Moving Forward (Moving Neutral, Book Three) (24 page)

Chapter Fifty-Five

As we climbed into Tanner’s convertible, he filled me in on the rest of the morning.  As soon as he’d come in with the song, something seemed off.

“They obviously already knew about it,” he said, pressing the blinker and turning onto the highway.  “I just assumed the producers would have kept it a surprise, but no one batted an eye when I told them I had a song to try out.”

“They probably knew the moment we started writing it,” I said, thinking about the hours we’d put into it.  From the second that I’d rung Tanner’s doorbell, it was already over.

“Yeah,” Tanner agreed.  “But I didn’t
realize a thing.  I gave April the lyrics and we ran through it once, so they could get a feel for it, and then Sophie riffed a little bit off of what we’d done,” he sighed.  “Honestly, it sounded great.  But I guess that doesn’t really matter.”

“It matters,”
I scowled.  “It matters to me.”

Tanner shot me a half smile.  “It matters to me too.  The song is really, really good,” he paused.  “Too bad it’ll never see the light of day.”

I leaned back, discouraged.  “So then what?”

“We played it a few times, did some tweaking for a couple of hours.  I figured they were just getting some footage they could use for the show, the song didn’t need a lot of work.  And then April stopped everyone.”

“I think that’s when I came in,” I said quietly.  “I heard the rest.”

Tanner shrugged.  “If not now, you would have seen it on tv in a few weeks anyways.”   He paused for a second, giving me a sideways glance.  “What were you doing there, anyways?”

I glanced towards him, confused.  “You sent the car for me?”

“I what?”

“You sent the car, to pick me up at the hotel.  I went out for lunch and when I got back, the driver had already been waiting for an hour, but I didn’t have my phone and—”

Tanner switched lanes, heading for the exit.  “Hang on, Snow.  I didn’
t send a car to pick you up.”

“It was waiting for me at the hotel, and they took me straight to the studio.”

“Well, it wasn’t from me.  I thought we’d decided that you wouldn’t come?”

“We did.  I figured it had gone so well that you’d changed your mind.”

Tanner laughed, pulling off the highway and driving down a side street.  “The eternal optimist,” he grinned.  “Nope, I didn’t know you were there till I saw you in the lobby.”

“Well… i
f you didn’t send it, then who did?”

Tanner pulled into his driveway, shutting of the ignition.  “I don’t know,” he mused, opening his door.  “Someone wanted you there, I guess.  It definitely wasn’t me.  No offense,” he grinned.

“None taken,” I followed Tanner to the door.  Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.  “Hang on,” I said, grabbing Tanner’s arm.  “What time is it?”

He glanced down at his phone.  “Almost five, wh—shit.”

We were supposed to be having drinks with Tanner’s agent in five minutes.

“Should we cancel?”

He shook his head, pulling me in close.  “In case you’ve forgotten already, I’m newly unemployed.  I need them more than ever.”

Tanner slid an arm around my waist, his cheek gliding over my neck, just under my ear. 

“Too bad,” he whispered, sending shivers down my back.  “I thought maybe you could try to make me feel better,” his voice was low and deep.  “I’ve had such a rough day so far.”

I bit my lip, smiling.  “You have a one-track mind, you know that?”

“Only when you’re around,” he pulled me closer. 

I slid out of Tanner’s grasp.  “Well, I’
m happy to cancel,” I bluffed, taking a step towards Tanner’s door.  I kept my voice light and casual.  “Hey, maybe if you’re unemployed, you could apply to college.”

Tanner groaned.  “Okay, we’ll
go,” he grinned, pulling out his keys.  “Before I wind up a washed up former rock star in a dorm room, like — oh, wait, like your last boyfriend.”

“That’s not nice.”

“Nah, but you wouldn’t believe how good it feels to say it,” he grinned.  “Ok, let’s get a move on.  We’ve got two and a half minutes to make it to Santa Monica.”

