Page 10 of The Malibu Secret

“At the jazz club. No reservation needed."

One raised eyebrow is all it takes.

Two hours later, we're hunting for our scattered clothes, and my stomach is growling loud enough to drown out any jazz band.

Then we get into his car, which surprises me. I expected he'd be driving an Aston Martin or some other gleaming beast with an engine that purrs like a pampered tiger, the kind his brother Max drives. But he doesn't. It's a base Porsche Cayenne in white, all clean lines and understated luxury. The leather seats cradle me like butter-soft gloves, and the dashboard glows with subtle blue lighting. A beautiful car, expensive even, but it's less than $100,000. Max would consider this car slummy, like something you'd donate to a charity auction.

We get to the club, a place that practically begs for a haze of cigarette smoke hanging in the air—even though indoor public smoking's been banned for years. The exposed brick walls are stained with decades of nicotine ghosts, and between them hang these vibrant, electric-blue and hot-pink Warhol knockoffs of Coltrane and Holiday with their eyes half-closed in musical ecstasy. The only illumination comes from amber-tinted glass lamps on each table, casting everyone's faces in that perfect golden-hour glow that hides flaws and deepens shadows. On the center stage is a gleaming black baby grand, its lid propped open like a shark's mouth, waiting for Cameron to run those long fingers across the keys and croon into the vintage microphone that dangles above it. God, I hope he doesn't suck—nothing worse than watching someone you know bomb. But something tells me he'll be brilliant—men like him always are, infuriatingly perfect at whatever they decide to try.

I pick the burger, Cam goes for the fried chicken, and he orders wine for the table. Christ, my stomach's in knots watching the first few performers, knowing he'll be up there soon. Fifth in line, and the bastard looks cool as ice. Relaxed. Like he's done this a thousand times. Meanwhile, my heart's doing the cha-cha in my throat. I'm sweating through my shirt for him, and he's just sitting there sipping his Pinot Noir like he's not about to bare his soul at that piano. Maybe I should take his calmness as a good sign? Hell if I know.

It's finally his turn. He mounts the stage in three deliberate steps, his gaze locking onto mine through the amber light that makes everything feel like a fever dream. "This is an original," he announces, voice low and rough against the chrome microphone, fingers already commanding the keys like they're extensions of his nervous system. The crowd doesn't just applaud—they erupt, a volcanic recognition that sends vibrations through the floorboards beneath my feet. While others tonight offered the comfort of familiar classics—the flirtatious tease of "Ain't Misbehaving," the raw wound of "God Bless the Child," the soaring escape of "Fly Me to the Moon"—Cam is about to cut them open with something they've never felt before.

The first chord slams into the room like a fist, a minor seventh that doesn't just hang but suspends time itself. His fingers attack the keys with violent precision, each note a confession torn from somewhere primal. The melody doesn't just unfurl—it claws its way through the room, a wounded animal both dangerous and beautiful. I see him not just practicing but exorcising demons in his house, transmuting the death of the two people he loved most in the world into this brutal, gorgeous catharsis.

When he finally sings, the room doesn't just fall silent—it stops breathing. His voice isn't just bourbon but lightning in a bottle, electric and devastating, burning everything it touches. This voice couldn't exist anywhere but here, in this moment, between us. Each syllable feels ripped from his chest, secrets he's kept locked away now bleeding into the open air, and somehow—God help me—directly into my veins.

Yes. He has the fucking goods. Every note he sings rips straight through my chest. The melody crawls under my skin, the words punch me in the gut, and that voice—God, that voice—rough like whiskey and broken glass, shattering at the edges when he can't hold back the pain anymore. I feel the devastation pouring out of him, the raw wound of losing his wife and baby girl bleeding into every syllable. This isn't just a song—it's his soul being torn out through his throat, and I can barely breathe watching him survive it.

Holy shit. I'm getting chills watching Cam pour his soul into that piano. His fingers dance across the keys, building this intense crescendo that reminds me of all these classical composers I used to listen to with my mom when she was sober—Mahler, Moszkowski, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Schubert, Ravel, even a piano version of that haunting Max Richter piece I've always loved, “On the Nature of Daylight.” But he's not just copying them; he's channeling something raw and personal through those notes. The jazz bassist behind him catches my eye, nodding along as he adds these perfect off-beat punches that make the whole thing come alive. Before I know it, I'm wiping my cheek and standing up, hands stinging from clapping so hard—and I'm not the only one on my feet.

When Cam weaves his way back to our table, I get my answer about whether he's a regular. "Doc Cam!" someone calls out. At least five different people high-five him or grip his shoulder as he passes. This is definitely his territory.

He eventually sits back down while more people swarm the table to congratulate him. Cam's all smiles, chatting everyone up like it's nothing. I gotta hand it to him—I'd be crawling out of my skin with all this attention. Put me in a crowd and I turn into a human panic button. Like that time my paintings somehow ended up in this underground gallery that got invaded by punks. They circled me like leather-jacketed vultures, five or six deep, telling me I was "revolutionary" or whatever. First off, compliments make me want to dive under the nearest table. Second, back the fuck up and give a girl some breathing room, especially when I'm trapped in a basement that suddenly feels like someone sent up the punk bat signal. The whole thing was bizarre anyway—my stuff is basically fancy portraits with blurry edges, total John Singer Sargent knockoffs. No idea why the safety-pin crowd lost their collective shit over it.

