Chapter 1
For My Encore
Chapter One
Raven drove her cherry-red Porsche around the corner into Bankton's main street and slammed on the brakes.
There was a bull in the middle of the road.
An actual, literal bull. Brown, enormous, and chewing something with the placid expression of someone who had nowhere to be and all the time in the world to get there.
"You have got to be bloody kidding me," Raven muttered.
She honked the horn. The sound echoed off the stone cottages lining the narrow street, sharp and aggressive. The bull didn't even blink. Just kept chewing, staring at her through the windscreen with what could only be described as contempt.
Raven honked again, longer this time, leaning on the horn until her palm hurt.
"Perfect," Raven said to no one. "Absolutely perfect. Welcome to the bloody countryside."
This was supposed to be quiet. Peaceful. The escape she desperately needed. The countryside, where she could finally think, finally breathe, finally figure out what the hell she was going to do with her life now that everything had fallen spectacularly apart.
Instead, there was livestock blocking the high street like some kind of rural nightmare.
She was beginning to suspect this entire plan had been a terrible idea.
Her phone sat in the cupholder, face down, powered off.
She'd stopped looking at it somewhere around Oxford, after the notifications had become too much to bear.
Messages from people she hadn't spoken to in years, suddenly very concerned about her wellbeing.
Comments from strangers who felt entitled to opinions about her relationship status.
Articles with headlines that made her want to throw her phone out the window.
Raven's Ex Marries Sound Engineer in Surprise Vegas Ceremony!
Inside Alissa Stone's Surprise Wedding: Why Raven Wasn't Invited
Is This the End for Krimson Kisses?
That last one was probably accurate. Hard to have a band when your bassist/girlfriend had married someone else and the rest of the group couldn’t bring themselves to tell you about it.
She peeped her horn again and with a placid snort, the bull finally began to lumber off toward… well, toward wherever it was that bulls went. Farms, Raven thought, most probably.
The village center, if it could be called that, consisted of a triangular green, a pub, a post office, a general store, a small cafe and bookshop, and what appeared to be a community hall.
A hand-painted sign announced: Bankton Players Present: but the rest of the sign was empty, so she assumed whoever the Bankton Players were, they were on holiday. Preferably permanently.
Raven drove past without slowing down.
The estate agent had told her that the cottage was "just outside the village center, very peaceful, very private." What she hadn't mentioned was that "just outside" meant down another impossibly narrow lane that made Raven's car feel about three feet too wide.
The cottage appeared around a bend, and Raven pulled into the small gravel drive to be greeted by the sight of a woman standing by the front door.
The estate agent. Had to be. In her fifties, wearing a sensible jacket and holding a clipboard. Raven cut the engine and climbed out of the car, every muscle protesting the movement.
"Ms… Raven." The woman's smile was professional and just slightly too enthusiastic. "Welcome to Bankton."
"Mmm," was all Raven said as she climbed out of the car.
"Wonderful, wonderful. Now, let me show you around. It's such a lovely property, I'm sure you'll…"
"I don't need a tour," Raven interrupted. "Just the keys."
The woman’s smile flickered but held firm. "Of course, of course. Well, the keys are right here." She held up a key ring with far too many keys on it. "This is for the front door, this one's for the back, this is the shed, and this little one is for the post box, though I'm not sure why it locks."
"Great. Thanks." Raven took the keys.
"Now, you'll find the cottage has everything you need.
There's a lovely sitting room with original beams, a fully equipped kitchen, two bedrooms upstairs, one with an ensuite, and the most charming garden.
The previous tenant kept it beautifully.
You'll find everyone here is very friendly. Your nearest neighbor is Annabelle Swift at Primrose Cottage, she’s a lovely girl, teaches at the primary school. She's very—"
"I'm not here to make friends," Raven said flatly. "I'm here to work."
The woman blinked. "Right. Of course. Yes. Well." She clutched her clipboard a little tighter. "If you need anything at all, our office number is on the welcome pack inside. And there's a local shop in the village, the pub—"
"Thanks. I've got it." Raven pushed a key into the door, thankfully the right one.
"Right. Well. I'll leave you to settle in then. Enjoy your stay, Ms… um, Raven."
Raven felt a pang of something that might have been guilt.
She'd been rude. She knew she'd been rude.
But she was so tired of performing, of smiling when she didn't feel like smiling, of making small talk when she wanted to scream, of pretending everything was fine when her entire life had just imploded on social media.
She grabbed her guitar cases from the boot and her single duffel bag of clothes. Everything else she owned was in storage in London. She'd left her flat, left the city, left everything that reminded her of Alissa and the band and the person she'd been for the past five years.
The cottage door swung open with a creak that would have been charming in a film, but was just annoying in real life. It rather made Raven want to punch the door.
Inside was exactly what she'd expected: low ceilings, exposed beams, a fireplace large enough to stand in, furniture that looked like it had been inherited from several generations of dead relatives.
