The Whys Have It Read online

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  THE WHYS HAVE IT

  Copyright © 2017 by Amy Matayo

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at www.amymatayo.com

  Cover Designer: Sarah Hansen/Okay Creations

  Editor: Kristin Avila

  Proofreader: Kacie Young

  Interior Designer: Paul Salvette, BB eBooks / bbebooksthailand.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

  To my mom—

  One of these days I’ll rewrite my first book

  For now, you’ll have to settle for this one

  I love you

  Table of Contents

  Half-Title

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Acknowledgements

  Other books by Amy Matayo

  About the Author

  THE WHYS HAVE IT

  by

  Amy Matayo

  PROLOGUE

  Fame isn’t as glamorous as people might think. Sure, there’s wealth and notoriety and adoration and access to whatever a person might want. Things like luxury jets, lots of sex, alcohol and drugs if that’s your thing, lavish vacations to places most people have never even heard of, and an overabundance of friends ready and waiting on the receiving end of whatever your lifestyle has to offer.

  But no one talks about the downside.

  The adrenaline rushes that keep your heart in a perpetual state of near-attack from excessive beats that will probably wear it out before the age of fifty. The constant fog of exhaustion that hovers over your head from lack of sleep. The ever-present vertigo from not remembering what area of the country you’re currently in. The persistent soreness from being tugged on, pulled on, yelled at. The resentful family back home who remain perpetually unhappy because you don’t have time to visit.

  Sure, fame is fun…fame is exhilarating. But it isn’t entirely what I imagined it would be.

  My name is Cory Minor, and according to People Magazine I’m currently the most sought-after man in America.

  I never dreamed I’d feel so isolated.

  I never dreamed I’d have so much regret.

  I never dreamed fame wouldn’t fix all my mistakes.

  CHAPTER 1

  Cory

  My past just caught up to me, because for one careless second I forgot to run.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  How the heck did I forget we were here?

  It was the masking tape that reminded me. The masking tape that put me in an instant foul mood. I stomp backstage and hand off my guitar to a member of the crew and drain a water bottle in two long swallows, then pull the sweaty black tee over my head and run a towel across my chest. I need a shirt, and fast. Intermission lasts ten minutes, and I need to sit and calm down while I can. The last thing the crowd needs is for me to act pissed off for reasons they can’t control.

  Springfield, Missouri.

  I give the room a great big eye roll and collapse into a leather chair. Leaning my head back, I alternately replay the first half of the show and try hard not to. I need a minute to clear my muddled head, a minute to come back down to earth and rid myself of the tension and dread that have enveloped me for the last half-hour. Blinking up at the ceiling, I wait for the feeling to pass. Wait a little more.

  It doesn’t happen.

  The moment I spotted that tape on the floor I nearly came undone, right there onstage and in front of everyone. Before each concert, a crew member tapes a strip to the floor behind a speaker. On it, our location is written in bold black marker so that I can shout the correct name of the town to the audience. “We love you, Seattle! You’re my favorite, San Antonio!” Blurting out the wrong city never goes over well. When you live out of a suitcase, when you wake up in a different place every day, it can sometimes be difficult to keep them all straight.

  Tonight I forgot. Or blocked it out, whichever. I wasn’t prepared for the pain that rammed my gut when I read the name.

  Springfield is my hometown.

  I hate everything about it.

  For reasons that belong only to me, I haven’t been back in a decade.

  Thank God we’re leaving tonight. From now on if we need to perform in Missouri, I’ll agree to St. Louis and nothing else. No discussion. Springfield won’t make the list again.

  “One minute, Cory,” my manager says. I barely register his yellow tie and pink dress shirt, though both look terrible together. I just hold up a finger in a hang on and close my eyes. Sal has been with me since the beginning. He’s eccentric in dress and slightly odd in personality, but he knows me better than almost anyone. The me I am today, at least. He doesn’t know anything about the Cory who ran from this city almost ten years ago.

  And he never needs to.

  “Put this on and get back onstage,” Sal says. A clean black t-shirt lands on my face like I knew it would. I sit up with a groan. The shirt is over my head in two seconds and I’m walking up the stairs in four. Time to shake it off. Time to smile. Time to start the second half of this show and make it better than the first. Time to check off my to-do list like a robot if that’s what it takes to get through the rest of the night.

  Get onstage.

  Grab your guitar.

  Pull the strap over your sho
ulder.

