Page 8 of August Lane

CHAPTER THREE

I n ten years of marriage, Luke had never argued with Charlotte Turner.

She’d never yelled at him, either, not even when he deserved it.

He’d once gotten so drunk that he’d broken an angel figurine her mother had bought her a year before she died.

Even though it hadn’t been an intentional provocation, he was relieved when Charlotte discovered what he did.

Finally, he would see her fury and learn how to manage it.

But she hadn’t mentioned the glass angel.

She’d lumped that mistake in with the others and locked it away in a mental vault she kept of things about him that didn’t matter.

Today, the tight smile she gave him as they sat across from each other in the living room of her Nashville mansion might as well have been a shout. Charlotte wanted him to speak first. But Luke never spoke first. Ever. Waiting for an angry person to take the first shot was written into his DNA.

“You could have called,” she said finally. “I heard the news from my publicist.”

“Didn’t think we still did that,” Luke said carefully. “Called with news. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t—” She bit her lip and dulled her voice. “Don’t do that. It’s my least favorite thing about you.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant but resisted the urge to apologize again. “How’s Darla?”

Charlotte tensed, then said, “Fine,” while her hand tightened on a folded document he hadn’t noticed until now.

“That what I think it is?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.

It was the reason he was there. After David’s warning about avoiding a scandal, he’d texted Charlotte to ask if she’d signed the divorce papers.

She’d left him on read for days, as she often did when he broached the subject, and had only reached out when the news about Jojo became public.

“Yes.” She placed the papers on the coffee table next to a pen, stroking them flat like that would give her the courage to pick it up and sign this time. “Darla said you never answered her last email about the revised settlement.”

“Don’t need it,” he said automatically, but it was such a big lie he quickly added, “I don’t want your money, Charlie.”

“Not even for ‘Nice Guy’?” She was going for sarcasm, but that was never her strong suit, so it came out petulant.

They’d always pretended that the popular breakup song was an inside joke.

But when a woman told the world you were “the worst good time I’ve ever had,” part of you would always take it personally.

Luke met Charlotte when he was nineteen years old and the shine on his career was so bright it felt like it would last forever.

She’d just stunned the industry with her debut album, a pop twist on honky-tonk with enough drums and bass to spark the same old debates about what was and wasn’t real country.

Her girl-next-door image had fit perfectly with the party bro schtick that had propelled Luke to TV stardom.

A joint tour was inevitable. They’d both been lonely and horny enough to blow past friendship and dive straight into each other’s beds.

Sometimes those months on tour felt like the closest he’d ever get to a happy ending.

But Luke had been wasted for most of it, so he could never be sure if it was love or the endless supply of weed.

Charlotte used to party with him but wasn’t chained to being high like he was.

Her ability to handle the strain of touring sober made him jealous.

He could only face the pressure while floating on a boozy cloud.

Getting married was more about public relations than romance.

Luke’s team thought it would be a good distraction from the nosedive of his career.

His debut album had been a disappointment and the second was bad enough to cancel the tour.

Charlotte’s team had pitched Bride magazine profiles that would expand her fan base into a more adult category.

The media attention was so intense that Luke went on a bender the night before their wedding and nearly drunk dialed August to tell her he still loved her.

He pressed all the numbers except the last one, hung up, and did it again, over and over, sending an SOS she’d never hear.

I’m tired of dreaming, August. You’re the only one who can wake me.

It went on that way for the next two years: Luke would buckle under some pressure and self-medicate to take the edge off.

Then he’d wake up somewhere he didn’t recognize after doing things he didn’t remember that were inevitably photographed.

He’d feel bad, start drinking again, rinse and repeat.

Meanwhile, he and Charlotte saw each other less and less, until he came home one day and walked in on her making out with her attorney.

Luke hadn’t been angry. Sometimes he wondered if that was really what ended their brief marriage—that he didn’t react the way Charlotte wanted after discovering her affair.

But Luke had always believed that loving someone meant loving all of them, even the parts that were better off without you.

