On The Way Down (The Retake Duet Book 1)

by Ella Fox

  I followed next to him when he gestured toward the kitchen with his head. “Not your style?” I laughed as we walked.

  “Not at all. If I ever have a home with gold fixtures in it someone needs to drop everything and take me in for a checkup.”

  We stopped in the kitchen where Garrett set down the bag I’d brought with me.

  “I’m sorry to say that fresh cookies were a no-go,” I explained as I unpacked the bag. “I got Sausalitos, Chessmen, Milanos, and the most amazing-looking chocolate mousse cake ever.”

  “This is perfect,” he assured me. “I’d dive in now but dinner will be ready soon. Let’s grab you a drink and head outside.”

  He turned to open the fridge as he spoke. “I’m one of those annoyingly predictable people who always has the same drinks on hand,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ve got red or orange Gatorade, diet Sprite, or milk. There’s also water if you’d prefer.”

  “I’ll have a diet Sprite.”

  After he handed me the twenty-ounce bottle of cold soda he pointed to the sliding glass doors. “Let’s head outside.”

  When I stepped outside and took in the flagstone patio, I realized that the exterior was even more stunning than the interior. The sun was starting to set, which highlighted the view of the sandstone formations and mountains in the distance perfectly. There was a two-tier stone fountain just ahead of me at the edge of the patio and the sound of trickling water was the perfect outdoor ambient noise. To the right of the sliding doors was a teak table with seats for eight. In the center of the table a giant citronella candle was lit, while above a ceiling fan turned at the lowest speed. A bit farther down from the table there was an elaborate outdoor kitchen. To the left of the sliding doors, one of the exterior walls had been done from top to bottom in stacked stone and there was a showerhead in the middle. I looked at Garrett and wrinkled my brow in confusion, because there wasn’t a pool.

  “There’s a hot tub,” he explained with a gesture around the wall.

  When I stepped out a few more feet, I saw that it was down at the end of the flagstone patio. I could tell by the way it was positioned that sitting in it at night while stargazing would be incredible.

  “You’re so lucky—if I lived here I’d be in my bikini as soon as the sun went down so that I could get in there and stare at the stars every night.”

  When Garrett didn’t respond, I turned to find him staring at me intently, eyes blazing. Something wild and electric passed between us, our gazes locking for a hair longer than what would have been considered normal. I blinked stupidly as my nipples hardened and my panties dampened. Biting my lip, I looked away.

  “Fuuuck,” he rasped.

  I lifted my head just in time to see him shake his head as if he was trying to clear it. Without meeting my eyes, he abruptly turned, went to the barbeque, grabbed some tongs from the tiled counter, and opened the lid. My stomach growled as the smell of roasting chicken filled the air. When he calmly turned and asked me to run back into the kitchen to grab four lemons from the bowl on his counter, I was happy for the excuse to walk away for a minute. After I set my soda down on the teak table, I went back into the house and got the lemons. When I got back outside it was as if nothing had happened. Garrett smiled as he accepted the lemons and set them on the wood cutting board on the counter.

  Picking up a silver knife, he used the tip to point to the boombox on a small table tucked in next to the grill. “Can you hit play? I paused it when I heard you pulling in but I like to listen to music while I cook,” he said as he sliced into the first lemon.

  I loved that he was as enthusiastic about music as I was. When I hit play and The Cure’s Like Cockatoos started playing, my jaw dropped.

  “How weird,” I said as I turned back to him. “I was listening to this album as I got ready. This in particular is one of my very favorites from the album.”

  He grinned as he squeezed lemon on a perfect-looking butterflied chicken. “I knew we were musically compatible when you played DJ today but I gotta say, it does not suck that you like so many different things. Once I get you into some classic country, you’ll be perfect.”

  I snickered as I walked to the counter. “We’ll see about that. Anything I can help with?”

  “We’re about ten minutes out from dinner so if you want to set the table that’d be awesome. The plates and cutlery are in those two drawers,” he said with a gesture to the lower storage area of the grill.

