Chapter 13
WOLFE
I knew I needed to head back to Jake’s this afternoon, but I was having a hard time figuring out what to say when I got there. How I felt about things with Jake.
He’d been sweetly protective of me earlier, and I knew that was yet another indication that he was a good guy.
Jake checked all the boxes. He was kind and considerate, interested in me, and protective.
He’d seen my real name and hadn’t used it against me.
I had to assume he didn’t know who Wolfe Marian was, but even so, he hadn’t exposed my secret to anyone.
Jake was also fiercely proud of his sister and encouraged her music dreams, even though she wasn’t likely to win over any talent scouts in the industry. He was exactly the kind of person I would want to date…
If I weren’t hung up on Trace Bishop.
And the more I thought about it, the angrier I became. Because before Trace showed up, I’d been doing well.
Getting over him… kind of.
Starting something with Jake… maybe.
Instead of disconnecting the van and heading back to the bar, I sat down at the picnic table to make a few notes in my journal. I wanted to mark the date of my encounter with Trace and try to put my feelings into words, knowing I’d look back on it one day and remember this mixed-up feeling.
The feeling of wanting something but knowing it was the absolute worst thing for me.
While I wrote, the familiar sounds of the campground soothed my anxiety.
I’d gotten used to the relative peace and quiet, but I also appreciated hearing snippets of Brennan talking to Pup as he walked the cat on her leash.
The sounds of the Reynoso kids giggling over their attempts to get better at jump rope tricks.
The soft sound of Armand affectionately lecturing Thierry for sneaking one of his two daily cigarettes.
I let the sounds wash over me as I poured out my heart onto the page, the words automatically sorting themselves into lyrics here and there. As I heard them in my mind, I made notes about chords and composition.
My focus was deep enough that I didn’t notice a truck pull up until it was turning into my site behind the van. I blinked and stood before recognizing Shay and Jake in the front seat.
As soon as Jake put the truck in Park, Shay hopped out, squealing with happiness. “Oh my god! Thank you so much! I can’t believe you did this!”
She was cradling a guitar in her arms like a newborn baby, and I quickly realized Jataya must have acted crazy-fast on my request to the foundation.
I raised my arms with a laugh. “That’s not from me.”
Jake rolled his eyes and shook his head. “No use denying it, Will.” He thumbed toward Shay before nodding at the back of my van. “California return address, California plates.”
Shay lunged at me, giving me an awkward hug with the guitar pressed between us. “Who else would it have been? Thank you, thank you! I can’t believe it!”
Had I imagined the emphasis he’d put on my fake name? And the license plate thing was a ridiculous assumption.
“Fine,” I admitted, returning Shay’s hug. “I know of a charitable foundation that supports musicians in need. You were a musician in need, so it was an easy recommendation. I’m glad you like it.”
Jake eyed the van up and down, walking around to check it out with a whistle of appreciation. “Nice rig. I figured you had something fancy, but this is… wow.”
He leaned in to poke his head inside, and I suddenly felt embarrassed by my wealth. “It’s really nice,” I began. “I feel spoiled.”
“What do you do for a living?” he asked in a lower voice. “That you can afford something like this?”
Heat flooded my cheeks and neck. “Oh, er. I’m…” A shit liar. “I work for a nonprofit.”
He barked out a laugh. “Right.”
“No, really,” I insisted. “The same nonprofit that supplied the guitar, actually.”
I wanted to say something else, something that would easily explain how I could afford my rig, like “my parents are wealthy.” But that wasn’t the reason anymore. Fletcher Coe was a multimillionaire, and I didn’t rely on my dads’ money anymore.
It was a source of pride, but one that was much harder to explain.
“I, ah… I also have a business on the side. I don’t really talk about it. It does pretty well.” Hopefully, that was enough explanation.
Jake grinned before leaning in close enough for me to smell his cologne. “Maybe if I distract you thoroughly later, you’ll tell me about it.”
It was flirty and provocative, and I couldn’t help but be flattered.
“Heh.” I ran my hands down the front of my jeans before gesturing through the open door of the van. “So, er, I’d give you a tour, but this is basically it. Bed, kitchen, tiny bath closet, and single dinette table.”
Shay took a seat on the picnic bench and began strumming the new guitar, twisting the tuners on the headstock periodically.
