9. Knox #2
“I thought it was time she got the credit for what she did,” Rhett said, finally.
“That, at this point, you boys should know about the sacrifice—the risk—she took in the name of art. And it’s bigger than that.
I want the world to know what she did for us and the documentary is the way to do it.
You understand what I’m saying to you? Your fragile egos have been babied long enough.
She deserves the credit. She believed in you guys and didn’t want anything to get in the way of your potential for greatness.
Just like I believed in Jack when I sent his tape into the singing competition.
Don’t you see? None of this would have happened had any of us been a little less kind.
A little more selfish. Or played it safe.
Or accepted an ordinary fate. What we’ve done together is nothing short of a miracle, and Madeleine’s part of it should be known. ”
I couldn’t speak even if I’d wanted to.
“So now you know,” Rhett said, calmer. “And I’ll ask you one more time. What are you doing with her?”
I looked up at the man who had found me all those years ago in some seedy bar and heard something special.
He was my friend and my brother. But I couldn’t talk about whatever this was between Madeleine and me.
I didn’t know what it was exactly, only that something fundamental had shifted between us.
The woman I thought she was all these years wasn’t who she was at all.
Instead, I saw her for who she really was.
For the first time, I understood her. And the fact that I hadn’t, filled me with shame so deep and ugly that it was impossible to know what to say to Rhett.
“I’m not ready to talk about it,” I said.
Rhett stared at me a long, long moment. “Oh, hell, Knox. You’re falling for her.
For real.” It was no longer anger displayed in his eyes.
Not disgust either. It was alarm. He was alarmed.
As if I had nefarious intentions. Or worse, that he knew I wasn’t good enough for her and that eventually she would see that too, and then everything would blow up into the kind of quagmire none of us could untangle.
This is how bands broke up. There was always a woman behind it, one way or the other.
“It’s obvious how little you think of my character,” I said, shrugging as if it didn’t matter, when really it hurt so bad I could barely breathe. “So you can think whatever you want.”
“Let me be clear,” Rhett said. “Madeleine Price is one of the finest people I’ve ever known. She’s no man’s trifle or trinket. I really hope you understand that and do the right thing by her.”
There was a hard, cold kernel of anger in my stomach, growing larger and larger, choking out any compassion or love I felt for him. “Like I said earlier, it’s my business.”
“Yep, you sure did.” He grimaced as he raked a hand through his hair. “Ice your ankle.”
Then he walked to the door and left. Didn’t slam it shut but simply closed it, as if I were a naughty child who had disappointed his father. As if I had to answer to him.
But I did have to answer to him. He was my family. Right now, though? I was only barely holding it together, and that was all I could do in the moment.
With the use of the crutches, I’d managed to shower, which made me feel almost human. I’d taken off the elastic ACE wrap before I got under the water and now I was sitting in the chair trying to bandage it back up, but somehow it didn’t quite look like it had when Luci had done it.
A knock on the door drew me away from my task. It was Madeleine.
I got up and hobbled to the door with my crutches.
“Good morning.” Madeleine had a take-out box in her hand. “I brought you breakfast.”
I stepped back to let her inside. “Morning, come on in.”
“They found you crutches?” She placed the food box on the table next to the pile of scones. It smelled of bacon and fried potatoes.
“Luci had Doctor Moon send these over.”
“How many Moons are there?”
“That’s what I wanted to know. Apparently, the answer is five.”
She looked down at my half-wrapped ankle. “That doesn’t look quite right.”
“I was trying to get it back to the way Luci did it, but I’m not having much luck.”
“Come, sit. I’ll do it for you.”
I sank into the leather chair. She pulled the ottoman close and gently placed my foot into her lap. “The swelling looks much better. Does it still hurt?”
“Yeah, but not as much as last night.”
She made short work of the ACE bandage, wrapping it around my ankle until it was snug. “There we are. Did you eat already?” Madeleine asked, gesturing toward the scones.
“No. Rhett brought those over earlier, but I’m not hungry.” My appetite had vanished when Rhett walked out my door.
She tilted her head, my foot still in her lap. “What’s going on? Are you in pain? I can get you some pain killers.”
