Page 2 of Guitars and Mistakes
Will he come back to us? Can Lila Potter save him—and, if the rumors are true, his contract with his agent and label?
Or is he so broken that he can’t find his way back?
I don’t have an answer for you yet, but you know I’m digging as quickly as I can.
And in the meantime, I’m sidling up to Lila Potter as often as I can. My heart might belong to Olivia Johns, but now that she’s off the market, I’m thinking I might have another redhead in my future. And she’s got pale skin and freckles and the most gorgeous smile I’ve ever seen.
Oh, she’s also attached to Rivers Shine.
At least that’s what she keeps saying.
-C
PROLOGUE TWO
RIVERS
Twenty-Five Years Ago
His mother wasrough as she got him out of the car seat, her hands jerking the way they always did when she was in a bad mood.
“This God-damned motherfucking thing,” she muttered, jerking at the buckles. “Thank fuck I won’t have to deal with it again.”
The boy watched her, frowning and trying to sit as still as he could. He’d learned a long time ago that it was best not to struggle when she was in a mood like this. Struggling got him pinched and shouted at, particularly when it came to the car seat. And her fingers were too close to the skin on his thighs. The skin that hurt worst when she pinched him.
She looked up at him then, her eyes going dark the way she did when she was particularly angry, and he drew back even more, catching his lip in his teeth and trying to think of whether he’d done anything wrong today. Anything that might get him punished.
He didn’t remember anything. But that didn’t always mean he was safe.
He wasn’t old enough to use the bathroom by himself—not yet—but he was old enough to know that sometimes, his mother got mad for reasons that had nothing to do with him. He’d learned to hide when she did that, but right now he didn’t have any place to go.
He didn’t have any protection.
She glanced away from him though, to the man on the outside of the car, and grimaced.
The boy didn’t know who that man was, though he’d been around for longer than any of the other men he could remember. She’d been telling the boy to call him ‘Dad,’ and though he didn’t have many words yet, he’d learned to wrap his mouth around that one, just to please her.
She yanked him out of the car seat then and propped him in her arms, though he could tell by the way she was holding him that she didn’t want him there. She wanted to put him down and tell him to walk on his own.
He threaded his fingers into her shirt, holding on to her in spite of that. He didn’t want her to put him down. He didn’t know this place and he didn’t want to walk on his own.
As she started up the sidewalk behind the man, the boy turned to look up at the building they were heading toward. No, he’d definitely never been here. That dark, cold building in front of them wasn’t one he knew.
But he knew immediately that he didn’t like it.
The grass in front of the building was dead, the sidewalk cracked. There were no flowers. The sky above them was full of gray clouds and when he glanced at the windows of the building, he saw other faces there. Other children.
It should have made him feel better. He liked other children, when they played with him.
But these children looked sad. He didn’t like it.
He didn’t want this place.
Moments later they were climbing steps toward the front door of the building, though, and when that door swung open, a tall man was standing there glowering down at them.
The boy didn’t like the man any more than he’d liked the building. The man looked angry. Scary. Like he was someone who shouted almost as much as his mother did. Except that this man wasn’t his mother.
This man was a stranger, and he knew he wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers.
