Wright that Got Away Read online

  I nodded slowly, not wanting to incur more of her wrath. “Yeah.” I shot Honey a small smile. “Just a joke.”

  “God, don’t do that to me. I almost had a heart attack.” Her hand over her heart.

  “Yeah, don’t do that to her,” Blaire practically growled.

  I didn’t regret it. But I sure as hell hated how upset she was at the notion. Still, I played my part. “Sorry. My bad.”

  “Honey, go tell everyone we’re good over here and you’re not being murdered. They’re all still looking.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Sorry,” she said and then scampered off.

  I expected Blaire to dart off after her. But she stayed next to me until the noise returned and everyone forgot that we were standing alone in the doorway of my dressing room.

  “Blaire, I—”

  “Stop.” She held up a hand. Her voice was ice. Her blue eyes narrowed in anger. “That better have been a fucking joke, Campbell.”

  I opened my mouth and then closed it. Because it hadn’t been a joke. I’d dated since high school. I was a fucking famous musician. So, of course I’d dated and fucked around and all that. I’d gotten good at reading someone’s wants. Truthfully, I’d always been good at it, and now, it was just amplified.

  But I’d read Blaire wrong.

  All wrong.

  I’d thought she was finally thawing to me.

  She shook her head and then turned to walk away. Part of me just reacted. I didn’t want her to go. I wasn’t ready. Not yet.

  I grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. She jerked her head back at me. “What?” she snapped.

  “What if it wasn’t a joke?”

  For a split second, I was back in high school. Back before I got everything I’d ever wanted. All save for one. Because I’d had Blaire Barker. Once upon a time, she’d been mine. And now, she wasn’t.

  We stood there in that space, and everything else just vanished. Her blue eyes had widened. I didn’t know if it was shock or surprise or disgust. She thought so little of me now, and how could I even blame her? The one person I’d cared about the most was the person I’d hurt the worst. I didn’t deserve to have this conversation. Eight years wasn’t long enough for my penance. Not for someone like Blaire.

  I was the asshole in this one. I knew it. I’d known it a long time. It was why, despite returning to my hometown eighteen months ago, I’d hardly spoken to her. I’d hardly even let myself look at her. Because I’d known the second that I did, the dam would break, and I’d be standing waist deep in shit. As I was currently.

  Her gaze shuttered. “Don’t do this.”

  “Do what?” I asked as if I were an innocent in this.

  “Any of it.” She tugged her arm out of my hand. “It’s not fair.”

  “Blaire…”

  “Eight years, Campbell,” she said so low that I almost didn’t hear her. But God, I fucking loved hearing her say my name. “It’s been eight years. You can’t change a single fucking thing that happened.” Her eyes narrowed. “And I don’t think you’d trade it for what you have.”

  I gulped. “But—”

  “You’re used to everyone falling at your feet,” she said, continuing right over my protest. “So, stop all your little games and the stupid fucking charisma that works on everyone else. It’s not happening. Do you understand?”

  And I did.

  I understood completely.

  It didn’t matter that I was a famous rockstar. Blaire Barker was out of my league.

  “Yeah. Sure.” I ran a hand back through my messy hair.

  She was still looking at me. As she had purposely not done since I’d returned. “I’m serious, Campbell.”

  “I hear you. Loud and clear.”

  She didn’t look like she believed me. And I didn’t know if I believed me either. When I wanted something, I went after it with all that I was. It was how I’d ended up in Cosmere in the first place. It was how I’d risen so quickly to fame once I settled into the band. Everything had taken off like a jet.

  Now, I was looking at her again. At her big blue eyes, filled with concern. That heart-shaped face and those pouty lips and perfectly arched eyebrows. The body and the brain and the smile. Though she hadn’t smiled in my direction, I’d seen her radiate with it when talking to other people. And I wanted it pointed at me again. I wanted what I couldn’t have. But I wanted it nonetheless.

  “Well, well, well, what a show!” a voice rasped.

  I jerked my head up in surprise to find my manager, Bobby Rogers, striding toward me. “Bobby?”

