As Dust Dances

  “So afraid that I would fail you

  With these years that I’d lied through,

  And now it’s too late

  To tell you I’m sorry.

  “I can hear your voice in my head.

  Absolution that was never said.

  Fingers sifting through wind,

  Trying to pluck out the dust.

  “It catches in the light,

  Familiar fragments full of fight,

  But they’re always out of reach.

  “Ah, ah, ah.

  “No, I didn’t understand then

  That your soul was part of mine and

  When yours faded out

  Mine broke down to dust.

  “It catches in the light,

  Familiar fragments full of fight,

  But they’re always out of reach.

  “Ah, ah, ah.”

  When I finished, O’Dea was sitting on the chair, his elbows braced on his knees. He was staring at the floor, like he was lost in thought. Then he looked up at me and my breath caught at the million heartbreaking emotions roiling in his gaze.

  And then they were gone, as if they’d never been there.

  “That’s all I have so far,” I whispered, so confused by him. “No more songs.”

  His expression was unreadable. “Your visitor’s visa is about to run out.”

  Bewildered by the response, I could only nod.

  “You’ve no money.”

  I tensed.

  “You’ve run away from your identity, from your life in the band, in the US. You’ve no family to speak of, and you abandoned your friends.”

  The man was the soul of sensitivity. “Your point?”

  “My point is that you don’t have many options. I think you were living in some naive fantasy that you could keep running from your problems and live a relatively peaceful life as a homeless person. Somehow, miraculously, you survived unscathed for five months. But last night you were given a giant fucking look at the reality and dangers of homelessness. I wish it hadn’t happened that way, but there was never any other way it was going to end. And it has ended, am I right?”

  “So, do you get, like, a bonus at the end of every day if you say a hundred patronizing things in a twenty-four-hour period or something?”

  He ignored me. “You can’t go back to sleeping rough.”

  “I think I got that, thanks.” I waved my cast at him.

  “So . . . it’s either call your old manager, your band—”

  “Not an option,” I snapped.

  O’Dea smirked. “Then I’m all you’ve got. And I’m no fucking Mother Teresa. I’m in the business of making money, Miss Finch. You’ve already proven you’re good at making it. And from what I heard today and have heard you playing when you busk, I think the world hasn’t even seen a fraction of what you can do.”

  There was really nothing to do but glare and hope that he withered under it.

  “I’ll let you stay here in this flat free of charge, give you a weekly stipend for clothes, groceries, a new guitar. You can heal up here. But all of it in exchange for a record contract. A one-album deal, that’s all I ask. When you’re healed up, you’ll be straight into the studio to record.”

  The thought made my stomach pitch. “I don’t want to be famous again.”

  “Tough shit. There is no being famous again. You are famous. And you’ve got more talent in your pinkie finger than most do in their entire being. And that talent deserves more of a platform than standing on a street busking. It’s a goddamned insult to all those people out there trying to make the big time. I don’t care what it is you’re running from. I care that you sort yourself out and make some music again. Music that matters. Music that will heal you.”

  I bristled. “I’ve made music that matters. I’ve got the fan mail to prove it.”

  “Your music in Tellurian did its job. It was catchy, appealing, and teenagers related. But your voice is meant for something else. The songs you just sang to me . . . those are songs that will really make people feel. It’s vulnerable and brutally honest and that’s the stuff that resonates with people. People want songs that make them feel good, but they also just want songs that me them feel, even if it breaks their fucking heart. You’ve been through a lot, Skylar. Even if I couldn’t read a newspaper, I’d know that by listening to those songs you sang.

  “Two years ago, you were a leader on social media and the lead singer of a pop-rock band that teens and college freshman loved. I’m not asking you to go back to that. I’m asking you to become an artist in your own right. If you don’t want the social media exposure, we’ll have someone else run that stuff for you. And we’ll do what we can to minimize the tabloid exposure. It will be hard at first considering your disappearance, but once it dies down, we can make it so you’re not hounded. It is possible.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether they hound me or not. I hate the fame. I hate the touring. I hate it all.”

  “No.” His expression hardened. “You don’t. Something awful happened to you. It messed you up good but if you don’t get smart, you’re going to ruin your life over it. Do you think you’re the only person in the world who has ever lost someone they loved? Get a grip. It’s time to move on. Someone who spends her days singing in the street doesn’t ‘hate all of it.’”

  “Well,” I sputtered, unable to argue with that. So I lied. “I’m still locked into a contract.”

  A glimmer of triumph lightened his countenance. “I’ve already checked into Tellurian. You told the band you were quitting before you left. Your old contract had come to an end so the band replaced you with a new lead singer and they signed a new contract. Your old label has no legal hold over you and definitely not as a solo artist.”

  That the band had replaced me was not news to me. I’d seen it on the cover of a tabloid I couldn’t avoid when I first started traveling across Europe. Still, O’Dea didn’t know that, and he’d dropped the news with all the sensitivity of a joke during a death sentence. The girl they’d replaced me with, Macy, looked somewhat like me, my once-rainbow hair and all.

