Beg (God of Rock Book 2)
Page 15
The noise of the dispersing party faded a half-hour ago. There were lights from the cars and the crunch of wheels on gravel that went on for twenty minutes before the building was quiet except for the electric sound of my amp humming and my mother and Wills’ mumbled conversation in the apartment above.
The strings vibrated under my fingertips, and I closed my eyes, funneling everything I felt into the strum of notes; I wrote something deep that night, something that cried from my soul because my splintered heart could not be brought back together again. Mrs. Daine had told me when I loved someone, truly loved them, then I’d sacrifice my own desire for what they needed. And just then, recalling the look on my florecita’s face and the disappointment I knew colored her pale skin, I realized I’d never loved her, not until now. Not until this moment. We’d spent years wanting the same things, dreaming the same dreams, but I’d always wanted for her what I’d hoped for myself. Not once did I realize loving Iris meant being willing to let her go.
Now I did, and the understanding of that soul-quaking reality spilled into each chord I played and lifted from the cry of my guitar.
“Jamie.” My father’s voice was quiet, a deep resonance I heard clearly though it was little more than a whisper.
Wills had never let on that I disappointed him. Not in the weeks he’d been with me. He’d been angry. He’d been proud, but he’d never let me know when I’d let him down. Now he did, and I couldn’t tell if it was because I’d decided to let her go or because I’d finished the song he’d helped me build. We’d been constructing something new, something filled with our DNA, bits of who we were and who we wanted to be, and I’d moved ahead of him. I’d finished it first.
I didn’t stop playing as my father came into the room, but I moved my head in his direction, eyes still closed as the song moved forward.
“It’s good, lad.” It wasn’t the compliment that stopped my playing. I’d made a promise to Iris, one I intended to keep. One I’d held inside for myself too.
“Do you think I’m beyond redemption?” I asked him, resting my hands on my guitar as I watched my father slip into the leather seat in front of me. It was still stiff and split at the corners, but at least we’d pulled it out of the old office.
“No,” he said, leaning forward to lay his palm against my arm. “O’course I don’t.”
Wills had avoided this subject for almost two months. Deflecting, rejecting, all because, I guessed, he didn’t want to seem weak. Because he’d felt guilty about using Iris’s past relationship with me to save his life. Now there was little time left. Now saving my father was the last good thing I could do.
“I don’t think you are either.” He held my gaze, and the grip on my arm tightened. “I don’t say this to many people, but you mean a lot to me, Wills.” He went still then, eyes sharp and I continued, bringing in a lungful of air before I looked at his squarely in the face. “We missed a lot for a long time, and you’ve become someone I make exceptions for. You’re a big exception to my hard and fast rule of keeping people at a distance.”
Wills smiled, one side of his mouth going up. “Well, lad, I love you, too, don’t I?”
“Do you really?” He nodded, eyes soft now and shining against the lamp light. I moved on my stool, shifting close enough to my father that our knees almost touched. “Then let me save your life.”
“No…son…”
“Please,” I said, simply and something in my tone stopped my father cold. “I don’t have much left, not many exceptions at all. Let me do one good thing.”
Wills Lager was a tough man. He’d survived loss and struggle. He survived every day in his failing body, and he’d one day leave behind a legacy that no one would ever be able to touch. Kids for generations would hear his music and know that Wills was an original not to be duplicated. He was my father, stubborn to the last, but something in his features just then told me he’d stop turning me down.
“Fine,” he finally said, leaning against the arm rest. “I’ll do it…for you.”
“Good.” I put down my guitar, linking my fingers together to look at him. I didn’t want to blink or give him any ideas about me not being sincere when I made my request. “Just promise me one thing.”
“Name it.”
“Iris isn’t to know that I was the one who donated a kidney.”
He waited, frown instant, wrinkles deepening as he went on watching me. “You don’t want her to know you were selfless?”
“She should be allowed go the rest of her life thinking the worst of me. It’s all she’s ever seen from me.”
“Jamie…”
“It’s the only stipulation I have—that and a few days to take care of some business in New York. Then my kidney is yours.”
Wills nodded, and the wrinkles crowding his face relaxed. “She deserves to know.”
“No,” I told my father, nodding toward the guitar next to his chair before I picked up my Fender again. “What she deserves is to be free. I’m finally giving her that.”
My father didn’t argue anymore. He played behind the notes I’d constructed, matching me, backing me up, and for a long time there was nothing in that room but the music we made together and the hope that our melodies were just beginning.
Chapter Eighteen
I expected the mailbox to be full, but Iris never let that happen. Her cousins needed her, and she’d occasionally clear out the emergency number messages to make sure no one got missed should they decide to call.
But I wasn’t her family leaving a message for Iris or her mother. I was calling the number to say goodbye one last time.
