by Roxie Noir
I succeeded, by the way. Robert Azucena, in the movie theater. Underwhelming.
After a few more minutes with Legal Systems, my phone buzzes again.
Gavin: Good job looking normal.
Me: Thanks. Never been described as arm candy before.
Gavin: Just wait until they find out you’re Latina. Then you’ll be ‘spicy’ arm candy.
Me: Great. Can’t wait to go VIRAL.
Gavin: I’m not sure Valerie knows what that means.
Gavin: Still on for lunch Tuesday?
Me: Still on!
I don’t mention lip-on-lip, and neither does he. But I spend most of the next few hours trying not to think about it.
It’s more or less like that for two weeks. We go on dates, mostly to fancy places with lots of paparazzi. They figure out my name and that I’m a law student, but they’re not that interested in me.
We hold hands in front of the cameras and the most interesting thing either of us is recorded saying is, “Just eating dinner.”
Valerie sends us a performance evaluation every time. Sometimes Gavin looks too tentative for her liking, sometimes she thinks we’re holding hands wrong, once she excoriates him for not holding the door for me properly.
After a few emails informing us that she “really needs a CHEEK KISS,” we plan one. Gavin doesn’t think we need to orchestrate something that simple, but I’m nervous, so we do.
It’s a Saturday night, and we have dinner at La Rosette, a super-trendy French “fusion” place with $16 cocktails and a whole squadron of photographers lurking just outside. I have a glass of wine, the first time I’ve drunk anything since the night at Poseidon’s Net.
“Am I so bad you’ve got to take the edge off?” Gavin teases me as we’re done eating and I’m draining my glass, the check paid.
I swallow the last sip and put it down, half-rolling my eyes.
“You know it’s the cameras, not you,” I say. “You’re basically, I don’t know, a mannequin or something to me by now.”
He raises his eyebrows, grinning.
“I’m a mannequin,” he says, and I feel myself blushing.
“Something I don’t mind kissing on the cheek,” I say. “You know, it’s no big deal, like my brother or my gay friend or European people when you meet them for the first time.”
This is half-true. I don’t mind kissing Gavin, and I’m definitely nervous about the cameras, but I’ve worked myself into a state about putting my lips on his face. For days now, I’ve been thinking about it again and again: the feel of his skin under my lips, our faces touching, probably our bodies touching.
And I’m worried that the second I kiss him, he’ll know that I’ve thought about this way too much, that I’ve stared at the phrase lip-on-lip over and over again and imagined what it would be like, that sometimes when we’re innocuously holding hands on one of our dates it makes me feel warm and squirmy in a way that fake relationships aren’t supposed to.
Basically, I think I’ve got a crush on the incredibly handsome, famous, rich, notorious rockstar, and I feel like the world’s biggest cliché, because even though the rockstar is sweet and funny and I’m pretty sure we’re friends, there’s no way he reciprocates the warm-and-squirmy feelings.
He taps a few fingers on the table and glances back at the paparazzi.
“All right, then,” he says. “Let’s get on with it.”
We rise. He takes my hand and squeezes it. The wait staff all smile at us as we leave.
Gavin pushes the door open. The valet nods and jogs off to get his car.
“Gavin! How’s your night going?” someone shouts, swooping in front of us.
My stomach writhes.
“It’s going well,” he answers.
The moment he does, two others swoop in, because Gavin Lockwood rarely says anything.
“You enjoy your dinner?” the first one asks, a totally inane question.
“I did,” he says, and looks down at me. “You have a nice time?”
I’m way, way too nervous to answer. I just laugh, squeeze his hand, and stand on tiptoe.
Then I press my lips to the side of his face, his skin warm, stubble just prickling through his skin, and then it’s over. Done. I did it. He squeezes my hand and his car drives up.
Once we’re inside, he turns to me and grins.
“Was that so bad?” he asks.
It wasn’t bad. Not at all.
“Tolerable,” I tease, and we zoom off.
15
Gavin
When we get to Marisol’s neighborhood, I circle her block and the blocks around it for nearly twenty minutes, looking for a parking spot because I’m determined to walk her inside, properly.
There’s no cameras. Valerie’s not going to mention whether I did or didn’t walk her inside in her review email tomorrow. I just want to do this fake date right.
“It’s really okay if you just drop me off,” Marisol finally says. “Or we could keep driving around Koreatown very slowly for another half hour.”
“There’s just literally nowhere to park,” I say, astonished.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I were in, say, London or New York, but here there are so many cars and so many places to park. They’re just all filled.
“Yup,” says Marisol. “Literally nowhere.”
I sigh, give up, and drive back to the front of her apartment building, double-park, and put my flashers on. At least I can walk her to the front door of her building, which I do, the sidewalk flooded in the orange glow of street lamps.
“I think Valerie ought to approve,” I say as she fishes her keys from her bag.
“That won’t stop her from sending us pointers,” Marisol says.
She looks away quickly, then back at me.
