Bounty(43)

Joss was just so certain they were the only ones for each other and they were forever, Dad cheating had broken something in her and she just couldn’t trust him again.

So she never went back.

“Bianca’s disappeared and no one knows where she is or has heard from her, not even her mom and dad,” I declared.

“Fuck,” Joss whispered. “Perry and Nova never did take good care of that girl.”

She was right.

Perry and Nova, Bianca’s lead guitar of a heavy metal band dad and B-movie bombshell mom, loved their daughter, to be certain.

They’d just never taken good care of her.

But the time wasn’t right to talk about that either. Not that there was anything to talk about. Joss and me had often lamented the fact Bianca’s folks were so into their dysfunction, they never really were about looking after their daughter.

“And the man I met who inspired ‘Chain Link’ is working on my house.”

Total silence. A void so deep, it felt like it’d suck me, my house and all the nature around me into it.

Then, a loud, shrill, “What?”

Suffice it to say, when your mom turns into your friend, with the kind of history you two share, she becomes your best friend.

Lacey and Bianca knew everything about me.

Joss did too.

“Yep. Right now sitting on a stack of drywall in my house, eating the pizza I bought.”

“Oh girl, you go. I cannot believe you found him again. That is so cool.”

“Joss, he doesn’t remember me.”

More silence before, “You’re shitting me.”

“I wish I was.”

And I totally did.

“How could he not remember you?”

“I don’t know, because it was seven years ago, we met in the wee hours of the morning, talked for ten minutes and I was rocking my biker vixen look. My hair wasn’t as long. I had on an inch of makeup. And it was seven years ago for ten minutes.”

“Girl, man’s any man at all, he’d never forget your hair. Ever.”

Mom wasn’t being conceited.

I had my dad’s hair.

And Deke had said back then I’d had pretty hair.

And it wasn’t like he didn’t notice I was female. He did. I saw it when he did, like when we were standing in the wind and he was looking at my hair over my shoulder.

It just didn’t do anything for him.

“Well, all evidence suggests he has,” I told Joss. “He’s been working on my house for nearly a week and there’s nothing.”

“Shit, baby. I’m so sorry. Totally sucks when the fates are feeling sassy and they’ve got you in their sights.”

“You are not wrong about that.”

“Maybe while he works on your house, you can come visit me and Rod. And before you say it,” she said the last swiftly, “this is not me trying to get you to come here and deal with Rod and my shit. I’ll tell him to back off, I’m not signing to be on any reality program and we got more problems if he or that shit-for-brains manager of his breathe a word of it to you. It’s me wanting to look after my girl.”

I loved being with Joss. I also loved being with Roddy.

But I didn’t want to leave. I liked it there. And that wasn’t all about Deke.

“I’ll survive, Joss. It’s not that big of a deal. He’s just not into me.”

“Jussy, darlin’, ‘Chain Link?’ Who you talkin’ to?”

I drew in breath. Then I munched pizza.

Joss let me.

I swallowed pizza.

“It sucks,” I whispered. “And I’m still loving every minute of getting to know him.”

“Shit,” she muttered.

“It’ll be okay.”

“Only reason it will is that it’ll spawn a thousand songs, one of which will be sure to get you onstage, accepting a statue, which should have happened for ‘Chain Link,’ any other song on that vinyl or any song you’ve had recorded since.”

That was the mom in Joss. Blind devotion, blind loyalty, no one was better than her kid.

I decided to move us out of this, not the blind devotion and loyalty part, the talking about Deke part.

“Was a bitch with a purpose, laying it out for you earlier, Joss. I was still a bitch. I’m sorry I got nasty.”

“Sometimes you know you gotta smack me out of it, Jus. You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. I’ll deal with my own crap and Rod’s. And you and me’ll plan some time together soon. No Roddy. Just us girls.”

“I’d like that.”

“Okay, baby. Now go back to the torture that’ll feed the Lonesome curse and make beautiful music.”

I rolled my eyes but grinned, even if all she said was the damned truth.