Sweet Crazy Song_A Small Town Rockstar Romance Read online

"My manager is going to want me in New York," I pressed. "We're supposed to be working on a guest list for the new album. Some new vocalists and stuff -" I trailed off, the checklist growing ever longer in my head.

  There was so much work to be done to prep for the new album, so many things I needed to go over with Leon Jensen, the hotshot manager I had hired to manage my solo career after the King Brothers imploded. He was all business, and I liked that. He was exact opposite of the last guy, who'd spent way too much energy trying to be our friend - to the point of stuffing Gabe full of pills just to make and keep him happy.

  Jensen didn't want to be my friend and it made for a refreshing change of pace. "I've got some ideas and I need to see if their workable. Maybe a duet?" I mused aloud, making a mental note to have Jensen start making me lists of female vocalists that suited my new style.

  At that my mom snapped her eyes back up eagerly, like a shark scenting blood in the water. "A duet? Oh Jojo, you know Claire would be perfect for that. Your sister would love to, she has such a nice voice."

  Oh god no. I could just picture Claire in a recording studio with me. The family story was that I was the control freak, but that's only because Claire manipulated everyone into thinking they wanted what she wanted all along. If I was a control freak, then she was a control mutant. "Mom, I have to do what the label tells me to, you know the drill."

  "Well I would think you had some clout..." my mom said, going right for the sore spot. "They have to listen to you, don't they? If you really wanted to, you could make it happen."

  I licked my lips. "Does Claire really want to?"

  Mom hesitated.

  I let out a breath and a low chuckle. "She doesn't even know you're asking."

  Mom threw up her hands. "You caught me, fine. You happy now Mr. Smartypants?"

  "What's wrong, Ma? Are you trying to send Claire as a spy or something? Make sure I'm not embarrassing the family name?"

  Her cheeks reddened slightly and I knew I'd guessed it. "Well, I never had to worry about the four of you when you were together!" she huffed, mad at being called out. "The four of you out on the road, most people thought I should be petrified you would try stuff, get exposed to all these bad influences, but I knew that you had each other. And as long as you had each other, you didn't need anything else."

  I inhaled slowly. As I did, my mother's face fell as she seemed to realize the absurdity of her words. "Well, I mean - " she started, and then stopped.

  "Yeah," I said stiffly as I turned and zipped up my luggage. "That turned out to not be the case, did it?"

  "Jonah," she sighed. Heavily. "You're still blaming him."

  "No," I said straightening back up again. "Let's be clear here. I don't blame him for breaking up with his cheating girlfriend one bit. That was awful, Mom, walking in on her like that. Until the day I die, I'll never forget the look on his face. No," I shook my head. "I blame him for breaking up our band. Talk to him about how we had each other."

  My mom hated this. She hated that her sons, the four famous King Brothers who were once a symbol of sibling affection for the whole damn country, now barely spoke to each other. I knew it was tearing her up inside. "He was hurt," she pleaded. "He was so angry."

  "Well he was angry at the wrong people," I snapped.

  My mother did that pressed lip thing she always did, like she was physically holding back the words she really wanted to say. She looked at me fiercely for a moment, the kind of maternal fire that makes you flick through your conscience really quick so you have an answer when she asks you if you know what you did wrong. Is it the broken window? The flat tire? Did I leave the lid off the milk carton again?

  But I knew exactly what she thought I did wrong. And I also knew she was mad at the wrong person, so I wasn't about to apologize.

  Slowly the fire drained from her eyes. She stepped back into the hall. "Well, it was good to see you, Jojo. Even if it was under sad circumstances."

  "You too, Ma. I'll be down in a minute."

  I hefted my suitcase and patted Duke on the head. He huffed a lungful of doggy breath in my face and gave me one of his big, dumb smiles. "You be a good boy," I told him, as I pulled my phone out from under the pillow.

  There were three missed calls. All from Jensen. I must have never turned the volume back up after the wake yesterday. Curious, I swiped to call him back.

  He answered like he had been waiting for me. "About time."

  "I had my ringer off. What's so important?"

