Famously First: A Second Chance Romance Read online

  “I’ve gotta go, Mom,” I say. And then, right before I hang up, “Thanks for telling me the truth.” Finally.

  I answer Shaun’s call. “Hello,” I say, ice in my voice.

  “Charlie! I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. I’m smart enough to know when the story’s changing, so here’s the new deal. Twenty five thousand for the exclusive story of your affairs with Finn Ryan. Now and then. Plus your photos from this assignment, obviously.”

  “Drop dead, Shaun.”

  “Ok, thirty thousand, but that’s as high as I can go. And for that I need some old high school photos of you two. Doomed lovers. People eat that nostalgic shit up.”

  “You’re not hearing me, Shaun. I said no.”

  “If you give me the interview, you get to control how the story gets told. Make yourself look good.”

  Shaun interprets my silence correctly.

  He sighs heavily, “Can’t blame a guy for trying. Ok, send me the photos. Lucky for you I have my other source, so we’ll do your normal rate, and I won’t sue you for breach of contract. Which is more than you deserve, young lady.”

  “You are never getting those photos,” I say.

  “Don’t you fucking dare. Those are my photos.”

  There are ways I could get out of this. I could tell him Finn already bought the photos. I could tell him Finn threatened to sue me. I could tell him the SD cards were damaged, and none of the photos came out.

  I don’t.

  “Eat shit, Coleman,” I go to hang up the phone.

  “I’ll make sure you never work in this town again!”

  “There are other cities.” And as I hang up, I mean it. I think I’ve been done with New York for a while now. I feel free.

  I pull my ticket to New York out of my purse and stare at it.

  My phone buzzes with a text from Bridget, reminding me that she expects the photos for the final tour show, regardless of Finn’s temper tantrums.

  I look at the ticket.

  And then I text Absolutely. The photos will be delivered in person.

  I’m tearing up Finn’s check when an exhausted waiter stops by my table. “Can I get you anything else?”

  She sees the number on a torn up piece of the check, and her eyes bug out a little.

  “Yeah,” I say. I drop some cash next to my cold coffee and uneaten pasta. “Where do I go to change my flight?”

  14

  Finn

  It’s a cold and foggy day in San Francisco as I slouch down Market Street, my hands in the pockets of my leather jacket, and my collar turned up. I’m supposed to be rehearsing. The last concert of the tour is tonight. But instead I’m standing across from De Luca’s Fine Italian Dining, missing Charlie so bad it’s like a physical pain.

  I can’t believe she sold me out like that. Charlie used to be the kind of person who wouldn’t betray someone she cared about for anything.

  But I guess that’s my answer. Charlie doesn’t care about me. She hasn’t for a long time now, and she clearly never will.

  Every inch of me feels hurt and raw and bruised. Like my body’s running a fever, trying to burn out all traces of Charlie De Luca.

  But it’s not going to work. It didn’t last time, and it won’t this time. There’s nothing I can do to stop loving her. Her smile, her anger, her passion, her dreams. The way she hides behind that camera. But then when she shares her photos, you get to see how she sees the world. And that’s the opposite of hiding. It feels like the bravest thing possible.

  It’s probably for the best I never saw any of the photos she took of me on tour. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to look at the proof of how little she cares.

  I turn away from De Luca’s, about to get my ass back to rehearsal, when I hear a man say, “Finn?”

  It’s Jim. He’s standing in front of our parents’ pub, a trash bag over his shoulder.

  “What the hell are you doing here? Don’t you have a concert tonight?”

  It’s a simple question, and I don’t have a clue how to answer it.

  Jim takes a good look at my face. “Aw, hell. Charlie again?”

  He tosses the trash bag into a dumpster in between our bar and the Chinese place to the left.

  “How … how do you …”

  “Because the last time your face looked like that, it was Charlie. Come on in. Have a drink and tell me all about it.”