There was a vague smell of lavender and old wood and damp that seemed to be standard issue for English country cottages.
Raven set down her guitar cases with the kind of care she hadn't shown the duffel bag, which she’d dropped unceremoniously on the worn floral sofa.
The sitting room had a window overlooking the garden, all overgrown roses, a lawn that needed mowing, a stone wall separating it from the neighbor's property.
Beyond that, she could just see another cottage, presumably Primrose Cottage, where the apparently very friendly primary school teacher lived.
Raven pulled the curtains shut.
She found the kitchen, small but functional, and located the one thing the estate agent had got right: there was a bottle of red wine on the counter with a note that read Welcome to Bankton!
"Thank God," Raven muttered, searching through cupboards until she found a wine glass that looked reasonably clean.
She poured herself a generous measure, took a long drink, and felt some of the tension in her shoulders finally begin to ease.
She even switched her phone back on, and it promptly buzzed. Once. Twice. Three times in rapid succession.
Raven pulled it out of her pocket and saw her manager's name flashing on the screen. She considered ignoring it, she’d been ignoring it for most of the drive, but Claire was nothing if not persistent. If Raven didn't answer now, Claire would just keep calling until she did.
She swiped to accept. "What?"
"Oh, thank God," Claire's voice was sharp with relief and irritation in equal measure. "I've been trying to reach you for hours. Where the hell are you?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes, it matters! The label's been calling. The press wants a statement. Alissa's team has been—"
"I don't care what Alissa's team has been doing," Raven said, taking another drink of wine. "Not my problem anymore."
"Raven." Claire's voice shifted into what Raven privately thought of as Manager Mode. Calm, reasonable, infuriatingly practical. "I know this is difficult. I know you're hurt. But you can't just disappear. We need to manage this situation."
"I'm not managing anything. I'm done. You’re the manager, not me."
"You can't be done. You have a contract. The label is expecting an album."
Raven laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I left the band, Claire. Alissa's married. It's over. All of it. I just need some time to figure out what comes next."
"And where are you planning to do this figuring out?" Claire asked, her voice tight with the kind of patience that was really just controlled frustration.
"Somewhere quiet. Somewhere no one knows who I am. Somewhere I can actually think."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer you're getting." Raven drained the rest of her wine. "I'll call you when I'm ready."
"The label won't wait forever…"
"Then tell them to drop me. I don't care." She ended the call before Claire could respond and turned her phone off completely again.
The silence that followed was so complete it made her ears ring.
Raven refilled her wine glass and carried it into the sitting room. Her guitars sat by the wall, case latches gleaming in the late afternoon light filtering through a gap in the curtains.
She should unpack them. Tune them. Start working.
Instead, she sank onto the sofa and stared at the empty fireplace.
The truth was, she didn't know if she could write anymore. Didn't know if she had anything left to say. Everything she'd written for the past five years had been tied up with the band, with Alissa, with a life that no longer existed.
She'd thought, naively, stupidly, that leaving would give her clarity. That distance would help her find her voice again. But sitting here in this aggressively quaint cottage, surrounded by someone else's furniture and someone else's life, she just felt empty.
No parties. No wildness. No women.
That was the rule she'd set for herself. After Alissa, after five years of toxic on-again-off-again drama, after watching their relationship poison the band and her music and everything she'd cared about, she was done. Done with all of it.
She was here to work. To write. To figure out if she even had a solo career or if she was just another washed-up rockstar whose fifteen minutes were up.
Her phone sat dark and silent on the arm of the sofa. She picked it up, turned it over in her hands, then set it down again.
She should unpack. Should eat something. Should probably do something more productive than drinking wine at four in the afternoon.
Instead, she closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time she'd written a song she was proud of.
Six months ago. Maybe seven.
Before Alissa had suggested they "take a break." Before the band had started falling apart. Before everything had turned to shit.
She'd thought coming here would fix it. Thought isolation and peace and quiet would unlock whatever had been locked inside her for months.
But sitting here now, in this silent cottage, with nothing but her thoughts and her guilt and her failures for company, she was beginning to suspect that the problem wasn't the noise or the city or the distractions.
The problem was her.
And she had absolutely no idea how to fix it.
Raven opened her eyes, finished her wine, and stared at her guitar cases across the room.
Tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow she'd start. Tomorrow she'd prove to herself, and to Claire, and to the label, and to everyone who was probably taking bets on how long until she completely flamed out, that she still had it.
Tomorrow.
Tonight, she'd just sit here and try not to think about Vegas weddings or social media or the fact that she'd driven three hours to the middle of nowhere and still couldn't escape herself.
Outside, a bird sang in the garden. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell chimed the hour.
And Raven sat alone in a cottage full of someone else's furniture, surrounded by guitars she couldn't play and songs she couldn't write, and wondered if this was what rock bottom felt like.
Or if she still had further to fall.