“Thanks,” I mutter to Levi when we’re interrupted by a waiter. He grabs me another glass of champagne and one for himself before leaning over to whisper, “I was trying to make the encounter less awkward. I figure I have enough of that coming my way in the next thirty seconds.”
I suppose he had made it less awkward than if we had to take the reins of our formal introduction into our own hands. And he had a good point about his own reunion, a fact which becomes obvious the moment the waiter walks away.
“Hey, Daltrey,” Levi says, his voice light and cheery. “How you been?”
Daltrey swallows several times, his face an expressionless mask, before he seems to jump, or twitch. I wonder if Daisy stepped on his toe, because he’s finally nodding in Levi’s direction. “Glad to see you.”
“You look really glad,” Levi says, and Cash laughs.
Daltrey scowls at his older brother. When it appears clear he doesn’t have anything else to say, Levi sighs. “Can we go talk?”
Daltrey looks like it’s the last thing in the world he wants to do, but he nods once before following Levi out of the crowded room.
“Wow,” Reed says, shaking his head. “That really couldn’t have been more awkward, could it?”
“Levi handled it well,” Cash says, looking at Daisy. “No offense, but he handled it a lot better than Dalt.”
Daisy holds up her hands. “No argument here. Daltrey has been acting like a baby about all of this for ages.”
The two old friends are gone for about five minutes. When they return, Daltrey is red faced and Levi is rolling his eyes. I don’t get the sense it went entirely well.
“I’m going to get a drink,” Levi announces to the group as Daltrey resumes his place next to Daisy. “Anyone want anything?”
“I could use a drink,” I say quickly, not really wanting to stand around with the couples on my own. “I’ll come with.”
I wait until we’re a few feet away to look up at him. He smiles ruefully. “That kid is a punk.”
I laugh. “I was really proud of you. You handled that perfectly.”
He shakes his head. “Thanks. I think I held my own. I apologized for lying to him and said I hoped we could work together.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much.” He gestures at the bar set up on the other side of the room. “Hence the need for a drink.”
When we get to the bar, he gives me a questioning look. “Is it a Jack and Coke kind of night?”
“I definitely think it is.”
Once we have our drinks, we survey the room. “You’re not going to make me go back over there, are you?” he asks, and I laugh.
“I can think of a few reasons why I’m in no hurry to rejoin them myself.”
Levi holds out his glass, and I click mine against his. “To the outsiders.”
I snort taking a drink, and suddenly I feel much better. The party—even the tour—doesn’t feel like such a scary thing now that Levi is here. It’s far easier to be an outsider with someone else than on your own.
My good mood lasts about as long as it takes to take another sip of my drink. Before I’ve even removed the glass from my mouth, I see him, standing a few feet away, watching me.
Dan Brooks, Ransom’s tour manager and my biggest mistake, smiles at me, waving me over, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be sick.
Chapter Eight
Levi
The change in Karen happens so suddenly, it would be impossible not to notice. Her entire body tenses, much more violently than it had at the mention of Sam’s name, and her face immediately goes pale. Before I can ask her what in the hell is going on, Dan appears at our side.
“Levi,” he says, slapping me on the back. “Good to see you again so soon.”
“You too.” On my other side, Karen is shrinking away, as if trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and Dan.
“We still on for lunch tomorrow? There are a lot of details to go over.”
“Absolutely.” I can’t help being short with him, even though Dan is technically my boss. I just want him to go so I can ask Karen what in the hell is happening.
“Karen,” he says brightly, and she flinches. “I hear you’re going to be joining us, as well. Could we talk for a few minutes?” His eyes dart to me before falling on her again. “About work.”
“Not right now,” she says, and I’m shocked by the change in her voice. She doesn’t sound at all like herself, suddenly all timid and shaky instead of snappy and strong. What in the hell is going on? She holds up her drink. “I’m not very clearheaded for a work discussion.”
