In Your Dreams (Falling #4) (6 page)

“Well, now you’re lying,” he says.

My eyes fly wide, and I toss my purse into the passenger seat before standing with one foot in the car, my fingers wrapped tightly around the keys, squeezing.

“I’m sorry?” I say, my gaze finally meeting his squarely for the first time maybe ever. He has nice eyes, and I notice. Brown, big and kind of…well…perfect. But that’s it. Do those eyes really get him out of shit? Is that how Casey Coffield gets his way? They aren’t so nice that I can overlook all of the other flaws in his personality.

“You just lied,” he says, growing more assertive. He folds his arms over his chest again, and my gaze moves to the wrinkle he makes in the center of his chest in the gray T-shirt that is tight…so…so tight everywhere else. And wait—I just lied?

“Did not,” I say, with an actual
pshaw
sound at the end. I’m so mad at how he’s affecting me. I breathe deeply through my nose in an attempt to relax, but it’s hard because he’s smirking and looking at me like he has the upper hand. It pisses me off, and now I’m going to make him pay for my car ding. I might even sue him! I open my mouth to lay into him, but he cuts me off.

“You did, too,” he says. I glance around looking for schoolyard swings and kick balls because he and I have gone
way
back. We have just regressed. “You aren’t busy or late. You’re going home.”

I’m a fairly passive person, but I’m fairly certain my entire head is beet red right now. I want to punch him. My heart is also racing because what he said is catching up with me—he knows where I’m going. Oh my god, he’s following me! He’s
been
following me!

“Okay, now you’re creeping me out, and I’m about, oh, six seconds away from calling the police,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Who says six seconds?” he asks right away, flustering me. I open my mouth in response, to argue, but shake my head because what? “That’s such an arbitrary number,” he continues. “I mean, okay, then give me a seventeen-second head start, because I have to go put eleven dollars of gas in the car.”

My lips purse tightly, and I work to narrow my eyes, but a small laugh breaks through and betrays me. Damn reflex—that was funny. Fucker. I give in to chuckle once, hard, and I try to make it sound mean. I shake his charm off quickly, because it’s still strange that he’s here, and knows that I’m going home.
Oh god—does he know where I live?

“Why are you here, Casey?” I ask, hoping this is all going to be explained away with some niece, nephew, cousin, or relative that goes to or teaches at the school, too.

“I called your mom,” he says.

Damn. There goes that theory. And the fact that he knows where I am and my schedule is becoming way more clear. Jeanie Sullivan wants to play matchmaker. And now, she knows Casey is real, so she has a pawn. Only he’s the worst possible game piece in my life. There were so many better options. Hell, the guy at the coffee shop on the corner, the one with the comb-over and affection for short-sleeved button-down shirts. Why couldn’t she have picked him to give my itinerary to?

“Why did you call my mom?” I ask, my hand instinctively pinching the bridge of my nose. Something else hits me, though, and I shake my head and hold my hand to the side, incredulous again. “And how do you know where to find my mom? You don’t know my mom.”

“I looked her up. I heard your song,” he says. I nod, because deep down I knew that was why he was here. I knew the second I saw him.

“It’s not about you. So just…I mean, I’ll change the name or the lyric if that’s what’s bugging you,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“No, that’s not why I wanted to find you. But…wow, I’ve never met an artist so ready to butcher a hit to get someone to go away,” he says, leaning against Houston’s car and stretching one arm out to the side.

I squint as I look up at him, the sun bright behind his form. He looks like a movie poster, except that the car in the poster probably wouldn’t be such a piece of crap, and it would probably be dent-free.

“You think it’s a hit?” I ask, my lips purse with skepticism. I hate that I’m engaging him.

He chuckles and moves his thumbs to his pockets, nodding as he crosses his ankles. He looks like fucking Jake Ryan.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he says, and my stomach gets all tight at the mere threat of a deal with Casey Coffield.

“Ah no, it’s okay. Never mind,” I say, shutting my door and turning the key quickly. Forget suing him. I’m getting a restraining order.

I back out of my space and pull out of the parking lot as quickly as possible, but every time I catch the reflection in the rearview mirror, I see the front of Houston’s car. I consider taking a long route home, but I know that won’t matter—
thank you, mom!—
so I stick with my leisurely pace and pull into my driveway, getting out and waiting for him to exit Houston’s car behind me.

