Flower

by Shea Olsen

  The breath stalls in my lungs. He waits for me to speak.

  “Ask me again,” I say after a few seconds have passed. I bring my gaze to his, and draw in a sharp breath at the look on his face.

  “Ask you what?” His eyes cut through me, making it hard to think clearly.

  “Ask me out again.”

  A glimmer of a smile reaches his lips. “Will you go out with me, Charlotte?”

  “Yes.” The word slips out easily now.

  He reaches across my waist, grabbing my seat belt and buckling it into place. His fingers graze my arms and blood roars in my ears. I ignore it, staring straight ahead.

  “I still want to know why you never told me the truth about who you are,” I say. “So don’t think I’m letting you off the hook yet. I need an explanation.”

  “You’ll get one,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting as he revs the engine.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “My house.”

  He pops the shifter into gear and releases the clutch. The car bolts away from the curb, zipping up Sunset and heading north. He drives aggressively, confidently, and even though I should be scared, I find myself smiling as we climb the Hollywood Hills. Then the car turns suddenly into a driveway and slows. I look ahead to see a gate blocking our way, but Tate hits a button on the dash of the car and the gate automatically swings open.

  The driveway twists down a slope, and his house comes into view just beyond a tangle of broad trees. I lean forward, stifling a gasp. Stone and concrete and glass windows rise up three floors, and the roof swoops upward like it might touch the thin wisps of clouds in the darkness overhead.

  Tate pulls the car around the circle drive in a swift loop, and stops beside two massive metal front doors. I glance over at him but he’s already stepping out of the car and coming around to my side. He opens my door and takes my hand to help me out. The warmth of his touch sends a flood of nerves straight through me. It was only a few days ago when his fingers last threaded through mine, but for some reason it feels like a lifetime ago.

  “Do you live here by yourself?” I ask.

  He leads me up the white gravel walkway. “Yeah. There used to be other people... Now it’s just Hank, but he lives in the guest house.”

  “Who’s Hank?”

  On cue, one of the impressive front doors swings wide, and standing just inside the house is a wide-shouldered hulk of a man. “What’s up, T?” the man says, extending a hand and giving Tate a casual fist bump. Hank is tall and thick, with a shaved head and a neck as broad as a tree trunk. But his smile is easy and affable.

  “Charlotte,” Tate says. “This is Hank, my bodyguard.”

  “Except lately T’s been leaving the house without me,” Hank points out, looking over at me. “Said he wanted anonymity, and a bodyguard draws too much attention. I suspect it has something to do with you.” He smiles, belying his harsh words, and reaches out for my hand, kissing the top of it. “So this is the Charlotte who’s been torturing my boy,” he adds. “I like that you haven’t made it easy on him. He needs to be kept in check from time to time.”

  I smile up at Hank, trying not to dwell on the fact that I know someone who has his own bodyguard. “I do what I can.”

  “I don’t think I like you two conspiring against me,” Tate says, tugging on my hand.

  “You done for the night, T?” Hank asks as we step into the foyer.

  “I think so,” Tate answers, and his eyes brush over me.

  “I’ll park the car in the garage, then. Let me know if you need it later.”

  “Thanks, Hank.”

  “And it was nice to meet you, Charlotte,” Hank adds.

  “You, too.”

  Hank closes the door behind him when he steps outside, and I’m startled by the expanse of the house before me. Dramatic concrete walls rise above us like a museum of modern art. Windows start at the floor, then sweep up to touch the ceiling. The whole place is lit by a soft golden light that seems to spring forth from every crevice and alcove, as if coming from the walls themselves.

  We pass through the living room, where a large white piano sits in the corner, so shiny that it reflects the overhead light. Everything is clean and starched and perfect. Almost too perfect. There are no framed photographs of family and friends, no signs that this house is truly lived in.

  Along one wall hangs a series of gold and platinum records—the titles of his hit songs and albums stamped below each one. It’s surreal. It hits me again, all at once—I’m here.

  I’m in Tate Collins’s house.

  SEVEN

  THERE ARE MORE RECORDS THAN I can count, and I want to ask about them, but Tate keeps walking, brushing past them like they’re not even there. The wall of windows overlooks a pool that seems to fall away on the far side, revealing a sudden drop-off and an expansive view.

  “Are you hungry?” Tate asks. “I don’t think I have much in the kitchen, but maybe some leftover pizza, or we could order something...”

  “No, I’m fine.” I don’t have much of an appetite anyway. I’m still wary of him, still feeling guarded. Just his proximity makes my heart rate quicken. “Can we go outside?” I ask, drawn to the pale lights shimmering up from the pool. I don’t know if I’ve ever been somewhere so beautiful.

  He touches one of the doors and it begins to spread open like an accordion, the entire glass wall folding in on itself so that the living room is now completely open to the back lawn.

  The air smells instantly of freshly mowed grass. The long, rectangular pool stretches out before us, illuminated in a vibrant blue. Beyond the pool is a broad swath of lawn overlooking the horizon to the south, vast and wide and spectacular—the entire world suspended in the distance. Tate leads me to the edge of the grass and I sit cross-legged beside him, too awed to protest when he takes my hand. We sit staring out across the sloping hillside, which falls away, revealing the glittering, endless mass of lights that is Los Angeles far below. The city looks remarkable from up here, like a fairy-tale landscape stretching out to the dark ocean beyond.

