One Kiss from the King of Rock (The One Book 2) Page 17

  “And if you don’t respond to my messages,” Teela said. “I won’t be responsible for the amount of ice cream I force feed you.”

  “I promise to swear at your messages in good time,” Evie said. Though that would mean turning her phone on and that couldn’t possibly be fun. “Get out of here. I brood best alone.”

  Teela bounced a little on her dead feet. “I won’t defend Jay, but I think you should at least talk to him.”

  “I already said everything I needed to say, and he’s already gone.” If he stuck to the tour plan, he’d be in Auckland now with a few days off to sightsee and do media before the first show. After that he was in Asia and Europe and it was better this way.

  “He won’t go without seeing you,” Teela said.

  Evie pulled the blanket over her head. “La, la, la, la.” Jay had no choice but to go. Which made never seeing him again easy once she cleaned him out of her social media. She flipped the blanket off her face. “I don’t care where he is or what he does. Would you both please fuck off and leave me alone. I will eat everything left in your fridge and cupboards. I will use an inappropriate amount of hot water. I promise to come see you soon. I’ll even meet this good boy dog you want me to adopt. You don’t have to worry about me. I just need time to avoid everyone until the powder-burns from my ridiculous fantasies exploding in my face wear off.”

  “They weren’t ridiculous,” said Teela standing, making pins and needles break out over Evie’s feet and ankles.

  “Is that what’s wrong with your face?” said Haydn, squinting at her.

  Evie threw a cushion at him with a snort that she hoped said everything she couldn’t. Thank you for letting me stay. Thank you for being concerned. Thank you for understanding.

  She hunkered down on the coach she’d spent the night on, still wearing the pjs Teela had provided. As soon as they were gone, she’d run a bath and soak, unpack her bag, make something to eat and wallow some more. Rinse and repeat until that got boring and she couldn’t avoid showing up to work any longer.

  Everyday she’d forget Jay a little more until he was just another mistake she’d made, and not this invisible injury making her whole body feel like it had was made of raw nerve endings.

  Hayden messed with her hair on his way out. Easy affection that made her gulp down emotion. Teela set her phone on a side table and pointed to it meaningfully and at the door, half out of the apartment and well out of throwing range, said, “I told Errol you were here,” before she pulled the door shut behind her.

  Dammit, she’d managed to do that quietly. Evie threw a cushion anyway. It landed halfway across the room, well short of its target.

  She didn’t turn her phone on. She didn’t run a bath, or eat, or unpack. If it wasn’t for needing a bathroom break, she’d have laid on Teela’s couch all day, consumed with hating herself for trusting Jay enough to have given up her apartment and packed up her whole life to travel with him.

  Hours later, she wasn’t brushed or dressed or washed and her mouth was gluggy, when Errol pounded on the door. “Proof of life, Evie,” he yelled.

  She stood in front of the door and said, “Bugger off.” That should demonstrate she was still breathing.

  “Open up. I need to see you,” he said.

  She peered at him through the peephole. “I don’t want to see you.”

  “Evelette. Right now.” He rammed his finger on the aperture, making her blink in shock.

  Why the hell had Teela lived in an apartment without an intercom and a chain on the door? If she took over the lease, she’d rectify that. She opened the door wide enough for Errol to get a look at her disheveled glory. “I don’t want to talk.”

  He pushed inside. “No problem. I only need you to listen.”

  “The part about this is not a good time to lecture me.” She let the door slam. “That part escapes you?”

  Errol looked around the apartment, taking in her suitcase and picking up the cushion. “Do you want to get dressed?”

  She did not want that and told him so by glaring at him and returning to the couch.

  “I’m not here to talk about Jay. I want to know if you’re okay.” He rubbed his face. “I know you’re not okay, what I mean is.” He tossed her the cushion. “You know what I mean.”

  “You want to know if I’m going to live the rest of my life in someone else’s apartment, in someone else’s pjs and never answer my phone or wash again?”

