My Soul To Keep (Soul Series Book 1) (48 page)

I NEVER REALLY UNDERSTOOD “FINDING PEACE.”
I used to think peace had to find us. That when we’re lost, we stand still long enough, and peace will find us. But when we are lost, peace doesn’t come looking for us. It doesn’t settle on us like a cloud, gentle and sweet. It’s not this passive process. At least it wasn’t for me.

Sometimes we have to fight our way out of the dark because the light doesn’t come looking. I half crawled and was half dragged out by the people who love me. And once I was out of the dark, the light still didn’t offer much peace. I worked and went through the motions of life in broad daylight, still numb with grief.

I can’t help but remember that last night with Mama, sitting on our front porch, shivering in the cold, watching a dark sky, waiting for the break of dawn. The hope of a new day, a light in the sky that never came for her. In some ways, I’ve been looking for that break in the dark ever since. It took a long time for me to see it, for me to find that hope, that peace. But something, someone, made me
want
it. Made me want to make the most of the light. Made me want to open my heart to all that life
still
has to offer, even though death took so much. And that someone takes my breath away.

I stand in the wings, backstage at Club Nokia, watching my boyfriend end his set. The last two weeks have been crazy. I’d already left The Note. I gave my notice at the studio last week and taught my last class yesterday. The last thing tethering me to my old life is the apartment. I don’t have much, but what I do have is packed up and ready to go to Rhyson’s. San pretends he is happy that I’m leaving because now he can have all the booty calls he wants, but I know he’ll miss me. I’ll miss him. It’s kind of the end of an era for us. I guess I’m becoming what I promised myself I’d never be—a kept woman.

At least until I become a superstar.

Rhyson and I walked the red carpet together for the first time tonight for this benefit concert. Even though it’s so close to the tour, Rhyson wanted to do it because it benefits the high school for the arts he attended. I want to hang back, but he wants me with him all the time. He says he wants everyone to know that he’s taken, that I’m taken. That we’ve taken each other.

I gotta admit, it feels right. The lights and the cameras. The screaming fans. I don’t even care that they’re not cheering for me. One day they will be. One day I’ll have a stage of my own. A tour of my own. For now, I love him so much I just want to ride with him. It felt right being with him.

Bristol walks up beside me. I wouldn’t recognize that girl without her phone, and sure enough, it’s the main accessory for the silver dress sheathing her lean body. Her dark hair falls around her shoulders, coppery in places like Rhyson’s. She looks so much like him, but more and more, I see how different they are.

They always fight like titans, but can only hold on to it for so long. I don’t want to come between them. I guess the same way Rhyson had to win me, had to prove himself to me over time, I’ll have to do the same with his sister.

“You all packed and ready to go on tour?” Bristol asks with her eyes fixed on her phone.

I draw a careful breath before I answer.

“For the most part.”

A tight silence closes around us. I can’t remember a time when it’s just been the two of us.

“You guys have been incredible,” Rhyson says from the piano onstage, wrapping up his set. “The School of the Arts changed my life, and I’m so honored to be here tonight. It’s events like this that make scholarships possible for students who might not otherwise be able to attend. That’s how I met my best friend, Marlon.”

Rhyson leans closer to the mic and looks over the crowd.

“I think you call him Grip.”

The crowd cheers and chants Grip’s name. One girl waits for the response to die down before yelling out, “I love you, Rhyson!”

“I love you too, sweetheart.” He grins up in the direction the shout came from. “I’m going on tour in a few days, and Grip’s coming with me. Maybe some of you have tickets for the show at Staples in a few weeks?”

Ear-splitting screams fill the room. Rhyson nods, his fingers drifting over the piano keys, easy as breathing.

“Nice.” He transitions into a melody I vaguely remember, but can’t place from where. “There’s a song I wanna do out on the road. It’s going on my new album. It’s called ‘Pepper.’ I wrote it for my girlfriend.”

A chorus of “awwwws” makes Rhyson roll his eyes.

“You guys are funny.”

He turns his head away from the audience, his eyes searching in the dim light backstage where I stand. He tugs on his ear twice and smiles for me before launching into the song I heard in its embryonic stages.

