Текст книги "My Soul to Keep"
Автор книги: Kennedy Ryan
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
WHEN WE WERE FOURTEEN, BRISTOL SNUCK into the rehearsal room one afternoon while I was preparing for a concert. Her class had gone to the zoo, and she knew I loved hearing about the things she got to do with kids our age. She bounced into the room, slammed the piano lid shut, face lit with wicked anticipation.
“Guess what happened at the zoo today?”
“Uhhhh, you saw animals?”
“Of course, we saw animals, dummy, but two orangutans started fucking!”
So everyone stood around gawking at these two creatures sharing their most base, intimate moments in a manufactured wild.
That’s how I feel, pulling up to Kai’s apartment, where a pack of paps lie in wait. The video of our fight, our most base, intimate moments, has gone . . . if there is a level beyond viral . . . it’s gone that. And if this is our zoo, our manufactured wild, I’m the crazed orangutan, scouring the preserve for my mate, mad and exposed, dick dangling in the wind for all to see.
“You’re not seriously going out there, are you?” Gep asks from the driver’s seat.
We broke a dozen laws getting here at top speed. From the passenger seat, I’ve called and texted Kai so many times I’ve lost count. No response, unless I count that as her response.
“I have to try, Gep.”
“Are you sure she’s even here?” He scans the twenty to thirty photographers between the parking lot and Kai’s apartment door.
“No, but I see San’s car, so I know he is.”
“Okay, on the count of three then.”
I nod, pulling the bill of my Dodgers cap as low as it will go, obscuring as much of my face as possible. Gep blocks as many shots and flashes as he can with his bulk, but he can’t block the questions hurled at me like grenades.
“What did you and Kai fight about?”
“Have you talked to her?”
“Is it over between you two?”
I tune the questions out, focusing instead on putting one foot in front of the other until I reach the door. I ring the doorbell and wait along with everyone else to see if I’ll get in. When there’s no response, I bang on the door twice, three times, four. Thankfully, before I move to the pathetic, “Rocky” stage of yelling Kai’s name hoarsely from the street, the door cracks open, tethered by the chain. San peeks out at me. This is some door déjà vu.
“Let me in, San. I need to talk to Kai.”
“Oh, because that has gone so well since the last time I let you in.” San shakes his head. “Don’t think so.”
I grit my teeth and check my natural asshole reflex. He sees me standing out here in a hurricane with not even an umbrella, but he’s gonna give me shit right now? Antagonizing San will not get me to Kai. He’s the gatekeeper.
“San, please.” I humble my voice, keeping it low so the vultures behind me don’t hear any more than necessary.
“You stole her shot, you son of a bitch,” San spits through the crack. “Do you have any idea how many years she worked for that moment? And you just took it away because, what? You couldn’t do without the pussy for six weeks?”
Gatekeeper or not, he’s gonnna get punched in the face when I get on the other side of this door. My hands have been insured since I was six years old, and today’s as good as any to test the policy.
“San, I was protecting her.” I keep my voice reasonable, even though blood pistons through my veins. “You gotta believe me. Just let me in so I can explain.”
San looks me in the eye for a few seconds before nodding and taking the chain off. I slip in fast, leaving Gep with his back to the door until I’m done.
I don’t even bother making good on my fantasy of punching San. I’m too anxious to get to Kai. I jet down the hall to her room, half expecting the door to be locked, but again it opens right up.
But unlike last time, she’s not there.
I look around the room, studying the boxes she had packed to move in with me. We were so close. I could strangle John Malcolm. I will find a way to make him pay. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I see that now. I was controlling and manipulative and all the things Kai accused me of. And, yes, I got it honest. I’m my parents’ spawn, but I thought I was protecting her. Ironically, my last sight of her was Malcolm holding the exit door for her, probably driving her home or wherever she is right now. So, where are they?
“Where is she?”
“She’s gone.” San leans against the doorjamb, considering the stacks of Sharpie-marked boxes lining the walls.
