He must read the answer on my face, because his hands drop from my arms.
“I don’t know what my life is going to look like after rehab,” I say honestly. “But however long it takes, I promise to find you after. Even if everything is different by then, and you’ve moved on.”
I have the strangest urge to say:I will come back from the dead for you. Because that’s what this feels like, in a way. Like setting fire to my old life, in hopes the new one will grow back stronger.
Theo draws my face close. “Even if you don’t—”
“I will.”
“Listen, even if you don’t, I just want you to be happy. Okay? That’s the only promise I need. Find a way to be happy, Hannah.”
I smile and shake my head. What a fucking Theo Ford thing to say.
Sharon circles, on the verge of pulling me away, so I lean up and kiss him. “One last thing,” I whisper. “It’s probably obvious by now, but just in case—I love you. I have for a while now. Too long, probably.”
Theo says nothing, only squeezes his eyes shut, so I take one last look at him, memorizing his face, then follow Sharon through the door marked Exit.
Out of my old life, and into the next.
Chapter 64
Theo
Six Months Later Friday, August 22, 2025
You’ve reached Ford Records,” I say into the phone, then swivel in my chair to the calendar tacked on my wall. “Oh, hey, Jude. Yeah, the tenth of December should work. Ripper’s on vacation starting the twentieth, and Kenny will be out on paternity leave in January. Mazel, exactly—thank you. I’ll pass it on to him and Birdie. Yeah, first kid and first new album, we’re all excited. Okay, great, talk soon.”
I hang up and circle the tenth of December, jotting down “Front-men recording at Paramount” in the small space. December’s looking crowded, but so are all the other months. I knew starting my own record label would be all-consuming, but I never could’ve predicted that Hannah’s shout-out at the Grammys would act as the world’s best advertisement, sending a flurry of musicians my way looking for “the Fixer” treatment—no longer code for ending careers, but for giving new life to struggling bands.
It doesn’t hurt that Kenny and Ripper, the first clients to sign with me, are constantly telling their friends there’s no label they’d rather work with. I’ve just signed Dr. G and am set to begin recording with him next year, a prospect that excitesand terrifies me in equal measure. I will do my best to hold on to my eyebrows. The only musician I’ve refused to work with is Sasha Thee Pop Princess, a spurn that was actually picked up by the media, causing a small article to pop up on a gossip site titled “Was Sasha Thee Pop Princess Rejected by This New Record Exec?”
Damn straight she was.
I turn from my wall calendar back to my laptop and enter the studio appointment digitally. While many things have changed in the last year and a half, one thing never will, and that’s my type A instincts to double-record all my clients’ appointments. I think back to one of Roger’s lessons—Success isn’t just about talent, kid—and smile to myself.
Outside my window, seagulls call to one another, and I pause to watch them swoop. It’s been an extra-sunny day here in Long Beach. Completely cloudless, rays of light streaming through my windows so aggressively it’s as if the sun has been trying to reach out and tell me something.
Relocating to California and renting this little house on the beach has been one of the best, albeit most expensive, decisions I’ve made since starting my company. The studio pulls double duty as both my office and my home, which means I’m here on the beach to catch most sunsets and sunrises. In this lovely liminal place where the water meets the land, where I can step out of my front door and look at the horizon in the distance, I feel small in the best way possible.
It reminds me of Hannah. Every beach does, which is the real reason I’m here.
I turn back to my laptop and pull up the brand-new website Ripper and Kenny made for their two-man band, the Frontmen. I’ve been looking at it off and on all day. Even though they were my first clients and we’ve been working on new songs nonstop—it turns out Ripper was right that he cancarry a band—there’s something about seeing their new logo that drives home the fact that the Saints no longer exist.
On a whim, I pick up the phone and call my mom.
“Hey, hon.” She sounds breathless. “How are you?”
“Busy. I think I might need to hire an assistant.” I stand and stretch next to the window. The sun is finally starting to sink over the water. “You just finish your workout?”
She laughs. “Can you tell from the heavy breathing? At least step aerobics is keeping me young. Bruce says my tush is looking firmer every day.”
“Gross. And good. I’m going to need you to live until at least a hundred and five.”
“Will do. What’s on your mind?”
I glance up at the corkboard on the wall next to my calendar. In the farthest corner, I’ve tacked the slip of paper the private investigator gave me years ago:Theodore Ford, Sr. 216-535-4879. I’ve filed it away in a mental folder titledOne Day, Maybe. It’s strange, but I think I prefer the possibility of contacting my dad more than the reality. Maybe one day that will change, and I’ll take the paper off the wall. But for now, my mom is the parent I want to talk to.
“Just feeling wistful,” I admit. “Wanted to hear a friendly voice.”
