True for You (2 page)

“I
have more of them,” I blurt.

“Does
your daddy know?”

Looking
around, I lower my voice, “He sent my momma away again so she
won’t hurt me anymore.”

“Maybe
when she comes back, she’ll be nice, like mommies are ‘sposed
to be.”

Maybe,
but I’m not counting on it. She’ll come back and be nice
for about a week, two if I’m lucky. Then I’ll do
something dumb like cut the wrong flowers or forget to feed my
goldfish, and she’ll put her hands on me again.

Just
like always.

The
next day, Junie doesn’t show up. I even go the swings to wait
for her, but give up when it turns dark. When I ask my dad about her,
he tells me Junie’s daddy got a job in North Carolina.

I
go outside, to my safe place, and sit down. For some reason, I miss
Junie. For some reason, my heart hurts when I think about her not
coming back. So, I take my guitar and play all the songs I know.

But
none of them are happy.

***

“Get
up,” my dad roars at me. I’m lying on the floor mat,
staring up at him through the one eye not swollen shut. My wrist
burns, and my side has a stitch in it. We’ve been at this for a
while now, and the day seems endless.

I
whimper. Big mistake. He kicks my arm, and I screw my eyes shut
against the pain.

“You’re
fourteen, not four. Get up.”

I’m
big for my age, too. Almost five feet eleven inches, all arms and
legs. Maybe that’s why he’s started sparring with me like
this. We used to wrestle, like other sons did with their dads, but
since my birthday last year, things have changed. My dad has changed.
He no longer saves me from anything.

I think he actually
wants to hurt me.

Staggering
to my feet, I look at him. “My arm hurts.”

He
punches me in the gut, and I double over. “Better?”

Feeling
like I’m going to puke, I breathe through my nose and
straighten slowly. “Yes, sir.”

Everett
grins, assuming a boxer’s stance. “I’ll make a man
of you, yet.”

***

I
sit in my hotel room, guitar in my hands, while I practice the song
Everett wrote for me. It’s not a bad song, but it’s not
what I want to sing.

“Jaxon?”
the female in my bed murmurs sleepily. They all call me Jaxon Hunter
now, instead of Jackson Morgan. It’s like that part of me
doesn’t exist anymore.

“Go
back to sleep,” I say, standing up to head outside to the
balcony.

The girl, someone
Everett introduced me to last night at a party, is twenty-one. She
doesn’t care that I’m seventeen. Most likely, she’ll
be gone before I’m done out here.

Soon,
I’ll make my debut at the Grand Ole Opry, like every other
country singer before me. I don’t care about tradition or all
the greats. I mean, I respect them, but I don’t play like them.
I don’t sing like them. And I sure as hell won’t wear a
ten-gallon hat like them.

Besides,
it’s Everett’s dream, not mine, to play there. If I had
my way, I’d be in a rock band, lead guitarist, wearing leather
pants, tattoos on my chest, and a kiss-my-ass attitude.

***

I’m
backstage, at the Country Music Awards, just having accepted my fifth
award, when my dad comes walking up.

“This
is Violet Lynn,” Everett says, like he’s all proud. Proud
of what, finding his next bed partner?

Violet
smiles at me, all blue-eyed innocence and long, blond hair. Just my
dad’s type. Just my type.

“Hi.”

I
let my gaze travel down her body. She’s tiny, barely over five
feet, and all girlish curves. Her face turns red when my gaze settles
on her mouth. So that’s what he likes about her.

“She’s
headlining with Country Rhythm next week, at the Square,”
Everett says, and Violet smiles bigger.

Nonplussed,
I turn off my lecherous thoughts. “You play?”

“I
don’t just play.” That smile of hers turns confident. “I
make gold records.”

“That’s
not bad for a—”

“Seventeen
year old.” She rolls her eyes. “Actually, it’s
amazing for anyone, including someone who’s the ripe old age of
twenty.”