  I hummed along with Like Cockatoos as I opened the drawers and pulled out forks, knives, and bright lime-colored melamine plates. I found napkins in another drawer and when I crouched down and opened the small under-counter fridge I found six different kinds of barbeque sauce, three different kinds of salsa, A1, Worcestershire, yellow mustard, hot mustard, butter, and sour cream.

  Looking up at Garrett, I laughed. “There’s too much choice. What should I put out?”

  When he looked down at me and smiled, my breath seized up in my chest. I could hardly believe I’d once thought him generically attractive. I was so, so wrong about that. He literally took my breath away with his raw sexuality. I bit my lip and tried to swallow past the desert in my mouth as I stared up at him. The heat on my cheeks told me I was blushing. I need to cool off but I knew fanning my face would only make it more noticeable.

  Several seconds passed before Garrett cleared his throat and turned away. “We’ve got baked potatoes, corn on the cob, and this barbeque chicken. We’ll need the butter for the corn, the sour cream for the potatoes, and whatever barbeque you want for the chicken. I’m easy. I forgot that I’ve got to return a quick phone call though so if you could watch this for a few minutes that’d be great. No need to turn anything, just make sure it doesn’t start burning.”

  “Of course. I’ve got this.”

  “Thanks,” he said as he hurried around me to walk past the table to the door. Although I was shit at cooking, I figured I could watch things enough to make sure they didn’t burn. Besides, he suddenly seemed jumpy and downright anxious to get inside so I figured the phone call was important. I wondered if he was calling a woman and then I chastised myself for feeling jealous. Aside from the fact that we were barely friends I was a run-of-the-mill, standard-issue, seventeen-year-old girl. On my best day I couldn’t compete with the kind of beauty that surrounded him.

  While I waited for him to come back I put out butter, sour cream, mild salsa, and the bottle of barbeque sauce that said it was sweet and tangy. I then stood with the grill open and watched the chicken while I kept my ears peeled for sounds of Garrett on the phone. This was made more difficult by the fact that The Cure CD was still playing. For several minutes I heard nothing, but then I swore I heard a muffled yell. My stomach dropped as I imagined a scenario where he was arguing with a girlfriend. I got myself so convinced that he was going to completely forget about both me and the food he’d left cooking on the grill. Then everything would burn and I’d have to let myself out like a thief in the night.

  I was so convinced that was going to happen that when he appeared about two minutes later, I was genuinely surprised. The anxiety that had been present when he’d excused himself to make his phone call was missing. Instead, his easygoing smile was back when he came over and picked up the tongs from the counter. He poked around for a minute, turning the chicken, and checking the tinfoil-wrapped potatoes and corn, before he looked over at me and smiled. “It’s perfect. I wasn’t thinking about serving pieces so I didn’t bring any out. Can you bring our plates over and I’ll load them up directly from the grill?”

  I saluted him and gave a little laugh as I spun and took our plates from the table. While I was doing that he took the chicken off the grill, took a giant meat cleaver, and cut the chicken in half. Back at the counter I waited until he finished before I handed him the first plate. After he set the chicken and tinfoil-wrapped items on the plate I handed him the empty one and took the full one to the table.

  “Go ahead and put that at your spot,�
� he called. “I’ll bring mine with me.”

  I nodded as I set my plate down and then took a seat. I’d set the table so that he was at the head and I was in the seat to his left. After he put his plate at his spot, he stayed standing. “I’m going to change the CD. Any requests?”

  I grinned and shook my head. “I played DJ all day—it’s your turn.”

  Obviously I knew he had a lot of CDs and that he liked what he had—but you could tell a lot about a person by what they listened to regularly. Already I knew I’d always remember listening to The Cure, Alice in Chains, Bush, The Beastie Boys, and The Beatles with him over the course of the day.

  I’d only been through the first of the CD books out in the car, which meant I’d only gotten up to letter F. I smiled when the beginning verse of Every Little Thing She Does is Magic by The Police started playing.

  “Good choice,” I praised as he took his seat.

