The Song Remains the Same (41 page)

My Baby Girl wasn’t like that.

From the doorway, I watched her sleep like the creepy fiancé I was. I didn’t care. Nothing compared to knowing she was safe.

In the weeks that followed, we all realized New Orleans’ healing would be a long, slow process. With a heavy heart, NOLA’s Junk made the decision to move to Lafayette for the time being. We had a job to do, and we needed a studio to do it, so we bought up a warehouse and soundproofed it.

We ended up renting a massive duplex, each side containing six bedrooms and bathrooms. Jason, Sheri, Flipper, Viv, and Connor took one side while X, Alys, Lili, Lewis, Kenna, and I took the other.

We were beyond lucky in that we’d had nearly every piece of our equipment with us on the road while on tour and found a high-security storage place to put it in.

By the end of October, the Lafayette studio was set up, and we were in touch with several bands who were interested in recording under our label.

Bougainvillea had suffered some damage from flooding and wind, but it wasn’t too extensive. It’d be good to see that place in action again, but I wasn’t gonna push my luck. Many people would never return to NOLA. There might not even be a crowd that could fill it up once it reopened, and that thought was depressing.

While all this was going on, Kenna had started working at a local rehab center three days a week. The woman constantly felt the need to work, so Tuesday through Thursday, she would do her doctor thing, and then she’d travel around to music hot spots the rest of the time, helping us look for new talent. The two of us made a decent fuckin’ team, and the pure joy on her face each time we went out to watch bands was well worth the effort.

With little encouragement, she was writing reviews and sharing them with me. I wasn’t only sharing them with the guys, but I was also secretly sending them to an acquaintance of mine—Michaela “Mike” O’Flaherty, a music journalist—back in New York.

Mike had called me after reading a few of them and confirmed what I’d already suspected—that Kenna was fuckin’ brilliant. She had a way with words, a way of describing the music that was unlike anything Mike had ever encountered before. She wanted to meet my Baby Girl, and I wanted to make that happen.

The week before Thanksgiving, I planned a trip to New York for the two of us to check out some up-and-coming bands. We’d be leaving on Thursday after her shift and return on Monday night.

My Baby Girl was fuckin’
glowing
as she packed her suitcase, excited to be going to Manhattan. Stephen—front man for Black Prophecy—and his wife, Tara, were putting us up for the time we would be there. It had been a while since we’d seen them.

After a quick, uneventful flight, Stephen and Tara met us at baggage claim, and took us straight to a sushi restaurant where we pigged out and sucked down a decent amount of warm sake.

“I heard you and Devon made up,” Stephen mentioned.

“Yeah, man. Get a load of this,” I said.

Then, I told him and Tara all the shit that had gone down while on tour, except for the whole part where Kenna had pulled the brakes on our relationship. Her lips twitched when she realized I was leaving that bit out.

“I have to admit, I was shocked to see the photo of you and Brigid in that restaurant.” Tara sniffed.

They’d both met Brigid when we were in Switzerland all those years ago.

“Brigid passed away,” said Kenna softly.

Stephen and Tara looked stunned.

“What happened?” asked Tara.

“She committed suicide by OD,” I replied.

Kenna’s hand reached beneath the table to squeeze my knee. Turning my eyes to hers, I smiled sadly, and she returned it. Brigid’s death had affected her, too. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t seen it before. Maybe because she never talked about it, or because, in my own grief, I’d never considered hers.

Kenna had fought to save her. She’d stepped up and done everything within her power to bring Brigid back.

“Oh, Kenna Baby…” I said softly, leaning over and pressing my lips to hers. “You know it wasn’t your fault.”

Her throat worked hard as she swallowed, and she sipped some sake. “I know.”

“Why would you think it was your fault?” asked Stephen.

“She was amazin’, you guys, like just levelheaded and calm, while the rest of us were losin’ our shit. Well, her brother was pretty stable, too—”

“He helped me,” she interjected.

“Sure, sure,” I conceded. “Kenna did CPR until the medics arrived. But, really, Brigid was already too long gone. She’d left Devon a note tellin’ him…I don’t know what. But it was a suicide note.”

“What happened after that? Have you spoken to Devon since?” asked Stephen.

Nodding, I replied, “Yeah. I talk to him a couple of times a week. We had to go back to NOLA, but he got in touch with her sister, Ingrid. Once everythin’ was finalized, they decided to have Brigid cremated in Nevada, and he brought her back to Amsterdam.”

“How are you holding up, Phil?” Tara asked, shooting a furtive glance at Kenna.

“Bummed, but no more than expected,” I replied. “I wasn’t close with Brigid anymore. Hadn’t been for a long-ass time. And when we were datin’, I can’t say I was really that involved either.”

“What’s it like in New Orleans?” Stephen thankfully changed the subject.

“Awful,” replied Kenna.

Not that
that
subject was any better.