A
real grin kicks up the corners of my mouth. “Why don’t we
go play something together, some place a bit more private?”

“Sure!”
She smiles brightly. “Let me find my mom and dad, and then we
can go.”

Her
parents are here? I watch her run off and swing my gaze to Everett.
“Are you shittin’ me?”

“It
won’t kill you to keep it in your pants,” he says, which
means he hasn’t had her yet, and plans to real soon. “Besides,
she’s good. She won the American Talent Show at thirteen. The
girl can sing and play, better than you.”

“What
do you need me for?” I grumble.

Everett
hands me my guitar. “Your job is to take real good care of her,
son. Violet Lynn is your June, the one we’ve been waiting for
to make you a star.”

My
newest single just went platinum, and I need her to be a star?
Resentment at the perky, little blonde starts to build.

“She’ll
save your career, no matter what mistakes you make.” For some
reason, the image of the little girl I’d met when I was eight
flashes in my head.

I’m
Junie.

I’ll
come save you.

If
only that June could see me now… then all thoughts and images
of June disappear when a hot chick walks by, with the promise to see
me later in her eyes.

Everett
walks to Violet, putting his arm around her shoulders.

I
take a pull of my beer, studying her. Maybe I’ll seduce Violet
for the hell of it. Normally, I stay away from the girls my dad
screws.

Violet
breaks away, hurrying to me. She actually looks excited to be here.
“I can’t believe it. This is amazing.” Her eyes
round. “Oh my gosh, did Sugarland just walk by?”
Something tugs at my heart, but I ignore that feeling.

“Ready?”
I hold out my hand, and she takes it.

***

“Please, help
me,” Violet moans, not even aware it’s me with her. She’d
been driving drunk and rammed her car into a tree.

“I
don’t know what to do.” I try to pull out the windshield
embedded in her stomach, but all it does is make her scream and cut
up my hands. She’s crying so hard that her entire body is
shaking. More blood runs out from her body.

“Oh
God, please don’t move, baby, I’m trying to help you.”
I swipe my hands on my jeans, and cradle her head in my lap. The girl
I’d grown to love over the past two years is most likely going
to die in my lap. “Help is on the way. Just hang on.”

“What
the hell are you still doing here?” my dad says, appearing out
of nowhere.

Relief
rushes through me, making me cry like a baby. “We have to help
her, Dad.”

Finally,
I hear the sweet sound of a couple of sirens.

“Help
her my ass. She drove drunk and crashed into a tree.” He begins
to pull me away. “You can’t take this kind of publicity
once it gets out about you and Callie.”

I
shrug him off. “It’s not true, and you know it. I’m
tired of lying for you.”

“They’re
almost here. Get up.”

I shake my head in
answer.

He
lands a punch to my ear, and it starts ringing. “Get up.”

When
I don’t move, he hits me again, in the back of my head, where
he knows it won’t show.

“No.”

The
punches come harder and faster now, until he grabs me by the back of
my neck and hauls me away from her. Violet’s head hits the
ground, and she whimpers.

“You’re
killing her,” I shout, fighting back now. “Let me go.”

“I
didn’t want it to come to this, but you’re being a little
shit.” His winds back his arm, lets it fly. Pain, hot and
searing, bursts from my eye, and then nothing.

Chapter One

Present
Day

Jackson

I
hate doing the right thing, especially since it means that I’m
ensuring my ex-girlfriend and the only woman I’ve ever loved,
Violet, will never choose me over Cole Morgan.

Standing
in my brother’s bar, I tip up my chin, staring him down, and
ignoring our half-brother standing beside him. Honestly, I don’t
care about either of them, or how we’re related.

“You
look like shit,” Cole says.

“This
is what real work looks like,” I say.

“Yeah,”
Parker says with a smirk. “Must be real hard counting all that
money.”

