“You know none of that is true, right?” the woman next to me said, her gaze on the tabloid in my hand. “It’s all fiction. Every word of it,” she tutted, making me feel ashamed for reading it even though I knew nothing in the magazine was true. “I can’t believe people waste their money on that garbage. If they didn’t do that, the magazines wouldn’t have the need to print hurtful articles and pictures.”
“You’re right. They wouldn’t.” I expected her to continue her anti-tabloid rant, maybe indicate that she recognized me as the guy in the magazine. But she didn’t. She yawned and closed her eyes. Within minutes, as we pulled away from the gate, her breathing became slow and even.
Exhaustion pulled up a chair, the adrenaline rush from over two hours ago beginning to fade. I shoved the tabloid into the seat pocket in front of me and removed the picture of Hailey from the front pocket in my notebook, the place where I normally kept it. I stroked my finger across her high cheekbone. But the laminated photo was a poor substitute for the flesh-and-blood girl. All the girls I had been with in the past few years had been a poor substitute for the real Hailey. And none of them had cared. They’d only been interested in Tyler Erickson, rising rock star.
That was fine by me. I didn’t have the time or interest in something more substantial than that. My career came first.
I opened my notebook. The least I could do while traveling home was work on lyrics for a new song. God knows I hadn’t written much while we were on the road. It wasn’t practical. You would’ve thought that with mile after mile of endless highways on the tour, we would’ve had plenty of time to write. But inspiration for new songs had been sadly lacking.
And it had been that way even before the tour.
—
Both flights were uneventful, but by the time we landed in Northbridge, Minnesota, I was ready to sleep for a hundred-plus years. It showed in the crappy lyrics I’d managed to scrawl in my notebook. No chart topper there.
I grabbed my sports bag and the woman’s suitcase from the overhead compartment, and waited for the passengers in front of me to disembark. As far as I was concerned, they couldn’t move fast enough.
As I waited, I turned on my phone to check if Brandon had called. He hadn’t, but Jared had. As much as I wanted to avoid this, I couldn’t delay it much longer. Even Jared had his limits as to how much of my bullshit he would take.
“Hey, you called,” I said after he answered the phone.
“Where the hell are you?” he replied, sounding like his annoying morning-person self, even though he would’ve returned to our apartment well after midnight. “You never came home last night.”
I smirked. “Sorry, Mom. Didn’t realize I needed to check in with you.”
“Ha ha. Was Mason right? Did you go off with that reporter?”
The line of people in front of me began moving. I followed, eager to get to the baggage claim before they started unloading the luggage. “Why would Mason think that?” I said, stalling.
“Because you held back when the rest of us left. What was he supposed to believe?”
“She wasn’t my type.” I didn’t have a type, other than the woman with long brown hair who was in a coma.
I entered the building and followed the stream of passengers headed for the baggage claim area.
“US flight 745 to New York City is now getting ready to board,” a female voice announced on the PA system. “Please have your boarding passes and photo ID ready.”
“Why the hell are you at the airport?” Jared asked.
Shit. “Family emergency.” Not that I had family here or anywhere. Both of my parents had been only children.
“Sorry to hear that. When are you coming back?”
I cringed. “I don’t know.”
“Well, as long as you’re back in time for us to start working on new material. But that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s not like you’re planning to be gone for two months, right?”
Double shit. “We don’t have two months.” My words were cautious. “Remar told me the label managed to hire Daniel Maynard to produce our album.” I didn’t need to tell Jared who Maynard was. Jared’s biggest dream was to one day work with the producer. “We’re due in the studio December twenty-seventh.”
“Fuck. And when were you planning on telling me this?”
Ignoring the escalator and the passengers herding onto it, I trotted down the stairs. “You make it sound like I was keeping it a secret. I just found out last night, before the concert. I’d planned to tell you sooner but didn’t have a chance to last night. Look, as soon as I know when I can come home, I’ll let you know. And in the meantime, I’ll work on some songs here. There’s this wonderful invention called Skype. If worse comes to worst, we can use that.” It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best solution I could come up with until I knew more about Hailey’s condition.
Jared muttered, “We’re screwed.” For now I had to agree with him, but wisely kept that to myself. “So why did Remar want to talk to you and not the rest of the band?”
“Hell if I know. I also have no idea why he arranged the interview instead of Jennifer doing it. I would’ve thought PR work was beneath him.”
“Good point.”