All Strung Out (2 page)

I hang around the kitchen for a few more minutes, but Nicole has turned back to her computer. She's back in the accountant zone. The only things worse than crunching numbers is watching someone else crunch numbers. Boring.

I wander out to the pool, which is in the middle of it's own rehab. Before I saw this pool, I didn't know it was possible for one to look exactly like a huge bowl of pea soup. Sophie wouldn't let anyone touch it for months after Lang drowned here. The stench was beyond disgusting when I saw the property for the first time. By summer, though, it will look and smell new. No ghosts. No trace of death. Just fresh, white plaster and crystal blue water. It will be a sign that the people in this house are moving forward instead of dwelling in the past. We've got shit to do.

I plan to overhaul everything about the Winter mansion. I've left L.A. for good, so it's time to make Dallas my real home.

The only business I have left in L.A. is to tell my old bandmates to fuck off. I'm going solo.

Scene 3 ~ Hondo

I unlock the front door of the office at six-thirty Monday morning and walk in. The suite is in a reconditioned old factory in Deep Ellum, and it still has the original wood floors and interior brick walls. Black-painted pipes and ductwork snake around the ceiling. Hundreds of twelve-inch square window panes line the top half of three of the walls, revealing a panoramic, third-floor view.

Today, the office is empty. Pure. Waiting for us to fill it. And I've never seen anything so beautiful and full of opportunity in my life.

I sit on the floor, pull out my laptop, and tether it to my phone. I've worked toward this day for months, but the person I love most has no idea what today means to me. It was so close. Sophie and I missed each other by the narrowest of margins. When I think of how we parted, I feel sick. I never thought someone could slip between us so easily. I still don't know how we let it happen.

What I do know is Mark is to blame. I can't believe I was the one who convinced Sophie to take his absurd offer on the Winter mansion. If there's anything I could take back, it would be that. Bringing that self-absorbed asshole into our lives ruined us.

But I have to stop ruminating about Sophie. Today is about business. It's all on me, now. I can't afford to be distracted by drama, no matter how real and painful it feels.

Someone knocks on the front door to the suite. Grateful for the interruption, I jump up and let in the furniture delivery guy.

"I have five desks, five chairs …" He continues reading off the list of objects that will turn this bare space into the new You4D headquarters.

I spend the next hour showing the guys where each piece of furniture goes. I'm guessing at this point. I don't know where the wires for electricity and network will go. Somewhere, we have to build a server closet. I have to-do lists miles long.

After all the new furniture is in, I have to laugh at how little floorspace we've used. I think we leased more space than we need by a factor of three.

Around eight, Jennifer Marin, my business partner, comes in. She has long, blue-streaked, blonde hair. Unlike Sophie, whose tangled blonde curls are legendary, Jen's hair is naturally straight. She wears glasses and drapes clothing on her too-thin frame, not really worried about how she looks. Clothes are merely functional to her.

Yes, she's a geek through and through, and I've never met someone so smart. She's the one who sold the You4D concept to the venture capitalists. By the end of her presentation, they were practically throwing money at us to start the company. We had our choice of offers.

Jen gives me a quick hug. "Desks. Chairs. Awesome. We're totally legit now."

I smile so big, I'm sure I look like an idiot, but I don't care. Anyone standing here in my shoes would be just as thrilled as I am. Even though it's only the two of us now, the possibilities are endless.

The basic concept of our company is simple, but the execution is a bit more complicated. You4D is a personal portal where users can connect and manage all of their social media in one place. Once you've authorized each site, you don't have to log back in to the individual sites unless there's a significant change on that site. You4D also hosts your web site and blog. In short, it manages all dimensions of your online life, making it much easier and faster to post updates or remove outdated content. You4D keeps your information synchronized across the board. You can also manage different types of information, such as personal versus small business, and use any smart device to access your account.

Jen is doing all the foundation coding, and I'm creating the design for the site. We have to hire at least two more people pretty quick. It's way too much coding work for one person.

