78. Hawk
The guys all stared at me, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, as I finished the story.
“Embezzlement?” Mick asked in disbelief. “You’re telling me Cornelius Castor has been embezzling from his own damn company all these years? How the hell has he gotten away with that?”
“I don’t know any of the details,” I admitted. “That’s not my thing at all. But what I do know is that the morning after that conversation, I confronted Tori about what she had spilled to me when she was wasted and she had a fuckin’ meltdown. She begged me not to tell her father what I’d learned. Offered me anything I could ask for as long as I didn’t let on that I knew.”
“So you asked for a divorce?”
“Yes and no. I asked for a very public breakdown of our marriage, a way to do it so that everyone would know the fault was hers.” Shaking my head, I added, “She was the one who chose the method.”
“A screaming match at a Grammys after party was an interesting choice,” Gavin said sarcastically.
“Yeah, well, it got the job done. She looked like the bad guy and her father never questioned the divorce when it came at her request.”
I sat back, suddenly exhausted, wanting nothing more than to be sitting under a tree with my girls instead of dealing with all this shit.
What a difference a few days made.
The guys and I were all still lost in our own private thoughts when Harry came in, a tray of goodies in her arms.
“You boys must be famished, what with all this tension radiating around the room.”
“Harry, you beautiful woman. You take such good care of us.”
“Save your flattery for the groupies, Alex. I’m just keeping you fed.” Looking at me, Harry pressed her lips together as she took in my expression. “Anything I can do for you, Hawk?”
“Nah. I’m all good, Harry,” I said, offering her a smile I certainly didn’t feel. “You really are the best.”
She stared, clearly not believing me but content to let it lie as she headed out of the living room and back to her wing.
“So what do we do now?” Alex asked, snagging one of Harry’s homemade Danishes off the platter and eating half in one huge bite. “I mean, if we’re still gonna start our own label, and what you’re saying about the state of Castor Records is true, then ol’ Cornelius isn’t going to like Black Kite going against him. If his entire company is already a house of cards, us taking any of his business could cause the whole thing to tumble down around him.” He laughed, flaky pastry crumbs blowing out of his mouth and scattering across his t-shirt. “Could turn into an ugly fight.”
“What we need is proof,” Mick said, passing Alex a napkin from the tray, which he took, but didn’t use, likely out of spite. Ignoring Alex’s atrocious table manners, Mick stood and began to pace. “If Castor really has been stealing from his own company, there has to be a paper trail somewhere. You can’t hide something like that forever.”
“Follow the money!” Alex shouted around another mouthful of pastry.
“Yeah, alright. Calm down there, Deep Throat, before you choke,” Gavin muttered, his nose curled in revulsion. He hated anything messy, and life didn’t get any messier than Alex. “Although you’re not wrong, either.” Alex shot him a smug smile and reached for another Danish. “Finding out where the money went and how deep under water Castor Records actually is will be the only true way to finish this once and for all.”
“You think that’s possible? To bring Castor down?” It was something I’d dreamed about for a while, ruining the man who’d exploited me and my boys for so long.
“Not just down,” Mick said, rubbing his hands together. “If we can prove he’s bankrupted his company, we can fucking bury him. He’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.”
“If he doesn’t off himself first,” Alex said, licking the frosting off his fingers.
“Cornelius Castor is too goddamn proud to go out like that,” I insisted. “That would be quitting, and he’d sell his left nut before he’d want to look like a quitter.”
“I’m going to make a few calls,” Mick said, starting to gather his things. He looked energized, like the thought of taking down theman was riling him up. “See if I can find a way to make this happen. In the meantime, you guys are to keep finalizing the set list for the Hollywood Bowl show. We have two straight weeks of travel coming up with the documentary crew, and you’ll have to be ready to meet the bands you want to tag for the project.” He looked at us, like a serious dad laying out the chores for the day. “Time is short, guys. Get on it.”
With that final statement, he turned and stormed out, his expensive shoes clacking against the tile as he walked.
“The man knows how to do a dramatic exit, that’s for sure,” Alex laughed, finally wiping the frosting off his face now that Mick wasn’t around to be annoyed by it anymore.
“We really should finalize the list for the documentary, though,” Gavin said, reaching for the iPad Mick had brought over earlier. “We have a meeting with the director next week, and Mick said that the production crew wants to finalize the travel schedule, so we’ll need to know which four bands we want to approach, as well as have a backup list in case any of them turn us down.”
