Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
PHOENIX
I’m mid-sentence with a lobsterman named Frank when the chord cuts through the noise.
My mouth stops forming whatever word was next. Frank’s face blurs. The bar, the laughter, the clink of glasses—all of it drops away like scenery falling off a stage, leaving nothing but that sound.
I know this song.
Not in the casual way you know something that plays on the radio while you’re stuck in traffic.
I know it the way you know the songs you listen to alone, in the dark, with your headphones in and no one watching.
“Paper Bones” lives in a playlist on my phone labeled “workout mix” so Mason will never open it and discover it’s actually forty-three tracks of music that makes me cry.
I turn.
Atticus sits on a barstool by the window, the battered guitar balanced on his knee like it belongs there. His head is bent slightly, eyes half-closed, and his fingers move across the fretboard with the unhurried confidence of someone who learned to play before he learned to read.
He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t scan the crowd for reactions. Doesn’t do any of the things performers do when they want you to watch them.
Something in my chest shifts. Physically. Like a piece of furniture being dragged across a floor I thought was level.
The artist on Spotify is for some one-hit-wonder band that never produced more than one record.
For a moment, I wonder if Atticus just decided to acoustically cover someone else’s song, but that husky vibrato is too distinctive.
This is definitely the same voice I’ve listened to a hundred times on repeat.
How did I have no idea this was his song?
His voice fills the bar until I feel it swell inside my chest. Not the way it sounds on recordings, where every note has been polished and compressed and layered until it gleams like chrome.
This is rawer. Rougher at the edges, with a grain to it that catches in the low registers and frays slightly at the top.
The cheap guitar buzzes on the D string, and he doesn’t try to hide it.
Doesn’t compensate. Just lets the imperfection exist alongside the melody like it was always supposed to be there.
I’m moving before I decide to.
My feet carry me through the crowd, weaving between bodies without registering them. Someone holds up a phone, screen bright. A woman whispers to her friend, hand over her mouth. I don’t process any of it. There’s only the music, pulling me forward like a current I forgot I was standing in.
You built me up with paper bones
Said I was strong enough alone
But paper burns and bones will break
How much weight can hollow things take?
The lyrics hit different when they’re not coming through earbuds at 2 AM.
Different when I can see his throat working around each word, can see the way his brow creases on the bridge like the melody costs him something to produce.
The cheap guitar sounds nothing like the studio version.
It sounds better. It sounds like someone telling the truth in a language they invented for the occasion.
I stop six feet away. Close enough to see the calluses on his fingertips, the faint sheen of sweat at his hairline, the way his foot taps a rhythm against the barstool rung that’s slightly ahead of the beat—impatient, driving the song forward.
Damn it.
He’s good.
Not just talented in the way that money and access and Grammy-winning tutors can manufacture.
Not just the polished product of a dynasty designed to create exactly this kind of performer.
He’s good good. The real kind. The kind you can’t buy or teach or fake, the kind that lives in the marrow and comes out whether you want it to or not.
I’ve spent my whole life surrounded by talented people. I know the difference between skill and something deeper, and this—this thing vibrating off him like heat from asphalt—is the deeper thing.
And it makes me furious.
Because if he’s this, if he’s real under all that armor, then I can’t dismiss him. Can’t file him away under “arrogant alpha with good cheekbones and a trust fund.” Can’t keep the walls up in the places where they need to stay up the most.
My grandmother’s voice surfaces, unbidden.
The memory hits with the specificity of a scalpel: Elena’s kitchen, the cracked linoleum floor, me standing on a step stool so I could reach the counter while she kneaded bread.
The radio playing something old and Spanish and sad, and my six-year-old voice trying to follow the melody.
“You have the gift, mija. Don’t let anyone take it from you.”
But someone did take it.
Not all at once. In pieces. The contract at nine that gave the network ownership of my vocal recordings.
The handlers who said acting paid better, lasted longer, built a more sustainable brand.
Victoria’s voice, sharp as broken glass: “Singers are a dime a dozen, Phoenix. Do you know how many pretty girls with guitars are waiting tables right now?”