  I follow him inside. It’s warm and dim, with scarred, heavy wood, and a few customers huddled over pints. The smell of hot fried food and shepherd’s pie almost covers up the scent of spilled beer. In the corner there’s a raised area with a mic stand and someone’s amp, which probably means they have someone playing tonight.

  It was the first stage I ever sang on, and looking at it I feel a deep yearning. It’s deeper than nostalgia or missing a simpler time in my life.

  No, I miss the time in my life when I had things I hoped for. Now I either got what I hoped for—I’m a fucking rockstar—or I’ve lost it definitively—Charlie. I’m fucking miserable, and I can’t think of a single thing left to hope for.

  Jim ducks behind the heavy wooden bar. “Go on. Sit your mopey ass down and tell me how you fucked it up this time.”

  “It wasn’t me this time!” I sit down on one of the bar stools lining the bar.

  “Somehow I doubt that.” Jim slides me a Guinness.

  I take a sip, “She only took the tour job because she got hired by a magazine that was looking for dirt on me.”

  Jim gives a long, low whistle.

  I don’t realize until he does it that some part of me was hoping he’d tell me it wasn’t that bad. That I’m overreacting.

  But it’s that bad. I’m unloved and unlovable, at least when it comes to Charlie De Luca. I wash down the pain with more Guinness.

  “Well, did she find any dirt?”

  “Yes. No. I told her I hadn’t written any songs.”

  Jim winces, “And she told the magazine?”

  “No. She helped me write almost a whole album. And I thought … fuck, I’m an idiot.” I rub a hand over my face. “It just … we were spending a lot of time together and it felt like … I started falling for her again, and the other night we had this fight, but we worked it out, and I thought … I thought this time it was going to be different.”

  I take another drink, while Jim watches sympathetically. “Then yesterday morning, I hear her on the phone. Promising this magazine that does hack jobs on people like me that I’ll do an interview about overcoming my writer’s block. That I’ll do a nude photo shoot.”

  Jim snorts a laugh.

  “Not funny!”

  “Right, sorry. Not funny.” He picks up a cloth and starts drying off glasses. “Do you have any idea why she did it?”

  “She said they already knew about my writer’s block from Zane, and she was just trying to fix it.”

  Jim nods noncommittally. “Could be bullshit. But it could also be real. She always had that independent streak. Wanting to fix every problem by herself.”

  I slam my hand against the bar. “But why was she working for them in the first place?”

  “Yeah. Fair. I wouldn’t do that to any of my exes. No matter how much they were offering.” He starts putting glasses away. “How much were they offering her?”

  “Not much. Twenty thousand.”

  Jim drops a glass. It shatters against the concrete. “Not much? Jesus. How rich are you?”

  “Rich enough I could pay off Mom and Dad’s mortgage if they’d just give in and tell me who to pay.

  “I’ll figure it out before Christmas,” Jim says as he grabs a dustpan and sweeps up the rest of the glass.

  “So … um …” I’m feeling incredibly stupid, but I need to know.

  Jim finishes cleaning up and stands, facing me, “Spit it out.”

  “Twenty thousand is a lot?” I blurt. “Charlie said it could change her life, but I assumed she meant getting a big story in a national magazine, not the mone
y itself …”

  “It’s a lot of money,” Jim says. “I’d guess between a third to two thirds of a year’s salary, for her. Is there something she’s saving up for?”

  My gut sinks as I think of how she talked about the project she wanted to do with all the adopted kids.

  “Would you do it?” I ask. “Would you screw someone over for that much money?”

  “No. Yes. Well.” Jim goes back to putting glasses away. “I’d like to say no, but it depends on who it was. If it was one of my friends? Or an ex I’ve already hurt once? Or just someone who’s got less than me? No. But if it was someone who screwed me over, and then got super rich and famous and untouchable, and if there was something I wanted bad enough …” He shrugs. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “But I didn’t screw her over,” I say. “I broke up with her so she’d, you know, graduate and go to college and shit, and have a better life than she would with me.”

