Becky Wicks - Before He Was A Secret (Starstruck #3)

by Becky Wicks

  ‘He was always good at school,’ she says. ‘It makes sense. Will you find him?’

  ‘Damn right I will, he’s my brother. And you’re not to talk to dad again without me, OK?’

  A key in the lock tells me Lou’s home. When she walks into the room she does a double take, dangling her car keys from her finger. She’s holding a small pink bag.

  ‘Oh, hey. I thought you’d be at The Bluebird.’

  ‘We were,’ I say, pulling myself together as my mom struggles to look like she hasn’t been crying and makes out like she’s scrambling for something else in her purse. I stand up. ‘Family drama,’ I tell Lou, shooting her a look that makes her raise her eyebrows.

  It’s only now I notice someone else lingering in the hallway. The girl from the Shrek cocktail night. ‘This is Amy,’ Lou informs me.

  Amy raises a hand, awkwardly.

  ‘We’ll leave you to it,’ Lou says. She hands me the pink bag. ‘From the event, for the health shelf. Maybe your mom could do with it though. Nice to see you!’ She motions to my mother over my shoulder before heading up the stairs. Amy follows.

  ‘Call me a cab?’ Mom says, getting to her feet and straightening out her cardigan.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To your aunt’s place, for now. Tomorrow I’ll reassess. I should get over there before it gets too late.’

  ‘Well… what are you going to do for money?’ I put a hand to her arm. She shakes her head as we both realize this is a direct son to mother reversal of the conversation we had before.

  ‘I have my resources,’ she says. The corners of mouth curl into a tight smile for just a second. ‘Like I said, I’ve been wanting to leave for a while.’

  Wow. I want to ask her so many things but she’s picking up my cell from the table. ‘You can stay here,’ I say quickly. She puts a hand up in refusal, making me take the phone.

  ‘I have things to arrange, you don’t need me hanging around. I’m sure you have a lot to think about.’ Her eyes flash with pain again and my heart breaks as I study her tired face. It must have taken all the strength in the world for her to finally leave my father, and to tell me about Micah after hiding it for so long. The thought of him laying a hand on her makes me feel sick. I feel a rush of anger, but love and pride for her, too; a twinge of excitement. Something’s ending but something’s starting.

  ‘If you’re sure,’ I say.

  ‘I’ll be OK. What’s done is done, Conor. We have to move on. We have to find Micah.’

  ‘I love you mom,’ I say and she freezes as I put my arms around her wiry frame and hug her. ‘I know he made your life hell, too, but we have each other, OK? He won’t do anything to come between us anymore, I promise.’

  She sighs against me. We hold each other, both struggling not to cry again. Then I hand her the pink bag Lou gave me. As I arrange her cab she opens it and pulls out a small item wrapped in pink tissue paper. She pulls it off, turns the dark green flimsy item round in her hands, frowning. I cringe and swipe it back from her, looking at the label. It’s a pair of ‘organic disposable panties, made from liquorice and seaweed extract.’

  When I hang up on the cab service the phone beeps with a text from upstairs. Thought those would cheer her up. Hope everything’s OK. L x.

  I’m sitting up in bed with my laptop open, Googling all the schools in Memphis when my door opens slowly and Stephanie’s head peeks in. I lift my headphones off my ears. ‘Jackson!’

  ‘Sorry, Lou let me in,’ she says, closing the door behind her. ‘You didn’t call. You OK?’

  ‘I’m OK,’ I say, looking at the time. It’s almost midnight. I put the MacBook down next to me and pat the bed. She shakes off her boots and climbs up.

  ‘What happened?’ she asks. ‘Cute glasses by the way.’ She straddles my legs over the blanket, kisses me and takes off the glasses I only wear for computer stuff. She puts them on her own nose and studies me in the lamplight. They swamp her small face and I smile.

  ‘My mom told me Micah’s OK. He’s in Memphis.’

  She pulls off the glasses quickly. ‘What? Oh my god.’ Her arms circle me immediately and a tidal wave crashes over me as her reaction forces tears to well up in my eyes again. I breathe hard against her shoulder. ‘Conor, you must be so relieved, I’m so happy for you… but wait, this is crazy,’ she says, pulling back to kiss my lips and cup my face. ‘Why did she hide this from you?’

