Page 21 of Feuds and Interludes
“And that makes you sad, doesn’t it?”
I let my head fall back and spun the chair around and around. “It does, which is dumb. I don’t know why I care.”
“You care because you hate it whenever you can’t win someone over.”
The spinning in the chair used to help me think but right now it was making me nauseous. I stopped and closed my eyes. “Am I that much of a narcissist?”
“Boone, you aren’t a narcissist! But you love to be loved, and Shane is the one person you haven’t won over.”
“Yet,” I said with a wink. “I remember being like seven or eight years old the first time I met him. You and Grandpa had one of your wild parties, do you remember that?” She nodded and laced her fingers together. “I remember thinking he was so cool. I followed him around the whole afternoon.”
“Yes, and at the end of the day, you cried to me that you’d never be a big kid like Shane. I remember that vividly. That was before his parents split up, I think. When his mum still came to functions with Bruce.”
“And now I’m thirty years old and I still want him to like me.” In my stupid obsession of watching interviews with Shane, I came across one in which he didn’t hold back when the reporter asked him about Stellar. He’d said something to the effect that we were like candy that tasted good at first bite, but left you with a stomachache and a cavity. Not just us; he’d lumped us into the same category with several other bands currently sitting on the top of the Hard Rock and Alternative Rock charts.
“Then you go up there to Portland and you do what you do best, and you act like the consummate professional. That’s all youcando. But I will ask that you also be respectful when it comes to Bruce. I know your experience with him at the induction ceremony rubbed you the wrong way?—”
“It’s not that,” I said. “I was just worried for you. As long as he treats you with respect, he’ll have mine. I promise. No more tantrums.”
She grabbed my chin and wrinkled her nose. “You are so good to me, Boone. I want you to know how much I love you, and how blessed I am to have you in my life.”
“Stop it, Gran.” We both teared up, and I gave her a tight hug, which she tried to worm away from when she felt how sweaty I was.
“Now, you go shower and pack. I’m having Catherine clean up your disaster zone while you’re gone, and I won’t hear a word from you.”
I felt the urge to stomp my foot and protest, but that would undo all of the progress I’d just made with her.
She knew threatening me with Catherine’s cleaning meant I would clean up my own shit to avoid anything getting lost, broken, or tossed out, so that’s what I did. I spent the entire night cleaning my room, spending an inordinate amount of time putting loose photos in an album, organizing my paperwork, alphabetizing my vinyl collection.
So when Annie and Brandon arrived, I was still dripping wet from the shower and throwing clothes into a duffel bag. I made sure I had enough protein bars, all of my test strips and extra lancets, my monitor, my Metformin, my vitamins… Oh, and my manicure kit and polish collection.
I’d sleep at some point. In between playing with my band, working with Morrison, giving Rose a manicure, and trying to simultaneously avoid Shane and make him like me.
Nine
Shane
“I’m sorry, Shane, but Stellar is booked to overlap with you for the week. Morrison plans to work with you during the evenings, but days he’ll be with them. Lydia is free for the first couple of days to work with you as well.”
So many ugly things wanted to come out of my mouth, but that would feed into my reputation as a total dick, and none of this was Rose’s fault. As the manager of Bolder Breed Studios, it was her job to keep Lydia Pride and Morrison Jones on schedule, and to be their buffer in situations like this. The issue was on our end.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. Jeff should have let me know we’d be splitting time.” Our manager, of all people, should have known I wouldn’t want to be in the same studio, much less the same area code, with Boone. “Tell Lydia we’d love to see her tomorrow then.”
“I’m really sorry for the miscommunication,” Rose said. “But the rehearsal space is open in Cabin Six for you guys. You’ve got your usual rooms in the east wing, on the second floor.”
I didn’t want to ask where Stellar was staying. I didn’t even want to be breathing the same air, be in the same time zone as Boone…
Because I didn’t trust myself.
He’d been all I could think about, especially after seeing him lose some of that golden-boy gloss the night our grandparents reconnected. But if I was being honest, it really hit me while watching him sing with my grandfather. Oh, man, the two of them sounded good together.
Since that night, I’d spent my time vacillating between wanting to support my grandfather in his determination to win back the love of his life and wanting to forget about the entire Collins family. Pops was hurt time and time again by his best friend and the woman they both loved, and it seemed I was the only one who remembered that.
Dude was completely gone. He was so in love with Vera Jean. He’d loved my grandmother, Eddie Mae. They married shortly after John and Vera Jean were married, and had my mom around the same time Jean Collins was born. Grandma and Pops had a tumultuous marriage that wasn’t helped by their drinking. Sadly, she passed when I was little.
My mother blamed him for everything that went wrong in their lives. I overheard some teary conversations he’d had with Mom after yet another setback in his life. She thought music had ruined his life and made him an addict. She finally told him to stop coming around when I was in middle school, which was the beginning of the end of any sort of positive relationship between us. Shortly after that my father left, and though he tried to stay a part of my life, he got tired of fighting my mother as well. Obviously I hadn’t had a whole lot of experience observing healthy relationships, so what did I know?
I just wanted to see him happy, and he was over the damn moon.