Chapter Fifty-Six

Justin and the redhead from the meeting were in the restaurant by the time we arrived, sitting at a table in the front and center of the already-crowded bar. 

It wasn’t where I would have picked, but I figured that some paparazzi shots of me and Tanner probably weren’t the worst idea today.

Tanner handed his keys to the valet and followed me inside, waving over my shoulder at their table. 

“So,” he grinned, pulling out my chair.  “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”

Justin looked at him sympathetically.  “I bet we would,” he said, his voice lowered.  “We got a call from Paragon an hour ago.”

“Nice,” Tanner sighed.  “Not so early that you could have warned me, but early enough that they could put their own spin on it.  Very calculated.”

Justin nodded.  “That’s exactly what I was thinking.  Want to tell me what really happened?  I know you wouldn’t seriously take on a competing project.”

My shoulders tensed, and I opened my mouth to interject and then stopped myself. 

A competing project
?  That was a flat-out lie.  If that was what the record label was saying Tanner had done…

“No,” Tanner’s voice was irritated but calm.  “I didn
’t take on a competing project, of course not.  Moving Neutral needed a song, and Casey and I stayed up all night trying to write one for them.”

The redhead’s ears perked up.  “You and Casey?  You guys wrote a song?” 

She looked like this was more interesting than Moving Neutral.  For a second I wanted to tell her to focus, but I stayed out of it.  A waitress came over to our table, and I ordered a coke for me and a glass of scotch for Tanner. 

“Yeah,” Tanner sighed.  “I walked right into it, I guess.  April and everyone came over last night with this sob story about how we needed a single right this moment, for the finale of the show.  So Casey and I thought we’
d see what we could do.  We wrote it last night, for Moving Neutral — the cameras caught the whole thing.”

“And that’s the competing project?” Justin asked.

“That’s what they said.  I’m not allowed to work with anyone but them, I guess.  Can they do that?”

Justin frowned.  “Maybe.  We’ll probably want a lawyer to talk through it.  I’m not sure I know enough to answer, but it smells like bullshit to me.”

“Even if it is, it doesn’t get me back in the band,” Tanner said.  “It just gets me money, right?”

“
Probably,” Justin said.  “But don’t underestimate the value of the money we’re talking about here.”

My eyes darted between him and Tanner nervously. 

“I won’t,” Tanner said, reaching for the glass of scotch the moment that the waitress set it on the table.  “But it doesn’t help me figure out what I’m going to do in the meantime.”

“Well,” the redhead broke in.  “Just throwing this out there, but… is the song any good?”

“It’s good—” I opened my mouth to say it just as the same words came out of Tanner’s mouth.  “Jinx,” I smiled at him.

“It’s really good,” Tanner said.  “We played it through a few times before they sent me to the chopping block.  It sounded great.”

“So you have a song, and a guitarist, and… a singer, right?”  Her eyes sparkled as she turned towards me.  “Casey, isn’t this just what you were telling us you wanted to do?  Write your own music?  Work with an established guitarist?”

I blinked.  A million thoughts raced through my head.  “You want
me
to record it?”

She held up her hands.  “I’m just throwing it out as a possibility.  But, no, I guess I’d say that I want you
both
to record it.”

I looked at Tanner for a second,
trying to gauge his reaction. 

“We, uh…” he looked at me nervously.  “We hadn’t talked about it.”

“Of course,” Justin’s expression was seriously.  “But I was thinking the same thing.  This could be an interesting move for both of you.”  He paused.  “And it’s an easy one to market.  Everyone’s watching to see what Casey will do next, and in about a day or two, they’ll be doing the same thing with you, Tanner.  If you had something ready to go…”

“
We—” I squeaked.  “We have to think about it.”

“Yeah,” Tanner said, resting
his hand on my knee.  “It’s a thought.  But we’re not deciding anything right now.”

Justin and the redhead exchanged a look.  I tried to ignore the smiles they were trying to conceal.  There were a hundred things I had to think about, and this was just one more to add to the list.

