The word slams into me like a blow. I’m breathing so hard, I feel dizzy.
“Yours?”
Patty has always been a locked door. But now, for the first time, he’s opening it. And something in me wants to slam it shut before I hear what’s on the other side.
“He stole that first album from me, Lou.” His voice is hoarse, like he’s dragging the words out of himself. “And after years of thinking I lost it, my dad found a flash drive that proved it. It must have been on me when I had my accident.That’swhat I sold Nash.”
The world doesn’t tilt this time.
It shatters. And the crash rings in my ears.
I blink fast, trying to piece together what he’s saying, but nothing fits. “How did he steal them ifyouhad the demo?”
“He overheard me recording them one night in our hotel.” His voice is clipped now, the words rushing out. “I was so dumb, I actually emailed him a copy. I thought he’d support me in going solo.”
Going … solo …
The arena around me shrinks and expands at the same time, like I’m trapped in a space too big and too small all at once.
Patty clears his throat. “I know you think I ran sound for them. And I did, in a way. I made sure the mixes were up to his standard. I was the one double-checking the stage every night. But it’s not because I was the sound tech.”
The air between us is so electric, it’s dangerous.
Every muscle in my body is braced.
Patty swallows hard. Then, his voice quiet but unshakable, he says:
“I’m Duncan.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
PATTY
Lou sings and shouts and pours herself into every note, every chord, every breath. She plays guitar solos and jumps around, but something’s missing.
Joy.
She’s impossible not to watch, but I see what no one else does—the quiet hurt she’s hiding beneath the bright lights. She’s like an injured animal, and it takes everything in me not to run out on stage, scoop her up, and protect her from everything.
And all the while, at every possible break, I try to tell her my story.
But she stops me.
“I can’t do this right now,” she says as her band finishes the final measures of the last song before her big wardrobe change. “I have to focus.”
“I know, but Ihaveto get this out.”
“Patty, please,” she begs, and if it were about anything else, I’d bend until I break. But I can’t let the truth go unsaid for a minute longer.
Always choosing the selfish path …
“Our last names—LeDuc and O’Shannan—made the perfect combo. Drop the first couple of letters, and you can combine them to make Duncan and Nash.”
“You pulled a Lord Voldemort?” she asks, already running off stage.
“Yup,” I say. “I only saw the hook, not the consequences. Nash made me feel like he was the brains—the fancy rich kid from Silicon Valley—and I was the poor, dumb kid from Nowhere, South Carolina. He made me feel lucky that he picked me. So I embraced his vision, even though Sean and my dad begged me not to. I didn’t know Nash was manipulating me. Erasing me. It took my accident for me to realize what he’d been doing.”
“Which was?” she asks.