“Gone where?” I scowl so hard my face hurts. “What do you mean she’s gone?”
“You’ll find out anyway.” San straightens, walking farther into the room and sitting on Kai’s bed. “She’s gone on tour.”
“What tour?” My heart is an eagle in a birdcage, panicked and trapped. “What are you . . . I don’t . . . explain.”
“Apparently, they filled the spot you made sure Kai didn’t get on Total Package.” San gives me a dirty look. “But Malcolm had other ideas for Kai.”
I just bet he did. Serpent.
“Go on.” I stand with my back against the wall, but my composure is slipping and sliding down its surface, already on the floor.
“He wants Kai to open for Luke’s tour.”
What the hell?
“But she’s not ready for that.” At San’s evil look, I clarify. “I don’t mean talent-wise, I mean, she doesn’t have a set or anything ready. How would that work?”
“Oh, John had a plan. It’s a three-month tour. The opening act is only booked for the first few weeks. During that time, Kai will sing background vocals in the shows, but she will work on her own set too so by the time the opening act leaves, she’ll have her own set together and be ready to open.”
I push away from the wall, pacing the small bedroom, shoving my hands through my hair.
“This is exactly the kind of thing I was afraid of. Malcolm works his talent to death. Luke almost collapsed last year.”
“Luke seems fine to me. He’s got a top twenty album and a world tour starting.”
If you’ve never been the person pimped out for your gift, so exhausted you wished you didn’t even have it so you can rest, you don’t know what it’s like.
“It’s not that simple, San.” I start toward the door. “I’ve got to—”
He blocks me. The motherfucker blocks me.
“Get outta my way, San,” I say, voice low and hard.
“Do you love Kai?”
What does he think this is about? What kind of dumb question is that?
“You know I do.”
“We have the video on Spotted’s site. Sorry, but seventy-four-year-old grandmas can watch it on Facebook, so of course we have it.”
His point?
“You can’t make out everything Kai says, thank goodness,” San continues. “But I distinctly heard her say that what you did is the exact opposite of love. She told me about it when she came to grab her things, and I agree.”
“Kai knows I love her. She knows—”
“You need to let her go do this.”
“I can’t.”
I shake my head vigorously. The selfish part of me intrudes. I can’t risk her well-being with that snake Malcolm, but I also can’t be separated from her for three months.
“I know Kai loves you, but I think if you don’t let her do what she wanted to do in the first place, make her own way, you’ll lose her for good.”
I hate the ring of truth his words carry. Every muscle and cell in my body strains to tear this city apart until I find her. Until I find Malcolm and can rip into his fleshy face, but somewhere in my heart, the part of me that knows Kai best and feels her deepest, I know San’s right. And it’s from that part that I draw my resolve.
“Could you give me a few minutes?” I ask quietly.
My eyes are trained on the cheap carpet, but I feel San’s eyes on me for long moments before he leaves, closing the door behind him. I sink to the bed I got to share with her only once. I rarely even came this far back in their tiny apartment. Most of our friendship developed in the front seat of my car, skulking around in disguise when I picked her up from The Note. In her living room, on her lumpy couch quoting movies and watching fifteen-year-old television shows, talking sometimes until the sun came up.
The spotlight has sought me most of my life, and I have often shied away. Kai’s been steadily making her way toward center stage, one step forward, two steps back, since she was a little girl. We’ve wanted exactly the same thing, and exactly different things our whole lives.
Our friendship, our love is so unlikely. How we even met, a fluke. I’ve been a star so long, I’m like the Big Dipper, a fixture above, there every night for eons. Kai is this supernova, propelled and rising. Or a shooting star, fighting for hang time. And somehow, implausibly, we crashed into one another. Beautifully, passionately, soulfully crashed, burning bright and hot for everyone below, pointing and gawking at our stellar spectacle.
