Summer (Four Seasons #2) (14 page)

The far wall of the recording studio is covered in guitars, some propped against the wood paneling and some mounted. I walk toward them, scanning over the beautiful workmanship of the instruments.

“I see you brought a guitar with you,” Sam says. Compared to the guitars on the wall, the small acoustic from Luke’s place looks like mangled driftwood. Sam eyes it dubiously, scratching the back of his head. “Seen better days, huh?”

I shrug, handing it over to him when he holds his hand out for it. “It’s kind of fitting.”

“Hmm.” Sam holds the guitar up by the base, looking up the length of the instrument, squinting one eye like he’s looking for imperfections. “Neck’s straight. Frets are in good order.” He spins it over in his hands, examining the back. “Someone’s already learned to play on this, right?”

“Yeah. It’s probably not worth anything.”

“It’s not worth any month, that’s for sure. But I’m willing to bet it’s very valuable to whoever learned on it, though. When you play an instrument for so long, the wood grows warm. The depth of it deepens. This will play beautifully, if you can deal with the size.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Sam hands the guitar back to me and I do my best not to stare at the inscription on the back.
 

LR,

Learn To Fly

MB

“Okay. Cool,” Sam says, breaking the silence. “Well, you should take a seat and we’ll get started, then.”

 
I sit down on a backless stool, holding the guitar in my lap. I feel nervous, which is weird. I shouldn’t be nervous. I have no reason to be. Somehow, I can’t help but think that Luke is going to find out about this and think I’m a total psycho or something.
 

“You ready to learn some basic chord shapes?” Sam asks.
 

I nod, pushing all thoughts of Luke out of my head. “Sure.”

My new instructor grins a wicked grin. “Sweet. Get ready for the pain.”

******

Pain is right.
 

Finger positioning is perhaps the most frustrating, painful thing I’ve ever attempted to learn. Sam keeps assuring me that, as I practice over and over again, I’ll develop badass callouses and my fingertips will be numb to the pain, but until then I just have to suck it up and basically quit complaining.
 

The next day, I head over to Columbia. Miraculously I’m caught up with all of my work, and I’m meeting with my student advisor to get signed off for enrollment to classes next year. It feels amazing, like I’m finally free in a way. No more scrambling to catch up. No more uncertainty hanging over me. I receive all of my necessary paperwork and the meeting goes off without a hitch. The hitch comes later, when I’m off campus, walking home.
 

A text message from Noah Richardson. I’d forgotten that he even has my number.
 

Noah: Hey, Patterson. Did I just see you in Columbia?

I just stare at my phone screen, wondering what the hell I should do next. Slowly, I type out a response.
 

Me: Yeah. I just got signed off for fall classes.
 

Noah: Awesome. Congrats. You’re a smart girl. Was there ever any doubt?

Me: Thanks. Maybe a little.
 

It feels very, very strange to be having such an ordinary text conversation with Noah. A part of me wants to put my phone back into my pocket and to ignore any further messages he sends. It’s intensely confusing.

Noah: You like chilli con carne?

Me: No.

Noah: Good. Me either.
 

Me: Then why did you ask?

Noah: Curiosity.
 

 
Me:
 
I see.

Noah: You know who does like Chili Con Carne?

Me: Noah…

Noah: My daughter. She wants me to cook it for her, and I don’t have the faintest clue how. Care to help a guy out
?

His last message is a low blow. Neve was adorable the other night. If he’s trying to use her to get me to hang out with him again, I think I’m going to castrate him. I don’t write a response.

Instead, I try to figure out if hanging out with him again would be such a bad thing. Probably. But hanging out is very different to being
involved
. That would never happen. Friends, though… Would he be able to keep his distance? Would he be able to respect the fact that I don’t want anything from him romantically? That’s what worries me.
 

For twenty minutes, I walk and I think. Lucas Reid’s face appears in my mind every time I think about spending time with Noah and Neve. At first, I feel sick, like I’m somehow betraying Luke’s trust. By the time I reach home, I’m over feeling sick and I’ve moved onto angry.
 