The recording sessions for the Ally’s World theme song: standing in a booth with headphones too big for my head, hearing my own voice come back through the monitors for the first time—amplified, supported, enormous. The feeling of my whole body ringing like a bell that had finally been struck.
I was thirteen. It was the first and last time I would ever be able to convince someone to let me in a recording booth.
God, I need some air.
I push my way toward the door, muttering apologies as I bump shoulders and step on toes. No one notices. They’re all watching Atticus, captivated by the performance I’m running from.
The night air hits me like a slap, cold and bracing. October in Maine isn’t kind to people wearing thin blouses and no jacket, but I welcome the sting. It clears my head, burns away the fog of emotions I refuse to name.
I dig in my purse for my cigarettes—the emergency pack I keep hidden in an inside pocket where Mason won’t find it when he does his periodic sweeps for contraband.
I quit three years ago. Officially. On paper.
In reality, I keep a pack for moments exactly like this, when the walls close in and my skin feels too tight and I need something to do with my hands that isn’t breaking things.
My fingers close around the slightly crushed pack. One cigarette left, bent in the middle like a broken promise. I straighten it as best I can, put it between my lips, and pat my pockets for a lighter I know isn’t there.
“Need a light?”
The voice comes from my left, deep and rough, like gravel under tires. I turn to find one of the bikers from inside leaning against the wall, a Zippo already flipped open in his hand. The flame dances in the night breeze, illuminating a face that probably hasn’t smiled in decades.
He’s older than I first thought—lines around his eyes that speak to years of hard living, a neck tattoo that’s gone slightly green with age. His leather cut bears patches I don’t recognize, but the way he holds himself tells me he’s not just some weekend warrior playing dress-up.
“Uh…yeah, thanks.” I lean in, letting the flame catch the tip of my cigarette, careful not to get too close.
He snaps the lighter shut with a practiced flick and extends his hand. “Aaron Keenan.”
I take his hand briefly, plastering on my camera-ready smile—the one that’s gotten me through a thousand uncomfortable interactions with men who think my time belongs to them.
“Phoenix.”
“I know who you are.” His gaze travels over me in a way that makes my skin crawl. “Even prettier in person than on TV.”
“Thank you.” I take a long drag, letting the smoke burn my lungs.
It’s been long enough since my last cigarette that the nicotine hits my bloodstream like a shot of tequila, immediate and dizzying.
I’d love to suck it down fast and go back inside, but the nicotine buzz is too nice even with the present company. “Nice night.”
“Getting nicer.” He shifts closer, invading my personal space with the casual entitlement of an alpha who’s never been told to back off. “You staying in town long?”
I take a step back, maintaining the distance. “Probably not.”
“Shame.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Pretty girl like you could have a real good time here if you had the right people to show you around.”
The conversation has taken a turn I recognize all too well. I’ve been navigating men like Aaron Keenan since I was fourteen and my body started changing in ways that made directors’ eyes linger too long. There’s a playbook for this: be polite but firm, don’t antagonize, find an exit strategy.
“I’m sure.” I take another drag, scanning the street for an escape route. The bar door is six feet away, and I’m already calculating if I’m fast enough to get there first. “Unfortunately, my schedule’s pretty tight.”
“You don’t seem so busy right now.” Aaron moves closer again, backing me against the wall without actually touching me. “How about a drink? I’ve got a bottle of the good stuff back at my place. Private party.”
My heart rate kicks up. Not fear, exactly—I’ve dealt with worse than Aaron Keenan—but awareness.
The street is quieter than I realized, the bar’s windows facing away from where we’re standing.
If I screamed, someone would probably hear, but the calculation of whether that’s necessary is already running in my head.
“I appreciate the offer, but I should get back to my group.” I keep my voice light, my smile fixed. “They’ll be wondering where I went.”
“Let’em wonder.” His hand comes up, not quite touching my face but hovering near my cheek. “Pretty little omega like you deserves better company.”
“I’m just going to head back inside—“
His nostrils flare slightly as he moves closer. “You smell expensive. Better than something off the top shelf.”
“I’m not interested.” The words come out sharper than I intended, the smile slipping.
His expression hardens. “Didn’t ask if you were interested.”
“Is there a problem here?”