High Risk Love (21 page)

Emotions swelled in my soul, my heart—a fierce determination that I would
not
let this world take from me what I wanted. I would fight for it until my dying breath and if that meant I broke my heart on the shattered pieces of my dreams then so be it. So be it.

I laid my hands into the piano and brought the music crashing into the house, demanding to be heard. My voice carried the tunes as if I’d never stopped practicing, belting out the lyrics through the tears and the anger. Anger at myself this time, for letting the fears instilled in me rule, anger that I had been so blind. I cried for the girl who lost her family, who lost her way; I cried for the girl who’d let her fear keep her from a man she’d almost fallen for. Cried for what could have been, if he’d been a better man.

Hours passed and I finally eased back, my throat and voice raw, my arms and back aching. But it was a good ache, a good feeling. Like I’d purged some of the darkness, and had found a pinprick of light in the distance.

The house was dark and still again, but the hollow feeling had faded, had lifted with my decision.

Jittery with excitement, I rushed around the house, packing the things I would need. Demo tapes with me and Ryan on them, his guitar, which I could play passably well, sheet music we’d been writing together. What else would I need?

Clothes, of course.

The front door creaked open and Lily called out to me. “I can’t leave you alone like this, sad and . . . what the hell are you doing?”

I was standing in my closet, clothes strewn about as I picked through my outfits. “I was wrong, Lily, I was wrong. Ryan was right damn it. I’m going after my dream. I’m going to sing if it kills me.”

Her face lit up and she squealed, dancing around me. Then it dimmed as she frowned at the clothes on the floor. “Wait, where are you going? You can’t leave; you have a house here.”

“I’ll sell it. I’m calling the real estate agent next. I don’t have to be here for that to happen.” I threw a few more shirts into my last suitcase, an ugly brown one I hated, but it would have to do; my other one was still in Mexico with a broken zipper.

Her face screwed up and she burst into tears.

“Lily, what’s wrong?” I hugged her to me, feeling her body shake and shudder.

“I don’t want to be alone again. I can’t lose you too.” God, she was the echo of me.

“I didn’t want to assume anything,” I said. “But I thought maybe you’d want to come with me. I know what you want to do, what you really want to do, and we can both chase our dreams this way.”

Sniffing back her tears, she looked up at me, her blue eyes huge and round. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Nervous, but excited, terrified and hopeful all at once, I nodded, mimicking Rodney’s voice—even though it would mean nothing to Lily, it made me smile.

“Hollywood, baby.”

Jet

H
er house was empty and dark, the “for sale” sign out front confirming my fears. This was my fault; I’d put her in a position where she’d lost her job, had to sell her brother’s car and now had to sell her house. Her phone had been shut off, another bad sign.

How the hell was I supposed to find her?

I stared in the windows of the house, wondered if there was any way . . . I spun slowly to look at the real estate sign.

Bingo.

The real estate agent was there in less than ten minutes to let me into Jasmin’s house. The agent looked old enough to be my grandmother, and I worried that maybe Jasmin would get taken by some person looking for a quick flip with this old lady on her side. She followed me, close on my heels, pointing out the features of the house: the acoustics, the original hardwood floors, the curved archways. I stopped and she bumped into me.

“I’d like to get a feel for the place. Is it okay if I walk around on my own?” I asked.

She smiled, her face crinkling up with pleasure. “Sure, sure, I’ll just wait in the kitchen for you then, rest my corns.”

Jasmin, wherever she’d gone, hadn’t taken much. The furniture, sparse as it was, looked well-worn, lived in. Not the stuff you’d see for staging a house to make it more saleable. No, these were her things. Hers and her brother’s.

The piano drew me; I slid my hands along the ivory keys, knowing she’d played them, she’d touched them. Through the house I wandered, seeing her touches everywhere. The pictures on the walls were all hers, stunning photos that showed her skill, her eye for drawing the best out of her subjects.

