“And maybe he has a bit of a crush on you,” Brooks adds, his eyes moving from the picture to my face. He smiles at me and holds me in the intensity of his gaze. “Not that I could blame him.”
I don’t know what to say to that. It’s flattering. Exciting, even. But hearing it makes me feel even worse for being in his room—with Brooks.
I’m not a dummy. I know Grey had the picture for a reason. I imagine him looking at it. Thinking about me. Like I’ve thought of him, replayed our kiss a dozen times, his solid arms wrapped around me, the smoky sweetness of his tongue and his body pressed against me.
I’ve thought about our conversations, too, how quick and funny he is, thought about the sound of his voice, which I know in a whole new way now, because I’ve heard him sing.
Hell, if there’d been a headshot of Grey, I might have kept it on my nightstand, too. I completely regret not stealing the CD from his car.
But that’s a fantasy—some harmless fun. He’s too young and clearly too much of a mess to be anything more than that. Anything real.
“You feeling good about everything?” Brooks asks. His expression is calm, encouraging. It all feels so effortless with him, like he can take on anything, solve any problem with no fuss, no storms. “The audition, I mean. We can keep working on it if—”
“No, I’m good.” I wonder if I can sneak out for just a second to find Grey. I’m itching to talk to him. To clear up whatever wrong idea he has—of what Brooks and I were doing. Of me. The injustice of it sits like a rock in my chest. “I think . . . I’m ready. But can I have just a second?”
“Sure. Why don’t you come into the office when you’re all set?”
“Okay. I’ll be right in.”
He heads to Adam’s office, and I slip off in the other direction, toward the living room, thinking I might find Grey there. Instead, I come upon Mia and Beth on the couch together, and from the look on Beth’s face, I can see she’s unhappy. Which crushes me on the spot.
“But you can’t possibly know that—” Mia’s saying, though when she spots me, she falls silent, which makes me feel like an intruder.
All of this seems so unfair. Grey. Now Beth and Mia. All I wanted was a little scratch to get my cello out of hock and to keep my mom in groceries and electricity. I hate to be party to anyone’s unhappiness, and now Grey’s angry, and Beth’s in tears.
“I blew it,” she says. “It’s wide open for you, girl.”
Mia shakes her head. “Like I said, you can’t always tell. Sometimes I think I’ve shot a piece that’s absolute garbage. But I go back and look at it later and it feels different. So much better.”
“Believe me,” Beth insists. “I know.” My chest tightens at the look on her face. I think I liked it better when I was nine, and everyone got blue ribbons just for participating.
“Maybe they’ll let you read again?” I suggest.
She shakes her head and gives me a weak smile. “No, I kicked that door closed pretty hard. It’s all on you now, Sky. Go represent for the Valencia Three.”
Our nickname—the three of us in our little apartment on Valencia Court. Though Mia’s moving out—slowly, eventually. And if I don’t do this thing I may end up packing my boxes, too.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m so sorry, Beth. I hope it’s better than you think it is.”
“I hope so, too,” she says. “And maybe after we get a couple of drinks, I’ll let myself believe it. In the meantime, there’s no reason you can’t kill it.”
This whole night feels like one big reason, but I keep that to myself.
Garrett comes into the room. “Come on, love,” he says. “Let’s get this done before I turn into a pumpkin.”
We go into the office, where Adam looks up from his cell phone to give me a smile and Brooks stands, holding a digital video camera like the one Mia uses. He directs us over to a cream leather sofa by a broad picture window. Outside, the evening sky is a flat somber gray, but ocean sounds spill in, giving the room a contained, soothing feel.
“Do you prefer a certain side?” Garrett asks.
“Side?”
“Of the sofa. Do you like to be filmed from a certain angle?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” God, could I sound like a bigger dunce?
“Skyler needs some help picking out her good side,” Garrett tells Brooks.
