Break It Up

by Tippetts, E. M.

  I expect Zach to be let down a little, but I don’t expect the sudden look of despair in his gaze. “Okay…well…”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. Here I am begging you.”

  He’s begging me?

  “You don’t deserve to have me dump all of my problems on you anyway.” He leans back and shuts his eyes. From the set of his shoulders and jaw, it’s quite obvious he hasn’t dumped his problems anywhere. They ride squarely on his shoulders.

  And as awful as it is to be this close to him, fully clothed, with no chance of any action, I feel bad for him. “Let’s go get coffee,” I say. “We can talk and stuff.”

  “I don’t want to impose—”

  “It’s all good,” I say with false conviction.

  But when I see his shoulders relax and the light return to his eyes, I melt inside. I put Libby into gear and do a U-turn.

  “There a Starbucks or somewhere we can drive through?”

  I snort. “I’m thinking real coffee, so that would be Napoli. They don’t have a drive-through. I’ll go in and get our order.”

  “What’s Napoli?”

  “The best coffee shop in Albuquerque.”

  Twenty minutes later, as we enjoy our lattes in Libby, parked in a discreet corner of the parking lot, Zach has to agree. “This place is awesome.”

  I nod. “And the people there are cool. If you walked in there, they’d be chill about it. They mock Jason to his face and write ‘Gladius’ on his cup.” That was the name of his character in the cheesy New Light series of movies.

  Zach gives me another winning smile that is downright painful to see. My heart gives a lurch. “Thank you,” he says. “It’s been a rough day. This is exactly what I needed.”

  “What’s been happening?”

  “Ben wants to sex up our image. Logan wants to cancel the European leg of our tour. All we do these days is fight. At least when my mom was in charge, we had a common enemy. Okay, I shouldn’t say that about my own mother.”

  I shrug.

  “But back then we could all talk about how much we hated everything about the band and stuff, but it was just talk. I was bluffing. Turns out Logan and Ben weren’t.”

  “It’s hard enough to transition on your own out of child stardom,” I say. “I imagine it’s even harder to do with two other people.”

  He nods. “See, you get it.”

  “Intellectually,” I say. “Not really. Never been famous.”

  He glances at his watch.

  “You need to go?”

  “Unfortunately. Got a photo shoot in LA.”

  I turn the key in the ignition.

  “I probably won’t see you again before Europe,” he says.

  I say a silent prayer of thanks for that.

  “But I’ll still text, and you can call me anytime, all right?”

  “Sure,” I say, with false brightness.

  “I hope whoever Aidan gets for an intern is cool.”

  Those words hit like a sledgehammer to the chest, and the green-eyed monster rears its ugly head. I feel like the Hulk, about to lose it. “Right,” I choke out.

  But Zach doesn’t notice. He’s in a much better mood than when he arrived, and when I drop him off at the airport, he leans over to give me a hug. A hug. He presses that perfect body of his to mine. It doesn’t matter that only our arms, chests, and shoulders touch. It’s enough to make me want to rip all of his clothes off right then and there. But he grins at me, oblivious, and gets out of the car.

  Finally, I tell myself. I’m glad that’s all over.

  “Hello?” Aidan answers his phone that evening.

  “Yeah, hi. It’s Kyra.”

  “Hello, Kyra! Do you have an answer for me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you come be my assistant?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “When do we leave?”

  Zach: So how are you? Thanks for the coffee :-)

  Zach: The photo shoot was kinda crazy. They wanted me to wrap a live snake around my neck.

  Zach: So how are things in Albuquerque? How’s the job?

  Zach: Are you mad at me?

  Zach: Can we talk? Call me?

  When Jason buys me a new phone as a going-away present, I ask for a new number too, and that finally ends the text-torture. I’m a wreck. I go through the motions of my life, of getting packed and ready for Europe, but I’m numb with uncertainty.

  When my parents drive me to the airport to catch my flight, they seem unaware of how tied in knots I am. The first leg of my journey is to go from Albuquerque to LA, Triple Cross’s home base. That flight takes a couple of hours. At LAX, I get picked up by a dark SUV with a window shutting me off from the driver. This vehicle takes me to another airport where the band’s private jet is parked. Aidan opens the door when I arrive. “Kyra Armijo,” he says.

  “Hi, Aidan. Reporting for duty.” I descend into the slightly muggy air.

  “At ease,” he returns the jibe. “On this part of the job, we’re just shooting a bunch of candid footage. Thing is, the jet’s only so big, so odds are you might end up in some of the shots.”

  “Well, I’ll do my best to stay out.”

  “If you want to sign a release, then it doesn’t have to be an issue.”

  I shake my head. That was one thing Jen and her mother had drilled into my head—stay behind the camera—not that I really need any reminding. “No, I’m here to learn about film. Best if I just focus on that.” I make a mental note that he tried to get me to sign a legal document the first second I reported for work, but I append to that another mental note that I’m on edge right now because I’m about to see Zach again.

