Chapter Twenty-One. Mackenzie
chapter twenty-one
MACKENZIE
We’re quiet for most of the ride home, aside from Sam making and taking calls as I drive. At one point he even gets a call from Caspar. “I’m sorry,” he says over the speaker. “I really don’t know how it got out.”
I think I do. And I so, so desperately want to be wrong.
I drop Sam off around the corner from his place. There are already paparazzi in front of Sugar Harmony. He just barely shook them off in Boston before coming back to get me at the Airbnb—the last thing we need is a picture of us together in the car to add fuel to the fire.
When I stop the car Sam hugs me so tightly that it reminds me of the way I needed to hold on to him when I was learning to swim. He thanks me hoarsely. Then he cuts in through a back entrance that takes him up to the apartment to find Ben and Lizzie.
I peer into the window of Sugar Harmony as I drive past, where Kara and a few customers are braving the camera storm at the front.
Rocket’s table is empty, but I already knew it would be.
I head straight for the Hudson. There are benches on the bike path where Rocket often makes a small spectacle feeding the pigeons. But he’s all on his own today, slumped on a bench and staring at New Jersey like he’s waiting for it to slam into him and put him out of his misery.
He flinches when he sees me standing there, his eyes bloodshot.
“Rocket,” I start.
It’s a good thing I didn’t bother preparing a speech, because I don’t need one. Rocket folds like a card table, lanky limbs caving, face crumbling.
“Fuck. I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t think—shit.”
I sit next to him, strangely calm. “Did you follow us to Boston?”
Rocket turns to me, looking more like a little kid than an up-and-coming anything. “I wasn’t—Serena wanted to—”
“Serena?”
Rocket nods miserably, settling his hands on his face.
“It’s ridiculous, I know,” he says, pressing the tips of his fingers into his scalp.
“But I heard her on the phone with Hannah. She thought—she thought maybe you were Seven. That you were going up to Boston to record new versions of the tracks before you went public.”
The heat is blistering on this bench in the August sun, but the hair on my arms rises. One of our favorite producers just relocated and opened a studio up there. It tracks that Serena might think I’d record with her.
The rest I can’t even begin to explain.
“And you what? Wanted to expose Seven?” I ask, keeping my voice even.
Rocket just shakes his head. “No. I wanted to know because—the guys behind the company buying Tick Tune? They’re the same ones who fucked me over on my contract. So I guess I just thought—if you were Seven—I dunno. Maybe you could do something about it.”
I’ve been so wrapped up in what’s happening with Sam that the Tick Tune drama seemed beyond me. But it isn’t, really. Not if people like Rocket think that Seven has enough power to do anything about this.
It feels wrong not to tell him the truth, but it won’t help him. Or rather—Seven can’t help him. But maybe I can.
“I’m sorry,” I start, but Rocket isn’t done.
“And also, I guess—because Serena’s been so fixated on Seven,” he says. “I figured if we found out it was you that she wouldn’t try to find the actual Seven to replace me on the tour.”
Of all the things Rocket has said in the last minute, this is the wildest. “She would never replace you,” I tell him.
Rocket looks near tears. “Oh. I don’t know about that.
” He’s shaking so hard that I couldn’t stay angry with him if I tried.
“The tour’s been delayed again, and I already quit my freelance gigs, so I’m just—zip, zilch, out of money.
And fully evicted. And I don’t actually have any family in Boston or anywhere, really, so I—when I heard Sam talking on the phone about Caspar back at the cafe, I just… ”
He hangs his head. It takes me another moment to process.
“Hit up the press for money,” I finish for him.
Rocket doesn’t look up. “He and Caspar had already been spotted together outside the bar. It was all over social media, so I guess I just thought—if it was going to get out eventually—” He shakes his head again, his face tinged gray.
“I’d take it back if I could. I was just—it was enough money to get a motel room for the night.
So I could figure out what to do when I got back here. ”
Jesus Christ, this kid. He gave away a six-figure secret so he could spend a single night lying on a moldy bed and drinking stale coffee.
“You could have come to us for help,” I tell him. “Or Serena.”
Rocket nods with his entire body, sniffling wetly. “I know. I know.”
“So why didn’t you?”
When he finally answers me, his voice is impossibly small. “I just thought I’d—handle it on my own.”
Before he even looks at me, those words tug against a heartstring that’s been sore ever since I can remember.
I put a hand on his arm, knowing precisely what he needs to hear—the same words I needed to hear, after years of feeling alone in my own parents’ home.
The ones I was lucky to hear variations of from so many people in my life. Hannah. Sam.
Serena.
“That’s too damn bad,” I say. “Because you’re not on your own.”
Rocket shakes his head, freeing a loose tear that rolls down his cheek. “Sam’s never gonna forgive me.”
I squeeze his arm. “He will,” I say. “He’ll need some time, but he will.”
Rocket stares mutely at his hands, and then back at me.
I pull in another breath, grounding myself.
Decisions need to be made, and right now I’m the one who has to make them.
It’s not a feeling I’m used to—when it came to the big decisions back in our Thunder Hearts days, Serena was always the one in control.
Ever since the band broke up, I haven’t had to make any decisions, either. I hid behind Seven while things happened around me. I was a passenger in my own life.
But it’s different now. It has been ever since Sam came back into the picture. Like he shone a light on everything—not just the parts of me that were scared to love again, but all the things I’ve been avoiding, too.
Now I’ve got no choice but to face it all head-on. If my whole mess with Seven caused this, then it’s time for me to step up to the plate and fix it, one step at a time.
“Hannah has apartments all over the city she rents out,” I tell Rocket. “We’ll get you into one for now, while we figure something out.”
Rocket just keeps shaking his head. “Don’t,” he says. “Seriously. I mean, shit. I was trying to blow your spot up, too.”
I put a hand on his back. “We’ll hash it all out later,” I say. “But first, let’s get out of here before someone tells the press you’re my secret nephew.”
His eyes brim again, a few more tears spilling over. “Thanks, Mackenzie,” he finally says.
But the next steps can wait for a little while—for however long it takes after I wrap my arms around him and let him cry.