Playing it Kale (The McCain Saga Book 4)
Read Playing it Kale (The McCain Saga Book 4) Online
Authors: Keary Taylor
PLAYING IT KALE
The
McCain Saga
Keary
Taylor
Copyright
© 2014
Keary
Taylor
All rights reserved. Except as
permitted under the U.S. Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may
be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or
stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of
the author.
First Digital Edition: January 2015
Cover Design by
Keary
Taylor
Cover Images by
Shutterstock
The characters and events portrayed in
this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or
dead,
is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Taylor,
Keary
,
1987-
Playing It
Kale :
a novel / by
Keary
Taylor. – 1
st
ed
.
THE
McCAIN
SAGA
FALL OF ANGELS
Afterlife: the Novelette Companion to
Vindicated
THE EDEN TRILOGY
CONNECT
WITH KEARY ONLINE AT
Music has always been able to fix everything
in my life, except my awkwardness.
I’m the kind of girl who will always say
the wrong, most out of left field thing.
The girl who will always, guaranteed, trip and fall flat
on her face in the exact moment that everyone is looking.
I’m the girl you always want to get away from
as soon as possible cause you just don’t know what to say around me.
Maybe that comes from having parents who
are scientists, and only seemed to have children to bless the world further
with their brilliance by producing equally brilliant offspring.
It could be that I was homeschooled and
taught by overly-paid tutors.
That I
graduated “high school” when I was fourteen and held a bachelor degree by the
time I was eighteen.
I don’t feel like I’m really that smart,
but those kind of things just seem to come natural to me.
Mom and Dad decided I should be a
microbiologist, so that’s what they groomed me for.
At the moment, I’m working as a lab assistant
at Evergreen Micro in Seattle.
I’m still
in school, one semester from getting my Masters degree.
You’d think,
hallelujah,
the end of school is nigh.
But no.
Then it’s just on to the PhD.
School is my life.
So maybe it’s a combination of all of
this that makes me so weird and awkward and different from everyone.
That makes it so I have a grand total of one
close friend and only one kind of boyfriend in my past.
But it’s okay.
I’m Whitney Ford, and I’m happy with the
person I am.
I like being quirky and
weird and different.
Not everyone else
likes it, and sometimes that kills me, but I don’t want to be any other way.
Because at the end of the day, I can go
home to my apartment, pull out my guitar, and sing like no one can hear me.
“Please, Whitney,” Ming begs as we head
to the parking lot.
“You can’t imagine
the humiliation this will cause me if I have to call and bag out on
the day of their wedding
.”
A cornered jackrabbit forms in my
stomach at the mere thought of what she’s asking.
“You know I can’t,” I say as the hot, late
summer air envelops me as we walk out the doors of Evergreen Micro, fondly referred
to as EM.
“It really wasn’t that bad last time,”
she tries to argue.
It’s weak; I can
hear in her voice she isn’t even convincing herself.
“I turned fifty shades of green, Ming,
not gray,” I say as I look over at her and raise an eyebrow.
“I had to dash off the stage and puked on the
move.
That poor stagehand will never get
the smell out of his shoes.”
“But that was a year ago,” she says as
we weave between cars and head for the assistant parking lot.
Clear at the back.
“You’ve grown as an artist since then.
Who knows, maybe this will be the night that
you discover you’re over all that, there will be some kind of talent scout, or
recording studio bigwig there, and you’ll get your big break!”
And burst into the music industry like
never before seen, with half an album premiering on the radio, going platinum,
and all that stardom.
Yeah.
Freaking.
Right.
“Ming, it just isn’t going to happen,” I
say with a sigh as we get to our cars, parked right next to each other.
“I just…can’t.”
And it makes me sick.
And makes me feel like a
chicken.
And a
horrible friend.
“Please, Whit,” she says with
desperation and depression.
“With Rachel
sick, there is literally no one to fill in for lead vocal.
Think of that poor bride, having her band back
out for her wedding.
Do you really want
to crush her dreams and ruin her big day?”
Great.
She’s laying the guilt on.
One of those things I really can’t fight.
I can say no, up until the point that
there’s guilt that I’m letting someone down.
I have my parents to thank for that.
Ming must see it in my eyes, because
there’s a twitch of a smile that forms in one corner of her mouth.
“I’ll give you my signed briefs…” she
drags out in a sing-song.
And she’s found my kryptonite.
She knows this is one of those few things
that I cannot turn down.
“You’ll give them to me
before
the show tonight?” I ask with a
squeak.
Around the
hard lump in my throat.
Around the boulder in my stomach.
Ming raises her right hand.
“I swear they will be in your hands as you
walk on stage to sing your heart out.”
“Cause that’ll calm my nerves down,
holding a pair of men’s briefs as I go to perform,” I say with a nervous laugh
as I open the door to my tiny white truck.
Ming lets out an excited squeal, jumps
up triumphantly, and wraps her arms around me in a tight embrace.
“Thank you thank you thank you,” she says too
loudly, right into my ear.
She goes to
plant a kiss on my cheek, which turns super awkward when I turn to look at her,
and she plants it on the corner of my mouth.
We both jerk away from each other and
give
weirded
out expressions.
And burst out laughing.
“Forgive my enthusiasm,” Ming says,
giving me a dramatic look.
