PROLOGUE
Remington
My hands were sweating.
I didn’t know what it was about today that made me feel like I was losing it, but I did. I could feel the panic begin to rise inside me, claw and bite at me, until it succeeded in devouring me whole. Jesus, I hated this shit. Hated feeling this way and that it cast a shadow on something I loved so damn much.
It was the last show on a tour that, like the panic, was trying to break me apart until there was nothing left of me.
I wanted it to be over. It was brutal wanting something to end so much, something that was such a large part of who I was, that was sewn into the very fiber of not only Remington, but of Remy—the real me.
From where I stood offstage, I could hear the crowd chanting my name. It echoed around in my brain until it was all I could see, hear, and think. With a shaky hand, I opened the small travel container of anxiety meds and swallowed one down. I had two prescriptions, one that was daily in the morning, and another I could take at moments like these.
Some nights were better than others. Sometimes this beast didn’t try and wear me down, and others I didn’t believe there was a Remington without constant anxiety.
I just wanted…music. Well, that and—I shook my head. Going there would only make things worse. That was better saved for when I was alone and I could remember, miss, crave.
“Remington, you almost ready?”
There was a hand on my shoulder, and by the sound of—fuck, I couldn’t even remember his name—I could tell it wasn’t the first time he’d said my name.
“Yeah. One minute.” I took a few deep breaths. Stuffed the pill container into my pocket. Adjusted the guitar strap over my shoulder. Tried to slow my heartbeat and clear my head. Tried to remind myself that this was my dream, that there was nothing I loved as much as music.
Only that wasn’t true. Family aside, there was him. I would always love him more than anything.
Lawson
Before
“Do you want another latte?” Sara asked as she stood, pushing out of the chair beside me at the Charlottesville coffeehouse. I had only been at the University of Virginia for a couple of months, but I’d already fallen in with a group of friends. It had always been like that for me. I was a people person, never had trouble finding a way to feel comfortable in any situation. And if not, I was pretty good at faking it until I made it.
It was a gift no one really knew I possessed.
Maybe it was because things had always been easy for me. I’d never wanted for anything. I grew up in a two-parent home, with two siblings, more money than we needed, and a name everyone knew. I wasn’t blind to my privileges. They weren’t something I tried to take advantage of either, but I knew I had them.
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.” I reached for my wallet, but Sara waved off my offer.
“You got the last round. I’ll get this one.” She winked before walking away, shaking her ass as she went. She was smart and gorgeous, with long blonde hair and curves for days. She planned to go into politics and wanted to change the world. I had no doubt she would.
“She wants you,” Todd said from my other side.
“Who doesn’t?” I teased, waggling my eyebrows at him. The truth was, I was pretty sure she did, and yeah, I definitely wouldn’t complain. She was really confident, and I liked that about her.
“Cocky motherfucker.” Todd shook his head.
Sara came back a few minutes later, and the eight of us continued to talk and laugh and flirt.
I loved being out of Havenwood. Charlottesville wasn’t that far away, but here I wasn’t the Lawson Grant everyone had known their whole lives. There were no expectations, and people liked me for me and not because I was a Grant. My family name held power in Havenwood, not only because my dad had built an empire of grocery stores, of all things, but because Mom’s family had practically owned Havenwood from the beginning. She was old money. Her family had settled there after the Revolutionary War, having made money in Richmond.
About an hour later, just after nine, there was movement in my periphery. There was a small stage at the front of the coffeehouse, and they often had beat-poetry performers and musicians come in.
The guy onstage had messy, auburn hair and threadbare jeans that hung low on his hips, with holes in the knees. You could tell they weren’t jeans he bought to have that look, but that had grown that way with years of wear.
He turned his back to the crowd, fiddling with his guitar. His plain black T-shirt had the tag on the outside, which made me smile for some reason. I had no idea if he knew his shirt was on inside out. Somehow, I didn’t think he cared either way.
When he turned back around, I saw freckles dance across the bridge of his small nose, and he had this jawline that looked like it could cut glass, with a light dusting of stubble along it. He looked about my age, eighteen or nineteen, and like this everyday guy. He wasn’t someone who would stop traffic or turn heads. He simply…was, and I didn’t think he cared about that either.
The guy moved a stool to the middle of the stage, having left the guitar on a stand. His eyes slowly drifted up and landed on me. I couldn’t tell what color they were and didn’t know why I cared. Hell, I didn’t know why I was so interested in this guy in the first place, but there was something about him that felt…different.
He gave me a small, shy smile, then quickly looked away. His cheeks were a slight shade of pink they hadn’t been before.
He wrung his hands, pacing back and forth for a moment. No one was paying attention to him. Everyone drinking and laughing and talking, but I couldn’t turn away. He looked like he was going to jump out of his skin.
Finally, he walked over, grabbed the guitar, and…was that a hole in his shoe? I was pretty sure it was.
He sat on the stool, the microphone in front of it at the perfect height for him, and then he leaned in, cleared his throat, and said, “Um…hey. I’m Remington Monroe.”
No one looked at him, no one turned from their conversations or coffee to acknowledge him, making sadness for him settle in my bones.
“Um…why don’t you write with a broken pencil?” he asked, which would have caught my attention even if he didn’t already have it. “Because it’s pointless,” he continued, and I chuckled. Did he really tell that joke onstage? There were a few snickers, a few people who looked at him, but most weren’t paying him any attention. “I’m gonna play some songs I wrote for y’all tonight. I hope you like ’em.”
He had this rough, husky voice, deeper than I’d expected, though I wasn’t sure why I expected anything.
His eyes shot to me again, then quickly darted away. His fingers began to move along the guitar, and he opened his mouth and let loose this song about feeling sad and alone before watching the sun rise over the Blue Ridge Mountains and how that one thing made him feel lucky to be alive.
Jesus. Had I ever felt like that? Lucky to be alive over something as small as a sunrise?
Goose bumps skittered up my arms, the hair standing up, and my heart sped in this way I couldn’t quite work through. Something about his song, his voice, settled into me in a completely unfamiliar way. Like he was singing to me, and for me, and maybe about me even though I’d never watched the sunrise over the mountains and never in my whole life had I felt alone in the way he sang about.