Page 34 of Of Heartbreak and Harmony
I take out my phone and shoot a text to Becket. I tell him I’m going to bed because I have a headache and ask that he not wake me when he gets back to the tent. He sends back “K,” and I can practically hear the disappointment emanating from the phone screen. Becket thought wewere going to have sex tonight. Hell, I thought we were going to have sex tonight.
But now, instead of dwelling on the fact that my desire to sleep with Becket has dissipated like cigarette smoke into the hot night air, I’m pulling up the festival app and searching the schedule for tomorrow night in art tent Picasso.
When my eyes find it on the itinerary, my breath lodges in my throat and my nipples pebble.Latex Body Painting.
Fuck it.
Looks like I’ll be meeting a rock star at 10:00 p.m. tomorrow night after all.
11
TORREN
PRESENT DAY
Callie.
She goes by Callie.
Days later, and I still can’t quite believe it.
I know her. IknowI know her. That’s one of the most frustrating things about getting sober. You realize just how much of your life was lost to the drugs. Whole chunks of time are black, and the memories that did manage to stick are distorted and hazy. I can’t quite tell what’s real and what’s not.
But I know Callie James. I can feel it. I just don’t know how.
The chances of her being a groupie are slim, given how much she fucking dislikes me. Was she at a party where I got into a fight? Did I fuck up her boyfriend?
A chill skates down my spine...
What if it was Sean? Could he have...?
No. It couldn’t have been that. We kicked his ass out of the band before he could do any real damage, and while it’s no secret that he’s my brother, I’d have remembered something like that.
No. Sean can’t be the connection.
It must be something else.
I turn down Callie’s street at 8:00 a.m., revving the engine of my black sports car louder than necessary. My music is blaring as well, the bass turned up to obnoxious levels.
Anything to draw attention. The more nosy neighbors I intrigue, the better.
When I pull up to the curb of her apartment building, both Damon and I climb out. I stand beside the car for a moment and check my phone. I loiter. Three minutes. Then five minutes. Then I walk into the apartment building, leaving Damon to stand beside my car.
I consider the elevator, but it resembles a microwave from the 1960s, so I take the stairs. When I knock on the door, it swings open immediately, revealing a girl around fifteen. As soon as she sees me, her jaw drops, and she lets out a tiny squeak.
“Oh my god, she wasn’t lying.”
I smile. “She was not lying.”
The girl’s hair is a lighter shade of red than Callie’s—closer to strawberry-blond—but her eyes are the same shade of green.
“You must be Callie’s sister. I’m Torren.”
“I’m Glory.”
She stands in the doorway and blinks up at me, staring slack-jawed in shock.
“Can I come in?”