He watches her for a long moment, and the feeling of unease in my chest grows. “I’ll call you tomorrow then,” he says. “Now that I know you’re in L.A. there should be plenty of chances for us to chat.”
She flinches again, but Dan nods to me once and then turns, disappearing into the crowd.
“What in the hell was that?” I ask, looking down at her. Her eyes are closed, and she’s gripping her glass so tightly, her knuckles have gone white. “Karen?”
“It’s nothing,” she mutters, but when she looks at me, I can see in her eyes that it’s certainly not nothing.
“He’s the guy,” I say, realization dawning. “The one you talked about in Colorado—the married guy who broke your heart.”
She winces, looking away. I have the strangest urge to go over and kick Dan’s ass, boss or no. What in the hell was he thinking? Sure, he’s always had a reputation of being a womanizing creep out on tour. I would have been shocked to have heard that he was faithful to his wife. But to get involved with someone so much younger, someone who had worked for the band, someone who was so close to Daisy. What an idiot.
And, judging from the look on Karen’s face, what an asshole.
“I take it I’m not the only one who didn’t want to come on this tour, huh?”
She lets out a weak laugh. “I am such a dumb ass.”
“Hey, don’t say that. You’re not.”
She arches an eyebrow at me, finally looking more like herself. “Really? I slept with a married guy. A guy I used to work for. A guy who manages the tour of my best friend’s boyfriend’s band. Of course I was going to run into him again.” She shakes her head. “And that’s not even the worst part. I thought I loved him.”
She looks so despondent, so ashamed of herself. “Hey.” I nudge her shoulder with mine so that she’ll look up at me. “I’m actually well acquainted with the whole falling in love with the wrong person thing.”
For one second, she looks like she might cry, but then she’s laughing. “God, when you said we had a lot in common, you weren’t joking, were you?”
I feel much better now that she’s laughing. “How about I distract the bartender, and you steal us a bottle of something.”
“Why do I have to do the stealing part? You’re just afraid of getting caught.”
“Hey, if you get caught, you can do that whole batting-the-eyes, flipping-the-hair, gorgeous-girl routine you have going on to get out of it.”
Karen looks away. Is she blushing? “Fine. I’ll get the bottle.”
“Hang on!” I grab her hand to stop her from walking back to the bar. “We need a rendezvous point.”
She glances around the room before her eyes light up. “Reed has a patio out there down by the edge of the hill. Totally private.”
I waggle my eyebrows at her. “Private, eh?”
She laughs. “We don’t really have the best track record of responsibility when it comes to drinking Jack Daniels alone in secluded spots.”
“Particularly not spots at the edge of hills.”
I meant it to come across jokey, but somehow my voice comes out raspy instead. Maybe it’s the image that flashes through my mind—Karen lying under me in the snow, her gaze locked on mine, golden hair flowing around her head. I swallow. “Anyhow. Patio sounds good.”
She nods, looking equally flustered.
I head over to the bar, seeing Karen out of the corner of my eye as she comes around the side. “Hey, man,” I say to the bartender. He looks to be in his late twenties, and from his beard and dark-rimmed glasses, I have a feeling I might be dealing with a hipster. Piece of cake, I think. “I was wondering if you had anything decent from a microbrewery.”
The guy makes a huffing noise. “I wish. This party is purely a Heineken type of deal.”
“That’s a shame.”
Behind him, I see a long, tanned arm dart across the counter, coming away with a bottle of amber-colored liquid. Score.
Unfortunately, my plan to distract the guy with talk about pretentious beer works a little too well. I’m forced to endure the next five minutes of him blathering about the most obscure beers he’s tried and his own attempts at brewing in his garage. It’s not until another guest comes up and asks for wine that I can escape. By the time I turn away, Karen is long gone.
I slip through the crowd toward the sliding glass door Karen indicated. Across the room, I see Reed, Paige, Daisy, and Daltrey laughing about something and feel a little stab in my chest. Somehow in the time I was gone, it seemed like everyone had paired up. No wonder Karen said she felt like an outsider.
