“You look so much like your mom when you get passionate about something that it makes me nostalgic.”
“Today’s the first time you’ve really mentioned her,” she said quietly.
Her father looked back to the wall of photos. Several included her mum. “How is she?”
“She’s good. Happy enough.”
“I was a dick back then. She deserved so much better than me.”
Cerys nodded. “She did.”
Her father huffed a laugh. “Smart-ass. Did she ever find him? Get married?”
She shook her head. “No. She just threw herself into raising me, then her tearoom.”
“I should call her.”
“Why?”
His eyes met hers. “To tell her she did good. Raising you. You’re a good human being. It took balls to come out. Took bigger balls to stay. I’m sorry. There’s a lot to work out, isn’t there?”
Cerys nodded. It shouldn’t mean so much, after all this time, that her father liked who she was. But she was stunned to find it did. Like a missing piece slotting into the puzzle.
“I don’t know shit about being a dad. I was terrified, Cerys. I couldn’t compartmentalise family and the career and life I wanted. Yet over the years, I’ve seen lots of people make it work. And I envy it. I did a lot of thinking last night. I think the reason I’ve kept you at arm’s length since you got here was because it was less painful than admitting what I missed out on with you. Because, I have to tell you, in the small hours of this morning, that really hurt. If you’d not come to see me this morning, I would have come to you.”
A tear escaped and ran down her cheek. Gone were thoughts about production and bands and studios. In their place was the gaping hole she’d buried and tried to fill with music. “It hurt me too. You not wanting me.”
“I can only imagine. I’m sorry, Cerys. It was never you.”
Another tear followed, and another, until she was sobbing. Jimmy pulled her into his arms, and she felt a new kind of security—different to that which she felt with Jase. Like the castle walls at the end of her mum’s garden, they felt solid and timeless.
“What was it you said about the band? Look what we accomplished in two days? Same goes for us, I think. Here.” He pulled a tissue from a box and handed it to her.
Cerys took it and wiped her eyes.
“I have a suggestion. Why don’t you come over to the house on Sunday? Spend the day with me. I’ll fly your grandparents back from Florida. You’ve got family here I’ve kept from you. I never told them about you.”
“I have grandparents?” The words caught her off guard. Destabilized her all over again. She had family. More than just her mum.
“I somehow assumed you knew about them, even though they didn’t know about you.” Her father tucked his hands into his pockets and shrugged sheepishly. “When I came back from England, I was just hitting my prime with the company. Didn’t want distractions. So, I figured the best thing to do was just . . .”
“Send cheques and keep us secret?” She hadn’t meant to sound harsh, but with the turmoil raging in her chest, she’d lost all sense of filter.
Jimmy looked pained. “Yeah. Let’s keep taking the steps to make it right, though.”
Cerys cleared her throat, her emotions a little raw. “I’d like that.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“So, what do we do about Sad Fridays? There are more songs.”
Jimmy laughed as he folded his arms across his chest. “I’m sure there are, and I want to hear them. I’m going to need a copy of their recording contract. Need to check whether it states the masters must be commercially acceptable. You know what that means?”
Remembering terminology was the easiest part of her studies. “That the material must be considered by the label to be a radio hit based on the current trends.”
Jimmy grinned. “Yeah. We need it to be technically brilliant given the label have strong opinions already.”
“What does your contract with them say?”
“Interestingly enough, it doesn’t specify anything that would preclude me from delivering something like this.” He tipped his head in the direction of the laptop. “Are the band on board, or is this just Jase trying to form his own thing?”
“My understanding is he played it for them on Tuesday and they loved it. Just trying to figure out a time to tell you about it.”
“Well,” he said, cracking his knuckles. “Call them up and get them into the studio. Enough with the hiding away and getting drunk. Band meeting with you and me.”
Cerys stood. “I’m on it.”
“Oh, and Cerys?”
“Yeah.”
“What you said, about it being too late for me to tell you anything to do with your personal life. You and Jase. Think carefully. A rock star wouldn’t be the person I’d want for you. It’s a different lifestyle. Especially where Jase is at in his career. It doesn’t matter how badly you want something to work out if your ambitions pull you in two completely different directions. Just . . . be careful.”
“Your girl got any answers as to why we’ve been summonsed so early?” Ben asked, bleary-eyed as they hustled into the studio.
Jase shook his head. “Got the same message the rest of you did. Bexter wants to see us an hour ahead of our ten o’clock slot today.” He didn’t add that he’d messaged her and called her phone, and she hadn’t answered either. Knowing what he knew about Cerys’s situation, it made him feel a little uneasy.
Fucking waves.
“You think Parker Moseley is in town?” Alex asked.
“No clue. Why do you seem to think I’m the all-fucking-knowing seer here?”
Alex leaned close. “You’re banging Baby Bexter, ergo you are closer than any of us to knowing.”
“Don’t call her that.” Jase rolled his eyes. “And I’m not banging her. Yet.”
Alex did a double take. “For real?”
“New me, man. I’m going to marry her one day, so we don’t need to rush to get there.”
Ben slapped a palm on Jase’s head. “You feeling okay?”
“Funny.” Jase batted his palm away. “Anticipation is cooler than I imagined.”
“Try three fucking weeks of anticipation. I’m dying,” Matt said. “Should have had Iz come out for one weekend.”
“Last night,” said Alex. “Anticipation sucks.”
“This morning. Right before that message came in,” Luke said, proudly. “Didn’t even have to come up with an excuse to get her to leave.”
“When the fuck did you get the chance to find someone this morning?” Ben asked.
“There’s an app for that, Benny-boy. But this happened to be Miley from the check-in desk of the hotel.”
“So, no pillow talk between you and the missus, then?” Alex asked.
Matt laughed. “He doesn’t know what pillow talk is.”
“Fuck off,” Jase said at their teasing. He glanced in Cerys’s office as he walked by, disappointed that she wasn’t there. But he was certain the quote on her board was just for him.