“Does she?” Trina turned slowly to face the camera, smiled, and lifted a middle finger. “Sit and spin on it, you pretentious hag.”
“That’s nice,” Melody murmured.
“Uh-oh,” Danielle said from the other side of the room. “Hold that thought. The server crashed. The viewer count started shooting up when Trina arrived and it just kept going . . .”
“Looks like I’ve still got it,” Trina said, openly preening.
“Yes,” Danielle confirmed. “Well, I’ve got to work on this. Don’t say anything important until we get the feed up and running again.”
The producer and the cameraman left through the front door, a cacophony of excited shouts filling the apartment, before they were once again muffled. Some of the tension released from Melody’s shoulders at the reality of being off camera, even temporarily. God, she wanted it to be over. It was bearable before because she’d had a teammate, but the weight of expectations and pressure was too hard to carry alone.
For good measure, she reached back and turned off her microphone.
After a full ten seconds of heavy silence, Trina cleared her throat. “Melody Anne . . .” She put down her drink. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Begin with what?”
Her mother laughed without humor. “Everything.” She paused. “First of all, you made the devil dance with your performance of ‘Rattle the Cage.’ Did me proud, even though I was pissed as hell.” She frowned. “When did you learn how to play the guitar?”
Being given a compliment by her mother made speaking difficult. “Years ago. In my early twenties.”
“That long?” Trina blinked. “You didn’t think I’d care to know? I’m a musician.”
“You just answered your own question. I wouldn’t have been . . .” She shrugged jerkily. “It’s just that you’ve had this grand success and it’s hard not to measure myself, and everything I do, against that. It’s hard not to assume you’re measuring everything against it.”
“Oh. Damn.” Trina seemed to take that in. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you felt that way.”
Melody nodded. “Well, I’m sorry I called you out in front of your friends.”
Her mother’s eyebrow rose. “Are you? Seemed to me, you were enjoying it.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t enjoy it. I just said I was sorry.”
Trina laughed, good and long. “That’s fair enough. I suppose I had it coming.” After a moment, she grew serious. “It’s a little ironic that you didn’t tell me about learning to play the guitar because you didn’t think you’d measure up. Because . . . I don’t talk to my housemates about you because I know I haven’t been a very good mother. They’d probably ask me questions about you and I wouldn’t know the answers.”
“You could.” Melody sat very still, afraid to rupture the moment. “You could ask me.”
“I’m going to start, if that’s okay.” Trina coughed to cover her voice cracking. “Every time I leave my comfort zone and come down to New York, I feel like I’m reliving the past and I’m just so exposed and regretful, I can’t think of anything else. I should have been focusing on you. I should have been doing that for a long time.”
Acknowledgment. Apparently that was all it took to want to forgive someone. Just to have them acknowledge that you were hurt, out loud. “We can start now, Mom.”
“Thank you.” Trina slapped some moisture from under her eyes, visibly trying to regroup. “Seems like a good chance to tell me what happened,” Trina said, trying to sound casual despite the emotion still threading her tone. “With the enemy spawn, that is.”
A chuckle snuck out of Melody, but it transformed into a shaky sigh. “That’s the thing, I don’t really know what happened. We spent the night together, things were . . . I thought they were great. Me and Beat, Mom . . . when we’re together, I feel like I’ve known him my whole life. I can almost read his thoughts. And I swore it was the same for him. No . . .” She shook her head adamantly. “I know it’s the same for him. That’s why I’m so confused. He would never hurt me . . . but he has. I don’t get it.”
“What did he say?”
“We went on the Today show and I sort of confirmed we were together. But we hadn’t officially decided to be together. It just seemed like a given.”
Trina leaned back against the couch cushion, considering that with pursed lips. “You’re right. That doesn’t make any sense.”
Being validated by her mother was like taking a deep breath for the first time in days. “Really?”
“Really.” Trina frowned. “The man might have been carried in the womb of a demoness, but, uh . . .” She rolled her eyes. “I mean, you were in the county jail for an hour and he acted like you’d served a ten-year sentence of hard labor. It was obvious that his sun rose and set on your happiness, Melody Anne. When you were singing ‘Rattle the Cage,’ he looked at you like his heart was dangling from your pinkie finger.”
That was painful to hear. All of it. “Maybe he changed his mind.” Melody swiped quickly at the tears that escaped her eyes. “I’m trying to remember everything we said while we were live on the air, but it’s a blur. I think we were both caught off guard by them bringing out Fletcher as a surprise guest—”
“Who?” Trina’s back went ramrod straight. “They brought out who?”
“Fletcher Carr,” Melody repeated. “You remember, the original Steel Birds drummer.”
“Remember him? He’s the reason the band broke up.”
That confession knocked the wind out of Melody. “He is?”
“My God.” The color had leached from her mother’s face. What was going on here? “Why the hell would he resurface after all this time?”
“This is why you need the internet, Mom. Or at least an email address.” Melody wet her lips, wary of how Trina would receive this next piece of information if the man’s reappearance had already triggered her so hard. “He offered to be part of the reunion. Live on the air.”
Trina shot to her feet and stomped to the other side of the living room. “Oh, the unmitigated nerve of that bastard.” Were her mother’s hands shaking? “Does Octavia know about this?”
“I assume she does.”
“And?”
“And . . . I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to Beat in three days.”
Her voice cracked on that last word, drawing her mother’s attention. “I’m sorry if it seems like I’m ignoring your pain. I just . . . I can’t believe Fletcher would pop up like this out of nowhere. I’ll be honest, I was hoping he’d died in a freak accident or something. But isn’t it just like him to sit around, waiting in the shadows for his chance to terrorize us again.”
The truth hit Melody like a thunderbolt to the stomach.
Waiting in the shadows.
Terrorize us.
Beat’s odd reaction to Fletcher walking onto the soundstage. How he’d hardly spoken after the drummer’s appearance. And afterward, when they were off the air, he’d been an entirely different person. Not the man she loved. Not Beat.