Page 26 of The Déjà Glitch
She wanted to give him more, but filling in the blank was like firing a gun; she could not put the bullet back inside once it was out. Her and Nick’s breakup alone hurt enough, but the reason for it, well, that festered inside an already infected wound that she didn’t particularly enjoy poking at.
But she told him anyway.
“You’re right. There is more to the story. The missing piece is that my father is Roger Peters.”
Jack turned, eyes wide. His voice picked up the reverential inflection she was accustomed to hearing at the mentionof her father’s name, especially from anyone in the entertainment industry. “Oh shit, really?”
Gemma’s lips twitched into a frown. “I take it I’ve never told you that before, but yes, he is. And Nick used me to get close to him to get a record deal and then broke up with me.”
Gemma never thought introducing her boyfriend to her father would have such grave consequences. They’d been dating for several months, and she had brought Nick along on one of Patrick’s mandated in-town visits. It turned out that was the opportunity he’d been waiting for, and Gemma was no longer his motivation for sticking around. Even worse, her father had chosen him over her. Nick was undeniably talented, and all her father saw were dollar signs and a new act to nurture to the top of the charts, despite Nick having used his daughter’s heart as a stepping-stone to get there.
Jack immediately sensed the bad blood. Instead of asking her about her father’s Grammys and all the famous musicians she was sure that he, like everyone else, assumed she had met because of her father’s connections as a producer, he sidestepped the shimmery, starstruck trap of suddenly being one degree from a music industry mogul and remembered that Gemma was the person they had been talking about.
“You’re not close to your father?”
“That’s an understatement.” A worn bitterness cut into her words. Over twenty years later, and it still burned deep in her chest.
Her father had always chosen his career over his family—and one time in the most literal sense. The long hours,skipped dinners, missed recitals, and canceled vacations had been one thing, but sleeping with a young, bouncy pop star who Gemma had been a fan of but had since purchased her every album only to light on fire was the final and ultimate act that broke their family.
“I hardly talk to him,” Gemma said. “He and my mom split when I was eight and my brother was still in diapers, and I harbor a decades-long, clinical dislike for Summer Hart.” She turned to him with her lips pressed tight. “I’m sure you can put those pieces together.”
Jack’s eyes widened a fraction.
News of the affair had been kept mostly under wraps at the time, and no one really cared a few decades later about the producer who cheated on his wife with a singer better known for her scandalous outfits and dance moves than her voice, but Gemma still hated talking about it. When anyone found out, they either pitied her or asked for salacious details like how long it had gone on for, how they’d been caught, and—her least favorite and the most illogical question if anyone bothered to do the math—if Patrick was the love child of a nineties pop star.
“No Azalea and no Summer Hart. Got it,” Jack said with a nod. “She sucks anyway.”
A soft, surprising smile tugged at Gemma’s lips. She was accustomed only to bitterness and anger when discussing anything related to her father, especially the affair. She’d never once smiled or even come close to laughing over the topic, but Jack had her quietly doing both, even if morbidly, with a lightness that felt oddly freeing.
She caught a small, matching, if not slightly cautious smile on his lips.
“She totally sucks,” she agreed, and his smile grew.
She didn’t mention that she and her brother were supposed to visit their father that day. It felt too personal, despite everything else she was sharing. People tended to root for reunion, and if Jack found out their father had invited them to meet, he would probably encourage her to go. But he didn’t understand. No one ever did.
Anger at the situation drew more words from her mouth.
“He has basically thrown money at Patrick all his life to win his affection, but I was older and saw his attempts for what they were. He couldn’t do that with me because I remembered everything. Patrick only ever knew him as the man in the big house in L.A. who sent outlandish gifts and knew famous people. We moved to Phoenix with our mom. We grew up there, then I went to college in the Bay Area.”
Jack quietly absorbed her story. He had told her she had not previously mentioned her father, so she was sure she had not shared this information with him, but she could almost guess what his next question would be.
Right on cue, he delivered.
“Why did you move back to L.A.?”
She turned to him with a crooked grin, unable to resist poking fun at the larger situation. “I knew you were going to ask me that.”
He grinned back. “Who’s making predictions now?”
She playfully rolled her eyes. “I still maintain that we are not in a time loop, and this is all in your overactive writer’s imagination. I only knew because everyone who hears this story—there aren’t many of you; you’ve joined an exclusive group—asks me that.” She turned sideways in her seat to face him for emphasis. “But the even better question—betterthan why did I relocate myself closer to him—is: Why did I go into a career in radio where I would surely live every day in the shadow of his industry status?”
He glanced at her leering at him with a slightly crazed look on her face.
“So?” he asked. “Why did you?”
She held his gaze for a few seconds, building the anticipation and wondering if she might actually tell him, before she turned and sat back against her seat. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll let you know when my therapist figures it out.”
Jack quietly laughed.