CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SKYLAR
I WOKE UP NERVOUS ABOUT TODAY’S MEETING. BUT THE HEADLINE SITTING IN my inbox really turned my day around. It read:
BREAKING NEWS: Sources say Skylar Stone lives in fear of being attacked by lake trout.
I really had freaked out. And the kids had laughed so hard that it was worth coming across as the ultimate city girl. The memory will always make me smile. It’s one I’ll cherish forever.
So now I sit across from Ford and his daughter, Cora, in the cozy living room area set up at the back of their office feeling more confident than ever.
It’s a charming atmosphere with a wood-burning stove in the corner and a wall covered in shelves and records behind them.
On the coffee table between us, sheets of paper are spread out.
“No.” Cora shakes her head as she tosses sheets down one by one. “No.
Nope. Hell no.”
She continues flicking through them, and I can’t keep the amusement off my face as I watch Ford stare at her with a furrowed brow. I’ve been observing them together for an hour now, and they are a marvel.
Both so similar. Both so dry. I could watch them all day.
“Where did you find these songs, Ford? Teenyboppers R Us?” She doesn’t look at him as she says it, just groans and discards another sheet with such force that my lips twitch.
“These are from well-respected songwriters.”
She rolls her eyes from beneath her heavy, black bangs. “Well, they don’t have my respect.”
When Ford told me his daughter was the driving force behind working with me and that she wanted to be involved in producing the record, it surprised me. But somehow, even at only thirteen years old, she has a vision.
An idea.
As someone who’s been told over and over again that she doesn’t need to have her own ideas, I respect the hell out of Ford for including her. I already liked him, but watching him now makes me understand him. This album is a special project for me. But it’s a special project for the father and daughter across from me too.
She points at the sheets. “These are all boring, sappy love songs.”
Ford shrugs. “People like love songs.”
She turns to me. “Are love songs what you want to sing?”
I blink a few times, searching her petite face. “I…I don’t know. I’m in a period of discovery, I guess.”
Cora sighs down at the discarded pages. “What you need are fuck you songs. Songs that hurt. No more Auto-Tune. Your voice is sweet enough already. You could tell someone to go die, and they’d say thank you.”
“Cora.” Ford groans and drops his head into his hands.
I laugh. “No, it’s okay. I get what she’s saying. I wish I could write my own songs.”
Cora glances up at me. “Who said you can’t?”
My mouth opens to say everyone, but that might come across as more self-pity than is necessary. Ultimately, I’m responsible for my life and my actions.
“Just haven’t tried to do it. Like instruments. I’m a one-trick pony.”
Cora tosses the last of the sheets onto the table and flops back, looking every bit the teenager she is. “Your voice is your instrument. You don’t need to be good at everything, but I bet you’ve got something to say. You should say it.”
My lips quirk. She’s so matter-of-fact. She’s excited—eager, even—but not manic. Cora’s fucking cool—and judging by the way Ford is smirking at
her, he must think so too.
“Maybe I should.”
Their matching eyes slice up at me. “Yeah?” Ford asks. “This is your album. Your call. I know when we talked last week, you didn’t seem keen on
it. I’m not going to force you to do anything you’re not on board with.”
That sentiment strikes a heavy blow. No producer has ever said that to me before.
I watch them, shimmying my shoulders as I straighten. I feel more in
control of my destiny every day.
This is my album.
This is my career.
This is my call.
I nod once and steeple my hands as I gaze down at the discarded songs on the table. The ones that mean nothing to me. Written to top charts and nothing more.
There’s nothing wrong with them, per se. They represent the old me— pretty and polished and curated for mass consumption.
The woman I’m becoming, though? She’s not.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m going to try.”
And as I say it out loud, I feel more sure of myself than ever.
Nestled between the tree roots, I sit on the log with a coil-bound notebook laid across my lap and a pen in my hand. For three days, I’ve been trying to
write something. Anything.
For three days, I have written nothing.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here, only that it seems like an eternity and the page remains blank. Which makes me feel remarkably stupid for ever thinking I could just sit down and write a song.
With a heavy sigh, I lay the pen down on the lined sheet and close my eyes. I listen to the birds trill, the water ripple, the light rustle of leaves. It’s more overcast than sunny today. Moodier than the bluebird skies and bright yellow sun that has graced the valley for the past ten days.
I breathe in, and I breathe out.
I realize that the week without a phone has passed. Won that bet. But I smile because I’m not inclined to replace it.
I feel better than I have in my entire adult life.
