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I stand up and grab my guitar, taking it back over to the rack in the corner of our garage. Renting a townhouse is the best I can do in Seattle right now and even that is a stretch. If I didn’t need the garage to hold guitar classes in, I would downsize.
Living with Paige makes the bills a little bit easier to bear, but sooner or later she’s going to want to go off and live with someone she loves. Then I’m going to be left alone in a house I can’t afford and dreaming about another house Ireallycan’t afford.
“I know that I have enough, but I don’t want to.”
Paige raises an eyebrow. “You’re a liar, Cassie. We both know that you would love to get back on the stage and perform again.”
I shake my head. “I’m happy with what I do right now. I like teaching people to play guitar. Especially the kids. This is all I need to be happy.”
I grab my notebook back from her and head over to the piano in the corner. Paige chuckles and leans against the wall I painted black. As I sit down at the piano, a melody starts to play in my head.
Though I’ve never been as good at the piano as I am with a guitar, I still like to play. It helps me work out the other parts in the songs. I can sit down and figure out how the melodies blend together.
“Cassie, I love you, but sooner or later you have to stop lying to yourself.”
I smile at her as my fingers hover above the keys. Instead of answering Paige, I start playing one of her favorite songs. The slow and haunting tune fills the garage as she closes her eyes and hums along.
This isn’t the last time that she’s going to tell me that I need to go back to pursuing my dreams. It’s a conversation we have at least once a month.
After what happened with Gilded Cage, I don’t know if I ever want to fully return to music. There’s a part of me that misses the rush I got when I stepped on stage and started playing. I miss hearing Tyler’s voice as he sang the songs we wrote together to a crowd.
But the anger is still there. And the hurt.
I finish the first song and move into a second. The melody I play is one that’s been haunting my dreams for weeks. It’s a song thatI don’t quite have the words for yet, even though they linger just at the edges of my mind.
My phone starts ringing before I can fully get into the song. I sigh and pull it out of my pocket, and a number I haven’t seen in eight years flashes across the screen. As I slide my thumb across the screen to ignore the call, my hands start to shake.
What does Tony want with me after this long?
He’s yet another person I haven’t spoken to since the day my career came to an abrupt end. I didn’t know how to talk to him after that. Not that I had any reason to.
That part of my life ended when the people I trusted most screwed me over.
The phone starts ringing again, and my heart races as I look down at the screen. If Tony is willing to keep calling me, then it has to be something important. He wouldn’t bother with me otherwise.
I take a deep breath and swipe my thumb across the screen. “Hello?”
“Cassie, it’s been a long time,” Tony says, his voice raspy and low.
It’s the same voice that approached me in a bar late one night and told me I was going to be a star. He promised that he would make Gilded Cage famous, no matter the cost.
And it turned out, in the end, the cost was me.
“It has been a long time,” I say, proud when my voice doesn’t waver. “How are you doing, Tony?”
He sighs. “Always so polite. You’d think you would have grown out of that by now.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being polite. Even to assholes like you.” I run my hand through my hair, my pulse pounding in my ears. “It’s kept my life from spiraling out of control, at least. How is choosing the better image for the fans going now?”
“And there she is.” Tony chuckles. “I thought we’d lost the old Cassie.”
“The old Cassie died the day she walked out of that office.”
Paige catches my eye and nods to the phone. I give a small shake of my head, not wanting to tell her who it is yet. I still don’t know what Tony wants and there’s a good chance I might hang up on him before he gets there.
“Don’t be melodramatic, Cassie. I know how much you loved performing back then and I’m sure that you still love it now.”
“Quite frankly, that isn’t your business anymore.” I get up and pace from one side of the garage to the other. With each pass, I glance at the kids playing in the street, the hot summer sun shining down on them.
