Page 144 of Songbird: Black Kite
“What the hell is your problem, Denise?” I asked, taking a step toward her and feeling an intense rush when she actually stepped back. I’d never had the upper hand over Denise before, and it was a heady feeling. “I have been taking your shit since middle school, and I am just so fucking tired of it.”
“Classy as always, Wren.” She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her blazer with its dainty pearl buttons.
“Oh, fuck off, Denise,” I clapped back, and Britney gasped. “It was always so easy for you to shit on everyone around you. You’d show up at school, strut around in your fancy clothes, making sure that everyone around you knew exactly who your daddy was.”
“Well, why not? They sure as hell knew whoyourdaddy was?” she fumed, her voice rising. “The guy responsible for destroying the town. The guy who put them all out of work. Big Tom Blackburn. Thought he was a tough guy, torchingmydamn house, but all he did was torch his own life. Remind me, Wren. Just how many people came to his funeral again?”
I swallowed, remembering that shitty day over ten years ago like it was yesterday. After far too many nights of drinking himself to sleep, my father had finally drank himself to death. My mother and Jasmine had stood on one side of his open grave, Cooper and I on the other, with only a small handful of his drinking buddies in attendance, scattered around the gravesite like pebbles.
Not one single person would make eye contact with me, not even the preacher.
Afterward, my mother had stalked out of the cemetery, refusing to look at me or even acknowledge that I was there, holding the hand of her three-year-old granddaughter.
It was the only time she and Cooper had ever been in the same place at the same time, my mother determined to carry on with my father’s banishment of me, even after his death.
“You’re right,” I said, clearly surprising both of them. “You’re completely right. My dad was a drunk and an arsonist and an all-around shitty parent. I won’t even try to deny it. But none of those things had anything to do with me, or why you and your terrible friends took it upon yourselves to make my life miserable at every opportunity. I mean, God, Denise, you had fucking everything—”
“And you cared about none of it!” she screamed, her careful composure shattering. “You were always so superior, walking around town in your wannabe goth clothes, skipping church to listen to that god-awful music. You never once came to a pep rally or the spring fling dance or any of the other regular, normal shit we were supposed to care about.” Her eyes were wild, her body visibly shaking as she ranted at me, and I could only stare, open mouthed, as she raged. “Why did you have to be so fuckingdifferent, Wren? Huh? Why couldn’t you just conform like all the others? You and Sabrina always had to go your own way, like you were so much better than the rest of us. It made me fucking sick.”
I blinked at her, my gaze darting from her angry face to Britney's shocked one, completely at a loss. That was why she’d made my life hell? Because I wouldn’t fall in line and become one of the gaggle of girls who trailed after her, hoping for a scrap of her attention.
“You know what, Denise?” I said after a moment of contemplation. “You can have it. You can have your sweater sets and your church socials and your high school sweetheart. You can have this awful town and it’s hoard of judgmental liars fawning all over you. I never wanted any of it.”
Looking again from her to Britney, I shook my head, seething.
“But today, you crossed a fucking line. Sharing my daughter’s photo? Outing her to the world? That put her in danger, Denise! Do you have any idea what could happen if some deranged fan spots her now? Not to mention the fact that all the things they’re saying about her are straight-up lies!”
Denise at least had the decency to look ashamed, even if it was only a little.
“So I’m gonna go in there and get my daughter, and then I plan to leave this place, and you, behind us forever. I hope you enjoy ruling over this town, Denise, because it’s all you’re ever going to achieve.”
Chapter eighty-one
Hawk
Present
“Holyfuck,amItired.” Alex’s moan was quiet, the lack of energy in his voice a testament to just how true his statement was.
Sitting in the makeup chair, a woman currently fussing with my hair while a young man dabbed some sort of concealer under my eyes, I couldn’t move my head enough to look at him, but I grunted my agreement anyway.
We were all fuckin’ tired.
It had been three days of insanity, with all sorts of things happening at the kind of lightning speed that only Mick could manage. First, there were meetings with lawyers, finalizing all the necessary paperwork needed to set up our own label. I’d had no idea all the shit that would be needed, but that was why we’d put Mick in charge. He’d arranged everything, even finding some other investors so that we didn’t have to put up all our own capital up front. At first, I’d been hesitant, not really liking the idea of bringing in outsiders, because trusting other people wasn’t something the guys and I excelled at these days. But as Mick started throwing around words likeVenture Capitalists, andhigh-growth potentialandequity stake, we decided that if nothing else, we trusted Mick, and told him to do whatever he felt was best.
Since then, he’d been like a dog with a bone, and today was the latest item on his to-do list forBlack Kite Records: promo.
Or, according to Mick, trying to get some photos of us sober and with our clothes on for a change. He insisted that we needed to show the world that while theBlack Kitethey knew—and loved, I was quick to remind him—was still alive and kicking, there was also this new version ofBlack Kite. The version that included serious businessmen, ready to produce quality music for the masses while also respecting their artists the way that a label should.
So here we were, getting dolled up to go in front of the camera and convince the music world to take us seriously.
Looking at us, I doubted that was even a possibility.
We looked like a bunch of jackasses.
Gone were the ripped t-shirts and holey jeans of our youth. In their place were three guys in business casual, button-down shirts and combed hair, making us look like we were playing dress up.
But Mick insisted that it was what we needed, so that’s what we were gonna do.