  ‘It’s not her fault,’ I manage, taking the glasses from her nose and putting them down. ‘Micah asked her to. He wanted me to take over Fret and he knew dad would cut me off too if I went looking for him.’

  ‘He cut you off anyway!’

  ‘That’s why mom left him,’ I say, rubbing my face. ‘Well, that and the fact he’s been using her as a punching bag.’ Her eyes widen as my fists ball again.

  ‘I’m so sorry, that’s awful, Conor.’

  ‘She says it only happened once, but she's had enough. I guess we all have. Micah’s working at a school, I don’t know which one,’ I say, reaching out to the dresser. I hand her the letter. She’s quiet as she reads it, holding a hand to her mouth.

  ‘You have to find him,’ she says when she’s done.

  I let out a deep sigh, reaching for her waist. ‘Even if I have to tear down Memphis. How was the rest of the set? Did you talk to Denzel?’

  She looks at me, biting on her lip. ‘Something happened,’ she says, climbing off my lap and pulling the blankets aside to curl up next to me. ‘It can wait, though. Are you OK?’

  ‘What kind of something?’ I wrap my arms around her warm body. My head’s still spinning but I breathe her in, so grateful for her presence. ‘Talk to me. Take my mind off my father before I drive over there, please.’

  ‘E-beth hooked up with Denzel.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘They got drunk,’ she grins. ‘She loves her British men. They left together, some hotel I think. He was impressed she wasn’t even after a record deal. Speaking of which...’ she stops, scrunches up her face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘After you left, Travis sang with me.’

  ‘Sang what?’

  ‘Stars and a couple others. I didn’t ask him to, he just did it. Then he sang his own song and believe it or not it was good. And Denzel heard and…’ she sighs, meets my eyes. ‘He wants us to sing together, Conor, with Noah Lockton! Well, not with Noah, but before his show, at the Ryman. They’re looking for talent in each state. We have to send him three songs by next Friday but after what he heard, he thinks we’ll get a shot. There’s some kind of competition running with the tour; the winner gets a record deal…’

  I spring up on the bed. ‘Holy shit! That’s amazing!’

  Her eyes show uncertainty as she sits up and faces me. ‘Really?’

  I pull her against me. ‘Stephanie, that’s incredible, congratulations!’

  ‘I thought you’d…’

  ‘Thought I’d what? Not want you to sing with Travis Flynn?’ I laugh, kissing her as pride fills me up. ‘I don’t want that idiot anywhere near you, I’m only human, I know what he wants but fuck it baby, this is huge! You have to do this. A deal with HotFlush?’

  ‘You’re really not upset about me singing with him?’

  ‘This isn’t about him. You’re a natural up there, Denzel saw that the first time round. Jackson, this is everything you dreamed of.’

  ‘No,’ she says as the tears sparkle in her eyes again. She wraps her legs around me. ‘You are everything I dreamed of.’

  ‘And I’m behind you, whatever you do. As long as you’re careful, right? I’ve seen how they look at you; they have dollar signs in their eyes. I don’t want you to get hurt. Don’t take their words to heart, or their promises, not till you have something in writing. And don’t let Travis walk all over you.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she says, reaching for my face again, blue eyes shining. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too, I’m so proud of you,’
I say, pressing my mouth to hers and kissing her deeply, hard, then soft till she pulls away, still clutching at my hair with one hand.

  ‘We got invited to the album launch, too,’ she says, ‘in New York. They’re flying us there, we get to stay in a boutique hotel; I’ll bet it’s real expensive.’

  ‘Damn, really, that’s…’ I trail off, stroking a finger over her guitar pendant. I can’t go anywhere but Memphis. I have to find Micah.

  ‘I know you have a lot to think about right now,’ she says, tracing my lips with a thumb. ‘But he said there are people who want to meet us.’

  I sigh against her forehead. ‘This is beyond crazy, all of it. So, Travis’s song, it was that good, really?’

