His Muse, page 1
Cassie Mint
His Muse
First published by Black Cherry Publishing 2022
Copyright © 2022 by Cassie Mint
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
First edition
ISBN: 978-1-914242-98-4
Cover art by Sarah Kil Creative Studio
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy
Find out more at reedsy.com
Contents
1. Carmen
2. Carmen
3. Tudor
4. Carmen
5. Tudor
6. Carmen
7. Tudor
8. Carmen
9. Tudor
Teaser: Runaway Bride
About the Author
One
Carmen
Vienna, six weeks ago
He’s watching me again. I can feel it.
This venue is bustling, the loading dock filled with groaning trucks pulling in and out spare bays, their shrill beeps rending the air. It’s chaos as we unload the equipment for another gig tomorrow night, all the roadies yelling instructions across the concrete, but somehow, amid all this, I sense him.
The songwriter.
The man with dark, curly hair and hungry eyes. The man touring with this rock band, working his magic on their next album. The man who watches me like I’m the answer to all his prayers, even though I’m only crew.
Where is he? Glancing around beneath my eyelashes, I can’t see him. I can feel him, though. The familiar sensation of his eyes on me sends tingles racing over my skin.
Do I look as gross as I feel? The crew bus here was cramped and musty, not a five star ride, and I’m dying for a cool shower and some fresh clothes. I pull my black hair out of its stubby ponytail and finger-comb the waves. Is that any better? Do I still look like roadkill?
Ugh. What is wrong with me?
Why am I preening for my stalker?
It’s early evening, and the sky has flushed pink. It’s warm in this city, muggy and close, and we’re all working in jeans and t-shirts, the fabric sticking to our backs.
There’s something weirdly relaxing about unloading a truck. It’s rhythmic. We all fall into sync, the crew moving as one, like a swarm of ants rather than a bunch of cranky, overheated humans, and progress is quick.
As soon as I’m out in the open on the loading bay, I sense him again. Wherever the songwriter is, he must be watching from a distance. What is he doing, besides staring at me? Is he writing a song? Humming under his breath?
I may not know much about the man who watches me, but I know that he writes the big hits—and the award winners, too. Makes it rain cash for whichever bands he works with. How much longer will he be working with Run Along Ruby on this tour? Where will he go next?
The thought of him leaving, of never feeling the telltale caress of his eyes on me again, makes my stomach drop.
I hope he stays with us a good while longer.
“Throw that in the stage right wing.”
I nod at a bearded ginger man with a clipboard, then throw my weight against the case to get it to turn. My steel-toe boots skid against the stage, and then we’re off, my cheeks warm and my breaths coming hard.
As the wheels rattle along the ground, the vibrations jarring my elbow joints, I keep wondering: why me? Why does the songwriter watch me of all the people on the crew?
Why, when there are so many beautiful women in the audience every night, screaming and giddy and so ready to throw themselves at any man with a backstage pass? He could have his pick of them, what with all that tuggable curly hair.
Seriously.
Why me?
I yank my flight case to a stop stage right, toeing down the flippy silver brakes. We’re in a vintage theater for this stop on the tour—all red velvet seats, hanging black drapes, and rows of pale rope running up the length of one backstage wall.
I don’t know what makes me look up. Call it intuition. I mean, I’ve got no business up there in the flies, and yet I still tip my head back and peer into the darkness.
A shape moves. There’s a man leaning his elbows on the balcony rail in front of the ropes, watching us unload the trucks from high above. It’s too dark to make out details, but it’s my songwriter. I know it is.
I lift one hand and give an awkward wave.
The shadowed man tilts his head.
Hmm.
I gaze up at the flies for so long, my neck starts to ache. I stare and stare, and he doesn’t move again, and the whole time my body’s heating under the force of his gaze. Simmering to life under my clothes, my heart pumping harder.
Every second with his eyes on me is a caress—a warm hand gliding down my spine. I welcome it.
What is wrong with me?
A loud bang from the back of the stage makes me jump, breaking the spell woven between us. It’s the crew righting a toppled flight case, but it’s enough to bring me jolting back to earth.
When I look up again, the songwriter is gone.
Probably for the best. I’ll keep telling myself that, anyway.
Two
Carmen
Present day
After a whole summer of crewing for a world famous rock band, the Run Along Ruby tour ends how you’d expect: with a night of heavy drinking and a sea of take out boxes, then a quick shower and an exhausted cab ride to the airport.
As crew, we’ve taken this band around a whole continent, but on our final day in September, we exchange phone numbers and awkward hugs, then scatter like dandelion seeds to our various planes and trains and buses.
I won’t ever see any of these people again. Summer jobs are funny like that: intense bursts of living in someone else’s pocket, then a few weeks later, it all feels like a dream.
And I wanted that. Wanted to escape reality for a while.
Still need to go home though, don’t I?