  “If it makes you feel better, their sales aren’t as high as they were when they had you,” O’Dea offered.

  Disgusted, I replied, “No, that doesn’t make me feel better.”

  He grew quiet. It didn’t last. His impatience took over whatever decency he had. “So . . . what’s it going to be? On the streets with no guitar and no way of making money? Or access your own money to get home and let them all know where you are?”

  “You would really kick me out on the streets right now?”

  “I’m a businessman, Skylar. Not a philanthropist.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  He shrugged.

  I bit my lip to stop myself from calling him every ugly name I could think of. I choked out, “Can I think about it? Give me the night to think about it.”

  O’Dea nodded. “Think on this too. If you sign that contract, you’ll be signing an addendum that states that in order to fully fulfill your obligations within the contract, you agree to consult with a nutritionist to get your weight back up to where it needs to be, to a thorough health check, and to seeing a therapist once a week.”

  My lips parted at the audacity of his demands. “Are you kidding me?”

  Exasperation colored his reply. “No one decides to go hungry and sleep on the streets, running away from their life because they’re mentally well, Skylar. You need to speak to someone and you need to sort out your shit. If only so we can balance out the album. We want songs that make people feel. We don’t want an entire album that makes them want to kill themselves.”

  I really, really hated him. “I’m not seeing a therapist.”

  “There’s no shame in seeing a therapist.”

  “Then you go see one.”

  “I don’t need a therapist.”

  “Oh, I beg to differ. You’re a control freak. You’re awful.”

  “I want you to b
e physically and mentally healthy. How does that make me awful?” He strode toward me and I leaned back into the couch away from him. But all he did was pick up his jacket and shrug into it. “You might not realize it, but the songs you’re writing are an attempt to heal. I merely want to speed up that process.”

  I didn’t know how to respond without involving violence.

  “You have tonight.”

  I watched him walk away, my brain whirring. “Wait!” I called out.

  He stopped and looked back over his shoulder at me.

  “If I’m going to think about this, I want no bullshit between us. You say I wouldn’t have to deal with the tabloid stuff, that you’ll try to minimize it?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I am?”

  “There’s no guarantee just because I’m a good singer with a couple songs that you like that I’ll be a success for you. No one comes after someone this hard based merely on those two facts. But as soon as you worked out who I was, it was the game-changer . . . you knew you had to have me.”

  He turned fully to face me.

  “A good voice . . .” I began to tick off his checklist with the fingers of my right hand as I stood. “Good songs, experience, and the kicker . . . a tabloid frenzy that will make my solo launch spectacular. You know I’ll be everywhere when I emerge back into the public. It’s the kind of publicity money can’t buy.”

  He sighed. “You’re right.”

  “So, you admit it?”

  “Aye, I admit it. Lead singer of successful band disappears off the face of the planet after the authorities fail to find the men who murdered her mother and stepfather. She emerges two years later with a new look and a new sound. You’ll be the only thing anyone is talking about when the first single debuts.”

  He said it so dispassionately but at least he was honest. There hadn’t been a lot of that in my life. And I offered him honesty in return. “I don’t like you.”

  “You don’t need to like me. You need to learn to trust that I will make this album a success.”

  “I might trust that if you keep things up-front from now on.”

  He shrugged. “It seems you’re smart enough to know when I am and when I’m not, so I don’t see that being a problem.”

  “True. But still. I want your word.”

  “Fine. Honesty at all times.”

  “Okay. Then I’ll think about it.”

  * * *

  Two years ago . . .

  Billings, Montana

  WE WERE BACK. PLAYING THE home crowd. The Pub Station no less, and it wasn’t our first time. This was our fourth year playing the iconic music venue we’d dreamed of playing as kids.

  I sat in the private dressing room, glad our manager Gayle loved me enough to always demand a separate dressing room for me from the guys. We were in each other’s faces nonstop and sometimes it was nice to get some alone time.

  The walls hummed and throbbed with the dull sound of live music. Talking Trees, an alt-rock band from Arkansas, was our opening act in our US tour. Billings was our last stop. We would take a break. I’d hole myself up somewhere away from the guys, attempting to claw back my sanity before our European tour kicked off in six weeks.

  Six weeks and I’d have to do this all over again. But at least in Europe there were hotel rooms and space instead of a tour bus I couldn’t be alone in.

  Fuck, I could barely get myself up out of this chair. The guys hated if I stayed in the dressing room on my own right up until the show. “The guys”—Micah, Brandon, and Austin. Micah was our lead guitarist, Brandon our drummer, and Austin our bassist. I could play guitar and the piano but Gayle decided my voice was at its best live when I only had to concentrate on singing, so I only played guitar on one track during our set. I wasn’t sure I agreed that was fair, but what did it matter at this point?

  I stared glumly at my reflection, hating myself. Hating that I could be this unhappy when I had exactly what I wanted in life. When I saw other people pitying themselves when they had wealth and fame, it made me want to puke. They were the kinds of people who deserved someone sending them a card every day with an insulting reminder that they needed a better grasp on reality.