I look around the room, scrubbed free of her. The pictures of her mother and Aunt Ruthie have been stripped from the walls and surfaces. The closet is like a small, empty tomb, none of her jeans or dresses or vintage nightshirts to be seen. She’s not anywhere to be found, and I need something of her to get through this next three months.
I use my key to open a box marked “DRESSER.” Some of her clothes are neatly folded and packed, and I’m immediately assaulted with the scent of pear and cinnamon. Just that bit of her wafting up from a cardboard box is enough to have me blinking back damn tears.
Despite what San said about her loving me and letting her go being my only chance of getting her back, I have no assurances. Three months is a long time, and this industry has a way of changing people beyond recognition. A lot can happen on the road. Look at Jimmi and me. At home, fucking her wouldn’t have even occurred to me, but the road makes strange bedfellows. I know for a fact that Dub is choreographing Luke’s tour. He’ll be there every step of Kai’s journey that I’m missing out on. That ups the stakes. That bastard won’t hesitate to take advantage of the next three months I’m separated from Kai. How do I know, in her hurt, in her anger, she won’t turn to him?
I don't.
I’m risking the best damn thing I’ve ever had. Forget my musical ability, my career, and my ambition. What has that gotten me but trapped in here alone with more money than I’ll ever spend and a pack of hungry wolves salivating at the door? The last months I had with Kai were more real than anything, so real I was desperate to never lose it and made the biggest mistake of my life. I ruined it, and just like my parents lost me, I’ve lost her. She has emancipated from me, but I’m not free of her. I’m still chained to her, body and soul.
The last time I felt this broken, Grady found me vomiting and shaking on the floor of my tree house, trying to break myself free of Xanax. It was Christmas Eve. It was the beginning of the end, and it was the beginning of the beginning. It was hard, but it was worth it. I can only hope this will be the same.
I go to refold the box when I notice a small, sheer bag filled with hundreds of pale pink glass shards. The pieces are so fractured I wouldn’t know what the figure had once been if a piece, a ballerina slipper, hadn’t remained intact. I don’t know the exact significance of this little bag, but it must be important to Kai, and that makes it important to me. As if I haven’t already transgressed enough against her, I slip the bag into my front pocket. I’m walking out of here with at least a piece of her. It’s only right since she’s somewhere right now, and she has all of me.
THE END
Keep reading for a sneak peek into Soul Series Book 2,
DOWN TO MY SOUL, coming March 2016!
DOWN TO MY SOUL
Add to Goodreads!
THAT WEARINESS DOING WHAT YOU LOVE kind of loses its novelty around the second week of eighteen-hour days. Dub and I expend so much energy working on my opening act for the second leg of the tour, I barely have energy for the tour each night. It’s just singing easy BGV parts for Luke’s show. When Luke performs his hit single, I join him onstage to simulate the lap dance from the video. It’s a show-stopper.
The whole plan is getting me lots of face time, lots of exposure. It’s a brilliant strategy, but it’s wearing me down. I can’t let on though. I don’t want Mr. Malcolm to think I can’t pull this off. I can. I’ve waited too long for this. Nothing will get in my way. Certainly not my own body.
I keep hearing Rhyson’s warning about John Malcolm. It’s galling that I kind of already see what he means. Mr. Malcolm’s not tyrannical, but he definitely focuses on the bottom line, and requires the talent to do whatever it takes to meet it.
It’s been a week since Rhyson called or texted me. We have a fifteen-minute break from rehearsal, so I sit on the stage step and pull out my phone to look at his last text. It was a long one, but I almost have it memorized, I’ve read it so many times. It starts, of course, with a movie quote.
