Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
PATTY
W e don’t bother taking a cab or an Uber. There’s enough going on along the main tourist strip that we’re able to walk into the first attraction we see.
Well, the first attraction Lou sees.
“You want to go to a go-kart track?” I ask as we stand in line to buy tickets.
“No,” she says, smiling. “I want to ride the Ferris wheel.” She leans against me and points to the big red-and-white wheel moving slowly inside the park.
“A Ferris wheel?” I ask. “You can ride a Ferris wheel anywhere.”
“But I don’t want to ride a Ferris wheel anywhere,” she says, grinning. “I want to ride one in Branson, Missouri. With a hot dog, Coke, and cotton candy.”
“Is that all?” I mutter as we pay at the ticket booth and walk in.
“No. I also want you to win me that oversized pink teddy bear.”
I chuckle under my breath and walk over to the ring toss booth. “Whatever you say, Queenie.”
“Has anyone ever told you you look exactly like Winona Williams?” the guy working the booth asks.
“I get that a lot,” she says wryly. Then she takes one of the rings, tosses it onto a bottle, and hits the jackpot immediately.
She jumps up into my arms, and I press my mouth to her ear. “Revenge looks good on you.”
She laughs and presses her lips to mine before taking her bear.
Twenty minutes and sixty bucks’ worth of snacks later, Lou and I step onto a gondola on the huge Ferris wheel. She insists on paying, and because she has cash, I let her.
A monitor engineer makes a good living, and considering the tour gives me a daily stipend, it’s not like I’m strapped—right now—but every penny I don’t touch is a penny I can use to pay for my dad’s surgery, fix up the bar.
So I let Lou pay. Graciously.
By which I mean, I’m grumbling when we sit.
She sets her new oversized pink bear down across from us, and its beady black eyes stare at me judgingly.
“Am I or am I not objectively wealthy?” she asks, taking a handful of blue cotton candy and shoving it into her mouth.
“You are.”
“Good. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page,” she says, stuffing more blue fluff into her mouth. A piece of it gets stuck on her nose, and I reach for it, pushing it into her mouth too.
Her lips barely graze my fingers, but it stirs up a fire low in my belly that makes me lean in for a kiss.
Unfortunately, she puts a finger up to my lips, stopping me with a tut. “Not so fast, Sugar. If I’m gonna be your co-writer, I need something to work with first.”
I lean back into the red, full-leather chair. The gondola sways slightly as the Ferris wheel lurches forward, stopping and starting in a rhythmic cycle to let more passengers off and on. Lou nestles into the crook of my arm, and I rest my hand on her shoulder. She takes it, threading her fingers through mine as we both look out at the park.
The Ferris wheel spins higher and higher with each new passenger until, from up here, we can see Branson itself. A soft breeze carries the sounds of the park below. From this vantage point, the kitschiness of the city fades into a kind of throwback charm.
It’s dusk, and the sun is making its final farewell to the city, painting the sky in hues of orange and violet.
“How much do you know about my dad’s accident?” I ask.
Lou doesn’t hesitate. “Everything Ash knows,” she says. “Plus the detail you told me about the church. He was driving back from Sugar Maple to Mullet Ridge when Rusty‘s dad caused an accident—with Rusty’s little sister on board. She was killed instantly. Arlo was thrown harmlessly from the car, and your dad was paralyzed.”
I clench my jaw, my throat thick with emotion as she squeezes my hand.
I appreciate the way Lou calls Rusty’s dad Arlo. That man has never been a father to Rusty, and he doesn’t deserve the title.
My dad, on the other hand, deserves a medal.
Not that I would have been there to give it to him.
My guilt is like poison—like acid burning the back of my throat every time I try to swallow.
But I’m so sick of waiting for it to finish me, once and for all.
I came on this tour because I want a remedy.
An antidote.
And maybe Lou isn’t the one I expected, but who’s to say she ain’t even better?
If the effectiveness of an antidote is how you feel, being around her has the power to heal me more than anything.
Maybe she’s right.
Maybe I won’t be able to edit that messy first draft until I’ve taken a good look at it.
Shown it to someone else.
So I open my mouth and let the words flow.
