Chapter 44
Jason
♪ If I Get High | Nothing But Thieves
I don’t even know how I made it back to the venue in one piece.
I’d tempted Fate by going to the gallery, and Fate had called my bluff. I was fucking destroyed.
Seeing her with somebody else tore through my heart like a hot knife. It took the wind right out of my lungs.
Men had always looked at her, even when I held her hand. I went mad thinking of someone else touching her. Of her smiling at their jokes or cooking them dinner.
I’d been following the updates to The Huntsman’s Wife. I checked it every day. It was the only direct link I still had to her. She’d started posting regularly while she was living in Ely and she was cooking the game Dad had in the freezer. But a few weeks ago she’d posted a recipe for wild boar.
Dad didn’t hunt boar.
I didn’t think much of it at the time. I thought maybe it was something old, from when Brandon was still alive, that she hadn’t gotten around to sharing. But now that I knew she was dating, my mind went crazy wondering if she was seeing someone who hunted, obsessing about who she cooked for, who she was spending time with.
I knew she hadn’t been ready to date when she met me, so I’d hoped, for my own selfish reasons, that she would stay single for a while, that maybe we had been a special circumstance. It was the only thing that had kept me halfway sane all these months. But she wasn’t waiting. She was seeing someone.
Nobody would ever love her like I would. She would never find the same devotion, even if she looked for a lifetime. I knew that with every cell of my being. She’d never know about it, but it would always be there. When she married someone else, had children, when she grew old, I would still be out there in the world, cherishing her in secret. If she ever needed anything, I’d make sure she had it. It would be my penance for the rest of my life for not being able to do it in person.
Three hours after the gallery, I was in my dressing room, sitting with my head in my hands, like I had been for the last hour. Jessa was on and I had about thirty minutes to showtime. I’d go through it like the puppet I was now. My label finally had its marionette. Everything would be an act from this point forward because I had nothing real left to give. All my joy in life had been drained out of me.
Someone knocked on my door. I didn’t move. I didn’t even look up. “Yeah?”
“Um, it’s Courtney. Can I come in?”
I let out a tired breath and dragged myself to my feet to open the door.
She stood there biting her lip. “Um, Lola’s here.”
My face brightened into one of my rare smiles. “Really? Where?”
She threw a thumb over her shoulder. “She’s in Jessa’s dressing room. She came to see you. I didn’t want to tell her where your room was in case—”
“No, it’s fine. Can you bring her?”
She nodded.
I was actually excited to see her. I wanted to see how she was doing. I’d called her a few times in rehab. She’d never come to the phone or called me back.
A moment later someone knocked on my dressing room door. I opened it, and when I did, I stood there, staring.
The woman standing there was nobody I knew. Even as I recognized her, it still was nobody I knew. The transformation was so shocking it disarmed me completely.
She smiled. “Hello.”
Her hair had grown out a bit. It was brown, not red. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and a scattering of freckles I never knew she had peppered her nose. She had a red tote bag on her shoulder and she wore a baggy T-shirt, leggings, and flip-flops.
She looked five years younger. She wasn’t a rock star three months into rehab, she looked like a college student studying for finals. A babysitter after the kids had gone to bed, waiting for the parents to come home.
“Hi,” I breathed. “God, you look…you look different.”
She laughed a little, sucking her lips together. “Can we talk? Is that okay?”
“Yeah. Yes. Sure.” I let her in and closed the door behind her. She sat on the couch and I took the chair across from her. I couldn’t stop staring. I didn’t even blink. How was this the same person from all those months ago? The same woman who’d shown up at my trailer, three sheets to the wind and staggering across my fucking lawn?
The gaunt, sharp edges of her cheekbones were gone, and so was the death she’d carried behind her eyes the last time I saw her.
Her clear green irises settled on me. “Thank you for seeing me. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t want to.”
“No, I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “How have you been? You look good.”
Her hand went self-consciously to her head. “When it gets a little longer, I can get extensions.” She laughed nervously. “I actually kinda like it because I don’t get recognized.”
She put her hands into her lap and stared down at them for a long moment. “I wanted to apologize to you. And to Sloan. I was messed up for a really long time. I wasn’t myself and I’m not proud of how I acted.”
When I didn’t respond, her eyes came up to mine. “I didn’t know that was your girlfriend that night. I’d never seen her before, and Jessa had said Sloan was in Minnesota. I thought it was your assistant or something walking your dog.” She swallowed. “This is the first time I’ve really been sober and stable in almost three years. I know that’s not an excuse, but—”
“It’s okay,” I said, putting up a hand. “I accept your apology. If you accept mine.”
Her face went soft. She let out a long breath as if she’d been holding it. “I’ve been talking to Ernie about representing me. I need someone honest, you know?”
I smiled a little. “He’s a good one.”
She nodded. “Most of them aren’t. You’re really lucky.”
I studied her while she seemed to struggle with what to say.
“I, um…I was wondering if you would ever consider letting me tour with you? I mean, it doesn’t have to be full-time or anything,” she said quickly. “Maybe just the biggest venues? Or holiday specials?”
I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. “There’d have to be rules,” I said. “You’d need to stay sober.”
Hope flashed across her face. She nodded.
“Stay on your medication. And if you fall off the wagon, you exit yourself. You don’t make me do it.”
