Sweet Solace (The Seattle Sound Series Book 1) (8 page)

“I’ll send them this,” Bev said. She seemed hesitant, and I’d never heard Bev sound tentative before.

When Paul’s response of “We need something in line with the quality of the first three books” came, I collapsed into my chair, struggling to breath. When Abbi called to me from downstairs, I fled to my bathroom, turning on the shower. I had a week to come up with the quality Paul and Garcia expected.

One week to overcome years of frustration and disappointment.

L
ast night
I’d considered driving to Idaho just to make sure Dahlia was okay. A stupid impulse, sure, but she hadn’t posted anything online. Like, at all. She’d been a regular user of social media until she accepted my friend request. This week nothing, even though her friends posted on her wall. And I knew from one of those posts—no, I wasn’t checking my account fifty times a day—that she’d set up a dating profile. Her sister, Briar Moore, had commented on it as soon as it went live.

Why the fuck had Dahlia set up a dating profile now? She’d linked it to her Facebook account, another oddity since she ignored both.

While I wanted to talk to Dahlia about what I’d said to her the last time we spoke, I needed to discuss the sound track. The HBO guys coughed up more money to sweeten the deal, but I needed time—time to get Jessica out of my life so I could accept the gig.

Especially since Jessica had rejected my last offer, further dragging out the divorce proceedings. She was now asking for full custody of Mason and alimony from any future music royalties.

“Face facts,” Jessica had said. “I’m going to get a lot of this because you weren’t exactly circumspect about your drug-taking for years. No judge is going to rule against the little wifey who’s been raising your kid in backwoods Washington while you’re touring the world in rock-star style.”

I’d walked out at that point. If I’d stayed, I would’ve done something stupid. Like get high just so I didn’t have to hear Jessica’s bitching anymore.

I drove to the crap apartment I’d rented months ago for a place to store my stuff. Not that I had much. I hadn’t wanted to worry Mason by clearing out more than what was necessary. One extra suitcase hadn’t made much of an impression, but now my entire music library was still at the house and Jessica planned to sell it off for cash.

I had another month left on the lease but I was too dejected to renew. I had to start making some decisions about my future. I knew what I wanted: a chance to be me, hanging out with my kid, getting to know Dahlia, the woman I’d always coveted.

With each day that passed, I stretched tighter, as if I were going to snap. The last time I’d been this wound up, I’d popped enough pills to see my world in Technicolor for three days. That’d been amazing, but I’d done some stupid shit that I was still paying for in the form of bad publicity. That was one of the reasons I’d cleaned up my act. I knew, even then, I’d lose Mason if I didn’t.

* * *

M
ason flopped onto the grass
, his chest heaving. I headed over and sat next to him.

“I like baseball,” he said.

“Home-run derbies are the best.”

“Are you and Mom really getting a divorce?” he asked. His hazel eyes were serious, his mouth turned down with concern.

“Yeah.” I pulled my knees up and laid my arms across them. Now that we had the final date set with the judge, I’d told Mason about our coming split.

“Because you don’t love her no more?”

“Is that what she said?”

Mason nodded, and I sucked my lips into my mouth to keep from cursing. Every situation was all about Jessica. When had she started putting her feelings, her needs first? My stomach clenched.

When Olivia died.

“She said you wouldn’t go touring with the band if you loved us right,” he said, the words tumbling out faster and faster. “She said you don’t want to stay here with us because we don’t fill your ego or something.”

I had to force my hands to unclench. I wrapped them around my knees. Mason looked at me, a frown forcing his brown brows into a deep V.

“Part of the reason your mom and I are divorcing is because we don’t talk to each other well anymore. If that’s how she felt, she should have told me.”

“So you do still love her?” Mason asked, his face lighting with hope.

I rubbed my thumb against my forehead, hoping to alleviate the building ache.

“I don’t want to tell you lies, Mason. I don’t want to tell you you’re too young to understand, because I remember how angry I was when my parents did that to me. What I can say is that it’s complicated. Your mom is angry. I am, too. She’s the one who asked for the divorce. She’s the one who asked me to move out.”

“This is because of that guy who calls her all the time, huh?”

“What guy? Dale?”

“I don’t know his name, but he’ll call and Mom will talk to him and then she’ll make Mrs. Knowles stay with me and she’ll be gone for hours, sometimes overnight. I don’t like it when she leaves me with Mrs. Knowles at night. She snores, and I’m scared.”