  “Hey, kiddo,” he said, holding his hand out for me. I shook it begrudgingly.

  Bobby was insufferable and pushy and the best damn manager in the music industry. He drove me up the wall, but he also fought for me tooth and nail. He’d never pushed for me to go solo. He got us twice as much money as we’d originally been offered. And he drove a hard bargain. The only problem was…he looked like he was about to use those same skills on me.

  I’d had no idea he was coming to Lubbock. I’d been home from tour for a grand total of one month, and already, he was here? That couldn’t be good.

  He ran a hand down his silver handlebar mustache and set his flinty black eyes on me. “Long time no see.”

  I glanced to Blaire, who had fallen quiet at the silver-haired six-foot-tall giant who had just stridden into our midst in a pin-striped suit more fit for a mobster than someone in Lubbock.

  Bobby didn’t miss a beat. It was his job to use everything to his advantage. He stuck his hand out to Blaire. “Hello, beautiful. And who might you be?”

  Blaire reluctantly put her hand in his. “I was just leaving.”

  “No need to be shy. Any friend of Campbell’s is a friend of mine.”

  “We’re not friends,” she said flatly.

  Bobby arched an eyebrow at me. I wouldn’t hear the end of this. Fuck.

  “Well then, any woman as gorgeous as you definitely deserves an introduction. I’m Bobby Rogers, head of Rogers and Rogers Agency. And you are?”

  “I’m Blaire,” she said uncertainly.

  “Any special talents?”

  “Shut it, Bobby,” I snapped.

  He arched an eyebrow at me. “What?”

  “Bobby, my manager,” I told her. “And he hasn’t told me what the hell he’s doing here.”

  “What am I doing here?” Bobby asked. “Kid, it’s time to come home. LA is calling.”

  Blaire glanced between us. “I’m just going to…head out.”

  “Blaire, wait…”

  It was the wrong thing to say. I knew it even as it left my mouth. She had no intention of waiting. And now, Bobby fucking Rogers knew that there was a single girl in existence who could make me utter those words.

  She shot me one more glare and then walked away. And my manager was here, so I couldn’t follow her. Not that she wanted me to.

  “Well then,” Bobby said with a shit-eating grin.

  I grabbed him by his stupid lapel and threw him into the dressing room. Then, I followed, slamming the door shut.

  “What are you doing here, Bobby?”

  “I see why you haven’t left.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Having a little hometown fling.”

  “No,” I ground out.

  “Surprised a pap hasn’t figured that one out. It’d be good for your image, kid.”

  “Don’t call me a kid and leave Blaire out of this. She’s just a friend of my brother’s.”

  “If you say so.” His eyes darted back to the door, as if he could see Blaire through the wood, see a way to use her for his own purposes.

  “I do say so. Now, cut to the point. You want me back in LA?”

  “Not me. If I could, I’d let you have a much longer vacation. The record label wants you to start working on the next album. They need you and the rest of the band in the studio. What you got?”

  “I don’t have anything,” I told him.

  “Come on. You always keep your little noteb
ook with you. I saw you jotting down songs on tour.”

  “They’re trash.”

  “You say that about all your songs. We always figure it out in the studio, and they end up working out.”

  “Not this time.”

  He huffed. “Look, kid, you’ve got to give me something.”

  I paced away from him and grabbed my notebook out of my bag. “It’s all rubbish. I don’t want to make any of these songs.”

  He snatched the notebook out of my hand and thumbed through the pages. “Hey, hey, some of these are good. They can be reworked.”

  “They’re missing something.”

  “We can figure out what they’re missing.”

  “I’m broken,” I told him with a case of melodrama. I was an artist after all.

  “Kid, you’re not broken.”

  “Bobby, stop fucking calling me kid.”

  “You’re a kid to me,” he said calmly. He was used to dealing with artists. This was his area. “Tell me what the problem is.”

  “The songs…they’re not about anything.”

  “Is this about the critical reviews of the last album?”