Brooks folds his arms across his chest and considers. “I mean, they’re all pretty good.” Everything he says sounds like flirting but not. Maybe it’s that there’s nothing hesitant about it. He’s just rock solid. Putting it out there so I can decide what I want to do with it. Garrett comes to stand next to Brooks, and the next thing I know, he’s got his hands on my jaw, and he’s turning my face from one side to the other. Then he steps back.
“You’re right. They are both pretty good. Really good, in fact.”
They’re giving me the feeling of being a super attractive bug under a microscope. It’s flattering but creepy.
“So, why don’t we just, um, go with your good side, Garrett?” I say. “Just put me where you want me?”
Garrett sits right in the middle of the sofa, which is no help at all. I just choose a side, his left, and sit beside him. I spend a little time trying to get comfortable, deciding whether I should cross my legs or not. Trying to figure out what to do with my hands, which suddenly feel like lifeless lumps of clay at the end of my arms.
I can’t stop thinking about Beth. And Grey. It’ll be a miracle if I can remember my lines. And who knows how well I can act, really, when you put me with someone like Garrett. Someone who knows what he’s doing.
I guess I’m about to find out, I think.
“We ready?” Brooks asks.
“I need just a second, please,” says Garrett. He closes his eyes and leans against the back of the sofa. I watch his chest rise as he takes big, deep breaths, and a calm settles around us. When he opens his eyes to look at me, it’s like I’m pulled into this tight, intimate space with him. Just the two of us in this placid little bubble.
He reaches for my hand, and I give it to him. His palm is warm and solid.
“You’re going to nail this,” he says, and it’s not a question or a demand. Just a statement of fact. He releases my hand with a wink and turns to the others, patiently waiting. “I’m ready.”
We play the scene, another argument between George and Emma, but this one’s from earlier in the script. It’s playful. It doesn’t have quite the heat of the scene I played with Grey—for a lot of reasons, I guess—but I can still feel this crackle in the air between Garrett and me, this ease that makes it feel, truly, like we’ve known each other forever. It’s everything I thought it could be.
At one point, Garrett goes off script a little, teasing me. No, teasing Emma. Digging into her character flaws, challenging the way she likes to meddle, the way she thinks she has all the answers. I improvise back, my brain calculating all the possibilities for how to play it—angry, sad, strident—but I come back a little softer, more vulnerable.
This confidence of Emma’s is a mask; I know that somehow. She gives it right back to George, goes toe-to-toe, but I let the insecurities show, just a bit. Let the hurt show, the feeling of casting about in life, of trying to find her rudder by steering the lives of others.
And then Garrett moves us effortlessly right back to the script. Damn, he’s a pro. The scene seems to move us through dozens of emotional beats—flirting to serious to funny to wistful, and I ride along with it all, anticipating, more with my body than my mind, how to play each moment.
Everything else falls away, except Garrett, who’s right there with me, ahead of me sometimes, guiding me with his eyes, micro-movements of his body that I can read like I’ve studied him forever. It’s magical, the best kind of harmony
We finish, and there’s a second of silence in the room. And then applause.
“Wonderful!” Brooks exclaims.
I look over at Garrett, who gives me a wi
de, wide smile, those blue eyes alive and captivating. “Just like I told you,” he says. “Nailed it.”
Chapter 15
Grey
The first thing I see when I wake up is Skyler’s headshot on my nightstand. It’s facedown, and I know I didn’t do that, so there’s really only one explanation: she saw it. And didn’t like that she saw it.
I press my eyes closed, anger moving through me like a hot sting. It’s not like I meant for her to see it. I didn’t invite her in here. Images flash through my mind. Skyler’s soft lips just after I kissed her during our scene. Skyler jumping into the car when I picked her up at her place last night. Skyler sitting on my bed right where my left hand is.
With Brooks beside her.
I grab the headshot and rip it up. I can’t make myself throw the pieces in the trash, though. I toss them back on my nightstand. It was just a stupid infatuation. It’s not like anything was going to happen between us, and there are plenty of other girls out there. Whatever.