  "Listen," I heard him shuffling papers on his desk, which was odd because he always made a point of giving me his full attention. "Were you headed in to New York?"

  I blinked and then laughed. "We've had a meeting on the books for weeks now, and I have that appearance on the Howard Stern Show. So yeah, I'm headed to New York."

  Jensen paused, though I could still hear the paper shuffling. He cleared his throat. "Maybe don't."

  "What?" I half-laughed, half shouted.

  "Don't come. You can stay home longer if you'd like."

  This wasn't making a bit of sense. "Didn't we need to go over the game plan for the new album?" I reminded him. "You said you wanted to audition some guest vocalists."

  Shuffle shuffle "I said that?"

  "Yeah," I said, trying to lean more towards laughter than yelling. This had to be a joke. Jensen was on top of things, he was one of the best in the biz. He also seemed to have an endless stack of papers to shuffle. "You sound stressed, man," I joked. "Does my manager need a manager?"

  The shuffling suddenly stopped and in the ringing silence left behind, I could hear every word he was saying loud and clear. "Listen, Jonah. There's no sense beating around the bush," Jensen said, ignoring the fact that he'd done five minutes of exactly that. "When you hired me on, it was to manage you as a King Brother. But you've gone off the rails, man. I can't work with you any more. Not after that performance at the Hullabaloo."

  I felt the heat rising to my cheeks. "A fucking storm blew up, Jensen. What, you think I can control the weather? They hauled me off the stage and shut down the entire festival." My voice rose higher as I tried to make him understand. "I wasn't trying to leave."

  "Have you seen the press?" he said shortly.

  I'd been looking through it obsessively all morning, but he didn't need to know that. "No. I've been at my uncle's funeral," I said through gritted teeth. "With my family. My mourning family." I shook my head and tried to force a smile back onto my face so he couldn't hear how badly I was starting to panic. "You obviously watched some of the video from the festival, right? So you saw how I was giving it everything I had. I mean, Christ, didn't you see how hard I was working out there? If they hadn't dragged me off the stage I would have won that crowd over," I declared. "I know it."

  "'Would have' doesn't pay the bills, Jonah. You've had three cancelled appearances since that day. Howard Stern being one of them."

  My jaw went slack. "Jensen, the festival was not my fault. The wind..."

  "Save it."

  "You're shitting me."

  "I'm not. And I can't see a way to right this ship," I heard his chair creak as he leaned back. I could picture him there in his office, completely at ease with making the biggest mistake of his career. "You've gone off course and are sinking badly. "

  And the more I thought about what a mistake he was making, the more I felt better. In my mind I could see myself, working harder than ever, coming out with something brilliant and brand new, the avalanche of good press and the world at my fingertips again. The vision wrapped itself around me like a protective cocoon, knowing that all I had to do now was make it a reality

  That was easy.

  I sniffed. Exhaled. "So," I said, a new steel in my voice. "Instead of righting the ship, you're abandoning it. Fine," I said, setting my suitcase back down again. "I'm a better fucking Captain than you ever could be, Jensen." I cleared my throat so he could hear me loud and clear when I told him, "Go fuck yourself."

  Whether he h
ung up first or I did didn't really matter. What mattered was I had been turned loose. I'd clawed my way up from the bottom before, I would have no problem doing it again. I just needed space and time to figure out a brand new, brilliant game plan. On my own, with no short-sighted managers to get in the way.

  Duke lifted his head and thumped his tail. I looked down at my dog, and then the bedroom around me. Where I'd spent my childhood dreaming of the exact same stardom I was about to reclaim again.

  I needed space. Here was the perfect space.

  "Mom?" I called. "Change of plans!"

  Chapter Six

  Ruby

  It felt like I got home in the dead of night, but it was only 5:15PM. I'd forgotten to turn on the light over my back door. "Stupid time change," I muttered, using the flashlight app on my cellphone to well enough to put my key in the lock.

  My tiny little house still smelled like stale coffee from the morning, which felt like ages ago. Thank God it was Friday.

  I heard a thump and then the sound of little feet on the wood of the stairs. A little ball of fuzz came staggering over the the door, still sleep-drunk and swaying a little.

