What in the world could be important enough for this?
His first thoughts went to his family,and he said a silent prayer that they were all safe and sound as he jogged out to the entry.
“Hey,” he said, opening the door to find his manager standing there.
Aimee’s normally professional expression was gone. Her eyes were wide and she was panting slightly, as if she had sprinted just to get to his elevator. She looked like she had seen a ghost.
“Have you seen this?” she asked, pushing her phone toward him.
4
CASH
Cash sat on the plane, squeezing his phone in his hands and trying to get his head together.
He had been watching the video feverishly since last night, without sleeping. He watched it again and again, through waves of denial, numbness, and even anger.
The only other thing he had used his phone for was to make Aimee book him on this red-eye flight to Vermont. He’d given up his own jet years ago, and honestly preferred the tour bus, but now he felt like he was crawling out of his own skin with the slowness of it all.
He looked around the cabin, almost hoping for an annoying distraction, but found none. There was nothing to do but watch the video again.
His headphones had run out of juice twenty minutes ago, and he’d been watching it at low volume since then. The guy in the first-class seat next to his had given him aninitial look of annoyance over the top of the paperback he was reading. Then he’d done an actual double take, and buried his face back in his book.
No one was going to complain to the flight attendants about Cash Law listening to some music. Fame did have its benefits.
Besides, it was a good song. Simple, but well-executed. And if you believed the hashtags, the kid had written it himself.
The song finished once more, and the boy leaned forward to turn off the recording, allowing Cash a half-second closeup of his face. His hand practically trembling, Cash tapped the screen to pause, as he had so many times before, and searched the boy’s eyes.
Could it be true?
The idea that it was possible, and even probable, hit him again, right in the chest. But the feeling was different now.
With each loop of the video, the numbness and the anger had faded until his heart began to surge like an ocean and he felt the warmth of the sun rushing back into him.
He could be mine.
My boy…
The idea was still every bit as scary as before, but now there was something else there too, the pull of a longing buried so deep within him that he had never even known it was there.
It felt like falling in love.
Cash didn’t know if it was fear or hope that had himtapping the screen again, eyes glued to the boy as the video looped back to the beginning again.
My boy?
It wasn’t just his own instinct, that suggestion was all over the comments. The video had gone viral almost instantly after it got shared by a few of the bigger music influencers. The comment section was growing by the minute, and just about everyone seemed to have something to say that related back to Cash.
He scrolled down to look at some of the latest entries.
@headtwangersballlike father like son#cashlaw
@jennifer_burns1999amazing songfor such a young kid, seems plausible that he’s @cashlawofficial’s son
@13strings_08the kid’sfrom vermont, his profile says sugarville grove, and the timing is right for the burlington breakout show #whosyourdaddy #cashlaw
@guitarhero_99good pointabout that show @13strings_08 wow