  This time when the glass breaks, it’s because Jim slams it down on the counter too hard. “That’s why you broke up with her?”

  “I was eighteen,” I say defensively.

  “Fuck. Does she know that’s why you broke up with her?”

  I ignore him and drink my Guinness.

  “I’ll take that as a no. Did you at least tell her you love her this time? Before your fight yesterday morning?”

  Now I’m getting annoyed. “I can’t just say that. It’s only been a few weeks. No one falls in love that fast. She won’t believe me.”

  “That’s because you didn’t fall in love. You stayed in love. You jackass.”

  “It’s more complicated than you’re making it sound,” I mutter.

  “No, I don’t think it is, Finn.”

  “But—”

  “Let me be a big brother for a sec.” Jim swings his towel over his shoulder, and holds up a finger. “1. You break her heart without warning or explanation, and you don’t talk to each other for ten years. You get rich and famous, while she struggles along like a normal person. 2. She gets offered a huge amount of money to, let’s face it, tell the truth about you. Yes, she’s breaking your trust, but it’s not like she’s making shit up. 3. You give her the perfect story, and she doesn’t use it. Instead, she helps you fix your problem. 4. Someone else spills the beans, and instead of shrugging and going with it, she tries to persuade her boss to do a good piece on you instead. 5. She does this even though you haven’t told her how you feel about her. And then 6., when she tries to explain, you won’t let her explain, and in general are so angry that she decides to leave the tour.”

  “She didn’t leave the tour,” I say.

  “What?”

  “She wanted us to calm down, and talk about it when we got to San Francisco. But I fired her and left her in Chicago.”

  Jim smacks his forehead, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Please tell me that’s the last stupid thing you did.”

  “I threatened to sue her.”

  “You fucking dumbass.”

  I want to argue, because he’s my brother and it goes against every instinct I have to let him be right, but my brain is running through everything that happened through Charlie’s perspective.

  And Jim has a point.

  “Fuck,” I say.

  This time Jim pours me a shot of Jamison’s whiskey. Vitamin J, as my mom calls it.

  “I have to get her back,” I say, already standing up. “I have to go to the airport. If I leave tonight—”

  Jim looks alarmed. “Hold on their slugger. You’ve got a concert tonight.”

  “Fuck that,” I say viciously.

  “You think Charlie wants a boy who will screw over all his employees because he has an epiphany? Or do you think she wants a man who responsibly honors his commitments and then catches the first plane the next morning?”

  I narrow my eyes at Jim. “I hate you.”

  “Drink your whiskey.”

  I down it in a shot and turn to go.

  Then I remember what he said about the twenty thousand and pull out my wallet.

  Jim frowns in confusion. “What are you doing?”

  “Paying for my drinks. Like you said, I’m rich—”

  “Your money’s no good here. You dweeb. Now go play the show and get the girl.”

  I hesitate. “Thanks, Jim. I mean it.”

  He gives me the lopsided grin he’s been giving me since we were kids. “Eh. I figure at least one of us should get the love of his life.”

  On impulse, I hop over the bar and give him a bear hug.

  “You cheesy sap,” Jim says, but he hugs me back, tight.

  That’s when I remember something. I break the hug and reach for my wallet.

  “Hey I said—”

  “I’m not paying you. I’m giving you two tickets to my concert.”

  Jim takes the tickets, his thumb tracing the part where it says my last name—our last name—above the date and venue.

  “Huh,” he says.

  Suddenly I feel self-conscious. “I mean, you don’t have to. It’s late notice, and you probably have to work, and you’ve certainly heard me sing before …”

  “Are you kidding? Of course, I’m coming. If only to make sure you actually show up, instead of ditching us all to chase Charlie.”

  I fake a laugh, and Jim shoves me toward the door. “Go on. Get out of here. Before you make me break another glass.”

  And just like that, I’m out in the gray and the rain again, staring down De Luca’s Fine Italian Dining.