  I winced and said nothing. The critics had shredded our last album. Fans fucking loved it. We’d sold out a worldwide stadium tour in under fifteen minutes. But the critics were brutal. They’d called the lyrics trite and boring. They couldn’t believe I’d written this album after the last one had so much heart. I could still hear the words of one particular critic saying, “The album is baseless and unimaginative. Campbell Abbey is a one-trick pony.”

  I should have been able to shake it.

  But I was afraid they were right.

  “I need more time. It’s like I’ve lost my muse.”

  Bobby really looked at me. He must have seen the pained desperation on my face. The need to work as an artist and not a machine. The album had to be good enough for me, and with what I had, it wasn’t going to be.

  He sighed. “All right. I can give you to the end of July.”

  “That’s only a month, Bobby.”

  “It’s all the leeway I can pull for you. You have a month to find your muse.” He tossed the notebook back to me. “Either way, you’re going to get your ass on a plane to LA to work on the next album.”

  3

  Blaire

  Campbell was going back to LA.

  Good. That was…good. In fact, it was exactly what I wanted. He’d been in Lubbock since Peyton’s wedding. The wedding where I had brought a date and purposely avoided Campbell all night. I’d had a good time. But I would have had a better time if he hadn’t been there at all.

  Then, he’d spent the last month in town. A whole fucking month. Hanging out at the winery, spending time with my—our—friends, and generally ruining my peace and quiet.

  I couldn’t exactly tell him to leave. He had every right to be back in Lubbock. And I couldn’t tell him to stop hanging out with our friends or at the winery. We were too enmeshed to extricate ourselves from each other’s lives. Which was hilarious when I stopped to think about it. Since in high school, we had been so far from each other’s lives that he didn’t even know I existed until senior year.

  LA was where he belonged. It would be better for everyone when he left.

  But the last interaction had left me flummoxed. Despite myself, I’d followed Campbell’s rise to fame over the last couple of years. It was hard not to when he was in every headline. I knew the celebrities that he’d dated, the girls he was rumored to have hooked up with, the songs he’d written about the breakups. So, why in the hell had he asked me out?

  Should I be flattered? Because I was mostly confused. Campbell Abbey could have any girl on the planet, so why did he want me?

  Which brought me right back around to the cynical part of my brain…the realistic part of my brain…which said, of course he didn’t want me at all. He’d used the opportunity to fuck with me. To throw me off-balance for ignoring him since he’d strolled back into Lubbock. He’d used his celebrity charm and sexy, messy hair and that panty-melting smile to treat me just like every other girl. But it wasn’t going to fucking work.

  Fuck. I just wanted to go home.

  “Hey, you all right?” Piper asked, dragging me out of my own circle of mental torture.

  “Fine,” I lied.

  Piper arched an eyebrow. “That was convincing.”

  “Can I have the keys? I’m going to bail early.”

  “No way!” Piper declared. “We’re celebrating. You can’t go yet.”

  She was still seated in her boyfriend’s lap. Hollin wrapped his arm around Piper’s waist and looked up at me.

  “Yeah, Blaire, you can’t go. We’re just getting started.” He nodded his head toward the table. “Bombay and lime.”

  He winked. It was my go-to drink.

  “I just want to go home,” I told her, eyeing the drink.

  Piper nudged it toward me. “One drink. If you aren’t having a good time after you finish…you can go.”

  I picked up the glass with a devious smile and then downed the entire contents, opening my throat and letting it slide all the way down. Hollin gaped at me as I dropped the glass back onto the table.

  “Can you teach her how to do that?” he asked me.

  Piper jabbed her elbow into his stomach. “Ass.”

  I laughed despite myself. “I have a feeling we’re not talking about drinks anymore.”

  “Gag reflexes,” Hollin said.

  “Shut up,” Piper said.

  It had been a stunt to get the keys, but already, I was feeling better. It was one night. Campbell would be gone in the morning. He’d forget he’d ever asked me out. There was no reason for me to ditch under those circumstances.

  “You win.” I took an open seat. “I’ll stay.”