  He lowered himself into a chair. “There are worse things.”

  “He shouldn’t have done that,” she blurted. It was the first thing she’d said about what happened. She’d shown up at Teela’s knowing Tee had seen the concert and wouldn’t need to be told.

  “I’d have disagreed with you once upon a time, but I can see it from your perspective now.” Errol sat forward, elbows on his knees. “He didn’t think it through and he hurt you.”

  Evie’s face was hot and itchy. She pulled another cushion across her lap and fiddled with the tassel on one of its ends. Teela had said the same thing, but hearing Dad say it was a fresh blow. She wasn’t simply being a drama queen. Jay fucked up. He took a good thing and poisoned it.

  “Which makes what I need to say even more difficult,” Errol said.

  “You said you weren’t going to talk about Jay.”

  “I’m not going to defend him. I want to kick his arse till it’s blue. If you’d asked for Jay’s help to launch a career that would be one thing, but you didn’t.” Errol looked at his feet. “What you need to know is my phone has been blowing up all day with opportunities.”

  “Oh no, no.” She glanced at her own phone. She’d turned it off as soon as she went backstage but beneath its dark screen it was seething with issues she’d have to deal with eventually.

  “It started last night. Agents, promotors, advertising agencies who want to license the song.”

  She stood and went to the kitchen and put the kettle on for something to do, keeping her back to Errol, the kitchen counter between them.

  “I know you didn’t ask for this, but I don’t represent you, so I can’t make any decisions on your behalf in this,” he said.

  So now he couldn’t make any decisions on her behalf. “I authorize you to tell everyone to go to hell.”

  “Evie, are you sure?”

  She turned to face him. “For God’s sake, yes.” How was this still not clear?

  “I have to ask. Are you truly sure you don’t want to do a deal?”

  She didn’t want to be a singer. That didn’t mean she wasn’t curious. “What kind of deal?”

  “How about one where you write and get paid well and someone else gets famous on your words.”

  She switched the kettle off. She didn’t want tea anyway and Errol needed to leave. He was already standing, that was half the way gone. “When I wanted to be a songwriter you told me that was dumb, a waste of my time.”

  He sighed. “I was very wrong. I thought I knew best but I was trying to force my own vision on you. I will never do that again, but that’s why I need to ask if you’re sure you don’t want Layla Flowers to have your song.”

  Layla Flowers. Australia’s answer to Taylor, Katy, Ari. Layla Flowers wasn’t some random hopeful. She was a real talent. “Layla Flowers wants my song?”

  “Layla wants all your songs, past, present, future. The deal her manager outlined is one of the best I’ve seen.”

  She put the kettle back on. “What’s in it for me?” Made sense to have all the details. She was a businesswoman after all.

  “Money, Evie. Very good money. Ongoing royalties. A songwriter’s credit. That’s it.”

  No need to perform. No need for anyone to even know her songs were on the air. “But I’d have to keep writing?”

  “Yes. That’s a detail we need to work out, but the idea is you’d write more songs that Layla has the exclusive rights to, whether she records them or not.”

  The kettle burbled. So did her brain. “I don’t need this.”
She switched the kettle off. It wasn’t as easy to settle her head.

  “No, you don’t. You have a good business. You’re already doing something you love.”

  “Why didn’t Jay get that?”

  “I don’t think he was trying to manipulate you. He wasn’t being malicious. He made a mistake. Unfortunately, on a grand scale.” Errol sighed. “Much like I once did. Evie, Jay has stars in his eyes about you. He always did. I know how he feels.”

  What a day. Here was her dad with an offer to do the thing she’d wanted to do all along and denied herself. And he was defending the man he’d once set her up to give up.

  “If Jay loved me he’d have known not to put me in the spotlight like that.” Maybe tea would be good. She switched the kettle on again.