  On impulse, I dial Charlie. It would be better to do this in person, but I can’t wait twenty-four hours to tell her I’m sorry. What if that’s all the time she needs to decide she’s done giving me second chances?

  My call goes straight to voicemail, and my stomach tightens.

  She’s rejecting my calls.

  I hang up.

  The cheery restaurant across the street looks at me with reproach. Look what you lost, it says.

  I’m going to get you back Charlie, I think. I promise.

  I’m too amped up to be around other people, so I get my guitar and head to a spot in a park Charlie and I used to hang out at. It’s done raining, but the gray damp means I’ve got privacy. With my hood up, no one looks at me twice. Just another street musician with a guitar.

  I try to work on the song I was writing last night in my hotel room. It’s a sardonic song about getting over a woman, and I was having a bitter sort of fun with it yesterday, but now I can’t get into it.

  I glance around the park to make sure no one’s paying attention to me, and then I let my fingers start playing the other song.

  The guilty pleasure song.

  It’s the song I started writing that first morning in the hotel room, after we slept together. It started as a riff on an old Irish love song my mom used to sing to us when we were trying to fall asleep, but that felt too sad to hold Charlie in it, so I changed a few chords to let more light in to the melody.

  Before, the chorus was about loving her and knowing it couldn’t last. Artistically, I know that’s the way to go. People don’t want beautiful, straightforward love songs from guys like me. I can do something giddy and fast on an electric guitar, if I keep it just a little crude. Or I can do something beautiful and honest, but only if it’s laced with sadness.

  If it’s just happy and in love, it won’t go with anything else on the album.

  But everything in me is revolting against even the idea that Charlie and I don’t last.

  On the other hand, I’m wound too tight to write something genuinely happy. That feels too much like jinxing us.

  So maybe … maybe a song asking her to take me back.

  I start picking out the chords, trying out lyrics under my breath.

  “You said I had until dawn/ And I took what you gave/ But here’s the thing about dawn, babe/ It comes every day.”

  I play with it until I have a chorus, then a verse, then another verse. I’m not holding anything back. No t
ricks saved for the next, better song. Everything I have is going in this one.

  Maybe if I do it well enough, she’ll hear what I’m saying, and take me back. Third time’s a charm right?

  It’s the germ of an idea, and by the end of it I feel both terrified and certain.

  I’m going to finish this song. And then I’m going to play it on stage in front of thousands of people. And people will record it and put it online, because they always do, and it will go a little bit viral. And maybe if I’m lucky it will make its way to Charlie, and it’ll soften her up just enough that she’ll be ready to listen when I show up on her doorstep.

  Shit. I don’t know where she lives.

  Ok, maybe it will soften her parents up, so they give me her address, so the begging can commence.

  But first I have to be emotionally naked in front of thousands of people with cameras.

  No sarcasm. No jokes. Just me.

  Oh fuck. This isn’t going to work.

  I try to play through the song for real now, singing it all out, like I would in a stadium.

  “YOU SUCK!” someone yells from across the park.

  And I just start laughing, because that puts everything in perspective.

  Having people think I suck? I can handle that.

  I can handle anything if it gets me closer to Charlie.

  “Don’t mind him,” a voice says, and I look up to see a well-dressed old lady with an even older dog holding out a crisp dollar bill. “I liked it. I bet if you work at it, you could be really good someday.”

  I should probably be insulted, but I’m oddly touched.

  “Thank you,” I say, accepting the dollar. “But I just need to be good enough to get her back.”

  “Oh,” she says, significantly more doubtful. “Well, good luck with that.”

  I nod, and go back to my song as she walks off with her dog.

  “YOU STILL SUCK,” the first man calls.

  “FUCK YOU,” I respond and go back to my tender love song.

  15

  Charlie

  “Charlie? Oh honey, she’s here!” On the other side of the luggage claim, my mom waves aggressively, like maybe I’ve gone blind in the nine months since Christmas and can’t see her.