“No.I’m pretty sure they—” I stop short.My throat dries out.“They weren’t working together anymore.”
Bernice tilts her head, eyes unreadable.“That may be true.”
“It is true,” I insist.
“Fine.Wilder and his band fired your dad after their sophomore album,” she confesses.
I’m a little surprised about how things went down.Dad made it sound as if the relationship took longer to end.I have no doubt my father was telling potential clients that he was still in charge of the band.
“The point isn’t what happened in the past,” Bernice takes over the conversation.“Right now, he, Roderick, needs someone.He’s back in Seattle.Solo tour hanging by a thread—or is it the label that wants to drop him?It’s all a PR train wreck after that last interview.”
I stare out the window, not really noticing anything—just shapes behind streaked glass.The Space Needle appears blurred and distant, softened by the haze of hospital grime and gray light.
Roderick used to say the city looked best in the rain.He said it gave everything a soundtrack.
I swallow around the memory, trying not to let it stick.“There must be someone else.”The words come out too flat, too even—like I’ve already lost the argument and I’m just pretending I haven’t.
Truth is, it wouldn’t be a tragedy.Not really.Let the label drop him.Let them scrub his name from the billboards.
We could help him in other ways if we chose to.That’s the whole damn point of owning a recording studio.Labels aren’t gods anymore.Not like they were a decade ago.Now, they’re just another middleman with flashier business cards.
Bernice exhales a slow, tired sigh.
“It’d be a loss for your father.And I don’t think he can afford that right now.”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it—just exhaustion wearing sarcasm like a second skin.
“I can’t afford to take over Dad’s empire.”My breath escapes in a shallow gust, as if saying it aloud might make it real enough to walk away from.“I’m not babysitting his clients.”
Especially not Roderick Wilder, I don’t say.
Bernice crosses her arms and looks at me like a mother trying to reason with a stubborn child.“Kit ...I know what he did.”
I stiffen.Does she?What exactly are we talking about here?My father or Roderick?There are many reasons why I’m not bailing my father out in this situation.And that’s the thing I will argue about, not Roderick.
“It’s not about what he did.”I force out a shrug because Connor Dempsey has done way too many shitty things in his life.“He decided at twelve that I was old enough to be a functioning adult.I survived.But I’ve got my own life now, and I’m not inheriting his.”
“I meant Roderick.”
She says it casually, as if she’s dropping a name, but it lands like a fucking landmine.
ChapterEighteen
Kit
May 2nd, 1997
I freeze, stare at Bernice across the table, and feel the static build in my chest.She knows what he did ...of course, the questions come quickly.
Do you really know what the fuck that asshole did?
Do you know what it feels like to hear your song—your fucking song—on the radio with someone else’s name on it?
If you knew, why didn’t you stop it?
Does she know what it is to watch someone you once loved torch everything he touched and not even flinch?Not even remember what the two of you were.We were friends, and I was in love with him.He ...he stole from me and called me a fucking child when I caught him at a party, drunk, getting a blow job from some girl.
It’s insulting, honestly.To have her distill it down to just him, as if Roderick Wilder alone is the reason I won’t go anywhere near my father’s crumbling empire.As if one man—albeit a man who turned my world inside out—could be the singular, defining reason behind my refusal to step into a kingdom built on favors, missed birthdays, and broken promises.
