On The Way Down (The Retake Duet Book 1)

by Ella Fox

  Because of her, I lived in Nowhereville, had to get up at three thirty in the morning five days a week, and couldn’t go home until she did—which for the previous days had been nearly six o’clock at night. The only thing saving me from insanity at that point was that I’d been able to nap in the makeup trailer for a few hours after school on both days.

  Her crappy mood was directly related to Alan, but I hadn’t figured out exactly what the issue was and she sure as hell wasn’t offering to share. I still had yet to meet him, not that I was surprised. That was so Jewel it was ridiculous. For better or worse, she and I didn’t have the type of relationship where we confided in or showed our cards to one another. In a lot of ways, it often felt as if we were warring siblings instead of mother and daughter. That was probably a lot of the reason we butted heads the way we did.

  Because of this, I didn’t speak to Jewel in the car on the way to set on the third day, which was definitely for the best since both of us were cranky as hell. Once we were there I got comfortable in what I thought of as “my” little corner of the makeup trailer, slipped my headphones on, pressed play on Prince’s Purple Rain CD, and opened up Interview with the Vampire to where I’d left off the night before. With the amount of time I had to devote to it I was plowing right along.

  When Garrett showed up in the trailer I ignored him the way I had for the previous two mornings. To be blunt, he didn’t interest me. I had a pulse and two working eyes so it wasn’t like I wasn’t fully aware that he was gorgeous—I just didn’t care. I compared it to art appreciation. A person could look at a Picasso and acknowledge that it was incredible without feeling the need to hang one on their wall, right? Well, that’s how I felt about Garrett Riordan. He was hot, but not my jam. His dark brown hair, deep chocolate-colored eyes, and perfect lips were all nice, but they didn’t light my fire. Garrett was hot but I was all about guys like Johnny Depp. A bit weird, a little fucked up, and a lot deep. At least that was how I imagined him. For Depp, I’d have lived in Moab with a smile. For Riordan, not so much.

  I’d pretty much expected him to be a pompous douche, but thus far everything I’d seen indicated he was reserved and quiet. He didn’t act like a diva with my mom and the other makeup artists, which was a bonus. One of the stars of the soap opera my mom worked on when we first got to Burbank had been a mega bitch of epic proportion. She took the word diva seriously and made damn sure everyone knew they were below her. That wasn’t the case with Garrett, and for my mother’s sake, I was glad. Jewel and I had our issues but she was still my family and I didn’t like people treating her like shit. He wasn’t the chattiest guy but it wasn’t rude, so I thought of that as a win.

  Like the two previous mornings, once Jewel and Gail finished making him up, Mary took over to do his hair. As per usual, my mom then headed to the craft services area to get some coffee. She looked over at me and raised a brow in silent query and I nodded my head to indicate that yes, I wanted one. It was hard not to internalize that our easiest interactions took place when no words were said.

  Once the door closed behind her, I went back to reading Interview with the Vampire. A few minutes later, I got the sensation of being watched. Raising my eyes from the book, I found Garrett Riordan focusing his attention on me. Instead of looking away when he was caught, he stared at me expectantly, like he was waiting for me to have a reaction. I couldn’t hold back the smirk from my face, although I did try. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing as I lifted my book so that he couldn’t see my face. God forbid he said something about me being rude, because I knew damn well Jewel would lose her mind. For the record, my smirk and the laugh that followed happened because I’d imagined Garrett had been waiting for me to go a little crazy because our gazes had connected for a second. It looked to me like I was right to assume he had a massive ego.

  Within a few minutes of looking away, I’d brushed off the moment entirely. I was in my own head, focused on the opening verse of Prince singing When Doves Cry, which was one of my favorite songs, when I realized someone was coming up the three stairs to the area I was in. Expecting to see my mom with the cup of coffee I knew she was bringing back, I was surprised to find Garrett Riordan standing over me.