“Sorry I was so nervous,” she says. “It wasn’t that I minded or something, it’s just... cameras make me nervous, and I’m always afraid I’m going to screw up and suddenly everyone will know I’m just your girlfriend for hire and everything will be ruined.”
I hate it when she says that, girlfriend for hire, because even though I know better, I’ve taken to pretending it’s real. That when she takes my hand, it’s because she wants to. That when she kissed my cheek, there was real affection behind it.
It feels that way sometimes, but then I remind myself that it’s supposed to. That’s the point.
“I don’t think you’ll ruin everything,” I say. “See you Wednesday?”
“For sure,” she says.
Then she opens the door to her building, steps inside, and it’s just me, my car flashing its lights, and scattered pedestrians walking here and there. I get back in and drive away, back to the house I’m renting in the hills, wishing that Wednesday were sooner.
The moment I turn onto my street, a winding road up above Hollywood, something feels wrong. Sure enough, the gate to my driveway is open and the skin on my back starts to crawl.
Did I leave it that way? I think. Did someone break in? Am I being robbed right now?
I stop my car in the street and peer in, squinting through the dark. There’s movement on the steps leading to my front door.
Someone looks up, then stands.
It’s Liam.
Fuck.
I knew this was coming. I knew we’d have to talk, hash out what happened at the Whiskey Room, why Dirtshine is going ahead without him, how I can even think about continuing alone what we started together.
He waves. I pull into my driveway and hit the remote button that closes the gate behind me, take a deep breath, and get out of my car.
“Hey,” Liam calls, and just from the way he pronounces that one syllable I’ve already got a feeling he’s been drinking.
“Hey,” I call back, walking toward him. “Did I leave the gate open?”
“Nah,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “The control panel lets you guess the access code five times. Got it in three.”
“So you remember the address of th
e house where I grew up but not that I’ve asked you a thousand times to fucking call first?” I ask.
Now we’re both standing in front of the house. It’s got desert landscaping, most of the yard covered in smooth gray pebbles, with various succulents and bushes dotted around for decoration.
“You ever heard the phrase ‘better to beg forgiveness than ask permission’?” he asks, one side of his mouth ticking up in a hopeful little smile.
I don’t answer.
“I knew you’d say not to come here if I called so I just came,” he says.
“What do you want?” I ask, folding my arms in front of me.
Liam shoves his hands into his pockets and looks away, back toward the road, before he answers me.
“I need a place to stay,” he says, very, very quietly.
I wish I were surprised, but I’m not, especially after what happened the last time we saw each other.
“You can’t go to your flat?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
“Got booted,” he mutters.
“When?”
“Few weeks back. Broke a window and singed the carpet a bit, management overreacted and changed the locks. I’m still fighting them but—”
“You haven’t got a new place?” I interrupt, because I know that Liam’s got some story about how his landlord’s got a grudge against him specifically.
Seems that lots of people hold grudges against Liam specifically, and never once has it been his fault. According to Liam, at least.
“It’s been a bit tricky finding a new lease,” he says. “I guess I’m being sued, plus I haven’t got my deposit back on the old apartment yet and it was quite a lot of money. It was a nice flat...”
Lights flicker through the slots in the fence, and he turns his head to look at them, like he’s desperate not to make eye contact with me.
I stare at him.
“You haven’t got enough money for a deposit on another flat?” I ask, incredulous. “You can live somewhere that’s not a glass-walled penthouse in a posh neighborhood by the ocean, you know. Like we used to live in.”
“I haven’t got the cash on hand right now is all,” he says. He’s still not looking me in the eye. “I’ve been staying with friends and such, but I don’t want to wear out my welcome, you know how it is.”
“You haven’t got money for a motel?” I ask, incredulous.
I’m fucking gobsmacked. As the songwriter of Dirtshine, I made more money than the rest of the band — that’s how intellectual property works — but Liam still made a fucking mint. Even after hospital bills, rehab, and renting an utterly ludicrous flat, he ought to have been able to live like a king for a long time yet.
“I’m trying to save for another flat,” he says. “Come on, mate, just for a few nights. I’ll be quiet as a church mouse.”
I start pacing from the steps to the driveway and back, so worked up that I feel like I’ve got to keep moving or I might actually explode.
I keep thinking I can’t believe this, I can’t believe this, but I’m just lying to myself. Liam, here, out of money and asking for help might be the most believable thing that’s happened in months.
“Where’d it go?” I ask.
“Where’d what go?” he asks.
“The money, you fucking muppet!” I say, my voice rising. “What the fuck did you spend all that money on?”
He’s silent for a moment. I realize he’s just the slightest bit unsteady on his feet, his eyes not quite tracking me properly. Not only has he been drinking, he’s been drinking.
“What, you’re my mum now?” he asks.
“No, I’m the man whose house you’re asking to live in,” I say. “And since you’re here, hat in hand, without a pot to piss in, maybe you could be less of a fucking arsehole right now.”
Liam laughs. He throws his head back and laughs, stumbling backward a step as he does.
