by Rachel Shane
“There,” I said. “Now I’m ready.”
He dropped his hands to his lap and cut the engine. “Then so am I.”
And so the two of us left the car, ready to conquer not the world but the bar I called my home. The one place I never felt claustrophobic.
TREVOR HEADED RIGHT TO the door, and the extreme pace of his gait indicated he planned to bypass the entire line. I suspected he didn’t even notice the line, just the bartender shining flashlights against ridiculously fake IDs. Just for show, of course. You could have gotten into Quigley’s with a Post-It declaring your false birthday as long as you paid the ten dollar cover.
I cleared my throat and tugged on the back of Trevor’s sweater.
He stopped abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk and whipped his head to me, mouth parted in confusion.
I jutted my chin toward the twenty or so people rubbing their hands together, blowing swirls of cold air into the inky night sky. “The line.”
Trevor blinked at me for a moment as if he was trying to make sense of my words. Then he glanced back at the bouncer. “Oh, but I don’t need to wait on it.”
I placed one hand on my hip. “You sure about that?” If Trevor revealed his identity, sure, he’d get right in, but this would turn into a very different night. He was technically in disguise thanks to his lack of theatrics. For now, he was just a regular guy. Someone who lost everything he once had.
Trevor hesitated, his legs wobbling. He looked back at the bouncer once more before sighing and changing directions toward the back of the line. I scurried after him with a satisfied leap in my step, my feet crunching on the inch of snow coating the side walk. Thankfully it wasn’t sticking well to the ground and was coming down lighter and lighter.
Trevor leaned against the brick exterior and closed his eyes. I squeezed next to him, nodding at Matt, Bianca, and Harrison who stood a few people ahead of us. They would have let us cut, but I guessed Trevor’s distance was intentional. I kept close to him, letting his body heat warm me as I rubbed my hands over my bare arms. The bitter wind stung my skin and my teeth chattered but I battled it. We all did. Though I usually had a least a glass of wine inside me by now as my secret weapon against the cold.
“This is so strange,” he said, leaning into me, his warm breath coating my face. “I’ve never had to wait for anything.”
“Welcome to real life. It’s like a slap in the face.”
He laughed, and then abruptly pulled me against him, wrapping his arms around me the same way Harrison was doing to Bianca. It startled me so much, I stiffened for a moment before relaxing into his embrace. I rested my head against his shoulder, breathing in his musky cologne, and circled my arms around his back. One part of me wanted to dance a jig at the fact that Clever Trevor was holding me. But another part of me knew it was the other way around. I was the one holding him up, right now. “Thank you,” he whispered in my ear, his voice so low I almost couldn’t hear it against the thump of the bass from inside. “For letting me be myself.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. Wasn’t this whole thing a ruse? But I didn’t get a chance to ask because the line started moving forward and he dropped his arms from around me before spinning toward doorway. We reached the front a few minutes later. The bartender checked Trevor’s ID, not even balking at the name on it—Trevor Cardinelli, a nobody—and then held out his hand. “Ten.”
Trevor squinted at me. “Ten…what?”
Damn, he was cute when he was naive. I resisted the urge to giggle. “Donkeys,” I said. “He wants your dowry.”
“My what?”
“Dollars, you idiot. You know, that stuff you used to make when you had a career.”
“Oh.” His face turned white. “I don’t…have any money on me.” He patted his pockets as if to double check.
Now it was my turn to blink at him.
He held up his hands. “I’m not used to this. Someone always took care of bills for me when I was on tour. I used to have three different assistants in case one left the room for a second and I needed something, and then sent the backup away too.”
I rolled my eyes and handed the bouncer a twenty, ignoring the ping in my gut that every dollar I spent was one Robby couldn’t spend on tuition next year. “For both of us.”
Trevor grabbed the door and stormed inside, then came back out, raking his hand through his hair. He held the door open for me this time. “God, I’m such a fuck up. I can’t even pay for the girl I like on a date.”