  I lowered my book in surprise, uncertain why he was there. As I wondered, I noticed my heart rate picking up, which was damn unexpected. I’d seen him plenty over the course of the previous days and I’d seen him on the big and small screen, and I’d never had any kind of reaction to him. Suddenly face-to-face with the man, it was different. With him mere inches from me, a fluttery thrill of awareness hummed in my veins. I noticed how sexy his scruff looked, and I loved the way his hair brushed against the collar of the blue and gray button-down flannel he was wearing. Button-downs were a way of life on set because hair and makeup came before wardrobe and Garrett Riordan looked ruggedly delicious in flannel.

  In addition to looking good, he smelled amazing. I swallowed thickly as I blinked up at him and the moment stretched out between us. Only when he gestured to my headphones did I realize that I still had them on. I’d been so wrapped up in staring at Garrett that I’d completely blanked out the fact that there was music playing. Sliding them off, I reached over and hit the pause button on my Discman.

  “Um, hi. Can I help you with something?” I asked, my voice higher than usual.

  His eyes danced as his lips curled up at the sides. “What’re you listening to?”

  “Prince.”

  “You like Prince?”

  I was a little surprised at how bad his conversation skills were.

  “Can’t stand him, actually. I like to torture myself by listening to things I hate,” I said dryly.

  Garrett’s brows shot up in surprise before he threw his head back and laughed. “You’re a smartass.”

  Bonus, he seemed to have a sense of humor. Surely that trumped being a smooth conversationalist.

  I shrugged. “The question was a little…” I trailed off when I realized that if I insulted him and he took offense it would infuriate my mom.

  “Lame,” he provided. “I should’ve asked what album.”

  Okay, maybe he wasn’t bad at conversing—but there was still the question of why he’d sought me out to begin with. “I’m a Purple Rain girl,” I offered, wondering why he cared what I was listening to.

  He considered that for a second. “Great choice, but I’m guessing it’s a little before your time.”

  I got the sense he was asking how old I was—but since he hadn’t come out and posed it as a question, I didn’t address it. “Not really. I mean, I was young when it came out but good music is good music.”

  He nodded like he understood. “I’ve seen you in here every morning but I know you’re not one of the principle actors and you can’t be an extra since there aren’t any scenes blocked out that need additional faces just yet. What’s your deal?”

  Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of someone walking up the stairs. “Honey?” Jewel said as she walked into the space. Her voice would’ve sounded sweet to anyone who didn’t know her the way I did. I heard the subtext beneath the saccharine and it gave a very clear you-better-not-be-fucking-this-up-for-me message.

  “Hey, Mom,” I answered with forced enthusiasm. “He, uh, came up to ask what I was listening to.”

  Garrett turned and gave her a smile that I instinctively knew he used with people he didn’t care for. Something about the shrewd way he looked at her suggested he either didn’t like her or didn’t trust her—or possibly both. Jesus, I thought, while I was busy not paying attention to him, he’d already gotten Jewel’s number.

  “Just being nosy,” he said smoothly. “I saw her sitting here for the last few days and realized I needed to ask who she was. My family worries about security on set so I told them I’d keep my head on a swivel and put names with the faces I see. It’s all part of the job.”

  Mom’s eyes darted from him to me and then back again. I wondered why she looked panicked.
It wasn’t like I was on set illegally or anything.

  “I apologize for the confusion,” she said, her tone a bit frazzled as she came and set my coffee down on the small table next to my chair. “This is my daughter, Shaelyn. She’s here because she does schoolwork with the studio teacher.”

  “Oh, right. I think I heard something about that. I guess she’s graduating in a few months then?”

  “No, she’s a junior,” Jewel answered.

  At that moment someone called Jewel’s name from down in the makeup area. When she turned to look in that direction she missed seeing the way Garrett had winced at her answer—but I saw it as clear as day. Embarrassed, I looked away until Jewel cleared her throat and I realized she had turned back. “I’ve got to get back to work,” she said. After giving me a brief but deadly look she turned and smiled at Garrett before she walked down the stairs. I turned my attention back to him only to find that he seemed lost in his own head.

