by Lauren Layne
“Then why do I have a wedding invitation in my purse?” Yvonne taunts.
“Because you’re a fucking psycho!” I shout before turning my attention back to Jenny, feeling a little desperate now. “Please, Jenny. Hate me for the rest of it, but believe that I was single when we…hooked up.”
But Jenny’s not listening to my shitty apology. She’s too busy looking around the room.
Because everyone else in the room is looking at her.
Too late, I realize why.
Jenny’s wig has slipped, revealing the unmistakable spill of her blond hair over her forehead and down over one slim shoulder.
“Oh my God, is that Jenny Dawson?” someone whispers.
Everywhere I look, idiot gawkers are pulling out their cellphones and taking pictures of a frozen Jenny.
Run, I want to scream at her.
Even more than that, I want to shield her with my body, scoop her into my arms and kiss her, not just to protect her like I did that day in the home center, but to show her that I…
My thought scatters before it can form as Jenny slowly lifts a trembling hand and pulls the wig all the way off.
Her chin is high. There’s no sign of tears.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe she did it again,” an old biddy sitting on my left says, loud enough for Jenny to hear. “That’s his fiancée.”
I see Jenny stiffen, and I frown in confusion, getting the distinct suspicion I’m missing something.
Then Jenny looks at me, her eyes utterly broken and desperate, and I realize the magnitude of what’s happening here.
Jenny came to Louisiana to escape. To hide from the paparazzi and the fickle public that turned on her the second she ceased to be their perfect angel and became a perceived home wrecker.
Perceived, because she didn’t sleep with that shithead Shawn Bates before.
But she did sleep with me—she all but announced it.
And judging from the whispers around us, it’s all the confirmation these assholes need.
Jenny fixes a brilliant, bright smile on her face before giving a low dramatic curtsy, as though thanking them all for the chance to perform, before turning that broken smile on me. “Goodbye, Preston.”
“Jenny—”
She picks up her purse and walks toward the front of the restaurant, not looking to either side, and definitely not looking back.
It takes every bit of self-control in my body not to run after her, not to throw myself at her feet.
But there’s something I have to do first.
I turn to Yvonne, and she takes a step back from the rage on my face. “You said you have our wedding invitation, darling?” I ask. “May I see it?”
Apparently she’s too busy reeling from the scene that just went down to think clearly, because she slowly pulls it out of her purse and hands it to me, her gaze trailing after Jenny.
“You slept with Jenny Dawson?”
I ignore her. Knowing Yvonne, she’s probably rethinking her strategy. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she still tried to coax me down the aisle, then encouraged me to keep Jenny as my mistress just so she could benefit from the notoriety.
Too damn bad.
I take the invitation, which is heavy as shit. Real gold indeed.
“Hey,” I say, turning to a thirtysomething couple out for what was probably a nice date night before all the drama started.
They both turn their phones on me, wide-eyed.
“You’re getting this on video, right?” I ask, gesturing at their phones, trying to hide my disgust.
The man doesn’t move, but the woman manages to nod.
“Great.” I hold up the invitation in front of the lens for a few moments, making sure that there’ll be plenty of time to read the names. Then, without preamble, I proceed to tear the invitation into six pieces before letting them flutter to the ground.
I look directly into the lens. “I haven’t been engaged to that woman in more than two months. And she was cheating on me for more than a year before that.”
I hear Yvonne gasp in outrage, and I lift my eyes to meet those of the woman holding the phone. “Do me a solid and put that on YouTube, would you?”
It won’t do Jenny any good, but I have to do something. I have to try.
Jenny.
I walk out of the restaurant, not bothering to glance back at a still sputtering Yvonne. I burst onto the sidewalk, looking in every direction and not seeing her.
I’m sprinting by the time I get to the truck—except the truck’s not there.
I lift my hand to my face as I remember she offered to keep my bulky truck keys in her purse while we were at dinner.
Fuck.
I pull out my cellphone.
She’s long gone in my truck, well on her way home by now, but Finn or Vaughn can give me a ride. I can catch up with her back at the house, and…
My hand drops to my side before I make the call.
And what?
I can catch up with her at home, maybe, assuming she doesn’t grab the cotton ball and hit the road. Which I wouldn’t blame her for doing, even though the thought of it leaves me feeling oddly hollow.
But even if I do make it home before she’s gone, what the hell am I going to do?
Ask her to stay? She’s Jenny fucking Dawson. She’s a movie star, a Grammy winner, an international sensation, and she’s only twenty-two. Her star is blindingly bright, and she’s just barely getting started.
You could go with her, a little voice nags.
Except I can’t.
For the first time in my life, I’ve finally figured out how to build a life that will make me happy. It’s not quite Vaughn’s two-kids version, but it’s clear to me now.
I want a contractor business, maybe building furniture on the side.
I want quiet and beer and work boots, and I want to buy my own truck after I return Finn’s, and I’d be perfectly happy to never have to wear a tie again in my life.
Most of all, I want anonymity. I want the simple, quiet life I had before I was Preston Walcott, heir to all sorts of shit I never asked for.
