Page 81

Florence stares down at her hands, clenched white-knuckled in her lap. She wants to meet him in a fist fight. She wants to call her mum and weep. She wants to untangle her DNA strands and purge herself of everything that can be traced back to her father.

“What does your band think about all of this?” Earl asks after a moment.

“I don’t know.” Mortifyingly, the simple mention of them is enough to make her eyes well up again. “I haven’t heard from them since yesterday.”

“And yesterday?”

“They were angry.” Florence blinks rapidly, trying to hold back the hot sting of tears. The only things worse than Izzy’s open hostility and the cold fury in Toni’s voice were Miray’s hurt and Luca’s quiet disbelief. “They were right to be. I ruined our image.”

Wiping down the counter with an old dishrag, Earl frowns at her. “I think you’re taking a little too much credit there. You can hardly be blamed for being your father’s daughter.”

Florence’s breath hitches as a sob tries to claw up her throat. “I—I feel like he took something from me. I know that I’m privileged. I know that. Mum paid my tuition and let me take music lessons and I know I could always fall back on her if this doesn’t work, and you let us have the basement and taught me how to play guitar, and I don’t take any of it for granted, I promise I don’t. But he didn’t do this. He didn’t teach me how to write songs. He didn’t come to my shows. He didn’t introduce me to his colleagues or explain how this industry works. I made this happen. We did. And now . . .”

“Now he hijacked your success to help his own image,” Earl says simply.

There are so many tears, she can hardly see his face through them. “I don’t know what to do when this tour is over. This is all I know how to do.”

Earl’s bushy eyebrows furrow. “Who says you can’t keep making music?”

“I don’t know how to do this on my own. And I don’t think I want to if no one else cares about me.” She presses her hands against her eyes in an attempt to quell the tears that just keep coming. Her voice cracks as she adds, “When people fall out of love with you, there isn’t a lot you can do to change their mind, is there?”

With a sigh, Earl procures a box of tissues from somewhere behind the counter and slides it over to her. “Are we talking about your audience or the band?”

“Both,” Florence manages. She blows her nose. “And also . . .”

“Luca,” Earl finishes for her. “Yes. I saw.”

Her heart feels like it’s clutched in a vise grip as her mind returns to the hostel lobby in Zurich. I know you didn’t mean to let anyone see this much of you. But I have. And I’m sorry if that scares you, but I’m not sorry it happened.

In all her determined earnestness, Luca was being braver than Florence will ever be, and Florence thanked her for it by denying everything that happened between them. She told herself she was acting in the interest of the band. What a world-class coward she is.

The worst thing is that even with the horrible way Florence treated her, Luca was unwaveringly kind to her the next day: getting her coffee, carrying her luggage to the van, looking at Florence with a good-natured acceptance that made Florence feel sick to her stomach. Luca might be the kindest person Florence has ever met. Thinking about her waking up only a couple minutes away from the pub makes her chest tighten.

“I miss her,” she says quietly.

Eyes cast toward the ceiling, Earl pinches the bridge of his nose. “Lord give me strength.”

“I hurt her,” Florence adds, almost inaudible. “Badly.”

“Badly enough you won’t be able to fix it?”

“Badly enough that I’m scared to try.”

Earl casts her a meaningful look. It’s the one he always wears when he’s about to give her a hard-to-swallow pill. “I suppose we’ll never find out what could’ve been, then.”

Florence sniffs. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Go cry somewhere else, then,” Earl suggests.

Florence blows her nose again for good measure. With the tissue crumpled in her hand, she asks, “Is it all right if I stay here for a while?”

“You have a key, don’t you?” Earl grumbles and turns back to his fridge. “I can’t very well throw you out.”

Florence almost manages a laugh, though it sounds decidedly wet. She’s still crying, but at least the tears are coming quietly now, streaming down her cheeks in a way that doesn’t demand attention. She lets it happen, too tired to try and stop them.

“But Florence?” Earl says.

“Yes?”