Chapter 2
EVERETT
Six weeks later…
From record deal sound to hometown bound, Rhett Dawson’s life crashed like—
I crumple the article and press the tip of a lighter against the edge. Orange embers lick at the metaphor and eat away the rest of that sentence. A small hand tugs at the thigh of my jeans, and I drop what hasn’t disintegrated to ash in the sink, snuffing out the flames with the faucet.
With the way my back is angled to her, I hope she missed what I just did.
I turn around and squat. A clump of dark curls hides Quinn’s face from me. I part them with both hands, tucking the loose strands behind her ears.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
Wide, glassy eyes study my face. It’s clear I’m doing a terrible job of concealing my very adult problems from my very intuitive toddler.
Before she responds, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, checking the caller ID. Jane Dawson—my mother and worrier of the family. I know she’ll see right through how this little setup she arranged is going if I don’t comfort Quinn before I answer.
I brush the backs of my fingertips down her cheek and offer her a smile—it worked the morning I had to tell her that her mom wasn’t coming home again. To my relief, it works now too. Her eyes brighten, and she scoots in closer so she can see the screen. Then she swipes her finger across it.
“Everett?”
The moment I hear their unified voices, I regret answering. I’ve managed to dodge interactions when I need space or slap on a smile when I can’t avoid people. Today, unfortunately, is the latter, and I need a minute more to get there. I tilt the camera toward Quinn.
“Damma?” Quinn’s face lights up as two floating heads launch into an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.” She bounds around the kitchen in a series of skips and twirls.
Not much I do these days makes her happy, so the sight elevates my mood.
Add it to the long list of reasons why I’m grateful for my parents.
They finish with their disappointment over missing her party and reveal where they left her present. Quinn flees my side for the storage ottoman in the living room as I flip the camera and stand.
“You two want to throw this party? You’re already better at it.”
My parents are the only people I reserve honesty for. With unconditional love at the heart of our relationship, there’s no reason to keep anything from them. But only at this moment do I wish I would have held back from verbalizing it.
“Oh, stop. Let me see that cake you made,” Mom demands. Her glasses magnify and her usual white button-up shirt with a belt around her waist disappears with her proximity to the camera.
Tin foil and frosting peel back at the same time I reveal my attempt at a Bluey-themed cake. It’s more of a lopsided tower with a plastic character stuffed on top.
“It looks great, son!” Dad says.
Unconditional love right there. I cover it back up.
“How’s the Amalfi Coast?”
The two of them left on a kick-off retirement trip to Europe last week.
After raising two kids of their own and then stepping in to help take care of Quinn over the last six months, they deserve to be carefree, not countries away fretting over how their son is doing as a single father with a blown-up music career.
My mother proves it was the right thing to ask when her mouth melts into a smile.
“Oh, it’s dreamy. You should see your father. He got a massage yesterday.” She giggles.
Just talking about Adam Dawson, my feet instinctively carry me to the den where he worked long hours as a financial advisor growing up. Years of monitoring the rollercoaster that is the stock market has to create some lasting muscle tension.
This room now feels stuffy and dark without his cardigan-wearing presence in it, offering me wise advice from his rolling desk chair.
“Wow, pops. Feeling relaxed?”
“Am I ever!” He winks at Mom, and I manage to crack a smile.
Leave it to my parents to make me think about sex.
With everything going on around me, I’ve had very little time to consider how long it’s been.
But now that I am, I admit to myself that I miss it.
Not just the stress relief, but the deep connection it creates with someone else.
My world with El feels like a lifetime ago, and the one without her in it has left me detached from everything.
“How’s the house?” Dad asks next.
I lift the flap on the office blinds to reveal the lurking shadow of my former life: reporters, everywhere I look.
Privacy is not something a house on Harrison Boulevard affords you.
With its long-standing history—named in honor of President Harrison after he signed Idaho’s statehood act—and the decades it’s hosted the city’s most iconic Halloween experience, I’ve always known what living in this house meant.
But now the driveway is no longer the place I park my car as a teenager and make out with a pretty girl inside of it.
The front steps are no longer safe to prop my guitar on my bent knee and write music.