The headache exploded. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes. I was going to have to have my kid testify against his mom. How, in good conscience, could I make Mason do that? He loved Jessica, even with her failings. Hell, I had a ton of my own, not least of all with Jessica.

I had been the product of a single-parent household from the time I was in fifth grade. I didn’t want Mason to follow my pattern. I’d been—still was—fucked up because of it.

“You want me to talk to her about that?” I asked.

Mason nodded.

“All right, buddy. I will. When she gets home.”

I just hoped that wasn’t until after Mason went to bed for the night. I liked my time with him—reading him a book, tucking him in. I wanted to do more of that. I wanted the every-night daddying I’d dreamed of ever since Jessica had told me she was pregnant. Thankfully, I got my time with him now.

* * *

“
H
e’s afraid
, Jessica. He’s a little boy.”

She was at the kitchen counter pouring a glass of white wine. “I’m the one here with him. Every. Day. So enjoy your thirty minutes of dad-time for the month. Then you get to leave for another tour, screw any number of girls between the stage and the bus, and eventually saunter in here, questioning my parenting.”

She glared at me over the raised glass. When she set it down, half the wine was gone.

Fuck. Mason had reason to be scared. I was, too. This wasn’t the woman I’d married. She’d been spiraling for years, and nothing I did had helped.

I ran my fingers through my hair. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to be
the
famous rock star. I want you to adore me like you used to. I want exciting vacations and lunch dates with cool people. I want the life you promised me.”

“I never promised you any of that.”

“You did! But I’m still in Washington. Not even the good part. Not Seattle or Bainbridge Island. No, we moved here because of the schools. To make everything better for Mason. Well, I’m done waiting for you to realize my life is passing just as quickly as yours. I need more than this. You need to do your job.”

“I have a job,” I said through gritted teeth. That was the button she knew to press.

“You have gigs. You sing to maybe a couple thousand fans, have sex, get high, and move on. That’s not enough anymore, hasn’t been since your twenties. I don’t want to share your attention, and I don’t want to worry about bills.”

“I sing. I put on a show. That crap—I haven’t done that in years. I married you. I meant my vows. We have enough in all our accounts to keep you from worrying about bills for years.”

Jessica scoffed. “I’ve watched the women plaster themselves on you, Asher.”

A wave of exhaustion slammed over me. “I can’t make them stop coming on to me. And they don’t want me. They want the front man of the Supernaturals. You know my parents’ split messed me up for years. I told you I wanted to be married forever.”

“Then you should have lived up to your promises.”

“You served me with papers while I was on the fucking road. I was touring to pay for whatever the hell it is you do here, and you kicked me out.”

“I had plans, too, Asher. Big plans that did not include staying hidden in Nowheresville, fifty miles from the shit-hole I grew up in.”

“What plans? Come on, Jessie. I want you to be happy. I’ll do what I can to help you. Just don’t take it out on Mason. That isn’t fair to him.”

“What would make me happy,
Tristan
, is for you to upgrade my situation.” Her teeth pulled back in a feral grin. “And now I have insurance to make sure you cough up what I want.”

My stomach pitched like it was at the top of a twenty-story roller coaster. The plummet, when it came, would be intense and horrifying.

“What do you mean by insurance?”

She blinked prettily around her wineglass. Did she get her eyelashes enhanced? Was that even possible?

“What does that mean, Jessica?”

“You’ll see,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll both enjoy the spotlight then.”

“Is this about Olivia?”

“Don’t say her name,” Jessica snapped.

“We never talked about her. Maybe we could have worked through our problems then.”

“Shut up!” she screamed. She threw the glass, missing my head by inches. Glass and wine exploded across the counter behind me. Her eyes were wide, her face pale.

Hopefully Mason hadn’t heard her screaming.

“Fine. We’ll ignore the actual problem that’s been there for years. What about Mason?”

Jessica shrugged, and anger burned through me, visceral and ugly. I stepped back and shoved my fisted hands into my pockets.

“Mason’s fine. Parents get divorced all the time. He’ll probably be more normal now that we’re splitting up. Soon as you give me what I want, I’m fine not seeing you again. You keep disappointing me. I didn’t think that was possible. But you do.”

“I meant about you going out and leaving him at night.” I wanted to ask if she’d ever cared about us at all, or if I was just a stepping-stone to something bigger. She was more than willing to trade in everything we’d built for money. Problem was, I’d never make enough for her. Fuck of a time to realize that.

