“I have.” Ty beamed. “I still have a long way to go.”
Bonding time over, we began jamming and writing lyrics. Ideas for songs were flowing. A knock on the door interrupted our rhythm when Zane and Connor came in to join us. Together we worked through the rest of one song and came up with the beginnings of another as a group. Aside from Connor, who had a bug up his ass, the chemistry was incredible. It felt like old times.
“My dudes.” Zane put his arm around Ty and Connor. “I wanted to run something past you.”
“Shoot,” I said pointing a finger gun at him.
“Dude! Not very PC,” Zane chastised and then continued. “Fiona’s in a real bind. The owner of the Mission’s building is threatening to sell it.”
“I thought her dad owned it.” Ty scrunched his eyebrows together.
“I did too, but no.” Zane shrugged. “When Gus passed away, she inherited a real mess. Dad has tried to help, but Seattle’s changing so much. Anyway, it’s part of history. I don’t want to lose it as a venue. Would any of you want to go in on it and buy the building?”
“I’d do it, but I just put an offer on a house here in LA.” Ty frowned. “Sorry.”
“What the fuck?” Connor shot him a dirty look. “Why would you move down here? Oh, right. Ronni.”
“Not the reason, dude. You know that. It’s just that we’re here all the time. Did you see the band’s hotel bill last year?” Ty was decisive and firm. “It’s bad financial decision making.”
“Uh-huh.” Connor didn’t seem convinced. He sounded pissed. At Ty.
“Is everything cool, Connor?” I nudged him.
“Fucking great,” he muttered.
“Uh, guys?” Zane glared at all of us with his arms crossed. “Can we stay on track?”
“Connor, did I do something to piss you off?” Ty was pained, he hated when any of us were mad at each other.
“Of course not, Saint Ty,” Connor said in a mocking voice.
Ty’s face scrunched up with hurt. Clearly, he had no idea what was going on. I gripped his shoulder and squeezed my support and shot Connor a stern look. He narrowed his eyes and looked away.
It made me sad that Connor and I had drifted apart year by year after he and Jen broke up. We were still tight as bandmates and the rhythm section, but our lifestyles were just different. He tended to either keep to himself or go out doing God knows what with Zane. Zane rarely drank because he was such a natural extrovert, but Connor needed liquid courage to be social.
Over the years the crew whispered a lot about their weird dynamic of picking up and sharing chicks. I’d not seen any evidence of it myself, but I’d gotten off the merry-go-round.
“Connor, stop being so pissy.” Zane elbowed him. “The focus right now is on the Mission.”
“I’ll chip in,” I said. “My condo’s paid off and so is the house I bought my parents.”
“Fuck it,” Connor growled. “I’ll chip in something.”
“Great!” Zane fist-bumped the two of us. “Carter’s in too. He’s figuring out what needs to be done, I’ll let you know.”
“I’m outta here.” Connor got up and gave Ty a pointed look and stalked out.
“My dudes, we’ll see ya in a few hours.” Zane followed him.
“What the fuck did I do to Connor? He’s being so weird.” Ty looked at me, confused.
“You’re right, he totally seems mad at you.” I didn’t know what was going on either, it was unlike Connor to be so overt with his feelings.
“I can’t figure it out.” Ty shrugged. “I’ll talk to him later about it.”
We got back to work on the song. Ty was working out a beautiful melody on his acoustic. Grabbing my phone, I began filming him playing. Although there were no lyrics, Ty’s head was bouncing to the melody, his eyes squeezed shut as he hummed out a vocal line. After a while, he sighed and put down his guitar. Slowly opening his eyes, he looked like he was far away.
“Do you still miss her?” I knew without a shadow of a doubt the song was not about Ronni.
“Zoey?” Ty smiled when he said her name.
“Yeah.” I looked at him directly. “That’s who you were thinking about in that song, right?”
“Every day.” Ty looked down at the worn leather bracelet he wore and rubbed it with his fingers. “Every day.”
“Time doesn’t make it better?”
“Do you want me to say yes?” He cocked his head.
“I want you to tell me the truth.” I leaned back and crossed my arms behind my head.
“Why do you want to know?” Ty stared me down, a challenge to tell him what was really on my mind.
“No reason.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“I miss Alex.” I couldn’t stop myself. “We only had a few good weeks together. I wanted it to be more. She didn’t. Now I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Hmm. Sounds familiar.” Ty looked pensive. “Are you in love with her?”
“Um.”
“Well—” Ty shook his head. “I guess you just have to have hope.”
“Hope for what?”
“Hope that the timing will be right someday.” Ty sat back and considered his own words. Then nodded to himself as if acquiescing to that possibility.
“Do you still hope that?” I was shocked. That ship had sailed long ago.
“Every day.” Ty clapped me on the back. “Every day.”
Chapter 16
ALEX
A few weeks after I moved, I was on my way to Palm Desert. Gratefully, I took the small bottle of water the flight attendant offered me when I plopped down in my seat. I’d only been to Coachella once before, it wasn’t really my scene.
Especially now.
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have gone, but the money was too big to pass up. In addition to my condo, I’d saved up enough to buy property on the Olympic Peninsula outright. Now I was socking away the funds so when I found the right location, I could finally start a horse rescue and run it for many years without other donations.
In another year or
