Chapter 2
Chapter Two
JC
I weave through traffic on Georgia Street, hands gripping the steering wheel, still replaying the disaster.
Gia gorgeously disheveled and upset, her mother firm as an army general, me riding the razor’s edge between Chief Unpopular and Mama Antonia’s new snitch.
It takes the whole drive into Vancouver to organize my spinning thoughts.
Gia Ana Maria Barlow, with her fierce beauty and blinding confidence—no wonder my head is vibrating like a tuning fork.
She strutted around the party last night in skin-tight leather, flirting hard with every guy but me.
I nursed a drink at the bar, tracking her every move while pretending to care about the blonde-haired woman next to me.
Pathetic? Sure.
But it's why I was paying attention when she climbed onto the bar, eyes shooting daggers at the blonde talking to me, the crowd chanting Stage dive! Stage dive! When she flung herself straight at us, I caught her, the momentum nearly knocking me on my ass.
Gia, delivered into my arms like a goddamned gift. Any fool knows the drill. Kiss the woman and end the fucking torture of pent-up sexual tension.
But I didn’t.
Performance anxiety for the first time in my life.
Still riding that shame twelve hours later.
Out of nowhere, one of those Lycra-clad road bike freaks who think they own the world whizzes past me in the curb lane.
He cuts me off, banking wide to turn right.
I jam on the brakes, laying on the horn, and he’s got the nerve to flip me the finger.
Switching lanes to roar past him, my frustration has less to do with a kamikaze cyclist and everything to do with me.
How the hell will I survive a month of forced proximity, me and Gia stacked on top of each other in a cramped tour bus with a dangerous kind of friction hovering?
I still haven’t forgotten the shimmering warmth that rippled through me in waves when I held her in my arms. All the wrong ways I wanted to tame her fire.
By the time I reach the restaurant to meet my brother Sawyer for lunch, my head is still lost in last night. I stare out the windshield, my eyes charting nothing. There are no easy answers, just tangled emotions.
A sharp knock on my window snaps my focus back.
The smiling valet outside leans in. “Are you valeting?”
I nod and hop out, leaving the engine running. “Thanks, man.”
He hands me a numbered chit and the scent of money and grilled steak hits me as I head inside.
Lift is Sawyer’s favorite eatery. A trendy waterfront haunt where he can indulge in caviar eggs benny while admiring a million-dollar view.
I recognize the hostess—blanking on her name, as usual—but she lights up when she sees me.
“Good morning, JC. Sawyer’s already here. Follow me.”
Her ponytail sways in front of me as she leads me to Sawyer’s usual table, but all I see is yesterday—Gia passed out cold in my car, pale skin luminous in the moonlight.
I sat there, parked in her parents’ driveway, gathering courage to haul Gia inside and face her mother.
The whole time, fighting my urge to weave my fingers into her hair and never let go.
Even in a drunken stupor, she was achingly beautiful.
Sitting in a wingback chair facing the marina, Sawyer types furiously on his phone.
“Hey,” I say.
“I ordered you a gin and tonic,” he replies without looking up. “And put my money on the chorizo omelet.”
Typical Sawyer. Arrives early with zero patience, decides on my meal, and will try to stiff me with the bill, guaranteed.
I take a seat and smile politely at the hostess. “Can you add an americano? No cream.”
“Of course.”
She hesitates a second longer, vying for Sawyer’s non-existent attention. My older brother’s a good-looking guy—dark-haired, a little broody. A fit, macho business type oozing wealth and authority with the power to make or break careers.
But when Sawyer’s uninterested, you feel the chill.
Taking the hint, our hostess marches off.
The gray-haired men at the table next to us, lunching with attractive, age-appropriate females, track her departing curves.
Will I be one of them in my fifties? Midlife Crisis JC, predictably lusting after women half my age?
Then I remember I’m already that guy, and thirty-four is around the corner.
God, when did birthdays begin to feel like marking time left on this earth?
It feels like yesterday I was seventeen and invincible.
Sawyer’s fingers continue flying across the screen. “Wasn’t Tinder supposed to make it easier to get your cock sucked?”
I lean in, angling for a view of his phone. He’s messaging some redhead named Sparkle, all big-haired glory and glossy lips.
“You know half those chicks aren’t even real, right? A hundred bucks says her name is anything but Sparkle.”
He huffs a laugh. “Do you even recall the name of the last woman you slept with?”
The blonde from the bar, who insisted I take her number, was for sure a Natalie.
Or Nicole. Shit. Maybe Nadine? I should have locked in a system for remembering names by now.
But I have no intention of calling, or sleeping with, what’s-her-name.
My mind barrels down a one-way Gia track, hurtling toward the inevitable crash of disappointment.
“I’m not that bad,” I counter.
“Not lately.” A long, piercing stare follows, as if Sawyer’s considering that Gia might be the reason for my dry patch, but his mind can’t rationally put us together. “And that is troubling. At this rate, you’ll be scrolling through the Carbon Dating app at sixty.”
“Maybe I’ve become picky,” I say.
He cocks a brow. “Sure. Let’s run with that.”
Okay, fair. No one ever voted me most selective, but I do have some standards.
Sawyer sets his phone down. “Your issue is commitment. The only thing you ever cared about was performing. Tell me the truth,” he says, as if he knows I haven’t been up front with him. “Is scoring films and session work in LA doing it for you? Part of your soul had to die with your band.”