  A few seconds passed before he shook it off and spoke. “Uh, I guess introductions are in order. Shaelyn, I’m—”

  My confusion about the way he’d winced when he discovered what grade I was in faded away as the hilarity of what he was doing hit me. My guffaw of laughter cut him off. “I’m not from Mars, Garrett. I know who you are,” I choked out between laughs.

  He looked incredulous and I hoped I hadn’t insulted him. I breathed a sigh of relief when he smiled. I loved the way it reached his eyes.

  “I wasn’t sure,” he admitted with a laugh. “Anyway, my call time is six sharp so I’ve got to go.”

  I nodded, no words coming because I was so busy trying to dissect why I was responding to his presence the way I was.

  “I guess I’ll… see you around,” he murmured after a few seconds of silence.

  My lips curled up into a smile. “Seems that way.”

  He looked back twice as he left, and my stomach fluttered in response each time our gazes met.

  When he cleared the stairs and walked out the door, I noticed that Jewel was watching me. Schooling my expression, I lifted my chin in acknowledgement before I pulled my headphones back into place and lifted my book.

  Over the next two hours, I read the same paragraph thirty times. I managed to retain exactly none of it.

  Chapter Four

  May 1998

  Jewel was throwing off some weird-as-hell vibes, all of which I was busy ignoring. If she had a stick up her butt about Garrett talking to me in the makeup trailer, she could get over herself. There was no law against people talking to me—or me talking back, for that matter. Considering the fact that I’d never humiliated her publicly, her lack of faith in me chafed. It was just another example of how, of the two of us, she was the one who was most childlike. Goldie often said that where I’d been born mature, Jewel suffered from arrested development and would be fifteen until she died. Hard not to notice that fifteen was the year she’d gotten pregnant with me.

  For a lot of people having a child and gaining maturity went hand in hand. My mother wasn’t one of them. I was used to things most people my age weren’t. When it suited her she’d disappear for days at a time with one boyfriend or the next. I’d cleaned up after her when she threw up from drinking too much more times than I could count. I’d hidden in my bedroom when she and her friends would do blow because I hated the way it got them all amped up and cocky.

  It sounded bad, but it was all I knew. Jewel was just… Jewel. To compensate for the fact that she didn’t have a father, Goldie had spoiled her, and it showed. Although my grandmother had been a stripper she’d never been a drunk and she’d never dabbled in drugs. Honestly, when she wasn’t frantically dealing with the shit Jewel started, Goldie was probably the calmest and most centered person I knew. Her daughter was the opposite of that.

  In the car on the way home Jewel quizzed me about my brief conversation with Garrett like she was conducting a murder investigation. I’d answered her questions the first, second, and third time without giving too much attitude but when she asked again, I lost it.

  “Jesus, Jewel! Do you think I gave him your credit card number or something? He asked what I was listening to. The end. That was it. I’m sure he’d forgotten about the conversation by the time he got to the trailer door. By eight this morning he wouldn’t have been able to pick me out of a lineup and I’ll bet money he’ll never say another word to me.”

  She let out a sound of annoyance as she took the turn into the development we were living in for the duration of filming. “Sometimes you’re so goddamn obtuse that it’s nearly impossible to believe you’re mine. There was a reason he was talking to you, little girl.”

  One of my pet peeves was when Jewel called me little girl, mostly because the snide way she did it made my blood boil. She knew it pissed me off but it wasn’t something I complained about much. I wasn’t dumb—I knew I had no leg to stand on with that. I called her Jewel to piss her off, so I wasn’t without guilt. Still, being spoken to like I was dumb was a step too far.

  “Clearly I’m an idiot so you’re going to have to clue me in, oh psychic one. Why was he talking to me?”

  She slammed the car into park in front of our unit before she turned and gripped my chin. I instinctively yanked back but she was holding on tight, something that elevated my anger to another level. I felt anger like what I imagined the Incredible Hulk did before he raged out. I lifted my hand and gripped her wrist, forcibly removing her hand from my face and shoving it away.

  “If you don’t want to go to the next level, don’t ever touch me like that again,” I seethed.