“I know where you live. Your mom sent me here first,” he says the moment he steps from the car.

“Unbelievable,” I say, moving to the back seat to get out my guitar. “She gave you my work address, too? Just in case you were early?”

He shakes his head
no
, and I pull in my brow.

“It’s a small town. So I just Googled the school. She said you worked at one,” he says.

“Wow, what a crack detective you are,” I say, snarkier than I normally am. Snarkier than I
ever
am. He’s making me snarky!

My head is starting to hurt from the tight bun my hair is twisted in, so I pull the two pins out and hold them in my teeth, running my fingers along my scalp to massage my head and comb through my hair.

“Your hair…was it always so long and…purple?” he asks.

I freeze, catching just enough of what he said to realize.

“You don’t remember me?” I ask, my head cocked to one side, my eyes zeroing in on his. He may be charming as hell, but damn if he’s bad at poker faces. “Oh. My. God. You don’t remember me!”

I laugh harder, slamming the car door to a close and pulling my purse and guitar strap up over my shoulder.

“I sort of remember you,” he stammers, walking behind me to the front door.

I ignore him, pushing my key in and stepping up into the foyer of our small house. Lane will be home in a few minutes, and I want Casey gone.

“You are such a…” I start, but his hand holds the doorknob as I try to shut the door from the inside, and he cuts me off. Restraining order happening ASAP!

“I’m a lot of things. I know, trust me. I’ve been told,” he says. I laugh at first, but his eyes meet mine in our small struggle with the door, and there’s a certain unfiltered honesty in them that I must give him credit for. The quiet that accompanies them makes me listen, but I keep my muscles poised to push and punch, my vocal cords ready to scream.

“Look,” he swallows, glancing down, then up at me again, a slender smirk to his lips. It’s charming. It’s goddamned charming. I shake my head because I think of all the times he’s probably gotten his way with this single expression. Well, it’s not working with me. Nope…

“I’m working with John Maxwell,” he starts, and that little bit…well that’s different. John Maxwell is famous, and he makes records.
My
kind of records. I take a short breath and let him finish.

“I do a lot of recording, mixing and studio stuff. I think I can help you. The YouTube hits—I can turn that into a million, two million—more. I know I can. I’ve heard you. You’re…you’re special, Murphy. Just…here, take my card.”

He fishes into his back pocket and pulls out a bent business card that looks like he ran it off of a home computer. I glance at it and run my thumb over his name and number, looking up again at the sound of his voice.

“I’m just like you. I’m trying to find my place in this business, and I just think we can help each other,” he says, his head falling against the frame of my doorway. I laugh out of reflex.

“You are hardly like me, Casey,” I say through the laughter. His mouth twitches at the sound of his name, and his eyes snap to mine. I don’t think I ever really looked at them when we were younger, and I wonder if they’re different now, or if they were always so perfectly symmetrical and dark. I still don’t trust them, but I concede—they have a certain something.

He sighs slowly, his mouth tugging up on the corner in an acknowledging smile.

“Yeah, in most ways…we’re probably different,” he says, his gaze drifting to the side before coming to me again with a little more softness.

“But in this way,” he gestures toward my guitar—his fingertips landing on the case I’m holding between me, the door, and him—and tapping. It’s almost as if he touched me, the tender way his finger runs along the side of the case then falls away. And damn, the eyes come to me again. I’m being seduced. I flex my legs and arms again and straighten my posture, digging in. I’m stronger than this. “Musically, we’re the same. And I can help you. Please, just…just think about it.”

I search his face for several seconds until the relentless pounding of my heart begins to take over, so I nod once and hold his card in front of my face so I have something sterile to look at. Right now, all I want is for him to get off my porch so I can think and feel rational.

“I’ll think about it,” I say, closing the door as he nods with a smile, taking a step back. I hold my breath, and for the briefest second, my arms tingle from that one single glance he gives me.

I lean my forehead against the door and peer through the peephole to watch him leave, and he does, maybe even a slight skip to his step. He’s hopeful, and I have a feeling he might also be persistent.