  "Hey there little girl," I murmured to my tiny new kitten as I crouched down to pet her. I'd gotten her the day before Gid died, but already enough time had past that she was getting long legged. "How's my tiny little terror?"

  Ginger purred and nipped at my fingers as I picked her up and went into my tiny, sparsely furnished living room. The box was still there in the middle of the floor because I didn't know where else to put it. The basement was too damp and I was afraid it would hurt the tapes. And I didn't want to shove it into a closet because it seemed disrespectful to Gideon.

  I set down my cat and poked the box with my toe, thinking. I'd managed to survive my first full day at work without Gid, and tomorrow would be just like this one. I hated that someday I might actually get used to this feeling.

  I poked the box again. Immediately Ginger latched on to it, kicking her back feet in a wild attempt to murder my foot. "Ow!" I yelped. "Stop it, you little assassin!" I scooped her up and crossed back into galley kitchen and plopped her in front of her food bowl. "Shit, you're almost out of this," I sighed, scraping the last bits of food out of the bag I'd brought home with her from the shelter.

  Ginger crunched her kibble as I stroked her back and scratched between her eyes, setting off a thunderstorm of purring. Then I poured a glass of water and went over to sit on the only chair in my living room. I propped my foot up on the box.

  Today would be a good day to hear Gid's voice. I could do it right now. I could pop a tape into the ancient tape recorder I still had from my Dad, and I could let Gid's voice fill the room and pretend he was right here with me.

  But I couldn't do it. The wound was still too fresh. I was still trying to get used to the feeling of him being gone. Hearing him again would only make that harder.

  "I should give it to the Kings, shouldn't I?" I asked Ginger. She trotted over, happy now that her belly was full and took a flying leap into my lap. "It's his legacy, right?" I ran my hand down her fuzzy back and set off another round of vibrating, and I smiled, and then...

  Then I cried.

  "He was supposed to come meet you," I sniffed, wiping my hand down my cheek. "He was going to come... Jesus, it'd be today he was gonna come." Ginger purred like a boat motor and I leaned over and buried my face in her tummy. "Gid," I sighed into Ginger's fuzzy fur. "The hell were you even doing out there, anyway?"

  He was always doing stuff like that. Driving off to some unknown purpose. It was hard to see through the lens of how kind he was, but he had a stubborn, mean streak to him. A fierce kind of world-view that didn't allow for much room for others. Izzy, with her wispy, wistful ways was probably the perfect woman for a guy like him. The kind to be wholly absorbed into her man.

  All the Kings were like that, to a point. It was one of Claire's biggest complaints about her brothers. That they absorbed all the light in the room, demanding the spotlight for themselves. Gideon was just a nicer, less wildly famous version of that.

  I nudged the box with my toe. Gid was in there. His words, his voice. "I should go over there, hand it to Foster, right Gingy-Girl?" I asked my kitten. "Since Gid is his brother?"

  She sat up and bit my knuckle.

  I laughed through my tears. "Is that a no or something?" I wondered, dangling my fingers over her face. The vet said not to use hands as toys, but Ginger wasn't interested in anything else but my limbs. And she was so cute I let her get away with it. "You think I should keep the box here, right?" I asked her as she rolled and batted and fell over herself. "Just in case I get the courage to listen?"

  Ginger made an impressive leap, Velcro-ing herself to my bicep. I yelped again and peeled her away, before cuddling her to my chest. She struggled in vain to bite at my earlobe. "Stop, just be sweet for one second. I need this," I said, hugging her tight.

  As I squeezed her struggling body, my mind leaped back to the day of the funeral. I wondered if I had felt like this in Jonah's arms as he hugged me tight. I'd wanted to scratch and bite him too, but it had also been strangely comforting, comforting enough that I'd done it again upon arriving at the wake.

  He was Gid's favorite for some reason. Maybe that was the connection I had felt. He was a musician, just like his uncle, and stubborn like him too.

