by Natalie Wrye
“I pretend that toupee piece on your head is real?”
He shakes his head, his hands unconsciously flying to his sideburns. “No. Not exactly.” He gazes at Marilyn and then back at me. “You know Sophie Santenelli? Because I have reason to believe you do…”
My chest squeezes, the alarms in my head now blaring out of control. I wish, for once, I would listen to the damned things.
Chapter 7
ELSIE
I wish I would have listened to the warning sounds in my head more. The ones that told me to turn back. To let it go.
The ones that told me to stay the hell in Kansas where I belonged but I didn’t.
My arms are cold. The rain still hasn’t let up. Seven hours after the surprise theft, I stand in the middle of a strange doorstep, and I take a deep breath, praying it won’t turn into tears. I wait under the steady drizzle from the sky, my eyes closing as the police alarms from earlier fade from my consciousness and the ones in my head blare louder.
Until suddenly the door opens, a dull light streaming from inside.
I open my eyes to stare at the woman standing across the threshold. I tighten my hold around my arms.
“I’m—I’m sorry. Thanks for inviting me over,” I stutter. “I didn’t know who else to go to. And I had your number, so…”
“So…” Violet Keats emphasizes. “You did the right thing. Now come on. Get your ass in here.” She waves me in, her long flowing hair still luxurious around her shoulders. “You’re in luck. I just made some tea.” She ushers me inside.
Violet Keats’ brownstone is warm, a quintessential old New York home. A warmly decorated throwback to yesteryears, the fall, the homey tones inside lull me into comfort, the pretty pictures on the wall making me feel right at home. I feel at ease. For the first time all day.
The air smells like chamomile and lavender, and as I sit on the couch, Violet hands me a hot cup of dark, wonderfully scented tea, and I sip it slowly, my lips blowing over the steam, the dark liquid slipping down my throat with a scorch that I so sorely need. I need to feel anything but numb. Numb from terrifying fear that won’t let go. I clear my throat, feeling warmer inside her living room than I have in days. I inhale more of the tea’s aroma, settling in as Violet gazes in my direction. She raises a hand.
“You don’t have to tell me anything. If you don’t want to.” She leans in. “Trust me… we’ve all been there. Some more recently than others.” She shakes her head. “I won’t pry.”
But I almost want her to. I need to tell someone how I feel. Someone who isn’t my self-medicating mother or twice-married father. Someone who might give a shit that I’m by myself in a city with no one to turn to, all predicated on a lifelong dream.
I sigh… and decide to start from the beginning. I tell Violet everything.
I tell Violet about the thief who stole my box—the one who disappeared down the street. I go into detail about the ones who obviously came with him, clearly waiting in the wings to steal the rest of my stuff—a fact I finally realized when Brett and I returned to my apartment, which was practically empty, almost every possession I owned magically gone.
I tell her about the talent competition that brought me to New York, the famous show “American Superstar.” I explain how the first auditions are less than twenty-four hours away, waiting for me and ten thousand other people at the start of a new day.
I tell it all. Even the parts about my best friend’s infuriating brother. And she listens.
With no knowledge of my past or future, Violet Keats lets me spill out my life story, never interrupting. If it wasn’t for her expressive eyes, I’d think she was frozen in stone. Her bright blue eyes, fringed with long lashes and tinted with pain, stare at me as they had done in the bar, the icy blue color putting the Arctic frost to shame. The emotion behind them betrays the lawyer’s expressionless face, and in a fuzzy sweater and leggings, she peers at me over the lip of her own steaming mug, her stare focused and downturned. She takes a sip of her mug and pulls back.
“So why are you here?”
I blow out a harsh breath. “American Superstar. I wanted to sing. I wanted to…”
“No,” Violet leans forward, setting her own drink on the wooden table, her blue eyes flashing “No. Why are you here?” she emphasizes.
