31. Summer
Summer
What the hell was that?
I didn’t even see him—didn’t know he was there.
My cheeks flame as “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” by Oasis pours through my headphones. I am frozen in the dirt as the sun begins to set, staring after the crimson truck tearing down the street.
Blood has dried over my palms, and I snatch the gloves from the ground, turning them over and running my thumb over the old leather creases.
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t even look at me.
How long was he there? He saw me bleeding and brought me gloves. Why did he do that?
My skin simmers as I wonder if maybe I was wrong. Sure, Chase looks different, but has he changed?
I know what that was. It was the old Chase.
A stupid, traitorous thought clouds my clarity. Does he still care?
No. He doesn’t care, I remind myself. He made that perfectly clear at the garage.
A soft hand lands on my shoulder. “Sum?”
I jump, dropping the gloves.
I rip out my earbuds, shoving them into my pocket with jerky movements, and turn to find Addie staring down at me. She flinches at my reaction.
“Sorry, I called your name, but you didn’t respond. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I reply.
Fine. A word that is written one way but means the exact opposite.
My mind has been a mess since yesterday.
I didn’t expect to see him. Chase wasn’t even supposed to be here.
He was supposed to be playing football. I never knew what happened to him.
I never overtly sought him out, and the only social media platform he has is Instagram, and he hasn’t posted on there for years.
He smokes. The sight of him lighting a cigarette sent waves of liquid fire through me. How the fuck could he do that? He knows my mother died of lung cancer. Watching him light up that cigarette felt like pressing on an existing bruise.
He also has tattoos. And facial hair. And this hardness to him that wasn’t there before. He was always soft and gentle.
I didn’t know who I was looking at.
“UCLA. You were supposed to—”
“Didn’t work out.”
What happened? Why didn’t he go? He worked so hard for his place there. Football was his entire future and he just … didn’t go?
And then there’s the thought that lights up like a flare inside me.
“Sorry for being late. I was with Rachel.”
Who the fuck is Rachel?
“You don’t … look fine,” Addie says cautiously.
I push to my feet, swiping the soil off my bare knees with more aggression than necessary.
I blow a strand of hair off my face. “Well, I am.”
Grunting, I bend to snatch the gloves off the ground and storm inside, Addie hot on my trail.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” I throw over my shoulder as I march to the fridge.
She props her hip against the counter, arms crossed, watching me. Her mouth twists to the side.
I pull out the jug of cold water and pour myself a glass. I gulp the thing in one go, wiping the back of my dirty hand over my mouth.
“Summer.”
“What?”
“You’re filthy, you’re being all tense and weird, and”—she waves a hand in my direction—“this isn’t normal.”
“What isn’t?”
“You have blood on your hands.”
“I didn’t have any gloves.”
She points to the pair poking out of my other pocket. “Then what are those?”
“Felicity’s.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Felicity Whitmore.”
Addie’s eyebrows shoot toward her hairline. “Chase’s mom?”
I avoid her gaze, setting my glass down beside the sink. “The one and only.”
“Why do you have her gloves?”
I work my jaw, looking at my dirty shoes. “He gave them to me.”
“He? As in Chase? When? I didn’t see him.”
“You’ve been inside all day.” I reach toward the fruit bowl in the corner of the kitchen, rearranging the oranges and apples.
“Summer,” she deadpans.
“What?”
“You haven’t spoken a word about him since you saw him yesterday.”
I purse my lips.
“He looks good,” she adds. “Has that whole rugged brooding thing down pat.”
I resist the urge to stomp my foot and grunt because I know he looks good. Really good.
“So?” I ask, feigning indifference.
“What do you mean, ‘so’?”
I spin to face her. “It’s not a big deal.”
Lie. It might be the biggest deal because that one tiny gesture has opened a fissure in the shell hardened around my heart. The shell I’ve spent years ensuring it stays firmly in place—in one piece.
Her glare burns through me before a slow smile spreads across her face.
I jab a finger at her. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Whatever you’re thinking or are about to say, don’t.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing left to talk about.”