His words soared through me like a bird, but I knew it was still a ruse. We were still in public. Someone may have overheard. “You don’t really like me and this isn’t a date.”
“Fine, I’ll agree to the second part but only because I still want to hold up my end of the bargain tomorrow. Show you all the good parts of this damn town.”
As much as I did want to see what he had in store, I had a Key & Lock meeting tomorrow. “I’m busy tomorrow.”
His face fell, and there was a twinge in my chest.
“But I’m free Saturday night?” I added.
“Done.” He gave me a cheesy wink/finger-gun combo.
“What? No acupuncture appointment stealing your time?”
He squinted at me. “Huh?”
I pressed my lips together and nodded, understanding. Cliff’s claim that Trevor’s schedule was completely booked was only to make it seem like I had no power, not the other way around.
We weaved through the crowd as dancing bodies pushed in on me from all sides. Beer sloshed in plastic cups and girls squealed as they lifted their hands to the new song pumping through the speakers. A group of guys commandeered the dart board by the front windows and a few scantily clad girls stood against the bar counter, peering out at their prospects that grew bleaker as the night wore on and people got drunker.
Harrison and Bianca were already all over each other in the middle of the dance floor, his knee between her legs, as they clutched drinks in their hand. Matt had found a few of his old Out House buddies by the DJ booth. I didn’t see any of my other friends here but that made sense. Corey and Mackenzie usually avoided Quigley’s unless they had to be here for an event and Fallon was at her boyfriend Liam’s play rehearsal tonight while Holly was pulling night duty as a volunteer aide at the local hospital.
“I’d buy you a drink.” Trevor’s warm breath was near my ear, sending goosebumps down my sides. “But considering I don’t have any money, can I offer you a dance instead?”
He jutted his chin toward the way Bianca and Harrison were grinding a little too inappropriately on the floor.
“I’ll pay tonight,” I said, pushing away all thoughts of my poor brother’s tuition. I could get a job and pay back what I was spending. It would likely mean quitting one of my organizations because I didn’t have time to add anything else into my schedule. I swallowed hard. Bye bye hosting gig at the local TV network. “What’s your vice?”
He peered at the bottles lined against the back mirror, lit by the glow of a black light. “Ugh no Glenmorangie Pride 1981?”
I raised by brow at him, knowing nothing about the liquor in question but guessing it was expensive. “No, but well drinks are two bucks. Care for a Sex on the Beach?”
He snorted. “I’ll settle for Beefeater and tonic.”
When I told the bartender his order, the guy nodded and pulled a bottle off a shelf. I hoped for the love of God this thing cost a reasonable amount. I ordered myself a glass of Sex on the Beach. It wasn’t my drink of choice, but it was the cheapest. The bartender pushed two plastic cups filled with our watered down drinks and asked for twelve bucks. I cringed, and slid over fifteen to cover tip, silently thanking the gods of Bumblefuck, New York. In Atlanta these drinks would have totaled thirty.
Trevor grabbed his and took a sip, wincing at the taste but then giving me a happy grin when I arched a brow at him.
“I know you wanted to show me the real side of Throckmorton but this is it, baby. Cheap booze in plastic c
ups as you hang with hundreds of your not-so-closest friends. As if to prove my point, some guy knocked into Trevor on the way to the bathroom and spilled half his drink down the front on his shirt.
“This is awful,” he said. “I can’t believe people do this for fun.”
“Think this is bad?” I took a sip of my Sex on the Beach and tried not to wince at how sweet it was. “Ever been inside one of your own mosh pits? Now that’s awful.”
He lifted his cup. “I have, actually. Many times. Stage diving for the win! Take a guess at how many times my crotch has been grabbed while crowd surfing. Go on.”
“By you or by your fans?” I said coyly as we migrated away from the push and pull of the bar counter toward a more secluded area in the back corner. Well, secluded only because two sides of us were now walls and not throbbing bodies.
“Never mind, don’t guess. I lost count.” He placed his arm against the wall, locking me into the corner.
