“Let me talk to the guys and get back to you.”

Another sigh, and this one I could practically feel across the phone line. “You only have a couple of days, dude. We need to have the opening act hammered down before the end of the week and then we leave the first of March.”

I didn’t feel like that was enough time to turn it around in my head, but I had to at least see what the other guys in the band thought about it, before abjectly refusing it. I was going to tell him “later” and hang up, but he stopped me with what I had dreaded hearing when I first saw that I had missed a call from him.

“Hey, before I let you go, the label got a call from some guy saying he knew you and that he wanted to get hitched into the tour. Do you know anything about that? I told the guys I would ask about it before we agreed to anything, but honestly he sounded like kind of a nutjob.”

Now it was my turn to sigh. I rubbed my thumb hard between my eyes and felt my back teeth click together. It was a struggle on a daily basis not to choke the old bastard out, and the older I got, the harder and harder it got to keep from pummeling him.

“Tell him no. In fact, tell him hell no. If he calls again, tell him you’re going to have security put eyes out for him. He doesn’t need to be anywhere near your tour or near your band.”

Which meant I was going to have to find some other way for him to spend his time, other than making my mom’s life miserable. Maybe the best thing to do would be to just send him off to Europe with Dario and hope that he didn’t come back. Disgustingly though, he was my problem, always had been, and I wasn’t about to pawn his sorry ass off on a friend.

“All right, but seriously Jet, think long and hard about the tour. This is perfect for you and it couldn’t happen to a better guy or a better band. You deserve to get the recognition.”

I grunted a good-bye and shoved the phone in my pocket. I made a quick trip to the bathroom to get my hair under control, ending with the black strands hanging shaggily over my forehead. I brushed my teeth and laced my belt through my pants. It looked like Ayden had already come and gone, because all her girly crap was put away and her normal collection of abandoned clothes was nowhere in sight. I went back to being irritated that she could just bolt on me after last night, and muttered obscenities under my breath all the way to the kitchen.

Cora was puttering around, already ready for work, and looked up at me with knowing eyes when I flopped into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

“Did Ayd already leave for the day?”

She came toward me with a mug of coffee and a grin. “She did. She was up early and went running, then left for class. Everything okay with you two? She seemed a little abrupt when she got back from her run.”

I let my head fall back on my neck so that I was staring up at the ceiling. “I have no idea.”

She sat down across from me and I lowered my head so that we were staring at each other. There was something about those multicolored eyes that made a person just know that she saw more and understood more than she ever let on. Cora could read people better than almost anyone I had ever met, and if she had any insight into what was going on with Ayden, I was all ears.

“I think Ayd has more going on under the surface than she lets on. I mean, I’ve lived with her for a while now and she never mentions home or her family, and she never talks about what her life before college was like. Even Shaw has only the basics. It’s like she didn’t exist before moving here for school. Sometimes it’s what people choose not to say that tells the more important story.”

I just gawked at her, because I had no idea how she saw the whole picture so clearly like that. Sometimes it was easy to miss all she had going on because her punk-rock. fairy-princess, persona was so distracting.

“Like you.” She pointed a neon-tipped finger at the end of my nose and flicked it. “You didn’t mention that you went to see your mom yesterday. Why is that?”

I groaned and shoved both my hands through my hair getting gunk all over them. “Because I don’t like to talk about it. Nash has a big mouth.”

“No, Nash is a good friend who knows how hard you are on yourself when it comes to taking responsibility for your parents’ shitty marriage. One day, you’re going to have to recognize that your mom is a grown-ass woman, responsible for all the choices she’s made and continues to make where your dad is concerned. You did your best to help her, to get her out of there, and she clearly doesn’t want to go. That can’t be your burden to bear for the rest of your life, Jet.”

It was pretty much the same thing Nash had told me yesterday, but understanding that they were right, and being able to just put it down and walk away, were two different things entirely. So I told her the same thing I told Nash, “She’s my mom.”

Only Cora wasn’t Nash, and she wasn’t the type to accept as gospel why I continued to torture myself over the matter. She put one of her tiny hands on mine and squeezed.

“Right, she is, which means she should be there to take care of you, and be proud of all the amazing things you do. She should be giddy with excitement about how talented her son is and she should be your biggest fan. What she shouldn’t be doing is letting her unhealthy relationship with your dad keep you tied to this town and to her, when everybody, and Jet, I mean everybody knows you could be doing so much more on such a bigger scale.”

I couldn’t argue with her because she was right. Everyone was right, but that didn’t change the fact that I was stone-cold terrified of what would happen to the woman if I just washed my hands of the situation, and let my dad finish dismantling her. I didn’t know if I could live with myself if I let that happen, and no amount of success or personal achievement was worth that risk. I wasn’t even going to mention the offer of the tour with Artifice, because that would just give her more fuel for the fire. If I was here in Denver to keep the old man occupied, there was less of a chance he could totally destroy her.