She tilts her head. “You know, if you hold a poop in for long enough, sooner or later, it’ll find a way out.”
My nose scrunches. “Ew.”
“I have fart metaphors too.”
“No, thanks.”
“All I’m saying is you shouldn’t repress your feelings.”
“I don’t have any feelings. You’re reading too much into it.”
“And you’re not reading enough into it.”
We stare at each other in a silent standoff.
Addie breaks first. “Fine.” She sighs. “You want to pretend it’s nothing? We can pretend it’s nothing.” She throws a thumb over her shoulder. “But I just finished sorting out those boxes in your creepy attic, so the least you could do is have a drink with me.”
“I haven’t got any wine.”
“The bar does.” She pumps her eyebrows. “It has margaritas too.”
I don’t want to go to the bar. I don’t want to see anyone from my past—I don’t want anyone to see me.
“Oh, no,” she says, taking a step forward, her face hardening. “I worked my butt off all day. The least you can do is buy me a drink.”
She has a point.
She’s been sorting through my father’s things—which I refuse to touch—and coordinating contractors for all the cosmetic work.
New light fittings, fresh paint, plumbing, retiling the bathrooms, sanding and revarnishing the floors.
The house is transforming. There are workmen in and out nearly every day.
We’ve worked hard. We could both use a drink.
“Fine,” I concede. “One drink.”
“Yay!” She beams, clapping like a toddler. “But shower first, please. You smell like manure.”
* * *
I take a scalding shower, and then Addie and I make our way to the bar. Two drinks later, the tension has finally bled from my body.
Addie and I have settled into a booth in the corner of the bar, hidden, each nursing our third margarita.
The wait staff whisper to each other before craning their necks in our direction.
In New York, most people pretend not to notice celebrities.
They’re used to it. Here, they don’t bother pretending.
I don’t mind the leering; I’m just grateful no one has approached us yet.
This place hasn’t changed a bit. The wooden bar is weathered, and the old-school jukebox still stands against the far wall.
“So,” Addie says, sipping her cocktail. “Are you going to tell me about that song you were playing earlier?”
“What about it?” I say, twirling my straw between my fingers.
“It was beautiful.” Her eyes soften. “Kinda reminds me of the songs on your first album. It had that raw, unfiltered sound to it.”
Before I decided to attack the front yard, I played around with chords after jotting down a few lyrics. “I was just messing around.”
“You haven’t written anything in over a year. Sum, it was really good.”
I shrug, staring into my glass.
“Can I ask what it was about?”
No. I don’t want to have to tell her what inspired the song because then she would have been right—this old town that wields some of my deepest scars also draws out emotions I haven’t been able to tap into for years.
Emotions that stem from people I haven’t allowed myself to think about in a very long time.
“Just being back.” I shrug. “I guess it brought stuff up.”
She hums thoughtfully with a faraway look in her eyes. “I keep wondering why the hell Chase ended up as a mechanic instead of some big football star.”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing. I don’t get it. All he ever talked about was playing football with Steele—”
Crap. I stop myself, eyes blowing wide as they latch onto hers.
“Ah-ha! Got you!” she says, pointing at me. “I knew your pretty little head would be thinking about him.”
“Fuck you.” I stab at the wedge of lime in my drink with my straw. “I’m not thinking about him.”
“Who cares if you are?” She laughs. “There’s nothing wrong with it. What you guys had was …” She twirls her hand in the air as she searches for the right word.
“Intense,” I finish for her.
She clicks her fingers together. “That’s it.
Intense.” Her smile slips from her face as she levels me with a look.
“Sum. I’ve known you forever. I’ve watched you write three kick-ass albums, and I know what your music sounds like when it’s about something real versus something forced.
” She reaches across the table, covering my hand with hers.
Her criticism lands somewhere tender and I wince.
She rushes to reassure me. “Everything you’ve written has been amazing.
But that first album, Sum? It was like reading someone’s diary.
It was full of emotional narratives about grief, fame, and heartbreak.
