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Pausing, I angled my head. “You moved around a lot. Was it hard always being the new kid?”
He shrugged. “You get used to it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re answering my questions withoutreallyanswering them.” And I wasn’t going to give him another free pass. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but you do need to cry foul or otherwise you’re just plain cheating.”
Sighing, he carefully set the guitar down beside the armchair. “You wanted to know whether I liked or hated traveling so much. Each time we moved, I hoped it would be different this time. It never was. I wanted normalcy. Routine. A home. A pet. But then I didn’t, because it was easier to pretend that none of those things meant anything.
“You couldn’t let yourself settle anywhere, because you knew you’d soon be on the move again; that you might have to up and leave at a moment’s notice. I didn’t dare get attached to anything because there was always a chance I’d have to leave it behind. So no, I didn’t like it. Just as I didn’t like always being the new kid, to answer your second question. But our time wasn’t all bad. Me and my mom were happy in our way.”
My heart squeezed at the picture he painted of a little boy drifting, floating, forming no bonds. Knowing he wouldn’t appreciate any sympathy, I said, “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
He fired a droll look my way. “You said that your father hurt you once. What did he do?”
I flexed my fingers. “Plastered, he grabbed me by the throat and squeezed hard enough to leave bruises. He thought itwould be fun to see if he could break my larynx, because then I wouldn’t be able to sing for a while.”
Kaiser’s mouth tightened. “Fucker.”
“I moved in with my grandmother the next day. I was eighteen, so he couldn’t stop me. Not that she’d have let him. Judy’s a force to be reckoned with. There’s no stopping her when she has her heart set on something.”
“Yeah, I sensed that about her.”
I bit my lower lip. “I’ll be a wreck when she dies. She’s my rock, you know?”
He dipped his chin. “My mother was the only anchor I had. I guess that’s another reason why being on tour never bothers me.”
“You have no tether to any particular place.”
He shook his head. “It’s why I move a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever lived in one house for more than three years.”
Wow. He reallydidmove a lot. “What made you relocate to Redwater?”
“I performed at the city’s main arena last year. Something about this place … I don’t know. I just like it.”
“I was at that concert,” I admitted. “I kept myself hidden in a space near the VIP section where there was no chance I’d be seen.” No way would I have treaded on his limelight, and I’d known he wouldn’t want to see me anyway.
His brow creased. “No one told me. Why hide the whole time? You could have found me after the show.”
I snorted. “So you could scowl and grunt at me? Nah, I had better things to do. But if I ever go to one of your future concerts, I’ll come say hi afterward. Now that you’ve seen my boobs, you’re not as mean to me. Then again, you could revert back to being a major asshole after you longer have access to my pink parts.”
A rumbly chuckle crawled up his throat—it only lasted a few seconds, but it had me gaping nonetheless. “You know, not many people make me laugh,” he said. “I laughatthem in my head, but not usuallywiththem.”
“And you feel absolutely no remorse about that, do you?”
“No.” He stretched out his legs and planted his hands on the armrests, looking every inch a king on a throne. “Sing for me.”
“Sing what?”
“Something you’ve written.”
I stared at him, not quite able to believe that he wanted a private show. The idea of it probably should have sent my nerves scrambling. But if there was one thing that never made me nervous, it was singing.
Music was my joy, my release, my biggest form of self-expression; it made me feel connected to both myself and the world around me. So I had no issue grabbing my guitar and doing as he asked.
Finished, I waited, expecting his rude version of productive criticism.
“Gives me goosebumps,” he said, his tone deeper than usual.
I frowned. “What?”