  He smiled as he unfolded his napkin and set it in his lap. “The Police are right up there with my favorite bands. I’m a big fan of Sting and I’ve seen him a few times, but without Andy and Stewart it’s not the same. If there’s ever a reunion concert with the band I’d pay a ridiculous amount of money to be there.”

  “My grandmother would probably give up a kidney to see The Police again,” I said. I didn’t look at him as I spoke because I was trying not to burn my fingers while taking the tinfoil off my baked potato and corn on the cob. I knew I looked like a spaz but I didn’t much care.

  “Your grandmother likes The Police?”

  I nodded as I balled up the tinfoil and set it down to the left of my plate. “She more than likes them,” I explained as I looked over at Garrett. “She saw them four times on the Synchronicity tour and twice on The Ghost in The Machine tour. Sting, Roger Daltrey, and David Lee Roth are her unicorns. Pretty sure she’d pull up stakes and go out on tour for any one of them and never look back.”

  “Your grandmother?” he repeated incredulously.

  I threw back my head and let out a hearty giggle. “I’m guessing when I use the word grandmother you’re thinking of a lovely woman with silver hair who wears floral dresses, right?”

  He snickered as he sliced his baked potato open. “Maybe not the floral dresses. My grandmother was partial to polyester pants and turtlenecks because she claimed that after a certain age women couldn’t show their necks.”

  “My grandmother is forty-eight so she’s not quite there yet,” I explained. “She had Jewel… erm, my mother, when she was sixteen. Apparently one of the last things her parents said to her as they were throwing her out of the house was that rock ’n’ roll had ruined her life. Damn that Elvis and his gyrating hips,” I chuckled. “Goldie always loved music so she didn’t take any of that nonsense to heart. Most of the reason I like such a wide variety of styles is because of her. My mother is pretty basic. Where music is concerned she could take it or leave it.”

  I’d been buttering my corn on the cob but I looked up in time to notice that Garrett wrinkled his nose in distaste when I talked about Jewel. He froze like a deer in the headlights but I just shrugged and went back to the buttering. I couldn’t talk about Jewel in any kind of real way with him and I damn sure wasn’t going to sing her praises just to further whatever her agenda was with Alan. Whatever play she was running was her problem, not mine.

  “You’re lucky your grandmother taught you to enjoy music. I think the world would be a hell of a lot grayer without it.”

  “I agree. The more important a person is in my life, the more music I associate with them. Goldie always says that if you spend a lot of time with someone and no songs come to mind it’s a sure sign that they aren’t meant to be anything in your life. It sounds a little odd but I’ve got to admit that I’ve found it to be true.”

  Garrett nodded as he used his fork and knife to pull his chicken apart. “Only someone who loved music would get that, and I totally do. My parents are like that with music and movies. They passed the passion for both down to me.”

  We spent the rest of the meal talking about our families—well, his parents and my grandmother. Jewel wasn’t included, which I suspected was purposeful on both of our parts. I wasn’t mad about it.

  Everything he’d made was delicious, and I made sure to tell him that several times. After we finished eating, we worked together to put the condiments away and then gather all the trash and dishes together to take them into the kitchen. Since he’d cooked I insisted on cleaning, something he tried to fight me on, but I insisted. While I scraped the plates and then put the dishes in the dishwasher, he went back out to the patio and cleaned the grill off.

  I’d assumed the night was over but as soon as he came back inside, he asked if I wanted to watch a movie with him. Of course I did. The entertainment center in the living room had a small collection of videos in the bottom drawers, and Garrett told me to pick whatever I wanted. I immediately knew they weren’t his because there were a bunch of Sesame Street and Ninja Turtle videos in the mix.

  “They all belong to the owners,” he explained.

  There were a few good movies in the mix. I went with one of the newest videos, which happened to be one of my favorite movies from the year before, Grosse Pointe Blank. After I put the video in I took a seat on the opposite end of the couch from Garrett and got comfortable.

  “You chose this one because of the soundtrack didn’t you?” he teased.

  “Well, that and that I’ve got a teeny-tiny,” I held my thumb and index finger apart a tiny bit, “crush on John Cusack,” I admitted.