Chapter
Fifty-Seven

An hour later, I forced Tanner to drop me off at the hotel, so he could go home and get some sleep. 

“Maybe you should come over and get some ‘sleep’ too, Snow.  You’re looking awfully exhausted to me,” he grinned.

“I think I’m too much of a distraction,” I grinned.  “Maybe if you could control yourself around me better, I’d consider it.”

“No deal,” Tanner grinned.  “See you tomorrow, then.”

“See you tomorrow.” 

I hesitated, and then leaned over and kissed him.  Tanner sighed, twisting a lock of my hair in his finger.  “You sure you don’t want to…”

“I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day,” I smiled.  “Get some rest, Tanner.  Then we can figure out where to go from here.”

He sighed, and then let me climb out of the car.  I shut the passenger door behind me, and watched for a moment as he put the car in gear.

“Oh, Miss Snow?”  I turned around and recognized the same concierge from earlier in the afternoon. 

“Oh, hi,” I said, looking over at him as Tanner’s taillights turned out of the hotel’s driveway.  “Sorry again about earlier, with the car.”

“Oh, it’s not a problem,” he said, still looking at me nervously.  “It’s just that… well, this is a strange day for us.  It’s just that you have a guest waiting for you in your room.”

I looked at him, confused.  “A guest?”

              “Normally we would never allow someone into the room without your permission, I want to make sure you know that,” he said quickly.  “But in this case, we thought that this particular person would be better served by waiting somewhere more… private.”

I blinked, trying to understand what he was telling me.  “It’s someone… high profile?”

He nodded vigorously.  “Exactly.”

I gave him a confuse
d smile.  “I’m sure you did the right thing.  I’ll go up there now.”

He looked visibly relieved.  “We tried to reach your cell phone, but no one was picking up.”

“I left it in the room,” I reassured him.  “Really, it’s no big deal.  Thanks for letting me know.”

The man smiled.  “
Of course.  Please let me know if you need anything else during your stay with us, Miss Snow.”

“Casey,” I smiled.  “No, than
ks so much.”

He opened the door for me as I walked into the lobby
. 

I
walked across the room quickly, pressing the button for my floor and fumbling in my bag for the key card.  A moment later, I pressed the card up to the lock, waiting what seemed like forever for the little light to turn green. 

Gripping the handle, I pushed open the door,
not sure what I was about to find inside.

“
Hello—”

I stopped mid-sentence as my voice dried up in my throat.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered, as the door shut softly behind me.

S
itting on the couch across the room, Blake Parker looked back at me with shining blue eyes.

“Hey, Case,”
he said quietly.  “We have a lot to talk about.”

Chapter
Fifty-Eight

I opened my mouth and then shut it again, taking a step into the room and sitting lightly on the side of the bed.

“The hotel let me in,” Blake said, looking at me nervously. 

“How did you—” A hundred questions rushed through my head, but I settled on the least important.  “How did you even know where I was staying?”

“Sophie told me.”

Oh.  Right, then. 

We sat in silence for a moment.

“They told me you were at the studio today,” Blake said cautiously.

I gave him a small smile.  “You walked right past me.”  A pause.  “But I guess, um… I guess you had a lot on your mind.”

Blake nodded.  “I know this was probably a surprise for you—”

I let out a sharp laugh, without any humor behind it.  “Surprise doesn’t really cut it, Blake.”

He sighed.  “I know, Case.  Trust me, nobody wanted it to be this way.”

I looked at him angrily.  “Someone did,” I countered.  “Somebody told April about the song, and put all those cameras in the room.  Somebody brought you
to the studio just in time to ambush Tanner.”

A flicker of guilt passed over Blake’s face.  “Listen, Case, it didn’t make me happy that it happened this way.  But it had to.  You can see that, right?”

“Why?” I looked at him desperately.  “You gave up Moving Neutral.  That was your choice.  Why couldn’t you just move on?”

