by Kendall Duke
But I liked her. And I was sad that tonight was probably about to get a lot worse for Kayla Barton, hard-working popstar.
Mark gave me a thumb’s up through the sliding glass door before he came inside and Kayla could see him. He was telling me that Chase was slipping through the bathroom window at that exact moment in time, silent and unobserved by anyone—especially our suspect, if everything went well. Chase and I bore a passing resemblance to one another, and in another moment, he and Mark would walk out together, making it appear as if Kayla were alone, guarded from outside. There was a good chance the suspect would try to sneak in the same way Chase just had, but when he did, he’d find me. Waiting for him.
Mark came in, waved to Kayla, and murmured to me that everyone was on stand-by. The three people we’d narrowed it down to were staying in the house. None of them had left the first floor yet. We were gambling that when Chase walked out of the pool house and around towards the front, using the same path Kayla preferred to get here, the suspect would see him through that big front window, leave the main house and come over. If I was right—and I was really, really beginning to hope I wasn’t—they’d wait until Kayla looked like she was sleeping and crawl in the window. Rocket had several cam systems set up to monitor the pool house, but any of the three suspects could protest that they lived here if they were caught on camera and were just walking by. We had to catch someone in the act of breaking in.
Unfortunately.
It would be embarrassing, and then, it would be sad. I’d never dreaded being right so much.
Kayla waved to Mark and gave Chase a second glance, doubtlessly wondering where he’d come from. I waved them out, and she gave me one of her far-too-mischievous glances. I didn’t offer any answers, though, and went back to lurking in the kitchen.
Half an hour ticked by.
Kayla changed channels constantly; I noticed that features on her appeared twice and she had absolutely zero interest in them, zipping through as if the giant screen hadn’t mentioned her name or blasted her face at us at all. I tried to monitor her expression in the reflection on the screen, but the light wasn’t favorable. Besides, I told myself, that is exactly the kind of thing that would distract me from my job.
And, I went further, I could be wrong.
It was always possible the culprit was a highly trained covert operational tactician that spent their nights haunting the dressing rooms of popstars for fun… Sure.
Kayla heard me sigh. “You alright?” Her beautiful face turned towards me from the couch; there were dark circles showing under her eyes, through her make-up, and it made her loveliness under the circumstances even more poignant.
It was such a strange question—people generally knew better than to ask me that, and if they did, it was because they already understood that the answer was an unchanging, permanent ‘no. Not really. But I’m doing my best.’ “Just fine, miss,” I told her, and then I got my shit together and did my job.
~~~
Kayla
I had no idea where Chance came from. I’d only seen him twice since yesterday, after the ‘briefing;’ he was in the hall standing with the rest of the giant cyborgs while Jacob mumbled at top speed in the center, like a star quarterback during huddle. I wasn’t even sure his name was Chance, that’s just what someone mumbled slightly louder when I walked by, trying to eavesdrop.
It all seemed a little much at the time.
Jacob was hanging out by my fridge, and I wondered if maybe he was hungry. I tried to ignore the weird combination of anticipation I had whenever I caught a glimpse of his profile in the reflection on the television and he was glancing my way, and the irritation I felt at having someone in my space. I knew he must be really worried about that letter; I was, sure, but I didn’t believe whoever wrote it would really hurt me. They just sounded… Sick. Really, really sick.
Jacob struck me as a guy without a lot of compassion for that kind of sickness.
“Hey, I’m going to have some ice cream and go to bed. Would you like some?” I stood up and realized I was still wearing my costume; no wonder I smelled like a locker room. “Hmm. And hit the shower. What do you say?” A blush crept over my collarbones when I realized that could be interpreted differently than I’d meant it, but I blundered on, pulling spoons out of the drawer and then rifling through the cabinet for bowls. “Somebody should really clean this place up—”
“Miss, is everything alright?” The first thing I noticed was the size of his hand—it felt like a fricking dinner plate landed on my shoulder. It was warm and broad and weighed way, way more than a human hand should, which I could tell even with the second thing I noticed: he was trying to be gentle. And succeeding, really; I’m sure that hand weighed a heck of a lot when he wasn’t making an effort. I gulped and looked up at him. Jacob was watching me, and there was the vaguest look of concern in those icy eyes.