  I did not want to be one of the many insipid morons I’d met over the years in this business. There were worse things in life than being stuck in a job that made you absolutely miserable. Like having a nonexistent relationship with the mother who raised you by herself, the mom who used to be your best friend.

  I hadn’t called them. Mom or my stepdad Bryan. I hadn’t called them when we got to Billings. Micah, Austin, and Brandon, they were all going home to see their families after the show. To stay with them a while.

  Yet, I had no clue what I was going to do. The last time I saw my mom was a year ago. The last time I’d stayed with her was eighteen months ago, and the last time I talked to her was six weeks ago. And even then, I couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. We texted. I avoided her calls all the time.

  Guilt suffused me. Was she even still proud of me?

  I certainly looked the part, didn’t I? My rainbow hair was twisted up into two high buns above my ears and I wore my red velvet blazer with gold buttons over my favorite black Metric shirt. I’d paired them with a tight black satin miniskirt with fishnets and black Doc Martens. I wore three rings on each hand, my wrists jingled with bracelets, and my bold makeup was done to perfection.

  Beneath my foundation were dark circles only weeks of uninterrupted sleep would get rid of.

  I stared at my phone, knowing I should call my mom.

  Last year when we finished our album tour in Billings, I’d lied to Mom and told her I needed to get away from the guys. I’d spent my six-week break in Paris instead of at home, bleeding money at a five-star hotel where I locked myself in a suite the entire time.

  See: Woe-is-fucking-me with my room service and three million thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.

  “Let me guess, you’re thinking about your mom and why you haven’t called her yet?”

  I glanced up from my phone and stared at Micah in the mirror reflection. He stood in the doorway. When I didn’t reply, he shut the door and walked over. His hair was mussed, his cheeks flushed.

  I knew that look.

  Tensing with anger and disappointment I should really be beyond by now, I winced when he leaned down and wrapped an arm around me so he could nuzzle my neck. “You need to talk to your mom,” he murmured, pressing a sweet kiss behind my ear.

  I glared at him in the mirror, stiff in his embrace. “You smell of pot and cheap perfume.”

  Micah rested his chin on my shoulder. My strange eyes tangled with his gorgeous green ones. Green rimmed with red from the pot. Still, he was so beautiful. All golden skin, tall, lanky, lean muscular frame, and thick, dark blond hair he only had to run his fingers through to style. He was a pretty, bad-boy musician, and he had the whole act down pat.

  “Groupie,” he muttered, his voice rumbling in my ear. He sounded sad.

  How was it possible to hate someone I loved this much?

  My eyes moved from his to take in the whole package we created together.

  The two of us were a social media sensation: #Miclar

  Because of Micah’s inability to not flirt with me anytime we got interviewed . . . or shit, anytime we were on the goddamned stage together, fans and the media jumped on our connection. They wanted us to become a couple, always disappointed when we turned up in tabloid photos with other people. A couple? Us?

  I snorted at the idea.

  We were a train wreck as a couple.

  Depressing, really, since we loved each other.

  Staring at him, I suddenly saw him five years ago as my seventeen-year-old best friend. We’d been friends since middle school, started a band when we were fourteen, and had been working our asses off to make the big time. It was all we talked about. All we ever wanted.

  But at seventeen, beyond our dreams for th
e band, there were feelings of jealousy and hurt anytime the other dated someone else. Until Micah’s feelings exploded all over me one night and he told me he loved me. I cared too much to lie to him so I’d returned the sentiment. However, I’d also admitted that I was afraid a relationship would hurt the band. Micah agreed. We put the band first and it worked because we got a record deal three months later. Our first album came out eight months after that.

  And the hurt and jealousy and resentment simmered all the while until one night three years ago, we slept together after a terrible shouting match in my hotel room in Berlin. Afterward I was freaked out, still not sure we weren’t a mistake as a couple, so worried that we’d blow our shot just as we’d started to see success. We argued and I told him we couldn’t be together. But the hell of it was that as soon as I walked away from him, I realized what a moronic thing it was to put a band before this person I loved.

  So I’d gone to him to apologize, to give our relationship a real shot and . . . and I’d found him fucking a groupie in his hotel room.

  He’d been punishing me with cheap flings ever since, and for a while, I’d punished him right back. It only made me miserable and lonely. Trying to find something real with someone else had proven difficult.

  Until Max.

  How could I still love Micah after that? I hated him but I was pretty sure I hated him because I still loved him too.

  He kissed my cheek, a soft brush of his lips on a path to my mine. His arm tightened around me. “I love you so much,” he groaned as if in pain.

  I jerked away, shoving his arm off me. “No, you don’t. The only person you love is yourself.”

  Micah straightened, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Not true.” Hurt blazed in his eyes.

  That was the problem with my best frenemy. Sometimes he was vicious in an argument and other times he had the ability to make me feel like I’d kicked a puppy. I huffed in exasperation. “You just had sex with a groupie and then came in here to tell me you love me. Do you not see anything wrong with that?”

  “One thing hasn’t got anything to do with the other. She was a faceless fuck. You’re the heartless bitch that torments my goddamned soul.”