My Cone and Only (King Family #1) - Susannah Nix Page 0,31

about my brothers.

I couldn’t just write about ordinary shit like my truck or the dog I’d had when I was a kid. No, I had to go and write about my feelings. Stuff I wasn’t even comfortable saying out loud. And I was supposed to get up and sing about it to a crowd of people?

The thought of playing any of these songs for Tyler, Matt, and Corey scared the shit out of me. I’d never had problems with performance anxiety before, but then again, I’d never performed anything that was mine. Other people’s songs were easy, because they didn’t have anything to do with me. These songs were all about me. They unmasked my desires and heartaches, exposing all the feelings I’d tried to keep hidden underneath the surface. I’d laid myself bare on these pages. If people thought these songs were worthless garbage, it’d be the same as saying I was worthless garbage.

My phone rang beside me, and I blinked in surprise when I saw it was Andie calling. She almost never called me—if she wanted something, she usually texted. A spike of unease shot through me, and I nearly dropped the damn phone in my fumbling haste to answer it. “Hey you. What’s up?”

“Are you busy?”

It was the first time I’d heard her voice since Saturday night, and my heart gave a squeeze of longing. But the fact that she hadn’t replied with our usual greeting had me even more on alert.

“No.” I leaned forward on the couch. “Why?”

“I need to talk to you about something.”

That couldn’t be good. Never once in the entire history of the universe had the phrase I need to talk to you preceded a pleasant conversation.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I pressed my fingers to my eyelids. “What?”

“It’s kind of complicated. I don’t suppose you could come over?”

“Right now?”

“Yeah, if you’re free.” Something about Andie’s voice sounded off. It was too quiet. Too rough. Almost shaky.

I sat up even straighter. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” She paused. “Mostly. Sort of. Like I said, it’s complicated. I’m not dying or anything though.”

“Well, that’s good. Jesus.”

Her laugh lacked its usual warmth. “It’s not an emergency, is what I meant. If you’re busy—”

“I’m not.” Band practice could wait. Whatever was going on with Andie was more important. “I can be there in ten minutes.”

She blew out a breath, and it definitely sounded shaky. “Cool.”

I made it to Andie’s house in six minutes, which had to be a record. And that included texting the guys and telling them I wasn’t going to make it to practice tonight.

My truck jerked to a stop in front of her house and I jumped out, my heart pounding as I ate up the distance to her front door. She answered my impatient knocking and stepped back to admit me.

“What happened to your face?” Worry stoked a flare of protective anger as I moved in close and tipped her chin up for a better look at the scratch across her cheek.

She batted me away, rolling her eyes. “I had a run-in with a tree at work. You want to pick a fight with it too?”

I blew out a breath and made myself calm down. Flying off the handle wasn’t going to help her—and was exactly what Josh would do. Things couldn’t be all that bad if she was still giving me shit.

“You want a beer?” she asked, heading for the kitchen.

“No.” I closed the front door behind me. “I want to know what’s going on.”

She opened the fridge and got out a beer for herself. There were two empties sitting by the sink, and I wondered if they were all from tonight.

I waited, watching her as she took a long swig. Something was definitely up. Her face looked pale and was sporting that crease she always got between her eyebrows when she was worried.

She wiped her mouth and picked up an open letter on the kitchen table, holding it out to me. “I got this in the mail today.”

I took it, my apprehension ramping up as soon as I saw it was from a law firm. My eyes widened as I skimmed the letter—then nearly bugged out of my head when I got to the dollar amount they wanted her to pay. “Holy fuck, Andie.”

“This is the first communication I’ve ever had from anyone about owing any fees. I never received any notices or warnings about it before this.”

I stared at her. “They hit you with this out of the blue? They can’t do