“He’s always safe, always fed, and mommy usually even reads him a book at bedtime after he’s had his milk and cried for his daddy. Every. Night. You’re gone. You can’t pin this all on me.”

I ran my hands through my hair. I was tired. I’d been running on fumes since I received the separation papers. No, in truth, I’d been a mess since Olivia died. Jessica was right. This situation was my fault. I hadn’t been worried about emotional depth when I met Jessica, hadn’t realized how important it was because I’d wanted a bed partner, not a life partner.

“We both fucked up.”

She glared at me until I couldn’t stand the accusation anymore. She had every right to be pissed at me.

“I’m taking Mason to my place.” I turned my back on Jessica and went up the stairs.

S
aturday morning
, Abbi popped into my room early, as was her habit. She stopped short, surprised to see I was not only awake but also showered, dressed, and pulling my long hair into a high ponytail. I had on a pair of comfy jeans I’d stolen from her closet.

One of the side effects of Doug’s death was losing my curves. For the most part, I looked like I always had, just skinnier. My eyes were still gray, my hair the same dark reddish-brown. My skin was relatively smooth.

Not too old to love again. Not yet.

After another sleepless night, I knew I’d have to face Asher and my jumbled feelings for him if I was going to work through my writer’s block. Now downstairs in the kitchen, I smiled at Abbi, toasting her with my now-empty coffee cup. I didn’t tell her it was my third. “You ready for a full day of mom-makeover?”

Abbi’s face was serious, her hands on her hips. “I’ve been waiting for this for years.” She snatched the mug from my hand. “I’ll put this in dishwasher. Let’s hit the road.”

Abbi plugged in her charger to set a playlist from her phone, and we hummed along to a variety of current artists. Like most of her peers, Abbi stuck to the four-count rhythm and breezy lyrics so common in the pop genre. I tapped my finger along to the constant, easy beat, not really paying attention.

Then . . . the distinctive revving riff of a Supernaturals’s lead guitar. I caught Abbi’s smirk before she turned toward the window.

“Since when did you become a Supernaturals fan?”

Abbi shrugged. “Since my mom met this awesome guy who happens to be the lead singer of the band. He might be O-L-D, but he makes my mom’s cheeks glow whenever she thinks about him. I owe him pretty big for bringing her back from the brink, so I figured I’d show my gratitude by buying the entire library.”

“My credit card isn’t going to be thrilled with that decision.”

“Then take it out of my college account. I know it’s all funded, thanks to Dad’s life insurance. Are you ever going to answer Asher’s message? You do realize you are starting to seem like a b— I mean witch.”

I took a deep breath and tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “I don’t know what to say to him,” I murmured.

“Be you. He seemed to like that the last time. And before, when you knew him a lifetime ago.”

“Tell you what. Let’s get through the haircut and some new clothes, and then I’ll send him a message.”

Abbi glared at me. “You need to check your dating profile, too, but we’ll do that later. Asher comes first. Lunchtime. That’s your deadline. Or I’m hacking your account and telling him you’re a chicken.”

“Abigail, that isn’t funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. It’s called a threat.”

It was my turn to glare at my daughter, but I could tell by the thrust of her jaw and the gleam in her eye, she’d follow through on her warning. This was the downside of having a child so young. I didn’t have the same parental sway as many of my older counterparts. Abbi was so easygoing and fun, we’d spent more time as friends than in a traditional mother-daughter relationship.

“You will
not
touch my accounts. And you need to let me handle my life my way. Please.”

Her eyes filled with disappointment, her irises darkening and the sparkle fading. “Not if you’re going to hide for the rest of it. I need you to live again, Mom.”

I swallowed and looked away. “I’m trying.” We sat in silence for a moment. “So I figure cutting off all this weight has to be a good first step.”

Her eyes stayed serious, but her mouth lifted. “I’m sure we can find something that shows off your big eyes and awesome cheekbones.”

* * *

I
stared back
at my reflection, shocked by the difference the multiple layers and a Brazilian blowout had made. Whoever said that confidence came from feeling beautiful was onto something.

Abbi and I spent way too much time and money in a massive shopping mall. By the time we walked out, bags pinching my fingers, my stomach growled, and my feet felt tight in my sensible flats.

“You holding up?” I asked.

“Totally. I love the marathon approach,” Abbi said, shooting me a happy smile. “I can’t believe you bought me that cashmere wrap. I may have to sleep in it for the rest of my life. It’s so soft.”

