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I followed him into the house, where he’d set up chairs and an amp in the living room. I took out Princess while Neal went into a back bedroom. He came out with his three-month-old son, Sam, who wore a onesie and made contented squeaky noises. Neal held Sam in the crook of one arm and patted Sam’s back with the other.
When I signed on with the Road Kings, I was determined not only to learn their songs, but to master them. This meant more than just studio rehearsals. It also meant that I spent time with Neal while we went over the music together. Neal was home with his new baby, so that was where we met.
Neal’s wife, Raine, was a successful real estate agent, and she had recently gone back to work while Neal stayed home. This was the opposite of the usual rock star setup, and I respected it. Also, I had met Raine, and she was a gorgeous brunette who made bank. Frankly, I’d marry her and look after her babies, too.
I put Princess on my lap. “We’re covering The Killers on Friday, apparently,” I complained. “And they won’t tell me the set list.”
“They don’t know the set list yet.” Neal put Sam into a baby carrier that sat on the counter and arranged him carefully with a blanket over him. “I can give you an idea, though.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know what set list I’d play if it was up to me. I’ll write it down for you. I predict ninety-five percent accuracy.” He sat down and took out his phone, swiping open the music app. “Which Killers song is it?”
I told him and glanced at Sam, who had fallen asleep in his carrier.
“We have an hour, tops,” Neal said, following my gaze. He tapped his phone screen, and the intro to “All These Things That I’ve Done” started. “Play it,” he said.
I did, and he listened, and then we were in it. We were like two expats who meet in a foreign land and can finally speak their native language with someone. We not only spoke the language of music, we spoke the language of bass.
I didn’t think about my sister’s wedding while I played with Neal. I didn’t think about my messy family, the sort-of argument with my mother, the problem of the fitting weekend. I didn’t think about Finn Wiley and all the ways I might avoid him, because the idea of seeing Finn made me even more terrified than the idea of playing with the Road Kings.
I let it all go for the music, which was what music had done for me all my life. When Sam woke up and started fussing in his carrier, I felt like only minutes had gone by. I also felt relaxed, even though Neal hadn’t done anything to make me feel better.
Then again, maybe he had.
FIVE
Finn
She wasn’t home. Why would she be? According to Alistair, Juliet had a new, steady gig with the Road Kings. She had a life.
She didn’t have a boyfriend, though. If she did, she wouldn’t be going to the wedding alone.
When no one answered my buzz to her apartment, I left and wandered Portland for the afternoon. It wasn’t a hardship, because Portland was a fantastic city. I walked the streets and saw the sights, enjoying myself even in the cold, unrelenting February drizzle. The only place I got recognized was in the music store, where the employee spent an hour talking guitars with me. “You really know your guitars, man,” he said when I settled on a Gibson and bought it. “Who knew?”
Who knew I could actually play music? Not most people. I had never stopped playing; I had a studio space in my house. I had played even when Dad was sick. It had kept me sane to the end.
But I hadn’t bought a new guitar in a while, and hanging out in a Portland music store on a rainy weekday afternoon was a special kind of pleasure. When I stowed the Gibson in the back of my car and drove back to Juliet’s, it was after six.
Juliet still wasn’t home, but her roommate was. The roommate told me over the intercom that she wasn’t going to let me in just because I claimed to know Juliet, and I didn’t blame her. I decided to wait.
I could have called her, or texted. Alistair had given me her number. But every time I thought of it, I lost my nerve. I pictured Juliet’s confused voice on the other end of the line, saying Who did you say you were again? Then I pictured her hanging up, leaving me holding the phone in complete humiliation. If I was going to be rejected, I would have the pleasure of seeing her in person first. If she didn’t remember me, she could tell me to my face.
When her car pulled into the building’s parking lot twenty minutes later, I knew it was her.
I was leaning against the brick wall next to the building’s door. Shady, maybe, but no one who passed by seemed to think so. I had taken Alistair’s advice and gotten a haircut, and my beard was trimmed neatly. I wore a navy wool coat, dark jeans, and Timberlands. I looked like someone’s boyfriend, waiting for his girl to come out.
Juliet didn’t see me at first. I watched her park, watched her grab her bag from the passenger seat and press the button to open the trunk. I watched her get out and pull a guitar case from the trunk, juggling it with her shoulder bag.
She was fucking beautiful. Her hair was blond now—her natural color, I thought—and tied on top of her head. She wore jeans and a waist-length canvas jacket. Her clothes were as well-worn as her guitar case, which was scuffed and weathered. On her feet were high-top sneakers. She frowned in concentration, her gaze lowered as she sorted her belongings, locked her car, and turned toward the door.
Then she saw me.
She stopped, and the recognition in her eyes was instant. It didn’t matter that it had been thirteen years.
She was too far away for us to speak, so I met her gaze and waited.
Finally, Juliet moved. She took a few steps closer, into talking distance but not getting too close. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Not hello, not is it really you? But my first fear had been groundless, because she definitely knew who I was.