  For most of my life unless Goldie was around, Jewel got physical when she was worked up. Or she had—until I’d stopped putting up with it sometime after my fourteenth birthday. I’d never raised a hand to her but I’d made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that I would if she ever hit me again. Since then she’d downgraded from slapping me across the face to grabbing my shoulders or grabbing my hand. Putting her hand on my face the way she did was a step too far, and she needed to know that.

  For someone that liked to dish it out the way she did she sure as hell couldn’t take it. She glared at me like I was some kind of monster as she dramatically rubbed at her wrist.

  “You think you’re so tough,” she snipped. “I put up with a lot of your shit, little girl, but on this point you do not want to fuck with me. For once in your spoiled little life you need to be a team player and have my back.”

  I gaped at her with a mixture of shock and disgust. “Are you kidding right now? I have always had your back. You’re the one—”

  “Shut the fuck up and listen,” she yelled. “You’re here because you have to be here but if you continue acting out and putting my future in jeopardy, I promise you that I will return the favor. I finally have a shot at a real life—and you of all people will not fuck this up for me the way you always do. Put your goddamn head down, do your schoolwork, and whatever you do, do not ever speak about me with Garrett Riordan. You won’t like what will happen if I find out you’re running that fat mouth of yours.”

  She didn’t give me time to formulate a response before she grabbed her bag, got out of the car, and slammed the door behind her. The viciousness of her attack stung, and in the aftermath I was overrun with adrenaline. Instead of getting out of the car I sat there and tried to breathe through the anxiety I was experiencing. Finish out junior year, get through senior year, and then get the hell away from her permanently, I told myself. Freedom was close enough to taste—I just needed to keep my eye on the prize.

  Once I was confident that I was no longer in danger of losing my cool I grabbed my bag, got out of the car, and went inside. Jewel had wisely made herself scarce, something I was thankful for. I stopped in the kitchen for a can of soda and a cheese stick before I followed her lead and went to my room for the night.

  Had I been foolish enough to believe for even one instant that Jewel would apologize either that night or the next morning, I’d have been sorely disa
ppointed. Sadly, by that point I knew what she was and was not capable of, which meant I wasn’t even a little bit surprised. As unpredictable as my mother could be, the one thing I could set my watch to was that she’d never apologize. The word sorry wasn’t part of her vocabulary unless she was using it as a form of sarcasm. In my entire life I’d never heard her use the word in a sincere way. As far as I could tell, sincerity, self-reflection, caring, and accountability hadn’t been woven into her DNA.

  The drive to the set was made in silence, but that wasn’t anything new either. It wasn’t that we were mad at each other, exactly. It was more that we had an ever-present mutual distaste for one another.

  It was just another day for me, so once we got to set I took up my spot in the makeup trailer and did what I’d done every other morning—listened to music while I read Interview with the Vampire. What wasn’t typical was that when Garrett came through the door of the trailer, my heart rate accelerated exponentially. It spiked even more when he turned his head and looked at me—but then it felt like it stopped for several seconds when he turned and looked away. It felt like a dismissal, one that stung far more than it should have. I felt like an idiot, pure and simple. Embarrassed, I ducked my head and went back to my book.

  Like the day before, I reread the words on the page dozens of times but retained none of it. Over and over again my gaze went back to Garrett. I kept hoping to find him looking at me too, but that didn’t happen. The same thing happened the next day, and I went into that weekend feeling foolish for having cared about him for even a second. I was no better than any of his rabid fan base.

  Chapter Five

  May 1998

  I stretched in my bed as a contented smile spread across my face. Waking up at seven in the morning was much, much better than the three-thirty wake-ups I’d done for the previous five days. Granted, it was still early, but I’d been so tired the night before that I’d been asleep by nine. Waking up early wasn’t something that came naturally to me, and I chuckled to myself about what a difference a few days could make. The week before, waking up at six in the morning for school had seemed super early to me—but that brutal three-thirty wake-up time had changed my definition of early. Jewel always said the body could get used to anything—but since she frequently had a little help from pills or powder it was hard to take her seriously.