“Yeah, hang on . . .” She could hear him close the sliding patio door to their—no, his—house. “We need to talk when you get home.”
“Can’t it wait?” She sighed heavily into the phone, aware he was about to pressure her into a commitment. “I need to focus on my album.”
“I want to get married and settle down, Jamie. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”
She looked at Ruth and mouthedAsshole.
“Miss Keaton?” a man’s voice called from behind the door. “Five minutes, ma’am.”
“I’ve got to run,” Jamie said, happy for any excuse to get off the phone.
“Happy new year . . .” Derrick said before she hung up on him.
Happy fucking new year.
“Are you okay?” Ruth asked, her voice soft. Being highly empathetic, she always sensed when something was wrong.
Jamie dabbed the corners of her eyes with a tissue, not wanting to ruin her perfectly drawn eyeliner and mascara. “Five years of this, Ruth. Right after I won Star Factor. I didn’t even want a relationship.” She rolled the tissue into a ball, mad at herself for letting him get to her. “It was more like a one-night stand that never ended.”
She was twenty-five when she met Derrick, her first real boyfriend. He was driven, focused, serious about his career—and controlling. It was a recipe for disaster, given her childhood. Her mother, once a Vegas showgirl, had left when Jamie was eight, her struggles with drugs and untreated mental illness making her unfit to raise a daughter or hold together a relationship. Not that Jamie’s father helped: he didn’t believein marriage, preferring the excuse to cheat on her mother without a guilty conscience.
“He chased after me, not the other way around,” Jamie said after a pause.
“I know, James.” Ruth shook her head and unwrapped a stick of gum. “I almost died when I saw you that morning.”
“You were the only good thing to come out of this,” she said, taking satisfaction in stealing Ruth from under Derrick’s nose. “He treated you like a housekeeper, not an assistant. I couldn’t stand the way he spoke to you.” She focused on Ruth’s freckled face. “You don’t have any regrets about working for me, do you?”
“Not at all.” Ruth never lied. “Do you want me to mix a scoop of Metamucil into his protein powder like the last time?”
“Maybe some Nair in his shampoo?” Jamie laughed as she poured vodka into a red Solo cup with a heavy hand. “Who wants to date a sober celiac germaphobe anyway?” Derrick Anderson was the most boring person on the planet. His screenwriters deserved awards for inventing even a shred of personality.
“Do you want some ice with that?” Ruth asked, gesturing toward her drink. “Or club soda?”
“No time.” Jamie took a gulp. “I can’t pour this vodka down my throat fast enough.” She tried to ignore Clayton’s twangy singing voice in the background. “Why is he still playing?”
Ruth shrugged as she stood from the couch. “Are you ready?”
Jamie slipped into her Frye Harness boots and black leather jacket, then yanked the poster off the door. She tore it down the center and put her half back up, slightly crooked.
“Now I’m ready,” she said, pleased with herself.
An enthusiastic production assistant guided them backstage as she finished her drink. He’d introduced himself during her soundcheck but Jamie struggled with names unless she immediately committed them to memory.
“May I have an autograph?” he asked nervously, unrolling a copy of the same poster she’d just destroyed.
“Sure,” Jamie said as Ruth pulled a Sharpie from her back pocket. She signed her name and drew a mustache and devil horns on Clayton’s dumb head. “There. That’s better. It’s a Jamie Keaton original.”
“Th-thanks, ma’am.” The production assistant tilted his head, wondering why she’d defaced it.
“Jamie’s fine.” She wrinkled her nose, agitated by the Southern hospitality.
From the stage Clayton caught Jamie’s eye, and she tapped her Mickey Mouse watch to signal the time. He shrugged and flashed her a charming smile, playing to the crowd as though he were the headliner.
This fucking guy.
She stormed over to where Shorty stood and rested her arm on the guitar cabinet next to him. “Are you kidding me?” She stomped her boot heel. “He’s running the light.”
“We have plenty of time,” Shorty said, placing a friendly hand on her shoulder. She flinched when anyone touched her, not accustomed to affection unless it was sexual.