The time on my alarm clock flips to 6 a.m. My bedroom door is cracked and I hear the soft whir of the espresso machine brewing from the kitchen. It’s Sunday and on Sundays we get up and surf. Not today, though. Today, our mom arrives. His mom. Madeleine only raised me from the age of five, which shouldn’t even really count. Don’t they say the first five years are the most important in a kid’s life? Well, she had nothing to do with those. Not that my birth mom did, either. All I remember from those years was the smell of cigarettes and booze—and fear. Just a constant, constant fear. Of going hungry or getting hit. Of watching my birth mom drink. Worst of all, watching her let some new asshole into our lives, which would mean more getting hit and more going hungry for both of us.
The espresso machine shuts off, and I hear Adam moving around. I can’t believe he’s letting her stay here. He knows how things stand. Mom and I haven’t talked since August. I never want to talk to her again, and my head hurts, and there’s no way I’m staying here with her. Getting out of bed, I reach into my closet for my duffel and start throwing some clothes into it.
“You’re up. Are you sure you don’t want to—” Adam says, appearing at the door. He lowers the espresso cup, his eyebrows drawing together. “What are you doing, Grey?”
“Packing. Titus invited me to go on safari with him.” I mean, shit. What does he think I’m doing?
I head to the bathroom, grabbing my things from a drawer. I catch my reflection and see hard, pale eyes like concrete. My dad’s eyes. Adam took after Madeleine, in almost every way. Their calm temperament and long fine bones, like if they just ran fast enough, they’d take off flying. But I’m like our dad. Hard, volatile. Brawling stock. Husky. Big. Built to survive the back alleys of the world. Dad’s wealthy now but he grew up that way, on the streets, and still has some shady back alley running through his veins. I’m a souvenir from that part of him.
“You’re seriously leaving?” Adam says. “Where are you going to go?”
Wrong thing to say if he’s trying to stop me. I have no idea where I’m going. All I know is I’m not staying here. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. But the insinuation that I’m homeless without him, worthless without him, only makes me angrier.
“A hotel,” I say, though I know that’s a lie. That’s depressing, like something people do during a midlife crisis. Then it hits me. The band’s rehearsal garage. I’ll go there. It’s already my second home anyway.
I head back into my room and grab my keys off the dresser, then stop. Adam is still at the door, blocking my exit. “When is this going to end, Grey? What the hell happened between you two? What did Mom do?”
For the first time in the eight months since I left home, I actually want to tell him. I don’t know if I’m just tired of dodging his questions and her calls or what, but I hear myself say, “She didn’t do anything, Adam. I did. I screwed everything up.”
He’s silent for an instant, as surprised that I answered him as I am. “You couldn’t have. She’s been trying to talk to you since—”
The storm inside my head’s reaching hurricane levels. Time to go. I push past him, shoving him out of the way as I step into the hall. It still surprises me that I’m bigger than him, stronger, though I have been for years.
“Come on, Grey. Enough of this shit.” Adam follows me as I head for the garage. “If you’re going to run every time you don’t like something, you’re going to spend half your life running. Can’t you see that? Whatever it is, you need to stand and fix it.”
In the garage, I’m momentarily caught off guard when I see the Mercedes parked in my spot until I remember that’s my new work car. I hate that my truck is still sitting at the studio parking lot. Suddenly, it just seems too damn easy to get rid of important shit. You shouldn’t just be able to ditch things like a truck or a kid like some travel coffee mug you forgot somewhere then decide you don’t really need. My throat tightens, and my eyes blur as I throw my bag in the backseat. I have to get out of here now.
I hit my head as I climb into the Mercedes and it takes everything I have not to punch the car in retaliation. “You said she’d be here for two weeks, right? I’ll probably be back once she’s gone.”
Adam runs a hand through his hair in frustration, making it stick up. I can’t see inside the house anymore, but he sends a quick look that way. To Ali, I’m positive. We’ve woken her up, and he’s telling her to stay where she is.
That’s right. Stay away from Grey. He’s a hazard.
It feels like it’s taking a year for the garage door to open. Adam comes over to the car, and I hate that I left the window down because he props his hands there, and I can’t pretend I don’t hear him.