I
start to reply to his oh-so-witty observation, with one of my own,
but I stop. I didn’t come here to pick a fight. Instead, I take
deep breath and say to Cole, “You need to come to the concert
on Sunday.”

“Why?”

“Violet
needs you,” I admit.

“So?”
Cole says, all casual, and I want to punch him in the throat. He has
no idea how much this is costing me to be here, and not in terms of
counting all that money.

“What
the hell’s your problem? I’m here, offering Violet to you
on a silver platter, and all you can say is so?” I run a hand
through my hair.

“Rae
isn’t a thing. She’s a person, with feelings and—”

I
groan, letting my head fall back. Of course, he still calls her Rae,
and of course, he’s still concerned with how she’s being
a treated. But I’d like for him to be concerned with getting
her back, so I can say my piece and leave. “Not you, too.”
Can I have at least one reasonable, logical conversation with him?

“Get
out.” Cole starts to turn away.

“If
I leave, there’s no way you can go. The concert’s been
sold out for months. All the last minute tickets are gone.”
That makes Cole stop and turn around to face me.

“So
you say.”

So
I say?
God, this is worth less and less of my time, and for damn sure it’s
not worth the humiliation. “It’s the truth.”

“Fine,”
Cole says, crossing his arms over his chest. “But I want to
know why you’re here.”

If
I’m honest, it’s because I love Violet enough to let her
go, and it’s not just about loving her. I owe it to her, for
that night, for leaving her, for putting her through everything, and
letting her take the fall. Cole is who she wants, and I’m
going to give him to her. Still, I can’t admit all that.

Smirking,
I say, “I’m bored and want to see her go ape-shit on
you.”

“She doesn’t
want you, does she?”

No,
you ass, she doesn’t
.
“What do you think?”

He
grins, all at once familiar, because I’ve seen our dad smile
exactly like that. My smirk fades.

“I
think you’re here because you want to do the right thing by
leaving the tour,
and
Rae, alone,” he says.

Last
chance
,
a voice in my head whispers
,
leave here and console Violet tonight. She’ll be yours.

An internal battle
is taking place inside of me, one I’d thought I’d already
fought and won, but it’s hard to give up the one person who’s
been the best thing in my life. Violet and I sang with each other
for years. She knew my strengths and weaknesses better than anyone.
We played to each other and the crowd.

I’ve
never felt more alive than when I sang with her onstage. And I never
felt more dead than when she’d wrecked her car, and I’d
found her in the middle of a field with the windshield embedded in
her stomach.

However,
the events that had led up to it, and the ones after it, had ruined
our relationship permanently.

Only
now I know our relationship was orchestrated by Everett, my dad, aka
agent, aka producer, aka self-serving asshole.

Besides,
I don’t want to be Violet’s consolation prize. I want to
be the man she fights for, the one she believes in and takes a chance
on. Again. But I know that even if I don’t help her and Cole
get back together, she’ll never choose me.

I
stare at Cole, long and hard, before reaching into my pocket and
holding up a single ticket, with a backstage pass. “Here.”

“Thanks, but
no thanks.” His hands shake, and I blink. “Rae and I are
better apart.”

He’s lying. I
know he is. “Did Everett threaten you?

Glancing
around, he nods.

“He
does that a lot.”

“Would you be
able to stop him from making good on his threat?”

I
pull the flash drive, with the pictures and videos of all those girls
he made promises to, all those barely legal girls he’d promised
to make stars, and delivered nothing but heartache to instead, out of
my other pocket and hold it up. “Maybe.”

“A
flash drive?”

“Not just any
flash drive, but
the
flash drive. Click on the folder labeled poetry.”

“He
secretly writes poems?”

Kill
me now.
I resist the urge to smack Cole in the head.

“No,
dude, there’s stuff on there Everett doesn’t want to get
out,” Parker says, crowding us to get a look.

“You always
were the smartest of the three of us.” For the first time, I
wonder what it would have been like to grow up with them. To have
inside jokes and fights like brothers would.