“Who the hell would turn down an opportunity to perform with us at the Hollywood Bowl?” Alex seemed astonished by the very idea someone wouldn’t want to be in our presence.
He’d never spent time in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, however, where half the town looked like they wanted to spit on me every time I walked down the street.
Thinking of that closed-minded little town drew my mind back to Wren and Cooper—not that they were ever far from my thoughts, anyway.
“Actually,” I cut in, interrupting Alex as he debated the highs and lows of the first band on offer. “If the conversation is switching to music, there is one more thing we should talk about.”
“Oh, fuck. What now?” Alex moaned, sitting back and dragging both hands down his face. “I don’t think I can handle any more surprises tonight.”
“Tough shit, man.” Pulling the iPad away from Gavin, I navigated to Instagram and logged into the fancy new account Cooper had set me up with.
“Who the hell is Boomer McGarrett?” Alex asked, his head tilted to the side as he tried to read what I was doing from across the table.
“He’s me. Cooper set me up with a Finster account.”
“Finsta,” Alex and Gavin corrected at the same time.
“Whatever.” Was I the only one who had never heard of this thing?
“Not whatever, dude.” Alex was practically bouncing in his seat. “This is fuckin’ amazing! You’re on Instagram? I’ve been begging you to get on socials for ages.”
“You spend far too much time online for a celebrity, even if you’re using fake accounts,” Gavin scolded him, rehashing the same argument they’d had several times.
“How the hell else am I supposed to meet chicks?”
“Instagram is not a dating app.”
“Maybe not for you,” Alex insisted, taunting Gavin with a wag of his eyebrows. “But some of us can get laid no matter the situation.
“Guys, can we please focus?” Holding up the iPad, I spun it around and held it up. “You need to look at this?”
“Songbird?” Gavin asked, squinting? “Is this a band? You want to add them to the lineup?”
“It’s not a band, dude. It’s Wren.”
“Wait, Wren? Like, your Wren? Bird?” Alex asked, his head shooting up in surprise.
“The very same.”
“She still plays? That’s dope, bro.”
“Just listen, alright.” Navigating to the video I wanted, I pressed play, the first notes of the song filling the room with the now very familiar melody.
“Hey. That’s our song.”
Alex wasn’t wrong; the opening chords that Wren was playing on her Instagram video were the exact ones we had recently used to write our latest song together.
The ones I’d pulled from my dreams.
The very dreams that had always been of her.
“How the hell did she get this? You share it with her?”
“Would you just shut up and listen?”
He finally did, and when the intro was finished, and Wren started to sing, both Gavin and Alex were frozen, mesmerized by my Bird.
Her voice was strong, lower than most women would sing, but still soft and feminine with just a hint of rasp. The words were sung with conviction, and you could actually feel the pain coming out of her as she sang about the heartbreak of being hurt by someone who was supposed to love you.
When the song ended and the video stopped, we all sat there staring at each other, the guys having the exact same reaction I had when I’d first heard her song.
“She’s fuckin’ awesome!” Alex crowed.
“Shelter,” Gavin breathed the name of the song reverently. “Those lyrics were—shit, Hawk. She’s a poet.”
That was high praise from Gavin, who tended to be a bit cynical about nearly everything.
Jaded motherfucker.
“Did she write that in the few days you were there?” Alex asked, and I shook my head.
“Nah, guys. She wrote that song more than fifteen years ago.”
Thatgot their attention.
“Dude, but that’s the same melody. Like, the exact same melody we use in Haunted.”
“That’s because I got it from her. She played that song for me the night we met.”
“And you didn’t think to mention that?” Gavin asked dryly.
“Honestly...” I ran my hands through my hair, trying to find the words to explain. “Until I saw that video, I wasn’t even positive that it was her I’d gotten the music from. It had just always been there, in the back of my mind, like a ghost.” Closing my eyes, I pictured the dream I’d been having for so long, the one I could never seem to shake.
In it, I had been sitting with a woman between my legs, both our arms wrapped around a guitar, those chords floating around us. The dream, and the girl in it, had been haunting me for most of my life. It was why I’d written the lyrics I had it, because that was exactly what I had been.
Haunted by the ghost of Wren, my perfect Bird.
Only now, she was real, and I was determined to keep her.
I just hoped she felt the same.