I freeze. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you… I…”
“No, you’re not,” Violet interrupts, her voice sharp. “You’re telling me why you came here, not what you’re still doing here.” She crosses her arms. “If you can’t hack it, then go home. There are plenty of people here to make it on American Superstar, and they would love to have one less contestant to compete against.”
My stare hardens at her heartless response. “It’s not so easy.”
“Yes,” she nods, her icy glare unfeeling. “Yes, it is. You’d book a plane ticket with whatever’s left in your wallet. Go back to Kansas. You’d be like every other tourist in the city, trying to make it big, only to hightail it back home with their tails between their legs.” She looks me up and down. “Isn’t that right?”
Okay… I take a deep breath. Where did this grade A asshole come from? Violet’s demeanor is shifting faster than an underage kid on a school night. Is that what Manhattan is? Full of assholes? If so, then I’m obviously learning a lesson. Course number two-oh-two: How to piss off Elsie Carpenter. I’m sure Brett could teach the course by now.
I push to my feet, exhaling. I set my cup down. “I’m not running with my tail between my legs. I’m not doing anything right now. But I wish I were…” I stare down at Violet. “Right now, my head is telling me to get the hell out of here. Out of your place. Not the city. Because I sure as hell ain’t fucking leaving. I’m stronger than that,” I assert at last.
Violet rises to her own feet. “Good… I’m glad to hear it.”
I blink as she smiles slowly at me. “What…?” My head hurts from all the whiplash. “I don’t freaking get it.”
“Kansas…” the redhead starts. “I tried to explain to you before: This city is not for the weak.” She nudges my shoulder. “But you’re not weak.” Her smile morphs into a laugh. “Batshit crazy, maybe. Joining in to chase a thief through the street like that… but not weak. No weak person would have tried to help the stone-cold bitch I was when we bumped into each other outside of that bar.” It’s my turn to smile. “But you did… And just like you put up with my bull, you’ll put up with this borough because let me tell you: A whole world of hurt is going to come your way on the road to the top. The question is…” She sighs. “Are you tough enough to still take it?”
I release a shaky breath. “I think so.”
She grins. “Good.” She sits back on the couch. “Now drink the rest of your tea,” she says, stretching. “I want all the details about what happened last night.” She inclines closer. “Tell me all about this guy… Brett.”
I laugh a little, my shoulders shaking as I gaze down at her. “Maybe… but first I’d like to use your bathroom.”
Violet points a red-painted nail over my shoulder. “Sure. Across the hall.”
I follow the direction of her finger, and soon I find myself sheltered in a small powder room the size of a closet and cloaked in more money than the law should allow. The curtains are expensive, the piping seemingly platinum. But it’s not the amenities that draw me to the tiny room in which I stand; it’s the floodgates of tears beating at my eyelids. The same ones that started just yesterday when I set foot in this city and have refused to let go. The same ones I felt when I stormed out of Brett’s last night.
My body is battling with my brain. And it’s only been one day since I arrived.
The surface of me is still unshaken. The mirror tells me that. But it’s my eyes that worry me, the expression in them that I can’t quite erase. The reflection of fear.
I’m scared that I’m not good enough. That I’ve never been. That American Superstar will take one look at the generic blonde with big curly hai
r and pass me off as all the rest. Nothing more than a bimbo trying to beat the odds.
I’m scared they’ll see everything in me my mother has always seen—a quitter. And once they taste my bitter failure, they won’t come back for a second bite. And I’m scared of Brett. I’m scared I don’t belong.
And the fear floods behind my eyes, stinging and squirming—the well inside of me building. My heart wants to let the tears fall; it always wants to. But it’s my head that stops it, that puts in place another brick. Another addition to the wall I’ve been fortifying since I was fourteen fucking years old.
The wall is in my eyes when I glance back at the mirror. I open the door several minutes later and exit into the living room, and I take my seat again beside Violet, I notice the small smirk in her eyes. I grab my now lukewarm cup of tea, tilting it towards my mouth. My eyes bounce around the room.
“What? What I did I miss?”
