CHAPTER TEN
Kace
Stephen stares at me as I close the laptop.
“Women are going to love you,” he says. “Men are going to want to stomp your ass. You’ve just made all of mankind up their game.”
“You think so?”
He sputters. “Yeah. I know so. But I’ve got to ask you again… is this really what you want or are you letting the shit in the past push you down this path?”
It’s a good question.
I meet his eyes. “There hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought of her. Not a day that I don’t regret everything. At first, I was lost in the drugs and James kept me on the road or partying all the time. When I came clean, so much time had passed that I figured she’d moved on. Figured she was better off without me.”
“What made her leave? What was the official last straw?”
I keep forgetting that Stephen wasn’t around back then. He knows bits and pieces, but not everything. I’ve never wanted to talk about it. I just wanted to forget what could have been. Move on. Let her move on.
Until now.
“James threw me a bachelor party the night before our wedding,” I tell him, and it’s an odd mix of weird and good to talk to someone about all this shit. I don’t have close friends anymore. After I clean slated all the people around me when I sobered up, I’d been leery of opening myself up. I didn’t trust people. Worse, I didn’t trust myself.
Stephen nods. “The wedding was supposed to have taken place today, isn’t that right?”
“Yes. Damn, I can’t believe it’s been a decade. Anyway, the night before, we’re partying and having a good time, and the next thing I remember, Presley is screaming and crying. I’m in a hotel, a naked blonde on one side of me, a naked brunette on the other, a few used condoms on the floor.”
“Fuck.”
My gut churns at the memory. “Indeed.” Even high on whatever it was I had taken, I still can’t believe I could have cheated on Presley. I was so crazy about her. Stupid crazy.
“What happened next?”
I close my eyes. The two women in bed with me had just laughed, quirking their fingers at Presley, asking her to join us. I’d still been knocked on my ass from whatever I’d taken.
“I tried to get out of bed, but it was like my limbs wouldn’t move. The room had been whirling and I knew I was going to be sick. I…” I press the heel of my hand into my eye. “I just don’t remember much. Pathetic, I know.
Stephen nods, but it doesn’t feel like it’s a yeah, you’re pathetic kind of agreement. He’s frowning too.
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Something just seems weird about all this.”
“Weird. Hell yes, it’s weird. I would never have cheated on her, but I clearly did.”
He meets my eyes. “Yeah, it seems that way. How did Presley know where to find you that night, or morning, whichever it was?”
“It was three forty-two in the morning.”
Stephen quirks up a brow. “That’s specific.”
“Yeah… I remember because, when I was trying to get up, I rolled to my side and the hotel clock was facing me. It kind of seared into my brain, you know.”
“And you were supposed to get married on September eight, so the bachelor party was the seventh?”
I sit up straighter, wondering where he’s going with this. Why this particular line of questioning? “Yeah. Why? What’s going on?”
He scratches his chin. “I dunno yet. Something niggling in my brain. I’ve been with you for a little over a year now. James had been with you since the beginning, right? No one else in between.”
“Yeah.”
“I told you about how I went through all the books when you hired me, and how I’d found all those things that didn’t add up. The missing funds and petty cash. Everything was a mess.”
“Yeah, I remember.” There had been tens of thousands of dollars not accounted for, but I’d told Stephen to just drop it. I’d already fired my cousin and distanced myself from him years before, causing a rift between my mom and my aunt that lives on even now. I didn’t want to put him in jail if what Stephen had speculated at the time — that James had embezzled a bunch of my money — was true.
Stephen’s frown deepens, and even though he’s only seven years older than me, it makes him look much older. After a long moment, he meets my eyes. “I want to go back through all those books. When we get back home, I’ll dust off those boxes. It’s been a while.”
Home.
It’s a strange word.
After losing Presley, I left Tennessee, vowing to never go back. I floated for a couple of years on my tour bus, falling deeper and deeper into addiction, even as I was thrust on stage to sing that damn song over and over and over.
One day, I woke up in a hospital, a tube down my throat breathing for me. The doctor called it an accidental overdose and I had been in a coma for over a week. When the tube emerged, the truth emerged as well.
I didn’t want to die.
But I didn’t want to live that way anymore either.
James tried to talk me out of it. Told me I was fine. Said I was just a rock star living the rock star life.
I fired him.
I fired everyone.
We were in Arizona at the time, and I decided that the desert was a good place to dry up. I found a place in Sedona and got myself admitted. Three months later, I walked out, thinking there just might be some hope for me yet.
I’d wanted to go to Presley then, but there were too many reasons as to why that was a bad idea. I hadn’t trusted myself enough to stay clean being one of the primary reasons.
So, I found a little place there, wrote music and played my guitar. One year turned into another, then another, then one more.
One day, I’d bumped into Stephen at the damn grocery store of all places. He recognized me. We began to talk. I’d been itching to sing again, and after several more meetings, we decided to make this come back tour.
I’ve come back all right. I’ve come back full circle, to where it all began.
My phone plays a badass riff sound, my notification for an incoming email. Although I get hundreds a day, only my most private email makes that particular sound. The email I’ve had since the beginning.
It’s her.
It has to be.
God, please let it be her.
I stare at the phone so long that Stephen says, “You all right, man?”
I look up at him. “That might be her.”
Stephen doesn’t pressure me to open it. He just sits back and swallows a drink of his water.
I tap the screen, and sure enough, there is an email from her.
I exhale and tap again.
The subject line reads: Interview Question.
I scan the body of the email, then read it again.
I wonder… what would you say to the tens of millions of children who might be tempted to try drugs?
That’s it. There’s no hello or goodbye. There’s nothing personal at all, but my heart increases its speed in my chest.
Should I reply? Should I not?
If I do, what should I say?
My stomach is churning when I tap the reply button.
She made her email professional. I’ll meet her in that same place.
Excellent question. You’ll have your answer tomorrow night.