  “I would step in front of a speeding train for you and I wounded you and Jay terribly. I couldn’t have gotten it all more wrong. Loving someone isn’t insulation against hurting them. We sometimes hurt the people we love the most. That’s a fucked-up thing but I know it’s real.” He waved a hand at her. “You’re going to boil the bottom of that kettle out if you don’t turn it off.”

  Right. She turned if off again. “We’re done, Dad. It was never going to work long-term anyway. Jay is a touring rock star, and I have my business.”

  “I’d tell you those were small barriers to get around. I’d tell you to follow your head but listen to your heart, but I’m worried you’re going to throw boiling water at me.”

  Not even close. She made tea. While it steeped, she washed her face and cleaned her teeth and thought about whether she wanted to write songs for Layla Flower and what that meant for her and Jay if the answer was yes.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Jay didn’t get on the scheduled flight to Auckland. The band did. Mum did. He’d follow, he told them. He needed to see Evie. He called and messaged her incessantly, though it was obvious she’d turned her phone off or was screening or would never speak to him again.

  He called Abel and Isaac and Oscar and didn’t expect them to answer either, but he used up message bank time to rant, apologize, plead and rant some more.

  He called Errol, only to learn Evie was okay and didn’t want to speak to him. He couldn’t fault the Tice’s for closing ranks on him.

  He deserved it.

  The rescheduled flight left without him.

  He wasn’t giving up without talking this out one last time, and if that meant waiting till Evie could stand to hear his voice and be in the same room with him, he’d wait.

  It took him too long to realize that Evie would be with Teela and two minutes on the phone to get Teela’s address and a warning not to fuck things up again.

  The next scheduled flight also left without him. Mum’s messages shifted from emphatic to understanding to concerned. Next stop barely concealed impatience on the way to outright demands he get on a plane, even if it meant chartering one.

  He stood at the door to Teela’s old apartment and knocked, and when he heard movement on the other side, he said. “I’m not leaving without talking to you, Evie.”

  She didn’t fling the door open and shout at him. She didn’t tell him through the door to go fuck himself. She didn’t answer at all and that was the moment his despair almost throttled him. “I’m going to wait here in case you change your mind. If you tell me you want me to go, if you’re done with me for good, I’ll go.”

  He didn’t hear another sound.

  Using the door as support, he went to the floor where he sat for who knows how long, sunk into his own misery. He’d never meant to force Evie’s hand. Never anticipated she’d feel that way and that was a supreme failing. He’d misunderstood. It was so obvious now, and the only thing keeping him functioning was self-hatred and hope. And the longer it took for her to open the door, the more tattered that shred of hope became, the darker his thoughts.

  His back was stiff and sore when Abel arrived with a black eye and massive pizza. The eye gave Jay twinge of guilt until the smell of the pizza overwhelmed him and turned his stomach.

  “Might’ve figured you’d try this,” Abel said. “You’re done, mate. You fucked it up. I hate that you did so much, I want to kill you.”

  “Wait.” That sounded almost kindly in a twisted way. “What?”

  “You think we’d use so much energy hating you if you didn’t mean everything to Evie.”

  “I thought you just straight out wanted to kill me. All that motherfucking not good enough for her stuff.”

  Abel sighed. “If you weren’t already family, we’d have cut you and never looked back. And some of what you said was right. We’ve taken Evie for granted for so long we didn’t see it. That stops right now. She should always get to choose how she spends her smarts.”

  Never make decisions for someone else. A wizard once told him that. “There’s something we agree on.”

  “And throwing punches like that, we were all dickheads. Like we were dickheads not to sort things out between us all ten years ago.”

  They were still dickheads, but at least they weren’t trying to smash each other.

  Abel grinned. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Auckland?” He was meant to be on stage in seventy-two hours. “Evie chose to let you sit here all day, didn’t she?”

  Jay nodded. His teeth ached and his stomach was in rebellion. Evie was going to have to open that door to let Abel in. He was less nervous about releasing a new album next year for which he was four songs short.

