The Ex Factor - Erin McCarthy Page 0,65

friend Dane. He hadn’t talked to him in at least a week. He swiped the screen. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing in my life. I’m still with the same woman, still have a two-year-old son who still likes to bite my ear. Still working in the studio. But it seems to me a thing or two has changed in your world, my friend. Want to tell me what the hell is going on over there? You stupid enough to go back into the ring with Jolene a second time?”

“It would seem so.” Chance reached for his sweet tea and took a sip. “Go ahead, give me a bunch of crap about it. I’d do the same thing to you.”

“You’re going to get knocked out, you know that, right? She’s going to chew you up and spit you out. And I’m going to laugh.”

“Thanks, that’s nice of you. Asshole.”

Dane laughed. “You know you can always count on me to razz you.”

“Don’t worry about me. Things are good. I love that woman.” He did. So much so that he couldn’t–wouldn’t– let anything get under his skin.

“I know you do. But seriously, watch your step. You can’t go copping attitude with the media, man.”

“The media can suck my dick.” He meant that most sincerely.

“I bet they’ll be lining up to do that. Not.” Dane paused. “Hey, uh, have you seen your grandfather lately? I saw him last night. He’s not looking so good.”

“Why, was he drunk? Sticking his tongue in some chick’s ear?” Buddy was, after all, the tree from which his father Buck had fallen. They were virtually the same man.

“No, I mean he looks kind of… sick. Ashen.”

Fabulous. Chance felt his gut clench. The old bird was a selfish bastard, but he was his grandfather and he did love him. Unlike Chance’s father, Buddy was always there for him in his own strange way. “Really? Okay, thanks for letting me know.” It had been a month since he’d seen his grandfather. That wasn’t good enough considering Buddy was seventy-three. He needed to make the time to check in more often.

That was when he heard the sound of a crash from the house. “Gotta go.”

That couldn’t be good.

Jolene had rounded when she heard the door open, expecting to see Chance following her. But instead of Chance, she found herself facing Tennyson. She resented her because she was playing the same game Jolene was playing, only better. She had come to Nashville to make her way in this business and she was succeeding, not stomping off the way Jolene had just done. What on earth had possessed her to be truthful in front of this total stranger?

“You okay?” Tennyson asked. Her tone was sympathetic.

Really? “No. Actually, I’m not. I’m not sure what in the hell that was supposed to prove but now I have details about our breakup I would have been just fine never knowing.”

“Oh, come on, you had to know he would sleep around the second y’all split up.”

Jolene thought this woman had a hell of a lot of nerve. “Of course I did, but I don’t want to hear about it. And for God’s sake, stop saying y’all. You are from Chicago.” It sounded ridiculous in Tennyson’s flat accent.

“I wasn’t born in Chicago. I lived in Mobile until I was twelve.”

“Oh.” Jolene sat down at the kitchen table. “Sorry.” There was a bagel leftover from Chance’s breakfast just sitting on a plate growing stale and she picked it up and bit it. “This is just a bad idea, you know. All the way around. Chance and I aren’t used to working with someone else and this is personal stuff.”

“Sometimes when you shake things up you get the best results. I know I was pushing you, but that’s how you cut through to the real guts of emotion, to honest songs.”

“You’re not my therapist.”

“Music is therapy, you know that. Why else do we write? I mean, now don’t you want to write a song about the power of three? About picturing what they looked like? Was it a blonde, a brunette, a redhead? The opposite of you? Every fantasy he had and every fear you had coming to life in dark stolen moments right here in this house?”

Yeah. It was something like that. Jolene took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then she picked up the plate and hurled it against the wall. It crashed and split in multiple pieces and dropped down onto the hardwood floor. She smoothed down the