Fuck Luke. Fuck Luke for leaving me and hurting me and taking my happiness away. I take out my phone and type out a message to Noah.
 

Me: I’m sure we could find a recipe
…

FOURTEEN

LUKE

“I'm very sorry, Mr. Reid. I don't know what you want me to say. Your hand’s fractured.” The guy in the white lab coat doesn’t look all that sorry, though. He looks like he thinks I’m a moron for smashing my fist into a wall while completely intoxicated. “You won't be playing guitar for the next six weeks in the very least,” he continues. “You need a plaster cast, and you need to rest the break.”

“I can’t rest it.”

“Then it’ll be even longer than six weeks, and you’ll probably never play guitar again. Your call.”

I feel like smashing my good fist into his smug fucking face. How the hell did I let this happen? I pull a face at the doctor, who doesn’t seem to care. He leaves the exam room, humming under his breath. As soon as he’s gone, Cole rounds on me like a wild dog.
 

“
The fuck were you thinking
? My
god
, Luke. Just tell me you want out. Shit. You're my best friend. You didn’t need to break yourself in order to opt out of the band!” Someone beyond the curtain tells him to pipe down, but I know him better than that. He’s likely to start setting fires in the corridors any second now.
 

“Dude, I wasn’t trying to opt out of the band. I was fucking wasted and angry. And half of that is on
you
.” I glance down at my hand, which is swollen to three times its normal size. I can't feel anything through the morphine and the cold from the ice bath the nurses insist I keep it in, but I know that eventually it’s going to be agonizing.
 

Cole crouches down so that his face fills my vision. “That's the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard. You are a grown man, Luke. You can stop drinking whenever you like. And you don’t have to take women home with you if you don’t want to, you asshole.”

A nurse with huge bags under her eyes sticks her head through the curtain, glaring at the both of us. “If you can’t use indoor voices and refrain from cursing, gentlemen, you can find somewhere else to obtain treatment. You feel me?”

Cole sits back on his haunches and salutes her. “Yes, ma’am. I doubt he’s gonna make much noise while I choke him to death, anyway.”
 

“Wonderful news,” she says. “If your friend hasn’t succeeded in murdering you and you’re still alive in an hour, Mr. Reid, I’ll take you down to get your cast set.”
 

“Great. Thank you.” My head feels like it’s full of sand paper. Given the amount of drugs they’ve shot me up with, combined with the fact that I’m probably still roaring drunk from last night, my fuzzy head shouldn’t be a surprise.
 

The nurse leaves and Cole takes a seat in the plastic chair beside the bed. “This is
not
my fault. You are a fucking idiot. Single men our age get drunk and fuck women.
Rock stars do it every single night of the damn week
,” he hisses. I laugh, which seems to piss him off even further. The shit that comes out of his mouth these days is hilarious.

“Jesus, Luke.” Cole sighs, running his hands through his hair. “Of all the things you could have done, why the hell did you fucking
punch a wall
? You’re not a cop anymore, man. You’re a front man and a guitarist. You know your livelihood depends on your hands.”
 

“So my voice is no good to you now?”
 

“That’s—” He exhales sharply down his nose. “That’s not what I mean. I’m just saying. It was a pretty fucking stupid thing to do, you know?”

“I am slowly beginning to realize this, yes.” It’s weird—I thought the drugs had kicked in but I seem to be getting higher and higher. The morphine’s so strong; I’m actually starting to feel a little nauseous.
 

“You have the best voice out there right now, Luke,” Cole says softly. “This is fixable because I can learn the lead lines on the guitar stuff and we can hire a ring-in to do support for the time being. But that…that shouldn’t make this okay. Do you hear me, man? Are you listening?”

I feel very, very sorry for myself. “Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. I’m get it, okay. I messed up.”

“
Where the fuck is he?”

“Sir? Sir! You can’t go back there.”

The curtain is yanked back and Butler, in all his suited, five-foot-six glory, storms into the exam area.
 

“Oh, god, please
no
,” I moan.
 

