“What in the world are you doing?” I ask.
“Making sweet tea, of course.” He raises the drink to his lips again, then pulls a face. “Eh. Not as good as my mom’s. You just can’t get quality sweet tea in New York.”
“You must get pretty homesick. Have you been back to Marietta recently?”
Jake shakes his head with a grimace. “I’ve only visited twice in the past year. I haven’t had much time with my schedule. Not that I should complain too much about that. I just hope I’ll get to see my family more this next year. That things will normalize, if that’s possible.”
He leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. One corner of his mouth ticks upward as he stares at me unapologetically from across the table, as if I’m the only person in the room. It makes me feel both self-conscious and strangely exhilarated.
“So, what do you think so far?” he asks.
“Of what?”
“All of it. The chaos. The studio. Me.”
I pause for a moment, contemplating my answer. “Well, I don’t think Vinny is going to be my number-one fan.”
The smile on Jake’s face immediately fades. His shoulders sag as he picks his sunglasses up off the table, turning them over in his hands. “I couldn’t care less what Vinny thinks,” he mutters.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
A wrinkle forms between Jake’s brows, and I can tell he’s contemplating exactly how much he wants to tell me. Then he scrubs a hand through his hair with a resigned sigh.
“A few weeks before my album debuted, a story broke about me and Madison St. James. I was out in LA, having dinner with Vinny and one of my producers at Craig’s. Madison was there too, and she came over to introduce herself. She’d been recording at the same studio as me, and apparently, she heard some of my stuff and really liked it. She’s from the South too—Louisiana, actually—and she offered to take me under her wing, mentor me and whatnot. We walked out together, still talking about it, and the paparazzi got a photo of us.
“I know the way it must have looked, the way I was smiling at her. But it wasn’t because anything was going on between us. I was just… kind of starstruck. I mean, she’s Madison St. James, you know? And she likedmymusic.”
Jake’s lips curl into a sheepish smile. But a second later, his expression changes again, and his eyes steel. “Anyway, apparently Madison and her boyfriend, Oliver, had just broken up, and it didn’t take long for TMZ to run a story about how the relationship ended because she’d cheated on him with me. Especially when she was posting about me and my album release so much. The truth was she was just a supportive friend. But it got twisted in the media.”
A muscle twitches in his jaw. “I hated it. The idea of my name being dragged through the mud like that, of people thinking I’d ever…” He trails off for a moment, then shakes his head as if to clear it. “I’m not an idiot. I get that stuff like this happens when you’re in the public eye. You can’t really control the crap that runs in the tabloids.” He pauses for a moment, and his shoulders stiffen.
“But the night I came to your place, I’d just found out that Vinny was the ‘anonymous source’ who’d spread the rumors about us to the tabloids. And Lexi, I completely lost it. When I confrontedhim, he tried to justify it by saying ‘all press is good press,’ that he and my publicity team have a planned trajectory for my career, and after all, hasn’t it paid off so far? But it just felt like a slap in the face. Like he didn’t believe in me enough to think I could be successful based on my music alone, like I had to be part of some celebrity scandal in order to get my career off the ground.”
My heart twists in my chest at the emotion in his voice. I can’t even imagine what Jake must be going through. To feel like you’ll never be good enough, no matter how successful you are. And worse, that you can’t even trust the people who are supposed to believe in you. I reach across the table to grab his hand.
“You know it’s not true, right?” When Jake lifts his head to look at me, his eyes are glassy. “You are incredibly talented, Jake. You always have been. There’s no way you would have gotten as far as you have if you weren’t.” I lower my voice conspiratorially. “I mean, you didn’t need any amount of fame to get me into bed. You did that with your voice alone.”
Jake chokes out a reluctant laugh, and I grin at him. The tension in the air immediately dissolves, and I give his hand a squeeze.
The waiter arrives a moment later, setting our plates down in front of us.
“How’s the chicken?” I ask once Jake’s taken a few bites.
He lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. “Fine, I guess. Also nowhere near as good as my mom’s, of course. Or yours.”
“I bet. I’ll have to get her recipe some time.” I take a sip of my water. “What’s your mom like?”
At the mention of her, Jake’s eyes light up. “Amazing. Always smiling, always trying to feed people. The perfect Southern hostess. You’d love her, actually.”
“And your dad?”
Jake’s smile fades a decimal. He tears off the edge of his buttermilk biscuit, popping it into his mouth. “He’s a hard worker. Very serious, driven to succeed. He’s the kind of dad who nevercoached Little League, but always had plenty of notes after each game on how I could improve.” He takes another bite of his biscuit and chews thoughtfully. “He’s never really understood the whole music thing. Pretty sure he still thinks this is just a phase, and in a few more years, I’ll come around to the idea of joining the family business.” Before I can ask what type of business his family does, he shifts in his seat and his leg brushes against my knee, and I immediately lose my train of thought.
“Let’s just say he’s not like my mom.” His eyes go soft around the edges as he chews. “She loves it when I sing and play guitar for her. The feeling I get when I’m performing, knowing that people are enjoying music I’ve made… it’s such an adrenaline rush. I got completely hooked on it.”
I nod because I know exactly what he means. Not because I’ve ever enjoyed performing in front of a crowd. I can still remember the way my stomach knotted when I stood in front of my third-grade class to deliver a presentation on Martha Washington. But I can relate to the high of creation, of knowing that something you made brings joy to others. It’s addictive.
Jake smiles. “Tell me more about your parents.”
