Chapter 3
HOUSTON
No clue what to do for Lou. I don’t know her yet, so I give her space and head for the bar. The least I can do is make her a drink.
I take stock. Citrus. Soda. Simple syrup. Decent bottles. Ice that doesn’t taste like the freezer. Glassware clean. The suite gives us what we need if we know what to ask for. I line up three rocks glasses and a coupe, then glance over.
She comes out of her bedroom, dressed in a little black number that hugs her body and fuck-me heels she can barely walk in.
I hope she’s thinking of changing them, but I’m not about to say it. “Anything you won’t drink?”
She thinks. “Nothing too sweet.”
“Citrus okay?”
A nod.
I wash the limes, roll them on the counter, and cut clean wedges. The knife makes that soft click against the board. I fill the shaker half with ice. Mom loves a solid cocktail, so I’ve been making them since I was a kid.
Tequila, lime, a breath of agave, a pinch of salt, shake until the tin sweats, strain into the coupe, neat rim. I build two highballs with soda and citrus for backup. Water too. Always water.
I slide the coupe to the spot in front of her and push the water within reach. “Test drive.”
She takes a sip. The corner of her mouth lifts at the same time her shoulders drop. Not a full smile. Something better. “Perfect.”
“Good.”
The Strip glows through the windows, but the suite is quiet in the right ways.
I lean against the bar, not crowding. Lou stands, then sits on the arm of the couch, as if she’s not ready to commit to the whole seat.
The dress Knox arranged looks like it chose her, not the other way around.
No glitter, no fight with the fabric. She fits it, it fits her.
Her hair is loose now, and the copper streaks catch the hotel light.
I stir my soda with a straw and take a sip. “How’d you meet Troy?”
She makes a face at the glass, not at me.
“Backstage pass thing. His breakout solo tour last year. I went with a friend. She lost interest halfway through the set. I didn’t.
Somebody in a lanyard asked if we wanted to meet the band.
Troy thought my friend was pretty, and my friend thought he was loud, so she shoved me in front of him. We clicked. He was funny that night.”
“He has a good sense of humor. Or, he used to.”
She taps the stem, a tiny rhythm. “I didn’t know he was such a big jackass—” She stops herself and looks up. “Sorry. I shouldn’t talk about your brother like that.”
“He’s a jackass.” I take the sting out with a shrug. “I didn’t want to see it. Knox and Salem kept telling me we had a problem. I kept giving him chances.”
She waits. Not pushing. Not letting me off the hook.
“When he was in the band, he always tried to soak up the light. Most solos, most screen time, most press. If a camera panned left, he went left, even if the part didn’t call for him.
To him, it didn’t matter that we were a band and brothers.
The spotlight was the job.” I sigh. “That’s not how this works. ”
Her fingers stop tapping.
“And then money started going missing.” I keep it simple.
“Band accounts. Shared expenses. Tour float fund. It took me too long to call it what it was. He called it borrowing. But it’s not borrowing if you never pay it back.
Eventually, he started bucking for top billing and trying to con our financial manager into giving him a bigger cut. We had to put a stop to it.”
She takes a long drink and sets the glass down. “Why didn’t you go public with that? People would want to know what he did.”
I tilt my head, let the question sit one beat. “You don’t have siblings, do you?”
Her mouth pulls into a flat line. “No.” She pauses. “Maybe.”
I nod. I’m not sure what she means, but I’m not going to pry if she doesn’t want to say it.
She looks down at her hands, then reaches for the chain at her neck. The silver catches and slides. She brings out a small locket and lays it in her palm.
“I’m an orphan.” She says it plain. “Aged out of foster care. I don’t know much about my family. This was with me when I was surrendered into a safe haven baby box at a hospital.”
She opens the locket. Two tiny faces stare back. A pretty woman. A handsome man. The photos are old, the kind where every highlight goes to white. She looks at them the way people look at landmarks they’ve never visited and still know by heart.
“I think they might be my parents. I’ll never know.” She flips the locket. “The back says ‘Navarro.’ That’s how I got my last name.” A small breath. “One of the nurses at the hospital liked Louisa May Alcott. So I got Louisa May.”
The little click when the locket closes hits harder than I expect. I’m fine with noise. This quiet doesn’t sit right with me. Not after that sad story. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m used to it.”
People get used to standing in the rain too. Doesn’t mean it’s right.
“My brothers and I don’t know who our fathers are.” I lean back on the bar, keep my voice even. “Our mother had a busy social life when she was touring. She named us for the cities she thinks she conceived us in.”
She snorts at that. “Really?”
I nod and smile. “We laugh about it because it’s easier than thinking too hard about how her life was back then.
She got pregnant with Knox when she was nineteen.
I can’t imagine how hard that was for her.
She kept going, met my bio-dad, and a few years later, Salem’s.
Whoever they were.” I sigh. “Three kids, boom, boom, boom, when she was barely an adult herself. That’s why she settled into studio work.
To raise us with a steady paycheck and a stable home. ”
“That’s a good mom.”
