All of Me by Tiffany Patterson

Chapter 3

Lena

My fingers hovered over the strings of Bessie, my acoustic guitar, as I sat in the middle of the floor of my living room. An empty notepad was beside me. I’d pushed the glass coffee table off to the far side of the room to give me some space to create.

As I stared out of the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out into the far off mountains that surrounded LA, I strained to think of any new words or melodies to sing or play.

After a long while, I brushed my thumb against one of Bessie’s steel strings, eliciting a faint sound, followed by another. As soon as I got into a decent rhythm, my phone rang.

“Arrgh.”

Frustrated at the interruption, I made the mistake of answering.

“Hello?”

“Is this Lena?” an unrecognizable female voice asked. “I’m Nicole with the LA Gazette, and we’d love to interview—”

I hung up on her mid-sentence.

“What the hell? How do they keep getting my number?” I asked, tossing my phone onto the brown leather sectional so hard it bounced off and hit the floor. Hard.

“Time for a new number?”

Startled, I turned to find my cousin and sometimes bodyguard, Rayven, entering through the door. I’d almost forgotten she’d made a run to grab us some coffee and the mail.

“And a new phone,” I answered while staring down at the thoroughly cracked screen. “I bet he’s the one giving out my damn number,” I seethed, looking my cousin in the eye.

“Probably,” Rayven said. “The bastard.”

I huffed and followed Rayven and the smell of my favorite almond slow roast from the shop down the street.

“You should probably stop giving him your number when you change it,” Rayven said as I sat down at the kitchen table.

“I didn’t give him my latest number.” I took a sip of my coffee and closed my eyes with a sigh. “I hope this caffeine wakes me up,” I said, my eyes still closed. “I was up half the night trying to write and still couldn’t get to sleep.”

Rayven snorted. “Trust me, I heard you in there. All of the money you spent buying this place, you’d think the walls would be a little thicker.” Glancing around the kitchen, she frowned.

I turned my head, looking out at the white walls, island, and granite countertops as if I hadn’t lived here for the past five years.

“I didn’t even want this place,” I murmured, referring to the multimillion dollar, four thousand plus square foot condo. “Nate wanted it.”

Rayven made some sort of derisive sound at the back of her throat. Something she often did when the subject turned to that of my ex-fiancé.

“Did you come up with anything new?” she asked.

My heart sank along with my shoulders. “Nothing last night. But right before you came in, I started working on something. Want to hear it?”

I hopped up out of my chair, not waiting for Rayven’s response, and rushed to the living room for my guitar.

Within a minute, I was back in the kitchen, Bessie perched on my lap, trying to remember the melody I played before that reporter interrupted me.

“Let’s hear it,” Rayven said, lifting her hands and gesturing toward the guitar.

“Gimme a sec.” I wiggled my fingers, trying to recall the notes. Finally, I remembered, and the sound came flooding back. I moved my fingers over the strings, playing slowly, tentatively.

I peered up from the guitar to see my cousin’s eyebrows dipped and her forehead wrinkled. I didn’t want to ask her what her expression meant.

“Speed it up a little.”

I played faster, getting into it. That was when I heard it. The familiarity.

“Take me home, to the place,” Rayven sang with a deadpan expression.

“Oh my God,” I screeched and stopped the movement of my fingers. “I can’t believe I just did that.” Groaning, I looked across the table at Rayven, who gave me a pitiful look.

I drew out a frustrated breath. “Probably for the best anyway. We know I need to stick to writing and not trying to sneak into the production side of things.”

Frowning, I stared at Bessie. I’d only been learning to play the guitar within the last couple of years. I wasn’t a producer of music. I was a writer.

Rayven gave me a curious look, but the phone I thought was irrevocably damaged rang yet again. I was both unable to write and incapable of escaping the paparazzi and gossip reporters.

They all were too eager to get images of me after the video of me burning Nate’s shit came out two months earlier.

“For all this trouble, I wish I’d burned his entire house down,” I mumbled before placing my guitar on the floor and folding my arms across my chest.

“No, you don’t,” Rayven said. “You’d be up to your eyeballs in legal bullshit and even more tied to Nate than you already are now.”

I huffed but didn’t say anything. She was right. The video of me flying off the handle and lighting some of Nate’s belongings on fire in his bathtub was terrible enough. Luckily, that was all that burned, as the house never actually caught fire. For some reason, Nate chose not to press charges against me for the destruction of his property.

But I was still tied to the son of a bitch.

“I’m never going to be able to get out of this contract if I can’t write any damn songs,” I whined, feeling helpless and hopeless.

“The music will come,” Rayven said, but didn’t sound too convincing.

“When? It’s been months since I’ve gotten any inspiration. Even then …” I trailed off because I didn’t need to finish my sentence. The songs I did right before my break up with Nate were terrible.

