Behind the Bars Read online

  Table of Contents

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Part II

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Epilogue

  Behind the Bars

  The Music Street Series

  Brittainy C. Cherry

  BCherry Books

  Contents

  Behind the Bars

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Subject: Three A.M.

  Subject: Re: Three A.M.

  Subject: Re: Re: Three A.M.

  Subject: Happy?

  Subject: Re: Happy?

  Subject: Re: Re: Happy?

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Happy?

  Subject: P.S.

  Subject: Re: P.S.

  Subject: Re: Re: P.S.

  Subject: First time

  Subject: Re: First time

  Subject: Re: Re: First time

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: First time

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: First time

  Chapter Fourteen

  Subject: Making her proud

  Chapter Fifteen

  Subject: 4,624mi

  Chapter Sixteen

  Subject: Hey

  Chapter Seventeen

  Subject: Where are you?

  Subject: I don’t know

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Part II

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  GRIP Series by Kennedy Ryan

  On the Way to You by Kandi Steiner

  Cole, by Karla Sorensen

  Behind the Bars

  Book One in the Music Street Series

  By: Brittainy C. Cherry

  Behind the Bars

  Behind the Bars

  Copyright © 2017 by Brittainy C. Cherry

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published: Brittainy C. Cherry 2017

  [email protected]

  Editing:

  Editing by Ellie at Love N. Books

  Editing by C. Marie

  Lawrence Editing

  Proofreading: Virginia Tesi Carey

  Alison Evans-Maxwell

  Cover Design: Kandi Steiner

  Cover Models: Shailey Collier & Sammy Collier

  To every soul who has lost themselves.

  May your favorite lyrics lead you home.

  Part I

  “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”

  —Maya Angelou

  Chapter One

  Jasmine

  No.

  Hearing that word never got easier. It never felt numb or meaningless when someone said it to me. The way their eyes looked me up and down when I walked into a room…the way they judged me for everything I was and everything I wasn’t…the way they whispered as I stood still.

  No. No. Sorry. No, thank you. It’s a pass this time.

  I’d just turned sixteen, and I’d known rejection more than the average person. I’d been trying to get discovered in the music industry for years, and nothing had ever come from it except rejection.

  No.

  No.

  Sorry. No, thank you.

  It’s a pass this time.

  That didn’t stop Mama from driving me from meeting to meeting, from audition to audition, from one ‘no’ to another. That was because I was her star, her shining light. I was going to do everything she’d been unable to accomplish, because that’s what kids were supposed to do, she told me.

  We were supposed to be better than our parents.

  And I would be better, someday. All I needed was for the right person to tell me yes.

  I walked out of my third audition that week in New Orleans and I looked at all the other girls who were auditioning for the girl group. I thought I was more of a solo artist, but Mama said I should be happy with any kind of forward movement.

  “Girl groups are in right now,” she told me. “Pop music sales are big.”

  I never wanted to do pop music, though. My heart bled for soul but Mama said there was no money in soul music for a girl like me—only disappointment.

  All the ot
her girls auditioning each looked like me, but better somehow. Across the way, Mama’s eyes were wide with hope as she stared at me. A ball of guilt knotted in my gut as I forced a smile.

  “Well? How did it go?” she asked me, standing up from her chair in the waiting room.

  “Fine.”

  She frowned. “Did you fumble your song? I told you to keep rehearsing the lyrics. This school thing is taking too much time from the real work you should be doing,” she said disdainfully.

  “No, no. That’s not it. I didn’t forget my lyrics. They were perfect,” I lied. I had fumbled the words, but it was only because of the way the casting director looked at me, as if I was the exact opposite of the part they wanted to fill, but I couldn’t have Mama knowing I’d messed up because that could’ve jeopardized me staying at Canon High School.

  “You should’ve tried harder,” she scolded. “We’re spending so much on singing, acting, and dance classes, Jasmine. You shouldn’t be walking out of auditions saying it was ‘fine’. You must be the best. Otherwise, you’ll be nothing. You need to be a triple threat.”

  Triple threat.

  I hated those words. Mama was a singer, but her career had never taken off. She said right before she would have been discovered, she’d gotten knocked up with me, and no one wanted a pregnant superstar.

  She believed if she hadn’t put all her eggs in one basket, she could’ve made it in another field. Therefore, she made me a triple threat. I couldn’t just be a great singer, I needed to be the best actress and dancer out there, too. More talents meant more opportunities, more opportunities meant more fame, and more fame meant Mama might be proud of me.

  That was all I really wanted.

  “Well, we better get a move on,” she told me. “You have ballet practice across town in forty minutes, then your singing lesson afterward. Then I have to get home and have dinner ready for Ray.”

  Ray had been Mama’s boyfriend for as long as I could remember. There wasn’t a memory I had that didn’t include his face. For a long time, I’d thought he was my father, but one night when they both came home hammered, I listened to them fighting over how I was being raised, and Mama shouted about how Ray didn’t get a say in my life since I wasn’t his daughter.

  But still, he loved me like I was his own.

  He was the reason we moved around so much. He found decent success as a musician and was able to make a living touring around the world. Sure, he wasn’t a household name to a lot of people, but he did well enough to support himself, Mama, and me. We were Ray’s biggest groupies, and he made it his priority to take care of us.