“It is what it is, for now.”

She lifted a pale eyebrow. “But it doesn’t have to be. Look at you and Ayd. Things can be one way for a long time and then have to change because there is no other choice.”

I just shrugged. “Maybe.”

She rolled her eyes at me and climbed to her feet. “I have to go or I’m going to be late. Stop acting like a typical brooding musician and make Ayd talk to you. By the way, she was totally a ten when I saw her this morning, so way to go, killer.”

That startled a laugh out of me and shook some of the gloom from my current mood. “I told you one day I would have one.”

She laughed and winked at me with her blue eye. “Well, the catch is that you’re totally a ten right now, too, and I don’t think you’ve ever been above a five. You’re good together, Jet, in any form that happens to be. Don’t let her convince you otherwise.”

“Yeah. For some reason, I think that might be a lot harder than it sounds.”

After Cora left for work, I screwed around for a couple of hours and tried to finish the song I was working on last night when Ayden had ambushed me. It was sad and had a melody to it that made something in the center of my chest hurt. It was missing something I couldn’t put my finger on. With my mind spinning about the tour and a certain Southern girl, I couldn’t get it right, so I tossed my guitar in the case and went down to the studio. I was supposed to finish up with Black Market Alphas later on tonight, but the mood I was currently in didn’t bode well for getting anything accomplished, especially if Ryan showed up flashing his idiotic bravado and unearned arrogance.

I tweaked a couple of the tracks, messed around with some of my own, and sent a text to all the guys in my band that we needed to get together to talk. My dad called me three times and I sent all three directly to voice mail. I debated on calling Ayden and decided that the phone worked both ways. If she wanted to talk, she could get in touch with me. After all, I wasn’t the one who left her hanging alone in bed after a night of mind-melting sex.

Before I knew it, the afternoon had blown by and Ryan and the rest of the band were rolling into the studio. It was a shame the lead singer was such a little punk, because the other guys were all cool and I really saw a lot of myself in Jorge. They were getting set up when my phone beeped at me with a text.

I was surprised and admittedly stoked to see that it was Ayden.

Where are you?

At work.

You? Working? ;)

That made me scowl. What did she think I did all day long when I didn’t have a show? Of course I worked, how did she think I paid the bills?

When I feel like it. Why, what’s up?

I wanted to see if you were hungry. My last class got canceled and I’m starving.

I can’t leave. In the middle of a session.

I can come to you.

That was weird. I never let anyone in the studio that I wasn’t working with or in a band with. This place was generally my escape from the rest of the world. This is where I came to get away from all the other stuff I normally couldn’t deal with. Letting her in seemed like a bigger deal than it probably actually was, and it took me a solid ten minutes to text her back.

All right. But you might hate it. I don’t think the guys I’m working with know a single Kenny Chesney song.

Very funny, asshole. What do you want me to bring you?

Whatever. I’m easy.

No Jet, you are anything but that.

I stared at the phone like it would explain to me what she meant. The guys in the band were getting restless, so I told her to grab a couple pizzas and a case of Coors Light so I could feed them as well. I gave her directions to the studio. I couldn’t decide between being pleased that she was actively seeking me out or being freaked out about letting her into my inner sanctum. I decided to just hover between the two and focus on work until she got there. Something was going on with the band, half the guys weren’t talking and Jorge was a beat behind on three out of four songs. After the sixth time starting the first song over again, I was ready to murder them all.

I slammed my hands down on the mixing board and flipped off the switch that recorded everything in the booth. I cracked my knuckles on both hands and walked into where they were all glaring back and forth at one another, and where Ryan was scowling at me.

“What gives, dude? Today is the last day we have for studio time and we already paid you for it.”

I twirled the ring on my middle finger around with my thumb and met him glare for glare. This kid didn’t know me well enough to think that I was ever going to be impressed by his youthful overconfidence and mediocre talent.

“What’s going on today? You guys suck, and I mean suck. Whatever you’re doing is garbage and I’m not messing around with it. Did you forget you’re a band and that means you all have to play the same song at the same time? What the fuck gives?”

Ryan puffed his chest up and Jorge threw his drum sticks down. The other two guys frowned at me while Ryan moved to poke me in the center of my chest.

“Watch it. We’re paying you, remember?”

I smacked his hand away and narrowed my eyes threateningly at him. “Yeah. You’re paying me to put together an album that gets you noticed by a major label and gets you signed, not an album that sounds like a bunch of pots and pans falling out of the kitchen cabinet. My name doesn’t get attached to something that isn’t listenable. So, what is the goddamn deal?”