Page 149 of Wingwoman
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone snooping. But that’s your fault. If you had talked to me, told me what happened, I wouldn’t have had to resort to sneaking around to find her. So tell me, is that the only lie you’re referencing in your song? Or is there more?”
I snorted. “What? That’s not enough for you? Me writing a song about the fictional suicide of my ex that turned into a self-fulfilling prophesy? I’ll never forgive myself for that. Jenn cheating on me was terrible, but she didn’t deserve the sort of vitriolic hate that’s been spewed her way by my fans ever since.”
From within my white knuckled grasp, my phone buzzed with a text from my father.
Impeccable timing as always, Dad.
Dad:
Owen mentioned he didn’t get the final payment yet.
“Fuck, one second,” I muttered to Hope and typed a quick response. One catastrophe at a time.
Josh:
Funds have been transferred. They can take a couple days to clear.
And I still had a few days of the deadline left.
Exhausted, I turned my attention back to Hope. Her gaze darted to my phone briefly before she shook her head. “I was about to say if you can’t forgive yourself, how the hell can you expect Jenn to?”
Expressionless.Keep my face void of emotion, I told myself.
This breakup was happening earlier than it was supposed to… sooner than I was ready for. But itdidhave to happen. “I don’t expect Jenn to ever forgive me. Don’t you see that? I don’t deserve her forgiveness. Everything I have in my life is because of that awful song. Every dollar, every success, every album, every horse I’ve saved is because I threw her under the fucking bus! And now?” A laugh bubbled up from inside of me.
A maniacal, bitter laugh.
I backed away from Hope and fell to a seat on the arm of the couch. “Now the label needs more of that. More heartbreak. More songs to sell to the stations.”
“Enter me, right? The next sucker who would fall for your bullshit and whose heart you would break?” Her completely flat eyes fell on me. I’d never seen her like this before. Distant. Cold. Usually being in Hope’s presence was like looking up at a rainbow. But rainbows were fleeting. Rare, quick flashes of beauty and joy that eventually fade away entirely. Just like love.
How did we get here? How did this all go so wrong, so fast?
“No. You were not supposed to get hurt. You weren’t supposed to fall for me. We were supposed to make your ex jealous and you would go back to him, remember? You were supposed to choose him. Love him. Not me. That was the plan!”
The change in her expression happened within a fraction of a second. At the sight of her shocked face blinking rapidly, I realized she was never privy to the plan. Yes, of course, I hadn’t wanted her to know I’d planned on this ending badly… but it was almost like she wasn’t even aware of her side of things… to win Brent back.
“You didn’t include me in any of the plans you made. You knew exactly how these six weeks were going to go and never filled me in. I thought we were partners. A team. But teammatessharethe game plan, Josh.”
She flicked her eyes to the ceiling, collecting herself as her fingers brushed across the turquoise stone resting on her decolletage. My mother’s stone. My mother’s necklace. “It’s time for a new game plan, wouldn’t you say? One that I’m a part of? One that doesn’t require you to keep breaking your heart and hurting those you love over and over again?”
The edge of the armrest bit into my upper thigh. “There is no other plan,” I said. “The producers only want one thing from me. They hated the song about my mom. The Josh Gabriel brand is one thing and one thing only… loneliness. Misery. Heartache.”
“So change the fucking brand, Josh!” she seethed. “Reinvent yourself.”
“Like it’s that easy.” I pushed off from the couch, heading to the kitchen to pour myself a whiskey.
Just as I raised the two-finger pour to my lips, Hope wrenched it out of my grasp and dumped it down the sink, white-hot fury in her gaze.”
“Are you my keeper now? Cutting me off like you’re my sponsor?” I reached for the whiskey bottle again, but she was faster than me, grabbing it by the neck and hurling it across the room.
It hit the wall, shattering and spraying glass and bourbon every which way.
“What the fuck, Hope?!”
“I watched my dad pour whiskey every time something got hard.”
I tore open the closet and grabbed the broom from inside, shaking my head. “I’m not your drunk-ass loser of a dad. If I have a single drink when I’m stressed it’s not the same thing.”