I’d bought one for myself, too, cringing at the price. But I had enough to cover the splurge even without the HBO project. Which wasn’t signed. My stomach fluttered.

For long-term security, I needed to make that deal happen. I had six days.

I frowned. Paul hadn’t mentioned whether Asher planned to put together the sound track when we’d talked earlier in the week. Asher had written that Jessica was causing problems. Was he waiting for me to respond to his message, to give him the okay to work together? If so, well, I’d procrastinated long enough.

Stowing our items in the back of my SUV, we headed toward one of the restaurants at the mall.

After being seated and served our drinks, I tapped Abbi’s glass of iced tea with my own. “To beginnings.”

“I’m in love with your new cut,” she said. She took a sip of her tea, scrunched her nose, and reached for the sugar. “Get out your phone and answer Asher Smith. Now.”

“I haven’t looked at the menu yet.”

Abbi finished dumping in sugar and set the dispenser on the table with a thump. “You’re afraid.”

The words sounded so much worse coming from my teenage daughter’s mouth. I chewed my lip while I decided that Abbi was old enough to deal with some of my life.

“I am. I used to have a crush on him. If I leave it at the time we’ve spent together, I’ll have the perfect little dream to pull back out and enjoy over the years.”

Abbi gripped the top of her menu and leaned forward. “He’s not Dad.”

Anxiety slashed through me, dragging the air from my lungs.

“He probably won’t die. Or leave.” She sat back, completely unaware of how close I was to falling apart. I ducked behind the menu, relieved she hadn’t found out. Some secrets were just too much to share.

“He mentioned he wants to be friends.” Abbi snorted as she shook her head.

“You read my messages?”

Abbi lifted her left eyebrow. “But of course, Mrs. Dorsey,” she said in a terrible British accent.

“That’s an invasion of privacy.” I was angry. Angry enough to burn away my burgeoning panic. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been inundated with this much emotion.

“How is it different than you reading my texts and messages?”

She had me there. “You’re prone to do something dumb. It’s instilled in your teenage DNA.”

“I love you too much to do something that’ll hurt myself, Mom. I’m not going to go to some lame high school party with hot beer just to get busted by Sheriff Lindon. I’m not going to put myself in danger to be date-raped, and I’m not going to come home pregnant. But you can keep checking up on me because I know you need to feel like you’re doing everything you can for me. And you’re less anxious when you feel in control.”

I dropped the menu to the table, barely missing my glass. “You know about my panic attacks?”

Abbi nodded. “Yeah, and the insomnia. Both seem better.” She cocked her head, her long, shiny hair spilling over her trim shoulder. “Since our trip to Seattle.”

She waited, letting me digest that information. “I may be only sixteen, but I understand something about love.” She raised her eyebrows as she took a sip of her drink. “Maybe because my mom writes romances. I know it’s the trust part that’s a leap of faith. Right now, Asher is asking for you to trust in friendship. Did it ever occur to you that maybe he needs a friend just as badly as you do?”

Abbi sat back in her chair. The waitress ambled over and Abbi ordered us salads and a double order of onion rings. I nodded my approval, my mind whirring.

“When did you get so smart?” I pulled out my phone, and Abbi fist-pumped the air.

“I’ve always been this awesome. Just took you a while to figure it out. Type your message. I need to pee. Be back in a jiffy.”

Pulling up Asher’s message caused my face to heat up, and I was shocked I still blushed. I opened the app and reread the message I knew verbatim. I started typing. This was the time for truth, not my edited thoughts.

I’ve read your message every day, wondering if I should respond. I worried what to say. Nothing felt right because nothing can tell you how much I needed you last week. Thank you for holding me, for listening. Thank you for caring.

I’m sorry about your marriage. This may be presumptuous, but I want to be that real friend you said you miss. I’m ready to listen any time you need me.

I can’t write. I’m scared the HBO deal will fall through because I’m not strong enough to get beyond my emotional block, which means I won’t get to collaborate with you on the sound track . . . If you’ve worked it out on your end.

That’s part of why I haven’t responded.

-D

My finger shook, and I had to press Send twice before it actually went. Abbi slid into the booth across from me, her lips pursed.

“Done.” I said.

“You gonna let me read it?”

I bit my lip, considering my options. Then I slid my phone across the table. I watched her eyes slide across the screen. A little smile formed as she handed it back.

“He’s calling you.”