22. Gavin
Gavin
“W here do you think you’re going?”
I turned with a frown at the sound of Alex’s angry voice. “Packing. What does it look like?”
I had been working for weeks and weeks with no break, because I didn’t want one. Didn’t need one. Not until now.
“Not now, Gavin. Now is not the best time.”
I balled up another T-shirt and shoved it into my leather duffel before I gave my agent my full attention.
“You always say that, Alex. If I left it up to you—and I have for too damn long—you would have me work until I collapsed from exhaustion. The album is done, and the next album is close to done. I’ve sold several songs and made you a shit ton of money, but still, it’s not enough.”
I shook my head in disgust as I listened to my own words.
Would it ever be enough? Yes, because this was my life, and I was in control of it.
“I want some downtime. No, I need some downtime before album promo kicks into high gear.”
Alex sighed and folded his arms. “This is not the best time to take your foot off the gas, Gavin.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “No? When exactly would that time be? Maybe after I’ve overused my voice so I need surgery again? Because that’s where we’re headed if I don’t take some time off.” I turned back to my closet, grabbed a few more pairs of jeans and T-shirts before I shoved them into the bag. “I’m not asking, Alex.”
His brows dipped in concern. “Is something wrong with your voice?”
“Not yet, but it feels overworked, and since I’m the one who had to have the damn surgery, I get to choose when to rest my vocal cords.”
It was my own fault for giving Alex so much power over my life. He was excellent at arranging everything and making deals that kept the cash flowing, but the man had never taken a vacation—not once in more than fifteen years.
“Fine,” he growled with disapproval. “Just please, Gavin, don’t tell me you’re going back to that Podunk town.”
I barked out a laugh and shrugged. “Okay. I won’t tell you, but I am going to Jackson’s Ridge for a while.”
He shuddered visibly. “At least tell me I won’t have to come up there to bring you home.”
I shook my head. “As much as I would pay to see you in Jackson’s Ridge again, I want you there about as much as you want to be there.”
I couldn’t wait to get back and spend some more time with Granddaddy who had decided to stay in town a little longer. I hadn’t spent any time with Zola since before she started medical school, either.
And Suzie.
I was most eager to see Suzie, to hear her laugh and see her full lips pulled into a smile. Not that my presence was likely to put a smile on her face, since she hadn’t reached out to me at all since I left town, and I was too much of a coward to risk blatant rejection.
“All right. Take a week and see if your batteries feel recharged. And answer your damn phone, man,” he growled.
Alex wasn’t happy about this little vacation and he was making it abundantly clear. I didn’t care. But he was my agent and a friend, of sorts.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you, Alex.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ll do a few—no more than three—radio or web interviews while I’m gone.”
He perked up at that news. “Yeah?” Before I could respond, Alex already had his phone in his hand, fingers flying across the keyboard on screen. “I can work with that.”
“I figured.” My Bel Air was still in Jackson’s Ridge, probably being used and abused by Granddaddy, so I needed a lift. “Think I can use that helicopter again?”
Alex smirked. “As happy as the label is with you, I’m sure they’d let you use the jet.”
“Perfect.” The sooner I got to Jackson’s Ridge, the sooner I could make things right with Suzie. “Thanks, Alex.”
He shrugged off the praise. “It’s what I do.”
I made a note to write a few more songs while I was away. It would be a nice, low-key way to thank Alex for all his hard work.
That was my last work-related thought as I made my way to the helipad downtown on top of the record label headquarters.
I let go of the stress and the chaos as the chopper left the city behind.
When I set foot in Jackson’s Ridge, it felt like I was actually coming home, which was odd for a boy born and raised in Southern California. I sucked in a deep breath of the crisp ocean air as I walked across the lawn with a wide smile.
“Granddaddy! Zola! Guess who’s back?” I called, stepping inside the house.
Silence. I was greeted with absolute silence. No one was home.
On the kitchen counter, I found a note to Zola written in Granddaddy’s chicken scratch. He was at the old folks’ dance and promised to bring pizza and sandwiches home.
“It won’t be late, the dance is for old folks!” He left a smiley face and a signature that was just GD.
I was glad to see they were getting along but bummed that everyone was out on my first night back. They didn’t know you were coming, my conscience chided.
I didn’t want to think about that, so I grabbed my keys from the ring near the door, hopped in my Bel Air, and went to visit someone I knew would be happy to see me.
