Wright that Got Away Read online

  And the whole thing would have been funny, but as soon as Santi dropped his arm around my shoulders and asked me if I was taken, Campbell jumped to his feet. Santi was incredulous. Everyone in the room had looked at us. It was one thing for Campbell to get mad that someone was hitting on his little sister. It was quite another for him to be madder that they were hitting on me.

  I’d spent the last eight years making sure not a damn person knew that I was the girl behind “I See the Real You.” Then, he had almost ruined the entire thing in one go. It was bad enough that Hollin and Piper had figured out that we had history. The last thing I wanted was for the entire world to know.

  “Well, you were the idiot who jumped up, as if you were protecting my virtue,” I snapped at him.

  He rocked back on his heels and nodded. “Yeah. I…wasn’t really thinking.”

  “Whatever,” I groused.

  Silence lingered between us. As if Campbell didn’t know what to say to not make me upset. And I had nothing left to say to him. I was beginning to sober up, and I just wanted Piper to hurry the hell up.

  “We could…try to be friends.” He looked up at me under his long, dark lashes.

  “Friends,” I said with a sardonic laugh. “In what world?”

  “All of our friends are friends. It might be easier if we…acted like we were, too.”

  “We’ve never been friends, Campbell.”

  “That’s not true,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “We were friends in high school.”

  I laughed right in his face at that. “You’re unbelievable. Please do not try to give me revisionist history. I was there. You were the most popular boy in school despite not giving a single fuck that you didn’t dress or act like any of the other popular kids and you played no sports. You just had it. You always have. And I was nobody.”

  “You weren’t nobody.”

  I glared at him now. The alcohol only fueling my rage. “Shut up. I was absolutely nobody. I was the weird smart kid. I wore giant glasses and had a bob haircut that my mom did herself. I was in chorus but was way too shy to ever audition for a solo. And I played soccer but not for the high school team because the girls were horrible to loser me.”

  “And now, you have a million followers.”

  “Three and a half million,” I corrected him.

  He tilted his head at me. “Proof that it doesn’t matter who you were in high school.”

  “That is a fact, but again, we were never friends. You weren’t friends with the loner girl.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I was invisible to you…to everybody.”

  “Until you weren’t.”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I was either invisible or everything to you, and I’m not going to be satisfied with a middle ground. So…just pretend you can’t see me anymore.”

  Campbell was silent for a few seconds at my proclamation. Then, he said, “That sounds like a song.”

  I groaned. “Fuck you, Campbell.”

  He blinked at me in confusion, as if coming up from underwater. “What?”

  “I’m tired of being the girl with a song.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t want to hear it. I was tired of waiting on Piper. I didn’t want to stand here any longer and listen to Campbell’s bullshit. One thing was clear: we were never going to be friends.

  So, I pushed off the Jeep and strode back toward the winery. And I was glad that Campbell didn’t follow me or try to change my mind. It made all of this easier.

  Part II

  Invisible Girl

  6

  Campbell

  The next morning, I slept through three alarms and two angry phone calls.

  “Fuck,” I spat as I raced out of bed and threw on a pair of ripped jeans, a black T-shirt, and tennis shoes.

  I was staying in a hotel ten minutes from Hollin’s place. He’d told me to just fucking move in for however long I was here, but I was used to my own space and my own stuff. I wasn’t sure how comfortable I should get in Lubbock. And considering Bobby’s appearance last night, it seemed like I’d made the right call.

  I drove across town in the Range Rover I’d purchased when I got into town. Sharing Hollin’s house was one thing; not having my own wheels was another. Truthfully, I’d thought I’d be here longer. It hadn’t felt frivolous at the time.

  Hollin’s truck was parked in the driveway. My dad’s car and my aunt’s classic orange VW bug that she’d refurbished herself at the mechanic shop she worked at were parked on the street. They must have been inside because when I pulled up behind them, only Hollin was in view.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Hollin asked, carrying a giant box on his shoulder.

  “Overslept.” I swiped sleep out of my eyes. “Sorry.”

  “You look like shit.”

  I ran a hand back through my mussed hair. It was not artfully done. It was just a wreck. “Thanks.”

  Hollin dropped the box into the back of his pickup and turned to face me. “You left before I did last night. Why are you so tired?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  Which was true but not the real reason. Something had happened last night. After that very angry conversation with Blaire, a light had flickered on in my head. All those months on the road, all that time I’d been struggling with my lyrics, even while writing the last album, and last night had just changed it all.

  One minute, I had been talking to Blaire about high school. The next minute, I was in another world, where words rushed across my mind. Almost like I was too slow to reach out and grab them all. I blinked back to awareness and uttered the completely senseless and rash words that sounded like a song. And I lost her. Blaire stomped away faster than I could hope to apologize a second time.

  So, I drove back to the hotel. I’d planned to call it an early night. Instead, I’d taken out my notebook and stayed up until four in the morning, working on a new song. And it was…good. It was maybe the best thing I’d written in years.