  “You get used to it after a while,” he says, as if reading my mind.

  “I don’t think I would. It looks so different from up here.”

  “It’s just an illusion.” He extends his legs out in front of him. “From a distance, anything can look beautiful.”

  I shift my eyes away from the skyline, and allow myself to examine Tate’s face. He always looks so guarded, his jaw locked in a tight line. I grow self-conscious about my hand in his, and pull it away, running my palms over the blades of grass.

  “Why?” I ask then.

  “Why what?”

  I dig my fingers down between the blades, feeling the slightly damp earth below. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

  His expression turns pensive, gazing out at the city lights for a long moment, and then he says, “I saw you, you know.”

  “Saw me?” I echo blankly.

  “Outside the flower shop that first night. That’s why I came in, because I noticed you through the window.” He licks his lips. “You were singing, and you were practically covered in glitter, dancing to that song playing from your phone.” His eyes flick down to my hands resting in the grass. “You were so happy and beautiful. It almost didn’t seem real—like I was imagining you.”

  His words are like sparks, igniting the space between us. No one has ever said anything like this to me before, and though my rational mind knows he might say this to every girl he brings home, still, my whole body is a rivulet of electricity. Nerves dance along my skin.

  “I didn’t really need to buy flowers,” he says. “I just wanted to talk to you. And when I realized you didn’t know who I was, it caught me off guard.” He frowns a little. “So I lied and said I wanted flowers
. But they were always for you.”

  I brush my hands over my knees, trying to ignore my reaction to his words.

  “After that, I knew I had to see you again,” he continues. “You...intrigued me. I can’t remember the last time I met someone who didn’t know who I was.” He actually looks a little self-conscious as he says it.

  “So you only asked me out because I didn’t recognize you?” I make my voice sharp, trying to cut the tension that’s building between us.

  “No. It wasn’t just that.” I can feel him looking at me now, but I refuse to turn and meet his gaze. I don’t trust myself. “There was something about you—there still is...”

  I’m not sure exactly what he means and I feel my forehead crease, but I still don’t look at him. “You didn’t need to lie,” I say. The reminder of that night, with the paparazzi, and the crowd pressing in around us, triggers a knot inside my stomach. I felt so stupid. And, even though it had only been one date, completely betrayed.

  “I didn’t lie,” he says, and I realize he’s right. He didn’t give me a false name or tell me things about himself that weren’t true, but it still feels like a trick. “I wanted to see if you would go out with me, even if you didn’t know who I was.”

  “So it was a test?”

  “No—not a test.” He shakes his head, and I feel his eyes slide over me: my cheekbones, my hair falling across my neck, my lips. “I’m curious about you.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” I tell him. “I’m not that interesting.”

  “I think you are,” he says. “I want to know more about you. One date wasn’t enough.”

  I don’t answer. I can’t. I can hardly keep my breath steady. He takes my hand again, brings my palm to his lips. I shiver as I watch the motion, the shape of his lips, then force my eyes away, back to the starry glimmer of city lights far below.

  “Is that real?” he asks, his voice close to my ear.

  “What?”

  He touches the inside of my left wrist with a rough fingertip, outlines the dark blue triangle drawn there.

  I snatch my hand away, and brush the triangle with my own fingers. Recalling memories there. “It’s just pen,” I say. “I’ve always drawn it.”

  “Does it mean something?”

  “Triangles are the strongest shape,” I say. “They can withstand pressure on all sides.” I turn my wrist away so he can’t see it. “I think my mom used to tell me that, but I can’t remember.” Too bad it didn’t work for her—she was never strong enough to say no to the men who pursued her. Just like Mia isn’t strong enough either. But this symbol reminds me that I can be different.

  “Do you need to be strong?”

  “We all do...at some point,” I answer. Like right now, I think. I need to remember my promise to myself. My future is already mapped out; I have a plan. And it doesn’t involve Tate or the hundred butterflies quivering inside my stomach.

  He exhales, loud enough that I can hear. “Do you draw other things, too?”

  “Sometimes.” All the time. I’ve always loved drawing and painting—when I was little I thought I’d be an artist when I grew up. But then I learned that most artists are not actually paid to be artists. Even Van Gogh and Monet weren’t recognized in their time. So I came up with a more practical plan. Straight As, internship, Stanford, top med school, residency, job. But I don’t tell Tate this.

  “I wish I could do that: draw or paint, create something out of nothing,” he says, leaning back on his elbows and tilting his head up to the sky.

  “You make music,” I say. “That’s way more impressive than some doodles.”

  His fingers are only a few inches from mine, and I can’t help but follow the line of his arm with my eyes, muscles taut up to his shoulder, to the broad slope of his neck, and the place behind his ear.

  “I don’t know if you can even call it music. It’s all just sound design and tricks in a studio.” He laughs bitterly, looking toward the sky, flooded with pinpricks of light—the stars so much brighter up here, not dulled by the glow of neon and streetlights. “I used to care about the music, it used to be mine...but not anymore. It’s been stripped of anything authentic.”

