Page 91 of Songbird: Black Kite
“I don’t want any trouble, Hawk. I did what I was told. Followed the rules.” Stepping away from me, Wren opened her door, pausing to look back at me one last time. “You tell her I said I don’t want any trouble.”
And with that, she closed the door and disappeared back into the house, shutting me out entirely.
Chapter fifty-four
Wren
Present
"Whatthefuck?” I whispered, my back pressed against the wood of my front door. “I mean, what the actualfuck?”
This couldn’t be happening. Not after all this time.
My heart pounded furiously in my chest, so hard I wondered if Hawk could hear it through the door.
Fuck. Hawk Jameson, standing on my front porch.
Deciding I needed to be as far away from him as I could, I fled down the hall and into my bedroom, closing the door behind me as I tried to rein in my panic.
What the hell was I gonna do? Howdarehe show up here, at my fucking door? And how dare he do it looking so damn good? It had been a few years sinceBlack Kitehad been in the press. Ever since news of the band splitting, they’d all been laying rather low.
Not that I followed them or anything; no, I was forbidden from engaging in all thingsBlack Kite, but that hadn’t stopped my eyes from wandering to the tabloid magazines when I was in the grocery store checkout line. And that didn’t stop me from seeing the news stories when they scrolled across my TV screen.
Black Kitebreaking up had been the story of the decade. There wasn’t a channel on the planet that hadn’t made some mention of them. After all, not sinceFleetwood Machad there been a bigger scandal. The record label’s darling daughter cheating on her lead singer husband with his bassist and best friend and completely blowing up the band? It was outrageous and unbelievable, so of course people couldn’t get enough. It was months before I had stopped seeing Hawk’s face every time I needed to pick up a carton of milk or stock up on toilet paper.
I’d hated it.
But eventually the hype had faded, and another scandalous celebrity had taken center stage in the court of public opinion. I’d managed to shove Hawk into the dark corner of my mind that he occupied.
The trouble was, he never fucking stayed there.
Making my way over to my dresser, I lifted the lid of the small wooden jewelry box on top, pushing aside the cheap bangles and discount earrings until I found the small velvet pouch I kept hidden at the bottom. Undoing the drawstring top, I poured the guitar pick out into the palm of my hand and stared at it, the only reminder of Hawk that I allowed myself these days.
Well, not theonlyone.
“Mom?”
Jesus Christ. He’d seen her. It might have only been a second, but he’d laid eyes on Cooper, and that terrified the hell out of me. I’d made promises for the sake of my daughter, and if Hawk was here now, what the hell did that mean?
If he thought he was going to be able to take my daughter from me, then he was sorely mistaken.
“Mom?” Cooper asked, her voice getting louder because I had taken too long to answer her. Knocking on my door, she only paused a moment before barging in. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing, kiddo,” I said, my back still to her as I curled my fingers around the pick, its rounded edges digging into my skin a little. “Just thinking.”
“Well, can we think about dinner? I’m starving.”
“Sure thing,” I laughed, sliding the small memento back into its bag and replacing it in the box once more. Taking a steadying breath, I glanced at myself in the mirror, swiping at the mascara smudges under my eyes before I turned to her with a smile. “Come on. You can help me cook while you tell me all about practice.”
She rolled her eyes, but nodded, following me down to the kitchen.
“What playlist do you want tonight?” I asked, turning on the wireless speaker we kept in the room for just this kind of occasion. “I think it’s been a while since we did a 90s night.”
“It was literally last night and you know it,” she said, shaking her head. I paused, watching as she scrolled through her phone, her free hand tucking her dark hair behind one ear as she concentrated on finding the perfect music for our cooking session.
Hair that very closely resembled that of the man who had just been standing on my stoop.
What the hell was I gonna do? Cooper had stopped asking about her dad years ago, when my pathetic non-answer ofhe just can’t be here with usseemed to be enough.