Rhyson: So I’m single now, and everything’s changed. I hate it.”—Say Anything
I know you’re mad at me. It was a dick move. I know that, but don’t give up on us, Pep. San told me you’re on tour for three months. I’ve started my tour too. We can take this time to clear our heads and do what we need to do, but you know I can’t let you go. Please don’t see me not coming after you as giving up. When you get back, you have to give me another chance. You have to. I thought I was doing what was best for you. I wanted to protect you. I’m sorry I went about it the wrong way. Please forgive me, and PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! You know I don’t trust John Malcolm, but this is a great opportunity, so kill it. Your whole life is about to change, because when the world sees what I see, they won’t be able to get enough of you. I can’t. Don’t forget I’m yours and you’re mine. I LIVE you.
I’m reading the last line when a new text comes in.
My heart patters in case it’s him. Stupid heart. After all he did—the manipulation, the deception, the out and out betrayal—a chain still hooks my heart and Rhyson’s, stretching from wherever I am to wherever he is in the world. I have no idea how to break it. When it comes down to it, in spite of everything, I’m not sure I want to.
The text is not from him. It’s an unknown number. Odd.
There’s a link, and I open it, which is probably stupid, but I’m curious. It’s to a Spotted post detailing our very public fight. And breakup. Okay. Old news. Even my tourmates have stopped looking at me funny by now. Their curiosity has waned, and thank God, so has the public’s.
Another text comes in.
Unknown: You and Rhyson Gray don’t belong together. I advise you to keep things this way.
What the hell?
Me: Who is this?
Unknown: Don’t worry about who I am. Worry about what I have.
A video file comes over. This can’t be good. Finger hovering over the screen, I tap the file. Sounds of loud panting and grunting come from my phone. Two naked bodies in profile, a man and a woman, fucking hard, doggy-style. The man at the back turns his head to grin right into the camera like he’s giving the performance of his life. My heart skids to a halt, burning rubber and slamming on the brakes in my chest. Horror and disgust war in my belly, churning dark emotion until it leaks out through my sweaty palms and under my arms. I can’t process what I’m seeing. How did he . . . how could it . . . It can’t be. The handsome face smeared with a devil grin is Drex. Even though I know it’s not possible, I feel like those malevolent eyes are looking right at me—taunting and toying with me.
My brain is still catching up to what my eyes are seeing, when I focus on the woman. She’s on all fours, her face forward and turned away, but I know her. I see the words hugging her ribs. Lost in the iniquitous sight, buried in the lusty sounds, the prayer looks out of place.
My soul to keep.
As if I needed further confirmation, the woman turns her head just enough for me to see her face clearly. I’m ashamed of my face, looking so much like my mother in a situation she would never have allowed to compromise her.
I tap the screen to stop the video, doing a frantic sweep of the stage to see if anyone heard or saw. Sweat covers my body, slicking my palms and dampening my forehead. My heart rages and rattles inside of me. My hands tremble so badly I drop the phone.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.
On the brink of my big break, the girl who wanted no distractions, could be ruined by the biggest distraction of all.
A sex tape.
But it’s not the buying public I consider, who’d probably be titillated and maybe even more intrigued than ever. It’s not the good people of Glory Falls Baptist, who’d be scandalized to see Mai’s little girl getting herself plowed from behind. It isn’t Aunt Ruthie, who might not judge, but would probably never see me quite the same way. It’s none of those people, none of those responses that strike fear right down the center of my heart.
It’s Rhyson.
He wouldn’t even hear the details of what went on with Drex. How would he handle seeing it in dirty, living color? Could he ever scrub his mind completely free of it? Would it change how he saw me? How he loved me? Even if he said it wouldn’t?
All these weeks I thought his transgression was the thing that might irreparably break us.
Turns out it may be mine.
I'm a wife, a mom, a writer, an advocate for families living with autism. That's me in a nutshell. Crack the nut, and you'll find a Southern girl gone Southern California who loves pizza and Diet Coke, and wishes she got to watch a lot more television. You can usually catch me up too late, on social media too much, or FINALLY putting a dent in my ever-growing To Be Read list!
Let’s stay in touch!
Facebook | Newsletter | Twitter
Instagram | Email | Book Group
Amazon
When You Are Mine
Loving You Always
Be Mine Forever
And coming February 2, 2016 . . .
