Chapter 2
Chapter two
Jaxon
Now
“It’s been six weeks since you even bothered picking up a guitar,” my assistant Annie says from the door to my in-home gym.
That’s not technically true. I pick one up every now and then as I walk around the house.
I have eight guitars scattered throughout my Nashville home, a holdover from the days when the songs were pouring into my brain so quickly that I needed to have an instrument within arm’s reach at any given moment.
They’re less necessary now.
I set the bench press bar back on its holder and rise to a sitting position. Her gaze stays laser-focused on my face, a mixture of sympathy and concern in her eyes.
“I’m taking a well-deserved break,” I reply, repeating the same phrase my PR team has used about two hundred times since the end of my international tour last year.
It’s not that I don’t deserve a break after headlining the highest-ever-grossing international tour; it was needed, especially after all the drama that happened during it.
But now it’s less of a break and more of a self-imposed stay in the isolation wing of a prison. If the prison were a six-million-dollar home complete with a swimming pool, a workout room, and a pool house turned recording studio in Nashville.
“Your song for the benefit is due soon,” Annie says, as if I don’t know that.
“Are you bored, Annie?”
Narrowed eyes is the only reaction I get from her.
“I can set you up with that new gate security guy if you want?” I offer. “I think his name is Nate.”
His name is most certainly Tim, but I’m bored and love playing matchmaker. So, setting up my employees—since they’re the only people I ever bother to see these days—seems like my best option.
“His name is Tim, Jaxon. He’s been here for two months, you should know that.”
“Oh, right. Tim. And is he from around here originally, or did KH Security make him move out this way?” I ask, taking a sip of water to hide my smile.
“He moved to Nashville to be closer to his grandkids, which is highly commendable,” Annie says with a sniff.
“The poor man lost his wife almost three years ago now, and when his daughter-in-law went back to work full-time, he moved here to help with the grandkids. It’s why he works the night shift. ”
Poor Annie. She never sees my sneaky ways coming.
“He does seem like a great guy. Maybe you should invite him over for dinner sometime. I’m sure he doesn’t get a lot of home-cooked meals—not wanting to be a burden for his son or daughter-in-law.”
“I suppose I could invite him over,” she says, pulling up her phone and typing something. Knowing Annie, it’s likely a reminder to think about it more later.
“You could come too. Maybe bring a date of your own?” Annie offers, still typing. “It has been a long time since you went out with someone. You stopped inviting women back to the hotel during the tour and haven’t seen anyone since.”
I hate this part of fame. The part where my employees know how many women I’ve slept with in the last two years. But I can’t manage everything without a full staff, and so they’re with me. All the time.
“Oh, you don’t want me there, Annie. Tim might get the wrong idea and think we’re together.” I add a wink at the end to sell the joke. Annie gives real grandma vibes and not in the GILF kind of way.
“Oh, Jaxon. You’re such a sweetheart!”
“Annie!” my other assistant, Andre, bursts in. “You let him distract you!”
“Were you listening outside the door?” I ask.
I won’t ask him if he’s bored. He tells me every day.
And, as my assistant who deals with the media and appearances side of my life, that checks out.
I haven’t done anything since the tour ended.
No one is happy about it. Not my team. Definitely not my label.
Not even me at this point. It’s one of the many reasons I agreed to write a song for the Lupus Foundation benefit.
But if I go out and do anything, people ask me when my next album is going to be released.
And I don’t have an answer for them.
Perhaps whenever the music comes back.
The lyrics that normally flow through my mind like leaves on a breeze went quiet almost two years ago, and since then, silence. Not even the threat of letting down an organization that means a lot to me is enough to inspire a song.
“Yes, I was listening outside the door,” Andre says with a huff. “Annie claimed it would be better if she did the intervention alone. Clearly, she was wrong.”
“An intervention, huh?” This is a fun new development.
“You’re floundering,” Andre says.
“I am not.”
“You work out twice a day, nap, and watch whatever sport is on TV. Whatever is on. I intentionally changed it to a replay of the 2000 ping-pong championship the other day, and you watched it. For three hours.”
“Have you ever watched ping-pong?” I ask. “It’s impressive. Their hands move so fast. And the feet! I never realized how important footwork is to their game!”
“It is impressive—” Annie starts before being cut off by Andre.
“Annie! No. We are here for one thing and one thing only.”
“To convince me to go into my studio and write a song?” I ask wearily.
“No. We gave up on that a month ago. We want you to go home. To Wild Bluffs.”
“No.”
“Jax, your dad died six weeks ago,” Annie says.
“No.”
“You didn’t go to his funeral,” Andre says, not bothering to hold back his judgmental tone.
“I don’t do funerals. You know that. I just—I just fucking can’t, and you know why. And I haven’t talked to my dad since he told me I was the reason my mom died and that I should get out,” I snap, shoving past them into the living room. “I wasn’t even eighteen.”
I’ve talked to my therapist about this a lot, and I’m working on accepting what was said in the heat of a very intense fight, but it turns out, I’m not there yet.
Especially since it wasn’t just a one-time incident—my dad had resented me my whole life.
I’d assumed it was because he was stuck raising a rebellious boy all on his own when my mom passed, but turns out, it’s because he blamed me—or at least my birth—for my mom’s death.
“Jaxon—” Annie starts.