Kenna

Stephen and Tara’s apartment was freaking palatial. The elevator, accessed by a key, brought us up to the top floor and opened into a magnificent foyer made of white Italian marble and black walls with at least fifty silver-framed mirrors of varying sizes. It was…different. Certainly posh compared to our style of living.

Through the archway was an open-plan massive living area, dining room, and
by the gods
, a kitchen of epicness. The same Italian marble graced the floors, but the walls in the living room were a deep dark red. Panoramic windows provided relief from the bold colors with a view of an amazing skyline. Their furniture was plush black leather and chrome.

Wow.

Phil smirked at me, his eyes giving me a sly sort of glance.

“You guys too beat, or do you want to hang out?” asked Tara.

“Yes, and yes,” I replied.

Tara laughed. “Go show them their room, Stephen.”

Stephen led the way down the hall to the right, carrying my small suitcase. He opened the last door on the left, and we entered a huge bedroom that was so purple, I had to blink a couple of times. I supposed it was quite lovely, and it was big with a bathroom en suite. The floor-to-ceiling windows on the far wall showed a sweet view of a glittering Manhattan, once again giving a bit of relief to the severe amount of bold color. The bed was a king, nestled in a wrought-iron four-poster frame with black velvet and white silk drapes, white satin bedspread, and a white shag rug beneath the large bed.

“Damn, man,” said Phil, giving a long, low whistle.

“It’s dark in here now, but the morning light will wake you up just fine. And the windows are mirrored. No one can see in, if you catch my drift.”

Drift caught,
I thought dryly.

“And don’t worry about keeping shit tidy or anything. We’ve got a housekeeper.”

Dropping off our stuff, we headed back into the living room and plopped onto the black leather love seat. We hung out, chitchatting and attempting to keep the atmosphere light since the conversation at dinner had nose-dived into the depressing.

In all honesty, I knew Phil was more than bummed about Brigid, and once we were alone in our bedroom, I found the balls to bring it up.

As he tugged off his shirt from back to front, the way I liked, I watched him from my seat on the edge of the bed for a few beats before asking, “Do you want to talk about Brigid?”

Giving me a surprised look, he asked, “Do you?”

I shrugged. “Well…I guess maybe I do. I mean, you lost someone close to you—”

“We weren’t close, Kenna. We hadn’t been for a long time.”

Dismissing that with a wave of my hand, I started untying my boots. “You know what I mean.”

Phil squatted down before me and took over the task of unlacing. “What do you want to know, Baby Girl?”

He tugged off my boots, and I was so engrossed with watching the powerful muscles of his chest that my mouth went dry, and any questions I’d had momentarily dissipated within my brain.

“Kenna?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Heaving a sigh, I said, “It’s just that, when we got back home, with the hurricane and working all the time, I sort of put the whole Brigid situation out of my head. I didn’t have to think about it, and looking back, I realize you didn’t have that luxury.”

Phil stood, towering above me. The Dark God of the Universe kicked off his boots and undid his belt buckle.

“It sucks,” he told me, walking away and removing the rest of his clothes.

Getting up, I started to undress. After I pulled off my sweater, Phil stood before me, stark naked, arms crossed over his huge chest, just watching. His eyes were nearly black, narrowed and contemplative.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“I’m wonderin’ how you’re feeling about the whole thing.”

Sighing again, I took off the rest of my clothes and threw them on top of his pile on the black leather armchair in the corner of the room. Then, I turned and crawled into the bed, the satin sheets slippery and cool against my skin. The bed next to me sagged beneath his weight, and I rolled onto my side to face him.

“I’m waitin’,” he said.

“I feel guilty,” I told him. “Not about her dying. I mean, I feel bad about that, too, but about not being there for you. Whether or not you two were close, she was someone special to you, and I…I left you to deal with her death on your own. I think that I insisted on working as hard as I did, so I wouldn’t have to witness you grieving for her.”

Propping his head in his hand, he looked down at me, and I could swear he was judging me. It made me feel all squirmy inside.

“You really think that?”

“In some way…yeah. I didn’t like her. I was insanely jealous of her—”

“I think she was insanely jealous of
you
.”

“Only because she didn’t have you,” I replied.

His free hand reached out and trailed fingertips softly up my arm. “She never really had me at all. What I feel guilty about is the fact that I never loved her when, apparently, she thought she loved me. After I left, she started hittin’ the needle hard. I can’t help but feel like maybe I was the one who had pushed her into it.”

“Ridiculous,” I scoffed. Yet…
if he ever decided to leave me, what would I do in order to cope?
Would I search for a way to escape the pain his leaving had caused?
I didn’t know, but I could admit, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

“What are you thinkin’ now?”

“That if I ever had to face you leaving me—”

“No, Baby Girl.”

“Hypothetically—”

“Not happenin’. I can hardly stand to spend a few hours away from you,” he said, his voice starting to take on that dangerous quality that did funny things to my female parts. “Let alone even think about leavin’ you.”