  Bring it around your waist.

  Strum a couple chords.

  Forget where you are.

  Look at the audience.

  Breathe.

  And that’s when I see her.

  I lock eyes with the girl in the front row, both inspired and stunned at the sight of her.

  Her smile could ignite this whole arena.

  The most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.

  But I hate the color of her shirt.

  Odd thoughts to have at a very strange time, but nothing is normal about my life. Everything is weird and the memories are worse. I feel myself being pulled by them—Springfield, Springfield, remember, remember—then shake my head to force myself back to the present before anything takes root.

  Concert.

  Crowd.

  Sing.

  Forget.

  The girl is still looking at me, so I wink at her. Every night the routine is the same: I choose a girl from the crowd—preferably one with a boyfriend because making some guy jealous for a few minutes is part of the fun—and concentrate on finding some sort of connection before the concert is over. In my world, connection is as rare as one-on-one conversation about something not work related, so I try to make the best of it. This girl in the unfortunate yellow shirt with the short red hair is gorgeous and gazing up at me with excited eyes as she sings along with me. It’s the kind of scenario that almost always works in my favor, especially in the half hour after the show. Women with smiles that wide are normally as eager as they are star-struck.

  But tonight, something isn’t clicking right inside my head. Maybe it’s her age; she looks young. Innocent. Maybe it’s her shirt; yellow gives me a bad vibe for good reason. Maybe it’s a sense of unease that I can’t explain, like she’s familiar somehow even though I know we’ve never met before. Maybe it’s just our location and my desire to be done with this place. Whatever it is, my mind isn’t on sex. It’s on her smile. That look is the reason I wanted to be a musician in the first place. I grin at her and look out into the crowd, aware of the squeals of delight coming from her area. It’s hard not to laugh when I get that reaction.

  I swing the electric guitar around to my back and look across the sea of more than twenty thousand screaming people. A mass of shadowed figures are backlit by track lighting, but like the redhead, a few manage to stand out and burn their way into my memory.

  Off to my left, there’s a heavily teased, dreads-wearing blonde with two studs threaded through her eyebrow and nose—she scares me a little. Right in front of her is a little boy of maybe four years old who cries, arms outstretched to his tube-top wearing, impatient-looking mother—he concerns me a little. There’s a bombshell brunette in a down-to-there black halter who keeps leaning forward to make sure I get a good look at her cleavage—she distracts me a little. I smile to myself as I take in the heavily tattooed guy standing at her side. He glares up at me a lot.

  Too bad I have a thing for messing with angry boyfriends.

  I lean toward the chick, lace my calloused fingers through her smooth ones, and pull her toward me a bit. She screams—limbs shaking, tears streaming down her face—and I glance at the boyfriend. If looks could kill, I’d be lying in a box buried six feet under. I move a little closer.

  It’s a mistake. In that one second, a dozen hands grab for my forearm, my calf, my butt. I’m being pulled forward into the crowd. My heart stops for a beat…maybe two. It doesn’t start again until Big Jim’s shadow falls across me. Thank God he’s here, because I don’t know what to do. It’s my bodyguard’s job to have my back at every public appearance. At the sight of him, the grip the crowd has on my body loosens, and I manage to scoot back. I exhale and look behind me in time to see Big Jim receding into the shadows. His glare is lethal and trained on me; I mess up, he cleans up. It’s the way we’ve always worked. I’ll get an expletive-laced lecture for it later. Something tells me he’s growing weary of being the caretaker.

  With my heart rate slowing, I saunter toward the microphone and settle the guitar at my waist, then strum a random chord.

  “I want to thank you guys for coming out tonight.” My voice reverberates around the arena. “To sweat with us, to dance, to make some noise in this heat!” I’m standing in hell and doing battle with the devil. My shirt is growing damp under the lights; my hair is stuck to the back of my neck, I’m in desperate need of a drink. I reach for a water bottle and take a sip, wipe my forehead with my forearm.

  “It’s been a fun night in Springfield!” The crowd goes wild with the mention of their hometown. The line is a cheap ploy for applause, but it always works.

  It works against me. I feel sick.

  “Just remember,” I say, waiting a second for my unease to settle. “After you leave this place, be safe. Go and live beautiful lives. Have fun, don’t take life too seriously, and be awesome. We love you, Missouri!”