“My dad is as good as they come. His one flaw is that he fell for a woman who couldn’t be relied on to pick you up from the hospital, let alone raise a family. The one thing my mom had going for her was that she had music in her veins.”
Lou shifts at this, tightening her grip. I don’t know which of us needs grounding more.
“My parents met at a bar where my mom was performing. She was always looking for something bigger and better, but she didn’t have the discipline—or even the luck—to make anything of it. When she fell for my dad, it was enough for her, at first. She thought she could give herself a new dream. Thought she could be content in a small town, performing with a band every Friday night. And for a while, she was.
"But she had a beautiful voice. And she got just enough recognition to make her discontented. She was constantly hungry for more, and I’m not saying it’s her fault, but seeing her get it—seeing her get any little hint of fame, seeing her constantly hustle to be noticed—it rubbed off on me.
"When she left us—which she did all too often—I didn’t resent her. I envied her. It seemed like the best plan in the world. I thought she would reach the highest levels of stardom—because how could she not? To me, she was the most beautiful, talented woman in the world. And I just assumed she’d reach the top and take us with her.”
We’re at the top of the Ferris wheel now, and it pauses, making us sway. The movement, coupled with the height, makes the ground feel impossibly far away. Then there’s a slow creak, and the wheel keeps turning.
And I keep talking.
“Whenever she came back, she had her tail between her legs, claiming she missed us too much and couldn’t stay away. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I realized she was lying.”
I pause, exhaling slowly, my grip on Lou’s shoulder tightening before I ease it slightly.
“And by then, all I wanted was to succeed where she failed.”
Lou stays quiet, letting me talk. She flips my hand over and traces slow patterns on my palm. It’s a comforting, supportive gesture, and it gives me the assurance I need to bring up the one topic I want to stay farthest from.
“I was obsessed with music. It was the only thing I cared about. More than my dad or my brother. Way more than my momma. I only kept my grades up because I needed them to get into NECM.”
She doesn’t say anything. She just listens. And now that my tongue has been loosed, I can’t seem to stop.
“I got into NECM. You know this. And I was put in a dorm my freshman year with two other freshmen and one sophomore.”
Lou lifts her head slightly. “Nash?”
“Nash,” I confirm.
“What about Duncan?”
I hesitate. “He showed up eventually. But at first, it was just me and Nash. He was a man with a plan, and even though I was the one there on a full-ride scholarship and he got in through family connections, I worshipped the guy.”
Lou tilts her face back to mine, her brow furrowing. My arm tightens around her reflexively, protectively—it’s like my body wants to shield her from a past that has nothing to do with her. A past I don’t want to haunt her, too.
“It’s hard to imagine you looking up to someone else. Not in a bad way,” she adds. “But because you’re … an island.”
I frown, thinking about how her words hit.
“I don’t think I was born that way. I think I became that way. To protect myself.”
“From what?”
“A mother who was always leaving, probably. Getting taken advantage of, definitely.”
“Huh.” She exhales and settles back against my side, a small gesture, a quiet acceptance that makes my chest constrict.
How can she trust me so much?
What have I done to earn it?
And what wouldn’t I do to keep it?
“Nash was impressed by bands like The Black Keys, The White Stripes, The Civil Wars—not just their sound, but their hooks. The White Stripes were all about those colors, the starkness, the driving beats and minimalism. It made them memorable, even before you heard their music. Well, the hook Nash liked was opposites. He didn’t want yin and yang—nothing complementing—he wanted black and white. Light and dark.”
“Front and back,” Lou says, sitting up as she puts the pieces together. “The cover of the first Duncan and Nash album. It’s literally Nash facing forward and Duncan facing back. And their interviews! The rare concert footage! It was always Duncan hiding in the shadows, wearing black with his dark roots and that bleached Kurt Cobain hair in front of his face, while Nash dyed his short blond hair darker, right? He was always well-groomed in that white T-shirt. The look was iconic.”
“That was the plan.”
“Duncan didn’t care?”
I swallow hard, wondering how much to reveal, how open to get.
I should answer her.
I should say the words out loud.
But what if she looks at me differently? Sees the cracks, the things I can’t fix?
I keep my mouth shut, shifting my grip on her back, letting my fingers press a little harder, like holding onto her might hold back the truth.