You’re hot like Pepper on my tongue . . .

The words find their way into every crack left in my heart. He is filling me. His love washes over me. This man, this remarkable man who is more gifted than anyone I’ve ever met, saved all of this for me. The longer he sings, the weaker my knees feel. The shorter my breath comes. I want to be alone with him and show him in every way I can that I feel the same.

“I’m gonna go check on the press room,” Bristol says, clearly not pleased at Rhyson publicly acknowledging our relationship.

She walks away, but even her coolness doesn’t take me out of this moment.

“He’s something else, isn’t he?” Someone says from the spot Bristol just vacated.

I turn to answer with a smile, but it disappears as soon as I see John Malcolm.

“That he is, Mr. Malcolm.”

I look back to the stage, focusing on Rhyson instead of this instant awkwardness. Sometime between telling me he looked forward to working with me, and Julie Schwimmer’s call, John Malcolm changed his mind about me. I’ve been turned down a lot since I moved here, so I shouldn’t take it personally, but that day, that performance, fooled me. I felt something that wasn’t real. I thought all my hard work culminated into that moment, that I was turning a corner, but I wasn’t. It was just another delay.

“That’ll be you someday, Kai,” Malcolm says. “You’ve got what it takes in spades. I’ve rarely seen anyone with as much as you have.”

Now he’s just rubbing salt into a very fresh wound. I turn to face him, folding my arms across my chest and cocking my hip.

“Then why’d you pass on me?”

“I wondered when you’d ask.” A slow smile hangs between his jowls. “I wanted you on the show, but I’m only one of five executive producers.”

“Well, I guess if they didn’t want me then—”

“Oh, they did.”

I jerk my glance to him, a frown pinching my brows.

“What do you mean?”

“They just wanted him more.” He nods his head toward the stage where Rhyson is still singing my song.

“I don’t . . . what do you mean they wanted Rhyson more?”

“We asked him months ago to appear this season as a guest judge.”

“Yeah, but he turned it down.”

John Malcolm nods, turning his thin lips down at the corners.

“So he
did
tell you that part.”

“That part?” I shake my head to clear it. “I don’t . . . what do you mean?”

“We got a call from him personally, not even his manager. That sister of his.”

“Bristol?”

“Yeah, before, we only dealt with her. He wouldn’t talk with us at all.” One side of Malcolm’s mouth creaks into a grin of sorts. “So knock me over with a feather when he called us himself not even five minutes after your audition.”

“Five minutes?” I look from the man I love onstage singing to thousands about how he yearns for me, back to the calculating eyes of John Malcolm. “I don’t understand.”

“He told Julie Schwimmer that if we passed on you, he’d guest judge for us this season.”

“No, he . . . he couldn’t have because he . . .”

He held me when I cried. He wiped my tears. He assured me my time was coming. He got me through this failure. There’s no way he orchestrated it.

“Why are you telling me this?” I swallow my hurt long enough to ask the obvious question. “I’m sure Rhyson wanted some assurance that you wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, if we talk, he walks.”

“Then why are you talking?”

He pats my shoulder, almost avuncular, if it weren’t for the hardness of his beady eyes.

“Because I, unlike the rest of my team, know that having you is worth more than one guest appearance from Rhyson Gray.”

“So you want me to come on the show after all?”

“Oh, we filled that spot right away. I have something better in mind for you.”

Even as he details the opportunity, something that is beyond my wildest dreams for this stage of my career, I’m only half listening. My heart is fully occupied with breaking. My illusions waste no time shattering into a billion pieces scattered all over this venue. I trusted Rhyson. I let him lull me, just like I thought he would, to put myself second. I’ve forfeited my independence and positioned myself to depend on him, all because I trusted he’d never do anything to hurt me. I was actually about to go on tour and sing a pity duet with him, enduring the behind-the-hand snickers of those who speculate how good my pussy must be to score a spot on Rhyson Gray’s tour. And for what? For who? A liar? A fraud?

I just stare at John Malcolm while he offers me a golden opportunity on a platinum platter. It’s only when the applause filters into my hazy consciousness that I realize the song and Rhyson’s set are over.