“I’m okay,” I said, swallowing again and worrying that my blush was now creeping up my cheeks. I couldn’t stop staring at him. “I—I’m sorry, I just wanted to grab—”
“Your hands are shaking,” he said, and his voice, which was extremely deep and hard to hear sometimes because he spoke so quietly, was actually pretty gentle too. “Let me help you, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and went back over to the couch.
My hands were shaking, unfortunately, and once my blush was gone I felt… Cold. Because the letter was bothering me a lot more than I wanted to admit, and so was something else, something harder to talk about—I wanted to be grateful for my success, sure, but I also wished… I wished my best friend--also my only friend, I should point out--wanted to hang out with me, instead of stay in the house and ignore me until the show tomorrow, when she’d update me on all of my social media accounts and make me take photos with her after make-up arrived. I wished we were still actually friends. I wished that my mom felt well enough to talk. I wish that Todd wasn’t so weird all the time. I wished… It was the dumbest thing, because if I went online right now and said any of this, about twenty five thousand people would respond, telling me I was great, it would get better, they loved my music and they loved me. And not a single one of them knew me. Not in real life. Not really.
So I was bumming out because I was lonely. I could call a couple people, sure—I could go up to the house and ask Stacy if she wanted to watch a movie. I could do a lot of things, but I had to do them, because no one was asking me to do them. And that sucked.
I got like this after shows sometimes. Sometimes the after-party really helped. And when I was in Nashville I always felt better, because the community there was just different; all of the old-timers remembered my dad and they were nice to me, and some of them really were friends—they would invite me over for cook-outs and barbeques and just be near me, and be normal. It was wonderful. I was thinking of moving back, even though it seemed weird to want to be closer to a bunch of people that were my mom’s age instead of mine.
But tonight, I was stuck here, in the big old house I bought when my first record went platinum. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I regretted it whenever we were here. And maybe, now that I was older and Todd had a lot less to do with my money, I could sell it and go back to Nashville.
All of these thoughts rattled around in my brain so loudly that I was startled when a bowl of ice cream appeared in front of me. “Oh!” I looked up at Jacob and gave him a big smile. “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome, miss,” he said, and he was just about to disappear back into the shadows when I reached out, this time, and touched his hand. I had to reach over the couch to do it, and I’m sure it made me seem a little desperate, but… I was a little desperate. I just got the feeling that Jacob didn’t care at all about my fame. He didn’t even care that much about my money; I would’ve negotiated a much tougher contract than he did. These things were probably the lowest bar available in the universe for a friendship, but I really needed someone to talk to. “Where’s yours?”
“My what?” He gave me one of his no-nonsense looks but I knew he’d heard me. There was something slightly different about the arctic expression on his face. Something slightly… Amused.
“I didn’t want you to shower with me,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. That took him aback—for a split second, his eyebrows flew up and his eyes widened. A win for me! For only a second though, because then took a couple of steps away, putting some distance between our hands. “I want you to eat ice cream with me.”
“I don’t think that’d be appropriate.” He paused before heading back to the shadowy kitchen. “Miss.”
“Okay, listen, I hate to pull rank—a phrase I heard you use earlier today, by the way, and thought sounded pretty tough—but don’t I pay you?” I fluttered my eyelashes at him. I looked anything but tough right now, as I was twisted at the waist and hanging over the couch, begging for company, but that little flash of amusement met me once again from somewhere behind his chilly gaze.
“You do,” he said, and although he wasn’t walking any further away, he certainly wasn’t coming any closer. His eyes sparkled in the shadows. “Quite a substantial sum, I would say—far too much to do such an incredibly poor job.”
“You really need a better negotiator,” I said, slipping back on the couch to grab my ice cream before standing up and walking towards him. “What about a tip? Ice cream would make a pretty good tip.” I leaned on my kitchen counter—a three by four foot table I’d had a carpenter basically nail to the wall—and ate my ice cream while watching him. Jacob crossed his arms and leaned on the fridge, apparently satisfied that this somehow counted as guarding me.
“Don’t really do carbs,” he said in his low voice after a long moment. I was so startled I snorted into my bowl, which—I am absolutely positive, even if it was just for half a second—actually made him smile.
“I’m a singer, buddy,” I told him with an exaggerated wink. “I don’t do carbs either.” Wink, wink.
