Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
D aughtry
Declan is sneaky buff. I assumed, since he basically held me up while he fucked me last night, but I had no idea he was hiding a six pack behind those polo shirts. It’s enough to make me tingle all over.
I’ve been tingling all night.
He drives along the streets of St. Olaf like if he glances away from the road, he might explode into a glitter volcano.
Alex, who is sitting in the backseat, taps me on my shoulder. “I like your music, Daughtry. Dad bought me your album. ‘Chemistry’ is my favorite so far.”
I look back at him. “Mine, too. Love your eye shadow, by the way. That color is fab.”
“Thanks. Dad takes me to Sephora and I can use my allowance to get whatever I want.” Alex puts his headphones back on and rests in the backseat, humming along to my songs .
“That’s the dream,” I say, snuggling into the passenger seat.
“What do you mean?” His voice is deep, and all it does is remind me of him whispering all those naughty sexy things in my ear.
“Hearing my songs in the wild.” If I look at his hands on the wheel, I picture those same hands on my body, holding me aloft. I’ve never been fucked so well or thoroughly before. He left me on that couch a limp pile of sated nerves. I couldn’t even lift my spoon to eat the chili for a good fifteen minutes after he’d left, not that I was hungry for food. Declan Foster, sex god, and I made a promise to myself years ago not to dip my toes into the same pool twice.
Fuck it. Promises are made to be broken and turned into songs. Why not treat myself?
“What’s it like being famous?” he asks, still not looking at me. Maybe last night was an every night occurrence for him, as he works his way through the female population of Door County.
I doubt that. Or maybe I just want it not to be true. I want to believe I’m special to him.
That is a dangerous wish, indeed.
“I’ll let you know when I get there,” I say.
It doesn’t earn me a smile. He turns the car onto Cherry Lane and drives toward the library. “What are you doing in town?”
“I have an interview. My manager set it up for me. ‘Small Town Girls Returns Home in Triumph.’” I flash my hand before me like the words are on a marquee. “It would sound less like bullshit if I were actually from here.”
“Technically, you are.” He parks in front of the library, where the interview is slated to occur. The newspaper is run out of a back office there .
“I guess I am more from St. Olaf than anywhere else. No one’s ever really from LA. Prior to here, the longest we lived anywhere was with my mom’s family in Nebraska, and that was only six months before she couldn’t take it any more.”
Declan is silent for a moment. He runs his fingers over the steering wheel. “What did you think of Nebraska?”
When my mom told me to pack up my suitcase—a drab little thing I never wanted to decorate because I preferred it forgettable—it was like she had punched me in the gut. My grandparents were more religious than I was used to, but I hadn’t minded it. There had been hot food, chickens to feed, and a soft bed. They taught me how to play gin rummy without gambling.
I swallow. “I was twelve and so desperate to feel wanted I contemplated actually taking a bus back to their house once. Puberty sucks.” I stick my thumb toward the back seat. “Sorry about that. I’ve heard it’s rougher on parents than on kids.”
“Alex is his own person. I think he’ll be fine. We’ll get through it.”
I bite my lip, but then how would smeared lipstick look in front of the journalist? I flip down the mirror and dab on a little more lipstick. I feel the weight of Declan’s gaze on me, but I resist the urge to see what color those eyes are now. “Does he talk to his mom a lot?”
“Alex? Yeah. Josie calls every few days, if not more often. And they email and text all the time. Josie wants him to stay with her in Chicago, when she gets back from Burundi. They have a great relationship.”
That sets off an itch behind my eyes that I don’t wish to explore without my full cosmetic case handy. “He’s really lucky to have your family looking out for him.”
Declan’s jaw tightens and he stares out the window at Maddy Olmstead, walking an enormous Labradoodle. She waves brightly at us. “You have people looking out for you, too, Daughtry.”
The itch becomes more insistent. This is untenable.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and lean over the front seat to tap Alex on his knee. I do not miss how Declan’s gaze snaps to the dip of my dress over my breasts. “Hey.” Alex glances up. “If you still want to meet the Vendetta, you and your dad come find me around noon. We’ll be over by the stage practicing.”
His eyes, so like Declan’s I’m not sure how I ever thought they might be Ciaran’s, glow. “Definitely. We will definitely be there. Right, Dad?”
“Absolutely.” Declan’s gaze snaps from my legs to my face. “Good luck on your interview, Daughtry. You’ll smash it.”
“So, Daughtry,” Helena Hartwell, the journalist, says, crossing her legs at the ankles and leaning forward. We are in a back reading room of the library, filled with thickly upholstered chairs, a fireplace, and little book nooks everywhere. “You have famously stated that you never go back to a place you’ve lived before. How does it feel, being back in St. Olaf?”
“St. Olaf was always my favorite growing up,” I reply. Louise told me to minimize my mom drama as much as possible, and I’m damn sure going to try. “The people here are so welcoming, the county is gorgeous, and the food is off the charts good. Plus, now I’m over twenty-one so I can finally enjoy all the local brews and wines.”