I glanced toward the front of the campground, where the bright orange tent sat. There wasn’t a vehicle at the site, so Trace must have gone somewhere. I’d tried hard not to look in that direction earlier, but now the empty parking pad was all I could see.
Jake nudged my elbow. “So I was thinking maybe I could make you dinner tonight. The bar’s closed since it’s a Sunday, and Shay’s staying at Teeny’s house…”
I glanced at him, my stomach swooping with nerves. “Oh. Shit.”
His smile dimmed. “Oh shit?”
“No. Sorry. I just meant… I already have plans. Here. With everyone. For dinner.” I sounded like an idiot. I took a breath and repeated, “Sorry.”
Jake tilted his head. “You know, if you’re not interested, you can just say that.”
“I’m not not interested. I’m…”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re not not interested.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled. “Sorry. I just… There’s a friend of my dads’ in town. The one from this morning, remember? They sent him here to check up on me, and I told him we could do dinner here with my friends before he… leaves.”
Okay, that last part was a lie. But I was grasping at straws and not at my best.
Jake’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh. Does your dad not know you’re into guys? And you’re worried what this guy will think?”
I laughed. “No. My dads, plural, are gay. And Trace is gay, too.”
Jake hesitated before making a noise in his throat. “Ah. That makes more sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wants you.” Jake shrugged. “That much is clear.”
His words took me off guard. I croaked, “What?”
“He touched you. Made you uncomfortable.” Jake eyed me carefully. “Has he ever done something inappropriate to you, Will?”
Memories of a couple of hours ago slammed into my mind. The gentle touch of Trace’s fingers on the back of my head. The arch of his back as I pleasured him. The sound of his voice rumbling, baby, baby, in my ears before he came apart.
“No,” I breathed. “Definitely not. Nothing inappropriate.”
I felt like Jake could see right through me. That maybe my cheeks were mottled red with the memory of my encounter with Trace. I scrambled to think of a way to play it off. “I just don’t want my personal business getting back to my dads, that’s all.”
That much was true.
Jake seemed to accept what I was saying as truth.
He reached over to squeeze my arm. “Then promise you’ll come to the restaurant for breakfast tomorrow?
Let me feed you there, and we can plan something.
If the weather’s nice, I can take you up to this overlook I know about.
It’s a great hike with killer waterfall views. ”
I thought back to when Rosie and Lennon were in high school.
She’d had a crush on a guy in her French class.
A guy who flirted with her during class but hung out with his actual girlfriend every other hour of the day.
Meanwhile, one of Rosie’s good friends in the theater program had asked her to prom.
At the dinner table one night, she asked the rest of us what she should do.
“If I say yes to Ethan, then what happens if Terrell breaks up with Amanda and asks me to prom?”
We’d all looked at her like she’d lost the plot. Papa had spoken first. “What are the chances of that happening, sweetheart?”
Her face had dropped. “Slim to none.”
Dad had exchanged a look with Papa, as if getting permission before speaking. “Baby, maybe if Terrell sees you out with Ethan, he’ll get jealous enough to realize what a catch you are. If so, he’ll be even more interested. If not, you didn’t miss out on having fun at the prom with a good friend.”
Was that how clueless I seemed right now?
I glanced up at Jake—the guy who’d made it clear all along that he wanted me. Who’d been nothing but kind and appreciative. Who’d kept my secret. Who’d never broken my heart.
“Yeah, okay,” I agreed. “That sounds fun.”
He smiled and nodded before moving toward the picnic table to include Shay in the conversation. “So this looks like a pretty nice guitar, yeah?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Way better than the one I had before. And it has built-in electronics!”
I pulled my camp chair around to sit in front of her so I could show her a few things.
“This is called a piezo pickup. It doesn’t make it sound like an electric guitar or anything.
It just amplifies the acoustics when you perform, like playing at the bar.
” I began telling her how to use the controls and connect to the amp I’d noticed on their stage.
We spent a little while playing around with it. At one point, Brennan heard us and came walking over with Pup on his leash. Shay finally put her new guitar down long enough to approach the friendly cat and ask Brennan a lot of questions about her.
After taking a few photos and asking Brennan’s permission to post them and tag his account, Shay finally turned back to where Jake had been idly plucking at the new guitar’s strings.
“Can you drop me off at Teeny’s?” she asked. “I have my bag in the truck. Sorry to leave you alone on your night off.”
