Holy Jesus. Were those my options?
No. Definitely not the come-over-there-and-fuck-you thing.
“Fine. He insisted I have a drink with him and steered me into one of the lounges,” I said, trying to pretend he didn’t mean that little threat, because I was pretty fucking sure he did. “I figured I should just hurry up and get it over with, because—”
“Because you had a date with Coop,” he said, his eyes frosting over.
“Well… yeah. But also,” I added quickly, “because I didn’t want to hang out and have cocktails with Dizzy. Every time we’re in one room for too long, like over five minutes, you know how he gets. He starts talking about my mom, and how things should’ve been, and blah blah fucking blah, and I want to kill him.”
Yeah, Zane knew. He’d heard all about the crazy stories my dad would weave, and his warped sense of reality. It was Zane who’d pointed out that after all the years of partying my dad had done, he might’ve actually believed the way he remembered things was the way they’d happened. Which was probably accurate, and about the craziest thing I’d ever heard.
But how do you get someone to own up to their part in a reality they never knew existed, because they were too wasted and self-absorbed to notice it happening in the first place?
“I never should’ve had that drink with him. I knew he wanted something. He gave us these hotel rooms for free, but no way they were really free, you know? Nothing with my dad ever is.” That was a sad fact, because the man was insanely loaded. He just didn’t like to share.
Zane nodded, taking this in. “So what did he want?”
“You,” I said, forcing it out. “He wants to record a song with you.”
Zane burst out laughing, that full-on, sexy-ass laugh that sent tingles down my spine… and if I dared to acknowledge it, straight to my clit.
“I’m fucking serious,” I said.
“I know you are. That’s why it’s so fucking funny.”
“He’s serious. And it’s not funny. He expects me to set up a meeting with you. He wants to do a full album, actually, but he thought you could start with a song. He’s already written one and he wants you to lay down the vocals.”
It was embarrassing to say it out loud, because it was pathetic. My dad had to know Zane would never do it; I was pretty sure that’s why he was trying to go through me. To see if I had that kind of sway over the man—which had led to the ugliest part of our conversation… But my dad was so split with reality, I couldn’t even guess what he really believed was gonna happen.
Did he actually think Zane Traynor, one of the hottest rock stars on the planet for the last decade, would want to record an album with his washed-up, one-hit wonder ass?
Possibly.
All I knew for sure was that Derek “Dizzy” Bowman was not a generous man, and he wasn’t selfless either. There was no way he would’ve offered us free hotel suites while Dirty played Vegas if he didn’t believe he could get something out of it.
I just hoped he didn’t plan to accost Zane in an elevator.
“I can’t believe he fucking asked you that,” he said.
“Yeah.” I could, absolutely.
This was exactly my dad. He only showed up in my life when he wanted something.
Last time, he wanted to talk to Brody about working with Dirty on a re-recording of his biggest hit song, “Schoolgirl.” When I refused to set that up, I guess it pissed him off enough that he decided to try harder this time. He’d called Brody directly to offer the free rooms. Not like Dirty couldn’t afford their own hotel rooms, but it was a luxury hotel and Brody had no real reason to turn down the offer. He also had no idea the extent of the shit I’d been through with my dad.
Not like Zane did.
I’d told Zane about Dizzy wanting the band to cover “Schoolgirl,” and we’d had a laugh. Then he’d put his arm around me and held me close, and I’d so needed that at the time. We’ll never record that song, he’d promised me. I will never, ever sing that fucking song.
I still didn’t know if he knew how much that meant to me, but he did know I hated that song. And why.
My dad was thirty-one when he wrote and released that song, about a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl. Maybe not a big deal in itself, since adult male musicians had been writing songs about their infatuations with underage girls since pretty much the beginning of time. But in the case of my dad’s song, the schoolgirl in question was a real person.
She was my mom.
And yes, she was underage when they met. She was seventeen when he knocked her up, yet somehow it was her fault they never rode off into the sunset together. Dizzy went on to become even more rich and famous than he was before he met her, thanks to that stupid song, while my mom raised me alone. My dad only ever paid the bare minimum of what he was made to pay in child support over the years, even though he was loaded, and now, after she’d died, he had the fucking balls to sit there and weave stories to me about how much he loved her and how they should’ve been together. Maybe he did love her, in his own warped way, but my mom never took Dizzy seriously. I never understood why she didn’t get more upset about the way he ignored us, but I knew for a fact she never wanted to marry him.
“What did you tell him?” Zane asked.
“I told him I couldn’t help him.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said, ‘You’re management, you can steer him in the right direction.’ I told him I don’t make those kinds of decisions, or give that kind of career advice to Zane
