Page 85 of Scandal
My heart squeezes in my chest.
“Did you work on the movie?” Mercury asks as the man nods and starts small talk, while I stare down at the little girl and try to smile.
Singer. Musician. Rock star.
That’s what she sees when she looks at me. But I’ll never be any of those things again.
I swallow, then kneel to meet her at her level. Her eyes light up, and I try to imagine Mercury at this age at the Grammys, putting arrogant men like Graham Sinclair in their place.
It puts a real smile on my face.
“Do you play any instruments, Sarah?” I ask.
She nods with the kind of exuberance only a child can show. “I take piano lessons. It’s a little boring, but Mum says it’s good for me. I want to play the guitar like you.”
I stifle a laugh as I look up at her mom, who is doing much the same. She shrugs. “Want to know a secret?” I say quietly, pretending she’s the only one who can hear me.
She bobs her head up and down once again, and I lean in slightly, cupping my hand over my mouth. “I play the piano too.”
Her eyes light up as she pulls back to look at me. “Really?”
“I do,” I say proudly. “I took lessons when I was about your age, and even though I thought they were boring, they helped me when I finally picked up a guitar for the first time at boarding school.”
She turns to her mum. “Did you hear that? Asher plays the piano! I want to take extra lessons now!”
Her parents both laugh. “We can probably arrange that,” her father says. “But first, how about you thank Mr. Knight—oh! I’m sorry. I should be addressing you as Lord Blackstone, shouldn’t I?”
After thirteen years abroad, nearly everyone in the world had forgotten that title.
Not anymore, it seems…
I shake my head. “Asher is fine.”
Sarah does as she’s instructed, thanking me profusely, and we all take a couple of photos before they’re on their way.
“That was kind of you,” Mercury says as we watch them walk away. “That little girl is going to remember that for the rest of her life.”
“At least she didn’t tell me I was pitchy and pedantic,” I tease her.
Her shoulders shake as she laughs. “You have never been pitchy. That last album, though?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “It was trash.”
“No!” She places a hand on my chest. “Definitely not trash, but I could tell you were struggling.”
Nodding, I say, “The words weren’t flowing as easily during that last year Mitch was with us, so I made the mistake of letting the music execs offer their opinions. We ended up losing some of what made us who we are.”Were. Fuck.
“But you got it back,” she says. “The album you recorded with Zander was phenomenal.”
And our last…
We were on a break after our tour ended and were planning to return to the studio soon to start recording, but then the photos came out.
And I left.
But you’re still writing in that notebook,a little voice in my head reminds me.
“We should get back,” I say, not wanting to dwell on what I can’t change.