“Luci left some for me. It’s not that.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, just watching me. “What is it? I can see something’s wrong.”
I sighed, letting my face fall into my hands.
“Rhett was here earlier. Did you two argue about me?”
How had she known that? “He saw you leave my cabin.”
“Oh, okay. Not great.”
“I know.”
“He had questions, I bet,” Madeleine said.
“He had a lot to say.”
“I’m sure he gave you a lecture about how risky it is—the two of us getting involved—because of the band. Am I right?”
“Sort of.”
I looked over at her. She looked so pretty, dressed in a soft blue sweater, her hair in a pony tail, just a whisper of makeup on her face.
I’d never seen her relaxed before. It changed her entire persona.
In fact, it made what I’d learned about her more plausible than I would have thought just days ago.
“He told me what you did,” I said. “With Wyatt Black. The tour.”
Her face drained of color. “Rhett told you that?”
“Actually, no. Blake Bennett told me when she was interviewing me yesterday.”
“Blake knows? Rhett told her?”
“That’s right.”
“And you knew this last night?” Madeleine asked.
“That’s right. But Rhett cleared a few things up.”
“Such as?”
“Your reasons for keeping it a secret, for one,” I said. “You didn’t want to undermine our confidence by admitting you had to leverage your whole collateral with Wyatt Black.”
“That’s what he told you?”
“Yes, in a nutshell.”
“Why would he do that? He promised me he’d keep that to himself.
And it was so long ago now.” She lifted my foot off her lap and set it down on the ottoman, careful, even while furious, and stood up.
“Rhett doesn’t get to explain me or talk about me.
I don’t want people talking about me ever. Especially not on film.”
“Madeleine—”
“He swore to me.” She was moving now, three steps to the window, three back. “He looked me in the eye and he gave me his word. He’s the only person in this whole business I’ve ever trusted.”
“But why did it matter if any of us knew?”
“Because I didn’t want you to, okay?” Madeleine asked. “And I sure as heck didn’t want him talking about it on camera.” She clamped down on the word camera so hard her jaw shook. “Who else knows?”
“Just me. Blake. Rhett. I think anyway. I actually don’t know.”
“And Nick. Nick was in the room, wasn’t he? Nick with the camera.” She closed her eyes. “It’s footage, Knox. It’s not a secret anymore, it’s content. It’s on a hard drive somewhere in this lodge waiting to get cut into a film that’ll go out to the world.”
I got up, wincing from the pain, and grabbed the back of the chair for support. “Hey. Come here.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Madeleine, look at me.” I put a hand out but she ignored it. “You did something wonderful for us. There’s no shame in it. Not for any of us.”
“It is not a wonderful thing.” Her eyes glittered, bright and terrible.
“Do you know what you’re all going to think now?
Every one of you. Jack. Grant. Beck. You’re going to look at everything that’s happened since—the album, the tour, the arenas, the life—and you’re going to see my hand in it.
You’ll never be able to unsee it. Every single thing you ever earned, you’ll wonder if you deserve it. Which is exactly what I didn’t want.”
She stopped and pressed two fingers to her mouth. “Oh, God. You knew this since yesterday morning. You spent the afternoon and the evening with me, and you never said a word. Is it why you suddenly like me? Why you kissed me? After all these years of hating me and poof—it’s all better now?”
“No,” I said, stomach dropping. “No, that’s not at all—”
“Ten years. Ten years of giving me a hard time and then one afternoon you find out I’m not the villain, and by suppertime you’ve got me in your bed.
” Her expression was devoid of emotion, her voice even-toned and completely terrifying.
“You’ll forgive me for wondering whether it was me you wanted, or the fact that you owed me. ”
“Owe you? No.”
“I have to go,” she said.
“Please don’t.”
“Rhett had no right to open this all up.”
“He did it so that you’d finally get the credit you deserve,” I said. “He wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“You don’t get to defend him.” Her hand was on the door. “This is between me and him.”
I opened my mouth to say something, although I had no idea what it would be. Regardless, she was already gone, the door swinging shut behind her.
Leaving me alone with my throbbing ankle, completely confused about what had just happened.