Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 121916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“Don’t Call Me”
The Stones got Ruby Tuesday
I got some hell to pay
My only goal is letting you know
I don’t want you anymore, anyway
You told me you loved me,
And I believed
So why is he starring
In your sex dreams?
Bye bye, baby
See ya, adieu
Don’t call me, won’t call you
Ooooh
I’m done feeling sapphire blue
The Stones got Ruby Tuesday
Gimme diamonds, emeralds, jade
Any gem that’s not you, don’t care who
As long as she’s not red
As long as I’m not seeing red
Cuz now I’m seeing red
Bye bye, baby
See ya, adieu
Don’t call me, won’t call you
Don’t call me, won’t call you
Don’t call me, won’t call you
Ooooh
I’m done feeling sapphire blue
“He’s like a brother to me.”
That’s what you said, remember?
Remember?
If that’s true, Ruby Tuesday:
Why do ya wanna fuck your brother?
Bye bye, baby
See ya, adieu
Don’t call me, won’t call you
Don’t call me, won’t call you
Oooooh
Won’t see you around
Don’t wish you the best
Your loss, not mine
Take you out with the trash
This hasn’t been “nice”
Curse your name at night
Won’t catch you on the flipside
You said his name twice!
When regret comes
Makes you wish you stayed
Don’t call me babe,
Don’t call me to beg
I don’t want you anymore anyway
No!
Don’t call me, won’t call you
Don’t call me, won’t call you
Don’t call me, won’t call you
Oooh
Gonna get me somebody new
As Cooper’s song reaches its final notes and chords, I scream bloody murder, feeling like I’m going to explode from homicidal rage. In a fury, I fling open the bathroom door and discover Kendrick sitting up, bleary-eyed and panicky.
“What happened?” he gasps out, clutching his broad chest. “Are you okay?”
“I need to commit a murder,” I choke out, my voice raspy and tight as I march to him on the bed. “A grisly one. And I need your help figuring out how I’m gonna get away with it.”
[Click here to listen to “Don’t Call Me” by Alexa Play Music]
9
KENDRICK
As I listen to Cooper’s cocky voice blaring from Ruby’s phone, my blood feels like it’s simmering to a rolling boil. Mostly, I feel fiercely protective of Ruby and pissed at Cooper for unfairly dragging her. But also, if I’m being honest, even as those emotions overtake my body, my brain is furiously trying to process and analyze some of his most eye-popping lyrics.
Why do you want to fuck your brother?
What did he mean when he wrote that? More precisely, who did he mean? Did he write it about the same guy supposedly starring in Ruby’s sex dreams? Seems like they’re one and the same person, but you never know when it comes to songwriting. People write untrue, fantastical, and hyperbolic shit into their songs all the time, for all kinds of reasons. Hell, some of the best, most memorable lyrics only make it into songs because two words rhymed. Is that the case here? Did Cooper write the lyric “you said his name twice,” simply because the prior line ended in “nice”?
“I’m gonna kill him,” Ruby murmurs, yanking me from my thoughts. She’s sitting next to me on the edge of the bed, her phone placed between us on the mattress, and Cooper is now launching into his final chorus.
With a little whimper, she leans her forehead against my shoulder, and I wrap her in a warm hug. But quickly, my thoughts spiral again. Assuming the guy in the song is based on a real person, there are only three possible options for his identity: Kai, Savage, or me. We’re the only three guys in the world who are “like a brother” to Ruby.
But which one of us is the guy?
As the song reaches its final chords and notes, my brain furiously weighs the respective likelihoods of those three options:
Kai.
If Savage passed along Kai’s false narrative about Ruby to Cooper, either when Cooper’s band opened for us two years ago, or more recently when Cooper was traveling with us as Ruby’s boyfriend, then this option simply can’t be ignored. To put it mildly, Savage isn’t a steel trap when he drinks, and that’s especially true when he’s got juicy gossip burning a hole in his pocket.
Did Savage let that little tidbit rip during a night of drinking with Cooper? If so, Cooper would have thought Ruby had some longstanding romantic history with Kai, dating all the way back to her teenage years, which then might have made Cooper jealous of Kai. Maybe even enough to write a song about him? I must admit, it’s not a terrible theory. But it all depends on Savage opening his big mouth and spilling that bullshit story.
And then there’s Savage.
Door Number Two.
He’s less likely, I think. The only way he’d make sense is if those lyrics were a songwriting device, rather than a factual retelling, because Ruby’s never had a singular romantic impulse toward Savage, and vice versa. It certainly would be a genius-level marketing strategy for Cooper to hint at some lurid past between Ruby and our world-famous, global thirst-trap of a front man. But still, at the end of the day, that doesn’t seem like something hotheaded Cooper would do. It’s hard to believe he’d sing that passionately about a scenario fabricated out of whole cloth. One possibly designed to sell records.