Page 97 of Once Upon a Boyband
“We definitely floundered for a while. But we figured it out. Mostly thanks to Sarah. She did pretty much everythingthat required face-to-face interaction. Attorneys, real-estate agents. She handled it all.”
“Sarah was a big part of why you left in the first place, wasn’t she?” Laney says. “With your mom gone, you only had each other.”
I stand and grab our empty plates, then carry them into the kitchen. “Yeah. She was.”
Laney follows me into the kitchen with the platter of short ribs and sets it on the counter. She holds the sides of the platter for a long moment without moving, her face pensive.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, but then she turns away. “I’m gonna go check on Ringo.”
She disappears into the living room while I finish clearing the table and top off our wine glasses. When I go in search of her, the dogs are alone in the living room. Ringo is conked out in the center of Goldie’s bed while Goldie is stretched out on the floor, giving me a look like I should be proud of how patient she’s being with her guest.
I finally find Laney in the music room, standing beside the piano, her eyes fixed on the empty bookshelf in front of her.
Two boxes sit on the floor, both filled with music.
I hold out her wine glass, but she shakes her head, so I set it on the back of the piano.
“Adam, what are you doing?” she asks, and I breathe out a sigh.
“What does it look like?”
She huffs. “Whyare you packing up all your music? Where are your guitars?”
“Put away.”
“Why?” she repeats.
I drain my wine and walk back to the kitchen, but she follows after me. “Please answer my question.” The pleading tone of her voice makes my heart tighten painfully.
I don’t want to argue with her about this, but there’s only one way I can answer her question, and she isn’t going to like it.
I turn and lean against the counter, hands pushed into my pockets. “Because I’m not going to play anymore.”
“Why?” she says, her voice practically a whisper.
“Because it’s not worth it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes sense to me,” I say.
She shakes her head and steps toward me. “Adam, if we’re going to be together, then I need to understand how you’re feeling. Explain it to me.”
I lift a hand to the back of my neck. “There’s nothing to explain. I just don’t want to sing anymore.”
“I don’t believe you,” she quickly says. “Do you know what I listened to on the way over tonight? I listened to ‘The Start of Forever.’ The version you did in the studio, and Adam, I’ve never heard anything like it.”
I close my eyes. I worked hard over the last few days to construct a reality in my mind where all of this was going to be okay. I still have Hope Acres, I still have Laney, my life can still be everything I want it to bewithoutMidnight Rush.
But I must have been building with popsicle sticks and Elmer’s glue, because that reality is crumbling now, my control crumbling right along with it.
“How did you even hear it?” I ask darkly, but even as I ask the question, I know the answer. It was Freddie who calledher the night I left Silver Creek. It was probably Freddie who sent it to her.
Sure enough, she crosses her arms over her chest and says, “Freddie sent it to me.”
I don’t know why it irritates me—probably for stupid and irrational reasons that have everything to do with my heightened emotional state—but arguing about this would be easier than arguing about why I’m not going to sing anymore, so I dig in.