A life with Jenny would be the very opposite of all that.
And what about Ranger? Stupid Dolly fits easily into a purse, but I can’t be taking a Labrador on a plane or moving him around every time Jenny gets a burr up her ass to live in Hollywood or Nashville or Baton Rouge or Timbuktu.
And even if she did keep coming back to me…
Do I even want that?
I dig the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. It feels both ironic and unfair that my very reason for bunking with Jenny Dawson in the first place was to get some perspective on my life. I’ve spent my entire adulthood living by someone else’s rules. Torn between Noah and Preston, torn between the memory of my mom and the legacy of my dad.
Not once did anyone ask what I wanted.
Not once did I ask myself.
Hell, I couldn’t even commit to a name until recently. I was Preston to the people who wanted me to be Preston, Noah to the people who wanted me to be Noah.
And now…
Now I know.
I’m Noah Maxwell, and I want a simple life with a dog and never to have to wear a fucking suit and tie, or to go into an office, or schmooze at a charity event with people who make my skin crawl.
Now I’ve finally figured it out, and I’m supposed to give it up for what?
To be Jenny Dawson’s guy?
Just like I was Finn’s guy when I was at his pub, my mom’s guy at the trailer park, Vaughn’s guy at the country club, Dad’s guy at the office, Yvonne’s guy everywhere else?
I don’t want to belong to anyone but myself. I don’t want to live anyone’s life but my own.
And I do not fit into Jenny Dawson’s life. I’ve known it from the very beginning.
But damned if it didn’t feel like she was just starting to fit into mine.
Jenny
“That’s good, Jenny. Let’s just do it one
more time, that last chorus, ‘kay?” the producer says, leaning forward to speak into the microphone.
I give him a thumbs-up through the glass window, adjusting the headphones on my head slightly, since they start to squish my head after a while, and I’ve definitely been at this for a while.
Four straight days, in fact.
My label was thrilled to hear that I’d come back from the dead and was insistent on recording my new tracks as soon as possible.
A part of me knows the whole thing is rough, but I also know my music, and when it’s right, it’s right.
And this album is good. More than good. I can tell from the victory smiles on my team’s faces that they agree.
“Predator,” in particular, has been a favorite, already getting plenty of chatter about being my first single.
Somehow I made it through the recording of that one without so much as a wobble, but then again, that song is an angry one. It’s about Noah, yes, but I wrote it before I fell in love with the damn fool.
Before I saw beneath the rough growls and jerk comments to the guy beneath. The one who was just a little vulnerable beneath all that alpha A-hole nonsense.
Before I knew he was a liar and a user and a whole bunch of other things that the English language hasn’t even come up with words for yet.
But I’m gonna come up with them, and they’re going to be good.
The producer gives me the signal, and as requested, I sing the last chorus of the song I’ve tentatively titled “Louisiana Nights.”
No point in hiding the fact that I was hunkered down in Louisiana. That secret got out of the bag real quick. Right around the time Noah’s—no, sorry—Preston’s fiancée dropped her little bomb. In an instant, the life that was so close to getting back in order was turned upside down.
My face? Back in the tabloids.
My name? Back through the mud.
But, crazily enough, I care less than I ever did before. With Shawn, I was annoyed at being accused of something I didn’t do. Now I’m being accused of something I did do, and that distinction is oddly freeing. It doesn’t feel like gossiping or trash talk so much as it is stating the facts.
Preston Walcott did lie to me about his identity.
He was engaged to a bitchy Baton Rouge socialite.
I did sleep with him.
The fact that his engagement ended before we hooked up was just semantics. To the world, and to me.
I mean, sure, I believe him. Like everyone else, I watched the now infamous YouTube video where the whole debacle went down, right up to the very end where he tore up the wedding invitation.
But it sparked nothing in me.
Not a shred of emotion.
That’s been pretty much the norm in the week since I’ve left Louisiana. I’ve been—numb. Utterly, bone-chillingly numb.
My parents are freaking out about it, although they keep pretending everything’s fine. I’ve moved back in with them for the short term, although I escape to Amber’s every now and then to get some breathing room. My mother is one of those stereotypical types that thinks she can fix everything with food, and if I see one more biscuit, I’m going to hurl.
Of course, Amber’s smoothies aren’t much better. She claimed the one this morning was banana and chocolate. Failed to mention the Swiss chard she stuck in there. #Fail.
“This is sounding really good, Jen. I’m super pleased,” Tatum says with a wide smile.
I smile back, but it feels brittle.
“You want to call it a wrap for today? Maybe tomorrow we can tackle ‘Not That Kind of Girl’ with the lyric changes we talked about.”
I nod, starting to take off the headphones, but I stop at the last minute.
“Actually, Tatum…”
“ ’Sup?”
I suck in a deep breath for courage.
“There is one more song,” I force myself to say.
“Oh?” He frowns, glancing down at his list.
“It’s not on there. I’ve been working on it for the past couple of days. It’ll be the last add-on, I swear.”
