More by JD Hawkins

Author:JD Hawkins [Hawkins, JD]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paige Press, LLC

16

Jonas

It’s two days before Hadley calls me back, and I’m restless all the way through, for a lot of different reasons.

Nick and Jake both call me multiple times once they hear I’m doing the gig, trying to convince me to rehearse, asking over and over again if I’m sure about this. Every phone call makes me feel like a running back, dodging questions and issues and making excuses for why I can’t come over and rehearse with them yet. They’re my brothers, so they know that I’m hiding something, but I’m not about to tell them what it is.

If avoiding my brothers is hard, then avoiding everyone else is even harder. Old friends, other musicians, celebrity fans, they all start calling, asking if the rumors are really true. I deny and wisecrack my way through the conversations, telling them nothing’s set in stone just yet—after all, this is Lyra’s event, and it’ll be up to her to announce it. Eventually, though, the rumors go public, and it isn’t hers to announce anymore.

When the journalists and bloggers start calling after me, looking for answers to explain my rumored comeback, it feels like the walls are closing in. No way out now.

I stop answering calls, and barely go out while I wait for Hadley’s call. The only thing stopping me from going mad is the understanding that she wouldn’t lie. If she said she can help, she’ll help. I just hope it’s enough.

When she does finally reach out, it’s the fifteenth call I’ve had that day—but the first time I’ve answered.

“You free right now?” she says. “For at least the next few hours?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’m gonna send you a location. Meet me there?”

“You got it.”

Once I’m in the car I almost wheelspin it out of the garage, driving so fast to the location I’m lucky I don’t get a ticket. Already hungering to see her, to talk to her, to have her work her magic on me all over again.

She’s still there before me, leaning against the front of her car in her indigo sundress and cardigan, hair curled and messy about her shoulders, arm folded across her chest.

As soon as I see her like that, more mesmerizing than the changing colors of the sunset behind her, I know this moment is going to be burned in my brain forever. An image I’ll never shake from my memory. Filed right beside the thousands of fans singing songs back to me at Coachella, and unwrapping a vintage Les Paul that my mom got me for my twelfth birthday.

I pull up nearby and get out. She tosses her hair and smiles at me, and it’s almost cinematic—I’ll bet cameras love her.

“Thanks for seeing me,” I say, as I walk over to her car.

“That’s my job,” she shrugs. “How are you feeling?”

I smile at her.

“You ask me that like I’m having a breakdown.”

“Well…you did sound pretty anxious on the phone.”

I drop the smile and nod, looking away so I don’t feel too stripped by her eyes.

“I’m pretty much all in on the reunion gig,” I explain.

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