I say. “At least not until we get some food.”
We do the most Boston thing possible then, and stop in a Dunkin’ for decaf coffee and donuts and settle on a park bench in Boston Common as the sun starts to set.
Sam explains between bites what his mom only recently explained to him: that once upon a time she was working as a barista to put herself through school, in a spot right next to Caspar’s bachelor pad.
He’d ask her out every morning and every morning she’d laugh and say no.
Then one night they ran into each other at a club.
He was leaving the next morning for a tour, so they danced.
They went back to his place together. By the time his mom realized she was pregnant, she was four months along and Caspar was skyrocketing to fame.
Caspar didn’t want to be involved. Anna wasn’t surprised. She said that if he ever wanted to get in touch with her about Sam, he could. But Caspar never did. At least, until now.
“So what happened this afternoon?” I ask carefully. “You were in there a long time.”
Sam leans forward on the bench, recapping a conversation that quite frankly makes me want to break Caspar’s nose.
“He’s—every cliché you can imagine,” he says at the end. “It was like talking to a cardboard cutout of a man.”
The last thing I want to do is defend Caspar. But I can tell that despite everything, Sam doesn’t want to believe it. He wants to hold on to the idea of what his dad was supposed to be. It’s a feeling I can understand, even if I’ve never felt it like this.
“Maybe he was just nervous,” I say.
Sam lets out a bitter laugh. “I was nervous to meet him .”
We’re quiet again, and it’s getting dark. I’m about to pull up the address of the Airbnb when Sam says suddenly, “Let’s go to Rocket’s open mic.”
On the list of possible words that might come out of Sam’s mouth right now, I can’t say that was near the top. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” says Sam. “If we’re stuck here, we might as well get some of Boston in while we’re at it.”
I cast my eye at a touristy vendor stall on the corner. “In that case,” I say.
A few minutes later, we’ve swapped our incognito disguises for ones that are just as effective, if not far more ridiculous.
I pick out a pair of Red Sox sunglasses and a hat that says WICKED PISSAH for Sam, and he picks a Sam Adams trucker hat with an oversized T-shirt of a most certainly unlicensed Baby Yoda drinking out of a Dunkin’ cup for me.
“Well, shit,” says Sam, reaching up to tuck a loose curl back into my hat. “They’re not going to let us back over the river.”
“Damn. I’ll never get to try Ben’s pizza muffins now.”
We shoot Rocket a text. Just as he drops us the address to the open mic, a few raindrops start to fall, before abruptly turning into a sheet of water so thick we can hardly see past our noses.
Sam grabs my hand and tugs , and the two of us take off, cackling and yelping as the rain pelts us for the entire five blocks to the cafe.
We’re breathless when we tumble through the door, a mess of wet limbs and dripping clothes.
“You made it!”
Rocket hops off the stair step that makes up the “stage” in the cozy little cafe.
He hugs us so hard and so gratefully that I know not to turn and look to see if his parents are here.
In fact, by the time he presents us coffee and cookies and sits us down at a table right by the stage, bashfully and excitedly introducing us to his friends, I’m starting to feel like we’re his parents.
Rocket sticks a clipboard under our noses with enough gusto to make us flinch. “Can I sign you guys up for a slot?” he asks. “Doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Everyone here’s pretty chill.”
Sam looks at me with his eyebrows raised gamely.
“Sam does some impressive Taylor Swift covers if you get enough of this into him,” I say, poking at the coffee.
Sam isn’t letting me off that easy. “Let’s do ‘Run Out of Road,’” he says.
I blink. “The song we wrote two seconds ago?”
Sam puts his hand on the back of my shoulders, rattling me like a boxing coach. “C’mon, Mackenzie. We got this.”
Damn. He needs to stop saying my name. If he had any idea what kind of hold it has on me, he’d be too damn smug for his own good.
Still, I hold firm. “It’s not ready yet.”
I’m not ready yet.
It’s not even that I’m nervous about my new voice. I’m worried that I’ll open my mouth, sing one note, and someone will recognize it as Seven.
I’ve been careful. Sam thinks I’m holding back, but it’s more strategic than that.
I keep my voice in a particular register when I’m rehearsing with Sam, and practice the songs in it, too.
Only Hannah has heard, but she has a discerning ear.
She doesn’t think they sound enough alike for anyone to make the connection.
But I haven’t had a chance to practice the new song in it yet, so Seven might leak through. And the last thing I need is to have my alter ego revealed just before I pull it off the app forever. As soon as the glitch gets fixed, I’m logging into my account and deleting the whole thing.
“All right,” says Sam, giving my shoulders another squeeze. “But it’s on you when I bastardize ‘Shake It Off’ in front of these innocent people.”
We spend the next hour entertained by a sweet-faced, pixie-cutted cellist, a stammering comedian who makes us all howl, a few singers with guitars, and, of course, Rocket, who does a stripped-down version of a wacky synth song we hadn’t heard yet.