This visit. Him finding me. His interest. It’s all selfish. It’s all exactly what I expect from Casey Coffield. But, and I hate to admit it, it also felt really nice to hear him say I’m special.

“
S
o
, let me get this right. You didn’t get
your
car today, and instead, you wrecked mine,” Houston says, his hand doing that rubbing thing it does on his forehead.

“I’d hardly call it
wrecked
,” I say, kneeling in his driveway, pointing toward the deep scratch. I squint because the scratch looks less awful when I do that. I suppose I can’t ask him to squint when he looks at it. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll pay for it.”

“Oh, I know you will,” Houston says.

I’m going to find a way to fix both of the dents—Murphy’s and Houston’s. I just don’t want to talk about it, because I’m not sure when I’ll be able to afford it, and I don’t want to have a looming deadline. I hate blowing expectations. I do it a hell of a lot. My debt to Houston is probably un-repayable. Sometimes, I lie awake at night and think about all the things I owe him, only to get up the next morning and take so I can owe him more. I’m like an addict for his kindness.

I follow him inside, where his mom and daughter are busy at the kitchen counter baking cookies. Leah’s a sweet kid. She calls me Uncle; sometimes I wonder if I’ll like my real nieces and nephews as well as my pretend one—when my sisters finally have kids.

“What are we making in here?” I say, startling Leah where she stands on the chair next to Joyce, Houston’s mom.

“Uncle Casey!” Her arms ring me, and I lift her from the chair to swing her around before putting her right back in place. My heart melts every time. This…this unconditional love that comes from every direction of this house—it’s why I come here.

“We’re making homemade cinnamon rolls for the church, but I imagine there may just be a few extra left behind,” Joyce says with a wink.

“You spoil me, Joyce Orr,” I say, kissing her on the cheek and dipping my finger in the frosting as I leave. She swats my knuckles. Damn…she’s fast.

“Everyone spoils you,” Houston says, sliding his school bag into the small nook by their front door. I make a mocking face to him, whispering his words in the voice I put on when I imitate him, which doesn’t faze him. Probably because he’s right—everyone spoils me.

Except for the people who made me.

I move to the living room, and Houston follows. His mom brings us each a bottle of water and an Oreo cookie, which makes me chuckle silently as she walks away.

“Dude, I love that your mom still brings us snacks after school,” I say, twisting the cookie in half to lick the cream.

Houston smiles in return.

“Not gonna lie—I do too,” he says, eating his cookie whole and twisting his water bottle open. “So,” he mumbles through chewing. “What came up today that put the whole new-car mission on hold?”

I choke a little on my cookie. He’s been so focused on the dent in his car that he hasn’t asked about my talk with Murphy.

“They don’t live there anymore…the Sullivans?” I say. His brow cocks for a second, but he quickly shuts his eyes when realization creeps in.

“How early did you go? You went right away, didn’t you?” he asks.

“Well, if you’re just going to know the answer, why bother asking me?” I respond.

Houston leans forward to set his water on the coffee table, his hand on his head again. He’s going to get a wrinkle in his forehead from all of that rubbing.

I sigh and lean back into the sofa.

“Yes, I went there…
early,
” I say, a little shrug to avoid the judgment on his face. Patience is not my thing. “They rent that house out now. But…”

His head falls to the side and his eyes grow wide.

“You tracked them down…” he fills in, his mouth a straight line.

“Dude, I had to find her. And so yeah, I did. I got her mom’s business card from the renters, and she told me where to find Murphy, and we had a nice chat,” I say, glossing over most of the embarrassing details while I pop the last bite of Oreo in my mouth.

“You…chatted,” he says.

Okay, I don’t use the word
chat
…ever. That’s probably a tell that I’m feeding him a lot of bullshit.

“We did. We
chatted,”
I say, folding my arms over my chest. He mimics me and glares in my direction. I can play this game though. I’ll just stare back. “It was a very nice
chat
if you must know. I complimented her music, and we reminisced about the old days, and then I left her with my business card so she could call me to get some recording time set up.”

“You reminisced? And…you have business cards?” he says, one eye all screwy.