Until I’m Yours
The world knows her face . . .
Mean girl. Goddess. Bitch. Supermodel Sofie Baston has earned those labels . . . yet they don't scratch the surface of who she really is. Before she can follow her own dreams, Sophie must do her daughterly duty and reel in a "fish" for her father's business-a tall, brown-eyed entrepreneur who immediately hooks her. He's a big guy with an even bigger heart . . . but will that heart be open to Sofie once her darkest secret is revealed?
. . . but only one man knows her heart
To Trevor Bishop, Sofie is a beautiful mystery he would gladly spend his life solving. He figures her tough demeanor is armor against a world that's hurt her too many times. Then Sofie's deepest wounds are reopened by the powerful, ruthless man who made them. When she musters the courage to take him down, her world shatters. Now Trevor is determined to help Sofie pick up the pieces so they can build a future together. The challenge will be convincing his ice princess that it's safe to melt in his arms . . .
Here’s a “first look” from Bennett #4, UNTIL I’M YOURS
FIRST SIGHT—Trevor
The Big Apple. The city that never sleeps. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
“How long are we here again?” I glance out the cab window and up at the flock of billboards flying overhead in the Times Square airspace, a confetti skyline swirled with Technicolor and kinetic lights.
“Three months, give or take,” my assistant Henrietta says, not looking up from her phone.
I already miss my house in Atlanta. Despite all the miles I log flying all over the world, I’m a Southern boy at heart. A city like Atlanta makes an excellent home base for me. A world-class city with the charm and sensibility of a much smaller town. When I’m in New York, I feel on edge, like the Big Apple is taking a bite out of me. It’s not an easy place to negotiate. It’s a city bursting with possibility and creativity, but it requires a certain amount of armor. Feeling that way for three months . . .
“We’re lucky to have your sister’s place while we’re here.” Harold, my business partner and best friend of fifteen years, looks at our schedule on his iPad. “We have so many meetings at the UN this month. All the companies interested in buying us out are here in New York. We have several galas in the city over the next few weeks. Just makes sense not to keep going back and forth; just make this our base for a little bit.”
“Yeah, at least we’ll be staying in Brooklyn.” I lean an elbow on the cab window, considering the changing digital billboards while we’re stopped at a traffic light. “Downtown gives me a seizu—”
The word freezes on my tongue when one advertisement in particular catches my attention. Or should I say the model does. Her name is nowhere on the ad, but it doesn’t need to be. Sofie Baston’s been one of the most recognizable faces in the world for more than a decade.
She’s naked. Even though she’s stretched out flat on her stomach with her chin propped on her hands, breasts pressed to the floor, she’s obviously naked. Her hair, famously silver and gold, is ruthlessly scraped back, exposing the flawless bone structure. It’s rare to see someone like her wearing no make-up at all, but her face is completely bare. Matter of fact, the product she’s promoting is called BARE.
BARE: Skin care so good you’ll have nothing to hide.
She’s naked, no cosmetics at all, and yet her eyes make a lie of that tag line. She’s utterly exposed, and though her green eyes are the clearest I’ve ever seen, they yield nothing.
“You were saying?” Harold wears a knowing grin, glancing from my face to the billboard before it swipes to the next product being advertised. “I hope you’ll be less obvious when we meet her in person tonight, Bishop.”
“Tonight?” I frown. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s Ernest Baston’s daughter,” Henritta pipes in, eyes still fastened to her phone. Sometimes I think she has eyes in the back of her head under that ponytail. “She’ll be at the Bennett charity dinner tonight. They’re at your table, if I’m not mistaken.”
I look back to the billboard even though a different image has taken its place. I still see her as vividly as when she stared back at me with those guarded green eyes.
Even when we’re several blocks away and have started discussing our upcoming trip to Cambodia, I’m still wondering how a girl naked on the side of a building managed to hide in show nothing at all.