  “Invisible Girl” was going to be on the new album. Though…I’d probably have to warn Blaire. Since she had gotten so mad even at the notion that I might write another song about her. But, fuck, I couldn’t help it. When creativity struck, I wasn’t stupid enough to ignore it.

  “So, what’s her name?” Hollin asked.

  I jerked my head up at him. “What?”

  “The girl who kept you up all night.”

  Blaire. Though I could hardly say that because it had absolutely nothing to do with what he was insinuating. But it was her words that had weaseled their way into my subconscious and forced me to write all night.

  So, I chuckled. “I wish.”

  “You wish? You could have practically any single girl in a twenty-mile radius.”

  I was fairly certain that the radius was larger than he was giving me credit for. But that was beside the point.

  “I started working on a new song,” I confessed.

  Hollin arched an eyebrow. “Yeah? I thought all your music was shit?”

  “It was. But not this one.”

  “Well, that’s a relief, isn’t it?” Hollin asked as we headed back toward the front door, where a peeved Nora stood with her arms crossed.

  “Are you two done?” Nora asked. “We have more boxes to move.”

  “I still think we should have hired someone, shrimp.”

  She rolled her eyes at the nickname I’d been using for her since she was a kid. “You were late. I thought you might not even come. Can’t get your pretty hands dirty.”

  I glanced down at my callous hands from years of guitar work. They were hardly pretty, but they were fucking useful. “Just wanted to make Hollin do most of the work.”

  “That seems fair,” she said, pulling me in for a hug.

  “Dad is inside,” Hollin said before we walked in.

  “Yeah, I saw his car.”

  Hollin shot me a look. “Behave.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’ll be fine.”


  “We’ve heard that before,” Nora grumbled.

  I sighed as they stepped inside.

  My dad and I had a…complicated relationship. Even before my mom had died. When I’d been young, I was Mom’s favorite. But Mom and Dad always fought. One day, it had been too much, and she left. I begged her to come back. And she did. She had come back just to get me to go with her. Dad threatened to call it kidnapping. Everything fell apart after that.

  We came back to live with Dad, Hollin, and Nora. She stayed for me. And I bore the brunt of that. Especially since they never stopped fighting. Then, two months before I met Blaire, one of those routine arguments sent Mom flying out of the house in a rage. She was in a hit-and-run and died on-site.

  I was irrational and utterly inconsolable. I blamed my dad for the fight and their arguments, which had always been rough but turned worse than ever after we came back. All I wanted to do was get the hell out of that house, away from my dad. All I had for an escape was my guitar and Blaire. She was the person I turned to when the fighting with my dad became too much. I snuck into her house when I couldn’t handle it anymore—the loss, the fighting, the pain.

  She was everything. Until I finally left.

  So, it was no wonder that my siblings were worried that Dad and I would start fighting again. We’d always been a powder keg, ready to explode. I’d been working on it, and I wanted a relationship with him. I just didn’t think anyone would stop being wary.

  I followed them inside to find my dad, Gregg, organizing boxes by size for Hollin to move. He was dressed in practical khaki shorts and an old T-shirt with a beat-up baseball cap on his head. He shouldn’t have even been touching the boxes with the knee problems he had. Sometimes, he had to use a cane to get around.

  “Dad, don’t,” Hollin said, hurrying over.

  “Hey, Campbell,” Dad said.

  I nodded my head at him. “Dad.”

  Aunt Vail’s smile lit up. “Hey, kid!”

  We hugged. She’d married my aunt Lori in Colorado after the local church ran them out. They’d only come back when a new pastor had been hired and my other aunt, Helene—Jordan and Julian’s mom—had returned from Vancouver after leaving her husband, Owen. Things were better for them now. But I didn’t understand how they didn’t hold it against the whole church.

  “Good to see you.”

  She crossed her tattooed arms. “You’re late.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it.”

  “Oh good, Campbell is here,” Aunt Lori said. “You can help me clean.”

  I laughed and hugged her. “I think I will be carry the boxes guy.”

  Lori shook her head at me and then drew me in for a hug. She was night and day compared to Vail with burnished hair past her shoulders. Normally, she wore sundresses, but today, she was in high-waisted shorts and a Lubbock High cheerleading shirt she’d had since high school. Her hair was pulled back with a headband, and she wore thick yellow gloves.

  “How do you live like this, Hollin?”

  Hollin guffawed. “It’s not that bad, Lori!”

  Nora snickered. “It’s not great either. How does Piper stand it?”

  “Jesus, y’all, I’ll get a housekeeper.”

  Dad pulled in closer to me. “You look like you’re not sleeping.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “So I hear.”

  “Campbell is writing again,” Hollin pitched in. Always the intermediary.

  “Really?” Dad asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And it’s not shit?” Nora asked with an arched eyebrow.

  Dad laughed. “Nory, language.”

  “Hey, those were his words!”

  “True,” I agreed. “But no, not this song.”

  “What changed?” Nora asked. She tugged me away from Dad and into the spare room she’d been staying in.

  I knew exactly what had changed. But I just shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe the threat of returning to LA kicked me in the ass. Procrastination until under deadline.”