I heave my suitcase onto the conveyor belt, the flight attendant smiling at me with crimson lips as she taps in my details. All around us, the airport clamors with life. Harried parents push luggage carts and call to their children; men in neon yellow jackets stride around, barking instructions into radios. I pluck at my Run Along Ruby crew t-shirt, my nose wrinkling at the musty fabric. The cab ride was sweaty as hell.
“Heading home?” the attendant asks, her voice honey-sweet.
I nod, too exhausted to make conversation. Those rock stars really know how to party, and I collapsed into my bed last night only an hour before dawn.
It’s not usually my scene, to be honest—despite the fever dream of this summer, I’m a homebody, through and through—but I couldn’t go touring around Europe with a famous rock band and not hang out with them on the last night.
They were as you’d expect. Downright feral.
“Gate fifty three. Enjoy your flight, miss.”
“Thank you.” My fingers are clumsy as I grab my passport off the counter, shouldering my backpack. Every muscle in my body aches from loading up the trucks after the last gig, and my temples pound from last night. Freaking rock stars.
And I feel bad for not chatting with the flight attendant, but honestly, there’s not much to say. I’m headed back to the States, that’s all. Back to reality and the faded beach town I grew up in; back to the blue-painted house my parents left me, the wooden deck splintered with age, and those steps leading down to the damp sand.
Is this a retreat? I mean, I finished the whole tour, and yet somehow I still feel like I’m running away with my tail between my legs. Cowed and exhausted.
That’s bullshit, obviously, because I worked hard all summer and I pulled my damn weight—but whatever I was looking for by flying across the world… I didn’t find it.
I’m going home with that old, familiar heaviness still in my chest.
That, and I feel lonelier than ever.
Probably just the hangover. Let’s hope so.
But for a while there, as we toured through sun-drenched cities and rain-slicked capitals, I got the strangest feeling that someone was there with me. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder by my side, grounding me with his presence… and it was heady. The best thing I’ve felt in a long, long time.
I don’t mean the other crew or the band or whatever. I have no idea where that feeling came from.
Okay, that’s a lie: I have some idea. A certain songwriter left one hell of an impression on me.
But that’s not something I want to admit, not even to myself. Because then I’ll have to confess that I’m truly unhinged, and who wants to deal with that? Not me.
So I stride through the airport with my teeth clenched, ignoring the voices whispering in my head—the ones that say I’m all kinds of twisted for wishing he was here now. Can you get Stockholm syndrome for a stalker?
When I find my gate, I march to the nearest seat and throw myself down on the metal bench. I’m hot and tired and extra cranky, but I force a smile for the little girl sitting opposite me, and I do not—I repeat, I do not—think about the man who watched me all summer long.
Did the songwriter mean for me to notice? Or was his obsession supposed to be a secret?
He never tried to speak with me, so… I guess it doesn’t matter either way. He clearly didn’t want me that badly in the end.
And I’m not disappointed about that. I’m relieved.
I am.
That is the healthy way to feel when you fly away from your stalker.
* * *
The plane roars to life all around us, white wings glinting in the dazzling sunshine outside. Flight attendants patrol up and down the aisles, checking seat belts and stowing tray tables, and my stomach churns worse than ever as we lurch into motion.
Turns out I’m not a good flier. Never had much practice, because when I was a kid, all our family holidays were spent camping within a hundred mile radius of our home. I never even had a passport before I got the job for this tour, and it’s still all new and crisp-looking even after a summer of being crammed into my backpack.
“Nervous?” A man in a white shirt sits next to me, smiling at where I’m counting breaths by the window. With his thick brown hair and sharp jawline, I suppose he’s handsome.
Don’t care. He’s hogging my armrest. “Nope.”
The man raises his eyebrows at my blatant lie, but he gets the hint: I’m not interested in chatting. This won’t be a talkative flight.
And maybe I’m being rude, but I’m glad when he turns away and slips in his earbuds, bringing a movie up on his little screen. This is a private meltdown, not one I want to share with a stranger, and after a summer of shared hotel rooms and crowded green rooms, I’m desperate for a few minutes alone.
Slow breaths in. Slower breaths out.
In. Out.
Our plane taxis along the tarmac, lining up with the runway.
…Better. It’s not even about the flight, not really. Sure, the rattling and the jolting motions suck, they make my breath catch and sweat break out on my back, but that’s not really why my chest is so tight.
Why didn’t the songwriter ever speak to me? Why watch me for all those months and never say a word?
Goddamn it. Why did he just let me go like that? Did I dream the whole thing?
And if I didn’t, why am I pining after him like a complete idiot? He’s clearly messed up. My head thumps back against my seat, eyes burning as I stare out at the runway. I scowl at a luggage truck trundling past the window.
It’s a good thing nothing ever happened between us. A good thing. He left me alone all summer, only watching me from a distance as the band played for roaring crowds, and now I can go home and forget all about the songwriter.
