“It was afluke.” He fidgets. “An amazing fluke, give you that, but you can’t build a serious music career onflukes.”
“Isn’t every career built on them?”
He takes my hand across the old, scratched-up table stained with water rings and clenches shut his eyes. “Chase … Please. I’m begging you. We aresoclose. We … we areso,so,so,soooclose …”
“Didn’t it make you feel good?” I keep staring at his cramped-up face. “I know you saw the whole thing from the wings. Ain’t that exactly the kind of moment that can go viral? Take fire? Put us and my name in front of a million new eyes? We’re on a College Country Crash tour, Ian, I thought the whole point was gettin’ the younger listeners.”
Ian nods, eyes still closed. “I know it felt good. That moment you had with her. Affecting a fan like that. You give, give, give. Ever since we began this whole thing and you and I creamed over having a crowd of barely fifty or so packed into the Saltshaker …”
“Those were the times.”
He pops open his eyes. “And I want you to keep having that human connection. But forgetoneEsmeralda. How about touching ten thousand of them? Making tenmillionof them cry?” He lets go of my hand, fingers returning to his glass. “I can get you that. I can get you all of that. But you’ve got to trust me.”
“Of course I trust you.”
“And don’t give in to your impulses.” He glances back at the others, then leans forward and lowers his voice. “Chase, I haven’t forgotten. Our first year. Your recklessness … it … sure has a funny sense of timing. It damned near cost us everything.”
First year. He’s talking about when I got my heart broken. And I went onstage hours later. And I twisted up every one of my songs with anger and petty resentment, these songs that are supposed to be about carefree love. That was back when Cam was in the band, our first drummer, and he about jumped me after the show in a rage, furious that I’d be so selfish to do that.
I couldn’t help it. I gave my everything to someone, and then I was betrayed. My career was on the rise, everything happening for us. I haven’t let anyone near my heart since, despite singing it out every night in front of roomfuls of longing eyes.
Timothy isn’t near my heart, for the record. That’s not what happened in Spruce. This isn’t a love story.
Timothy is … something like a muse.
Sort of.
“I wasn’t running off on you in arental car,” I start.
“You needed the day, of course, it’s fine. No one’s begrudging you that.” Now it’s Ian who’s finger-drumming his glass. “But it’s clear that … whatever you did with your day … changed you.”
I was going for a drink. I stop, glass at my lips. “Huh?”
“Like a whole new Chase came back. Glow on your skin.Zingin your voice.”
“Zing …?”
“Then you come back with this welt on your head.” He frowns as he looks me over. “Did you get laid and rammed your face into the headboard or something?”
I spit my drink back into my glass to save it being sprayed all over Ian’s face. “Say what now?”
“You meeting up with fans in secret?”
“No!”
“Or just one special fan?” Something must give it away in my eyes, because he leans forward at once. “Chase. Is there a special guy I don’t know about? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I haven’t told you anything.”
“You’re saying it with your face.”
“I’m sayin’ nothin’ with my face.”
“That would explain everything,” Ian decides, almost tipping his drink over as he pushes it aside to lean in even moreand lower his voice. “That new song at the other show. Your behavior.”
“My behavior? I sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to a woman who I …”Don’t wanna throw Dee under the bus, just in case. “… had heard about from one of the house staff. And as for the song I wrote on the fly, that was inspired from an … an unexpected encounter.”
“An unexpected encounter with a beautiful guy who ran away with your heart?”