Becky Wicks - Before He Was A Secret (Starstruck #3) Read online

  Before He Was A Secret

  by

  Becky Wicks

  This is a standalone Starstruck novel featuring characters from 'Before He Was Famous' and 'Before He Was Gone.' Check them out if you haven't already.

  There's also a playlist to go with this story!

  Big thanks for your support!

  Copyright © Becky Wicks 2014

  The right of Becky Wicks to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  Becky Wicks has no responsibility for the information provided by any author websites whose address you obtain from this book (‘author websites’). The inclusion of author website addresses in this book does not constitute an endorsement by or association with us of such sites or the content, products, advertising or other materials presented on such sites.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover design by Jeanine Henning

  PROLOGUE

  Do you remember

  The piano in the dark

  How you opened up the pages of the book

  And then your heart

  The keys you said are stories

  Black and white

  No shades of gray

  And we sang right through the rainbow

  Till the shadows slipped away

  And now I can sing, sing, sing, the colors of us

  Now I can sing

  Now I can sing the color of love

  1.

  Stephanie

  ‘So what do you play? Are you signed?’ Tal asks me as she pulls a cardboard box of books towards her from my trunk and hoists it up into her arms. I haul my suitcase out to the ground, pull the handle up and follow her down the overgrown pathway with it to the house. Weeds are covering the concrete slabs in the grass and Bob Barker bounds off around the front yard, starts sniffing round a tree.

  ‘Just guitar,’ I say. ‘And no, I’m not signed.’

  ‘Here to chase the Music City dream, huh?’ My new roommate smiles back at me. Her short red hair is shining in the Tennessee sunshine. I notice the cute gap between her two front teeth before I follow her up the three steps onto the creaky wooden porch, tucking Brad, my favourite plant under my other arm and trying not to drop him. ‘Did you know eight thousand people move to Nashville every year?’ Tal continues. ‘Most of them think they’re gonna make it. Not that you won’t, of course.’

  I raise my eyebrows as she grins at me. I know the stats. I’ve been torturing myself over them for years. ‘Thanks for having me and Bob Barker move in on such short notice,’ I say instead. ‘I really appreciate it.’

  ‘Not a problem.’ She motions me inside after her. ‘So what happened with the last place?’

  I pull a face. I’ve only been in the city for six weeks, but I had to move out of the first house I was renting thanks to the creepy, overweight, fifty-year-old boyfriend of the older lady I moved in with. Charlton wouldn’t leave me alone, kept harassing me, calling me blondie, telling me I should lock my door at night because he couldn’t be held accountable for what he might do while he was sleepwalking.

  ‘Seriously?’ Tal grimaces as the screen door slams behind me and I leave Bob Barker outside. I follow her down the dark hallway on threadbare carpet to the end, where she kicks a wooden door open with her foot. ‘What a douche!’

  The house smells like shoes, though there’s a vague waft of cleaning products too, so I think she’s made an effort. At least there’s no Charlton here. I made sure when I answered the Craigslist ad that it was just girls here. We’re all in the same age bracket this time and more importantly, no one has a live-in boyfriend.

  ‘Here’s your new home sweet home,’ Tal says, dropping the box onto a single bed in the small, dark room. The mattress is bare and right away I notice a dark stain in the middle. I can’t think about it. I park the wheelie case, watch her as she picks up a dishcloth and some furniture polish from a battered old wooden desk in the corner, then goes about sweeping aside the net curtain at the small window. ‘I cleaned,’ she says as a spider hurries out and across the wall, ‘but the sheets are still drying outside, sorry!’

  ‘No worries.’ I put Brad down in his pot on the desk and take in the uninspiring view of a brick wall outside the window. There’s barely any light. The ceiling fixture above me has no bulb fitted, but there’s a lamp with no shade on a bedside table that doesn’t match the desk. The carpet beneath my feet is a faded brown color, kind of like the walls. ‘Isn’t there another girl living here?’ I say now, but when I turn back to Tal she’s studying me quizzically.

  ‘E-beth’s not home till later,’ she says. ‘Have I met you before?’

  My pulse quickens as she keeps on staring, arms folded now. Her small frame is engulfed in sweatpants and a man-sized gray GAP T-shirt. Her black-rimmed glasses are so big they practically touch her cheekbones, though she’s wearing no make up. I wait for it. Then the penny drops like it always does. Tal covers her mouth with her hand. ‘I know where I’ve seen you! You were on that show – Deserted!’

  ‘That’s right,’ I say, looking at my plant. It still makes me uncomfortable sometimes, not least because that’s what made the fat creep in the last place start obsessing over me. I came third in season twenty-three; spent seven weeks on an island in Indonesia getting bitten to shreds and starving. It was the experience of a lifetime, no mistake, but I’ll probably never live it down.

  Tal’s shaking her head in disbelief and a little awe. ‘That’s right, I remember now. You were the one who played that jock to get the immunity charm! Love your work!’

  ‘Everyone played everyone out there,’ I say, although that’s not entirely true. Alyssa, the girl who won, went on to travel the world with Joshua and I think they’re someplace in Cambodia now, teaching English to kids, more in love than ever. I follow their blog. She was lucky enough to meet her soul mate on that island. I just came away with a reputation as a player.

