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“He hates that,” Judah said. “He hates it when I fuck up. It’s like dragging my disappointed father around the country with me.”
One disappointed father was plenty. Paul had stuck with Judah through a lot of unpleasant shit, but for the last couple of years Judah hadn’t been able to shake the impression that if he’d somehow been able to present Paul with a featureless, personality-free version of himself to manipulate at will, his manager would be a hell of a lot happier.
“I don’t want to talk to him.”
He stared down at his forearm, wrapped around his waist and covered in goose bumps. The short hair stood on end, frosted. A shudder racked his torso, but it was as if it were happening to someone else. He couldn’t feel the cold.
“You’re really in trouble, aren’t you?” Katie asked quietly. “Way more than me.”
“You’re all sunshine and roses, hon.”
“You think?”
“I do.”
She fiddled with her thumb and stared at the wall beside his head. “Why’d you really hire me?”
“Because I wanted you around.”
“And all that woo-woo stuff?”
Such a load of crap, his hunches and instincts. Following his heart. Hiring Katie. Seeing Ben.
Judah had no business making friends with Katie or asking for help. No business hoping. He was a washed-up has-been singer, and his job was to finish his slow dive toward the Behind the Music black moment. Pickle himself in alcohol or die in a flaming car crash. Be a joke.
And if it made him angry to think about ending up that way, well, have another fucking drink.
“You make a good conscience,” he said. “Want to be my professional girlfriend? I’ll take you on tour with me. There’s good money in it, and when I need a confessor, I’ll have you handy. Can you give a decent blow job?”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
She stood up, frowning down at him. One more person he’d disappointed. “I’m not your conscience. I’m a professional.”
He laughed, a hollow sound that made the ache worse.
Katie wrenched the bottle out of his hand and lobbed it at the alley wall. She threw like a girl. It hit the bricks, hit the ground, and spun in a lopsided circle, spilling tequila out on the filthy bricks.
“I’m sending Paul out,” she said. “With a coat.”
“You’re fired.”
An endless minute went by while she stared at him, her eyes bright and big and brown, her face too precious and too hurt for him to bear it. He wondered what it would take to get her to go. He wasn’t sure how much more he could hurt her.
Then she went back inside, and the fire door shut and cut off the sound of her heels clicking over the concrete hallway backstage.
The tequila puddle crept over the bricks, growing colder by the moment.
He couldn’t feel the cold. He couldn’t feel anything.
Chapter Thirty-two
“This whole case is a fucking mess.” Sean pulled off his jacket and looked around, trying to figure out where to throw it. None of the chairs had backs. The Hotel Vetro was an ultramodern glass palace, weirdly unsuited to Iowa.
Finally, he laid the jacket on the glass-topped table by a bowl of apples.
“I know,” Katie said from over by the closet, where she was hanging up her own jacket. “I can’t believe he fired me.”