And the lamppost sign buried in the long boulevard median with mature trees sure as hell is not a place I’d even approach right now with a mob circling it.
No. “Boise’s Historic District” is no longer home. It’s the latest news headline for Rhett Dawson’s fall from grace. And it’s the last place I want to be.
“It’s fine.” I drop my hand, and the blinds slap closed.
The old oak floors groan beneath my footsteps as I clear the glass-pane pocket doors that lead from the study to the kitchen. I shuffle through the Albertson’s sack on the countertop, taking inventory of everything I bought this morning—paper plates, napkins, forks.
“And how are you?” Mom asks.
“I’m fine too.” I’m a little too tired to make it sound all that convincing.
“Our trip is still booked through the summer, but we can come—”
“We’re here!” my least favorite voice trills from the foyer.
Of course my mother-in-law is the first person to arrive at this party.
“To-To!” I hear Quinn squeal, clomping in her glossy pink rain boots.
“Mom, Dad, I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you in a few days.”
My mom’s back to that all-too-familiar look again. The pitying one I don’t need right now.
“Okay, honey. Well, we love you. Give Quinny a squeeze for us.”
“Will do. Love you too.” I hang up and swipe a hand through my hair.
“My favorite girl,” Caroline sings.
It would be endearing to hear her say that if she didn’t just see her last night. I slap on my stage smile and round the corner. “Caroline!”
“Do you always let your four-year-old answer the door?”
“It’s nice to see you too. I see you’ve let yourself in.” I hold out my hands and she shoves a pan against my chest. Not the well-loved kind that’s currently sitting on the counter with tinfoil crunched around the edges, but the silicone kind with the matching lid and fancy handle.
“Well,” she huffs, shrugging off her fur-hooded parka into her husband’s waiting arms, “you would have heard our knock if it weren’t for all that racket. What on earth is going on out there? And don’t even get me started on those reporters.”
I roll my eyes at both comments. The reporters I can’t help, but that racket is a four-man construction crew I hired to transform the garage loft into a music studio.
It was my only selling point left to convince the record label not to drop me after having to move home.
That’s how this industry works. If you aren’t ready now, you’ll never be.
I already compromised on Nashville, I think she can handle a few hammers and a table saw for the afternoon.
I ignore her question and circle back to her first comment. “I didn’t think my daughter would be snatched from inside this house.”
“Crazier things have happened.” She skirts past me, holding Quinn’s hand.
I kick the door shut and follow along with her offering clutched in my palms. I’ve memorized the back of this woman’s head at this point—layers of dark curls bear resemblance to the two most important people in my life. It’s the only reason I tolerate her.
“Coco, give the kid some credit,” Wade says.
She clears her throat. “You’re right. Congratulations on showing up to your daughter’s birthday this year.”
I grunt, even if I deserved that—I missed Quinn’s third one.
If it hadn’t been for the video that went viral on social media last year, the trajectory of my life would be very different right now.
I don’t know whether to be grateful or devastated.
I went from gigging at local coffee shop to being signed by one of the best labels in the country and offered a multi-state tour.
Then became a widower at the age of thirty-three because of it.
I wake up every damn day wondering if I hadn’t pulled El from this place, maybe she’d still be with me.
“That small detail had slipped my mind. Thank you for the reminder.”
“Well, Eliza’s no longer here to do it, so…”
I grit my teeth. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
This woman has had a chokehold on my life from the moment she entered it.
Standing up to her had never come easy to El, and I’m sure there were times when she got walked all over by her mother while I was away.
When she hounded El to call me and accuse me of being an absent parent.
At least for the short time she still lived in Boise.
But El never once did that because she was always supportive of my career.
She was the one who uploaded that video in the first place.
I offload the couple dozen Pastry Perfection cupcakes onto the granite. Quinn stands on her tippy toes with her fingers clutching the edge of the countertop. She squeals when her eyes land on the frosted buttercream topped with bug rings.
Caroline takes off the see-through lid so Quinn can get a better look. “What do you think?”
“Waeybuts!” Quinn claps. Even with her back to me, I can imagine Caroline’s smug expression.