Full Tilt (Full Tilt #1)(34)

“You’ve really never been inside a casino?”

She shook her head. “Our tour schedule is so crazy, we haven’t had any free time until after the show last night. That’s why we’re here until Tuesday—so Jimmy can hit the strip clubs and do some gambling. The last time I was here, I was too young to be allowed anywhere fun.”

“Did you come here with your parents?”

“No,” Kacey said, turning her gaze to the still, dark water in front of us. “I don’t see them much anymore.”

“Too busy with the band? Will your tour take you through San Diego?”

I took a bite out of the cake, and when I looked up, Kacey’s entire demeanor had changed. She hugged herself though the night was warm with a soft breeze, and the light in her eyes had dimmed as she cast her gaze over the dark water.

“No, it’s not on my schedule,” she said. “I haven’t seen my parents in four years. My dad kicked me out of the house when I was seventeen.”

I nearly dropped my dessert and the bite in my mouth was like a jagged rock. I swallowed with difficulty. “He kicked you out of your house? At seventeen?”

My tone was far too loud and hard. I was demanding an answer from her bastard of a father, not her. But Kacey didn’t flinch or retreat. I think she understood my outrage, maybe even felt a little boosted for it.

“I snuck my twenty-two-year-old boyfriend home through my bedroom window one night. My parents caught us…in a compromising position, and that was it. My dad had never approved of anything I did; he hated my playing electric guitar, but that was the last straw. He let me pack a bag and locked the door behind me. I hadn’t even finished high school.”

I chucked what was left of my cupcake in a nearby trashcan, appetite lost. “What kind of * turns his daughter out on the street? And what about your mom? She didn’t help you?”

Kacey’s shoulders jerked up in a shrug as she picked at her cake. “She didn’t say a word. She never has. She’s quiet and meek. My dad isn’t abusive to her, not physically. But he can turn off like a faucet. Cold, bone-dry silence for days if he’s really pissed, and my mom can’t handle that.”

“So she let you go?”

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t understand how people could turn on their own children. That kind of parental failure—no, violation—was completely alien to me. My childhood had been ridiculously free of troubles. Sure, Dad was hard on Theo, and Mom was a compulsive worrier, but that was the extent of my complaints. My parents were good people.

They should’ve been your people, I thought, looking at Kacey. In a weird twist of fate, we each ended up with the wrong set of parents. Mine would’ve loved her and doted on her. They would’ve nurtured her music and been proud of her accomplishments. They’d give firm, appropriate discipline instead of throwing her out of the house.

A terminally ill child was something her parents deserved. My plight, given to that cruel father and spineless mother, would make more sense. If Kacey and I switched families, I’d no longer be afraid of the emotional burden I was leaving behind, and she’d be cherished forever.

“My mom didn’t fight for me,” Kacey was saying. She chucked her cupcake away too. “She lost her voice when she married my dad. I don’t know if I can ever forgive her for that. But even so, I still call her sometimes. She doesn’t say much, but I think she likes when I call. To know I’m still alive anyway.”

“How did you survive on the streets?”

“I wasn’t on the streets. I followed Chett, the boyfriend my parents caught me with. He told me he wanted to marry me, so I tagged along as he followed one get-rich-quick scheme after another. I followed him here. He was running out of money, so he had this great idea I could be a model.” She made air quotes around the word. “I shut that shit down immediately.”

“Good.” My hands closed into fists and I jammed them into my pockets.

“But once I told Chett I wasn’t going to cooperate, it was all downhill. I was underage. I couldn’t drink, gamble, or even get into an eighteen-and-up club. He got tired of me real quick. Dropped me on my ass when he met someone else. Some showgirl.”

“What did you do?”

“I hitched back to California, thinking I’d try again with my parents. Go back to school. I did really well in school, actually.”

“I believe it,” I said.

Kacey smiled gratefully. “I made it as far as Los Angeles. I was staying at the YMCA and met Lola. She was nineteen, and in the same sinking boat as me. She’d just scraped enough money together waiting tables to get a cheap studio apartment and let me crash with her. When I turned eighteen, I got a job at the same restaurant, and we spent off days busking in parks. I sang and played my guitar while Lola played drums. A few months later, we found a want ad from a gal who wanted to put a band together, and the rest is history.” She held up her hands. “And that is why, to this day, I’ve never stepped foot in a casino.”

I nodded absently, my emotions roiled into a frothy rage at the men in Kacey’s life who had failed her so f*cking badly. “What happened to Chett?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” She said it calmly enough but I’d learned by now that everything Kacey felt was revealed in her large, luminous eyes. She cared about everything, passionately.