Blake looked at me a little angrily.  “I could have,” he said, shaking his head like I was missing the point.  “But what happens to the band if I do?  You saw they were struggling, and you only saw the tiniest
bit of it.  They’ve been in the studio for months and they didn’t have a single song.  Tanner in Moving Neutral wasn’t working out.  Everyone could see that, even him.”

“They had a song this morning,” I felt my lip quiver.  What Blake was saying made sense, but I didn’t want to hear it.  Tanner had worked hard, and so had I.  That had to count for something.

“I know, Case.  But by then, it was already done.  This was all decided before the rest of them even heard the song.”

I curled my knees up to my chest.  “So what happens now?”

“Now, we record our next album.  I’ve got most of it already written, but now that we can get going, there’ll be some hard work in the short term.  But it happens pretty fast, from here on out.”

I felt my mouth fall open.  “It’s already written?  How long have you been working on it?”

“I’ve been writing since this summer,” Blake said, looking down at his feet.  “You know that.”

I thought about hearing the music to Love’s Not Enough
, the way that Blake had written it without knowing whether anyone but us would ever hear it.  Apparently it wasn’t the only song he’d been working on.

“It’s already written,” I murmured, still processing it.  Moving Neutral had a new album.  That Blake had written.  A few weeks ago, that news would have been everything I wanted to hear. 

And even now… part of me was happy for him.  Sitting in my hotel room, Blake looked happier, more at ease than I’d seen him in months. 

“
And then a few weeks ago,” Blake continued.  “I got a call from April.  It was right before the show we did, actually.  She said things weren’t working out with Tanner, and she wanted to know if I’d think about coming back.”

“And you said yes.”

“Case, come on.  Of course I said yes,” he sighed.  “I wanted to tell you about it then,” he said.  “But I couldn’t.”

“Why?” 

“It wasn’t final yet.  We were still trying to figure out if this could even work.  And, honestly…” His voice trailed off, as if he didn’t want to finish the sentence.

“Honestly, what?”

“I didn’t know how you’d react.  I know, um… well, I guess the whole world knows that you and Tanner have been… well, whatever you guys have been doing.”

I grimaced.  “Blake,
you
dumped
me
.  Twice, in fact.  I’m not going to apologize—”

He held up a hand.  “No, Case, I’m not asking for an apology.  I guess I just wasn’t sure where your loyalties were, at this point.”

I blinked. 

In some ways
… Blake was right.  If he’d told me, would I have done something to warn Tanner?

Yes.
  The answer was a big, fat, resounding
yes
. 

“And Tanner?
  What happens to him now?  Did anybody think about that?”

Blake shrugged.  “
Case, this whole experience was still a huge opportunity for him.  He’s in the big leagues now, and he wasn’t before.  I’m sure he’s disappointed, but this will open a lot of doors for him in the long run.”

I hoped he was right.  It felt like a little sliver of hope
.  I looked at Blake, a hundred questions still tumbling through my head.

“Did you, um…  Were you the one who sent the car for me?”

Blake looked down again.  “The studio did.”

“Why?”

Blake looked nervous.  “That’s part of why I’m here, Case.  The first single… they want to use our song.”

I blinked.  “What?”

“They want it for the new album.  It was such a hit on YouTube that… I guess they just figure it makes sense.”

I took a deep breath. 
“So, the plan was to kick Tanner out of the band in front of me, and then turn around and ask me for a favor?”

“I didn’t say it was a good plan,” he smiled.  “I mean, these are reality show producers, not Columbia professors.”  I bit back a smile
of my own.  Blake looked at me carefully, like he was choosing his words with care.  “But honestly, the song was just part of it.  They probably wanted you there for a lot of reasons.”

I looked back at him, confused.  “
Like what?”

He sighed.  “Case, whatever happened between you and Tanner… I don’t need to know the details.  But that’s why they wanted you there.  So they could edit
all three of us into some stupid love triangle to tease out during commercials for the reality show.”