“Oh nothing,” she practically sings. “Seems you’ve got a friend that really cares about you. Called twice already. I picked up and they said they’re sending a car. You do have people who care, Kansas. Good for you.” She nudges me with one fuzzy cotton shoulder.
I smile. “It’s Kayla. She’s always been there for me when I needed her. She’s the one who paid for my movers… even though technically I don’t have anything to move anymore.” I reflect on my lost belongings. I turn to Violet. “What did she say?”
Violet grins. “You see… when I said that you have people who care about you, Kansas… I never specified whether that ‘people’ was a boy or a girl.”
My stare widens, my heart leaping into my throat. I almost drop my tea. “Please tell me you didn’t…”
“I’m sorry,” she grimaces, shaking my phone in front of my face. “But I did. I only thought I was helping…Brett told me to tell you he’s on his way.”
Chapter 8
BRETT
Five missed calls. Seven text messages. A short drive to 24th street. And a fucking voicemail.
I’ve never had to chase a woman like this. Never in my life.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
Elsie Carpenter is just a friend of the family. Nothing more.
What we shared was a long fucking time ago, a thing of the past. Elsie can’t be a part of my present. Because she’s too damned stubborn, too damned independent and too damned close to my sister to be anything else. Anything else but a distraction.
Especially after the deal I’ve just signed with the devil.
Half a million dollars in this city is not a lot; I’ve got at least that amount invested in my tattoo business. But a desperation offer by Reed Hutton of two million changed my tune and before I left his palace of an office, I found myself signing on a dotted line, putting my entire dignity down on the paper as I scrawled across the sheet that would sign away my fate.
I still don’t know if I made the right decision. But what’s done is done. I’m in it for the next year.
Twelve months of being Reed Hutton’s tattoo TV star was the key to the dream I’d never seen, and as I unlocked the door leading to the building of my franchise, a second tattoo shop—a life that I’ve always felt was mine, I notice that the sugar I expected doesn’t seem so fucking sweet.
Sloshing through the wet streets outside of Violet Keats’ house, my fist start pumping hard around the steering wheel clenched in my right hand, my teeth tightening with it. I gnaw the toothpick in my mouth to a whittle and soon I’m swinging the door to my Beemer, spitting the chewed piece of wood onto the sidewalk. I stalk through the rain, ignoring the heavy drops that soak right through my skin, and I jump up the steps, two at a time, to the address now emblazoned in my mind. I knock.
The door swings open after several seconds. A pretty redhead answers.
“Well, well, well.” She gazes at my wet t-shirt. “There isn’t nothing ‘none’ about you, is there?”
I squint at her face. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t mind me,” she waves in my direction. “Come in, come in.”
I step inside her spacious home, my shoulders hunched against the cold. She shuts the door behind me.
The rain, cold and wet, is a vast difference to the sun that’s sitting inside Violet Keats’ home. It’s as if I’ve landed into autumn, stepped into a few months’ future. Warm hues of orange and cream welcome me inside, and within the interior of her sparse, sophisticated living room, I find myself admiring the quaint cozy view, the ambience of this ancient brownstone so unlike the swank suite I’ve built for myself. All concrete and brick. Marble and glass.
Beautiful in their own unique ways, the two homes remind me of how far I’ve traveled from my Kansas roots, how separate the lives I’ve led have been on my road to success. But before my thoughts can sink into the extremities any further, the sensation of someone staring at me pulls me back into reality, back into the room.
My gaze finds Elsie sitting on the edge of a cushiony cream sofa, her brown eyes burning a hole into my wayward soul. I glare back, and she sighs.
Her shoulders lift. “You know I’d rather risk a head of lice than stay with you, don’t you?”
“Duly noted.”
She hugs herself. “You have a lot of nerve coming here.”
“Also noted.”
“There’s a reason I didn’t pick up your calls, didn’t answer your texts. You don’t seem to get the hint. I don’t want to talk to you, Brett.”
“You mean the lice wasn’t the reason?” My tone pitches low.