“Sorry, I forgot I was in the presence of royalty,” he says. “I spent my money on the same fucking things you did, Gavin. A pile on that fucking worthless rehab, a pile on a flat, on a car, a bit of travel. Only we can’t all be angel-voiced musical geniuses, can we, and for some of us money runs out.”
“And on bail, yeah? And on buying drinks for everyone you meet so your party doesn’t stop, and on piles of coke for all your new friends, and on wrapping your car around a light pole and trashing your overpriced flat?” I snap.
“Least I’m a man and not my own granny,” he says. “Sorry, for a moment there I could have sworn we were in a rock and roll band or something. Maybe your next album can be all about the sinful pleasures of waking up by nine in the morning and jogging three miles before breakfast.”
If ever there was one person who knows exactly how to stab me deep and then twist the knife, it’s Liam fucking Fenwick. Not that it’s surprising. When you know someone for most of your life, when you’re more or less brothers, of course they know how to twist the knife.
That knife cuts both ways, though.
“Actually, I’m in a rock and roll band,” I say. “Last I heard you were a free agent.”
“We can’t all be the golden boy, can we?” Liam snarls. “Must be nice to be Gavin fucking Lockwood instead of just some junkie drummer.”
Now he wants me to say you’re not just some junkie drummer, but I grind my teeth together and force myself not to, because then I’ll be having the argument that he wants to have.
I don’t say anything for a long moment. I can’t think of anything to say that isn’t going to lead further into this same stupid argument that we’ve already had.
Liam rubs his hand across his mouth, then along the back of his neck, like he’s getting antsy for something. Likely a smoke, maybe a bump.
“Look, it’s only for a few days,” he says, his voice quieter. “You’re the last person I’ve got right now, and I just thought...”
He trails off, but I know exactly what he’s getting at. He thought that since he’s my oldest friend, my best friend, I’d have mercy and give him another chance.
He thought that maybe I’d be reluctant to write off twenty years of friendship in a couple of months. He thought maybe I’d feel guilty that I couldn’t help him, that I didn’t talk Trent and Darcy into sticking with him a little longer, or that my life is actually looking up while his spirals the drain, yet again.
And goddammit, the fucking bastard’s right.
“Only a few days,” I say.
Liam starts to smile, but I hold up one hand, stopping him.
“I’m clean and I’m fucking serious, Liam,” I say. “Nothing stronger than caffeine in the house. No alcohol, no drugs, not even pot. You smoke outside.”
“Got it,” he said. “Just pretend I’m living at a nunnery.”
“Bloody fucking—”
“Oi, mate, I’m just having a go,” he says, holding up both hands at once. “I got it. There’s rules, and I’ll follow them.”
I unlock the door with a sinking feeling in my stomach, because I already know it won’t be a just few days and he won’t follow my rules for more than forty-eight hours.
But I don’t feel right doing anything else.
It’s Liam. Even though he’s a fucking train wreck, he’s the one who was there for me when my parents split, when my first girlfriend dumped me, when I dropped out of university. We were Dirtshine, fucking around in his mum’s basement, playing open-mic gigs at the local coffee shop, before we ever met Darcy or Trent.
I can’t live in this palace and turn him out on the street. I just can’t.
“There’s a guest bedroom upstairs and on the right,” I say. “That can be yours.”
He claps me on the shoulder.
“Thanks, mate,” he says, and disappears up the stairs.
I stand there and wish, for at least the thousandth time, that things had gone differently.
16
Marisol
Gavin and I have started texting each other. It makes sense, obviously
. We’re supposed to be dating, and people who are dating call and text and generally communicate when they’re not actively together. But people who are really dating haven’t signed contracts stipulating the amount of time they’re required to spend together.
They don’t get email from publicists suggesting that they “raise the physical affection stakes” or, with increasing insistence, requesting “lip-on-lip” action.
We don’t mention to Valerie that we’re texting and sometimes even calling. Neither of us tells her that he texts me pictures of good sunsets to ask if they meet my high standards, or that I call him from the bus stop sometimes, just because I’m bored, and we end up talking until long after I’ve gotten all the way home.
It’s not that she would mind, but it feels like a secret, like it’s something just between us that can’t be wrapped up prettily and presented to the public. Those dumb pictures and phone calls are for us, not them.
I’m in the middle of class Tuesday when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I hit the button to turn the buzzer off, but a few minutes later, it buzzes again, and then again.
One missed phone call is no big deal, but a bunch? Something is wrong.
My hearts beats a little faster as I stealthily pull my phone from my pocket, and I mentally run through a list of people who might be in trouble.
My parents, my sister, Brianna. One of my cousins. Gavin.
I swallow, my mouth dry, and finally get the phone out of my pocket.
Four missed calls from Valerie. I roll my eyes, set my phone to Do Not Disturb mode, and pay attention to class. She has my schedule. She demanded it, and she demands to know any and all changes to it, and yet calls me without ever consulting it.
After class I’m done for the day — well, except for the pile of homework that I need to get through — and after checking my student mailbox, dropping a book off at the library, and doing a few other things on campus, I finally call Valerie back.