“I’m professional, yo. If I’m going to intern with John Maxwell, then I need to have something I can give people,” I say, pulling my wallet out and handing a card to Houston.

“You haven’t even started yet. You start next week,” he says, taking my card in his hand and flipping it over a few times between his fingers. “These look terrible.”

I reach forward and snatch it from him as he laughs.

“That was mean,” I huff, poking the card back in my wallet. He’s right, though. They didn’t come out like I wanted them to. Houston’s girlfriend is good at design stuff, and she comes back in a few weeks. I’d planned to ask her for help. Paige gets me. Or she tolerates me. She doesn’t hate me, at least, and I’m never anything but full, selfish, pig-headed Casey with her.

“Forget about the cards. So this…
chat…,
” he says, making finger quotes, “it went positively? You think you might actually get her to record something with you?”

“I think…I think there’s a lot of positive that came out of it, yeah,” I stammer, letting the fact that I smashed her car with Houston’s sneak into my stream of thoughts while speaking. He notices my facial tick. I need to get better at lying.

“Case?” He tilts his head and looks at me hard.

I shirk my shoulders up and lean my head from side-to-side. “I may have…sort of…not lead with my best…self?” I half admit.
I fucking smashed her car with yours.

“I said less YOU!” he says, but his tone is joking, which is the reason it only hurts my feelings a little. If only he knew how much of me
I’m
not fond of. My mental list of defects is so long that I forget the old ones to make room for recent ones.

“Well, there’s a whole lot of me, so it turns out that even less me is still, like, a shitload of
me!
” I say, falling back into the couch, this time tossing my hat to the side in frustration. “And I might have hit her car.”

I throw the last part in quickly, mumbling and pulling the cap from my water bottle fast to drink. I don’t like lying to Houston. I had to tell him. I feel like a kid who broke a lamp.

“You…that dent…my car…” he stutters chopped up sentences. I only nod. “Damn it, Casey.”

That single phrase has been uttered by my best friend so many times.

“I know,” I say, an apologetic half smile. It’s all I got. I smile my way out of messes. “I really will fix your car.”

He stares at me for a few long seconds.

“I know,” he blinks. My stomach rushes with relief—not because he isn’t yelling at me, but because he knows I’m good for my word—that I at least have some integrity. It makes me feel less like a bum.

After a minute of silence, my head falls to the side, and I nod to regain his attention.

“She’s probably not going to call me,” I say, my face scrunched up.

“Probably not,” he agrees.

I’m really disappointed that I screwed this up. She’s talented, and something about her voice motivates me to think big. And, oddly enough, it’s not just because I think she could help me get ahead, but I really think I can help her, and the thought of helping her makes my chest squeeze the way it’s supposed to.

“I really think she’s good though, man,” I sigh.

“She is,” he approves again.

I look into my friend’s forgiving eyes and build up the courage to test him again, to add to my ever-growing list of IOUs.

“I’m gonna want to go to her next open mic,” I say.

“I know,” he says, holding up his hand to stop me from saying more. “And yeah, I’ll go with you.”

I breathe out a soft laugh and smile at him, even though he’s standing and not looking at me. He’s frustrated with me. I do that to him a lot. If I could afford it, I’d buy him an entirely new car. Hell, I’d buy him a new house. Maybe one day I’ll get to.

I threw that ugly card away a dozen times over the last week. Two dozen! I threw it away again on my way into Paul’s. I thought if I threw it away somewhere public, where I didn’t have the safety net of knowing it was my own fairly-sterile trashcan, that I wouldn’t go diving back in after it.

Chalk this one up to a fail. I got mustard—or at least I
hope
that’s mustard—on the sleeve of my blouse as I reached in to pull his card back out.

It’s that whole
special
thing he said. I’m pretty hung up on it. It wasn’t a line or some cheesy hook to push me into something. In fact, the entire time we talked, that one sentence about me having a real talent was the singular time it felt like Casey Coffield was truly being real.

I know it’s weird to have a dream, but to also be terrified of it. But that’s where I’m at. I have a dream—and living that dream scares the ever-loving crap out of me. I want to write songs and sing them and have people download them into their iTunes accounts. Then, I want to be so popular, people will bother to buy my music in record format, to play on vintage turntables, because I love that retro sound with the small pops and cracks that accent the crisp magic that comes from a needle on vinyl.