“I was trying to help,” he says. “I thought this would help.”
“I know. It’s fine, Adam.” I turn the engine. “You mind?”
His hands come away, and he straightens. I glance up for confirmation, and sure enough, there’s more pain than frustration on his face.
That’s what I wanted. I knew exactly how to play this so it would inflict maximum damage on him. It feels familiar. A lot like what I did with Mom. Madeleine. With people close to you, acting like you don’t give a shit is the worst thing you can do. At least a fight has meaning. There’s feeling in a fight.
“I’ll see you at work,” I say, and back out.
On the drive, I call Titus and have him meet me at the garage. I don’t want to sit around alone. I can’t.
He’s waiting when I get there. His bloodshot eyes take in the duffel I toss on the Titanic, my new bed, but he doesn’t say anything. All he says is, “You hungry? ’Cause I’m starving.”
We walk down to the coffee shop and order breakfast sandwiches. I look outside as we wait for them, feeling like a vagabond. I know this neighborhood, but it looks different to me now that I won’t be leaving it tonight. I try to figure out if it’s a place that feels like me, reflects some part of me. Rhode Island never did. Malibu hasn’t either. But Venice, for all its funky shops and low-key vibe, doesn’t feel like me, either. I wonder if connecting with a place is a real thing that happens to other people or if I’m just making it up in my head, like a myth. Some kind of physical plane I’ll never reach.
Titus starts to tell me about the show I missed last night. Blake Vogelson was there to check out the opening band, Heydey. Vogelson’s a producer at Revel Music. He’s pretty new on the music scene, but he’s already big time. He’s a genius at spotting talent, so everyone in the band—in my band—was buzzing. Just knowing that magic of discovery might happen—even if it’s for another band—had them all pumped. I know exactly what he’s talking about. That kind of energy, like life is happening, like moments are significant, is what I feel around Skyler.
“I’m not sure they had enough,” Titus continues. “The songwriting could’ve been better and the lead singer had a decent voice, kind of reedy, but she looked terrified up there. I felt bad for her. She forgot her lyrics a few times. It wasn’t easy to watch. But t
he cool thing is Reznick talked to Vogelson for a while. Rez managed to get his card. Vogelson said he’d take a listen to our demo.”
It’s good news. Normally, it would give me a major bump of adrenaline. If Vogelson actually listens to our stuff and he likes it, it could be life-changing. It could lead to a record contract, which is everything I want. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why I can’t seem to get as excited as I should be.
“Revel. Cool,” I say.
“Yeah. I think Rez was going to email him this morning.”
“Nice.”
Titus lifts a pierced eyebrow at my lame reaction, but he doesn’t say anything.
We get our food and grab a table outside. Titus tells me he thinks he’s going to keep his head shaved because this girl he likes commented on it last night. He’s not sure if it was a complimentary comment or not, but he’s guessing it was.
It’s an effort to follow along. I’m halfway here and halfway nowhere. Maybe my place is nowhere. Maybe I’m like a GPS that’s always recalculating routes, never setting a firm point on the world.
I’m being an asshole, I realize. I make myself respond.
“Wrong, dude. You have huge ears. Let it grow back,” I say. It’s actually the truth, and he had a pretty cool look when he had blond dreads. He kept them short, which gave him a sea-anemone-head look that was pretty unforgettable.
Titus runs a hand over his scalp. He smiles and tells me to go to hell, then keeps bringing the bullshit. Shane and Nora found a scrawny black kitten in the Whiskey’s parking lot after the show. Nora begged Shane to take it home because she can’t have pets at her apartment. Shane put up no resistance, and by the time they got it in the car, they’d named it Thor. Titus thinks it’s the first step in them settling down. He thinks they’ll be living together, with Thor, by summer.
“Sucks for them,” I say.
“Totally. Dude’s practically married,” he agrees, but we’re both lying. We’d both take what Shane and Nora have. Like, easy. Easy decision.
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