“If you didn’t like it, why did you do it more than once?”
He took a long sip. “Because other people liked it. And when you’re in the entertainment biz, nothing is about you anymore. It’s all about how to please the crowds.”
His words drilled deep into my core, twisting my stomach. By choosing to be a TV host, I’d be giving up myself. I downed another sip fast.
“But there are ways to make it your own,” he said. “I think I’m king of that.”
I smiled. “True. You never did anything that people expected.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” He downed the rest of his drink, and then set it on the metal spiral staircase that randomly led up to nowhere, not even a trap door. The bouncer sometimes stood on it to watch the crowd but mostly it became a drink receptacle. “So tell me. What do you expect me to do next?” He wore a flirty grin beneath the dark shadows cast by his beanie.
“Make a scene and get kicked out?”
He pressed a finger to his lips. “Hmm, nah, that would be expected.”
“Hmmm…” I said, trying to think of the most unexpected thing Trevor could do. And it was be normal. “Wait in line for two A.M. dollar pizza oozing with grease from the place down the street?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Let’s not go that far tonight.”
Of course my mind went to another kind of far we could go. The farthest. The kind that required us to be naked.
I sipped the rest of my drink. Boy this stuff sure went down easy. No wonder it was cheap. I’d need six of these to give me the same kick as my usual rum and diet. “All right, I give up.”
“I’m not going to be a dick. Instead, I’m going to be myself.”
I studied him for a moment, the way he watched me with those epic blue eyes that captured my heart when he was on TV and now again, when he was right in front of me. “And who is that?”
“Try me. Ask me anything. I’ll answer truthfully. No lies and no deceptions.”
It was an Interviewer’s dream. A candid interview with the guy who had a million secrets.
He leaned closer. “One caveat though.”
My stomach sank. An ultimatum. A loophole.
“You have to answer as well.”
Not an ultimatum then. Collateral. I finished my drink, the cold liquid doing nothing to soothe my writhing stomach, and set it beside his. There were a million things I wanted to know about the scandal. I knew the why. I knew the how. But there was still so much more. And yet, I realized I didn’t want to ask about any of it. I wanted to learn everything else there was to know about Trevor, the parts that he kept hidden. The parts that made him real instead of the character he portrayed for fans. “What’s your favorite childhood memory?”
He blinked for a moment, clearly thrown off guard at my question. He thought about it, bobbing his head involuntarily to the pulsing bass. “When I was six, my grandparents took me out of school for a few days and brought me to New York City. We went to a Broadway show—Wicked—a few museums, but we also went to this little donut shop in the village. I got to pick the one I wanted. I can even remember how it tasted. Warm. And gooey. And just amazing.” He closed his eyes as he spoke, savoring the memory. “I just remember thinking it couldn’t get better than this. And then it didn’t.” His voice cracked. “When I got home, I learned it wasn’t an impromptu vacation. It was a distraction. While I was away, my dad moved my mom out of my house and into hospice care.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Everything went to hell after that. My mom died a few weeks later, my grandparents followed not too long after.”
The wounded look on his face pricked my heart. “Whoa.” Words bottled in my throat, clogging against the lump rising. Without hesitation, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into a hug. He’d broken the seal outside when he’d pulled me to his arms. My mind riffled through his discography of music, at all those lyrics that suddenly came into clarity. (Distraction by way of love/Distraction by way of distance/Distract me from it all/The path of least resistance.) (A ring of goodness that sours in my gut. Because you ripped out my guts. Because you didn’t have the guts. To tell me to my face.) (Empty shell I knew so well/now gone to hell.) “I’m so sorry,” I told him.
He breathed me in, clasping his hands around my back. “I’m over it now. Mostly. Sometimes.” A grimace tightened his lips. “Your turn.”
I had many to choose from, though none as gut wrenching as his. “Graduation,” I said, surprising both myself and him. “Because I knew it was the last time I ever had to step foot in that school again.”