Into the back bedroom I went, stumbling to a stop. Jasmin’s room was the smaller of the two bedrooms, but it was all hers. The bed was made, tidy and neat, no knick knacks on her dressers or side table. Yellow comforter on the four-poster bed, some gauzy material draped between the posts. There were no posters on the wall, just more pictures that had her touch on them. An older woman who had her smile and eyes, Jasmin’s mom. Family pictures in every stage of life. I moved around the room, seeing her grow up right in front of me.

The room smelled like her, the perfume she wore. I moved to the bed and sat down, feeling the fatigue set in.

What was I doing here? Did I really think I had a chance with her?

The real estate agent’s shoes clopped down the hallway. She peered in the room, smiled at me. “What do you think?”

“I like it. Why is the owner selling?”

She clucked her tongue. “I sold her this house, her and her brother.” She shuffled into the room and sat on the bed beside me, and patted my leg, then left her hand there. If she’d been much younger I’d have thought she was coming on to me.

“Thing is,” she went on. “Her brother died. Six months or so ago; I went to the funeral. Lordy, was that the saddest thing I ever did see. She sang for him, near on made the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. So beautiful, so wasteful, the loss of young life.” She shook her head and stared into space.

I bounced on the bed a little to wake her up. “What does that have to do with her selling the house?”

“Oh, well, she’s off to sing professional-like. Gone to Hollywood, took her little friend with her. I hope she don’t get eaten up by the sharks there. Not a place for naive girls to be on their own.” She squeezed my thigh.

I stood up fast and the mattress bobbed, sending the old agent tumbling to one side with a merry cackle. “Lad, if you want to be tumbling me to get a better deal I’ll tell you now it won’t work, though you’d be welcome to try.” She righted herself and gave me a wink. “Ah, don’t look so scared, I’m kidding you.”

“Thanks for the tour. If you get any serious offers on the house, please call me. I’m interested. I just have a few others to look at.” The words spilled out of me as fast as I could get them to go. Panic settled in on me.

Hollywood. Jasmin was in Hollywood?

Jasmin

H
ugh scooped me up into a bear hug, much to Lily’s amusement.

“What the hell, woman!” He roared, bouncing me around like a rag doll.

“Hugh,” I gasped in between bounces. “You’re going to give me whiplash, put me down!”

Lily rolled her eyes as he put me on the ground, and did a double take for her. “Well, at least I know you have beautiful friends.”

“Yes, Hugh. This is Lily. Try not to scare her, will you?”

He shook her hand and she smiled at him, but pointedly looked away after a second. No surprise there.

Sheer luck and timing was all I could chalk up to Hugh crossing our path. There was no way he’d have known I was here. Within minutes of me and Lily going into the bar, Hugh had spotted me, his eyes flying open so wide I thought they might actually fall out of his head.

“What are you doing here, are you here to see Jet? Maybe doing some naked making up?”

Lily grimaced and answered for me. “They most certainly are not. He’s an asshole, and she doesn’t date assholes. And for the record, neither do I.”

“Lily.” I touched her arm. “Would you go get me a couple bottles of water?”

She gave a sniff and spun on her heel toward the bar.

Hugh watched her go. “She’s a bit hot in the panties, isn’t she?”

“Sorry about that.”

He put a hand on the table we’d been sitting at. “What happened?”

I gave him the quick and dirty version. “Jet slept with Tina and then yelled at me because he thought I’d told someone a secret he’d shared with me. I didn’t, but he assumed I had. Then he beat the hell out of Reggie, knocked him out cold. The end.”

“I’d heard about him fighting with Reggie, didn’t know it was with you there. But . . . he slept with Tina, are you sure?” His face contorted like he’d gotten a lemon wedged in the back of his throat. “Shit, you must have scared him good.”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”

Hugh gave me a soft smile and covered my hand with his. “That’s just it. You didn’t want anything from him, did you?”

I frowned, thoroughly confused. “I don’t understand.”

“Listen, do me a huge favor—ginormous, biggest favor in the world. I will owe you beyond owing you.” He batted his eyes at me.

I let out a sigh. “What?”

“When he shows up, and begs you to give him another chance. At least talk to him.”