“Mr. Mellings told me to sit by you. Did you know that? The Midwestern horde didn’t know what to make of me, even from day one, and so that man spotted me, saw I wasn’t blonde or blue-eyed, that I fit better with you than any of the white kids who always stared at us when we walked down the hallways together. I never thanked that white man for telling me about you, but every night that I pray— and yeah, I still do sometimes— I thank God for the other brown kid in that assembly.
“You make me think and breathe and love. You kept me sane. You were my first fan and my biggest support. You were my beginning and my end, and I know that I hurt you. I know that I keep hurting you, probably because we always hurt the best part of ourselves. Make no mistake, Florecita, I am nothing, will never be any good to anyone because you aren’t here. I go on, I work, I live, but I will never be home again. Not without you. You are braver than I could ever be, and you deserve to have everything you want, even if you want those things without me.
“So here goes, the biggest words I’ve ever spoken. The only selfless thing I’ve ever done in my life. I love you, mami. More than music, more than myself. The only magic I ever really made was the love I had with you. But it’s time for me to let you go. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I ruined us. I’ll never stop loving you.”
Chapter Nineteen
The Plebes had taken the first songs. They were old and sacred, the honest stories my father and his band told to the world when they were just kids. But that first group who’d set me on my own journey got to start Hawthorne’s induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There were artists I knew well, that sang one song after another, coaxing the crowd to their feet as each familiar tune incited them to move and dance and remember.
Then, the lights went dim, and there was only the slow, inconsistent hum of whispering voices, and my band behind me, moving like shadows in the darkness. I stepped to the mic and released the first note.
It wasn’t a Hawthorne song. It was Crash’s, but “Heartache in Blue” was the only way to honor the man who changed me. The spotlight started on my feet and shifted higher as I sang, the catcalls and whistles like a backbeat of sound.
Take a shot of me
Swallow me whole
I am bitter and dark
But yours to control
The soft noise of conversation rose around with the lift of light and sound, a
nd I went on, head down, eyes shut tight as I sang, long hair covering my face. that the murmur of voices amped up in direct correlation to the rising light.
Then, the second verse arrived, and I looked up, pushing my hair off my forehead, letting the light soak into my naked skin. No paint. No smears to mask me. No shades. For the first time in my professional career, the world saw me just as I was.
Dash Justice was unmasked.
The gasps were audible, but I ignored them. The stage lights rose, and I finished the tune, belting out each note, relishing the sweet buzz of surprise that waved over me.
I am gray
You are too
We share the night
And this heartache in blue
They clapped and cheered, and went a little wild when the song ended, and I still held onto the mic, grinning and moving my gaze over the crowd of shocked faces.
“If you’ll indulge us,” I started, waving a hand to calm the noise of voices, “my father would like us to play something new. Something the two of us wrote together.”
The cheers were deafening now as Isaiah and the rest of my band made room for the members of Hawthorne on the stage. Wills walked toward me, looking plumper than I’d seen him, his face fuller and complexion tanned from the eight-week rest he’d gotten in Belize after the transplant surgery. There was a scar I’d wear next to my ribs and a twinge in my side that still hadn’t quite gone away, but it didn’t matter. I’d trade a thousand scars, a million aches, to have Wills at my side, strapping on a guitar, ready to play the song we’d written together.
“This is ‘Florecita,’” I said, wondering where Iris was in the crowd. Then Wills started the intro, catching my gaze when I looked away from the tables and faces in front of us. He nodded, pulling my attention to the right side of the auditorium, to the round table where my mother sat with Iris and Mrs. Daine.
I managed one glance at her, but didn’t linger. This was for her. This was my goodbye and I wanted the world to hear it. I wanted them all to know that Iris Daine was nothing like I’d made her out to be.
No one could touch her. Not even me.
There’s a broken curb on Main Street
And a crooked pole downtown
But the leaves are red
And the lights are always on
This is the place I come to
When I wanna watch the dawn
The crowd was hushed, awed, and Wills stood at my side, eyes shut tight, smile stretching wide as he took over.
We fall to ashes
We float away
Forget about the past
And the love we betray
But you’re deep inside me
The deepest part
Only good I’ve ever known
Sharpest crack in my wasted heart
I couldn’t help myself. No matter that I felt exposed, open to the world as I picked up the song. The mic didn’t hide me, and I sought a friendly face, or at least one that would get me to some semblance of calm. But when I spotted her, Iris’s expression was unreadable and blank. So, I shut my eyes again, pulling forward the memory of that sweet girl in the freshman assembly, of the beautiful woman who lifted me up when I thought my world was crumbling, time and time again. I sang to my florecita, to the girl who lived in my memory unscathed by the person I’d become.
Here’s the place I found you
Here’s the streets we’d roam
This place is my town
But you’ll always be my home.
My father helped me with the chorus, and our voices slipped together just octaves apart. We looked nothing alike, but our voices were similar, and the presence we had on the stage echoed each other. I was his son, that much the world could see just watching us perform together.
You’re deep inside me
The deepest part
Woman who healed me
Brought back together my damaged heart
I opened my eyes, gaze focused on Iris as I sang, and the music went low, a lull in the melody to emphasize the words, one last goodbye that I wanted her to hear from me alone.
