“Tonight’s show wasn’t the same without you. The crowds were calling for you too.”
“Really?”
“Yes, ask anyone. They’ll tell you.”
They looked at each other for a bit, maybe they had some kind of fuckin’ sister talk, I didn’t know.
“You’re going to be even more pissed at me.”
“Why? What else is going on?”
Sweets looked uncomfortable, and it was clear she didn’t want to tell me.
Candy pushed her. “You have to tell him.”
“Fine, I tweeted about it, and even put a picture up of how I looked after the fight.”
“You did what?” Fuck. What was she thinking? Holy fucking shit this was going to be a huge mess. “What did you Tweet about?”
“Only that Cynda stole your songs and beat me up.”
I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands. I couldn’t look at her. She was right, I was even more pissed. It was my fault. I was older, I should have known better. She thought she was doing the right thing, I think. Unless she’s just using all of this. Damn, I couldn’t even think straight anymore.
“Fuck.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm my temper. I felt like I was talking to a little kid, and maybe that’s the problem. She was twenty-two, maybe all of us sheltered her too much once she got to the Sherman’s. “Can you at least delete the picture?”
“Yeah.” She pulled out her phone and clicked away. “Okay, it’s gone.”
“What about the tweet, can you delete it?”
“Yeah, but if people have seen it, and I know they have, it’s been liked and retweeted a shitload, it won’t matter.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why not? She lied to us all.”
“But we don’t know that for sure. I was too pissed to listen, maybe there was a good reason she had lyrics to my song.”
Joe came out from the front of the bus. He looked upset, but I didn’t know how much more I could handle.
“If you’re talking about the song, then yeah, you’re wrong.”
I heard the words but they weren’t sinking in. “What do you mean? Do you know what she was doing?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Obviously I was going to have to play dentist and pull it out of him like a bad tooth. “Will you tell me…us?”
He sighed and looked like he didn’t want to say anything. She must have asked him to keep it a secret. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I can’t have you believing she was going to steal from you. She heard you writing the song the other night when she was trying to get to sleep. She said it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever written and the words came to her, she couldn’t stop writing. She wanted to surprise you with the finished lyrics.”
“You know this for sure?”
“Yeah, I’ve even heard her sing them. She has the voice of an angel. But then it’s not surprising considering her who father is.”
“Her father?” Now I was really confused. She never mentioned anyone other than her mother.
“Her father is Preston Mitchell.”
“No fucking way. The Preston Mitchell? Singer and songwriter for The Hurricanes?” Holy fuck. He’d been one of my idolsgrowing up. He’s the reason I started writing songs. Cyn’s his daughter? Why didn’t she tell me?