“You didn’t like high school?”
I ground my teeth. “I never had friends. Just a few girls I sat with at lunch because none of us had anyone else to sit with. But we had nothing in common, and I knew they didn’t like me either. On weekends, I was always away for the TV hosting gig; I never had time to form bonds. And in class, I would sit by myself and quietly do my work. Because that was the problem. I was shy as hell and could only ever speak up when there was a camera pointed in my direction.”
When I got to Throckmorton, I’d vowed to be more outgoing because I couldn’t handle another four years of sitting home alone at night with no one to speak to. I sought out Key & Lock and became a member of their first female pledge class. And though I loved the people I met, one of the rules forbade us from fraternizing with each other outside closed doors. So I rushed a sorority too, in the hopes that I could buy my way into friends. My dad’s CNN job acted as an in to both groups. Key & Lock liked the connections I brought to the table and at Rho Sig it gave me a unique talking point during the gab rounds of rush where you had one minute to make yourself memorable. So I committed myself to both groups but always felt like I was only a half-member in each, one foot of mine always out the door in a rush to get to the other one. The friends I lived with were my best friends, but I was also keeping huge secrets from them. They didn’t know me as well as they thought they did. Truthfully, only Keane knew me that well because I had no secrets with him or Key & Lock in general
Trevor grinned. “All right, next question. You asked a good one. My turn?”
I flourished my hand toward him to tell him to go ahead even though it meant removing it from around his back. We were pressed together, my chest sealed against his, his fingers tracing circles along my lower back and sending hot fire over my skin. I was in an embrace with Clever Trevor. And God his lips looked kissable. But all I wanted to do was keep talking to him. Well, until the kissing started anyway.
“What’s your favorite song?” he asked.
I wrinkled my brow. “Really? Out of all the things in the world, that’s what you want to know?”
“I want to know everything about you. Even the small stuff.” He winked.
I bit my lip and looked away. God, he was fucking hot. He had such a rep in the biz for being an ass of epic proportions but he’d been nothing but, well, sweet to me. I didn’t understand the disconnect. Had he really changed since losing fame? It didn’t seem possible for some
one to do this big of a one eighty.
“Wow, didn’t mean to stump you.”
“Hey, choosing a song is like choosing a piece of your soul. I have to pick carefully.” Plus, there was enormous pressure revealing your favorite song to an artist who once sang the favorite songs of millions of people. And I was once one of them. A few months ago, I would have claimed several of his songs as my favorite, and honestly, despite the lip singing scandal, I still loved them. But I didn’t want to dredge up old memories, so I went with something else. Something that recently became my motto despite being old news by now. “Shake it Off by Taylor Swift. Not her greatest, I know, but I like the message. If something bothers you, you gotta shake it off.”
He nodded but I wasn’t sure if it was in agreement with the meaning or the greatness of the song. “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
I raised my brow. “Really?”
“It’s so…theatrical. It was the song I listened to growing up that showed me that music could be more than just singing. It could be about performing.”
My hand tightened around his waist and it felt like I was trying to grab hold of this piece of him and never let go. He raised a brow, waiting for my question.
He’d gone mundane. I would too. “Favorite food.”
“Pepperoni pizza from this amazing pizza place in town. Best stuff on Earth. You?”
I didn’t even have to think. “I live and die for these kale apple banana smoothies that I make—” I stopped talking because he was shaking his head frantically. “What?”
“You don’t actually like kale. No one does. You just think you’re supposed to.”
I scoffed. “You’ve obviously never tried one of the ones I make.”
“And I don’t want to start.” He tilted my chin up with his index finger. “Come on. Answer for real.”
I gritted my teeth in an attempt to stuff my confession in my mouth but it broke free anyway. “Swiss Cake Rolls. I have to avoid the entire aisle at the grocery store because otherwise I’d buy ten boxes and eat them all in one sitting.”
“There. That wasn’t so hard. Deserted island. You get three items. Go.”
