Grady pushes his hair back and looks at Gwen with those intense blue eyes so steadily it makes her stomach squirm. “Think of it this way, right,” he finally says. “If I’m with Nico the rest of my life—and I wanna be—I’ll never be with another man. Just like I’ll never be with another woman. I’ll never be with another person; that’s the whole deal with monogamy.”
Gwen sits up and presses her fingertips to her mouth and coos, “Aw, Grady. You want to be with Nico for the rest of your life; that’s so exciting.”
He doesn’t smile, he sighs. He picks at the tightly wound strings just below the pegs with a dog whistle-high plink plink. “He’ll be on his way here soon, so I guess we’ll see if Nico still wants that.”
20
Clementine comes into the room while the air still hangs heavy and sad, puts her hands on her hips, and says, “Are you going shopping in a robe three times too big for you or what?” She snaps her fingers. “Go change, girl!”
“It’s a relaxed fit, okay?” Gwen defends, then stands to untie and remove the robe, dropping it on the couch behind her in a perfectly timed flourish. “Voilà!” Gwen wiggles her fingers up and down her sides to point out that she is dressed; she is wearing red tartan patchwork pants and a white heart-print tank cut open at the sides, with a black bandeau bra beneath.
“Just let me pick some boots.” As she searches among several pairs of black boots she brought—classic, studded, buckled, knee-high—she can hear Grady, hyperactive and aimless again, flipping through the channels. “You need an activity,” she tells him, after finding the Docs she had in mind. “Come with us.”
Clementine is at the door, dressed in stilettos and a deep plum strapless sheath more lavish—and tighter—than the dress Gwen recommended for the industry event. Where exactly are they shopping? Paris?
“Yeah, Grady. You can hold our stuff,” Clementine says, with a bright smile.
The TV zaps off. “I reckon I don’t have anything better to do.”
“That’s the spirit!” Gwen mock-punches his arm, connecting with hard muscle. She winces as they walk into the hallway, the three of them plus Kevin who was, of course, waiting right outside the door. “God, you’re built like a tree trunk.”
Grady chuckles and yanks her close to his chest, and this is how Gwen learns that when she’s bent at the waist and tucked into Grady’s solid side, she fits, just right, under his armpit.
Clementine works during the entire ride. She is either on her phone negotiating and planning or pausing to smile at Gwen, or to play with Gwen’s hair, or to press her knee to Gwen’s. Clementine has been hustling almost nonstop, save for a couple hours by the pool, a shower, and the ten minutes she sat on a stool at the bar in her room with her beauty team. She must run on sheer determination alone. Grady chatters and points out all of his favorite Vegas spots, of which there are many. He’s energetic on even less sleep than Gwen managed, but then he seems to run on nothing but Mello Yello and moxie.
When they arrive at an underground, hidden entrance to The Venetian, Clementine slips her arm through Gwen’s and breathlessly explains how The Shoppes is her favorite Vegas spot for high-end fashion. Gwen lets herself be tugged along. Grady is behind them, keeping pace and looking around with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Inside it’s meant to look like Venice, complete with intricate, old-world Italian architecture, a canal with gondolas and gondoliers in striped shirts and red neckerchiefs, and a ceiling painted like the Sistine fucking Chapel. So ridiculous. So over-the-top. So awesome.
So Vegas.
They’ve attracted a crowd already, a gang of people with their phones out to snap pictures and take video that swells in number as they make their way to the store Clementine set her sights on.
By the time they get to the entrance of the Tory Burch store, it’s a mob scene, a sea of people pushing and shoving and shouting, trying to get an autograph or a picture or just an acknowledgment—good or bad attention doesn’t seem to matter much, as long as Clementine or Grady notices them.
“This is why me and Grady don’t go out in public together much anymore.”
The crowd is in a frenzy, and now there are paparazzi, too, standing around the outside of the store with their huge, long zoom-lensed cameras and professional-grade video equipment. Kevin is a vigilant shadow no less than one step away from Clementine at all times. Gwen has never been more grateful for his presence; the mob is terrifying, and grabs at them, pushing, pleading.