  "Ow, okay!" I sighed, setting Ginger down and rubbing my scratched up hand. "Maybe I don't give the box away, huh?" My kitten blinked and made a mad dash for her food bowl. I nodded, "Yeah, you like that idea. But maybe I invite Jonah over and let him listen to it? Since he was Gid's favorite?"

  Ginger blinked at me, all solemn, cat-like dignity. Then she attacked her own tail.

  I looked back at the box, hulking silently there in the center of my living room. Filled with Gid's soul. He'd shared it with me and not his nephew for a reason. "You're right," I said to my cat. "That's a terrible idea.

  Chapter Seven

  Jonah

  The decision to stay here in Crown Creek had felt like the right one for all of twenty-four hours. But one night in my old bed had me nearly wild with claustrophobic memory. Every creak of the house settling was one I had heard before. Every sigh or grunt from Duke was a direct link to the past. Every pass of my father's footsteps on the squeaky stairs as he got himself ready for the day was an echo of all my childhood mornings.

  If I didn't get out of this house today, I was going to lose it. And I needed to flee before my father could corner me and rope me into doing the one chore that just might break my heart.

  I rushed down to the garage and then stopped.

  My father had beaten me down, and was there with his head under the hood of my rental car.

  I stood there for a moment, jingling the keys in my hand. "Hey, uh, what are you doing?

  But I knew exactly what he was doing. He'd won. He'd beat me. I remembered him pulling the same kind of stunt when I'd come home from tour seven years ago and wanted to sneak out to a party late at night. Rather than forbid me from leaving, my dad just disconnected my car battery saying he'd replace it 'once the good ones are back in stock at Chuck's shop.' I was stuck home for the remainder of that visit. It worked exactly as he'd planned.

  But he never admitted that keeping me home was his goal, nor would he admit it now. So he muttered something about jokers and who they thought they were fooling, then pulled his head back out from under the hood. "Your lines are almost completely clogged."

  "Ah, yeah. But it's a rentalm so that's really not my problem."

  "I'm almost done with the flush."

  "Dad, it's their job to deal with it. Not yours."

  He turned and looked at me like I had sprouted an extra head. Then he swept his hand over to the neatly laid out parts and disconnected hoses and sort of shrugged like 'what can I do?' "Never leave a job unfinished," he intoned.

  I pressed my lips together and sighed. Whenever I complained to Gid about my dad, he'd alw
ays say the same thing. "You're more like him than you realize."

  Stubbornly refusing to let go of something until it worked the way you wanted it to?

  I understood that all too well.

  "Fine," I said, shoving my hands into my pockets.

  "You're gonna be around later, right?" Dad asked me, wiping his hands on a rag.

  I swallowed. If this were any other place in the world, I'd be able to say 'hell no' and leave it at that. But this was Crown Creek. This was my Dad's house, and so I had to say, "Probably."

  I could see by the twitch at the corner of his eye that he didn't like that answer. "Got a lot of work ahead of us," he said, taking off his glasses and wiping them with a different rag. Of course he had rags assigned for specific purposes. "I could use the help."

  I'd come down hoping I could slip out un-noticed. If I was gone, then there was no way my father could ask me to help clean out Gid's house with him. But he'd made certain I couldn't flee by disabling my car.

  But maybe he hadn't won. I wasn't as dumb as I used to be. "Yeah, if I have the time, definitely," I said smoothly. "But I was going to run into town." I grinned and shrugged. "Looks like I"m going to have to walk, huh? I guess I could use the exercise but it's definitely going to take me longer."

  My Dad put his glasses back on again and regarded me with a fierce stare. Gabe could almost match it in intensity but my father's had the advantage of profound disappointment in all your failings as a person. "Huh," he said. He paused, letting the silence stretch out, most likely hoping it'd start me squirming in shame. But when I didn't buckle, he blew air out of the side of his mouth and turned back to the car. "Then I guess I'll see you later," he said pointedly.

  "Hope so!" I replied, clapping him on the back. Feeling flush with outsmarting him, I didn't even mind that I had a mile and there-quarters walk ahead of me along frozen country roads. If I was walking, that meant I wasn't down in Gid and Izzy's place with a trash bag, throwing out the remnants of his life.