  “Cusack? Really? Isn’t he kind of…”

  “Hot? Smart? Funny? Witty?” I offered.

  Garrett grimaced. “I was going to say old.”

  I gave him a pointed look. “He’s thirty-two, which is only six years older than you.”

  “You’re too young for him.”

  I burst out laughing. “When I said I had a teeny crush I meant small. I’ve never met him and never will. Now shh—it’s starting.”

  We didn’t talk much during the movie, but we did share laughs. When it was over, Garrett walked me to my car and opened the door for me. I had the strongest urge to hug him but I managed to keep myself from acting on it. He stood in the driveway and watched as I backed out, and he waved once as I steered the car out onto the road. I smiled the whole way home.

  Chapter Nine

  May 1998

  There was some extra pep in my step on the way back to the trailer from school on Tuesday. This was due to the fact that I’d overheard Nolan talking to our studio teacher about getting enough credits to graduate early so he wouldn’t have to keep losing set time on future movies. When she told him he could do it in a matter of months, I realized I probably could, too. I didn’t even care that I was riding Nolan’s wave—I jumped right in on that conversation. The studio teacher—Annabeth—looked over my transcript and confirmed what I’d suspected when she was talking to Nolan. If I hauled ass, I could be finished with school in four or five months. Within hours Nolan’s father (who happened to be his manager) had confirmed that Annabeth would stay on through the end of shooting to make sure Nolan had ample opportunity to get as much done as possible. It was like I’d hit the lottery.

  Although it was highly unlikely I’d be able to finish before principal shooting wrapped I’d be able to continue on doing independent study through a continuation program back in Los Angeles. That, to me, was like being in jail and finding out that the parole hearing was imminent. Once I was eighteen and in possession of a high school degree I could get out from under Jewel’s control once and for all and if working my ass off to graduate early got me out in October instead of June of the following year, I was all for it. At the moment I only had fifteen hundred dollars in the bank but if I could get a job, that money would grow.

  When I arrived back to the hair and makeup trailer after school on Tuesday, I found Alan and my mother waiting for me. My mom was doing her best to give off the appearance of cal
m, cool, and collected, but I could tell by the glint in her eyes that she was on edge about something.

  “Just the girl I’m here to see,” Alan said cheerfully. “I’ve got an offer I’d like to run past you.”

  My eyes darted to Jewel, but since neither of us knew Morse code it wasn’t as if she could give me a heads-up about what Alan was up to. “You do?” I asked cautiously.

  “Indeed I do,” he answered. “My nephew’s personal assistant, Harry, was in LA for the weekend and was meant to return on Sunday night. Due to an unexpected family issue Harry had to stay in LA, which leaves Garrett in a bind. Harry will continue taking care of business and personal things back in LA, but while he’s here in Moab, Garrett needs some help. That’s where you come in.”

  I didn’t quite get what he meant. “It is?”

  “I had a light bulb moment last night and realized that since you’re only in class for three hours a day, this could be a perfect fit. You’d be taking care of the errands and busy work Garrett can’t do because he’s on set and talking to Harry each day to keep him in the loop of any messages or mail that come for Garrett here. You’ll have to talk over the schedule with Harry and see what exactly he does on any given day. I know he’s normally on top of making sure Garrett’s cars have gas and that there’s food in the refrigerator. It seems little, but keeping everything running smoothly is invaluable in situations like this.”

  I was absolutely blown away. I wanted to do it, but I knew Jewel. There was no way in hell she was letting me take her car on a daily basis. I figured she’d probably told Alan the decision about taking the job would be mine—and I was certain she would want me to say no.

  “If I had a car I’d agree in a minute. Unfortunately—”

  “I’m sorry, I should’ve led with that. There’s no need to worry about transportation,” Alan explained. “Garrett has two cars here with him so you’ll be able to use one of them for the remainder of the shoot. He trades cars in and out so you’ll likely be driving both of them at different times. I know that might sound strange, but Harry says you’ll get used to it pretty quickly. Jewel tells me you’re able to drive manual, which makes you a perfect fit. After I confirmed that with her I knew this was the answer. What do you say?”