Gwen isn’t as wary as Nico. Even now he appears in public with a grim reluctance; he accepts all the attention as part of the package, but he doesn’t like it. Gwen hasn’t had to deal with it in the same way he has, the intrusiveness and lies and gossip and men in bushes taking their pictures. But the mob is pushing ever closer, and cameras are right in their faces, flash after blinding flash. Gwen ducks away, suffocated and scared, and a hand grabs hers.
Long, elegant fingers, soft skin. She threads their fingers together, pulls Gwen close and sets her temple against Gwen’s hair. Gwen stands, shocked and frozen in the spotlight; then Clementine squeezes her hand.
Clementine is calm and cool under fire. Grady grins and greets fans, hugs them and takes pictures; he is engaged in full-on star mode. So Gwen stands there, holds tight to Clementine’s hand and turns, looks over one shoulder and smiles stiffly. It’s only a minute, maybe two, but when Kevin blocks them from view with his massive body and steers them inside the empty store, Gwen can barely see for the flashes blocking her vision, can barely hear for the ringing in her ears. She’s exhausted and overwhelmed; her head spins.
Only now does Gwen realize what that could have looked like back there. And she and Clementine have already been dubbed an item in the tabloids, thanks to an anonymous source.
When Clementine kisses Gwen’s cheek, it barely registers. She flounces off to shop, beckoning Gwen to come with her. Grady makes himself comfortable on the counter and starts to knock a rhythm against it with his heels and knuckles, and someone hands Gwen a bottle of water. If only it were a bottle of wine instead.
“Life in the spotlight,” Grady trills.
Gwen swigs her water. “It’s terrible.”
“You get used to it.” Grady taps a quick beat. “Is what it is.”
Gwen can’t imagine getting accustomed to this flip side of glamour, the real price of luxury. Clementine’s life is her career, and her career her life, because every single moment, private and public, is dedicated to it. Everything is calculated, intentional. Something about that tugs at Gwen. “You guys were really never together?”
“Nah.” He’s still drumming away on the counter, now with a pen he found. “But I think it was easier on her when they thought we were. She hates when they ask who she’s dating. Like it wasn’t a lie but, she could do worse than me, so she let ‘em think what they wanted, ya know?” He winks and drums on his own head.
“Right,” Gwen says.
Clementine breezes past again. Gwen picks out a blue and white, vertical-striped embroidered cotton caftan, a fringed jacquard knit wrap dress, a belted, high-collared linen jacket, and orange guipure lace shorts. After she hands them off for Clementine to try on, Gwen circles back to the cash register.
Grady is now sprawled on top of it with one arm dangling limply to the side.
“Having fun?” Gwen pokes his bicep.
“Barrels,” he says to the ceiling. “How am I bored in Vegas? I should have brought my knitting.”
Gwen props herself on the counter near his knees and jokes, “The problem is that Nico isn’t here to wear you out.” He frowns, and Gwen elbows his leg. “He’s not coming all the way here to break up with you, Grady. He may keep the sordid details locked up tight, but I know for a fact that he’s ass-over-elbows about you. He loves you.”
Grady’s fingers twitch, grasping at nothing. “People can love you with all their heart, and still
shatter yours apart.”
Gwen scans up his prone body to his sad, stormy face. “Isn’t that a song lyric?”
His mouth twitches up. “Maybe.”
Gwen cranes to look past the closed gates of the store where the crowd is still gathered. She can’t face them again; she’s barely recovered. They have today and tonight; then they take off back to Nashville. Clementine has another event or party or interview to attend after this—Gwen’s not sure, really—and she has done her part for now. Anyway, Clementine’s definitely being weird, and Flora is being weird, and this mall, with its canal and Michelangelo’d ceilings, is weird. Gwen’s dream was weird. Vegas is weird.
“Hey. Let’s go do something fun and crazy.”
Grady lifts his head. “Yeah?”
“Sure. We’re in Vegas. We both have super serious relationship stuff on the bleak horizon here. For a few hours, let’s just—fuck it, you know? Relive our rebellious and idiotic youth.”