Jen and I sit in two of the new chairs in the middle of the small gathering of desks. My phone rings, and it's Sophie. For the sixth time this morning. I set the ringer to vibrate and toss the phone on my new desk behind me.

"So, what do we do now?" Jen says.

I smile. "We get to work."

Scene 4 ~ Sophie

After Mark leaves, I go straight to my closet. I've been on a cleaning kick, sorting and organizing all of the things that have dwelled on the floor in here for months. I even started a pile for donations. I'm letting go. That's my new mantra. Letting go of the ghosts.

I spend an hour or so working on the clothes. When I get bored with those, I go to my jewelry cabinet. It's a tall, narrow wood chest with tiny drawers and space for hanging necklaces and bracelets. I haven't bothered with jewelry for a while. I'm always at home, and it seems ridiculous to put on a bunch of shit just to sit on your couch drinking vodka.

There's not much to straighten in the cabinet. Before I close it, though, I pick up a small, white gold necklace with a treble clef charm dangling from it. It's too small for my neck. My mother had it made for me when I was five.

That was when I still had a mother. I'm still not entirely sure how she died. I know it was a heart condition, something congenital. I know it happened when I was five, but the details have always been a secret that Lang refused to divulge. When I was older, I tried to get his friends to tell me. No one would even tell me where she's buried. I try to remember her, but I can't tell what I'm truly remembering and what I'm making up from scraps of memory. Lang told stories about her life, though, speaking of her like she was an angel. She could do no wrong in his eyes. The only story he wouldn't tell me was the one I most needed to know. I will never hear it from him because he took that one to his grave.

I hang the necklace back in its spot at the back of the cabinet, and then close every door and drawer tight. Nostalgia is dangerous, a world alone. I have to learn how to keep the past in the past. If I don't, I'm never going to break free from it.

I pick up my favorite violet kimono and try to remember the last time I washed it. Whenever it was, I'm sure it was too long ago. I crumple it to put on the colors laundry pile but stop when I hear paper crinkle inside. I check the pockets and come out with the letter Nicole gave me when she started sorting my mountain of mail.

I sit down on the chaise and study the envelope. It's another artifact from my past that keeps turning up. The only markings are my name and address, typed, and the post office stamp, which claims the letter was sent in September, roughly six months ago. It's so thin, it must be only a page or two. I hold it up to the light to see if I can make out any handwriting.

I sigh. I don't know why I'm sitting here like Nancy Freakin' Drew instead of just opening the damn envelope. I want to know what's in it. I keep telling my fingers to rip it open. They just don't listen.

I go to the kitchen and find a thumbtack in one of the junk drawers. I come back and tack the envelope in the middle of the closet door. Whatever is in there has waited for six months. It can wait a little longer.

Scene 5 ~ Mark

Sophie disappears for the rest of the day, not even showing up for the lunch our chef, Cole, made for us. I wish I knew what to do to bring her out of the dark.

Her life could start again, now, with mine. We never talked about how long she would stay at the Winter mansion, but with Hondo gone, I can see us being here together for a while. We share the need to make music. We speak each other's language. Hell, we could even write music together. I've heard some of her stuff, and she's got a great ear. She might not have inherited Lang's supernatural guitar skills, but she knows how to put together a song.

In my studio, I walk by all of Lang's guitars again, stopping to straighten each one on its stand. It's my new ritual, the way I channel Lang. I should go ahead and pay Sophie for the collection. There's no way I'm letting these babies go. They hold decades of history, and I'll never have a chance to own anything like these guitars again.

In the meantime, though, I have to make plans for my solo career. It's going to take more than a set of magical guitars to make this happen. I wish I could block out all of the distractions.

My lawyer has been warning me about my "failure to return to court-ordered rehab." What a crock of shit. I told him it had nothing to do with failure and everything to do with being bored out of my fucking mind. The problem is, I'm dying to go back to L.A. to break up with the band in person. I want to make sure my buddy Braun, the lead singer of Never More Alone, knows that he hasn't dumped
me
. I'm walking away with not only my artistic freedom, but also the rights to almost all of the band's songs. If they want to keep playing the goddamned hits, they'll have to pay. I own them.

