You'd Be Mine(4)

Clay motions his head to keep walking. We step high on the already soft grass. Michigan is a special kind of green in the spring. Green on top of green, edged with more green. I wonder idly how my home looks in his eyes. He’s probably used to fancy hotel rooms and has a loft in New York or Nashville. Maybe both.

After a minute, he says, “Look, the way I see it, you can be a martyr and let all of that keep you from your destiny, or you can embrace it and come on my tour.”

“And the Mathers/Rosewood name holds no appeal for you?” I say, dubious.

His lips quirk. “No offense, but Clay Coolidge ain’t a bad name in its own right.”

He has a point. It’s not as if he’s some unrecognizable upstart. He’s young, maybe a year older than I am, but he’s been around long enough.

“So, what do you need me for?”

He tips his head back, squinting in the morning sun. “I don’t. To be honest, I had nothing to do with the decision. For some nefarious reason, yet to be determined, my tour manager insists we need to sign you for this summer. And apparently, Grammys and gold records don’t carry the weight they used to. So here I am, in the middle of nowhere, as you said, hours before I care to be awake, asking you to sign the fucking papers so I can be on my way.”

I swallow back the sting of his retort. I asked for it, after all. Still, he doesn’t have to be an a-hole.

“Well, by all means, don’t let little old me keep you from your hangover,” I snipe.

He groans. “Don’t be so sensitive.”

The weed crushes in my fist, painting my palm gold. “I’m sorry, are you supposed to be convincing me to sign?”

He’s silent for a beat, and I wonder if I’ve blown it. He reaches for my arm, and I ignore the electric jolt in my nerve endings at his touch. “Look,” he says, exasperated, though his grip is gentle. “It shouldn’t matter what I want. This is about you and your future. Do you want this? Forget your name, forget your history, forget me and the label. Do you want this to happen? Because once you sign your name, it’s going to, and you can’t go back.”

I press my lips together, considering carefully. It shouldn’t matter what he wants, but it sort of does. It irks me that he’s playing it off like he doesn’t care whether I sign, when he so clearly needs me to. I’ve been fielding phone calls from SunCoast for the last six months. Still, I almost want to turn him down out of spite.

Except I want it too much. At the end of the day, there is little I love more in life than to perform a song of my heart—to pour myself into a melody—to share that piece of myself with a stranger. Everything in me speaks music with a fluent tongue. Surely it’s genetic, but my parents certainly haven’t done me any favors. If anything, their deaths nearly killed the music in my soul.

But the music won’t be stifled. I won’t be held back any longer. I knew when I let Jason post those videos. I knew I was going to cave and accept an offer because I couldn’t not. I’m a little surprised SunCoast went this particular route, sending one of their top-grossing artists to my doorstep, contract in hand, but hell, it’s Clay Coolidge. I mean, it worked.

“Do you ever feel like you’re hurtling across the continent on one of those high-speed trains and you find out the brakes are broken?”

“Every day,” Clay admits.

I nod slowly. “I’ll do it.”

“That’s what I thought.” And I can tell he means it. Understanding passes between us as the breeze shifts. I break first, turning back the way we came.

I don’t know what I expect to find when we get back. It’s not like I figured my gran would throw a party in our honor, but I guess I hoped for something more than the sad smile I got when Clay unfurled the contract and laid it on the kitchen table. Scribbling out my signature, on the line above where Kacey and Jason have already signed theirs, feels like the inevitable conclusion to a childhood of pretending I had a choice in the matter.



* * *



“We need a band name,” I say, plucking at my dad’s old shaded Martin. A fishing pond rounds out the far corner of my grandparents’ property, and Jason, Kacey, and I are sitting in our favorite spot on the shore. Some bands practice in garages; we practice on tree stumps under the covering of weeping willows, their branches sweeping low along the surface of the water.

“Jason and His Argonauts,” my best friend offers as he idly taps the heels of his calloused hands on a set of small bongos.

Kacey snickers. “That sounds like a porno.”

“But, like, the worst porno ever,” I say.

“Orphan Annie?” Jason tries again. Kacey and I both groan. He thumps out a beat. “Let’s see what you come up with.”

“How about no real names?” I say.

Jason rolls his eyes. “No offense, but I don’t think you can keep it a secret.”

“That’s fine, but I don’t need to shove it in everyone’s face either.”

“You mean like Clay Coolidge?” Kacey offers, waving her bow in the air and tracing the letters in the sky.

“Exactly like that,” I say, and I swipe my hand as though his name is a gnat I can flick off my conscience.

Jason leans back in the grass, placing his hands behind his head, his shirt rising slightly to reveal abs he didn’t have last summer. He’s grown up nicely. I’m weirdly proud that he’s so good-looking and talented. Like, it’s nothing to do with me. Unless you count the times I’ve kidnapped him to the salon for a haircut when he’s hopelessly shaggy.