I fixate on the marina stacked deep with yachts. Sawyer is needling me about commitment, and all I can think of is how I couldn’t even kiss Gia after she landed in my arms. I love my brother but hate that he is somehow always right.
Well, almost always.
He’s clueless about the real reason why I killed the band, and I'm not sure he cares to hear why this late in the game. Besides, I’m not prepared to dig through the ashes of my dreams over a chorizo omelet.
Not when Gia makes me feel like I’ve spent the last decade majoring in the minors.
“I swung past Gia’s place this morning,” I say, eager to switch gears. “She’s doing okay.”
Sawyer hums a sympathetic sound. “You’re still in one piece, so I take it she agreed to the ultimatum.”
“It’s not like she had any choice.”
“Someone needs to control that whirling mass of barbed wire,” he says, the insinuation clear that the task will never be his. “The last thing we needed was a bar brawl to end the night. Thanks for stepping in and driving her home.” His brow furrows. “You okay playing tour chaperone?”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I thrive on challenge.”
Sawyer runs a hand over his tight military-style haircut, blowing out a sigh that sounds oddly defeated. “I’m getting too old to handle the drama of divas half my age.”
“She likes to rile you. You know that, right?”
“It fucking works.” He drains his bourbon over ice and signals for another. “Makes me wonder if it was all worth it.”
“Ticket sales are through the roof. There’s your answer.”
“No offense to Gia’s talent, but you are the hot commodity,” he stresses. “The returning Messiah.”
“Is that how you’re selling me?” Leave it to Sawyer to package things up with a preposterous bow. He is that guy—the one selling ice to the folks living in the Arctic, selling things that might be better off gathering dust on the shelf.
Before he can reply, a different blonde shows up with both of my beverages. Flirts extra hard with Sawyer because he rolls up every week in his DB9, hemorrhaging money.
“There goes your Sunday night date,” I joke once she’s out of earshot.
“Are you kidding?” he scoffs. “No actresses, ever. I learned my lesson.”
“How’s twice-divorced treating you at thirty-seven?”
He shoots me a dirty look and picks up his phone. “Fuck you. But also, check these out. They’re the tour posters.”
My eyes widen as he scrolls through the images. “Those are sweet. Dani did a great job.”
“Rhys designed them, believe it or not.”
Sawyer, hard as it must be, dredges up a look of respect.
Our baby brother, Rhys, and his girlfriend, Dani, now run a design agency together.
Gia bonded hard with Dani last summer and insisted they create all the promo materials for the tour.
Somehow, Rhys—who seemed destined for absolutely nothing growing up—proved all of us wrong.
If he can transform himself, what's stopping me?
“What a turnaround, man,” I finally say. “He's nailing it.”
Sawyer grimaces. “And nailing the woman I wanted to.”
“Six months later and you're not over her?” Sawyer claimed he was all over Dani first, and to this day harbors a beef with Rhys over it.
“I'm a Scorpio. Jealous, resentful, and I carry a grudge like it's my job.” Sawyer shrugs, explaining away his personality as if the cosmos really were to blame.
Meanwhile, I digest the near impossible. Sawyer admitting flaws? Rare day indeed.
“You’re coming to the tour meeting on Wednesday, right?
” he continues. “I want you in the room, so we’re all on the same page.
” Sawyer plucks his fanned napkin from the table, flicks it once, and lays the linen square at a perfect ninety degrees over his lap before dropping the warning.
“Do not, under any circumstances, let Gia wrangle you into anything beyond this tour. If all this blows up like I think it will, you have a gold-plated road to a career rebirth. You don’t need her. ”
I sink deeper into my seat by a few inches. I’m not sold on a second coming for many reasons. And the truth is, I need Gia as much as she needs me. Not for the hysteria of crowds or the pump of adrenaline when the stage lights dim. Not for the reasons anyone might think.
Certainly not for the reason Sawyer brings up next.
“And Dad’s stoked to hear about your comeback. You know how rare his good moods are these days.”
Fair. Being wheelchair-bound tends to suck all the enjoyment out of life. But even in his heyday as an entertainment mogul, Peter Trenton averaged one smile per month. The closest he ever came to joy was watching me on stage—living out the rock star fantasy he couldn’t pull off himself.
I don’t blame him for what happened to my band, but his endless pressure did play a role.
Just like he shoehorned Sawyer into the family business, killing his dreams of becoming an engineer.
It’s hard to believe that Sawyer's too-tight sweater tells the entire tale of our messed-up family dynamics.
He could've gone a size up and looked less like an MMA cage fighter, but his body is the one thing he has total control over.
Certainly not his life.
“Dad met Gia last month when we visited Mom,” I reveal. “A little embarrassing, his manosphere opinions. She handled him like a pro.”
“She knows what she’s doing,” Sawyer admits. “If she doesn’t screw up, she can be the next big thing.”
I frown at the plot point he’s sidestepped. “Isn’t she already?”
“You have street cred and legacy, bro. Don’t forget it. Your star can rise again.”
I fantasize for a nanosecond about bailing, if only to push back, but that ship has sailed. And Sawyer, for all his unending power-mongering, speaks the truth. I was the star once upon a time. But that’s not why I said yes to recording the EP and Gia’s tour.
I said yes because of that moment in The Troubadour last year, when everything shifted. When my soul cleared for a magical evening, and I could taste beauty once more.
To spend a minute in Gia’s light is to experience a kind of magic I thought I no longer believed in.
But I agree with Sawyer, at least out loud. It’s easier than confessing what I feel. Because like jamming in an 11/8 time signature, this tour will be anything but easy.