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“Hey, what do you think about taking girlfriends on tour?” I asked.

“Girlfriend? When did you get a damn girlfriend?” He took a drink of his beer.

“I didn’t. It’s just someone I like. I like her a lot, actually.”

“I thought you wanted to be famous,” he said. “Now you wanna have a girlfriend instead?”

I laughed. “What, I can’t do both?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Nope. Not if you wanna do either thing well. This is not the time to be anchoring yourself with a girlfriend, my friend.”

I shrugged and took a sip of beer. “I’ve headlined tours before.”

“Not like this you haven’t. You’re touring with a label now. Your entire life is about to change, and in ways you can’t even fucking imagine. Girlfriends are jealous and distracting, and they suck the energy from your soul. Trust me on this. You won’t even have time for you.”

He swatted at a bee buzzing around him. “Who is she anyway? Monique or Monica or whoever the fuck? Oh God, tell me it’s not Lola. Man, you really screwed the pooch on that one—no pun intended. I mean, I get it, she’s fucking hot, but damn is she nuts.” He took a swallow of beer and looked over at me. “She still calling?”

I laughed a little. “Yup.”

“She’s never gonna give it up. You’re gonna get a severed nipple in the mail, wake up chained to a bed in her basement.”

I snorted. “Not funny.”

He tipped his beer at me. “You hear she put a golf club through Kanye’s windshield last week? Climbed the hood and then pissed into the crack in the glass. She’s gone fucking unhinged. Talented as shit but completely off the deep end.”

“Yeah, I saw that.” I shook my head. “What the hell do you think happened to her?”

He scoffed. “She’s a superstar, this business happened. The price of fame. If you let them, they’ll bleed you for every damn drop, and once you’re dry, they try fucking your corpse.”

I looked over at him. “Do you think it’s drugs?”

“Drugs, alcohol, a mental fucking breakdown. Who knows? She’s been circling the drain for a while if you want my opinion. She’s always been a bit of a paparazzi whore, a touch of Lindsay Lohan. It’s a goddamn shame she turned out like this, though. What a waste.”

I blew a breath out through my nose. I had to agree about the waste thing—my current situation with her notwithstanding. Lola was brilliant. A lyrical genius. I never met anyone that musically talented in my life. “You know she plays like seven instruments? And has a four-octave vocal range. Fucking effortless.” I shook my head. “We got along too. She was cool—I liked her.”

He snorted. “I bet you did. This is what happens when you mistake creative chemistry for actual chemistry. I did that once and ended up married to wife number three. Worst nine days of my life.”

I scoffed. “Well, to say I regret it at this point would be an understatement.”

I shook my head, looking out over the pool. I’d spent a week with Lola at her beach house writing, and she’d been perfectly fine the whole time. Focused, polite. Charming even. We’d hit it off immediately. We’d had some drinks to celebrate finishing the soundtrack, and one thing led to another—then it was like a switch flipped. Keeping me up until 5:00 in the morning while she wrote gibberish on legal pads, dragging me out to the beach to swim naked, not eating. Then sleeping for a whole day, and I couldn’t get her out of bed.

I shook my head again. “I was so worried about her I’d called her manager to come get her. That really pissed her off. He got there and she completely lost her shit, started throwing furniture off the balcony.”

Ernie snorted. “Well, to be fair, that guy’s a dick.” He bobbed his head. “Actually so is Kanye.”

I laughed a little.

The day after the furniture thing, the harassment started, and once it started, it didn’t stop. I didn’t know what the hell to do about it. She was relentless. Calling all hours of the night, crying and screaming into my voicemail, then calling back to apologize, texting nonstop, showing up at my recording studio and causing scenes when I wouldn’t buzz her in. Nothing I did would make her back off. I’d resorted to ignoring her, hoping she’d eventually get bored, but all she ever got was new phone numbers.

“God, what was I thinking?” I mumbled.

“You weren’t. And that song. I don’t know if I should feel sorry for you or congratulate you for your sexual prowess.” Ernie held up an index finger. “You fucked her one time, and she’s immortalized it in the Top Ten.” He sat back and laughed into his beer.

My jaw flexed. “I’m glad somebody thinks it’s funny.”

Lola had written a fucked-up, piece-of-shit song about us having sex on a beach. It was everywhere. It had even popped up in the truck with Sloan during the car wash.

She didn’t use my real name. She called me “Snow Bird,” and she’d never publicly confirmed it was about me, but it made me fucking furious. The thing was like a leaked sex tape set to music. I grimaced even thinking about it. That’s the moment when my concern for her finally turned to irritation. It had been half a year of this shit now, and I was officially over it.