Blame It On The Carols (Sugarplum Falls #6)

Thirty-Four | Makayla

Thirty-Four

Makayla

A iden was quiet on the way home from the bar, and I knew that it was because of the conversation at dinner about my going on tour. I wanted to assure him that it didn’t matter, we would find a way to keep our relationship alive while I was gone, but I couldn’t. I knew how insanely busy things were while I was on tour, and I didn’t want to make promises to him that I couldn’t keep.

By the time we got back to his place, I was exhausted. We grabbed our stuff from the truck and carried it inside, both ready to collapse on the couch when my cell phone started to ring.

“Hey, Curtis,” I said, tucking my legs beneath me as I sat down.

“Hello, my favorite person in the whole entire world,” he replied, making my eyebrows immediately arch.

“You’re never this nice to me. What’s wrong?”

I put the call on speakerphone when I noticed the concern on Aiden’s face. Sean was already in jail, and unless I had another stalker I wasn’t aware of, there was no need to be worried.

“I have some news.”

“Like good news or bad news?”

“Both.”

“Okay, you’re killing me here. Just spill it already, please.”

“Okay, so bad news first. Your upcoming world tour is being postponed. There have been some issues with the venues we booked in the UK as well as Tokyo, so we need more time to sort all of that out.”

“What kind of issues?”

“Capacity issues. They assured us we would be able to book a certain amount at each venue, but now they’re coming back, and those amounts are much smaller. So basically, we’ve oversold tickets because there isn’t enough space to accommodate every ticket holder safely. We’re back to square one with looking at new locations.”

“You’re kidding me. Those contracts were locked in place months ago. How are we just now finding out about it?”

“It seems the person we were working with was just arrested for embezzling and the person who stepped in to take over her job realized the issue and contacted me this morning.”

“You shouldn’t have to work on this stuff on Christmas, ” I stressed, hating that I had spent the day with family and friends while my manager was sorting out business issues for me.

“It’s not a big deal. I don’t mind working on holidays. It’s better than spending them with my mother, who wants to lecture me on all of my life choices.”

“Okay,” I said with a heavy sigh. “What’s the good news?”

“The good news is that you’re officially off for the next year. No tours lined up. When you get back to LA, I want to sit down and discuss the options for the world tour. If we’re going to have to start over from scratch, I’d like to make sure we’re doing things the way you’d like to. I also wanted to talk about doing a US tour since you haven’t done one of those in a few years.”

I worried my lip between my teeth as I felt Aiden stiffen beside me.

“I’m not coming back to LA,” I blurted out, surprising myself as much as Aiden, whose head whipped around to look at me.

“I’m sorry, what?” Curtis asked with a hint of humor in his voice. “Did I hear you right that you’re not coming back to LA?”

“You did,” I said slowly, testing my words. “I’m actually moving to Sugarplum Falls.”

I locked eyes with Aiden, tears filling mine as my nostrils burned as I tried to hold them back.

“I knew it. You went and fell in love, didn’t you?” Curtis teased.

“No. I never fell out of it.”