  ‘I remember… you’ve got a great voice,’ Tal continues, ‘they showed you singing when that awesome gay guy made you dance! I loved him! Hilarious. What was his name?’

  ‘Shan,’ I say as I fiddle with Brad’s leaves. He needs watering.

  ‘That’s right. Wow. No wonder you’re here. Do you have gigs lined up?’ Tal puts the cloth and polish back down, motions me back down the hallway and back outside to the driveway.

  ‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘I’m kind of still checking things out, you know?’ I collect my guitar from the Toyota, plus another bag full of songbooks and lock the trunk as Bob Barker bounds up to us, wagging his tail. Tal bends down to pet him, rubbing the soft fur of his golden belly as he rolls over in the grass with his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

  ‘He gets all the girls,’ I say and he barks like he understands me. Sometimes I think he does.

  ‘So, you got money for being on the show, right?’ Tal takes the songbooks from
me and walks me back up the path again. ‘I mean, not as much as Alyssa got for winning, obviously, but you all got something, didn’t you?’

  ‘The only money I got was for going to the reunion show,’ I answer, remembering the $10,000 check I cashed that went straight into paying off some of our debts and then a car in order to get myself here. Well, the semblance of a car anyway. It’s on the verge of a breakdown already. ‘So, the other girl who lives here? E-beth,’ I start again, steering her off the subject. ‘Nice name!’

  ‘Yeah, she thinks it looks more exciting in an autograph than Elizabeth.’

  ‘An autograph? Is she famous?’

  ‘No, she’s a writer. Well, she’s working on a novel but she does admin stuff in Vanderbilt for an interior decorator.’ Tal steps back inside the one-level house. ‘She walks to work from here. We’re super close to downtown too. I printed off some maps and things for you – they’re in the kitchen. Come on through, I’ll give you the tour.’

  I wonder briefly why they didn’t have the interior decorator do anything for this place as I leave my guitar in its case, propped up against the peeling wall. Tal puts the bag down next to it, wanders through to a small kitchen, pointing out the living room along the way. It’s dark and stuffy. Wax from melted candles takes up most of a battered coffee table in the middle of three faded couches. One wall is soft with ancient green flock wallpaper. ‘Sometimes we make a couch fort,’ Tal tells me enthusiastically. ‘We watched five of the Harry Potters back to back in it on E-beth’s laptop last week.’

  ‘That must have taken a long time?’

  ‘We stopped a few times for beans on toast and Marmite sandwiches.’

  I’m intrigued. ‘What’s Marmite?’

  She shakes her head, winces. ‘It’s gross, she’ll make you try it. E-beth’s obsessed with anything English, you’ll see. This was my grandma’s house.’ She points to the magnets on the refrigerator in the cluttered kitchen. They’re maps and flags from places like Paris, London, Vegas, Rio. ‘They were all hers. She was a compulsive traveller before she had my mom.’ She points to an elderly woman in a picture frame on one of the Molly Nixon tour magnets. She’s actually standing next to Molly Nixon in it.’

  ‘Your grandma was a big Molly Nixon fan, huh?’ I say.

  ‘That’s my mom,’ Tal says.

  I do a double take. ‘Wait. Your mom is Molly Nixon?’ I laugh in surprise. Molly Nixon was only one of the most legendary country singers on the planet… albeit for a couple of years only. ‘Does she still live here?’ I look around at the faded photos on the far wall above a row of hooks. One frame, holding a photo of Tal as a kid, is made of cardboard and has stick-on letters around it spelling Tallulah. I think the hooks are meant to hold cups, but the cups are all dirty, piled in the sink with a bunch of plates and bowls. The floor’s a little sticky underneath my feet.

  ‘Nah, she has about seven houses, this is just the one she lets me have,’ Tal replies, opening the fridge and pulling out a juice carton. I try to ignore her sniffing it as I sit down on a wooden stool.

  ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Four years,’ she answers, fishing two mismatched glasses from a shelf and blowing into one before pouring the juice. ‘Her and my dad spend a lot of time down in Florida these days. Where are your parents?’

  ‘They’re dead,’ I tell her, clamping my hands around the glass and looking at it. Tal puts a hand on my shoulder instantly.

  ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. What happened?’ She pulls up a stool on the opposite side of me, leans on her elbows on a copy of The Nashville Scene and studies my face sympathetically through her glasses. Bob Barker pads in. He’s mastered the screen door already.

  ‘Car wreck,’ I say, reaching a hand down to his fur. ‘I was sixteen. It’s taken me a while to do this but after the island everyone else decided it was time.’

  ‘Everyone else?’

  ‘My brothers and my aunt, mostly. The world’s a lot bigger than Homewood, Alabama,’ I say. ‘That’s one thing I realized out there. It’s now or never.’

  Tal nods. ‘It sure is. New chapter. With a voice like yours you’ll be shaking up Nashvegas in no time, baby.’

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ I say, although something flips in my stomach as I drink my juice. Nerves. Shame?

