From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken comes a new story in her Seaside Pictures series…
It’s not every day you’re slapped on stage by two different women you’ve been dating for the last year.
I know what you’re thinking. What sort of ballsy woman gets on stage and slaps a rockstar? Does nobody have self-control anymore? It may have been the talk of the Grammy’s.
Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that. I, Ty Cuban, was taken down by two psychotic women in front of the entire world. Lucky for us the audience thought it was part of the breakup song my band and I had just finished performing. I was thirty-three, hardly ready to settle down.
Except now it’s getting forced on me. Seaside, Oregon. My band mates were more than happy to settle down, dig their roots into the sand, and start popping out kids. Meanwhile I was still enjoying life.
Until now. Until my forced hiatus teaching freaking guitar lessons at the local studio for the next two months. Part of my punishment, do something for the community while I think deep thoughts about all my life choices.
Sixty days of hell.
It doesn’t help that the other volunteer is a past flame that literally looks at me as if I’ve sold my soul to the devil. She has the voice of an angel and looks to kill—I would know, because she looks ready to kill me every second of every day. I broke her heart when we were on tour together a decade ago.
I’m ready to put the past behind us. She’s ready to run me over with her car then stand on top of it and strum her guitar with glee.
Sixty days. I can do anything for sixty days. Including making the sexy Von Abigail fall for me all over again. This time for good.
Damn, maybe there’s something in the water.
From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken comes ABANDON — a new standalone story in her Seaside Pictures series. This novella isn’t out until tomorrow, but you can get a sneak peek below!
The studio was dark, lessons were done for the day, obviously, and the sun was going down. I was alone.
Just me, the guitar, a soundboard, and several instruments that I knew how to play but refused to even touch.
She was dead.
The woman who’d raised me as best she could.
I pulled out my phone. I had a dozen texts and several missed calls from Abigail, but I couldn’t bring myself to call or text back.
I couldn’t sit in that bedroom with her, seeing the look on her face, wondering if she was comforting me because it was convenient, she felt sorry for me, or because she still loved me.
And I hated that on the day I found out about my aunt’s death, the one thing that kept circulating in my mind was whether it could work. Could Abs feel the way about me that I felt about her?
Could she be mine?
I picked up one of Trevor’s acoustic guitars and started strumming from my spot on the stool. The sound booth wasn’t recording, I was just strumming, and then a few words came out.
They sounded funny, probably because lyrics were supposed to float in the air right along the waves of the music—and these felt too heavy to stay there long. They seemed like the sort of words that soared and then crashed to the ground, only to repeat the process.
Darkness built inside me as I strummed harder and harder. “You were never mine to begin with, my heart was never yours to break. It was my first stumble, our first mistake, lying to ourselves that you were mine to take.”
The light in the booth turned green. I glanced up, still strumming, to see Trevor walk in on the other side of the glass. His hands moved to the soundboard, and then the door opened. Demetri, Zane, Alec, and Drew all walked in. One grabbed drumsticks, the other snagged the bass, still another the electric, and finally, Zane sat at the piano.
They all looked at me with expectant faces because we were one and the same, weren’t we? Musicians felt too much. And when we did, we had to use music to communicate because simple words never matched superior emotions, did they? Like puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. Our emotions needed something bigger, something more complex in order to straighten themselves out, to find their place.
I strummed my guitar and nodded at Trevor.
And just like that, we were recording my pain.
I finally felt a little bit of the ache in my chest ease.
Hours later, it was close to midnight, and I left that studio feeling better than when I’d walked in.
I stopped outside and looked up. It was a clear night, the first one we’d had in Seaside since I arrived.
Of course it would be today.
“Hey.” Drew jogged up to me. “We need to talk.”
Dread crept over me. “Does it need to be now?”
“Yes.” His eyes flashed. “Right now.”
“Fine.” I kicked at the dirt and started walking. He fell into step beside me as we made our way down the boardwalk and onto the sand. I kicked off my sandals and let the cold sand seep through my toes as the sound of the crashing waves filled the air.
Drew did the same thing.
Several bonfires were scattered around the beach, and laughter fought with the sound of the tumultuous waves.
I stopped a few hundred feet before the wet sand and sat down, pulling my knees to my chest. “So, what’s up?”
“How are you doing? I mean, really?” Drew’s voice was quiet, like a whisper.
“What would you do?” I turned to look at him.
Drew looked confused. “If someone I loved died?”
“No. If the person you loved most in the world walked out of your life then came stomping back in like a bull in a china shop, all angry and beautiful. What would you do?”
“She did.” Drew cursed under his breath. “Only she didn’t want me. She wanted someone else.”
“Was it your fault?”
Drew was quiet and then said, “Yeah, all of it was my fault—her hurt, my hurt, Will’s hurt. If you have to point fingers, and I really wish you wouldn’t because you know I haven’t dealt with this shit yet, they would all point at me.”
“I loved her.”
Drew put his arm around me in a bro hug. “No, you love her.”
“I love her,” I admitted as the waves drowned out the sound of my voice. “I just don’t know how to love her anymore, how to be an us anymore. Every time I think I can, it feels like something happens.”