“He was dumb and hungry, and it worked, right? Duncan and Nash made it big.”
“What about you, though?”
My insides squirm.
“Nash didn’t have his master plan all figured out until his senior year. Before then, he was experimenting. He made a classic four-person band, and we started performing on weekends. We had good buzz, too.”
“What did you play?”
“Everything. That was the first hook—a band where everyone switched instruments.”
“I didn’t know Nash could play more than one instrument.”
“Everyone but him,” I correct.
I’m not trying to make this a “dump on Nash” session, because if I start …
If I start …
Lou’s head swivels. “His hook was a backup band that could do everything?” Her nose wrinkles in distaste, and even though I shouldn’t want to tarnish her opinion of him, I appreciate it.
More, I love it.
I love every disgusted line on her angelic face.
“We were big in the college scene. We developed a strong following fast. And one of the reasons was that we invited our fellow musicians on stage to play any song they felt they could hang with. Not a lot could, but the ones who did… well, you’ve heard of them.”
“I’m bettin’ they come through your bar every now and then,” she says, putting more and more pieces together.
I nod.
“That’s kind of awesome.”
“Thanks. I thought so, too.”
“That was your idea? I thought you said Nash was the big-picture guy, not … O’Shannan.”
I chuckle darkly. “Yeah. I had some good ideas, too.”
Then I pinch her side, and she squirms, making the gondola shake.
Lou reaches a hand up to my cheek and rubs her nails in my scruff. I can’t help when my eyes close at her touch or the way my breathing comes easier when I’m with her.
She’s a light in the darkness.
A hand pulling me from the shadows where I’ve dwelt for too long.
“What happened? It sounds like you two were thick as thieves.”
I don’t let myself laugh this time. “That’s a good way of putting it.”
“So why wasn’t it you with him when he dropped the rest of the band?”
The back of my throat itches, even after a decade—more than a decade; what, fifteen, seventeen years?—of pain and memories resurface in me and try to claw their way out. The truth still tastes bitter on my tongue.
“I wasn’t enough for him. He needed Duncan.”
“Oh, Patty. I’m sorry,” she says quietly, her voice rising above the sounds of the park below us. “Do you resent that?”
“Yeah. But mostly, I resent myself. If I’d been smarter, more patient, I could have made something happen on my own eventually. But I got swept away in his dreams, and when he convinced me he didn’t need me and needed Duncan instead, I listened. I let him push me aside so I could fill whatever role he needed.”
Her expressive blue eyes are so wide and sad, I can see an ocean of unshed tears in them. For me . I don’t deserve them, but they mean something anyway.
She keeps her hand on my cheek, her head against my shoulder, her back glued to my side. “So you went from performing to running sound?”
“I did a lot more than that, but Nash didn’t trust anyone else with the mixes,” I tell her honestly, even as warning bells go off in my head that I need to change the topic—fast.
Even if a part of me doesn’t want to.
A part of me might even want her to press.
Lou doesn’t press, but she doesn’t let go, either. Light but earth-shattering, her fingers trace a slow line along my scar, her nails dragging just enough to send a shiver down my spine.
The Ferris wheel whirs softly as it begins its slow descent, the gondola swaying as the evening air grows cooler. Below, laughter and music drift up from the park, the energy of the crowd a contrast to the quiet of our little haven.
She waits, giving me the space to speak, to keep going—or to shut this conversation down completely.
I should. I should make some joke, redirect her attention, let this whole thing fade into the night.
But she keeps her hand on my face, her touch making my thoughts go quiet, and for some reason, that makes it harder to keep my walls up.
“I told myself I didn’t mind,” I say finally. My voice feels tight, stuffed with too many years of things gone unsaid. “That being in the background was fine. That I didn’t need the spotlight as long as I could still be part of the music.”
Lou tilts her head, searching my face. “And was it?”
The Ferris wheel has made a full rotation, but it stops now with us near the top.
I’m not sure if a little kid got sick or if the universe is simply giving me a minute to decide how much of myself I want to give her.
But I have the time to answer her question, and I need—I want —to take it.