It’ll be like he never watched me at all.
And that’s good. It’s fine. It’s freaking perfect.
Not soul-crushing at all.
Three
Tudor
I should let her go. That is an undeniable fact. I should let the Run Along Ruby merch girl go, and leave this—this obsession far behind me. It’s twisted, and it’s wrong, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
From the first instant I laid eyes on her, I was ruined.
Objectively speaking, Carmen looks like a normal young woman. She has shoulder-length black hair, tan skin, and warm brown eyes. She wears white-framed glasses on days when her eyes get tired, and her favorite pair of jeans are worn through at the knee.
So in theory, she’s just like any other young woman you might see browsing in a bookshop, or standing in line at a cafe. Nothing world-ending about her at all.
Except there’s something about her…
Back in June, Carmen stepped off that crew bus with mussed hair and flushed cheeks, clearly emerging from a long nap with her crew shirt label stuck up through her collar. She hopped off the bottom step, stifling a yawn, and after a single glance… I might as well have face-planted on the concrete.
I was done. Ruined for every other woman in existence.
Carmen.
Fuck. I should really let her go.
If I were a good man, I definitely would. But then a good man wouldn’t have fucking stared at her all summer, would he? He wouldn’t have dreamed of her, feverish and hungry every night, and woken with her name on his lips.
Or followed her when she slipped out of the venues to get coffee.
Or memorized all her hotel room numbers, walking past them in the middle of the night.
Or obsessed over every single tiny detail about her.
Yeah. It’s been months since I thought of myself as a good man. That ship has well and truly sailed.
* * *
Carmen’s flight is due to land just after dawn. I linger in the airport coffee shop, downing drink after drink, my hands getting shaky from the caffeine as I wait.
Or maybe it’s not the caffeine that makes my fingers tremble. Maybe it’s because I know she’s getting nearer.
It was torture flying across an ocean last night without her, leaving her so far behind. But I wanted to go ahead so that I could witness this moment: Carmen setting foot on American soil once again, coming home after so long away.
Is she pleased to be back? Relieved? Deflated? Is she excited for what comes next, or is she in mourning for the friends she made over the summer? I’d give anything to read that girl’s mind.
My thumbnail scrapes at my coffee sleeve, peeling back a corner of cardboard, and a melody drifts through my brain as I wait. I’ve written more music in the last few months than in the five years prior.
It’s all Carmen. She’s my muse.
My muse; my obsession; the newfound reason I breathe. It’s all very dramatic, but it’s true.
For the record, I considered letting her go after the Run Along Ruby tour ended. I did. But then I overheard her telling one of the stage crew about her flight home, and how she was feeling lost and unsure about what to do next, how there was no one waiting for her here, and it’s like I booked my own flight in a trance. I blinked, and ten minutes had passed, and the confirmation email pinged into my inbox.
I was never really going to walk away, was I?
Flight 204 from Geneva is delayed by two hours…
The airport announcements fade into a low hum, all blurring together in the background. Carmen’s flight from Lisbon is on time, so I don’t care.
Will she have eaten breakfast? Drunk enough water overnight? Probably not. If I could, I’d protect Carmen from every inconvenience and irritation in existence—especially plane food.
My chair creaks as I shift in place, my limbs stiff from my own long flight. I haven’t slept; have barely eaten. I’ve been too agitated, too on edge from being this far away from Carmen.
I feel like death warmed over, but I don’t care. I’m not leaving this airport until I’ve seen her.
The intercom crackles, another fuzzy announcement making my head throb as it echoes around arrivals, but this time I exhale and push to my feet.
My last mouthful of coffee is lukewarm.
Her plane has landed. It’s time.
* * *
Carmen looks tired. Well, who can blame her? Long haul flights are shit at the best of times, and she’s just spent a whole summer crewing for a rock band—lugging heavy flight cases on and off trucks, selling merch every night, and living out of a suitcase.
The shadows under her eyes make my chest clench.
I don’t like it. Don’t like seeing her anything except wildly happy.
She’s scraped her dark hair back into one of those stubby little ponytails she wears, and her slender frame is drowned in a baggy gray sweatshirt. Her cheeks are paler than usual, and she looks haunted as she wheels her luggage out to the taxi rank.
I hate this. If I were a bit more fucking normal, if I’d asked her out over this summer instead of stalking her like a psychopath, Carmen might trust me enough to travel together. I could’ve gone on the same flight as her; could have sat beside her while she slept on my shoulder. Could’ve arranged for a car, then driven her home, walked her inside and tucked her in bed—
The airport doors sweep open. Carmen wheels her case out onto the sidewalk.
I follow a short distance behind.
It’s quiet outside, only a few sleep-deprived travelers towing their luggage in and out of the terminal, their faces pinched with exhaustion. I hang further back in the shadows. The horizon is a red line, the sun bleeding as it rises for the day, and planes roar as they fly low over the airport.