He turns to me, all grins—that crooked, dimpled smile that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners—and I play it cool even though inside I'm dancing the Air Walk like a teenager at her first concert. "Yeah, you got some chops there." I turn away and sip my wine, the tart Pinot washing over my tongue as I try not to show my hand too much. Then I shake my head, my silver hoop earrings jingling against my neck. "Aw, who am I kidding? You were fucking amazing out there. The lyrics, the melody..." My voice trails off as a lump forms in my throat, because his haunting baritone over those minor chords brought tears to my eyes, reminding me of Mom.

Yes, right now, she's Mom, even though I'm not technically worried about her. I told Cam that I only called my mother "Mom" when I'm worried about her, but that's not necessarily true. I actually call her Mom when I'm feeling nostalgic, too, and there's something about this entire evening—the amber glow of the stage lights, the smell of beer and perfume mingling in the air—that's making me nostalgic for her.

And that's when it hits me. Before the pills, before her skin went from porcelain to pockmarked, Mom was someone else entirely. Dad's death changed everything—suddenly those graceful hands that once flew across piano keys started shaking, reaching for Oxy bottles instead. Her face hollowed out until her cheekbones looked sharp enough to cut glass.

Before Dad died, Mom was a concert pianist, a professional who used to fill concert halls. As I was only 4 when he died, I didn’t really know that version of her. But Daniel—probably the only halfway decent boyfriend she ever had before she spiraled and chased him off—uploaded her performances to YouTube. Millions of views and thousands of comments from strangers who have no idea that the woman with the "transcendent talent" and "extraordinary sensitivity" has problems staying sober, to put it mildly. I watch those videos religiously, like prayers to a god I'm not sure exists anymore.

Even during my childhood, between the highs and the disappearances, she'd have these moments of clarity. She'd sit at our secondhand upright, and suddenly our shitty apartment would transform into Carnegie Hall. Those rare performances—her fingers dancing across ivory, her face serene—they're the memories I cling to when everything else about her tries to fade away.

God, I used to listen to her play and get goosebumps racing up my arms like little electric currents. She wrote her own compositions, too, even if she couldn't sing a note without sounding like a strangled cat. And I guess Cam playing like that kinda brought me back to where I was 7 years old, sitting on the worn velvet of the piano bench next to my mother playing a Mahler piece on her baby grand, the notes rising and falling like waves in a storm that still haunts me to this day.

The day that baby grand disappeared also still haunts me. Mom got that death benefit check—nearly half a million for war widows back then—but two years later? Gone. Turns out street level Oxy costs a hell of a lot more than the dealers advertise, especially when you factor in bail money and lawyers' fees every time she got busted. Plus paying for endless rehabs that never stuck. Not to mention all those foster homes I bounced through - had to hire lawyers for that, too. So when the money dried up, she started selling everything that wasn't nailed down. That piano though... when it left our house, it felt like someone cut out a piece of my soul.

And now here's Cam, playing just like she used to—all instinct and heart, letting the music breathe instead of strangling it with precision. Mom could take something everyone knows— “Claire de Lune,” “Moonlight Sonata,” “Rhapsody in Blue” —and transform it with these little improvisations that made you hear it fresh. She'd bend those classics until they became something new but familiar, like she was revealing what the composer meant all along but couldn't quite say.

He smiles and reaches for me, but pulls back when I flinch. "Glad you loved it."

"I did." I take a swig of whiskey and grab my purse. "Ladies room."

Bullshit. I'm calling my mother. We haven't spoken in weeks except for that one call after the accident—which she blew off—but after those memories hit me, I need to hear her voice. So, I go outside the club and into the alley way and call her.

"Tally!" Mom answers immediately. "How are you?"

"Fine, fine," I say, swallowing the urge to ask why she couldn't be bothered to play nurse after my accident. But honestly? I'm glad she didn't show. If she had swooped in with her Florence Nightingale act—or more likely her Nurse Ratched routine—Cam wouldn't have stepped up. And Cam's version of TLC beats Mom's any day. Not that Mom's all bad. Our Phase 10 marathons are legendary, and she destroys me at chess every damn time. But "playing games" with Cam? Whole different ballgame. Trust me on that.

"How's the recovery going?"

"Pretty solid," I say, wincing as I rub my lower back. The spot where Cam worked his magic is throbbing again. Maybe I could lure him into the bathroom for another round of his hands-on therapy?

"So what's up? I can hear piano music—you're at a bar. You never call from bars unless something's on your mind."

She's right. I don't do social calls from noisy venues. But how do I explain that this gorgeous guy at the piano is reminding me of her playing the baby grand while I grew up? That those are the few good memories of my childhood, because when she was playing, she was sober, and when she was sober, I always prayed she’d stay that way so I wouldn’t be taken away again? That watching Cam play makes my chest ache with memories of her? That some nights I fall asleep counting imaginary dollars, wondering how many tattoos it would take to buy her a Steinway—something she might love more than the pills or the men who leave bruises on her arms and empty spaces in her cabinets.