“Be honest with me, Grace. Is there someone else?”
I was stunned. No, flabbergasted. “What? No!”
“Then tell me—who’s Rory, and why haven’t you mentioned him before?”
I blinked until I thought my eyelids would fall off. “Who told you about Rory?”
“Your dad. Accidentally. He called me Rory one day.”
I closed my eyes, sighing.Dammit, Dad!
“You’ll be happy to know he tried to cover it up, but good god, that man is a terrible liar.”
“I’m aware.”
“I thought at first he just called me the wrong name, but then he started stuttering and backtracking, and when none of that worked, he challenged me to a burping contest.”
Palming my forehead, I asked, “When did this happen?”
“A couple of days after arriving to the States. Remember when I was moody and told you I had jetlag? It was then.”
I nodded. I remembered that day. Something had been off, but I’d thought he was just tired. Yet if I thought back, that was the day doubt had begun forming in my mind. That was how powerful a presence Rory still was in my life. All it had taken was a mere mention from my father to drive a wedge between Elliott and me, and we’d been losing air ever since. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you didn’t. We talked about all our former flames, and his name never came up. Not once. Obviously there’s a reason you failed to mention him.”
Oh, there was a reason, all right; one that Elliott would definitely not want to hear.
“He’s the thrill you’re chasing, isn’t he?” Elliott asked, and the words were sour coming out of his mouth.
Elliott and I had reached the end. There was no reason to hide Rory now. No more secrets.
“Yes. He’s the thrill.”
18
RORY: THE REPLACEMENT
The middle-aged man ambled in with a cane, trying to move faster than his limp would allow. Dressed in a sharp suit and tie and looking deceptively younger than the years he’d been rumored to live, Sketch Monsters’ manager, Tucker Beckett, was the type of guy who didn’t have time for injuries. Yet they’d made an exception for him. He was one of the arena victims, having taken a bullet to the thigh in his attempt to rescue his charges and get them off the stage. Not a bad guy to have around.
Tucker’s reputation in the business had made a huge turnaround after that night. To be fair, he’d already been a legend, having made his name and fortune as the manager and creator of the boy band AnyDayNow, but the fallout of that band’s demise had made him a dirty word in the music business. Sketch Monsters was his redemption, and from what I could see, he’d more than earned his comeback story.
I’d gotten the lowdown on Tucker Beckett at lunch with my new bandmates. They’d arrived an hour earlier to the barber shop where I was getting my makeover. By the time we left, three quarters of my hair was gone and my skin was as smooth as newly poured concrete. My beard had been so thick, I now had a tanline that marked its former location. Although I looked undeniably better, I was going to miss the mask that had shielded me.
During lunch, I discovered how Sketch Monsters had come to be, formed after Quinn’s ill-fated turn on a reality singing competition shot him to unexpected fame while simultaneously making him a pariah in the music business. That was where Tucker Beckett had come in and built a band around the youngest McKallister boy. He was the one who’d booked Sketch Monsters for the opening show on the night of the shooting. It was supposed to be their big break, and in a roundabout way, it was. With the notoriety that came with being on stage during a tragedy, they’d shot to fame. And now here I was, taking the throne of the member of the band who didn’t survive.
“What time does practice start?” Tucker barked, as he sailed through the rehearsal studio without noticing me on the drums. It was like the cane was a motorized scooter.
“Fifteen hundred hours, sir,” Mike, the bassist, answered in his best militarized response. He even added a crisp salute.
“That’s correct, Michael. And what time is it now?”
“Fifteen and oh five?” Mike guessed. “I don’t know how to tell military time past the hour.”
“It’s fifteen five. And what does that mean, boys?”
Matty, the guitarist, tentatively raised his hand. “We’re late?”
Tucker clapped his hands once in an aggressive gesture that left no room for interpretation. “It means that every single minute that passes is coming out of my pocket.”
