Page 36 of Spark

You said his name twice!

When regret comes

Makes you wish you stayed

Don’t call me babe,

Don’t call me to beg

I don’t want you anymore anyway

No!

Don’t call me,won’t call you

Don’t call me, won’t call you

Don’t call me, won’t call you

Oooh

Gonna get me somebody new

As Cooper’s song reaches its final notes and chords, I scream bloody murder, feeling like I’m going to explode from homicidal rage. In a fury, I fling open the bathroom door and discover Kendrick sitting up, bleary-eyed and panicky.

“What happened?” he gasps out, clutching his broad chest. “Are you okay?”

“I need to commit a murder,” I choke out, my voice raspy and tight as I march to him on the bed. “A grisly one. And I need your help figuring out how I’m gonna get away with it.”

[Click here to listen to “Don’t Call Me” by Alexa Play Music]

9

KENDRICK

As I listen to Cooper’s cocky voice blaring from Ruby’s phone, my blood feels like it’s simmering to a rolling boil. Mostly, I feel fiercely protective of Ruby and pissed at Cooper for unfairly dragging her. But also, if I’m being honest, even as those emotions overtake my body, my brain is furiously trying to process and analyze some of his most eye-popping lyrics.

Why do you want to fuck your brother?

What did he mean when he wrote that? More precisely,whodidhe mean? Did he write it about the same guy supposedly starring in Ruby’s sex dreams? Seems like they’re one and the same person, but you never know when it comes to songwriting. People write untrue, fantastical, and hyperbolic shit into their songs all the time, for all kinds of reasons. Hell, some of the best, most memorable lyrics only make it into songs because two words rhymed. Is that the case here? Did Cooper write the lyric “you said his name twice,” simply because the prior line ended in “nice”?

“I’m gonna kill him,” Ruby murmurs, yanking me from my thoughts. She’s sitting next to me on the edge of the bed, herphone placed between us on the mattress, and Cooper is now launching into his final chorus.

With a little whimper, she leans her forehead against my shoulder, and I wrap her in a warm hug. But quickly, my thoughts spiral again. Assuming the guy in the song is based on a real person, there are only three possible options for his identity: Kai, Savage, or me. We’re the only three guys in the world who are “like a brother” to Ruby.

But which one of us is the guy?

As the song reaches its final chords and notes, my brain furiously weighs the respective likelihoods of those three options:

Kai.

If Savage passed along Kai’s false narrative about Ruby to Cooper, either when Cooper’s band opened for us two years ago, or more recently when Cooper was traveling with us as Ruby’s boyfriend, then this option simply can’t be ignored. To put it mildly, Savage isn’t a steel trap when he drinks, and that’s especially true when he’s got juicy gossip burning a hole in his pocket.

Did Savage let that little tidbit rip during a night of drinking with Cooper? If so, Cooper would have thought Ruby had some longstanding romantic history with Kai, dating all the way back to her teenage years, which then might have made Cooper jealous of Kai. Maybe even enough to write a song about him? I must admit, it’s not a terrible theory. But it all depends on Savage opening his big mouth and spilling that bullshit story.

And then there’s Savage.

Door Number Two.

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