Getting the cold shoulder is a new experience for me.
“How’s it going?” I ask when almost thirty seconds have passed.
“Can’t complain, how about yourself?” he asks, waving his fingers at the waitress to order a cup of coffee.
I guess we’re having breakfast together, then.
“I’m alright.”
I’m about to ask him if he has something he’d like me to sign or if he wants to take a picture when the bells on the door ring, and I look over my shoulder to see a couple other men his age walk into the diner and make their way toward us. As the two men sit, my stomach tightens. That’s Ken Harper—Izzy’s dad.
“Joining us for coffee, then, Jaxon?” the man who came in with Ken asks. He’s wearing a green hat with the name of a farm implement company on it.
Shit. I start to stand.
“Oh, don’t,” Ken says. “Stay. Join us. Let’s see if you can stick around even when things get a little uncomfortable.”
“I…I mean…” I start, floundering, but am saved by the waitress bringing over six empty brown coffee mugs and a full carafe of coffee.
“So, what brings you to town, Jaxon?” Green Hat asks.
“Not your father’s funeral,” adds Ralph from his seat next to me. “You missed that by a few weeks. I’m sure you couldn’t get away with your busy rock star schedule, though.”
Defending my actions to these men who knew my dad for years, if not his whole life, is a lost cause if I’ve ever seen one, so I just hum noncommittally. When the silence stretches, I add, “The farm will go up for sale at the end of this month.”
“Two days after you’re Izzy’s date to the big wedding, if the rumors are to be believed,” Green Hat says.
Ken sips his coffee, his easy body posture in direct contrast to the ice burning in his eyes.
“Will you be sticking around long after the sale?” Ralph asks.
The way they ask questions—half daring me to mess up, half hoping I will—reminds me of dinners with my dad, when he’d deign to acknowledge my presence for long enough to ask about my plans for my future despite knowing I wanted to go into music.
“I’m not sure,” I say. I don’t want to promise anything I can’t follow through on, but I also don’t want to mess up Izzy’s fake-dating-breakup plan. “I’ll have to go back to Nashville to record my next album, but it’s a lot easier for me to pop back and forth than it once was.”
If Andre is to be believed, that might need to happen sooner rather than later. My label was overjoyed to have any music out of me, but apparently, this new song is making them see dollar signs, so they’re pushing to get me in a full recording studio as soon as possible.
“So that jet was yours this weekend, huh?” Green Hat asks.
“Tim likes to hang out at the airport,” Ralph explains.
Green Hat is Tim. Got it.
“Yeah. Just a quick trip to Nashville,” I reply, trying to play it cool.
“With Izzy,” Ken adds, and I feel like I’m twelve again, getting in trouble with Izzy for not doing our homework before playingGuitarStar.
Maybe-Becca’s-dad lets out a “Oh-ho!” like it’s the most shocking information he’s heard all year.
The next forty-five minutes continue similarly, the men asking questions about gossip they’ve heard about me or others in town: sometimes including me in the discussion, sometimes grilling me, but mostly just ignoring me.
They aren’t openly mean, but they somehow manage to make me feel like I haven’t made a good decision…well, ever. I haven’t felt this bad about myself since the night before my eighteenth birthday, when my dad finally broke and let me know just how much he truly resented not only the man I turned out to be but my entire existence.
When the waitress sets down the bill, I offer to pay, and they all take me up on it, though the waitress still stamps each of their coffee club cards that proudly state, “Fill your card, get fifty cents off your next cup!” Considering the coffee only costs a dollar, and there are twelve punches per card, I’m not sure it’s worth the space it takes up in their wallets, but I suppose it’s not up to me.
I get in my car and immediately turn on the engine, pulling out of the parking lot before I even have a chance to put my seat belt on. I knew people in town didn’t like me. There’s likely a long list of people here who dislike me, and it makes sense that Ken Harper would be at the top of the list. But knowing and looking down the barrel of Ken’s dislike for fifty minutes are two entirely different things.
Growing up, I was close to him. I respected the hell out of him. And this? It hurts.