  ‘He’s been working hard I guess.’ She scrambles off my lap, gets to her knees, pulls her dress over her head, revealing a sexy matching purple bra and panties in the low light of my bedside lamp. Damn. Every single time I see her I need her more.

  ‘Let’s not talk about him. Do you like it?’ She gestures at her semi naked body and pulls her long hair out of its band. It falls in blond waves around her shoulders as she straddles me again and my pulse races from my heart to my growing hard-on. It presses through my boxers into her and she flashes me a wicked look, reaching for me. ‘Guess that means yes,’ she says.

  I run my hands over her bra slowly and gently before unclipping it and sliding it over her arms. ‘A thousand times yes. But you know what I think I’d like more?’

  ‘What’s that?’ she asks, stroking me and making me groan against her perfect breasts. I slip out of my boxers, roll her onto her back, grip her between my legs instead and kiss my way down the lines of her stomach, down to the tiny gap where her hipbones push out the lace of her panties.

  ‘I’d like it if this underwear was a little more eco-friendly.’

  ‘Eco-friendly?’

  ‘I don’t think lace is all that good for the environment, do you? And I definitely can’t eat it.’

  She looks at me in amusement as I reach for the dresser again. Then I hand her the little pink bag.

  19.

  Stephanie

  ‘Three of swords,’ Tal says, eyeing me over her glasses as she turns the tarot card over on the coffee table. I wince at the red heart with the three ominous swords poking through it. It doesn’t look good.

  ‘It’s not telling us anything we don’t already know,’ she says, as Indie Pete grins at her side. ‘The cards are good like that. This is three people involved in some kind of emotional tug of war. You don’t have to be a mystic to know who they might be. How’s Conor by the way?’

  I sigh through my nostrils as Travis walks from the bathroom back into our living room, oblivious. I swipe the card up, fling it back onto the pile as he sits on the couch with his guitar on his lap. We’ve been trying to write all day again but Travis isn’t exactly brimming with inspiration and my own heart’s not in it. Plus I can’t stop thinking about Conor. He left for Memphis three days ago and aside from one call to tell me he got there OK I haven’t heard too much from him. I’m trying to let him do his own thing.

  ‘Read mine,’ Travis says as Tal shuffles the cards again.

  ‘Oh, sure, why not? Seeing as you asked so nicely,’ she replies sarcastically. ‘What’s your question?’

  ‘Are we going to win this competition?’

  ‘I think we need more songs to be able to do that,’ I answer for him, motioning to the sheets of crossed out lyrics on the table. He pokes his tongue out as Tal instructs him to shuffle the deck himself and pick seven cards out. She frowns as she turns them over in a horseshoe spread and studies them for a minute.

  ‘The death card?’ Travis observes, raising an eyebrow at the skeleton figure riding a horse.

  ‘It just means a change is coming, don’t panic. You have the seven of wands here in your present position,’ she says, tapping the image of a guy who looks like he’s fighting with a big stick. ‘This tends to mean you’re on track to your destiny.’

  ‘You got that right,’ he grins. I try not to roll my eyes.

  ‘You’ve set your goals high and you’re on your way to achieving them,’ Tal says, ‘but it could also mean a strong man is about to influence you somehow. And that might not be so good. He’s powerful. It might mean you’ll struggle against him.’

  ‘I’ll take option A, thanks,’ Travis says, flexing his muscles as he cracks his knuckles over his jeans. Pete snorts.

  Tal explains the other cards as I zone out and carry on playing my guitar. I’ve written the only verse of one song we’re happy with so far and even so, Travis keeps trying to pull it apart. As much as I want this opportunity to sing at the Ryman, to see the look on Cory and David’s faces when (or if) I get to tell them I’ll be sharing a stage with Noah Lockton, I still don’t feel right about doing all this without Conor. I know he supports me, but still. It’s weird. Also, Travis’s ego is unbearable at times, even if it is mostly a show. I catch glimpses of his vulnerability here and there and I wish he’d be like that more often.

  ‘Why don’t we just sing Shine?’ I tell him when the cards are put away and he’s concentrating again. ‘I wrote it, but no one knows that,’ I say. ‘No one’s heard it except for you guys at Pete’s that time. We’ll add a harmony and then we only need one more song.’