  On cue, Mark begins to play the opening riff of our final song. Everyone is on their feet, and once again I ease back into my routine, checking off my list. Strum three chords, grip the microphone with all five fingers, and don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. In the same way whiskey and women work to distract other guys, the crowd always manages to distract me.

  Of course I’m not completely unfeeling. Offstage, whiskey and women work on me too.

  “We’ve got one more song for you tonight. So here’s your last chance to get a little crazy!” Everyone jumps up and down. Even the little boy on the front row looks happy, and that more than anything makes this night worth it.

  Riley leads us into Crazy Little Things, our latest single. Just yesterday, the song hit number five on Billboard. Judging by the crowd’s response tonight, it should be number one by next week.

  It’s hard to be happy about it when all I see is that yellow shirt staring me in the face. Yellow is the color of my youth, and not all of us want to drink from the fountain of it.

  No matter how high I climb in the charts, my past will always be there trying to pull me back down.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sam

  I jump at the noise coming from underneath my back and immediately groan at the reaction. I’m twenty-five and already feel twice my age because…because…

  Kassie.

  I sit up, and the magazine lying across my chest tumbles to the floor. A strand of hair is stuck to my dried lip gloss. I hook a finger around the curl and pull it free, then rub my eyes and look up. What is that sound? Why won’t it stop? Why are my eyelids stuck together?

  The noise ceases at the same time more confusing questions flood my mind. What time is it? Is Kassie home? Why didn’t she wake me? Why am I on the sofa when I should be in bed? Where is my phone? I pat the cushions around me and that’s when it hits me: my cell phone. It was ringing.

  I locate it behind my back and check the screen. Three missed calls from my sister. She isn’t home, and it’s already curfew. Feeling a rush of panic, I quickly call her back. She answers on the third ring. I listen to her talk, but I don’t like what she has to say.

  “You’re doing what?” I lean forward and press the phone to my ear, unable to hear over the ear-splitting wails coming from the other end of the line. I’m barely awake and she sounds like she’s speaking into a vacuum.

  “We’re going…watch…and greet…bus….”

  “Kassie, I can’t hear you! Go somewhere quieter!” She’s at a concert, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear the noise. Especially when I’m still asleep.

  Rubbing one eye, I listen to the sounds of my sister bumping her way through strangers, an occasional excuse me and one watch it, buddy spoken into my ear. Then Kassie cusses loudly, and it hits me right in the offensive spot.

  “Kassie, don’t say things like that.” I know I sound like her mother, but she’s only seventeen and you really should be eighteen before you say bad words. Plus I just woke up and my brain isn’t making sense. Besides, in theory I am her mother. And father. Who needs husbands a
nd babies and white picket fences when you have a teenage sister to raise? As of this time last year, that’s exactly what I’m doing. A full-on mother at twenty-five, thrust back into the world of hormones and temper tantrums just as I was coming out of that stage myself. Babies and travel and a man to share life with can wait. An easy thing to say when your actual parents abdicate the job and leave you with no other choice.

  Not that they could help it.

  Not that I would change anything. Kassie is my life. Without her, I wouldn’t have anything.

  “Well, some jerk elbowed me in the ribs,” she huffs over the static-y line. “Okay, I’m away from everyone. That wasn’t very easy, you know.” She sighs. “Anyway, I said we’re going to stay here for a while and try to get Cory’s autograph. There’s a whole crowd of people waiting for the meet-and-greet.”

  “I thought the meet-and-greet was before the concert?”

  “Something happened and they changed it to after. He’s supposed to be here soon.”

  Something crawls up my spine. A warning. Fear. A weird sense of déjà vu? My mother’s image flashes, but I brush it away. A concert has nothing to do with that. “I don’t want you driving home that late, Kassie.”

  “I won’t!” The high-pitched protest wraps around my eardrum. I jerk the phone away and cringe. Add whining to her list of traits. “It’s only ten o’clock. Please let us stay,” she continues, her voice back to a normal volume. “I promise we’ll leave in like, an hour. Two, tops.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Come on, Sam—hey, careful where you’re stepping!—it’s only ten thirty and Megan is here with me. It’s not like we’re going to get murdered in the middle of a crowd.”

  Every ounce of me wants to say no. I know I should. I feel it like a scream clawing its way up a throat, begging to be released. I swallow it down when she keeps talking.

  “Please? Please, Sam. Please, please? I promise I’ll help you clean the house tomorrow. I’ll empty the dishwasher and take out the trash—”

  “You don’t even know where the dumpster is.”