“And you’re okay with that?” “

Blake sighed.  “Case, I’ve learned a lot this fall.  Everything isn’t quite as black and white as I thought it was, you know?  No, I’m not okay with it.  But I can’t control it.  I tried to, and I just made everyone miserable.  Including myself.  And including you.”

I smiled sadly.  “You didn’t make me miserable,” I said quietly.

“Yeah, but I did,” Blake said, his eyes clear and serious.  “This fall, I felt like we just… got on the wrong track.  No matter how much I wanted to fix things, we just kept going around in circles.”

“I know,” I whispered. 

“So, after California,” he continued.  “I decided I had to get my life back in order before I could think about us, together.  I didn’t want to keep hurting you because of things that weren’t your fault.” 

I felt my breath catch as Blake looked into my eyes.  “And now?”

Blake stood up, crossing the room and taking a seat beside me on the edge of the bed.  I tried not to think about how much I’d missed him, how the closeness of him was almost dizzying.  I glanced into his blue eyes and tried not to drown. 

“And now,” h
e smiled, and I felt my stomach flutter.  Even after everything we’d been through, Blake’s smile still gave me butterflies, every single time.  “Now I feel like I’m finally there.”

I felt my eyes widen.  It was like every wish I’d had in the last two months was suddenly coming true.  I glanced over at the rest of the bed, suddenly worried that I’d fallen asleep and none of this was real.

“The thing is,” Blake continued, his blue eyes sincere.  “I had to go through a lot before we could have this conversation.  I had to stay away from you until I was… until we were both ready, on our own terms.”

My voice shrunk to a whisper.  “What are you saying?”

Blake gave me a nervous smile.  “I’m saying I want to start over.  I want to forget the last six months ever happened.  I want to meet Casey Snow for the first time, with a clean slate.” 

I felt like my body was a live wire. 
I wanted so much to believe him, but some part of me held back.

We’d spent six months taking baby steps forwards and huge leaps back, hurting each other at every turn.  We’d had a hundred chances, and nothing ever changed.  We’d gone around in circles until we were too tired and worn out
to keep going. 

Blake sensed my hesitation and
continued, guessing its source.  “I know that you and Tanner… well, it’s none of my business.”

My eyes widened again.  Maybe this really
was
a different Blake Parker.

“I’m not asking you to pick, Case.  I just want to be in the running.”

I felt my lip tremble.  It was everything I’d wanted Blake to tell me.  I thought about how guilty I’d felt when the photos of me and Tanner hit the tabloids… but Blake didn’t care. 

A clean slate. 
With no more lies, and everything out in the open.

I looked at him cautiously.  “How do I know you won’t change your mind?”

He gave me a half-smile, running a hand through his scruffy hair.  “Casey Snow, if I break your heart again, you can take a hammer to Ramona.”

I choked out a laugh, remembering how I’d been scared to leave fingerprints on the guitar’s beautiful frame.  “You’re bluffing,” I smiled.  “You know I’d never.”

He grinned, brushing a lock of hair out of my eyes.  “I know.  That’s one of the things I love about you, Case.”

I felt my hesitation slip away. 
The Blake Parker staring back at me was the one who’d met me at orientation at Columbia.  The one who’d wandered the streets of New York with me till four o’clock in the morning, and then invited me to go on tour.  The one whose photos I’d stared at all senior year of high school, whose lyrics I’d sung to myself while I drove to school every morning.

The Blake Parker I’d fallen in love with.

What Blake was offering me was a lifeline… it was a chance to finally put the past behind us, and move forward.

“Hey,”
Blake held out his hand, inches from mine, and I looked down at it, bewildered.  “Nice to meet you.  I’m Blake Parker.  The guitarist for Moving Neutral.”

I glanced down at his hand, and then back up into his eyes, feeling my heart about to burst in my chest. 

Biting my lip, I stole one more glimpse into his bright blue eyes.  And then I took his hand.

“I’m Casey Snow,” I said, smiling shyly.  “
Moving Neutral… they’re my favorite band.”

It was what I should have said all along.