Um. Hello. You’re preaching to the choir.
“Ah. I hadn’t noticed.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder and glanced out the window to see a few people with cameras around their necks, lugging gear in their arms as they walked down the street. “Who are they?”
“Those are the Hollywood photographers. Talia tells me they follow him everywhere. The poor boy never gets a minute to himself. I think they call them Yahtzees.” Violet hurried to the window to study them.
I laughed. “Yahtzee is a board game. I think you mean paparazzi.”
“Maybe. I can’t imagine being watched like that. Ty sure did become a superstar, didn’t he? You two never kept in touch? I was certain you’d marry that boy. You were always so close. It’s a shame what his daddy did to that family. I’m just thrilled as punch that Talia came back and that she and my Jakey found one another.”
My heart squeezed at her words.
I thought we’d end up together, too.
I pushed the lump forming in my throat away.
Not today, Satan. That boy is nothing but a lying bastard.
“We were kids. I don’t know anything about Ty anymore, nor do I care,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and moving away from the window.
“All right then. How are wedding plans coming? I can’t believe this wedding is in just two weeks.”
“Everything is set. It’s going to be beautiful,” I said as I walked to the door. “I’ll see you soon.”
I made my way home. I’d bought a cute little cottage in town, and I loved that I could walk to and from work. I gave myself a pep talk as I had a date tonight.
Tonight was all about fresh starts.
Maybe Tanner Brinker would be the one.
He’d asked me out a number of times. He was a few years older than me and taught P.E. at Willow Springs High. I’d made him wait the appropriate amount of time before agreeing to meet him for dinner.
I tried my best to push away thoughts of Ty Greene.
That boy had been haunting me for five years, and he was still front and center in my mind.
And I hated him a little bit more for that.
Chapter Two
Ty
“Never settle for anything less than you deserve.” Coco, 10th grade
“So, Ty, we really need to get some dates down for the upcoming tour,” Zane said. He was my manager, and the dude never stopped pushing.
“I’ve told you that I’m burned out. I need a break. I want to take some time off after my sister’s wedding. You’ve got to let me breathe, man.” I ran a hand through my hair as I spoke to him on the phone.
I was on a plane to Willow Springs. A town I hadn’t been back to in over five years.
The place where I’d grown up.
The place my father had ruined for our family forever.
The place I’d left my heart.
“Ty, I know you’re tired. Go to the wedding, take a break, but then let’s get shit going. You have a lot of people depending on you.”
He reminded me about that constantly. Our crew had grown over the past five years when Zane had found me performing in local bars in Nashville.
I’d been broken and lost. Not sure what to do with my life. My mother had spiraled and wasn’t functioning after what Dad did to her. I hadn’t seen my father since the day I left. Hadn’t met his newest offspring either. Talia had gone back to Willow Springs a few years later and patched things up with our father. His mid-life crisis had cost everyone a lot. But he seemed to be moving forward with his new family just fine. I wasn’t ready to see him. See them together. Not when my mother stayed in a bed for almost a year after we moved to Nashville. She’d had family there, so that had been the natural place for us to go. Thankfully, my grandparents were able to help me look after her. But Talia had been starting her sophomore year of college when we moved, and our father had written her a bad check to pay for school and we had to scramble to get loans that year. He’d left us with nothing. And with Talia away at school, taking care of my mom and figuring out how to make ends meet fell completely on my shoulders.
Thankfully time had a way of healing things. My mom was doing better now. Working for me, running my books, and she’d even started dating two years ago. She’d been seeing her boyfriend Craig for over a year now, and he was a great guy. I had a crew of over forty people between the band and the team that traveled with us on tour. And I was responsible for all those jobs and keeping things moving.
“You’re not fucking hearing me, Zane. I can’t keep doing the shows back-to-back. I’m fucking tired. I want to slow down. I don’t know how else to say this to you without spelling it out. We’ve made enough money that we don’t need to push so hard. I want to fucking live my life,” I hissed as the plane started its descent toward the small private airport in Willow Springs.
My therapist, Lucy, who the label I worked for had insisted I talk to, had encouraged me to start taking charge of my business when it came to my money-hungry manager.
“You can’t back off when you just won a CMA. Everyone wants a piece of you. This is the time to strike.” The sound of ice clinking against the glass let me know he was hitting it hard already. And it was barely nine o’clock in the morning.
Yes, I was honored that I’d won a CMA. Honored that people liked my music. But I could put music out in the world without performing three hundred times a year. The man was running me into the ground, and I was done with it.
“I can and I will. This is me telling you that we need to cut the tours way back. The label wants new music anyway, that’s why they made me start seeing Lucy, right? Because they think I have a fucking mental block, and that’s why the words aren’t coming. We can make music in the studio and put it out there. We don’t need to travel year-round anymore. Shit, no one else is doing the kind of shit you’ve been forcing me to do for years.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, Ty. I didn’t know that making you a millionaire fifty times over was such a crime. Forgive me.”
“Zane, I appreciate what you’ve done for me. I’m tired. Hear me out. Respect it. This is what I’m willing to give right now. I’m just asking for more studio time and cutting the tours back a little. I’d think the label would be thrilled with that.”
“I’ll see what I can do. But our bread and butter is in those live performances, so we need to be out there as much as we can.”
The dude never listened. He had a one-track mind and it was a fucking dollar sign.
“I’ll talk to you later, we’re landing.”