Before she realized he’d walked in on them, Charlotte looked happier than she’d been since they met.

Luke couldn’t give Charlotte the stability she wanted.

Still, he could step aside quietly, without filing for divorce, because her fans weren’t ready for their favorite girl next door to be an out-and-proud bisexual woman.

So for the last ten years, Luke had played the dutiful husband while Darla pretended to be the celebrity attorney who’d become a devoted friend.

Guilt about the lie usually brought them here, hovering over divorce papers, on the edge of abandoning the entire performance. But today had been prompted by his fear and her anger. And, knowing Charlotte’s stubborn need to pretend they were still close friends, maybe a bit of hurt.

“I hate that song,” Charlotte said. “Even the title is terrible. ‘Nice Guy’?” She shuddered. “But people are obsessed with it. Singing it’s like…”

“Going back in time,” he finished. “Or being stuck there.”

Her face creased with sympathy. He’d confessed to not writing “Another Love Song” during the peak of their relationship, when handing over the secret felt like an act of love and not a selfish grab for absolution.

But Charlotte wasn’t August. She didn’t take his ugly confession, put it on paper, and transform it into something beautiful.

She’d recoiled, avoided his eyes, and told him never to repeat it if he wanted to make it in Nashville.

Luke stared at the divorce papers. He’d added his notarized signature months ago and had waited in vain for her to do the same.

Staying married to him made her feel safe.

Until today, he didn’t feel right pressuring her to sign after everything he’d put her through.

But that was before David Henry offered to rescue his career.

“So, you heard about Jojo Lane,” he said.

She flipped her hair back and said, “I’m happy for you,” in a tone that implied the opposite.

The scathing reviews of her “Invisible” cover had only recently subsided.

She probably thought Jojo singing a duet with her husband would cause another round of criticism.

“But the news was surprising. I didn’t know you were being considered for her concert. ”

Charlotte had always resented his secrets. But she had never been completely comfortable with the reality of the man she’d married. The few stories he’d shared about his messed-up childhood had made her inconsolable. And he’d never even revealed the worst of it.

Luke rubbed his forearm out of habit, tracing the raised ridges of an old scar he’d covered with tattoos. “I didn’t know, either,” he reassured her. “Her manager approached me after a show.”

“This sounds like a…” Charlotte seemed to be struggling to think of a softer word than scam. “I mean, are you sure this isn’t some publicity stunt? To bring all that ‘Invisible’ stuff up again?”

Luke noticed how carefully she avoided saying what had happened: that she had been accused of cultural appropriation for covering a song about a Black woman’s experience.

Luke knew she’d added the song to her album because it was one of her mother’s favorites.

Natalie Turner had died from heart disease while Charlotte recorded the album, and the optics of her choice hadn’t penetrated her grief.

Luke found out about it when everyone else did, and the slick, country-pop production had bothered him the same way it ultimately bothered every other critic who knew the soulful original.

He didn’t say that to Charlotte, though.

She wouldn’t have listened. They didn’t talk about race, not like that.

Not in ways that implied being married to him made her more or less culpable.

“The show is in Arcadia, during the music festival,” Luke said. “That’s why Jojo thought of me.”

A new concern creased Charlotte’s face. “I guess that makes sense.” She paused. “Do you think that’s wise?”

“Getting paid? Yeah, I do.”

“You haven’t been back there in years. With good reason.

” She picked up one of the water glasses her assistant had placed in front of them and took a large gulp, as if the conversation had a taste she was eager to wash away.

“Are you sure you can deal with it without—I mean, you know what happens when you drink.”

She fell silent, probably waiting for him to echo her concerns.

Charlotte controlled her life through avoidance.

If she’d had her way, he would have spent the last decade hidden in one of her luxury guest suites so no one could speculate about the status of their marriage.

She knew that if Luke returned to Arcadia, he’d be walking through an emotional minefield.

She probably had nightmares about him relapsing and drunkenly outing her before she was ready.