“I didn’t want space,” I shot back. “I told you to call me.”
“You were seventeen years old.”
“I know, that’s why you wouldn’t kiss me and…say, one of a myriad reasons why you wouldn’t call me.”
“Goddamn it.” He looked over my head. “Shit is real and she’s sayin’ words like ‘myriad.’”
“Preacher,” I snapped.
He looked down at me.
“I did not want to be that creep,” he stated.
That made me mad.
“You’re not a creep,” I retorted
“Not a creep, cher, that creep. That creepy twenty-somethin’ guy who preys on a seventeen-year-old.”
I blinked again for a different reason.
“Oh,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, oh,” he bit off. “And I did call.”
Uh-oh.
“You did?”
“On your birthday. After your birthday. At least a dozen times between your birthday and when we got back to Indy. And I’ll just say, your gramps thinks I’m a twenty-somethin’ creep.”
I rolled my eyes to look over my head.
“Babe,” he growled.
I looked back at him.
“Okay, just to say, we didn’t have a lot of time together so I might have been remiss in sharing my grandfather is a tad overprotective.”
He just growled with no words at that.
“And you know, I might have been so excited I met you, I told everybody, and well…he wasn’t a big fan of his granddaughter meeting some guy in a band.”
“You don’t say,” he drawled sarcastically.
“I didn’t think he would withhold your messages,” I told him.
And I didn’t.
“Well, I’m seein’ we both now realize, he did,” Preacher pointed out.
Yes, we now realized that.
But I also realized I had the answer to why Gramps was always racing to be the first to the phone for that stretch of time around my eighteenth birthday.
He lived with four women. He never raced to the phone.
I did not share that dawning knowledge with Preacher.
I just drew in breath and held it.
I let it go to say, “I didn’t come up here because you’re famous, Preacher.”
“I’m not famous, Lyla.”
“I didn’t come up here because you’re semi-famous and about to be super, double, extra famous, Preacher.”
He grinned at me.
Damn.
I looked away.
“Baby,” he whispered, his hands still on me, but he didn’t force me to look at him again.
“I heard the album,” I said to the coffee table.
He rested his forehead against my temple.
So sweet.
Preacher.
God.
I remember that the most.
So, so sweet.
From the very first words he spoke to me.
“This has been intense, but I’m glad.” I swallowed. “I’m glad we got things straight, but you can, you know, use Jesse’s bed and I’ll hang in the lobby until it’s time to—”
“Be quiet, Lyla,” he whispered in my ear.
I shut my eyes tight.
“I’m gonna kiss you now, baby.”
I shut my eyes tighter because I’d wanted that, dreamed of it, fantasized about it.
For what felt like forever.
But now…
“I don’t want a mouth on mine that another woman has had tonight, Preacher.”
“Fuck,” he breathed.
I hadn’t seen him kiss one of them.
Or other things.
But he had.
Damn.
I opened my eyes and again saw coffee table.
“You need to get off me so I can go to the lobby.”
“I thought you blew me off.”
I started pushing at his shoulders. “You need to get off now.”
“You know things about me only Jesse knows.”
I stopped pushing.
“No one, but them…cher, no one on this fuckin’ earth but Jesse knows what you know about me.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I am not a guy to cross,” he told me.
Well, I’d learned that.
“I was pissed, and I was hurt, and when I’m those, I lash out to hurt back. I did that, Lyla. I hold my hand up. I did that tonight to hurt you because you gutted me, you didn’t mean to, but you did. And now it’s done. And I’ve got my girl, and she’s got her man, and you lost your mom and he’s got your sister. And that is my sole fuckin’ focus. Are you with me?”
“Preacher—”
He read my tone and his hands on my head gave a gentle squeeze.
“Are you with me?”
I shut my eyes tight again.
Lyla:
[Looks out the window]
I was with him.
I was always with Preacher.
Always.
[Off tape]
It’s public record your father lost custody of your younger sister Julia and she was returned to your grandparents three months before she graduated from high school, which was one month until her eighteenth birthday, an event which would have allowed her to return home of her own accord.
Yes.
It’s known, in the beginning, you were almost rabidly opposed to doing anything that could be construed as taking advantage of Preacher McCade’s wealth.
[Looks from window]
This was my sister.
You must be aware that there are a number of rumors about Tom Mancosa’s interactions with your father.
Preacher was protective of me.
And Tommy was protective of Preacher.
You’ve never used a last name. You’ve always been known solely as Lyla.
[Firmly]
Yes, I have.
Jesse:
[Off tape]
It’s general knowledge that Bobby Sheridan demanded the Roadmasters be dropped from the tour after the incident in the hotel restaurant that next morning in Chicago.
[Laughs shortly]
Yeah.
[Shakes head]
Yeah. And for once, that wasn’t him being an asshole. That was punk-ass shit we pulled.
Lame, punk-ass shit.
Josh’d had a busy night that night, including talking to that reporter and spewing the bullshit lies he spewed.
But that’s no excuse.
Tom was getting calls from the label, from Bobby’s manager, from the National Enquirer, [shakes head again] from everybody.
And bad timing for Josh, Preacher was coming down for breakfast when Tom got in the elevator with him and Preacher’s already not happy with Josh.
So, he got an earful.
They show at the breakfast table, Josh is sittin’ there with me and Dave, and to this day, I wonder what screw he had loose that he did what he did and then showed at band breakfast like he hadn’t pulled that shit hours before.
But whatever screw it was, it was fuckin’ loose.
And when Preach and Tom got there, they were rarin’ to go.
When he’s ready to roll, it’s impossible to hold Preacher back, and not because he was such a big guy.
Only one who could do it was Tommy.
Unless Tommy was good to let loose.
And the shit that Josh said and what it might mean to the band?
Tom was good to let loose.