  Mama never worked a real job. She bartended some nights, but not often. She said her job was making me a star, which included her homeschooling me so I wouldn’t lose focus. Being homeschooled was my only option, and I never complained. I was certain other kids had it worse.

  Yet, for the first time, when we’d stopped traveling for a while, Ray and I had both convinced Mama to let me go to public school. When I learned we’d be in New Orleans for a bit of time due to a gig Ray had gotten offered, I begged Mama to let me start my junior year at an actual high school, with kids my age. God, what I wouldn’t give to be surrounded by kids my age who weren’t just auditioning for the same roles as me.

  A chance to make real friends...

  I was shocked when she agreed to it, thanks to Ray and his way with words.

  It meant the world to me, but to Mama it meant time away from studying the craft of music. To her, high school was child’s play, and I was too old to still be playing.

  “I still don’t think public school was a good idea,” she said scornfully as we walked toward the city bus stop. “It’s distracting.”

  “I can do it all,” I promised, which was probably another lie, but I couldn’t give up being in school. It was the first time in such a long time that I felt like I belonged. “I’ll work even harder than ever before.”

  She cocked an eyebrow, unsure. “If you say so, but the minute I think it’s too much, I’m pulling you out.”

  “Okay.”

  It was six o’clock on Saturday evening when we stepped on the bus, and instead of going home, we headed to my ballet class. Mama handed me a bag of measured out raw nuts to eat beforehand, because otherwise I’d end up feeling faint. I wasn’t the best dancer in the class, but I wasn’t the worst. There was nothing about my body that read ‘ballerina’, though. My body was made like Mama’s: small waist, thick hips. I had curves in all the right places, except ballet class. In ballet class, I was the oddity.

  “Have you been eating clean?” the instructor asked me as she fixed my posture.

  “Yes. I had lemon water this morning then Greek yogurt with berries.”

  “And lunch?”

  “Salad with nuts and thin chicken slices.”

  She raised an eyebrow as if she didn’t believe me. “And snacks?”

  “I just had nuts on the way over here.”

  “Ah…” She nodded and placed her hands on my waist to straighten me up. “You look bloated. Maybe skip the afternoon snack.”

  A few of the other dancers giggled at her comment, and my cheeks heated up. They all looked at me as if I were a fool for even being in the class. If it weren’t for Mama, I wouldn’t have been, but she thought dance lessons were a very important part of becoming famous.

  It just made me feel like a failure.

  “Well, that was humiliating,” Mama barked after rehearsal, barging out of the studio. “You haven’t been practicing.”

  “I have.”

  She turned to face me and pointed a stern finger my way. “Jasmine Marie Greene, if you continue to lie, you’ll continue to fail, and your failure isn’t just yours. It reflects on me, too—remember that. Think of this as strike one of three. Three strikes means no more public school. Now come on, we must get to the studio.”

  Acme Studios was a tiny place on Frenchmen Street where I could get behind a microphone and record some of my songs. I always wanted to write my own lyrics, but Mama said I wasn’t skilled enough with the written word to ever do it on my own.

  It was an amazing studio, and most people wouldn’t have been able to record there, but Ray had a way of making great connections. I sometimes wondered if that was the only reason Mama stayed with him.

  I couldn’t understand what they had in common other than loving music.

  We made it to Frenchmen Street, and the moment we stepped foot there, I smiled. There was something about the energy of it that made me feel alive. Bourbon Street was famous to many tourists, but Frenchmen Street was where the magic of the locals existed. The music you could stumble onto always shocked me. It was amazing how a street could be filled with so much talent, so much soul.

  When Mama’s phone started ringing, she stepped aside to take the call, and that’s when it happened.

  That’s when I saw the boy who played the music.

  I’d always say I saw him first, but he’d argue that was a lie.

  Technically I didn’t see him at first—I felt him, felt his music crawl along my skin. The chords and bars of his saxophone sent chills down my spine. It sounded magical, the way the notes danced through the air, so hauntingly beautiful.

  I turned on my heels to see a skinny boy standing on the corner of Frenchmen and Chartres. He was young, maybe my age, maybe a bit younger, with thin-framed glasses sitting on his face. He held a saxophone in his grip and he played as if he’d die if the music wasn’t perfect. Lucky for him, it was more than perfect.

  I’d never heard anything like it. I got emotional listening to the sounds he was crafting, and I couldn’t help being on the verge of tears.

  How had he learned to play that way? How could someone so young possess so much talent? I’d been surrounded by musicians my whole life, but I’d never witnessed anything like this.

  He played as if he were bleeding out into the streets of New Orleans. He left nothing on the table and gave his music his all. In th
at moment, I realized I never gave anything my all—not like him, not like that.

  People started surrounding him on the street, tossing change into his open instrument case. They took out their cell phones to record his sounds. It was an experience to watch him stand on that corner. His confidence was high, and his fingers danced across the keys as if he had no fear of failure.

  Failure was probably not a part of his vocabulary.

  His music was beautiful, and kind of painful, too. I hadn’t had a clue that something could be painfully beautiful until that evening.

  Once he stopped playing, it was interesting what happened: the confidence he’d exuded completely melted away. His once strong stance dissolved as his shoulders slumped over. People complemented him on his music, and he struggled to make eye contact.

  “That was amazing,” a woman told him.