  With guys hauling my luggage for me, I feel at loose ends as I walk with Aidan to the waiting jet. The first stop on the European tour is going to be Madrid, then Lisbon, Geneva, Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Warsaw, Berlin, Stockholm, Paris, and finally London. I wonder what my passport is going to look like by the end of this.

  The members of the band are all standing, clustered around the bottom of the stairs, discussing something or other with the camera crew. Ben sees me first and calls out, “Kyra! Hey, girl!”

  Zach, who has his back to me, goes rigid.

  I do my best to keep my expression blank. “Hello,” I say to all of them.

  Zach turns, his expression inscrutable.

  I look away and stay by Aidan.

  “We ready to board?” the director asks.

  There’s a chorus of yesses and everyone gets to work. The band members go up the stairs to the jet first, followed by the camera crew. Zach shoots me several wary glances, and my heart melts all over again. He is so hot. Once everyone reaches the top of the stairs, Aiden hollers, “Okay, come on back down and let us shoot that from the other direction.”

  The three guys in Triple Cross all turn obediently and jog down the stairs. Aidan gestures for me to precede him up, so I walk on past everyone, climb the staircase, and duck into the dim, air-conditioned interior of the plane. The camera crew clambers in behind me, and then they block the entrance as they film the band coming up the stairs.

  I wonder if this will be normal and if they plan to do that when the band gets on and off any vehicle or whether it’ll happen with every building they enter too. At least I was never under the delusion that life behind the camera was glamorous. Really, it’s a huge deal that I get to ride on the private jet. The rest of the tour crew is going by commercial flight.

  The jet’s laid out with couches and little tables. It’s like a very high-class RV in here. I grab a seat at the back, out of the way, and stash my purse next to me. Aidan stays with his camera crew, and I anticipate that’s how a lot of this job will be. Plenty of waiting around in between mundane erra
nds like getting everyone coffee or clearing away groupies so the crew can get a good shot of the band entering and exiting their hotel or whatever.

  The band tromps into the plane, and Ben breaks from the other two and comes to sit next to me. I lift my eyebrow and pretend to scowl at him.

  “Hello to you, too,” he says.

  “Yeah, yeah, what do you want?”

  “Your eternal, undying love and affection.”

  “Mmm... Anything else?”

  He chuckles. “Soooo, how’ve you been?”

  “I’ve been fine,” I say. “But listen, I won’t be in any of the shots, so you should sit farther up.” I nod in the direction of the other seats.

  “So you want me to move?”

  “Yes. Or else I scratch your face.” It’s the threat I always make to Jason, and I flex my fingers to show that I have the nails to do the job.

  “You couldn’t afford the liability. You have any idea what this face is worth?”

  “I’m what’s called judgment proof. Ask your lawyer what that means if you don’t already know.” It means I’m too poor to pay out any damages, so a court order for me to do so isn’t worth much.

  He chuckles at that. “O-kay, then. Have a good flight.” He gets up and moves to a seat near Zach and Logan. I can feel Zach’s gaze on me like a hot poker, and I can’t bring myself to return it.

  I get out my phone and thumb through my email. My fingers shake as I swipe them across the screen randomly, just trying to look busy. After a moment, the searing burn of his gaze lifts and I let out a sigh of relief. I still have no idea what to say or do.

  Aidan parks himself next to me once we’re in the air. I look up to see if he needs anything, but his gaze is on the guys in the band, who are playing a card game while the camera crew films it. It’s not clear to me why I’m here, but perhaps this is cheaper than booking me a seat on a commercial flight, since it’s just little old me and I don’t take up much space.

  Ben lays a card down and Logan gets to his feet. “No way.”

  “Way.”

  “You’re cheating?”

  “What? No. I’m not.”

  “Logan,” Zach cuts in.

  “Shut up!” Logan may be Zach’s little brother, but he clearly isn’t looking for familial advice right now.

  Zach holds his hands up and leans back.

  “You’re cheating!” Logan snaps at Ben again. He points, his whole arm and upper body tense, his stance forward and ready to fight.

  Ben gets to his feet and shoves his cousin in the chest. Logan flies back and hits the wall with a thud hard enough to make me jump and get halfway to my feet. The film crew all recoils in surprise.

  Logan pushes off the wall and charges Ben, but Zach grabs his brother roughly by the shirt.

  “Cool it!” Zach yells. “Stop. Both of you.”

  I look at Aidan, who watches this unfold with an unreadable expression on his face.

  “Is that normal?” I ask.

  “I have seen tension between those two before, yes.”

  “They let you film that?”

  “The deal is, I film everything. That’s how I work. I figure out what stories to tell afterwards and edit accordingly. I can cut that so it plays right before a shot of them all hugging each other and getting along, for example. Show their resilience.”

  “Oh. Sounds like you scored quite a contract.” I couldn’t imagine Jason ever agreeing to such terms.

  Aidan shrugs. “It’s the way I’ve always done my documentaries. My subjects have no complaints.”

  Wonder how you convinced Triple Cross’s lawyers, I think. I make a pillow out of my jacket and purse and try to catch some rest.