The DJ for the night was at the microphone, and I licked my lips, nerves squirreling through my body. “No, I don’t think so, even if I thought it would happen. He scared me, Hugh. It was like he was a different person, not the Jet I knew. How could he beat Reggie up like that, without holding back even a little? He’s his mentor, someone I thought he respected. ”

“Listen, that’s all water under the bridge, they’ll work it out if they haven’t already. I’ve never seen him lose it that bad over someone before, and sure as hell not a girl. Ever. He’s always held himself together, but with you, it’s like he can’t help himself.”

I didn’t want to hear this. “If you talk to him” —I leaned toward him and touched his ear, giving it a light twist— “you don’t say a word to him about running into me. Got it?”

He held three fingers to his head, but his eyes were sad. “Scouts honor.”

And then I was moving toward the microphone, guitar in hand. I’d called every contact Ryan had in his book, and they’d all said the same thing. If I wanted to crack into the business, a good place to be was at the Twice Bitten Bar’s open mic night. Open to any and all singers, and if you could get in and get on the stage, you had a chance. From what Ryan’s contacts told me, the bartender had the numbers of several music producers and if anyone showed any talent, he called them up and they’d come listen. But only if you were good. I swallowed hard, pushed the nausea back.

This was it.

Lily ran up to me and handed me a bottle of water. “You can do this. Just sing for Ryan.”

I got up on the stage, sat down in front of the microphone and waited as the music came on. I didn’t sing for Ryan though; I sang for myself.

The music was everything in that moment and it stole my hurt, hid my fears, even as it opened me up and left me raw. Everything I had, everything I was, I poured into the song until there was nothing left to give. The last note, pitched low and keening, left my mouth and I held it, long past the music ending.

Head bowed, I waited for the audience to react. Silence curled around me and I brought my head up, afraid of what I would see.

No one moved; no one seemed to breathe. Had it been that bad, or that good?

I moved to get off the stage—I was banking on it being that bad—when the first person started to clap, then in a rush the entire bar exploded into cheering and whistling, and I was pushed back onto the stage for an encore.

Grinning, I took the microphone and sang one of Ryan’s songs a cappella, a song he’d written as he laid in a hospital bed, dying. He’d written it for himself, but it was mine too, the story the same. The fear of death, the fear of loss, everything I knew in my life.

Death comes for us all

In tiny little drops, stealing us away

Cell by cell, breath by breath

From the dreams of life as they fade

We fight, we scream, we pray for respite

But death comes for us all

Stealing life, stealing life

Only one thing remains, the spark

A piercing star in the darkness

Bringing us home to a place where our hearts

Beat faster, cleaner, purer, the strength of passion

A dream.

A hope.

A love that holds us, embraced in the belief for a moment

That death does not come for us all.

In tiny little drops, stealing us away

Cell by cell, breath by breath

From the dreams of life as they sing our dreams

We laugh, we love, we pray

Death does not come for us all

Again, silence reigned for heartbeats after I finished, and again I was kept on the stage, much to the disgruntlement of the next person in line.

The night wore on, and I covered popular songs, old songs, Ryan’s songs. Ryan’s songs evoked the emotion from the crowd, and more than once, I saw people wiping their eyes. Finally, I begged off and was allowed a break. Lily rushed me, grabbing my hands, jumping around me, squealing like a teenager at her first concert.

“Oh. My. God. You were AMAZING!”

Laughing, I tugged her toward our table, my legs wobbly like I’d been drinking tequila again. “I need to get some more water, Lily.”

“I’ll get it for you.” Jet’s voice curled around me and I spun, staring up into his golden eyes, and for a moment it was like we’d never fought.

Lily tugged at my hand. “You know this guy?”

I swallowed hard, trying to find my voice, which should have been easy, but wasn’t. “This is Jet Sterling.”

“This is who?” Lily asked, her tone telling me she’d heard me just fine.

Jet’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “Nice to meet you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to Jazzy.”

Lily erupted. “Don’t you ever call her that, you asshole! You lying, cheating, piece of shit!”