Helena smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She’s young, a graduate student who is moonlighting with the local paper. She looks hungry, which only puts me more on guard. “Tell us a little bit more about your upbringing. We talked with Emma Larson, who went to high school with you, and she told us you were only here for senior year. It had to be difficult, bouncing from place to place.”
My feet burn in sympathetic memory, but I promised Louise I would keep it polite. And vague. “I can see how it would come across like that. But I loved it. We saw the whole country, I met a ton of interesting people, and all of those experiences have really helped my music.”
Her grin widens. Her skin is pale and freckled, and her dark brown eyes are wide-set. She’s dressed today in a white button down and black slacks like this is an interview for a major news outlet, not the local paper that tends to run farm news on the front page. “Your songs are beautiful, and so heartfelt. Have you written any songs about your family?”
What would I have titled them? “Latchkey Kid at Five?” Yeah, that would’ve been a viral sensation.
I sip a glass of water. “I wrote one about my grandparents. ‘Board Games.’”
Helena types a few words onto her tablet. Probably “ refuses to talk about her mom .” Or maybe, She glance s around the room that smells like Christmas morning , one Daughtry never got to have.
Jeez, I’m maudlin today. One night of smoking hot sex with my ex’s brother and I’m an emotional wet blanket.
“That one reminded me of my grandparents, too,” Helena says softly. “We used to sit after dinner and play this ancient Monopoly set. All the cards were faded, but my brothers and I took turns coloring them in. Are you still in touch with your grandparents?”
“No,” I say immediately, then realize it’s the wrong thing to say. If that ends up in the interview, someone—*cough cough* my mom—will interpret that she kept them from me. “Unfortunately, they died about five years ago. ”
“Did you go back there for the funeral?”
I laugh, a harsh, brittle sound that reminds me of balloons popping. “No. I mean, I wasn’t able to go. I wanted to. They died within six months of each other.” My mom didn’t tell me until three months after my grandmother had died, and only because I called her frantically, asking why I couldn’t reach them.
“They must have loved each other, and you, a great deal.”
“Yes,” I say tightly.
If my grandparents had loved me, they would have fought harder for me. But that’s the thing about me. No one fights to love me. And it’s better that way. No regrets. Cut ties and move on. That way, I can’t get hurt.
Right?
Helena pauses, as though waiting for me to continue. I merely sip my water, and she glances down at her tablet. She scrolls, as though finding her next question. At this rate, this interview is going to give me a cracked molar. Maybe the emergency dentist looks like Declan and will call me good girl .
I didn’t know that was such a turn on. Maybe it’s just that I’ve absorbed so much bad girl toxicity from my mom and men over the years who have used it to try to control me, being called good girl gives me my power back. I don’t have to be what they say.
Helena clears her throat, drawing me back to the conversation. “‘Chemistry’ is so full of hope and potential. It’s like that feeling of looking across a room at someone you’re attracted to, and you see all the potential for a relationship. Can you talk a little about that song and how you came to write it?”
I swallow twice, but perhaps this is a better topic of conversation than my family or lack thereof. “I wrote that song when I was eighteen, actually. Right here in St. Olaf.” Technically, I wrote it at the Fosters’ kitchen table after I finished my homework. Zoey had made fresh chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
“Is it about a local boy then?” Her eyes sparkle with mischief. “I heard you dated Ciaran Foster your senior year. He’s still single, you know, and considered one of town’s most eligible bachelors.”
Yup. I had stepped in it. “Yes. Ciaran and I did date in high school, and he’s a wonderful guy.” It’s incredibly difficult to talk about Ciaran when all I can think about is his brother. Declan’s hands on my body, Declan’s voice in my ear, Declan’s taste in my mouth.
What is he doing right now?
“Was it a difficult breakup?”
I snap back to the conversation and away from all the dirty memories that required an extra layer of concealer this morning. “I think it was fairly amicable. We were both going away to college in different states, and relationships are difficult to maintain when you’re eighteen.” Or at any age, in my case.
“First loves are difficult to get over.” Her expression shifts, like she’s remembering something pleasant. “If we look back over your time since then, you haven’t had a long term relationship since Ciaran.”
Uh oh. This is a quagmire I don’t want to step in. “I don’t really see how this is relevant to my music. I’m so excited to be at the festival this year, especially to be touring with the Vendetta now that they’re back together.”
“Exactly.” She glances down at her notebook, like I just set her off course. Good. I don’t want to delve into the many complicated reasons I stayed with Ciaran for so long, or why I now have a one time only policy. None of that is rock and roll. “Let’s talk about your plans for the festival. You’re singing tonight?”
I slip into the flow of conversation, matching her energy, all the while thinking about a certain high school chemistry teacher and what other secrets lie behind that gruff, sexy-nerdy dad vibe he has going on.