It’s dark as hell outside, but I manage to find the patio Karen mentioned by following a lit paved path across the lawn. She’s sitting there on a stone bench, her back to me, moonlight glinting off her hair. She really is a gorgeous girl, I think, sliding next to her on the bench. How in the world did I manage to get her into my bed?
“Can you believe this view?” she says in lieu of a hello. I look out across the edge of the hill, noticing for the first time how breathtaking it is. I had been too distracted looking at her to notice before, but Reed’s house is situated at the edge of a steep hill, the valley spread out in front of us, all lit up, the moon bright above.
“Wow,” I mutter. “That’s amazing.”
“You should see the sunset.”
I turn away from the view to look at her. “You’ve seen the sunset here?”
“I’m staying here. With Paige.” She sighs a little. “The guys were in New York so we had the place to ourselves. But now…”
“Reed is back. So you’ll be sharing the place with the lovebirds.”
I think I see her grin in the darkness. “I have a feeling I’ll be spending a lot of time out here.”
“Hey, it’s only for a few days. Then you get to be on a crowded bus with them for the next twelve weeks. And Reed’s brothers and their girlfriends.”
“Awesome.” Her voice is flat and toneless, and I can’t help but snicker.
“At least you won’t be alone in it.”
She leans toward me so that our shoulders touch. “I am grateful for that.”
We’re quiet for a moment, watching the view. “So how’d she talk you into it?” I ask. “From the way you talked in Colorado, I didn’t think I would see you hanging out with Ransom for the foreseeable future.”
“She’s dropping out of school.” Karen’s voice has gone from flat to downright stricken. “She said this would be our last hurrah.”
“That sucks. Why is she dropping out?”
“Why do you think? Don’t you know they have a world tour after this?”
“She’s leaving the band to follow Reed?”
Karen bristles a little at my implication. “She’ll do the design work for the band. She did an internship with them, and it went really well. She’s crazy good—this is a chance to work instead of sit in a classroom.”
She’s defensive about her friend, I think. I remember how scatterbrained Paige can seem, how excitable and over the top. I wonder if maybe Karen has a lot of experience defending her.
She sighs. “And she wants to follow Reed.”
“I can’t really blame her. I would rather be traveling the world than hanging out in Tennessee.”
“Are you going to?” she asks. “Work on the world tour?”
I shift on the uncomfortable bench. “I’m not sure. It…depends.”
“On how things go.”
I nod in the darkness. “Exactly.”
“How’d he do it, anyhow?” she peers up at me. “Lennon. How did he get you to come back?”
I’m pretty sure that Lennon’s insistence that his brothers don’t find out about his troubles would extend to Karen, as well, as much as he might like her. But that doesn’t mean that I have to lie outright. “Um, it’s kind of complicated. Lennon…he’s having a hard time. He thought it would help if I was around.”
“Is he okay?” her voice is immediately sharp, concerned.
“He’s fine. He just wanted a friendly face around.”
“Do his brothers know that’s why he asked you? Because Daisy didn’t say—”
“They don’t know anything. No one knows anything, Daisy included. I can trust you to keep it that way, right?”
“Of course you can. I just…I hope he’s okay. Lennon is my favorite one.”
I grin at that. “I think he’s everyone’s favorite one. Those of us who actually know them, anyway.”
“Will you tell me if there’s anything I can do to help?”
“Sure. But he’s fine.” I hope. Please let him be fine.
“So here we are,” she says after a pause. “Both of us doing something we didn’t really want to do because our friends needed us.”
“Pretty much.”
She holds up the bottle of Jack that she stole from the bar. I had completely forgotten about it. “Well then cheers to us, for being fantastic fucking friends.”
I laugh and take the bottle when she offers it. I gulp down a long mouthful before handing it back. “So. You want to tell me about Dan?”