It’s as I’m mentally running through the current state of everything that I
hear soft footsteps. I’m certain that a week ago, I wouldn’t have been present enough to notice. But everything around me feels a little brighter these days.
A little more in focus.
I don’t open my eyes, but I sense a small body folding down onto the log beside me.
“Got this for you.” Oliver’s voice is tentative as a weight is added to my lap.
My eyes snap open, and when I look down, I see a book. It appears to be a bird encyclopedia.
I run my fingers over the glossy cover. “Like, from the house?”
I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time browsing the bookshelves in West’s home, as if that might provide me with a window into his soul, some deeper understanding of a man who comes off so casual and carefree but is, in fact, lonely.
I’ve found everything from historical romances to biographies to Scandinavian murder mysteries. But no bird books.
“No. Bought it with my allowance. We just got back from the bookstore.
It’s a gift.”
I blink at the blue-eyed boy. And then back down at the book in my lap.
People have given me gifts my entire life. Expensive gifts. Over-the-top gifts.
But this… “This is my favorite gift I’ve ever received,” I tell him, my voice thick.
His chin drops and he smiles shyly into his lap. He’s got a brand-new graphic novel in his hand and a flush on his cheeks.
I nudge his shoulder, not trusting myself to speak.
He nudges me back.
Then we both fall into a companionable silence. Me, looking through my bird book and discovering what I saw last week was an osprey. Him, raptly flipping the pages of his graphic novel, top teeth strumming his bottom lip, as though he could inhale the story.
Eventually, I pull my notebook back out and stare out over the rough water. I tap my pen against the open page, deciding what I want to say.
Who I want to be.
“What are you doing?” Ollie asks.
I sigh and lean back into the roots behind us. “Trying to write a song. But I’ve never written one before. I don’t know where to start.”
“I love reading and writing. Feels a bit like talking to someone.”
I blink a few times, mulling over the greater meaning of what he’s just told me. This boy of few words who happily offers me his.
“Talking to people is hard sometimes. Scary. You know?”
I hum and dip my chin in recognition. “I know.”
“I worry about what to say. And how people will take it.”
“Highly relatable.”
I see a soft smile touch his lips. “But when I write, I can say whatever I want. And it doesn’t really matter what people think of it.”
My throat feels thick again as I choke out my response. “That’s very wise, Ollie.”
“Sometimes it feels like I have so many things to say. But I just can’t get them out. Or I can’t choose where to start.”
I sniff and gently press against him. He’s killing me. His sugary, little voice, speaking with such brave honesty. “I love talking to you. No matter
what you say, I will always listen.”
“I love talking to you too, Skylar.”
His body presses back against mine so that we lean together. When I glance at him, I can see his eyes roving my blank page. Then he reaches for the notebook and the pen, his small hand gripping it as it moves across the page.
When he hands it back, he’s written the first line of a song.
It all started on a backroad.
When I peek over at him, he’s grinning—a tight-lipped grin that’s keeping him from laughing, though I can tell he wants to.
“Your dad told you about the bear, huh?”
A soft chortle escapes him as he nods. “Emmy is at an outdoor survival camp this week. Bet she’ll have advice for you.”
“Really funny, Ollie.” I bump him again with my shoulder, and this time he does laugh. It’s so light, so childlike.
It’s fucking music to my ears.
I look down at the first line he’s written… And it seems as good a place as any to start.
A soft knock at the guest room door has me tearing my attention from my bird book. I’ve been flipping through it, savoring every page. The art is beautiful.
I showed Cherry a blue jay, and she said, “Ugly bird,” but I’m sure she’s just jealous because she’s mostly gray.
“I need to talk to you,” a voice whispers urgently. My heart pounds hard for a few beats, thinking it might be West knocking. But it’s not him.
It’s Emmy. And she comes in before I even have a chance to answer. A quick glance at the clock on the bedside table tells me it’s eleven o’clock at
night.
Well past her bedtime.
And also, the time we all know West goes out to do a night check.
Night check that I haven’t been accompanying him on because that feels like a slippery slope. Put us in a quiet barn together and one of three things
happens:
I spill my deepest, darkest secrets.
I kiss him.
We stand in silence, eye fucking the hell out of each other.
The only place more dangerous for us is, apparently, a canoe.
She shuts the door with the utmost care and tiptoes across the guest room.
Then, without asking, she crawls up onto my bed and kneels beside me with wide eyes.
“Skylar, we need to talk about bear safety,” she says somberly.
I clamp my lips together, desperately trying to hold in my laughter as I nod back at her. Very seriously.
“Our dad told us about how you guys met today.”
I’m definitely going to kill West.