I grin. “Yeah, she is. We’re close with her. If I didn’t have my family, I’d be lost.”
Lou turns the locket over with her thumb. “Your mom named you Houston because…”
“Houston, Texas.”
“Knox?”
“Knoxville.”
Her mouth almost smiles. “And Salem is obvious.”
“Almost always.” I take another sip of soda.
“Yeah, he doesn’t strike me as the type to do subtle.” She looks at the door to the hall, to the door of Salem’s room, to the door of Knox’s, like she’s measuring what that costs and what it gives back. “Must be nice having family that’s so close to each other.”
“It is. It’s a lot of work too.”
She takes another drink. The glass sweats, and she traces a circle in the ring on the table with one finger, then wipes it with her thumb like she can erase it. “I tried to build a life that didn’t need anybody. It worked until I met Troy.”
“It’s allowed to stop working. You readjust and move forward.”
“Tell that to my rent.”
I let out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “Rent listens to no one.”
“You really think he’s a jackass?” she says after a minute. “Your brother.”
“Yes. I also think he’s talented and scared and used to getting away with it. All those things can be true at once.”
“Why is he like that?”
“Some people hear a crowd and it sounds like a hunger they have to feed.” I look at the window where the Strip flashes like a fish trying to shake a hook. “I like playing. I like the work. I like the room. I don’t need the part where everyone’s eyes are on me. He does.”
“And the money?”
I shake my head. “We grew up counting every dollar until we hit it big, and we hit it big when he was too young to remember the hard parts. He thought we always lived in a mansion, that we always had money. Earning it never occurred to him. He hated that part. He decided the rules were for other people.”
Her mouth presses thin. “And you still don’t go public.”
“We’d rather our music be the headline. Not some family squabbling.”
She tips her head, considering it. “So what happens next?”
“Tonight, we have some fun. Dinner, dancing, see the sights, whatever you want.” I set the shaker in the sink, run water over it until the metal loses its bite. “Tomorrow, we figure everything else out.”
She looks down at her locket again, then tucks it under the neckline of the dress like she’s putting the past back where it sits most days.
“I don’t have siblings. But I had a girl in one of the foster homes who let me copy her homework and pushed me into the cafeteria line before all the good stuff was gone.
I would’ve kept her secrets if she’d asked. ” A half shrug. “I get it.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that’s not a sibling relationship. That’s barely a friendship. This poor woman.
I line up the bottles so the labels face forward. Habit. “We didn’t protect him because he’s famous. We protected him because he’s ours. Until he made it impossible.”
“And then?”
“And then we stopped.”
She watches my hands, not my face. “I didn’t know about the money.”
“Not your fault.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She finds the seam on the arm of the couch and rubs it with her thumb. “I mean, I didn’t know any of this. He said he left because the band was holding him back. He said you were jealous.”
I don’t react. There’s no point. “We were relieved. That’s not the same as jealous.”
Her mouth wants to argue, then doesn’t. “He’s good at being the main character.”
“He’s a hell of a dancer, better than the rest of us. Decent singer. Not much of a songwriter.” I drag a hand over my hair. “If he was half as smart as he thinks he is, he would apologize and come crawling back to us. Instead, his next album is going to bomb if he’s not careful.”
“Since he hasn’t been able to write a single song and the album is due in two months, yeah. It is.”
“What do you do when you’re not working?”
She blinks like she has to replay the question. “Work is most of it. Or, it was.”
“On purpose or by accident?”
“Both.” She takes a breath, lets it out. “I used to draw for me. Then I started drawing for other people. Then I started drawing for him. Somewhere in there, I forgot that drawing for me was allowed.”
“Start small. Lines. Boxes. Shapes.”
She gives me a look like she’s not sure if I’m joking. “You draw?”
I tap the bar. “I build. Same rules. You don’t start with the roof.”
She thinks about that and decides it’s not a line. “What do you build?”
“Sets. Schedules. The deck around my beach bungalow. Whatever needs building.”
She glances around, soaking in the quiet. “Thanks for this.”
“The drink?”
“The way you ask questions.”
I nod. “You’re kind of our date tonight. I want you to have a good time.”
A breath that almost turns into a laugh. “Kind of.”
“Kind of.”
She slides off the arm of the couch and sits properly, like she’s telling herself to stay. “I won’t be a problem.”
“You don’t have to be anything. Just yourself.”
Her eyes flick to my face and away. I’m not sure what that means for her.
Salem’s door opens. He steps out in all black, glam-goth if you squint, metal at his ears, sharp line at his jaw, boots he can run in. He looks like he’s about to lead a band into a bad idea and laugh about it when the lights come up. He throws his arms wide. “Ready?”
Lou looks, takes him in, doesn’t hide that she likes what she sees. Salem notices the noticing. That can only mean one thing.
Trouble.
He grins at me over her shoulder, a signal and a dare. I don’t blink. I check the time, the keys, the plan. I move the water bottle closer to Lou’s hand and take my spot by the door.
It’s gonna be a long night.