Her shoulders sink. “What’s there to say? I think we already covered how stupid I was.”
“I think we were pretty clear that you weren’t stupid, because we all make mistakes about love.”
Karen takes a long drag of whiskey. “There was flirtation for a long time. Even back on that first tour.” She looks over at me, guilt on her face. “I didn’t know he was married. I never would have—I wouldn’t have done that.” She’s quiet for a minute. “I don’t think I would have,” she whispers.
“When did it…turn into something?”
“We hooked up in Mexico last year when the guys brought us all down there for New Years. It was just a fun fling.” She pauses. “I try to tell myself that Paige getting together with Reed at the same time is just a coincidence, and that I’m not so fucked up that I can’t deal with my best friend being happy and moving on.”
“Hey, being a little fucked up is kind of a must in the entertainment world.”
She hands me the bottle, shaking her head at my attempts at levity.
“So was that it? A hook up in Mexico?”
“I wish that had been it.” She sighs. “I saw him again when I went to visit Paige on the tour. Then he had this gig in Nashville that summer.” She’s quiet for a long time. “Three weeks he was there. I practically lived in his hotel room. I was head over heels by day two.” She laughs bitterly. “It was exciting, you know, keeping it a secret. He said it could get him into trouble if the guys knew about us. I had no idea he meant trouble with his wife.”
“How did you find out?”
“I heard him on the phone the day before he left Nashville. It was obvious who he was talking to. I confronted him, and he admitted everything. He actually tried to tell me that it wasn’t his fault, because we never discussed exclusivity.” She shakes her head. “I felt like such a fool.”
“He’s the fool. Actually, he’s the prick. Failing to disclose your wife is an entirely different thing than failing to have the monogamy talk.”
“Right?” She turns to me, looking much more animated than she had a moment ago. “That’s what I thought too. But he kept calling me and telling me how complicated it was and that I was over-reacting and needed to give him a chance—”
“That’
s bullshit.”
“Thank you! I almost started to believe him, you know? He was talking like I was being so unreasonable. And I had no one to talk to about it—”
“Paige doesn’t know?” With as close as the two of them are it seems completely impossible that she wouldn’t have told her best friend.
Karen hangs her head. “I didn’t tell her at first because I didn’t want to mess things up for him if Reed ever found out. And then…after…I felt too ashamed.”
“You don’t need to feel ashamed. Like you said, you didn’t know.”
“That’s bullshit, Levi.” Her eyes flash at me in the dark, and I can see that she’s angry—at herself or at me I can’t tell. “I might not have known before it started, but that hasn’t kept me from mooning over him ever since.” Her face twists into a snarl, and I think it’s definitely herself that she’s mad at. “When have I ever been the kind of girl to moon over a guy, any guy? For months. What in the hell is wrong with me?”
“Karen, there’s nothing—”
“The minute he told me, I should have hated him. But I didn’t. I don’t.” Her face crumples, but she manages to pull it together, her hands balled into tight fists on her legs. “I still took his calls. Answered his emails. Stored up his little compliments and declarations in my heart like a fucking thirteen-year-old.” She shakes her head. “I definitely have plenty to be ashamed about.”
Her words strike a cord with me. “There were all these moments,” I say, my voice quiet. “With Daisy. These stupid, inconsequential moments. When she was just looking at me like a friend, but I built it all up into something special.” I snort. “I know exactly what you mean, Karen.”
“Do you still love her?”
I don’t answer right away. “Who the hell knows? I think for a long time, I was in love with the idea of her. And then…it was like I liked being angry, as dumb as that sounds. I felt righteous. I was better for her than him.” I shrug. “I guess it gave me somewhere to direct my energies. But now…I don’t know. Seeing her just now was like a punch to the gut.”
“I could tell.”
I turn to stare at her. “You could? I thought I did such a good job of covering it.”
Relent Page 9
