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“Do you still go up in it?”
She shrugged her shoulders, the way she did when the answer wasyesbut she didn’t want to admit it.
“I want to go up in it,” I said, more to myself than her. Even after we’d outgrown playing pirates or runaways or whatever, we’d still hung out on the bare plank floors with our bandmates, Joanne and Mia. Callum accused us of going up there to smoke and drink, and he wasn’t wrong, but it was more a place where we could dream our big dreams. Things seemed more possible in the tree house.
I wondered if it was still true. These days, I needed to believe anything was possible even more than I did when I was a teenager. Back then, I’d been limited by my age, but that was it. My parents had never tried to bind me with their own expectations. Looking back, I realized now that it was probably because they were too busy hiding the fact their marriage was falling apart, but it translated to freedom either way.
Now, seven years later, I wasn’t free. I’d signed my freedom away for the chance to make my dreams come true. I hadn’t signed the contract in blood, but it had been a pact with the devil all the same. Jason Cain had all the beautiful trappings of an archangel with his snow-white hair and crystalline blue eyes, but I should have looked closer. I should have seen the hellfire in his pupils. Maybe I had, but I’d pushed it away. Told myself I was imagining things. Then I made the requisite sacrifice and put my name on the dotted line.
Renee, Mia, and Joanne had been the sacrifice. Jason hadn’t wanted to signThe Belles, he’d only wanted me. At the time, I’d thought myself so lucky to have friends who encouraged me to take the deal anyway. Now, I wished just one of them had been more selfish, had told me that leaving them made me an unforgivable jerk, and stopped me.
It would have been better than becoming the puppet slave my manager had pulled the strings of for so long.
“Hey.” Renee touched my arm, and I realized that we were in her driveway. I hadn’t even noticed when she turned the car off, I was so lost in my thoughts. Her intense green gaze roved over my face, seeing the things I tried to hide. “Everything is going to be okay.”
I wanted to believe her, but she didn’t know the whole story.
No one did.
CHAPTER 2
CALLUM
When Renee called, I was working late at the office trying to finish the details of a celebrity author’s payment agreement that was a week overdue because Joy Jones kept changing her mind about what she wanted in her dressing room.
I was going to be late picking Noah up from kindergarten if I didn’t leave in the next five seconds, so when I saw Renee’s name on the Caller ID, my first thought wasgreat, she can help me.
But Renee beat me to the punch. “Callum, hell has frozen over. I need your help,” she said when I picked up.
“I need yours too.” I scrolled carefully over the document, making sure the changes had all been implemented. “Can you pick up Noah from school?”
“I’ve got Quinn.”
“Quinn Collins?” The words on the screen in front of me began to swim. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, wondering if I was starting to lose it. Even though Quinn Collinshad grown up right next door to me and was my sister’s best friend, I was still more likely to work with her than see her around town these days. She lived in LA now. Sometimes she asked me to look over her contracts, but she never actually sent them over.
“Yeah, I just picked her up from the bus stop.”
Thebusstop?I pinched the bridge of my nose harder. Whatever, I’d figure out why Quinn had taken a bus rather than driving the fifty miles back to Belmont Springs later. “Hey, since you like picking people up so much, why don’t you grab Noah for me? You can bring Quinn.”
“And then you’ll help me?” Renee’s voice was oddly serious.
“Sure, but I won’t be home for at least an hour, so could you–”
“Feed him? Sure.”
“Thanks.”
Renee grunted and hung up. I knew she wasn’t annoyed though. Many things irritated my sister, but children were somehow immune. She loved Noah more than anyone in the world, and she was so soft with the elementary schoolers she taught that she was almost unrecognizable. She was still a garbage cook and he’d probably get his dinner from a drive through, but one fast food burger wouldn’t give him scurvy.
Relieved, I finished up the final details of the contract and sent it to Joy Jones’ manager. It wasn’t until I left the office and was in my car driving north, that I thought about how odd it was for Quinn to suddenly be in town. I didn’t know the specifics of her schedule, but her manager, Jason Cain, had a reputation for keeping his artist clients on the hamster wheel. The joke wasthat the devil worked hard, but his client list worked harder, and Quinn was the biggest star on his label.
And equally odd, Renee breaking twenty-five years of tradition by asking me for help. That was two unusual events in one day, and I didn’t believe in coincidences. My curiosity grew as I turned into Belmont Springs. The wooden entrance sign had been replaced since I was a teenager, but history had repeated itself. Some industrious teenager had changed the B to an H and added an extra line of spray paint to make it into Hellmont Springs. My disgust momentarily distracted me from the question of Quinn’s presence and Renee’s request. It had taken years to convince my parents to leave this dump, and as soon as I did, Renee took their place. Maybe Quinn would talk some sense into her. I knew what kind of places she’d been hanging out in since she put Hellmont Springs in the rearview mirror where it belonged.
But when I pulled into the pitted driveway that the HOA should have cited years ago, I caught a glimpse of flame-red hair in the treetops. Quinn was back in her treehouse, crossing the rickety bridge over to ours. As I got out, I heard the laughter of the couple who had bought her old house. They loved the tree house. And they clearly loved that Quinn Collins had just popped up in their backyard.
“Thanks,” Quinn was calling back when I let myself in through the side gate.
She hadn’t seen me yet, but I could see her long, slim legs encased in denim that looked like it had been painted on. She was wearing a loose black t-shirt that just grazed the waistband of her jeans, and I could see the smooth, flat lines of her stomach when it billowed in the breeze. Her small narrow feet were bare and surefooted, taking her quickly and easily across the bridge.