Brennan bounced his eyebrows at me before glancing back at Jake. “You should come to our cookout tonight. We’re making a big group dinner. The more, the merrier.”
My stomach dropped. Brennan had no idea Trace was here, that I’d already invited him to the cookout.
Jake flicked his eyes at me, unsure. “I don’t want to impose…”
Brennan continued on as if I wasn’t suddenly straddling a very awkward situation. “It’s no imposition, is it, Will? Everyone’s welcome. You just have to bring your own drinks and whatever meat you want to grill.”
I could tell he was trying to do me a solid. Trying to hook me up with a nice guy who was into me. But it was going to be a major problem.
“Um,” I began, hoping that would be enough to send Jake the message that I wasn’t super on board with it.
“That sounds great,” Jake said, flashing a big smile. “I’ll be there.”
After Brennan nodded and grinned, he grabbed Pup and headed back to his van. I stared after him until Jake leaned in and brushed his lips against my ear.
“Figured I could keep an eye on your dads’ friend. You know, make sure he doesn’t upset you or anything.” He pulled back and smiled as Shay loaded the guitar into the truck. “Hope that’s okay. I kind of feel a little… possessive about you.” He added a wink before leaning in to kiss my cheek.
My eyes immediately skipped over to the orange tent, but thankfully, the parking pad was still empty.
“You don’t need to do that,” I said. “Really. It’s fine. He’s fine. Trace is… a friend of the family.”
Why did that make it sound so lame?
Jake shrugged. “Then maybe I’ll give him another chance tonight. It’ll be like practice for meeting your real family.”
I gaped at him, but before I could figure out how to reply, he was gone.
I stared after his red taillights, wondering what he’d meant about meeting my real family. Even I wasn’t desperate enough to jump that far ahead after meeting a man only a couple of days ago.
It was nice to be wanted, but I felt like Trace’s arrival might have turbo-boosted Jake’s interest in me. And something about that didn’t sit right.
I turned back to my songwriting when I realized my journal wasn’t on the picnic table where I thought I’d left it.
I stepped into the van and glanced around, relieved to realize I must have put it away when Jake and Shay showed up. But it wasn’t on the counter where I’d had it earlier or under the pillow where I usually kept it.
As I continued looking around the van and through my backpack and guitar case, a twist of unease began in my stomach.
Where the fuck was my journal? Not only did it have snippets of my thoughts and feelings, but it also had three completed Fletcher Coe songs, along with notes on at least four others.
The lyrics and music from the completed ones had already been sent off to my manager, but the original notes in my journal were proof I’d created them. If my copyright was challenged, those notes were evidence of my process.
My brain scrambled back to the last time I remembered writing in it, just before Shay and Jake had turned up. I’d sat on the picnic table outside in the sun, jotting down notes.
I returned to the table and scoured every inch of the area, walked a circle around the van while peering underneath it, and finally glanced around at the people near me to see if maybe it had been dropped outside of my immediate campsite.
Nothing.
If I’d been working on it at the table before Jake and Shay arrived, that meant I’d had it after Trace had left the campground.
At least that was something. I couldn’t imagine the humiliation I’d feel if he read my private thoughts about him.
Having him realize I’d put those feelings into song lyrics would be even worse.
But then… where was the journal? Was it possible Jake or Shay had taken it? Or Brennan?
I couldn’t imagine Jake would have done it. What would he have to gain?
I’d watched Brennan walk away with Pup, but I’d been distracted at the time.
And then there was Shay. Who had a slight case of hero worship toward me.
And taking my journal sounded like something a teenage girl might do, especially if she thought it had music stuff in it.
Would she be able to put two and two together?
She’d mentioned Fletcher Coe before when we’d talked about songs.
I racked my brain, trying to remember what, exactly, was in my journal.
Thoughts, lyrics, notes about the musical composition.
Private thoughts of Trace, even though I only referred to him by an initial.
Notes for Sunny, too, about reaching out to specific artists I thought might add an interesting angle to each song.
Fuck.
I continued searching frantically, hoping I was wrong. I even considered begging for Trace’s help when I noticed his rental car pull back into the campground… but one insidious thought stopped me.
Complaining about someone reading my diary sounded like something a child would say.
And I refused to give Trace any reason to dismiss me as a helpless child.