Page 44 of August Lane
“Who’s gonna rob me out here? Walt Jenkins?” He thought about the thin man with rheumy eyes who used to trade stolen lawn ornaments for weed. “No way that dude’s still around.”
August sat on the couch. “Please talk to me.”
Her hands were bunched inside the skirt of her sundress. The thin cotton, with its tiny pink floral pattern, had distracted him since he’d arrived. When had that started? The girl in his memories lived in T-shirts and jeans. He wanted to know the exact date and time she’d shed that skin and put on this one.
“I’m broke,” he said, sitting across from her on a barstool. The choice was purposeful. The lack of a seat back forced him upright, allowing himto face her with squared shoulders instead of letting a chair do the heavy lifting. “Spent all my extra money coming down here. Haven’t gotten my performance fee, so I can’t afford a hotel room right now.”
“How? You had a hit song. I still hear it all the time.”
“That’s just your algorithm. It’ll probably pop up if you played something similar or searched for Black country artists.” He hesitated. “Earlier, when I mentioned all that stuff about rights and royalties?”
She nodded, and he watched the memory of their argument cool her expression. Good. Maybe she’d stop looking like she was two seconds from pulling him into her arms.
“They didn’t teach us any of that onCountry Star,” he said. “It was all voice lessons and branding. How to be a guy who looks good on TV.” He dipped his head and pushed the memory of the stage away, how bright and blinding it was. That was how they wanted him. Shiny, bright, and blinded. “I signed everything they put in front of me. Didn’t read a lick of it.”
“You were only seventeen.”
“Eighteen by the time the show was over,” Luke corrected her. “Old enough to enter a contract. They could get away with things back then that they can’t now.” He hadn’t realized how much he’d signed away until Charlotte’s girlfriend broke the news during their first conversation about a divorce settlement. The record company owned nearly everything. The rest he’d signed away to his manager.
“Delilah Simmons, a show producer, offered to manage me after I got eliminated. She knew I was desperate to stay.” He glanced at August and quickly added, “It was Ava I was avoiding.”
“This woman took advantage of you?”
Luke wasn’t sure how much he wanted to tell her. Delilah had been the first person in Nashville to believe in him, which had made him loyal even when she’d lied to his face. She’d negotiated large fees for herself and flat-out stolen money when he was too drunk to pay attention. She’d booked him at venues filled with dixie chintz and rebel flags. There was one time, early on, that she’d dropped him off for drinks with a popular DJ, and Luke spent the entire night keeping the man’s hands off his ass.
Delilah had called him later, furious. “He called you an uppity asshole.”
“Fuck that racist piece of shit,” Luke had said, or slurred more accurately, because he’d kept drinking long after the man had left. “He just wanted to fuck me.”
“Of course he did. They all do. That’s how you survive this business, with some power broker’s limp dick in your hand.” Her voice softened. “These guys are gross, but they also gatekeep the one hundred. You’re not a kid anymore, Luke. Grow up before they stop wanting to fuck you. That’s when your career is over.”
Luke didn’t have sex with that DJ. But he’d slept with enough women who ultimately helped his career to make the line between liking someone and using them blurry enough to hate the person he saw in the mirror.
“She was shady from the jump, but I pretended not to notice because money was coming in. Or I thought it was. Seven years later, I woke up one day and realized I didn’t have an ATM card. Like, if I wanted to walk up to a bank and get cash, I wouldn’t be able to.” He looked at August. “When I finally found someone willing to show me financial statements, I learned I was broke. Nothing was there, just piles of debt from running around, pretending to be a baller.”
He cleared his throat, summoning more courage to admit the part he’d never forgive himself for. “I don’t own the masters of my music. The royalties I get barely cover rent. I do the bar circuit, yard work, whatever I can find. That’s the money I used to come down here.” He didn’t add that he’d also arrived early because he couldn’t wait eight more weeks to face her after a decade of hiding.
August gazed at the floor, deep in thought. He liked these silent moments, when she was too distracted to notice him staring. He could study her. Get reacquainted with his favorite parts. A faint indention on her chin made Luke accuse her of having a dimple once, something she’d flat-out rejected. “Don’t you dare call me cute,” she’d responded.
August cupped her chin, and the divot disappeared. She looked resolute, like she’d settled on something and was deciding how to break it to him. “You’re not sleeping in that truck.”
Luke sighed. “I won’t let you pay for—”
“I’m not paying for anything. If I could afford a hotel, you think I’d be here?”
Luke looked around. Her place was small, similar to the sterile studio he rented in Memphis, but with an extra door, which meant it probably had a real bedroom. There were unopened U-Haul boxes in one corner. The move must be recent.
“Are you offering your couch?” The sagging cushions would wreck his back, but so would the truck cab.
August straightened. “No. I can’t—” Her eyes swept over him. “You’d take up too much room.”
He wasn’t sure if she meant physically or something else. But he didn’t hate how she looked at him. Like a mountain he’d dared her to climb.
“I don’t know many people in town. Not well enough to be a house-guest.” He went down a mental list and came up with a bunch of teenage faces that probably didn’t live in Arcadia anymore. “Is Silas still around? I could crash at Delta Blue for a few days.”
“You can stay at Birdie’s,” August said. “The house is empty. There’s no one around for miles.” She twisted her hands in her skirt again. “No one will know you’re there.”
“I can’t do that,” Luke said, but struggled to articulate why. It was a feeling. A lack of worth. “The cost of keeping the lights on alone—”