“It was,” I admit. “Until it wasn’t. The longer I stayed in the shadows, the more I felt like I was fading into them. I wasn’t even sure who I was outside of who Nash needed me to be.”
She frowns, but she’s looking at me like my secrets are safe, like those parts of me are worth knowing.
And that gives me a stab as painful as any memory.
“What about now?” she asks softly.
I look away, my fingers twitching against hers.
“Now…” I exhale slowly, the word getting lost in the night air. “I don’t know. I came on tour with you because I was angry and wanted to say my piece. Maybe take some of my past back. But my dad said something before I left that I can’t stop thinking about.”
“What was that?”
“‘When are you going to stop chasing the past and start making yourself a future?’”
“Wow.” Lou breathes slowly. “In a weird way, I get that. I feel like I’m running from my momma’s past sometimes, like if I stop for too long, her choices will catch up to me. But what if I just… stop running and keep creating? What if my future really is what I make of it?”
What if?
Lou kisses the skin of my cheek above my scruff and below my eye, her lips achingly soft.
For someone who’s never kissed before, she’s way too good at it.
She has a way of gliding her lips across my skin that makes me weak in the knees. Even sitting as I am right now, her breath on my cheek makes my bones feel like jelly.
I could give in so easily to this girl.
I could give in completely.
“So, these are the missing measures, huh?” Lou says finally.
“Some of them, at any rate,” I say, taking her hand from my cheek and kissing each finger.
“What comes next? Are you hoping to talk to Nash when you see him next?”
“Oh, yes,” I say in an exhale. “I just need to figure out what to say.”
“I won’t kiss him, you know. I don’t care if the label pushes me. I don’t care how hard he presses. Even before this, I wasn’t really interested. I tried to convince myself that I was, but between you and me, I was always more intrigued by Duncan,” she says.
I give a short laugh, shaking my head.
“I know that seems like a joke, but it’s not,” Lou says.
She turns away from me, looking out over the now-dark city. Below, the lights from the go-kart track flicker like fireflies, and the distant drone of laughter and music drifts up to us.
The gondola has finally started moving again, but we won’t touch down for a few minutes. She shivers and huddles closer. I pick up her legs and drape them across my lap, then wrap both arms around her, imparting as much warmth as I can.
“You mentioned Nash’s fascination with opposites. It’s funny that the idea came from him when I patterned my entire mystique around Duncan. I kept my hair in front of my face, hid myself in the shadows, made sure my background was a study in contrast. I knew my music was good, but channeling him is what made it possible. I was so afraid of trying to make it as Winona Williams’ daughter that it felt pointless to even try. But then Duncan and Nash came on the scene, and Duncan emboldened me. He was a bigger inspiration than my momma, even.”
She hesitates, then glances back at me. “I know this is cheesy, but I wish I could thank him. Do you—do you ever talk to him?”
My chest tightens. I look down, fingers curling into my jeans.
“No.”
That’s all I can say. Anything more would give away too much of my soul.
I’m already on dangerous ground, already giving Lou my heart.
This is all I have left to hold back.
“Do you miss him?”
I hesitate. The pause stretches between us—maybe too long.
I should answer. I should be honest.
“No.”
Another beat.
Then, finally, I admit, “I feel bad for him, though. Sometimes, I wish I could go back in time and stop him. Give him a pat on the back and tell him he doesn’t need anyone else to validate him. He doesn’t need anyone else’s vision. The music is enough.” My voice cracks. “ He’s enough.”
Lou’s lips press together. “If I could go back in time, I think I’d hug Little Patty.”
A laugh huffs out of me before I can stop it.
“He wouldn’t have known what to do with a girl like you. He was just a skinny little dope, too obsessed with music to know there’s more to life.”
Lou gasps in mock offense. “There’s more to life than music?” She lets out a dramatic sigh. “I feel personally attacked.”
The moment of levity is a gift, cutting through the weight of the conversation like sunlight through storm clouds. I chuckle with her, relief loosening the tension in my chest.
When she looks back at me with that smile—warm, teasing, just for me—I don’t think. I just move.
I fuse my lips to hers, sinking into the kiss as the Ferris wheel keeps turning, carrying us through the night.
We stay like that until the ride slows, the wheel stopping to let us off.
And even then, I don’t want to let go.