WRIGHT THAT GOT AWAY (Wright Vineyard #4)

2. Campbell

2

CAMPBELL

The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

They were the truth. The thing that I’d wanted to ask. But I’d also known I shouldn’t release them out into the world. I was still high on the aftereffects of the concert. Still lost to that buzz that I only got from music. Then, I’d opened my dressing room door, and there stood Blaire Barker.

There was fire in her eyes.

A part of her always looked ready to rip me in half.

But she was stunning all the same. Even more beautiful than the girl she had been when I fell for her in high school. Now, she was a woman with waist-length hair and those fringe bangs that always looked as if she were hiding a secret. Her blue eyes were kohl-rimmed and wide as an animated character. Like a Disney princess in disguise in a green minidress and high heels. Still, she was a foot shorter than me, and I liked that in a woman.

So, I’d asked her out. What was the harm?

Besides everything.

Blaire gaped at me in a mask of horror. Her assistant—the vapid, brainless girl that she somehow let work for her—shrieked loud enough that everyone turned to look at us. Honey resorted to babbling. Something about how incredible this was. And how it wasn’t real life.

But Blaire just glared at me as if I had some audacity to ask her that question.

“No,” she spat.

I stilled at the word. The heat in it. She wasn’t just mad. She was furious.

I knew how she felt about me. I’d known for years. I’d royally f****d up, and then I’d left. I was following my dreams, but I crushed hers at the same time. She hadn’t spoken to me in eight years, and I’d been back in Lubbock on and off for the last eighteen months. It was pretty clear that the last thing she wanted to do was go on a date with me. And still, I’d opened my f*****g mouth.

“What? Blaire, come on,” Honey gasped.

“He was joking,” she bit out. She shot me a look that said, You better f*****g go along with this. “Weren’t you, Campbell?”

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 f*****g 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 f*****g famous musician. So, of course I’d dated and f****d 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 s**t. 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 f*****g loved hearing her say my name. “It’s been eight years. You can’t change a single f*****g 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 f*****g 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. f**k.

“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 f*****g 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 s**t-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 notebook 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 f*****g 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 f*****g 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.”