“I’m going to shower,” I say, striding away. “You’re not invited.”
“You can’t just bail mid-intervention,” Andre says, trailing behind me. Though, to be clear, not like a puppy trailing his master. Like a jaguar, stalking the prey it knows is injured.
“Oh, I can, and I will,” I say, increasing my pace.
So close to safety.
“I have no qualms about following you into your bathroom.”
We’ve lost Annie somewhere along the walk to my room, and now it’s just the two of us.
“I can’t go to Wild Bluffs,” I say. “I don’t want to. Why would I?”
“We got a call this morning,” Andre starts, his tone telling me I’m not going to like what he has to say. “You’re the sole beneficiary of his will.”
I scoff. “No way. Dad would never leave his pride and joy to me.”
“Well, that’s what the lawyers said when they called. You’re now the proud owner of Reid Farms in Wild Bluffs, Colorado.”
“Tell them to sell it.”
“And what about the house?” Andre asks. He’s not taking any notes on his phone, which is a good indication he’s not going to do any of the things I’m telling him to.
“Sell it,” I say.
Andre leans his hip against my bathroom counter. “And all your father’s possessions?”
“Give them away.”
“There’s not one thing in that house you want? What about a picture of your mom?”
My mom. The woman I barely remember, but who I know, without a doubt, loved me more than anything in the world. The only person who could ever make my stoic father feel any level of joy in his life.
“Have whatever company you hire to pack up the house keep anything that looks like it could be hers. Have them set it aside in a box for me. There won’t be much.”
Andre continues to study me as I awkwardly stand in my bathroom, waiting for him to leave so I can take a shower. Then a nap.
“Why aren’t you writing any of this down?” I ask him. “You always take notes.”
“It’s not that hard to remember the one thing I have to do for you this week: sell everything your father ever touched.”
“Okay…”
“You need to go to Wild Bluffs, Jaxon. I say this as your very bored employee and as your friend.”
Andre joined my team a couple of years ago, and while calling him my friend would be a stretch—I know why he’s here, and it has more to do with a paycheck than my personality—I’ve come to appreciate his humor and no-nonsense take on everything.
Plus, not having real friends is a common side effect of fame.
“What does Wild Bluffs have that anywhere else in the world doesn’t?”
“The house you grew up in. Your father’s estate. Your memories of your life before all this.” Andre sweeps his hand around my large bathroom, complete with a steam shower and extra-large tub.
“Your roots,” Annie says from the other side of the door, her voice causing me to jump.
My roots. Shit. I’ve tried very hard to forget about those roots. To plant other ones somewhere new, but I can’t seem to get them to grow anywhere. I’m like one of those plants interior decorators like to use that somehow survive off just the air around them.
“If I say I’ll think about it, will you two leave me alone so I can take a shower?” I ask.
“Yes,” Annie says at the exact same time Andre says, “No.”
“Not good enough,” Andre continues.
I pull my T-shirt over my head before reaching in and turning on the shower.
“Well, it’s going to have to be good enough. Because I’m getting in.”
Andre stands, crossing his arms. “Fine. But your song for the Lupus Foundation is due in four weeks, and somehow that isn’t your biggest concern right now.
I’ve fought off your label for about as long as possible.
Even Henry thinks they’re going to start screaming breach of contract soon, and he’s your manager—it’s his job to pretend like everything is going well. ”
“What if we went to New York instead?” I offer.
“Wild Bluffs or bust, Jax. Wild Bluffs or bust.”
“But—”
“You have to reconnect with yourself. And to do that, you have to figure out where your roots are. I know you don’t want to, and that it will likely suck, but the best music comes from pain. So, to Wild Bluffs you must go.”
“I haven’t agreed to that.”
“No, but you will.” With that, he leaves me alone, shutting the door to the bathroom as he goes.
“Don’t hold your breath,” I mumble as I climb into the shower, opting for scalding hot water pouring directly onto my head rather than the long steam I had planned.
Wild Bluffs has too many ghosts for me to outrun them all.
I turn toward the stream, the water tumbling over my face, fast and relentless—like the memories I’ve spent years trying to forget.
Losing my mom. Strumming a plastic guitar in the Harpers’ basement, pretending I was already someone important—someone worth the loss of my mom.
Long, dusty afternoons on the tractor under a punishing sun.
Shouting matches with my dad that always ended in silence.
And Izzy—always Izzy—smiling at me like I was worth something, long before I believed it myself.
Izzy.
My best friend.
The one person I couldn’t say goodbye to.
The woman who is now—while still very much alive—haunting me anytime I try to bring a woman home.
Having sixteen-year-old Izzy offer a critique of my form and everything I say when I’m with a woman is terrible.
And hilarious.
And a complete boner-killer.
The most terrifying was when, over a year ago, she popped into the shower as I was attempting to take care of things myself. She asked me how it felt to finally find time to tickle my pickle. When I ignored her, she told me a very dirty story about jacking the beanstalk.
Cackling in the shower at phrases I hadn’t thought about since high school, delivered by a figment of my imagination, didn’t make me the poster boy for sanity, but it did feel nice to laugh. To feel something other than frustration about my lack of musical talent.
Maybe I do need a change. Maybe I do need to get back in touch with my roots.
Hell. Maybe I’m finally desperate enough to go back to Wild Bluffs.