She nodded again and I sat there, searching her face for the old Lola.
I didn’t see her.
I put out a hand.
She looked at my small olive branch, and her chin quivered. Then she took my hand and shook it.
I let go of her and reached across the coffee table to pull some tissues from the box. I handed them to her and she held them, staring down at the tips of her toes, smiling through tears.
I sat there, watching her in silence. I felt like I should tell her I was proud of her. I knew how hard it was to battle against yourself. To wrestle your desires down every single day of your life to do what you know is best. But I didn’t have the strength to talk about it.
I probably never would.
Sometimes the hardest place to live is the one in-between. And sometimes in-between is all you’ll ever get.
She wiped at her nose. “I should go,” she said after a moment, starting to get up. “I don’t want to cause any more problems for you with Sloan.”
I laughed a little and sat back in the chair. “Sloan and I broke up. The night you left.”
She blinked at me, perched on the end of her cushion. “Was it…because of me?”
I shook my head. “No. Not really. I just couldn’t give her the life she deserved.”
Lola sat there, clutching the wads of tissues I’d handed her. “I’m sorry, Jaxon. But you know it’s probably for the best, right?”
“I do,” I said quietly.
“This business isn’t the greatest for relationships.” She looked away from me for a moment. “I never told you this but…” Her eyes came back to mine. “When I met you, you kinda reminded me of someone.” She shook her head. “Just someone I used to know. A dancer…”
She trailed off and it was a long moment before she continued. “I think that’s why I was always drawn to you, you know?”
I let out a small laugh through my nose. “I get it. If I ever met someone who reminded me of Sloan…”
I’d probably never meet someone who reminded me of Sloan.
I just wasn’t that lucky.
Lola wiped at her nose with a tissue. Then she looked around her like she’d just remembered something. She reached down and picked up her tote bag. “I forgot to tell you. I brought you something.” She sniffed as she pulled a folder out. “Feel free to say no. It’s just Ernie mentioned that you’re having a hard time writing, and I thought…” She took a deep breath. “Here.” She handed it to me.
“What is it?” I asked, taking it.
She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I wrote some music when I was in rehab.” She laughed again. “I wrote a lot of music. You inspired me, Minnesota.”
I snorted, despite it being a bad joke.
I opened the folder and looked at the sheets inside.
“If you sing them, I’ll get royalties,” she said. “And I need the money. I wrote them just for you, and Ernie says they’re good…” She trailed off when I didn’t look up to answer her.
My eyes pored over the verses. The music danced around my mind like lightning bugs. I flipped the pages, hearing the songs in my head.
They were good. I mean, they’d need a few tweaks here and there to make them mine, and some of them weren’t finished, but…they were amazing.
I looked up at her. “How many are here?”
“Twenty-two?”
I almost choked on the laugh. “Twenty-two songs,” I breathed. I had to put a hand over my mouth. It was almost three albums’ worth.
My freedom. She’d just handed me my freedom.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“You’ll take them?”
I nodded, my eyes tearing up. “Yes. Of course.”
“’Cause I know you write your own songs and you—”
“Lola, it would be an honor to sing these.” I looked her in the eye and she stared back at me almost shyly.
“My name is Nikki.”
I tilted my head. “What?”
“My name. It’s Nikki. Not Lola. Will you call me that from now on?”
I had to muscle down the knot in my throat. “Yes. Yes, I’ll call you that. And you call me Jason.” I paused for a long moment. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
She smiled. “It’s nice to finally meet you too.”
I looked back down at the music in my lap and a jab of sorrow overcame me. I had my way out now. I’d need a couple more songs, but that was nothing. Hell, maybe Lola would help me. My label would stagger the releases. Probably one a year and a tour to support each. But three more years wasn’t ten.
But it didn’t make any difference for me and Sloan.
Lola peered around the room like she could tell I was broken and she didn’t want to stare at the cracks. “What’s that?” she asked, nodding to the paper-wrapped painting I had propped against the wall.
I cleared my throat. “It’s just something I bought.”
“Oh. Can I see it?”
I nodded and she got up. When she peeled off the brown paper to look, she gasped. “Wow. That’s a really cool photo of you.”
I looked up and had to clutch a hand over the punch to my heart.
It was me.
Sloan had painted me.
I stood in the lake, in my waders. It was that day in Ely when I’d been putting in the dock. It was the moment right before I’d kissed her.
Tears threatened, and I had to put a hand on my mouth.
She’d painted this from memory. It was like seeing the moment through her eyes. This was how she had seen me that day, smiling and happy.
I’d been happy because she was there.
And I’d never be that happy again.
She wanted to get rid of it. She’d dropped this off to be sold and then left on a date.
The tears in my eyes rolled down my cheeks and I let them.
“What’s wrong?” Lola asked.
I shook my head. “My life is a mess,” I said, talking to the canvas.
She laughed a little. “Someone smart once told me you can start over again. Start now.”
But it was too late for starting over. I still couldn’t make Sloan safe. Not unless the public was suddenly more interested in buying magazines with pictures of me and her in them instead of me and Lola. And I’d done my job too well. Ernie said she hated me, that he couldn’t even mention my name without her face going hard. She was dating. She was moving on.
The damage had been done.