  The plane lands in New York to refuel, and then we head across the Atlantic. Ben and Logan both drop off to sleep almost before the wheels are up after takeoff. Aidan and crew take a few shots of all this, switch the cameras off again, and huddle together to talk about concert footage and equipment rental.

  Zach swivels around in his seat and those steely blue eyes look me over. I don’t dare look back. The other band mates may be asleep, but my boss isn’t. Zach doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. He just stares until finally I look back.

  When our gazes lock, he seems to catch himself. With one hand he gives a half wave, as if to apologize, and then looks away.

  I have no clue how to react to that.

  Landing in Madrid is way different than anything I’ve experienced on an international flight before. I’ve never been on a private jet that crossed any borders. Rather than go through customs in a big, crowded airport, we’re met by customs agents who ask all the requisite questions, check our bags, and then escort us into a little terminal where they stamp our passports. I’ve heard Castillian Spanish before, of course, in movies and on TV, but it’s weird to be surrounded by people who speak it with its strange, lisping accent. It’s embarrassing to be asked to repeat myself, as if Spanish isn’t a native language I’ve spoken all my life.

  We’re through customs in under half an hour, at which time there are a couple of minivans waiting at the curb to take us to the hotel.

  That’s a problem for the camera crew—the multiple cars. They want to be able to film the band, but the band and crew won’t all fit in one car. After some discussion, the cameraman and sound guy go with the band and Aidan and I and the rest of the crew go in the other. The air is a little muggy, but the vans are air conditioned.

  Once seated and buckled in, I let myself slump against the window. I shouldn’t be tired, but the sleep on the plane doesn’t seem to have counted for anything and my body is not happy with the amount of sunlight beating down right now. It’s just the wrong time for sun.

  The vans pull out and I watch the city slide past out the window. Even though it’s just a street lined with buildings and people drive on the right side of the road, the look and feel is very foreign and different. It isn’t the signs in Spanish that give this feeling; we have those at home. It’s as if everything’s measurements are a little off. The proportions of the buildings and the dimensions of the cars are different. The driver talks over a radio to someone in more lisping Castillian, which sounds to me like he’s got a speech impediment, and he’s blue-eyed and blond. I know it’s a little prejudiced of me to note this, but just about every native Spanish speaker I’ve ever met has had at least a drop of mestizo blood in them.

  It isn’t a long drive to the hotel, which is a tall building of all glass and chrome.

  I stumble out of the van, grab my bags, and follow the crowd to check in. Most of the back and forth about getting room keys passes in a blur, and I wait until I have my key in hand and can wheel my luggage to the elevators. My room is only a few stories up and won’t be anything fancy, of course. I’m just crew and lucky to get my own room, probably due to the gender ratio. Everyone on the camera crew is male, and I’m pretty sure they’ve all been assigned roommates.

  Once in the elevator, I slide my key into the slot and press the button for the right floor. A hand inserts itself between the closing doors, pushing them open again to reveal Zach, who slips inside and hits the button to close the doors.

  I look up at him, wary. I knew this conversation was coming sooner or later. I just hoped it was later.

  He’s clearly on edge, upset. Here in close quarters he seems much taller and more imposing. Those eyes of his positively smolder.

  I wait for him to speak first, only he doesn’t. The floor leaps beneath our feet as the elevator begins its short ascent. Before I can react, Zach swipes my bag.

  “What room are you?” he asks.

  “Three-twenty-five.”

  He precedes me out of the elevator and carries my bag to the door of my room. From the way he stands, he clearly expects to be let in.

 
I freeze. I’ve got no idea what to say or do.

  He turns and looks at me, at my defensive stance and my confusion. Here we are, in the hallway of a generic hotel. The carpets smell like cleaning products I’m not familiar with and there appear to be fire doors every five feet or so, but the overall sense of the place has the same economy hotel vibe I know well.

  Voices down the hall startle me and instinct takes over. The keycard slides into place with a click and I let the famous guy into my room so he can escape a potential fan mobbing.

  The room turns out to be tiny, like a closet with a little bed, a sink, and a bathroom. There isn’t any other furniture; the television is bolted to the wall.

  Zach frowns. “You don’t want to put your luggage on the floor. Bedbugs can a hitch a ride that way.”

  “Ew.”

  “I mean, they’re not…common.” He’s at a loss, though. There is no table or dresser.

  We look at each other. His expression is pure confusion, like I’m a complex equation he can’t solve.

  “Listen,” he asks, “are you mad at me?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “Are you mad at me?”

  “I’ve texted you, like, a million times.”

  I know. Only I can’t bring myself to admit that. He looks really torn up, like I slapped him across the face for no reason. I’ve got no idea how to explain myself. Just a few days ago I was being his best friend and helping him out. He had a right to expect things would stay that way. I suppose I could tell him the truth, that I want nothing more than to rip his clothes off and have my wicked way with him, but that too feels like a betrayal.

  A few more awkward seconds tick by, and finally, I give in. “I didn’t know,” I lie. I pull my new phone out of my pocket. “I have a new number and everything’s been so crazy. I’m sorry. I should have remembered to tell you.”