  Nora narrowed her eyes at me, as if she could hear the lie in my voice. But she didn’t call me on it for once. She just put me to work. She didn’t actually have that much stuff. A bed, dresser, and love seat were the largest items. And with everyone’s help, we loaded up the cars and were on our way across town in no time.

  Nora’s new place was a three-bedroom house on the south side of town that she was sharing with Weston Wright. Hollin had flipped his lid when she suggested moving in with the newest Wright to Lubbock, but it made sense at least. They both needed a roommate, and she couldn’t exactly stay with Hollin forever. Not that I let her know I approved. I could play the big-brother gig just as well as Hollin.

  But West seemed cool. Even if the situation that had brought him to Lubbock was unorthodox.

  Last year, Jordan and Julian had received an email from Weston, saying that he thought they were his brothers. Then, it all came out. Their dad, Owen, had had a relationship with a woman in Seattle while he had his family in Vancouver. They had three siblings. Weston, who was most interested in meeting them; his twin brother, Whitton; and their younger sister, Harley. Jordan and Julian had flown up to Seattle to meet Whitton and Harley and to try to get to know this new side of their family, but none of the Wrights had returned to visit Lubbock.

  Then, Weston’s job as part of a backup band had fallen apart somewhere in Eastern Europe, and he’d said fuck it and come back to the States. He’d decided to try it out here rather than in Seattle. Especially since Harley had just gotten into Texas Tech as a National Merit Scholar. He thought it was only a matter of time before Whitton followed them here, but he was stubborn. And I could hardly blame him when his entire life had been upturned in a matter of months.

  “Hey, you made it,” Julian said, shaking hands with me after I hopped out of the SUV.

  “We made it. I might have overslept.”

  “No problem. We got most of West’s stuff moved in already. You need a hand?”

  “Julian, are you offering our help?” Jordan asked with a look.

  He just grinned. “Some manual labor would do you good.”

  I shook Jordan’s hand when he approached. “Don’t worry. I fucking hate it, too.”

  “There’d better be beer after this,” Jordan grumbled. “That’s all I’m saying.”

  Hollin’s ears perked up at that. “Did someone say beer?”

  “After,” Nora said. She pushed him along and into the house.

  I grabbed a box and lifted it onto my shoulder before following her inside. The house was skinny but long with the living room, dining room, and kitchen in a stretch on one side. There was a hallway to the other side of the house, which had the three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

  Weston stepped out of the room at the front of the house. He looked so much like Jordan and Julian that sometimes, it was disorienting. Especially since he’d recently cut off his floppy hair into a short hairstyle that resembled the rest of the Wrights.

  “Hey, you made it,” Weston said, leaning against the doorframe.

  “We did. This one overslept.” Nora threw her thumb back at me.

  Weston grinned and offered his hand. “Hey, man.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Good, I guess. Mostly surreal.”

  “I could see that.”

  Weston’s eyes tracked past me to Nora. “Hey, Nor, I took the front room, so you could have the en suite bathroom.”

  She grinned like a fiend. “You sure? It’s only temporary. Don’t you want your own space?”

  “Don’t worry about it. As long as you need to be here. Plus, I figured you should have your privacy.”

  “All right,” she said with a smile. “Thanks.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him. “Did Hollin talk to you?”

  Weston crossed his arms. “Yeah. Are you going to give me the same speech?”

  “Do I need to?”

  “No.”

  “Then, we’re good,”
I told him. “Just don’t touch my sister.”

  He blanched. “Hollin went into detail.”

  I laughed. “I bet he did.”

  Hollin was intimidating enough for the both of us. West had clearly gotten the picture.

  I glanced into the spare room as I went to get another box and froze. “Oh, is that a vintage Fender Strat?” I asked, ogling his collection.

  Weston lit up. “Yeah, dude. It’s my favorite guitar. I have a few others, but I almost always play the Strat.”

  I could see why. It was in pristine condition. They didn’t even make guitars like this anymore. As much as I loved the latest and greatest, I had a huge affinity for the original trailblazer guitars. They just had something to them.

  “Do you mind if I…”

  “Not at all,” Weston said.

  I stepped into the music room. He had every manner of instrument set up inside. He had just moved in this morning and this room looked like it was the first thing he’d put together. Which meant he and I were very alike. Instruments were the first thing I cared about, too. There were two keyboards and an upright piano against the long wall. Then, three electric and two acoustic guitars, a bass, an electric drum set, a saxophone, trumpet, and harmonica.

  “You play all of these?” I pulled the strap of the Fender over my head and began to tune her. She was already almost perfectly in tune. Oh, yes, I liked her.

  “Yeah. I prefer keys, but I can do a bit of everything. When you play backup, it helps to be able to jump in wherever they need you.”

  I experimentally plucked a few chords. The ones I’d been working on for “Invisible Girl” last night. “That’s a fact. You must have an ear for it to be able to play them all well though. I’ve been working on keys the last couple years, but guitar is always going to feel like home.”