  “Is that why you stopped performing?” I ask. I don’t know much about the life and career of Tate Collins, but I’ve heard on the radio about how he hasn’t done a single concert or released a new album in over a year. He basically fell off the map, right at the height of his career. No one seemed to know why. And I never actually cared...until now. Now that I’m sitting beside him, on his lawn, with his fingers, his shoulder, his body so dangerously close to mine.

  He straightens. “There are other ugly things about the business.” His gaze suddenly clouds over, like he’s recalling things from another time. A memory I can’t see. “I let it get out of hand, and I can’t take it back.”

  “Take what back?”

  But he doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even shake his head. His stare is caught in the distance—on something far away.

  “But you still love to make music?” I ask softly, attempting to draw him back.

  “It’s been so long since I wrote anything, I’m not sure I remember how.”

  “I doubt it’s something you forget,” I offer, trying to sound encouraging.

  He turns and looks at me for the first time since we started this conversation. He presses his lips together, his eyes softening again, like he’s slowly coming back to the moment. “I hope you’re right.” And his mouth actually shifts into an easy smile, the dimple winking to life.

  “Of all your songs, which is your favorite?” I ask, hoping I might help him remember what he used to love about his music, maybe even recall what had inspired him once.

  “It’s probably not one you’ve ever heard of.”

  I look away, slightly embarrassed. “To be honest, I don’t really know many of your songs anyway.” I bite the edge of my lip and give him a grimace that I hope passes for a smile.

  He laughs—he actually laughs. “Even better.” Then he jumps up from the grass, holding a palm open to me. “Come here,” he says.

  I let him pull me up, and before I know it, he places a hand on my lower back, pulling me close, then laces his other hand through my fingers, as we start to dance.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, my heart battering against my ribs—my body pressed close to his.

  “You wanted to know what my favorite song is,” he says, drawing me closer. “This is the best way to show you. It’s a love song—it’s meant to be slow-danced to.” Before I can respond or protest or swallow the lump in my throat, he begins to hum. Softly at first, then whispering words to a song I faintly recognize—one of his songs. “If you knew what this felt like, to be without you, you’d never have left me.” And in his voice, in the sweet, cool tenor of his words, I hear the sound of Tate Collins—the singer.

  “Your eyes are like emeralds, your body like gold.

  “If you could still love me.

  “You don’t know what you’ve done...”

  He holds me gently, firmly, his voice a mere whisper, and I don’t resist, letting my eyelids slip shut. A breeze stirs up from somewhere, unsettling the leaves of a nearby tree, and even though the air is warm, goose bumps rise up on my arms. His hand tightens on my back, his fingers pressing into my shirt as he leads me in a slow, lazy circle. I feel myself slipping further and deeper into this moment, letting it take hold of me.

  I blink my eyes open and realize that he’s watching me, his face unreadable. Without a word, he starts leading me toward the house. He turns to me just before we reach the door, his arms going around my waist as he presses me against one of the stone pillars that encircle his back patio. His eyes search mine. I can see his pulse pounding at the base of his neck and then he’s leaning in close. Closer.

  I ta
ke a deep breath, my chest brushing against his, and he closes his eyes. Tentatively, I settle my hands on his chest, drawing in a sharp breath at my own boldness. He’s so warm. Beneath my palm I can feel the rapid beat of his heart.

  Tate draws his finger across my cheekbone, just beneath my eye. His body is so close—only a thin layer of air and clothing separate his chest, his torso, his lips from mine. I tremble and close my eyes, my lips parting in anticipation. I can feel his breath, warm and soft, drift across my lips, and I know he’s close. I know he’s going to kiss me.

  And I want him to.

  His arms tighten around me as he pulls me firmly against him; not even an inch divides us. A whimper escapes me and before I can say, think, do anything else, he moves in, pressing his mouth to mine.

  My senses overwhelm me. An explosion of nerve endings along the delicate surface of my lips. Unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. And everything I’d always imagined a first kiss should be. His lips move hungrily, gentle yet assured. I pray I won’t mess this up, going on pure instinct as his mouth connects with mine again and again. He captures my lower lip with both of his, giving it a soft tug before releasing it. My knees threaten to buckle and I clutch at his shirt, gathering the fabric in my fists.

  With every brush of his mouth on mine I feel like I’m soaring. He touches my face. My cheek, my jaw, my chin. His fingers drift down the length of my throat, my collarbone, lingering there. I suck in a shuddering breath, scared he’ll dare to go further. Excited that he might go further...

  My eyelids flutter open just as he breaks the kiss. Our breathing is harsh, our chests rising and falling in tandem, and he draws back for only a second, his dark eyes boring into mine. Asking a silent question that I answer with the tiniest nod.

  And then he’s kissing me again. More intensely this time, my lips parting beneath his, his warm tongue grazing my skin. I gasp against his insistent mouth and he takes advantage, deepening the kiss. My heart is racing when his finger traces down the center of my chest, between the twin curves of my bra, playing with the low neckline of my shirt.