He’s walking offstage, eyes on me and a smile on his face. His eyes slide to John Malcolm, and I see it. I see that moment of panic before he sheaths it. His eyes go wide and then narrow. His mouth drops open and then snaps closed. His fists clench, and then slowly, deliberately relax at his side. But I know him too well. Or I thought I did.

“Hey, baby.” He bends to kiss my forehead, eyes still on John Malcolm. “Malcolm, what are you doing here?”

“Luke is an Arts School alum too, remember?” Malcolm offers a plastic smile. “Just here for my artist, but I’m going.”

He turns to me, reaching for my hand.

“I hope to hear from you.”

There is one last moment of silence between my lover and me. The sad part is that if I could eradicate the last five minutes, I probably would. Go back to that bliss of not knowing the lengths to which Rhyson went to manipulate me. To bend me to his will. To crush me so he can mold me into what he wants. But I do know, and there’s no way I can pretend.

“Is it true?”

He drops his lashes, shielding the truth from me, hiding behind this curtain of lies a little longer.

“Is what true?”

But his voice is too quiet, and doesn’t actually hold a question. He already knows that I know.

“Rhyson, how could you?”

I expected anger, but my voice withers in the air, the words swallowed by a tiny sob. I cup my hand over my mouth to suppress it, but little whimpers slip through my fingers.

“Kai, I can explain.” He extends his hand, but I step back, out of his reach. My body will turn on me. I can’t trust him, and I can’t trust myself.

“Don’t.” I stretch the word over a tight rope between us. “Don’t touch me.”

“Baby, you’ve gotta listen.”

His voice is even and calm, but he can’t hide the desperation rising in his eyes. He’s blinking a mile a minute. He’s a placid surface with anxiety churning beneath. We’re so tuned in to one another that he can’t hide it from me. Does he feel my hurt as acutely? My disappointment in him?

“How dare you play games with my life?”

There’s the anger. The indignation. It’s bubbling up, spilling over.

“You manipulated me. Made a fool of me. You ruined one of the most special performances of my life so I’d do what you wanted me to do.” My volume climbs until heads are turning in our direction, but I can’t control it. I can’t stop. “Do you have any idea how opposite that is of love?”

Rhyson flicks a glance over my shoulder, takes my elbow, and bends to my ear.

“Baby, someone has a phone recording us. We can talk about this, but we need to get out—”

“I don’t care!” I snatch my elbow away from him, whirling around in search of the camera phone. As soon as I see the stagehand wearing a black T-shirt with his phone trained on us, I flip him the bird.

Bristol stutter-steps over to us in her three-inch heels.

“What the hell is going on?” Her low-voiced demand sends me over the edge.

“The hell that’s going
on
, Bristol,” I say, hands on my hips, “Is that your wildest dreams are coming true. I’m breaking up with your brother.”

“The hell you are, Pep,” Rhyson snarls, pulling me so close I feel his heart slamming into mine. “Do you honestly think I’m letting you leave me over this shit? For some line of crap that scum, John Malcolm, fed you?”

I knew I shouldn’t have let him touch me. Just his hands on me dim the anger, turn down the intensity, because even rough, his touch feels right.

“Line of crap, was it?” I jerk myself away from him, ignoring the way my body misses him already. “Did you do it?”

“Pep—”

“So you didn’t tell the producers if they passed on me you would guest judge this season? You didn’t take away my shot to do things on my own terms so you could control me on yours?”

Bristol drops her head into her hands, plowing her fingers through her hair.

“This is a nightmare, Rhyson,” she says. “There are phones everywhere, most of them capturing all of this. Nothing we can do about that now, but you have press waiting.”

“No way,” Rhyson says. “Pep and I—”

“Are done,” I snap. “Stay away from me. You’re as bad as your parents.”

He winces, shaking his head, eyes pleading with me.

“You don’t mean that. We can work this out.”

I claw at my neck, seeking the symbol of the friendship we built, of the trust I thought we had. I pull until the clasp on the necklace gives, and I hurl it at his chest.

“Not if I’m gone we can’t.”

And with that, I charge blindly toward the exit. I have no idea how I’ll get back to my apartment, but there’s one thing I know: my bags are already packed, and I’m getting out of this town.