Hey, it's just business.

I sit on a chair in the middle of the room with one of Lang's Strats. From memory, I play the guitar part of the songs from his last album, the one he released just weeks before he died. He never stopped writing. He often told the magazines that he was haunted by his music. Songs would find him in the dark and not leave him alone until he recorded them. It wasn't a conscious choice. He had to write them to keep from going crazy.

Here, in Lang's studio, I believe him. When I see Sophie's haunted eyes, I wonder if the ghosts merely slipped from Lang to Sophie as he died.

Scene 6 ~ Hondo

It crushes me that I can't share this moment with Sophie. I planned it for so long. I wanted to surprise her with good news for a change, to show her what I'm capable of. I know she respected me, but it wasn't enough. I needed her to see me as a success. I wanted her admiration.

But every time I think of her lying on the closet floor with Mark wrapped around her, my temper climbs. He sauntered right by me and staked his claim on my Sophie. And she let him do it.

I know it's strange that I am the way I am. I get it. Asexuality is hard for people to comprehend. Sophie seemed to understand, though, mostly. I thought she and I had a rare relationship. We did everything together, but we didn't depend on physical attraction or sex to bond us. I loved her—love her, still—for accepting me. Maybe I'm being selfish, but I feel betrayed, like I was great to have around until a "real man" walked in the door. Someone with money and sex appeal oozing from his pores. I can't compete with fame. Give her past, though, I didn't expect it to turn Sophie's head.

Damn it, this is never going to work. I have to stop thinking about Sophie. The past is no good to me now. Everything I need is here, now.

When Jen and I rearranged the desks, we put ours side by side. We'll have to work together constantly, so it doesn't make sense to carve out our individual spaces yet.

I set my laptop on my desk and open a mock-up of the design of our web site. When this company feels like a dream, and it seems like Jen and I are simply playing office, seeing it grounds me. I started as a graphic designer making $45,000 a year working for someone else. Suddenly, I'm in charge. Jen and I call all the shots. Of course, we also have to do all the work until we can hire employees.

Jen settles in at her desk and goes straight into her "coding zone," with her headphones blocking out the physical world. It's incredible to watch this girl write code, like her brain is a computer feeding her the information in a continuous stream.

While Jen is building out the structure of our website, I'm also responsible for building out our physical space and bringing in applicants. I pull up my punch list on the laptop and realize it's going to be a very long day. We have to make the most of every day because each day that we're not bringing in revenue, we're eating away at our capital.

I sneak a peek at our bank account, like I do every morning, to make sure the money hasn't evaporated overnight. My phone vibrates as I'm counting the zeros in our balance. I pick it up without checking the screen.

"Hondo here."

"Ho."

When I hear Sophie's voice, I jump like the phone shocked me. Damn. Why didn't I look before I answered? I freeze, trying to figure out if I should hang up on her. It seems petty, though, so I don't.

"Hi," I say, cautiously, glancing sideways at Jen. I doubt she would be able to hear me through her music, but I get up, anyway, and find a private corner in the suite.

Sophie is already yelling at me. "What the hell? Why haven't you been answering my calls? I was worried fucking sick."

"Nice of you to think of me," I say, regretting the sharpness of my voice. I don't want to fight with Sophie. I've never fought with her. That's what makes this separation feel so bizarre. I lean back against the wall and look up at the black ceiling, losing myself in the virtual nothingness. This is what Sophie and I are now: indistinct shadows in each other's past.

She takes in a deep breath, and then her words come out in shudders. "Why did you just leave like that?"

"Look, you made your choice."

"What choice? I didn't even know there was a choice to make, Hondo."

I can't believe that. "Why would you think there was room for another guy in our relationship?"

"I don't understand," she says slowly. "What relationship did we have?"

That question slices through my heart. I thought we were in sync, that we understood each other on a level that didn't need discussion. Now, it's becoming clear that I was fooling myself.