“Boooring,” Cherry taunts, and I slice her a glare. Based on Emmy’s giggles, she seems amused by my parrot’s sarcasm.
“He did, did he?”
She nods, now serious again from head to toe. “You’re lucky to be alive.
Bears are unpredictable apex predators.”
After a day of learning about wilderness survival, she spent dinner talking about different ways to start a fire and how to use a compass, but not bears.
“You wanted to tell me this now?”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you at dinner.”
That makes me smile. She may be wild, but she is thoughtful. Just like
her dad.
Her dad, who has taken me into his house. Included me in their dinners.
Shared meaningful conversation with me—like he cares about what I have to say.
And over the past few days, he hasn’t even made fun of me when I ogle him while he works his training horses in the arena behind the barn. I’ve been sitting on the bleachers, attempting to find the words to express what I want to say. Turns out writing songs is about as hard as trying not to peek back up at West in his jeans as he talks in soft tones to the horse beneath him. His hands are gentle, and his patience knows no bounds.
I try so hard not to stare, but he usually catches me and tosses me a wink.
Followed by a knowing smirk.
Still, West and his kids have made me feel more at home in their house than I have anywhere else in the world.
“That’s very considerate of you, Emmy. Thank you,” I say, rubbing her pajama-clad knee.
She reaches behind her back for a plastic bag and holds it out to me. “I got this for you.”
“You and Ollie both getting me gifts? What have I done to deserve this?”
She glances around the room before oh-so-casually dropping, “We like you. And you make our dad happy.”
That strikes me silent for a moment. The plastic crinkles beneath my fingers and breathing feels just a bit harder after that offhanded comment. “I think your dad is just a happy kind of guy.”
She shrugs. “Yeah. But he’s happier with you here. Like when we came back this week. I can tell. Sometimes I think he’s lonely without us. Mom has Brandon, so I feel bad for leaving my dad.”
From the mouths of babes.
I stare at the girl. She thinks she’s just having a regular conversation, but she’s thrown me right off with her level of empathy.
She shoves her chin at the bag in my hand. “Open it.”
So I do. And what I find inside is… “You bought me a knife?”
“It’s a pocketknife. In case you run into another bear. I didn’t have enough money to buy it. My dad told me I need to be more responsible with my allowance and wouldn’t give me any extra, so Ollie lent me some. He says I’m in his debt now, whatever that means.”
“You think I’m going to stab a bear?”
She rolls her eyes like my aversion to violence is childish. “I’ll teach you how. You go for the eyes or mouth.”
“I don’t think I’m equipped to fight off a bear. I’d just let him eat me.”
“Skylar, that’s quitter talk. Plus, my dad would be really sad if his favorite singer died.”
I laugh now, holding the cool wooden handle against my palm. “I’m not his favorite singer.”
The expression on Emmy’s face is pure confusion. “Of course you are.”
“I highly doubt —”
“I’ll prove it. Be right back.” With that, she leaps off the bed and tears out of the room. All pretense of sneaking around has completely disappeared.
When she returns, she’s wearing the world’s widest grin and holding up a
T-shirt.
My T-shirt.
Except it’s West’s T-shirt.
But it has a faded black-and-white photo of me in a spotlight, holding a mic with my signature bandana tied around it, and wearing a pair of cut offs so short that the pocket liners peek out.
“He usually wears it but hasn’t lately.”
Probably because my eyes would have rolled out of my head like they are now.
“Huh,” I say dumbly. Because I don’t know what else to say. This man has done nothing but treat me like I’m the most normal person he’s ever met.
No one treats me like that.
Least of all people who are fans.
“Yeah, told you so. Anyway…” She tosses the shirt, and I watch it land in a heap on the floor on the far side of the bed. I have an urge to pick it up, but I’m not sure I want to touch it.
I’m not mad West didn’t tell me. In fact, I appreciate it. And yet…it feels a little like he withheld something from me. Something integral to how he sees me, how we interact. I’d heard him singing my song that first night, but I assumed it had just been stuck in his head.
I brush the nagging sensation aside and focus back on his daughter, who has now crawled under the covers, so she’s leaned back against the headboard at my side.
“Okay, Skylar. Your bear lesson begins now…”
She starts to talk.
She talks, and she talks, and she talks. Eventually she switches over to talking about nature in more general terms. She explains photosynthesis. She tells me all about how plants turn light and water and all these things from their immediate surroundings into energy—into life. And as I lie there with my eyes closed, the process strikes me as both remarkably simple and remarkably special.
I don’t know when the talking stops; all I know is that I’m not awake to experience it.