They were yours. They were real, and listeners felt that—related to that.
And the song I heard you play earlier? That was real.
And I bet my Louboutin collection it was about Chase. ”
She does love her shoes.
Damn it. I hate that she knows me this well.
I nibble on my bottom lip, and she squeezes my hand. “This is good, Sum.”
My eyes flutter close as I expel a breath.
Fuck it. I’m three margs deep, anyway. I might as well let it out.
“I hate that being here—seeing him—stirs something inside me. I don’t want to unlock memories of everything I’ve tried so hard to forget.
I don’t want to feel like I can’t write anything unless I’m hurting. ”
“You’re hurting?” she asks quietly.
I look up and whisper, “Anything to do with him hurts.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. She knows exactly what Chase Whitmore cost me. What loving him cost me.
“Maybe that’s not the worst thing,” she offers, her voice soft.
“How is that not a bad thing?”
“Because you’re feeling. You’re writing again.
” Her thumb brushes over my knuckles, her skin cold with condensation from her cocktail glass.
“Feelings can hurt, but as long as you’re feeling, you’re living.
The ocean doesn’t stop moving just because it keeps crashing into something. It keeps on going.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” I admit. “Be here. See him. Feel this. I’m still—God.” My teeth grit together. “I’m so mad at him. For the suffering I went through after leaving, for the distance between me and the people I cared for the most, for leaving me with no other choice.”
She leans forward. “Then use it. Use that anger. Scream, cry, stomp your feet, and be pissed. But use that hurt to create something beautiful.”
“I don’t know if I have anything left,” I whisper, blinking against the sting in my eyes. “I gave it all to him and that first album. Every piece of me was woven into those lyrics.”
“You’ll never write well if you fear your own emotions.” Her eyes shimmer. “Everything you’ve just told me? That pain, that anger, that ache? That’s what you harvest. That’s your album.”
I draw in a shaky breath, pressing my palms against my eyelids. “Maybe I’ve had too much to drink.”
“Listen,” Addie says. “I know this is hard. I know being here opens a wound for you, but we’re running out of time.”
My hands fall to my lap. “I know.”
“The label’s given us until the end of the month to deliver something. Demos—hell, even voice notes. If we don’t, they can invoke the breach clause. Sum, that’ll mean lawsuits and risking your reputation. You need to save and secure what you’ve worked so damn hard to build.”
Four albums. That was the deal I signed when I was twenty-five and desperate to sing. How the hell was I supposed to know how long it would take or what trouble I’d encounter when I signed that deal?
I’m not sure what I was thinking—who the fuck goes from writing a few songs to writing three studio albums in three years?
At first, I thought it was easy. My debut album basically fell out of me.
The second album was tougher, but not a slog like my third.
And ever since album three dropped, my creative juices have dried up like the Sahara.
“One more,” I murmur. “Just one more.”
“Exactly. The last one. You can do it. Short-term pain for long-term gain. You finish this, get in a booth, do the press tour, and then you can choose what you do next.”
Freedom. True freedom. That’s what I want next.
I have been grinding hard for ten years to get to where I am today—been through some of the most horrendous episodes in my life. Lived off scraps, took on awful jobs, slept in places I hope I never see again, sang until my voice gave out in a record booth, all so I could be here.
For once in my life, I want to call the shots. Do what I want. Go wherever my heart desires.
I love music and I love performing, but I’m tired.
I’d like to take time out and just … live.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll try.”
“And you’re never alone. You have me. Always.”
My eyes flick to hers as a soft grin stretches my lips. “Thanks.”
She quickly turns her attention to the bar entrance, the color leaching from her face.
I frown. “Adds? What’s wrong?”
Her lips part, but she doesn’t make a sound. She just stares.
I trace her line of sight and my stomach lurches when it lands on two hulking men entering the bar.
Holy shit.
It’s Steele and Chase.
And judging by how Steele’s focus is locked in our direction, how his cheeks have flushed a deep pink, I’d say he’s recognized us too.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”