Page 86 of Almost Perfect
It came and went, but all that was gone completely when she was using. It was just one facet of the heartbreak before she was even gone.
“What can I do? Besides go kick that betraying bastardRad’s butt?” She sliced a finger across her throat in threat.
I chuckled, relieved I still could. Reading the article that broke just hours after I’d landed in LA, not even twenty-four hours before I planned to sit down with Danita Carl and have my say, had come as a shock.
A shock and a slap across the face. If I’d thought I could have Wyatt and live happily ever after, Rad’s actions served as the brutal reminder of what I’d known but had done my best to ignore. Giving into how much I cared for Wyatt, letting myself believe I could have him without consequence, was idiotic. It was too much to hope for, and I was seeing the insanity, the fallout, play out in front of me.
So much of it had seemed too outlandish for people to believe—he’d claimed I was an addictanddealer, that I’d hooked my mom on opiates and used them to control her. That I had her dealing for me, so I’d gotten a whole ring of semi-famous people addicted.
Then he’d gone for the kill. The article had put it this way:The unnamed source also had information about May O’Neill’s cheating on Bri Williamson. He said, “I know she cheated on Bri, because she did it with me.” When asked if he could corroborate any of his claims, the man gave this response. “You don’t have to believe me, but I can tell you every word of her lyric tattoos that wrap around her ribs. She’s never let them be shot close enough, and the script is hard to read, but I know the words. Does that tell you enough?”
And that had tipped me off. I’d suspected Rad, especially since he’d been borderline enraged with me when I’d left LA weeks ago and told him we needed to rethink things. The last few years had shown me maybe he wasn’t the right person to put at the helm of my empire, and now he’d confirmed that in spades. The time in Utah only firmed my resolve, but this?
Yeah,no.
In some ways, he’d given me a gift. I’d felt soput upon—so much like the bad press was public opinion I couldn’t influence, and didn’t care to. And there was truth to that—whatever this interview did, it wouldn’t solve all my problems. But it gave me focus and determination I hadn’t had in years.
And it had all come from Rad. He’d shown his hand with that interview, and I couldn’t tell if he’d meant to or not.
Because only a small handful of people knew those tattoos were lyrics, and one of them was dead. Another, now, was Wyatt. Jenna also knew, and then Rad. He’d been there during a conversation with Candy about them just after I’d had the second one inked. She’d argued I’d done enough pandering to the label, that I had a strong enough brand to come out with my own stuff. It was one of the last conversations we had that didn’t devolve into her asking for money or me begging her to try another treatment program. She’d been adamant I had it in me—it was so much like the early years with her saying we could do more, have more, I’d rejected it outright. I’d known the label didn’t want singer-songwriter Mayhem. Rad only reinforced my assumption by downright refusing to risk my future on my own, untrained writing.
And then, he went on to support the label’s song lists that led to two failing albums.Enough of him!
That conversation had replayed in my mind daily while in Silverton, every time I sat down to play and write. It was like Candy was nudging me toward it, a weird combination of her early faith in me and my grief over losing her compelling me to get the words and notes down.
I had more thinking to do about all that, but for now? Rad would get his turn. I’d tell Danita everything, and I did plan to make it clear to him, since I knew he’d be watching, that I knew it was him.
And in the meantime, I’d lean on Jenna, bless her.
“You’re doing it. Just being here with me.”
Jenna had texted me as soon as the story came out and said she was on her way to me if I was in LA. I’d arrived home to an empty house, my driver and security all welcoming enough and pleased to see me, but generally, the space was bereft of anything comforting.
Well, and it was missing Wyatt. But I’d been doing whatever I could not to sink into the deep dread-and-doom feeling clawing at me about him. I couldn’t face that and all of this, too.
“Are you wishing I was a certain strapping Saint?” She pinned me with her striking green eyes and a raised brow.
“Of course not. I miss him, but I’ve missedyou. I’m grateful you could come.”
She’d been with me for the last day, and I couldn’t verbalize how thankful I was I hadn’t just been sitting here alone. Kristoffer had been in constant contact, but he worked from home and had no reason to come see me. He’d even asked if I wanted company and I’d refused him.
“If I were you, I’d be missing him, though. He sounds great.”
She’d let me off the hook about Wyatt, not demanding details.
“He really is.”
Thinking about him hurt. Everything hurt a little right now, like I was walking around with an emotional sunburn. The sting of Candy’s death renewed with all the discussion of her addiction and my hand in it, whether accurate or not, paired with being betrayed by someone I was supposed to trust completely—even though at this point, it didn’t come as a surprise—left me raw.
But thinking about Wyatt, because I couldn’t actually avoid him, hurt in a weirdly good way. It hurt in a clutching, achy way that begged to see him again. Like wiggling fingers after they’d warmed from numbness—the pins and needles welcomed because they signaled the digits still worked. They could still feel.
My thawed-out heart knew what it wanted, and the distance from him wasn’t it. The cruel part was that this whole situation drove home why being near him just wouldn’t work. Having him would mean the detonation of everything else, and probably ultimately blowback on him. We’d kept his name out of the interview, but only by the skin of my teeth. The last thing Wyatt wanted was to have his name splashed across the media and his life invaded.
“What are you thinking there? Because I can tell, even as little as you said, that you’re not using this as a little mountain escape fling.” Jenna snuggled into the couch and blanket she had. The woman could be in the middle of the desert in July, and if she was trying to relax, she’d need a blanket to do it.
I heaved a sigh. “I want him.”
Her eyes widened, huge. “Wow.”