  “I still think you’re done, mate.” Abel knocked and the door opened so quickly, Evie had to have been listening. She was in pjs that hung off her shoulders, her hair was greasy, her skin pale with dark smudges under her eyes. Jay didn’t have time to stand before she said, “It was all just a dream, Jay. We were never real.”

  He scrambled to his feet. Fuck that. They were the realest dream he’d ever had. “Evie, I’m sorry. I should’ve known better. I love you and I’m begging for a chance to prove it. I don’t have any excuse. I can’t take it back, but I’ll never force my feelings on you again.”

  “Really,” she said. “Hard to believe since you’ve sat outside my door all day like a stalker when it had to be abundantly clear I didn’t want to see you.”

  Jesus suffering fuck. He took a step back and caught Abel’s grimace, a weird kind of lifeline. “You’re right. I can’t force an apology on you.” He held onto to the unexpressed sympathy of that grimace, of the acknowledgement that their backstage fight was the kind families had, if a little over the top given the way all of them came off stage thinking they were superheroes, and that the Tice’s could be his family again.

  He found Evie’s eyes and his stomach stopped clenching. There was nothing about her appearance that could give him confidence. Her glare could shave his cheeks. She was furious with him. It was entirely appropriate, and it grounded him. Loving her had taught him how to fight for what he wanted.

  In twenty-four hours the heat on him from management would be so severe he’d have trouble holding out. Shortly after that someone would file a law suit against him for breach of contract. The list of someone’s was long. Might even be his own band members. Could end his touring career. “I’ll wait the rest of my life for the chance to earn your forgiveness, Evie. I’m not leaving the country until you tell me I’ll be dead before that happens.”

  Her frown was so intense she used her hand to shield the full effect of it from him. She didn’t tell him to take a long walk. Neither of them moved. At some point Abel had slipped inside the apartment. “You’ll know where to find me if you want to talk,” he said, a half-formed plan in the back of his head made of nostalgia and desperation.

  Evie didn’t respond. Not when moved down the hall to the elevator. Not when he called it or stepped inside and turned to face her, but she didn’t look away either and that was the thing he carried with him all the way to the Grumpy Fiddler. It was best place he could think of to hide out and the only place she’d know to come looking for him.

>   To say the motel’s management were surprised when he booked every room and paid for the existing occupants to stay in more the more salubrious surroundings of the brand name hotel down the road was an understatement. He put a substantial cherry on top to encourage them to shut the heck up about him being there and then he turned his phone off, ate a stale convenience store-bought sandwich and slept for the first time since he blew his own world up.

  It took eight hours before he heard Evie’s bike pull up outside the room and fifteen agonizing seconds before she knocked on the door.

  He opened it to find her with that same skin-prickling glare on her face. His breath snagged. She filled the gut-clenching silence with, “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “This,” he gestured from himself to her and back again, “is the only place I should be. Waiting for you.”

  “You have a tour.”

  She looked like she needed to sleep for days. She looked conflicted and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up from the fear of that. “I have a life and I want you in it.”

  “You’d blow off your tour for me?”

  He nodded, intent on her eyes where her deepest truths would show. Nothing he had was worth choosing over Evie. He didn’t see her hand move. She hit him. A thump to his chest.

  “You’re a freaking numbskull. You need to go right now.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, wild thing, until you and me are okay.”

  “Great.” She patted his chest. “We’re okay. Now go.”

  “That’s not the way this is going to go down.”

  “Yeah, it is. You can’t throw your whole career in a dumpster for me.”

  “I built my whole career on losing you, seems fitting I’d risk it to get you back.” More lessons from a wizard. It only comes when you risk.

  Evie groaned. “No, that just proves I’m the numbskull for working up to forgiving you.”

  He stood in the doorway and she stood on the broken concrete outside the room, but her hand was still on his chest. “You forgive me?” There was sweet air in his lungs again.