But…I also don’t want them to
boo
. I don’t want them to say my lyrics are weak, or that my voice doesn’t evoke enough emotion, or—like on those reality singing shows, when the judges tell the contestant they’re
pitchy.
Sometimes, I am pitchy. I just don’t think I can handle someone saying it to my face, or in print, or on Twitter. This is why I freaked out when my brother put the video on YouTube—that place is a gateway to criticism, and my hard shell, it’s still soft. And mushy. I have a mushy shell.

“Murph, hey!” says Steph from across the room.

She’s another regular here on open-mic night. She and I have a similar vibe, and we hit it off instantly. I like it when we’re both performing on the same lineup. She’s quiet in crowds, like me. A friend. I step through the small gathering forming at the tables near the back of the club, and grasp her hand when we reach one another. She knows I don’t hug—one more thing I love about her.

“Congratulations!” she says through a bright smile. My hands freeze and fall from hers as my head tilts to the left. My eyes catch hers and I know I look puzzled.

“Your deal?” she continues. There’s something I’m supposed to know. But I don’t know it. That makes my stomach feel a little sick.

“My deal…uhm…” I say, my head turning to the side just enough to lock my eyes on the explanation.

Casey stands and Houston shakes his head behind him in apology as they both approach me.

“Murphy, we’re really looking forward to the show tonight,” Casey says, that fucking smile that had me confused all week simply pissing me the hell off right now.

“I’m sure you are.” My eyes narrow on him. Houston chuckles.

“I knew you’d be the first one plucked outta here,” Steph says next to me.

“More like conned,” I add in a hushed tone.

“Huh?” she asks, her lip bunched and one eye squinting.

“She said she’s excited,” Casey fills in quickly.

Steph does a double take because that sounds nothing like what she thought she heard. Probably because it’s nothing like what I actually said.

“Sorry to surprise you like this, Murph,” Houston says, stepping beyond his friend and hugging me quickly.

“Wow—y’all must really go way back, or she must trust you, because Murphy don’t hug anyone,” Steph says, her hands on her hips. I swallow under the heat of everyone’s instant attention.

“I just…it makes me feel trapped,” I explain.

My family is a huggy family. They all hug. Unfortunately, even the uncles who get a little too touchy feely when they drink. Nothing ever worth throwing a punch over, but enough to put me at odds with hugs for the rest of my life. My brother Lane is the only one who I can take affection from without red flags flying up all around me, and that’s because he’s the brightest sunshine in my life.

“Sorry,” Houston mouths. I shrug him off and tell him not to worry about it, but I doubt he’ll hug me again, and I’m okay with that.

“I’m up soon, so I’m going to head toward the front,” she whispers, shaking Casey and Houston’s hands again, and telling them how happy she was to meet them. God, I wish they were here for her instead of me.

As soon as Steph is out of earshot, I turn to Casey, happy that Houston walked back to their table to give us privacy.

“You are out of line!” I whisper as sternly as I can. I pull out the teacher voice, but all it does is make him dimple one cheek and laugh at me.

“She misunderstood me,” he begins, but I raise a hand.

“Your Jedi powers are no good on me, Casey Coffield. Don’t you dare start spinning. It’s a waste of your breath and my time. You thought you’d get my friend all excited and then I’d just cave in because of her happy dance and all of the merriment and shit, but listen here, buddy,” I pause, my chest heaving with my breath. His dimple is gone. Good. It’s a Jedi dimple. And it might work if he throws it out there enough.

“I…am impervious to Casey Coffield. And you can have your ugly-ass card back,” I say, pulling his hand up in my own and stuffing the card in it. I fold his fingers into a fist and walk away, my feet stomping a little to the beat Steph just started on her guitar.

What I did not count on was him following me.

“I’m sorry, all right?” he says, his mouth a little too close to my ear. Shivers happen quickly, and I shrug them off before they turn into tingles. He’s close, so I smell his cologne, which is…not strong and overpowering like I’d assume. It’s masculine and little bit like a good cocktail. He catches me off guard—drunk on his pheromones—and manages to walk me backward into the small nook at the far end of the bar.