In Your Dreams (Falling #4)(100)

But I will make her go. And she’ll hate me a little…at first.

I can live with that.





Murphy


Not a single call.

No visits.

When I go to his apartment, he’s never there, and I can’t bring myself to drive to his mother’s house. They’re mourning; he’s mourning. That’s what I’ve told myself for days. I pictured it finally hitting him, the weight of everything, and then I only wanted to find him more. I started calling, and those calls were unanswered. They were unreturned.

They were unwanted.

Those terrible thoughts continue to mix in with the good ones and battle for dominance. One minute I believe he hates me, the next…I hate him.

I don’t leave messages. He can see it’s me. I have nothing to say, really, other than “Stop!” He’s shutting me out. He said he would make me leave, and I didn’t believe him, but I’m at a crossroads, and for the first time since falling in love with Casey Coffield, I’m considering choosing something else.

I let the week play out. I drove to the club, knowing he’d be there. But when my name wasn’t on the list of guests to enter early, I knew. I think I knew the last time his lips were on mine days ago that he was saying goodbye. But I just kept saying “No.”

I’m not sure when no changed to yes, but it did.

The only thing I’ve gotten from him is a single text.

Go. We won’t survive it if you don’t.

I texted back the opposite—over and over. He never replied again.

The phone rings twice before someone answers, and I’m shell-shocked and afraid sitting in the parking lot of my school—the one I just put in my notice at. Somehow, I speak anyway, and I don’t stutter—not once.

“Hi, it’s Murphy Sullivan, and I’d like to take you up on your offer. I can be in Nashville in two weeks.”

His response is warm and melts like butter. “I can’t wait for our future, Miss Sullivan. I suggest you bring your lawyer along to make sure we do this right.”

My eyes fall closed and my chest deflates; I’m not scared, but I’m also not happy. This feels nothing like it did the first time. I only wish I could talk to Casey about it.

But then I wouldn’t be doing this if he were here.





Chapter 19





One Year Later



Casey


“Your sisters are going to be the death of me. Really…truly. I can’t take them. And I can take anything. But they’re constant. They never go away. And oh my god, their opinions—which, hello! Are like, maybe the worst opinions in the history of perspectives ever…”

I chuckle to myself as I carry the last box to the back room of what is now officially my business office. Paige has been a godsend, which I will never say out loud. More than her design skills—and ability to bargain with the property owner to get me something I could afford—she has been a defense against my siblings.

Like my father, they all have opinions on this risk I’m taking. They disagree with the location, with the structural integrity of the building, with the proximity to the railroad tracks. Christina didn’t like the contract for the building, but I shook her advice off. Really, this shithole in the warehouse district is the only thing I can afford, and it’s going to be the only thing I can buy for a long time. I was tired of waiting, and if I’d held out for the ten years it would take for me to save for the type of property my sister found acceptable, I would no longer be relevant to the music industry.

Relevant.

I shake my head and clear that word. John Maxwell called me relevant, but last I read, he was being sued for plagiarism by at least twenty-seven artists from other labels. Murphy’s name wasn’t one of them, but only because the law turns a blind eye to what he did to her song—crooked and unethical, but legal on the dotted line.

“I sent them home. I did. I just told them to get out,” Paige says, leaning against the arched doorway to my office space and holding one shoe while she stretches the arch of her foot on the floor. There’s a smudge of cream paint on her cheek, and I motion my hand to it.

“You’ve got a little something,” I say, and she wipes her hand on her face, only making it bigger. I laugh and scratch at my neck, shaking my head. She scowls and marches to the file cabinet drawer where her purse is stored, pulling out a small makeup mirror to see for herself.

“Shit, Casey. That’s paint,” she says.

“I told you…”

“You told me I had a little something. A little something is like an eyelash or a crumb, not f*cking latex,” she says, licking her thumb and rubbing the drying smudge on her skin.

She exhales and lets her hand fall to the side, dried paint and a red cheek now left behind. “Are we done here for today?” she sighs.

I chuckle and nod. “Yeah, I think I’m going to spend some time getting files set up. The sound guys are coming tomorrow for the equipment installs, and I want to have everything ready so they can bust that out in a day…” I say, realizing she’s now standing at the door with her purse pulled tightly over her arm, staring at me.

“So we’re done. I can go,” she confirms, clearly not interested in my evening plans.