“I couldn’t.” Jayson shrugged. “That was her band and you were her hand-picked protégés. I knew that if push came to shove, you’d pick her.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Seriously?”
“You’re going to tell me that if she’d made you choose, you would have picked me?”
“In what universe would there ever be a situation where we’d have to pick? And yes, if she’d suggested we find another singer, we would have pushed back because it might have been her band at its inception, but you were the face of Pretty Harts. The face, the voice, the personification of our music. Then, now, forever.”
Jayson gave a little shrug. “I appreciate that. But like you said initially, all of it is water under the bridge.”
“So what you’re saying is, your insecurity in your marriage made it impossible for you to trust us.” I was annoyed as I realized nothing was going to come of this conversation.
“If that’s how you want to look at it.”
“No regrets?” Tyler asked, speaking up at last. “You don’t miss the music, the shows, the camaraderie? Nothing?”
“I have a wife that loves me more than anything else, and three awesome kids who light up my life like nothing else. Honestly, no. I don’t miss it that much.”
“Then why the hell did you come to our rehearsal and offer to sing with us?” I demanded.
“Casey asked me to.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why the fuck would she do that?”
“Because unlike me, Casey carries all the guilt of ending Pretty Harts and disrupting your lives. Why do you think she’s so determined to make something out of Nobody’s Fool?”
“Because she understands that she left us floundering,” I snapped. “It’s her way of apologizing.”
He shook his head. “If you’re waiting for me to apologize, I guess I’m sorry. But not everything was about you. There was a lot going on and—”
“Oh, shut the fuck up.” I’d wanted to say that to him for a long time and it felt good to get it out. “You guess you’re sorry? Dude, if anything isn’t just about anyone, it’s you. You’ve played the fucking victim because Casey never loved you the way you wanted her to but that has absolutely nothing to do with us. We were friends. At least I thought we were. And when push came to shove, you walked away without a backward glance. That’s what I’m pissed about. That’s what I don’t understand. And even when I spell it out for you right here and now, all you can say is, you guess you’re sorry? Fuck you.” I got up and threw a fifty on the table. “I’ll get an Uber, Ty.”
“Jesus, Bash, hang on.” Tyler said something to Jayson that I didn’t hear because I’d already started walking out of the restaurant.
“Bash!” Jayson was coming after me, but I was pissed and didn’t want to hear it.
“Dammit, Bash, stop.” Jayson caught up to me.
I swung my head around. “What?”
“Look, I’m not gonna blow smoke up your ass and say I’m sorry I handled things the way I did, because I’d probably do it exactly the same way if I had to do it over. But I am sorry about our friendship. You’re right—you were my friends, my best friends, and I turned my back on you. I’m genuinely sorry about that part of it. It just felt like you were always on her side and I guess I convinced myself that you didn’t care.”
“That’s not even a little bit true.”
“I know that now.”
We stared at each other for a few minutes before Tyler caught up to us.
“We good?” Jayson asked after a moment.
“As good as we’re gonna be,” I replied.
He nodded slowly. “I guess I deserve that.”
“You do.”
“I wish things had gone differently. I’d like to do a song again, show up and perform with you again once in a while, but I get why that’s probably not possible now.”
“As someone said to me recently,” I said quietly, “Nobody’s Fool isn’t Pretty Harts 2.0. Sorry, but you’ll have to find your own band. Take care, Jay.” I turned and walked out of the restaurant.
* * *
Tyler and I didn’t talk on the way home but he put his car in park as he pulled up to my building.
“You want to talk or are you all talked out?”
“I have one more conversation I need to have,” I told him. “Then I want to have a band meeting.”
“I think Stu’s still in L.A.”
“He can video in or whatever.”
“You okay?”
I nodded. “Actually, better than I was, believe it or not.
“He pissed me off. Like, that wasn’t the conversation I thought we were going to have.”
“Yeah, me either.”
“Call me tomorrow?”
“I will.” I gave him nod. “Thanks for having my back today.”
“Always.”
I went inside and texted Casey.
BASH: You have a few minutes? It’s important.
My phone rang thirty seconds later and she sounded breathless. “I’ve got fifteen minutes,” she said. “Can we have this conversation in that amount of time?”
“Probably.” I told her about our meeting with Jayson.
“Damn.” She sounded sad. “Did I apologize? I don’t remember. Everything that happened when Erik came back is kind of a blur and—”
“You’ve apologized a billion times,” I said. “With you, it’s not about an apology.”
“I can’t change what I did,” she said. “I love you guys. You and Tyler are like brothers to me and—”
“That’s just it,” I interrupted. “We weren’t. Tyler was your kid brother. You discovered him before Pretty Harts and he’s been with you since he was, what, seventeen? I came along later and while we were tight, it wasn’t the same. And that’s fine. It’s not about being someone’s favorite—I’m not talking about that. Not with you.”
“So what is it?”
“Was it worth it? Giving up everything we built for a man, for your family.”
“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. “But…it’s not black and white like that. I miss music every day. I get lonely, to a degree I can’t even explain because while I have the love of my life back, he’s pulled in twenty different directions by his country, his people, and the history of the monarchy. Sometimes I’m an afterthought, and it’s hard, Bash. Really fucking hard. But it was the choice I made.”
“So are you helping us because you feel guilty or because it helps you feel closer to the music?”
“Do you really have to ask me that? I mean, yes, I felt a little guilt about leaving the band, but I knew you guys were set for life and that I would always be there for you if that somehow changed. Did Jayson tell you that? That I’m doing this to assuage my guilt?”
“He did.”
“Declan Robert James! Are you serious right now?”
I waited a beat and then burst out laughing. She’d never called me by my full name before. I couldn’t even remember a time my own mother had called me by my full name, so hearing it from Casey was hilarious. And I no longer needed her to respond to my question because I already knew the answer. I’d probably known it all along. Now I just had to figure out what to tell my bandmates when we talked tomorrow, and how to get Nobody’s Fool back in business.