“But thank
you, seriously.
Henry and I will pick
you up at three.
Bring your guitar.
Wear something pretty.
Warm up those incredible vocal cords.
All that jazz.”
Ming speaks as she backs toward her
car.
Or rather bus.
It’s a classic old VW van.
It’d be awesome—if she could afford to fix it
up and give it a paint job.
“I hate you,” I call to her, even though
there’s a smile on my face.
“I detest you as well,” she yells with a
smile.
We wave and both climb into our
vehicles.
It’s a ten minute drive to travel the one
third of a mile from my work to my apartment.
I miraculously find a spot on the curb, right in front of my building,
and walk up the stairs.
I’d never be able to afford this amazing
view on my own, looking out over Lake Union.
It’s a gorgeous view of the saltwater lake, thousands of boats, the
hills dotted with houses and buildings.
At night, the entire horizon glitters.
I can literally see the building where I work from here.
The apartment is an incredible two bedroom,
one bath place that was built back in the fifties.
It belonged to my grandmother for
fifty-one years.
She and Grandpa bought
it, and she lived here alone after he died when I was seven.
When she passed away when I was eighteen, Mom
inherited it and started renting it out to me.
She doesn’t charge me much.
Because “my studies are far
more important than worrying about money right now.
That part will come later.”
Thanks, Mom.
She’s a complicated woman.
Stoic and scientific, but she has her moments
when motherhood and caring shine through, and it’s always bizarre and
confusing.
Dad is kind of the same way,
but much more of a super-geek.
I look at the clock above the kitchen
sink, and it reads one-twenty-six.
Holy crap.
What did I just agree to?
Not much time to spare, I jump in the
shower.
It takes me a good thirty
minutes to dry my blonde hair that I can nearly sit on, and another twenty to
put it up in rollers.
I carefully apply
my eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, a bit of blush.
And top it off with my signature bright red
lipstick.
Throwing open my
closet,
I survey the spoils of war.
Eighty percent of my wardrobe came from
a thrift shop.
We have an awesome
selection here in Seattle, and there are many gems to be found.
For very cheap.
One woman’s outdated jacket is another
Whitney-favorite find.
I go for a vintage, blue eyelet dress
that has a white under slip that shows through.
And, always, flats.
Because
everyone stares, and not in the good way, when the already five foot
nine-and-a-half-but-to-be-honest-five-foot-ten blonde, wearing four inch heels,
walks by.
Ten minutes before Ming and Henry are
supposed to show
up,
I let my hair out of the rollers,
letting my hair fall down into cork-screw curls.
It takes forever.
But it’s my signature look.
I head back into my bedroom for my
guitar case.
“Wish me luck, Kale,” I say.
A few years ago, this beautiful man
emerged into the world.
He was
perfect.
Smooth,
muscled body, always without a shirt.
A chiseled chin and intense hazel eyes.
That dark, perfectly-styled
hair.
Being the girl who had no game and no
charm and usually being several inches taller than all the boys, I settled for
a fantasy man.
And Kale McCain was it.
Last Christmas, Ming scored me this
signed poster.
Kale has his hands behind his head,
staring at the observer intensely.
There’s the barest hint of a smile on his face, like he’s
melt-the-panties-off-of-you hot and he knows it.
His name is spread faintly vertically on the
sides of the poster, and it has his branch of
Shurrock
& Fantasy across the bottom of it—
Your
Fantasy
.
And right across his
perfect bellybutton, is his signature in a bronze-colored metallic marker.
Just as I hear someone honk outside, I
blow Kale a kiss and head out.
“Are you excited?”
Ming
singsongs once again as I climb into the back seat.
Also inside is Henry, Ming’s twin brother who
plays the bass, Connor who plays the guitar, and Eduardo who plays drums.
Ming plays the keyboard.
We’re like an odd, cultural stew band,
with Chinese twins, a short, I’m pretty sure illegal, Peruvian who barely
speaks English, and then Connor and me, tall as bean poles, blond as the sun,
and both socially awkward.
No, we’re not
related, but no one would ever guess otherwise.
“Unless you classify feeling like you’re
going to throw up every waking second as excitement, then maybe not,” I say as
I set the guitar on the floor of the van and hold both hands over my stomach in
an attempt to calm the angry butterflies.
“Everyone, please give Whitney lots of
words of encouragement,” Ming says as she pulls out onto the road.
“I’ll start: Whitney, you have the voice of
an angel and the beauty of a Scandinavian model.
Henry, go.”
Henry turns in his seat to look at
me.
“You’re a good singer.”
He turns around in his seat and goes back to
his phone.
I give a chuckle.
“Thanks, Henry.
You always know how to put me at ease.”
Henry just nods, and I’m pretty sure he
didn’t even really hear what I said.
That’s Henry.
Always
plugged into some device or another.
He’s an engineer who just happens to be amazing on bass.
“Connor, go,” Ming says.
“Uh,” he says in his too-high sounding
voice.
“You’re great?”
He gives an awkward shrug of his
shoulders.
He’s only seventeen and is
girl crazy, but has no idea what to do around them.
I smile as a laugh bubbles out of me.
I wrap my arms around him, manageable since
he’s in the seat next to me.
He wars
between loving my hug too much and wanting to pull away.
“Thanks,” I say as I release him.