“Praying might not be a bad idea right now, dipshit.” Butler’s face is a shocking shade of purple. “
What the fuck is all this
?” He lifts his hands skywards like he’s never been inside a hospital before.
 

“My hand’s broken.”

“So I hear. I thought you guys were fucking with me, though.”

“Nope.”

“Holy fucking shit. I’m gonna have a heart attack.” Butler pats down his blazer, as if he’s looking for something. “You realize this means we’re fucked, don’t you?”

“No, we’re not. Calm down,” Cole sighs. “I got the lead guitar stuff covered. We’ll get a session guy to come in and cover the rest ‘til Luke’s back playing. As he just so eloquently pointed out, he can still sing just fine.”

Butler stops pacing, hands stilled against his ribcage. “Oh. Right. Of course. And you can teach a session musician everything they need to know that quickly? Your song has
charted
. I know this might be a strange concept to you boys but people are gonna want you to be able to perform that song now. Live sessions for the radio. Live performances for bigger crowds. This stuff matters.”

“We’ll be fine,” Cole growls.
 

Butler gives us a curt nod. “Okay. And no melodramatic bullshit, either. You have to agree to play with whoever I can find with absolutely zero notice. No rejecting my choice or pulling a hissy fit because you don’t like the guy.”

Cole and I both shrug, giving our consent. I don’t know about Cole right now, but I couldn’t give a shit who he finds so long as the guy can hold his guitar the right way. Cole’s one hell of a musician. He can carry all of our tracks on his own if he has to.
 

Butler pulls out his phone, already frowning. “I’d better get on it, then. Cole, call me if there’s anymore disastrous news.” He fires me a dirty look before swiping at the curtain and charging off down the hospital corridor.

Cole sighs heavily, shaking his head. “This is still all because of Avery, right?”

“No.” I hate him for even mentioning her name. It makes my chest feel so painfully tight, like I can’t goddamn breathe.
 

“You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met,” Cole informs me. “Seriously, you shouldn’t even bother. You get this tic at the corner of your mouth when you’re bullshitting me—I can see it a mile off. And besides, I’m your friend. You should be able to tell me when something’s troubling you.”

“So you can tell me to man the fuck up, or convince me the only way to get over her is to go out and fuck random strangers? Yeah. I don’t think so.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”
 

“That’s all you’ve done since this happened, Cole.”

“Yeah, well now you’ve hurt yourself. Now, I’m legitimately worried about you. Would it help if I just kept telling you she wasn’t worth it over and over again?”

“Not if you didn’t wanna lose your balls.”

“Okay. Duly noted. So what’s gonna help, man? I’m kinda stuck here. I haven’t been in your position before. I’m never been stupid enough to screw a girl more than twice. Negates the whole,
oh no, I appear to have foolishly fallen in love with you
, bit.”
 

I let my head fall back against the pillows, trying to fill my lungs up in an attempt to stop the waves of nausea from washing over me. “It’s okay, man,” I whisper. My eyes are fixed at the stained tiles on the ceiling—safer than looking at him right now. I don’t trust myself not to cry, and that’s the last thing I need. “I’ll be fine. I guess it’s just gonna take a little time.”

We’re silent for a beat, and then Cole says, “This time next year, you won’t be hurting this bad, okay? You’ll have found someone else. You’ll be trying to remember why you were even this upset in the first place. Avery will be nothing more than a girl you had a thing with once upon a time.”

It’s nice that he’s trying to comfort me, but it’s plain as day that he was telling the truth just now—he really never has been in my position. If he had, he’d know that a year isn’t going to fix this. Someone new won’t fix it, either. No matter how much time passes, or how many people I eventually end up being with after Avery, nothing will heal the hole in my heart. Not fully. I’ll always be damaged goods.

I pick up my cell phone from the desk beside the bed using my left hand. Guess I’d better get used to using it more often now that my right hand is out of commission. Just like always, I automatically open up the security screen on the phone and immediately head to the text messages…specifically to Avery’s messages. No matter how many times I read them, I don’t hurt any less. I don’t feel any less shitty. My finger hovers over the green call button at the top of the screen.