Page 29 of Faithful Rhythm
We’ll find a way to survive my grandpa. We’ll both have our dreams.
Jade leans back and cups my face with her hands. Even through her tears, I can already see it shining back at me. Her own feelings.
“I love you too,” she whispers between her now puffy lips.
I’m gone. I was already gone, but this is official. I will do anything to protect this girl until I die. We laugh, we kiss. I spin her around in my arms.
“I’m going to dance to your song,” she promises and covers her heart with her hand.
My head dips. Fuck, I’m almost nervous now. “You’ll kill it.”
We laugh again until my phone vibrates and kills the celebration between us.
“You get that,” she waves me off, “give me another hour. I want to get something to this before I leave.”
“An hour?” I pretend to look shocked. We’re both night owls. Our creative brains work better under the moon, when everyone else is sleeping.
“Out.” She laughs and points to the door.
“I’ll pick you up in one hour.” I hold up my finger before turning back to the studio door.
“Onyx, if you need to go home and rest, I can—”
“I will be here, Little Star.” I chuckle at the audacity of her thinking I would leave her tonight. I have plans for her later.
Once I’m in the hall, I grab my phone, not recognizing the number. “Yo,” I answer it, hoping to throw off whoever it is.
“Is that how you greet the man responsible for funding your little creative experiment?”
My blood runs cold. “Grandfather.”
“Oh, so you do acknowledge me.” He grunts. “Here I thought I was going to have to drive to that po-dunk town just to get a call back from you.”
“Sorry, sir,” I apologize through gritted teeth, my feet carrying me as far from Jade’s studio as I can get. “I’ve been busy.”
“Well, your father says the record thing is done. So when are you coming home?”
“I thought I had time to send it out to labels. That was our deal, remember? It has to get picked up first,” I remind him, my voice starting to harden.
He clears his throat and I can just imagine him unbuttoning his collared shirt. “I will give you one week, Onyx. If you aren’t here by then, I will start investigating. And you know what I will do if I find anything. You are needed here. You can be at home, while we wait to see if your project gets picked up.”
My hands ball into fists. I want to hit something. Him. “I have to finish school.”
“You can transfer to one of the schools here,” he counters. This time there is malice in his voice. “We both know any education here is going to be better than the farm schools there.”
My mind spins. This is not what I thought was going to happen. He’s going back on his word, and without my father to mediate, he knows he can win against me. His threat to investigate my life here haunts me. I do not want him to find out anything about Jade. He will destroy her if he thinks she is keeping me from the fold.
“Two weeks,” I counter. I need to be at the Classic. I can’t leave Jade like that.
“Fine,” he huffs, “you will be here, Onyx. Or so help me.”
“I will be,” I promise, even though it kills me to say the words. Time is slipping through my fingers already.
My grandfather doesn’t grace me with a response. I’m suddenly just met with a dial tone, signaling he hung up. I fight my instinct to throw my phone against the wall. I made it out of New York and away from him by the skin on my back. I’m lucky really that neither of my parents are waiting to force the lifestyle of crime on me more than it already has been. I’ve seen things I never wanted to. I know more than I should at my age about the darkness of the world. I bartered my soul with my grandfather for the time here, betting everything, my future, my life, on the hope my record will get picked up by a huge record label. My celebrity status would be too big then. Only then can I slip out of his grasp. He’s going back on his word and that scares the fuck out of me. My dad is on my side, but there is only so much he can do. And if anything about Jade has surfaced, I already know I’ll give up my dreams to keep her safe.
I can still hear my song playing down the hall. The girl I love is oblivious to the actual fucked-up life I live. Telling her anything would be dangerous to both of us. I’ll tell her after her performance. I can’t ruin this for her. Even if he succeeds in crushing my dreams, Jade needs to reach hers.
ChapterFifteen