And I would do anything
To win back my friend
Do the hardest, give you up
But keep you inside this wasted heart ‘til my story ends.
When the last note sounded, and the music went quiet, the crowd reacted in a fury of wild, chaotic cheers and thunderous applause. My father pulled me in, and I lowered my head toward him, taking the kiss he placed on my temple.
The crowd stood, applauding and whooping their praise like their hands were on fire. Wills took the accolades, moving to the center of the stage as his bandmates met him, all five men bowing, patting each other on the backs. I hung back, hands in my pockets with Kyle and Lou beside me, watching as Hawthorne walked to the center stage to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. From backstage I watched my father smile, laughing, thanking everyone who’d meant something to his career, praising those of us he now called family.
“Thank you to Iris, my sweet friend, and the strength she gave me,” he said, smile soft as he watched her leaning on her elbows, long fingers covering her face as she cried. Then Wills shot a look at me, squinting, until I waved at him from the shadows of long curtains. “And to Jamie, my boy, who brought me back to life.”
They bowed out, got caught up in the flurry of congratulations and celebration, and I watched Iris among the crowd as I stayed away from the action, avoiding anyone who wanted to pull the focus from my father and the others who were receiving the accolades they’d worked decades to deserve.
“Come to the bar, primo,” Isaiah said, arm around the same redhead he’d first brought to Willow Heights. “If you want company…”
“Nah. I’m good.” I didn’t look at him when I spoke. My attention was on Iris and how my father showed her and her mother around the room.
She stood next to Wills as he introduced her to Lily Davies, one of the editors of Middle 8, an upstart magazine Winston had mentioned to me last autumn before the start of the tour. We’d been at a party, and the Lily woman wanted an interview. I’d been a jackass to her, blew her off. But Iris was impressing her, making the woman laugh. She was in her element here, as though the past year hadn’t happened. As though I hadn’t humiliated her in the least.
“Motherfucker, look at you,” I heard behind me, and I nodded at Isaiah, one quick movement that sent him and his redhead away as Gunnar approached. The big Norwegian slapped me on the back, and I inhaled, downed the last of my drink before I returned it to the empty tray of a waitress as she passed.
“What do you want?” I asked Gunnar, not returning the smile he gave me because he looked like an asshole, already drunk, eyes bloodshot.
That wide grin faltered as he looked around, likely checking to see if anyone else had caught on to my attitude. “Dash…thought I’d check again, get you to reconsider.”
“No,” I told him, waving off a waitress when she offered me another drink. “I paid out my contract. I’ve severed ties with Kenny and his shitshow.”
“You know,” Gunnar said, that stupid smile missing now. “That shitshow did a lot for you, yeah? For a long time. Where’s your loyalty?”
“With myself.” I shifted my gaze across the crowd, nodding at Wills when he caught my attention. My father smiled, but it was a forced expression, maybe a little worried. He knew there was no love lost between me and Gunnar or anyone with Riptide.
“Kenny told me. You’re broke now. My tour will make you some bank.”
Iris smiled at Wills when he led her toward the center of the room, right into the thick of his bandmates, who probably wanted to have another word with the woman they knew was writing Wills’ story. He’d spent much of his recovery with her, telling her stories, correcting a few things when needed, before I returned to the beach with him and Iris went back to New York to write. I hadn’t seen her in nearly two months, and just the sight of her tonight did something cruel and painful to my heart.
“What does that mean? With me?” Gunnar stepped in front of my path, face twisted into something wicked, something that told me prison had aged him, and the results weren’t good. “What’s wrong with how I make money?”
I lowered my shoulders, suddenly tired. The incision still ached a little, and my body needed a rest. Mostly my mind was exhausted, and my heart, coño, I didn’t even know how to describe the state of my heart. I only knew that I’d sung for Iris a final goodbye, and I got to wish my father and his band congratulations for accomplishing something monumental. Now I only wanted to go back home and figure out what to do with the rest of my life.
But the man blocking my way out of the door was insistent, and the glare on his face was one I’d seen before. It was a warning. One I decided I wouldn’t take. I rubbed the bridge of my nose before I smiled at him, uncaring about his anger or why he was insulted by my refusal. “Gunnar, grow the hell up and stop being a pendejo. That shit is old, and you’re a joke.”
His glare got harder, and the insult hit home. He charged, but I deflected, stepping aside in time so that when he took a swing at me and missed, Gunnar landed ass first on the ground. The laughter around us came quick, and he scrambled to his feet, getting in my face, but not striking. Probably had something to do with the three security guards that stood to my left. “You think you’re better than me because now you got a daddy? You think anyone will ever forget who you are?”
“Not remotely better, acho, and the other mierda, I couldn’t care less about.”
Gunnar watched me, taking a step back as though he’d only just caught on that he couldn’t intimidate me. “You’re stupid, man. Who the hell wants to start from the bottom like you’re doing?”