  When I first arrived I had enough saved up for the deposit and one month’s rent and nothing else. All my money’s gone into the house in Homewood for so long that the thought of having any kind of disposable income is a joke, really, but I guess that's the risk I took. It was one I had to take. I took a job at another restaurant, serving meat platters to honky-tonk-loving tourists while I figured out how to work on my music, but I haven’t played a gig yet. The money I raised with Kickstarter to record the demo dried up halfway through, too, so right now I don’t even have anything to hand out to studios.

  ‘What were you doing in Homewood?’ Tal asks now. ‘Besides applying to reality TV shows.’

  Waiting tables mostly,’ I tell her, ‘just the same as I do here.’

  ‘Where?’

  I cringe. ‘The Nice Rack.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Tal slams her glass down, hides her laughter now behind her hand.

  ‘It’s not that bad!’

  ‘No, no, I’m sorry, it’s just the name, and that logo!’

  ‘Oh God, I know.’ The day I walked in and talked to Gretchen, my ginormous-breasted, rattled-looking boss about the position advertised in the window, it took all of fifteen minutes for her to bring me the bright red apron with the pink pig on the front and another fifteen to have me memorize the rib sauce options and salad dressings. I’m more than qualified – a thought that makes my heart sink like the Titanic all over again.

  I shake myself. I have to stay positive. Law of attraction, I repeat in my head. Alyssa gifted me a copy of The Secret on Amazon a couple months back. She was talking about it a lot on the island – how we attract the things we think about most; be that happiness, sadness, poverty, success… restaurant work?

  ‘You know what, Stephanie, who gives a crap?’ Tal cries now, gesturing around the room. ‘Look! You’re in Nashville! And The Nice Rack is lucky to have you.’

  I raise my eyes to the peeling ceiling as she refills my glass, but we’re both laughing now. ‘Look,’ she says, ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing so far with your music, but I know a few people. I can probably give you some contacts.’

  ‘Thanks – what do you play?’

  ‘Harp.’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Yup. Electric. I sing with it. I have a few groupies, would you believe?’ She stands up, beckons me through another door into a sun-room. Dying plants in pots everywhere make me fear for Brad. Her metallic green harp is lit up in the corner in a beam of sunlight, like an angel might swoop down at any second and pick it up. It’s sitting right next to a grand piano. I freeze.

  ‘Silhouette Electric Lever, thirty-three strings,’ she says, walking over to the harp and caressing it fondly. ‘First octave G to sixth octave C.’

  ‘Beautiful,’ I say, almost choking on the word. I can’t take my eyes off the piano. My stomach starts to churn. My palms literally start to sweat.

  ‘Six thousand dollars worth of beautiful,’ she replies with a heavy sigh, oblivious. ‘But it’s worth it.’

  ‘It’s worth it,’ I say absent-mindedly, turning away, back into the kitchen. I hate this curse – I should have known. Music city has musical instruments. Everywhere. There are a million pianos. I’m going to have to find out where they all are and make sure I never get within three feet of them. Or just buy a blindfold. I’m an idiot.

  ‘I also read tarot,’ Tal tells me, following me and shutting the door. I make up my mind never to go into the sun-room. ‘Want me to read yours?’

  ‘Not right now,’ I say quickly. I run a hand through my long hair. It’s tangled from the drive here, keeping the window down so Bob Barker could stick his tongue out, and
so we both wouldn’t suffocate in the heat. For some reason, things like the tarot terrify me, maybe more so than the piano. I don’t know what the future holds and if it’s just more waiting tables, surrounded by creeps like Charlton and wannabe singers in cowboy boots, I almost don’t want to find out.

  Damn. Positive thinking…

  ‘OK. I’ll get you eventually my pretty,’ Tal cackles as she picks up the juice and shoves it back into the empty refrigerator. ‘Listen, do you have plans tonight?’

  ‘No, actually. It’s my night off.’

  ‘Good. Then you’re coming to McFlannerys! There’s an open mic if Tootsies is too scary off-the-bat, oh, and it’s Fireball Friday. There are usually a bunch of hot guys there, too...’

  ‘I’m not looking to date right now.’

  ‘Why not? You have a boyfriend?’

  I shrug, lower my eyes to the floor, to an upturned dead cockroach. I think it’s a little too soon to explain about Brock.

  ‘OK, well, more for me then. I have some errands to run,’ she says, leaning down to pet Bob Barker again. He stands, wags his tail. He’s besotted already. ‘I’ll let you unpack. We’ll head out around seven if that’s cool? Bring your guitar if you want to sing.’

  ‘Sounds great, love to come, thanks,’ I tell her as she walks out with my dog padding behind her. I already know I won’t be singing. I’ve seen a few gigs - rock, blues, country, gospel, pop, bluegrass… you name it, anything goes here. Nashville is one of America’s most up and coming cities these days, and apparently it’s also a hot spot for gourmet food – not that you’d know it from The Nice Rack. But when the sun goes down on Broadway I’m only just starting to feel like a resident and not some wonderstruck tourist, walking through the neon jungle with eyes wide as dinner plates. I need to get out of this stupid slump. My family would never say it but they’re counting on me.