“I mean, months ago, I could at least write something. They might not have been good, but they were something. I can’t even put together a chorus now.”

“Relax,” Rayven said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“How can I not be?” I demanded, and held my arms out wide. “If I can’t write music, then who am I?”

Again, my phone rang, and I almost completely lost it.

“On top of that, I can’t get away from those people.” I pointed toward the living room, indicating my phone. “They hound me like those birds that fly over dying animals waiting to get their chunk of flesh.”

“Vultures,” Rayven supplied.

“Yes, vultures. I can’t escape them in this damn city. Or in New York, which is too close to my parents, anyway.”

Even in a city of five million people, it still felt too small to relocate there. Yes, I’d grown up there, and technically it was home, but my mother and father were the last people I needed to be around.

“You can pick anywhere to go. The world is your oyster,” Rayven said. I heard the masked cynicism in her voice.

“I don’t know.” With a heavy breath, I slumped back in my chair.

“Here. I bought a couple of scones from the shop. Eat,” she encouraged.

I broke off a corner of the sugar scone that Rayven placed on a saucer in front of me. With some reluctance, I chewed on the sweet, crumbly treat. I barely tasted it as I swallowed.

The heaviness in my heart had overtaken my entire body, even my tastebuds.

“What’s that?” I asked toward the pile Rayven had placed on the table.

“Your mail.”

“Oh.” I nodded absentmindedly.

Unable to eat another bite, I pushed the saucer aside. I shuffled through the mail, halfheartedly reading the names on the envelopes.

“What’s this?” I paused on a handwritten envelope. The writing didn’t look familiar.

“Don’t know.” Rayven shrugged.

By then, I was opening the letter. “It’s a wedding invite.”

“Who’s getting married?” Rayven asked, only sounding halfway interested in the answer. I didn’t take it personally. My cousin always seemed to have two or three things going on in her head at once. Except when she was actively working as my security. She was one hundred percent focused then.

I scanned the gold lettering of the invitation. “Mr. Micah Bright Sun Townsend and Ms. Jodi Taylor cordially invite you to attend their wedding.”

“What kind of name is Bright Sun?” Rayven scoffed.

I didn’t answer as I read the location of the wedding. Jodi Taylor was my publicist. Or, she had been. Until she went off to Texas, decided to quit her job, and get married to some guy she met down there.

“Do you want me to reach out to Demetria to have her pick out a gift from the registry to send?”

“Huh? What?” I asked, still staring at the invite.

Rayven pointed at the invite in my hands. “Demetria. Do you want me to let her know to send a gift or something?”

Demetria, my assistant, usually did things like that. Sending a gift or a bouquet on my behalf when I couldn’t … or, honestly, just didn’t want to attend an event. An idea sparked in my mind as I glanced down at my guitar.

“Where’s Harlington, Texas?” I asked.

“How am I supposed to know? I’ve been to Houston and Dallas, and only for your shows,” Rayven answered.

“It sounds like a small town, right?”

“Why are you asking these questions?”

Standing, I held up the invite. “Maybe this is what I need.”

“A wedding invite.”

I shook my head. “No. Some time away from LA or any other big city. Maybe down there, I’d have space to think and to write.”

Rayven looked around, her eyes circling the kitchen and the living room behind me. “Four thousand square feet isn’t enough space for you to write?”

Frustrated, I sucked my teeth. “Not just physical space but mental space. LA is too crowded. There are too many industry people here. Too many familiar faces. People angling for the right time to pounce and get the latest gossip about me.”

“So, you want to go to the wedding of your publicist to get away from the media? Make it make sense, Lena,” Rayven said.

“No, not like that.” I waved my hand in the air. “I mean, yeah, I’ll make an appearance at the wedding. But then I can maybe stay in Harlington. Find out from Jodi any private places to stay for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, so I can write.”

I peered down at the invite again. For the first time in a long while, a genuine smile crested on my lips. I’d considered going off to someplace for privacy a few times over the recent months but couldn’t think of anywhere that sounded appealing.

This invitation from Jodi felt like some sort of sign that it was meant to be. Maybe, just maybe, I could get my writing mojo back.

“Now, you’re going all the way down to Texas with the Good Ol’ Boys so that you can write an album.”

“Don’t say it like that.” I frowned. “Texas can’t be that bad if Jodi decided to move down there. She fell in love and is getting married.”

“To someone named Bright Sun,” Rayven scoffed.

“Strange name aside, this isn’t really about Jodi’s wedding. It’s about me getting the space I need to write this damn album and get out of this contract, so I can finally rid my life of Nate Richards once and for all.”

A current of excitement coursed through me at the thought alone. I suppressed the doubts that began to emerge almost immediately. The intrusive notions hinted that I might never be able to write another word again.

“This is it. I’m going to Harlington,” I told Rayven in a determined voice. The tone was as much for me as it was for her. I needed space to write. My career … hell, my life, depended on it.