“Ryan, my man. How’s it going?”
He looked up from the hood of a pickup, grease smudged across his forehead and a welcoming smile on his face. “Superstar, what’re you doing back in town?” He wiped his hands on a rag hanging from the back pocket of his coveralls and shook my hand.
“I needed a break from the studio and all that craziness, and I decided to come back to my old friends in Jackson’s Ridge. How’s it going?”
“Can’t complain. Just got a ’67 Nova to restore and business is good. How’s the Bel Air?”
“Don’t really know for sure. The ride over here was smooth, but has Granddaddy been driving it around town?”
Ryan shrugged. “As far as I know, he’s been using the teens in town as his own personal fleet of cabs.”
That sounded exactly like something he would do. “How are Persy and Titus?”
He lit up at that question. “Excellent. How’s the album coming along?”
“Done,” I told him with a satisfied smile of my own. “All I’ve been doing since I left is work, so the suits are happy and Alex is happy.”
“And you?”
I shrugged. “I’m always good.”
“But not happy?” Ryan studied me a little too carefully, and for a quick second I wondered why I was so eager to return to a place where people just said whatever was on their minds and asked personal questions without a care about being rude or intrusive.
“I’m happy enough, I suppose. Thinking about getting this silver Porsche 365 I saw at auction. She needs a lot of work. Would you be up to the task?”
Ryan smirked as if he knew exactly what I was doing, but even though he was a lifelong Jackson’s Ridge resident, he was also a man and knew when to back off. “Does that mean you plan on coming back to town more often?”
Mostly.
I shrugged at the question I didn’t have an answer for. “I have a house here, so I’ll come as often as I can.”
Ryan nodded and clapped me on the back, nodding towards his office. “Does this have anything to do with the baby?”
I frowned. “Baby? Are you and Persy having a baby?” I shook my head. “If you need money, I can lend you some, but I wouldn’t buy a car just so you could have guaranteed income.”
Ryan’s smile slowly faded and his head fell forward. “Shit.” The word came out on a low growl as he shook his head, a bitter smile on his lips. “Persy is going to kill me. She’s going to chop me up into little pieces and sprinkle me into the hospital garbage.”
Before I could ask what the hell was going on, Ryan had his phone out. He typed out a message with the speed of a man on death row and shoved it back in his pocket.
“What’s going on, Ryan? Did you cheat on Persy and get someone else pregnant?”
He didn’t seem like the type, but I met all sorts in my line of work as a musician. Men who had it all and threw it away for a thirty-minute lay.
Ryan frowned and then burst out laughing. “Me? Oh, hell no. We wasted way too much time apart, and truthfully, there’s no woman I want more than the one I’ve got.”
“Okay. Good for you guys. So, what baby are you talking about, exactly?” I felt as though I was missing a key part of the information and unease settled around my shoulders.
“Suzie,” he said bluntly. “She’s pregnant. A few months along. I thought you knew.”
I thought you knew .
Ryan knew and he thought I knew, which meant it was safe to say the whole damn town probably knew. Everyone did.
Except me.
“I didn’t know. How far along is she? Why didn’t she tell me?” I had a thousand different questions, but those two popped out first. “Shit.” She would be even angrier than I anticipated, and with good reason.
Ryan shrugged off my questions. “No idea why she didn’t tell you.” He sighed. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it has something to do with your vanishing act. Women don’t tend to take it well when a man up and leaves without a word.”
Ah, hell. I should have known. “She told you?”
Ryan laughed, his eyes wide with disbelief. “No way, but I got an earful of residual anger from Persy after she found out you’d vanished and that Suzie was pregnant. She was pissed at all men that day; ‘sub-species’ is what she called us. Had to take Titus out for a guys’ night until she cooled down.” He smirked and shook his head at the memory. “So, thanks for that, Gavin.”
I wouldn’t have been surprised if most of the women in town hated my guts at this point, but I needed to see Suzie. To talk to her, to make her understand. “Where is Suzie now?”
“Where she spends most of her time, JRMC.” Ryan raised an eyebrow. “I would advise you against ambushing her at work. There are scalpels and needles all over the place.”
“I won’t. I promise.” The last thing I wanted was to make things harder on Suzie. “I need some time to prepare,” I assured Ryan and walked out of his shop on wooden legs.
Suzie was pregnant. She was carrying my baby.
And she wanted nothing to do with me.