“Not a problem, sweetheart. You know we’ll take as many songs as you can give us. Let’s do a run-through first. You grab the guitar, I’ll get the team in here—”
“Actually, no,” I say before he can move away. “This one releases as is. No changes.”
He frowns a little. I don’t play that card often. Once on each album, maybe. Musicians who write their own music these days are rare, and even those of us who do aren’t opposed to suggestions…most of the time.
But this one is different.
This one is mine, all mine.
Well, mine and Noah’s.
“All right, sweetheart, let’s hear it,” Tatum says, pulling up a chair on the other side of the glass as an assistant brings me my guitar.
I take a deep breath as I put the strap over my shoulder, pulling up a stool and settling in.
Now, don’t you freak out on me, thinking I’m singing a love song for a lying jerk like Noah Maxwell.
It’s a ballad, yes, but not above love.
This is a farewell. A song about goodbye.
“What are we calling this, babe?” Tatum asks, pencil ready.
I swallow. “It’s called ‘Shoulda Kissed Me.’ ”
He nods as he jots it down, then motions for me to continue. Whenever you’re ready.
I’m ready. Ready to say goodbye.
You know that numbness I talked about? The nothingness that has been following me around since I left Louisiana?
It’s gone now. It all fades away as I lose myself in the song.
By the time I finish the song, tears are streaming down my face, and I don’t bother to wipe them away.
Tatum looks a little stunned, as does everyone else in the booth.
He slowly reaches out a finger to switch the microphone back on, leaning down to speak into it. “Congratulations, babe. I think we just found our lead single. Any objections to rushing this one to the airwaves? People miss you, babe.”
Whatever. Don’t care.
The one person I actually want to miss me probably doesn’t even notice I’m gone.
Noah
I’m having déjà vu.
The bad kind.
My head’s under a sink, nasty water keeps leaking on my face from an ancient pipe, and my two best friends are squabbling like a married couple.
“Somehow this feels unfair,” Finn says, going to the window of the bedroom and glaring down at my new Ford. “I lend you my truck for two fucking months, and how do you repay me? You get a better truck.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining when you were borrowing a car whose air-conditioning actually worked for that entire time,” Vaughn says. I glance down at my feet to see Ranger’s tail going crazy, and I know Vaughn’s just shared a piece of his nasty organic protein bar.
“Be honest, Country Club, how old were you when the doctor pulled the silver spoon out of your ass? I think they waited too long.”
“You know that things like AC and toilet paper are no longer considered luxuries, right?” Vaughn asks.
“Wish I woulda known that when I used all those fancy papers from your briefcase to wipe my ass.”
“Oh my God,” I mutter, putting the crook of my arm over my face in irritation. “Guys. I can’t today. Shut the fuck up.”
Finn crouches down. “Dude, are you crying?”
I kick at him, connecting with his kneecap, but he takes it like a man and kicks me back.
“Oh, good, flashbacks to third grade,” Vaughn mutters.
“Why, you have a wedgie?” Finn asks. “I’m guessing that happened a lot in your youth. Hey, how’s your Labradoodle search going?”
I give the wrench one last twist, holding my breath, then releasing it when I realize the leak’s fixed.
“Didn’t you already fix this?” Vaughn asks as I scoot out from under the sink.
“Not this one.”
“And we’re
fixing this one now because…?”
“Because,” I say, standing and brushing off my hands, “nobody’s going to buy this dump if the plumbing leaks.”
“News flash, bro—nobody’s going to buy this dump anyway,” Vaughn says.
Finn studies me. “Thought you were keeping it.”
“Yeah, well, that was before,” I say, bending down to load my tools back into the box. Ranger licks my face, and I give him a distracted pet.
“Before the incident?”
“How about we not call it that?” I snap.
“Sorry. The debacle,” Finn says.
Vaughn staggers back. “Debacle? Big word for a little brain. But yeah, what are we calling it?” he asks me.
“Nothing. Because we’re not talking about it,” I say.
It’s been nearly two weeks since Jenny disappeared from this house. From this state.
From my life.
It took me exactly twenty minutes of being here alone without her to realize I couldn’t do it. I still want the solitude and the fixer-upper, but not this one. There’s too much of her here.
Too much of us.
“You talk to her?” Vaughn asks.
I glance up. “What part of ‘we’re not talking about it’ went over your head?”
“What part of ‘quit being a moron’ isn’t getting through to yours?” Finn says, taking Vaughn’s side. For once.
I drop the wrench back into the box with a clatter and stand, looking between the two of them. “What exactly is it that you two want me to do? Chase her down? Send her flowers? I lied to her, and she left. End of story.”
“If that was the end of the story, then I wouldn’t be counting the number of words you’ve said all week on one hand.”
“Let me simplify it for you,” I say. “Here’s two words, conveyed with one finger.”
I flip him off, then start to move toward the door, but they both move with me, blocking my exit. Hell, even Ranger seems to be in on this, although he at least gives me an apologetic wag.
“What is this?” I grumble, looking between their too-innocent expressions. “An intervention?”
“Pretty much,” Finn says, pulling out his cellphone. “There’s something you need to hear.”