Grady pushes up to his elbows and smiles slowly, cocky and satisfied. “Now you’re speakin’ my language, darlin’.” He slides off the counter.
This is when Gwen learns that Grady can swing her over his shoulder like a gunnysack filled with feathers and carry her out of the store.
21
“Nico can never know about this place,” Gwen says as she steps out of the cab. They’ve taken it about twenty minutes outside of town, down one lone road through pale sand and scrabbly trees and nothing to where the glitz and glamour and hallucinogenic hyperreality of Las Vegas turns into flat, parched land.
They’ve arrived at a racetrack and a hangar stocked with the most expensive and exotic muscle cars available—some are not even on the market yet. A large sign on the building reads: Fantasy Racing.
“I know, we’d probably end up taking at least one home with us,” Grady says. Gwen falls into step beside him, and then he pauses and adds, “Or he’d take one home with him, I guess.”
“Grady—” Gwen starts, but he’s already moving on, taking long strides into the shadow of the hangar and only stopping to shake hands with the guy who comes to get them set up.
“You pick,” Grady says, after all the introductory explanations and paperwork are finished, and charms the guy into letting them drive without an instructor. He nods at the lineup of luxury cars, all shining and sleek, red, black, and silver, even a few neon green, yellow, and electric blue.
“Oh, I don’t, I don’t know much about cars.” Enough to change a tire and check the oil and jump the battery. Enough to know what Ferraris and Lamborghinis and Porsches and Aston Martins are, but not why she should choose one over the other.
“Just pick one ‘cause it’s sexy,” Grady says, his voice dropping to a purr. He bumps Gwen with his elbow. “They won’t be offended.”
Pick a sexy car, okay. Gwen nibbles her lips and tucks her hands behind her back as she walks the rows of cars and considers them. She stops at one on the end of the fifth row, at a shining red Ferrari. It’s low to the ground, not too wide but not compact; slinky curves coil from front to back, arch over the front tires, bow in the center, and then crest up over the rear.
Gwen reaches to touch the hood, pauses, and then delicately drags one finger up and around the supple round shape of one side, then over the other. “This one.”
“This is the 458 Italia,” Pete, who’s showing them around, says. “You won’t find a sexier car than this.”
“That a V-8?” Grady says, and Pete pops the hood. Grady gives a low whistle. Pete and Grady discuss horsepower and rpms and torque, and Gwen nods along, but she’s really just itching to get inside. She loves her cute little Mini Cooper, but this thing makes it look like a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe.
“Hey, Small Fry,” Grady calls; a shiny red key fob is tossed at her head. “You’re up first.”
She doesn’t appreciate the height joke, but when she and Grady climb into the car and he beams at her, she’s just glad to see him so happy: not fake happy, not trying to be happy, not uncomfortably-hyperactive happy, but wearing that huge, sunshiny grin she’s used to seeing.
The inside of the car is just as gorgeous as the outside: smooth, supple leather, a futuristic-looking steering wheel and dash with button and lights and knobs that Pete explains and Gwen vaguely understands. She slides the key into the little slot, thumbs the engine button, and breathes, “Oh, wow.”
The car rumbles to life like a satisfied cougar.
“Do you need a booster seat?” Grady teases.
“Ha. Ha.” Gwen glares at him, then cranes her neck to look over the console. These bucket seats are a little low. Well, she’s committed now.
Pete hands them both helmets, double-checks that they’re strapped in correctly, and reviews all the buttons and gizmos on the wheel, as well as the gearshift, turn signal, wipers and radio controls, and the easy-to-use paddle shifter. Gwen puts it in gear, eases off the brake, and then creeps out of the hangar and onto the track.
Clutching the steering wheel tightly, her heart tapping furiously against her sternum and palms sweaty, she takes a deep breath and waits for the signal.
“You gotta give her a lil’ tease,” Grady says, at ease in the seat beside her. His helmet muffles his words, but his voice is loud and clear in the speakers inside her own helmet. “Play with her to warm her up.”