  Travis frowns. ‘One more? We need three!’

  ‘We’ll, we’ll record the one you sang in The Bluebird, too. We already know everyone loves it. What was it called?’

  ‘I’m not doing that in a concert hall,’ he says without answering me. Tal throws me a look over Pete’s shoulder and tunes her violin.

  ‘Why not?’ I say.

  ‘It’s private.’

  ‘I don’t think now is the time to be keeping your songs private, Travis,’ I tell him. He twitches in annoyance. I know I probably just sounded like a bitch but I barely slept last night, thinking about all this, worrying about the house again, worrying about Conor. I had to read The Secret before I slept to mentally prepare myself for waking up again. Its quotes are etched on my mind: You are the Michelangelo of your own life. The David you are sculpting is you.

  Then I had to work the breakfast shift at The Nice Rack and sculpt the perfect hostess out of myself under Gretchen’s watch. I’ve never felt this much pressure in my life.

  There’s an awkward silence before Pete starts strumming his own guitar. Tal starts playing over him and I hum, wracking my brains, closing my eyes. All I can see is that darn heart card with the three swords stabbing into it. And then Travis’s spread. A thought comes to me suddenly. I hum again, figuring it out in my head for a couple of seconds. Then I sing. ‘Seven of wands, three of hearts. Something, something, tarot cards…’

  My eyes spring open. Tal laughs, nods at me in encouragement and carries on playing a tune over Pete’s chords. Travis perks up, picks out another riff on his guitar and from out of nowhere I feel the familiar rush; the kind I always get when I know I’m on the verge of something. The thought is with me now, churning. I sing again. ‘We don’t need a crystal ball, to tell us whether we should fall. No, that’s not right.’ I frown.

  Travis is grinning at me now and motioning for Tal to stop with the violin. He’s right, this just needs guitars. It needs to be upbeat and fun. He sings. ‘When it’s written in the stars, we don’t need no tarot cards…’

  I stop him. ‘That’s good,’ I say, ‘but we can’t use written in the stars, it’s too much like our other song.’

  ‘You and Conor Judge don’t have exclusive access to the stars,’ he says.

  ‘I didn’t say we did, but Travis, you can’t use that.’

  ‘Think of something else then,’ he replies and I bite my tongue as Bob Barker pads in and sits at my feet. Pete carries on strumming the same progression over and over. I work on the tune, changing it up and they work with me until it’s even more catchy and different. Travis slides the notebook over to me. I pick up the pen, start to scribble the lyrics as they
come to me. It needs to be a story. I sing it as I go.

  There’s a gypsy lady saying she can change our lives

  If we cross her palm with silver and believe

  So we sit down at her table and we listen to her talk

  About the cups and swords and pentacles she sees

  You could reign a kingdom from your throne

  Be a Fool who dances on the edge

  A rushing swordsman on a horse

  Who pulls me safely from the ledge

  The Devil or the Hermit

  Needing space and time

  You’re in every single card

  And, something, something, something….

  ‘I don’t care because you’re mine?’ Travis finishes.

  I scrunch up my face, considering it. ‘That could work. It’s cute enough,’ I say, scribbling it down for now. 'Or we could sing, you're in every single card and all I see... is a beautiful life?'

  He shrugs. 'Whatever.'

  I push the notebook back to Travis. ‘It’s a duet. Want to write the guy’s part?’

  He sucks in a breath, raises his eyebrows, picks up the pen. Concentration is etched all over his face as he scrawls on the sheet but by the time he’s written two or three lines I already have an idea for a chorus. I reach for another sheet of paper, jot it down quickly and then sing over Pete’s guitar.

  Three of hearts, five of wands

  Tell me how this could go wrong

  Between a Priestess and a Page who writes his future with his songs

  You’ll never find an endless story

  Quite like ours

  Put your deck away now gypsy

  We don’t need no tarot cards

  Travis puts his pen down as Pete and Tal make whooping sounds. The song is really fun, kind of folky pop and I know if we take it line by line we can make a great performance out of it, too. People love this stuff. But Travis is staring at the floor. ‘What’s wrong?’ I say.