We’re at a pause between performances when Sam’s phone lights up.
“My mom,” he says. “I should probably update her.”
I nod, making room for him to head to the back of the cafe to take the call.
The tiny cellist is struggling with her instrument and several tote bags, causing a near collision with Rocket as he tries to slide past her to the bathroom, so I help her pull out her stuff and take it out to the front where she can wait for a car.
By the time she’s squared away, Sam is off the phone with a grim smile.
“Let’s head out,” I say.
He nods and I send Rocket a quick text so we don’t have to wait. This time when we walk out into the rain, we don’t make a run for it. There’s something welcoming in the warmth of it, in the way it has emptied out the streets.
The Airbnb is close enough to walk. We let ourselves in with the hidden key, turning on the lights to reveal a small living and kitchen area and a hall that leads to a bathroom and two bedrooms, one of which is the master suite, the other a child’s bedroom complete with cloud-painted walls and a genuine race car bed.
“Dibs,” we both say at the same time.
I turn to him in mock affront. “I drove here,” I remind him. “I get the race car bed.”
He steps backward into the room, making a show of how at ease he is in it. “My estranged dad turned out to be an egomaniac. I get the race car bed.”
I step so I’m inches away from his face. I haven’t kissed him in hours. It feels like a debt that needs collecting, a deadline overdue.
“Nice try,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean—”
The argument swiftly ends then with Sam’s hand on the back of my neck, pulling me in for a kiss. It’s sweet and simmering, with a distinct kind of ache. I can still feel the weight of this day in his touch.
I ease us both to the edge of the little race car bed, kissing him lightly before asking, “What did your mom say?”
Sam blows out a breath. “She said he’s always an ass the first time you meet him.”
“Will you see him again?”
Sam pulls the baseball cap off my head, letting my damp hair fall onto my shoulders. He runs a hand through it, considering.
“This probably makes me an ass, too,” says Sam. “But I like my life the way it is. I don’t need him in it.”
I shake my head. “You don’t owe him anything. Especially not after the way he treated you.”
Sam is so quiet that I worry he doesn’t believe me. Then he turns to me, uncharacteristically careful.
“Is that how you feel about your parents?” he asks.
I blink. “Oh,” I say. “I mean—I don’t think about it that much anymore, to be honest. God, that probably makes me sound like an ass, too.”
“Nah.” Sam settles his hand on top of mine, weaving his fingers through it. “But it doesn’t make it suck any less.”
The rain patters against the glass windowpanes, lulling and gentle.
“I, uh—I went to therapy, during that break,” I tell him. “Maybe I’m not happy about the way my parents are, but I’m at peace with it. They just weren’t built that way. It’s got nothing to do with me.” I squeeze his hand. “I hope you know that about Caspar, too.”
Sam nods, staring down at our laps. “You really don’t think about it much?”
I’m still for a moment, considering.
“I do,” I say. “But mostly to explain other parts of my life. When guys came on strong and made all these promises, I just—wanted to believe them so badly that I ignored all the red flags. They felt safe, in the beginning, and when things started to go bad I just…” I swallow hard.
“It was my parents all over again. Trying to earn their love. Keep it. Like I was playing the same story over and over, thinking I could change the ending and fix all the other ones, too.”
Sam doesn’t say anything. He just keeps his hand on mine and leans in, tucking me into him like a port in the storm still picking up outside.
I close my eyes in relief, but keep them shut because I’m afraid it’s happening all over again. That Sam will become one more ending I can’t fix.
“Sorry,” I say quietly. “That was a lot.”
More than a lot, even. I’ve never said that much out loud to anyone. Not even Hannah.
But Sam shakes his head against my temple. “You know you can tell me anything.”
When I pull in another breath, the words are at the tip of my tongue: I’m Seven.
Maybe there’s no harm in telling Sam now. I trust him not to tell anybody. I trust him not to judge me for the way I held on to the past, writing those songs in the first place.
I may even trust him with the scariest thing of all. I trust him to stay.
“I know,” I tell him.
Sam kisses my temple. “Good,” he says.
But Seven is mine, and tomorrow, she’ll be buried. I used her to close a book so I could start a new one, and I think—I hope—it might be starting right now. With the last person I thought it would be, in the least likely way.
I pull back to look at him. There’s no mischief, no posturing, in the familiar planes of his face. When he’s stripped of everything that makes him Sam Blaze, he’s just Sam. My Sam.
Maybe it’s an absurd thought. But the more time we spend together, the harder it gets to push it away.
I shiver. Sam pulls me in closer. “I saw some robes hanging in the bathroom,” he says.
“And I spotted a cheap bottle of wine at the door,” I tell him. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a damn drink.”
Sam’s lips curl. “Lead the way.”