“Honestly?” she unfolds her arms, looking up at me. “Why are you here, Brett? Did you want to see me at rock bottom? Did you want to gloat in my ‘fall from grace’?”
I blink. “What… Elsie, no. You can’t be fucking serious. I would never want to do that. I told you before…” I motion with my hands. “Bastard. Cruel bastard. There’s a difference. And I’d like to think I’m the former.”
She stands. “All evidence to the contrary.” Her scoff is harsh. “And I am serious. Dead serious. Morgan Freeman-levels of serious with you right now.” Her brown eyes burn. The strap of her camisole slides off her shoulder, revealing more skin and I struggle not to look at it. Her coca-colored eyes are calm, despite the anger radiating off her in waves, and in a thin white top with a hoodie tied around her minuscule waist, she looks small, her frame deceptively tiny. Her legs are bare beneath a pair of knitted white shorts and over her toes sit a pair of Converses, the white color matching the glint of her perfect teeth. Teeth that peek beneath a pink lip, one I already know to be supple and soft.
I take in every detail that my eyes will allow and even a few that they won’t, listening to Elsie breath, remembering how sexy every exhale once was when she lay beneath me, her curvy body trembling. I bite my bottom lip to stop my trail of thoughts, and Elsie keeps going.
“Besides…you wouldn’t want to keep What’s-Her-Face waiting, would you?” she asks. No. ‘Accuses’ more than ‘asks’ and the tinge of a pink flush hits her face. And for the first time since I’ve been in front of her, taking her wrath, I find a crack in her armor, a stitch in her hardened shell. I poke at the stitch in her bold attitude, my eyes narrowing in her direction. I take a single step.
“Is that so, Morgan Freeman?” I walk closer. “Why do you care so much?”
Elsie blinks, her lashes lowering before rising quickly again. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” I repeat. Poke. Poke. Poke. “Why do you care so much about women coming to my house anyway?”
She exhales loudly, her chest heaving with the motion. “I don’t,” she shoots back. “I just would appreciate it if you wouldn’t turn your house into a fuck-fest on the one night that I’m there, that’s all.”
“Is that the reason?” I raise an eyebrow. “Is that really all… Elsie?”
I say her name on a whisper, and she drops her hands to her sides, her arms unfolding once more. And then we stare at each other, seemingly incapable of doing anything els
e. The unspoken words between us weave like a web through the air, and they pull me to Elsie stronger than any force I’ve ever fucking known. I want to poke at her some more. Press at her already red buttons.
It’s been so long since I have. And even then they were barely visible to the eye, the shy Elsie Carpenter an enigma to all who knew her. Mostly me. Until the night that changed everything. A night that won’t let me go no matter how hard I try to shake it. A memory that refuses to die. A passion that won’t wane with time.
I start to take another step towards the now-blushing blonde just several feet away when the redhead in the room suddenly outbursts.
I’d forgotten she was there.
“For God’s sake,” she exhales, her tiny fingers flying through the air. “Just say yes to the man, Kansas. I mean, with a face like his, you’re better off with him than me anyway. Besides, he’s clearly a friend of the family. Sounds like you two need to talk while you’re at it.” Her gaze ricochets between us. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
I want to tell the ginger-haired stranger that the worst already has happened. And it can’t happen again.
But I keep my mouth shut, my glare straying back to Elsie and staying there, my mind humming as I watch the wheels turn ‘round and ‘round in hers, her big brown eyes closing one by one quietly then opening. She gazes at me as if I’m the worst man in the world. And I’m afraid I might be.
“Fine,” she relents with a huff. “But only for my sake…” She shoots me an indiscernible look. “And Kayla’s.”
ELSIE
It’s so hard to be around Brett when he’s like this. A brooding, moody mess.
The car ride back to his side of Manhattan is as silent as the grave, and under the cover of the evening’s blackening skies and his even blacker BMW, we gravitate towards opposite sides of the leathered space, each shoulder turned from the other person sitting mere feet away.