  “Excellent,” Hollin said.

  “What made you want to run away anyway?” Piper asked. But the smirk on her lips said she knew that something had happened with me and Campbell.

  She had been trying to get me to talk about him since he returned. But no one knew what had happened with us, and I’d like to keep it that way if I could at all help it. I didn’t even want to tell my best friend.

  “It’s nothing.”

  Piper leaned forward. “Because Honey said that Campbell asked you out.”

  I glared at her. “If you already knew, then why did you bother asking?”

  Hollin choked on his drink. “I must have missed that. My brother did what?”

  “He was joking.”

  Piper arched an eyebrow. “Was he?”

  “Can we not? I’m not going to date Campbell.”

  “All right. All right,” Piper said, holding up her hands. “Hollin, you need to make your brother behave. We don’t want him upsetting my friends.”

  Hollin grumbled under his breath, “As if anyone could make Campbell do anything.”

  Which was so fucking accurate.

  The thing that had me worried was that not only could no one tell Campbell what to do, but he was also relentless. And I knew this firsthand. If he wasn’t leaving on the first plane out of Lubbock, I would be worried that he’d take my refusal as a challenge.

  “Y’all,” Jennifer said, plopping down into the seat next to me with a huge smile on her face. “Guess what just happened.”

  We stared at her expectantly. She didn’t have a ring on her finger, so Julian hadn’t proposed. Though we all assumed it was coming eventually. They had been together for a year and were entirely inseparable. Annie and Jordan had gotten engaged earlier this year, and it felt like another Wright engagement was soon to follow.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Julian asked me to move in with him.”

  Piper and I exchanged a look. Jennifer had spent the last year living in Piper’s house. It was so great, having her there, even if we hadn’t actually needed a third roommate. I was going to miss her.

  “That’s amazing,” Piper told her.

&nb
sp; “Ahhh,” I said, jumping to my feet and throwing my arms around her. “Big step.”

  “It is,” she said. Jennifer flushed furiously at the thought. She was the shyest of our group and only really dropped her introversion when she was behind a camera.

  “About time,” Hollin said with a laugh. He looked to his girlfriend and winked.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Piper growled at him.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  But I knew that was only a matter of time as well. Everyone was so happy. Weddings, engagements, and moving in, oh my!

  “I’ll help you find someone to take my room,” Jennifer told us. “I don’t want to leave you hanging.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it,” Piper said.

  “Yeah, we managed before.”

  “Worrying is my middle name.” Jennifer bit her lip. “Like, I am so worried about the cats. How the hell am I going to move Avocado again?”

  We all burst out laughing. When Jennifer had moved in, she’d transported two stray cats, Avocado and Bacon, to our property. They still lived outside and mostly fended for themselves. But Avocado had held it against her for months. I couldn’t imagine moving them a second time. It had been hard enough the first go-round.

  We discussed possible new solutions for the cats. Even going as far as offering to let her leave the cats at the house. I didn’t mind feeding them. They didn’t love me as much as Jennifer. But Bacon and I had an understanding. I would be perfectly happy with having them around still.

  Annie and Jordan migrated to the table at some point with Julian, who pulled Jennifer into his lap. Honey dropped into the vacated seat next to me. She had been making friends with some other Wright Vineyard regulars. I knew them by face but not name. It had been nice to not have her hovering. She was incredible at her job, but sometimes, she was a little too enthusiastic.

  “Oh my God, did you see Nate’s new TikTok?” Honey asked. “It already has three million views.”

  She thrust her phone at me. And there was Nate King in all of his glory. Nate lived an hour and a half south of Lubbock in Midland, Texas. His family was one half of Dorset & King oil, one of the largest oil companies in the country. We’d met via social media and hit it off. After one date, I invited him to Peyton’s wedding. Only part of the reason was because I’d found out Campbell was going to be there. The other part really enjoyed his company. We’d gone on a few dates in the month since then, and our fans loved when we did videos together. Both of our followers had gone through the roof since we’d joined forces.