Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
“No, but thank you for the offer. I just came by because Nixon wanted me to hand deliver this to you.” She leaned over and hefted a new guitar hardcase from next to the door.
“He sent me a guitar?” I took it from her.
“Maybe it’s just a case. Who knows with him.” She shrugged. “Is he always so grumpy in the morning? I show up at nine a.m. as instructed, and he bites my head off for the first few hours.”
I put the guitar case on the other side of my door. “Is he sleeping?” My brow furrowed.
“How would I know? I don’t spend the night there.”
Thank God for that. Guess she really wasn’t New Shannon.
“Here. Come in for a second.” I motioned her forward, then shut the door and walked around the Formica peninsula and into my kitchen, where I dug out an unopened box of tea. “Put this on the counter when you see him tomorrow.”
“He drinks tea?” She looked skeptically at the box.
“He does.” I nodded.
She glanced from the box to me and back again. “You don’t have to pack his clothes.”
“Not anymore.” I never packed his clothes, but I wasn’t about to say that to her.
“How did you get to manage your own band?”
“Went to law school while being Ben’s assistant for four years…only three of those were while I was in school, though. Keep showing up, Monica. You’ll be fine.”
“Thanks.” She slipped the tea into her massive shoulder bag.
“No problem, and if Ben doesn’t run you ragged while Nixon’s gone, pop over to my office and I’ll…show you some contracts or something.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up.
“Really.”
“Thank you!” She adjusted her bag and headed for the door, then paused with her hand on the handle. “Oh, I’m supposed to tell you something.”
“Okay?”
“Nixon said that’s not a gift, just a loaner. He called it collateral.” She pointed to the guitar case. “And you’re supposed to keep an eye on TMZ tomorrow, because he bets a whole year of your property taxes that something is going to pop up.” She gave me a smile, then waved and let herself out.
TMZ. He had to be kidding me.
I laid the guitar case flat, then undid the latches and opened the lid. The case may have been new, but the guitar wasn’t. The honey-gold tones were all too familiar. My heart somersaulted, and I called Naomi back.
“He’ll come back,” I said, a smile lifting my lips.
“Did you talk to him?”
“No, but he sent me a message.” I smiled and ran my finger over the polished wood of the body he’d called collateral.
It was Kaylee’s guitar.
* * *
“Who knew about this?” Ben shouted down the halls of Berkshire Management the next afternoon.
I abandoned the contract I’d been reading and rolled my chair to the edge of the broom closet that served as my office. Leaning my head out of the doorway, I blinked at the sight of Ben stomping toward the collective group of cubicles that housed the interns.
“Berkshire! Did you know?” Monica’s head popped above the cubicle.
“About?”
“Seriously, the one day you don’t live on TMZ?” he snapped.
Nixon.
I pushed off the doorframe and rolled back to my desk, clicking for a new tab on my internet browser and pulling up TMZ.
There was a photo of Nixon—in a suit—walking down a set of concrete steps with Jonas and Quinn behind him, dressed similarly. All three had on sunglasses, but it was absolutely them. I clicked on the picture, and the headline blew up on the next screen.
Confirmed: Hush Note guitarist Nixon Winters leaving a hearing at the Washington State Clemency and Pardons Board with his bandmates, Jonas Smith and Quinn Montgomery, earlier today.
My stomach pitched.
I scrolled furiously, but the article was short, because there was nothing to report. Though the hearings were open to the public, Nixon hadn’t been spotted until leaving the building, and only the results of that hearing—not the transcripts—would be released.
“The answer is ‘no comment’!” Ben bellowed. “Can someone please get Amy Manson on the phone?” The band’s publicist.
Nixon had gone to the hearing.
I scrambled for my phone, not giving a shit if it hadn’t even been a week into this wait-three-months thing.
Zoe: Are you okay?
I tapped my fingers on my desk, waiting for a reply.
“I told Zoe Shannon!” Monica’s voice rose above the noise.
Awesome.
Nixon: I miss you
Zoe: Not what I mean.
Nixon: I know
I wanted to reach through the phone and throttle him for not giving me an answer, but if I actually had my hands on him, I knew that wouldn’t be the outcome. My chest tightened, thinking of him taking that step, knowing that while he’d had the support of his friends, I hadn’t been there with the same.
“Shannon!” Ben was headed this way.
Zoe: I’m serious.
The three little repeating dots were going to be the death of me.