Page 61 of No More Love Songs

Turns out, I don’t have to. My phone starts to ring, taking me out of one panic and dropping me right into another.

I check the time. It’s beyond early. Even for Gray.

“What’s wrong?” I ask the second I answer.

“The deal went through.” I can hear him scramble around on the other end, probably getting out of bed to keep from waking Brice. “Janelle just messaged me. They told her via email on Friday, but she hardly checks those on the weekend. It was a fluke she read it now. Just couldn’t sleep and wound up scrolling through her phone. Jesus, Sky, how long have you known?”

“Two weeks.” Maybe a day or two longer. Truth be told, I was in a bit of a daze when Zayne first texted me to tell me.

“That’s why you’re giving up love songs,” he hisses, apparently still in earshot of the bedrooms in his house. “It wasn’t ever about being done with love, you’re trying to throw your contract. You want them to reject your record.”

“It was both.” I’m not even sure which fueled which more. When it all hit me, it seemed like the perfect ending to it all. Give up love. Screw the career. And do it all in the name of a final ‘fuck you’ to Zayne if he actually succeeded in buying a percentage of Barry’s shares of the label. Which, apparently, he did.

“You should have told me.”

I can see why he’d think so. Gray knows me better than anyone, and if my mind was spinning out of control over something, he’d have been the first to reel me back in and get me back to sanity. No, rationality. And I didn’t want any part of that. So, I didn’t tell him.

“I couldn’t tell you. You would have wanted to talk me out of it. Would have insisted there was another way. To stand up against him. To fight. But you never fought Zayne like I did. No one else has lived with him as long as I have, has seen every shade of darkness I’ve been privy to. Some monsters you don’t fight, Gray. You just do what it takes to escape them.”

Silence.

After a moment, Gray clears his throat. “Sky, what are you going to do?”

“What I have to.” I brace myself for the wave of hatred that’s washed over me countless times since Zayne first told me of his plan to invest in my label, but this time, it doesn’t come. “I’ll throw the record. I’ll make Janelle pitch the original songs.” I stare out the French doors leading to the balcony. It’s beautiful just beyond the glass. Seems strange somehow, that the world could look so perfect and feel so cruel all at once. “When they ask for different material, I’ll refuse. And my contract goes up in flames, all thanks to my creative freedom loophole.”

“You won’t be able to sign with anyone else for five years,” he reminds me.

“I know.”

“Sky, this is your life.”

“Exactly.” That’s why there’s no way in hell I’m sitting by while Zayne tries to have another piece of it.

“You’re sure.” He sounds anything but. “This isn’t just too much fresh air and healthy, home-cooked meals talking?”

“I was sure before I ever even agreed to come out here.” I cross my room to reach the balcony and step outside.

“Then why did you go?”

I shrug. “To escape, find something to distract me while I sat in limbo waiting to hear if Zayne got his way.”

“Does Kit know?” He sounds suddenly concerned. And this time, not for my sake.

“No.” Didn’t need to tell him. In the end, their plan was working. I was falling in love with life in ways I never gave myself the chance to before Kit came along and insisted upon it. But none of it matters now.

It can’t. Not when I need to do the thing that still needs to be done.

“Get the studio ready,” I tell Gray. “I’ll be home this evening. We have an album to finish.”

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KIT

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I’m in the kitchendouble-checking the cooler Mavis keeps stocked with waters for me to take on climbs for my students is ready to go when Sky comes wandering in, looking particularly frazzled and undecided.

“I get the feeling you didn’t take my nap suggestion,” I tease her, trying to snap her out of whatever has her looking like that.

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