So she flips the gear to neutral, presses down on the accelerator, and the engine snarls out a growl. “Oh my god, I’m all tingly.” She does it again. Oh, that is sexy.
Grady smacks her helmet and laughs. “Now you get it.”
The first loop around the track Gwen takes slowly, carefully, getting used to the car and the way it handles. But it’s so responsive and smooth that it’s easy to just let go and let loose, to go faster and faster, making quick zips around the turns and revving the engine as hard as she can through the straightaways. She’s up to speeds that make their bodies press to the seats and shake with the force of it, so dangerous that one tiny mistake would end them and the car in an instant, and that just makes it even more exciting.
Her ten laps are over in a flash, and then she and Grady swap. She screams and laughs through Grady’s crazy race around the track. He adds some terrifying drifts and ticks the steering wheel back and forth to wiggle the car smoothly from one side of the track to the other.
As they slow to a coasting crawl and bring the car back, Gwen wants to call Flora, wants to take a picture with this beautiful, erotic car and tell her how it made her think of her wife; and she thinks about how Flora would duck her head and hide a smile as though embarrassed, but Gwen would know she secretly loves it. And even though Flora would want nothing to do with driving this car, she would be excited for Gwen anyway, but would still worry and tell her to be careful and take the turns slower, because one of them has to be sensible.
Flora is going to be an amazing mother. She’s patient, nurturing, and calm; has to be, to handle a classroom full of seven year-olds with ease. Gwen can see it in the way Flora is with her nieces, and in Flora’s loving, close relationship with her own mother.
Gwen’s mother has been disappointed in her since her first breath, taken ten days past her due date and after twenty-five hours of breech labor. She’s heard the story a million times—as if Gwen, still in the womb, just had to be difficult. Her whole life she’s been either crushed under the desperate need to please her parents, or openly defiant of their expectations because she will never meet them. They’re disappointed in her clothes, her hair, her personal life, her lack of a college degree, and her unusual career. At best she has a tepid, distant relationship with her mother. She has no idea what a normal, healthy mother-and-child dynamic is.
Thank god she has Flora. Thank god she can just leave all the parenting decisions to her. Gwen tugs the helmet off and is immediately desperate for another jolt of adrenaline, to be held in a moment of doing where nothing else
matters.
When they head back to the parking lot to wait for their cab, they’re both red-faced and wild-eyed and giggling at nothing. Her hair is in sweaty spikes all over her head, and Grady’s curls are smashed flat.
“That was so fucking fun,” Gwen says, hopping up and down like a super bounce ball.
A cab comes into view. “All right, Small Fry, your turn to pick.”
She’s having such a great time that she lets the annoying nickname stay, and she knows exactly what she wants to do next.
22
“A roller coaster?”
The cab dropped them off at a gas station just before The Strip so they could get something to drink: Grady’s ubiquitous Mello Yello, of course, and for Gwen a strawberry Yoo-Hoo. That’s what she would always get at two a.m. to refuel after the concerts she’d sneak out to see.
“Not a roller coaster,” Gwen corrects, keeping pace with Grady on the sidewalk and squinting against the hot sun beating down on them. “All of the roller coasters.”
Grady takes a swig of his soda. “Not bad. All right, let’s do it.”
At the next corner they turn, heading first to the New York-New York Hotel and Casino for the coaster that rises from the top like a serpent, winding around and behind the fake Statue of Liberty.
“Flora and I came to Vegas a few years ago and went on this one,” Gwen explains. “And afterward she swore off roller coasters for good. But then again, she thinks Great Thunder Mountain at Disneyland is a thrill ride, even though the kindergartener in front of us called it lame. She’s so cu—” And Gwen cuts off her rambling with a gasp and comes to a dead stop on the sidewalk. “Oh my god.”
“What? What happened?” Grady retreats the few steps he’d gone on ahead; his eyebrows and mouth are drawn flat.
“That’s—there’s… Oh my god.” Gwen presses both hands to her mouth and squeaks. “There’s an In-N-Out Burger, Grady. In-N-Out Burger!”
Burning Tracks (Book Two: Spotlight Series) Page 12