Why did everything turn into a sexual innuendo with him?
I stared down at my ice cream again while my cheeks grew hot, trying to recover. I was a giant dork—if you liked me, it was part of my charm, and if you didn’t, I must be faking it to make myself seem ‘real’—but this was a bit much even for me. “Miss… Did something else happen tonight?” Totally out of thin air. I didn’t snort again, thank goodness, but I did gape at him. Like a giant dork, I might add—as if someone would want to be this awkward. Anyway.
“What? Why?” I stood up a little straighter. “You mean besides the super creepy letter?”
“Yes, miss,” he said, watching me. I reached over and turned on an overhead light, and he promptly slapped his hand over it so that the kitchen went dark again. “Sorry about that,” he said, but he didn’t sound sorry. “Tactical measures.”
“Um, what the—”
“Miss, you’re acting strangely. Are you…” I listened, trying to pay close attention since apparently we were only allowed to talk in the dark. “I want to make sure you’ve told us everything, that there’s not another risk factor to consider.”
“Ah,” I said, and leaned on the counter again. My bowl was empty, but since I was basically diving head-first into humiliating myself in every way possible I just walked up to him, gently moved him out of the way (by making him move himself, while I gestured rapidly), and got the rest of the pint of ice cream out of the fridge. “So this is your job again?” Not friendship, I knew, although for some reason I’d wanted it to be. I was in bad shape. Tomorrow I needed to hang out with Mom. Maybe we’d drive down to Nashville together after the show.
“Well, as you pointed out, you do out-rank me,” he said, managing to make this sound as neutral as possible, which only increased the smart-aleck factor. I put my bowl down and glared at him in the dark, somehow sure he could see me. “You are my job.” Another brief, sarcastic pause. “Miss.”
“Jeez, you make it sound terrible,” I said, and then picked up my ice cream bowl again. “To answer your question: no, nothing unusual happened tonight. Beyond…That. The thing to which we were referring. I think I just miss Nashville, and my mom—” I stopped talking suddenly, realizing I was really crossing a boundary, a boundary he’d emphasized with me several times. He didn’t want to be my friend; he’d literally just called me his job. So confessing my feelings would not be appropriate, mature, or unselfish. I backtracked. “So. The lights?”
“Miss?”
“We’re standing here in the dark because… What did you say…” I licked the ice cream off of my spoon, then stuck it back in the pint and ate some more. “Tactical something. So. Explain this tactic to me, then.”
“I’m not at liberty to do that, Miss.”
“What?” I glared at him again. “So what am I paying you for? I’m so confused.”
“You’re not paying me to eat ice cream, Miss,” he said, that chilly sarcasm seeping back in to the neutral tone. “You’re paying me to protect you.”
“So the lights are out to protect me.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“That’s dumb.”
Silence. Then, “I’m sorry, Miss?”
“That’s dumb,” I told him, and shrugged. Infuriating him felt good—far too good. Better than it should have, because he was not my friend, and certainly not more than a friend… But the delicious shiver that went down my spine had all of the furtive excitement of sexy anticipation, and none of the work-a-day back-and-forth pitter-patter or any other hyphenated phrasing that indicated a lack of chemistry, a nonchalance. This was… Spicy. Very.
I was probably going to end up naming the album after him.
“If the lights are out, a lot could happen, all of it very dangerous,” I said seriously as I licked my spoon. “I could drop this ice cream, and then, in the dark, I could slip on it and fall, and land in a split and break my hips, but not before I knock over that iron over there, and pull out the cord so that it lands in the ice cream and shorts out the circuit and then—boom! The whole place is up in flames and I’m stuck there, on the floor, with broken legs.”
“Hips, Miss.”
“Yes. Broken hips,” I said, nodding at his face in the dark. “See? Dangerous.”
“I’m sure if you fell I could catch you before you landed.” I heard a chilly sigh. “Miss.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes.” A little more force, a little more heat. Delicious.
“You sure about that?” I immediately pitched myself over, my ice cream cast aside. Sure enough, strong arms wrapped under me, then effortlessly lifted me into the air as Jacob stood upright with me clenched in his arms, pinned against his chest. “Alright, fine,” I murmured, looking up at him. His profile was perfectly outlined in starlight through the open kitchen window, his eyes sparkling down at me. His mouth was slightly open, and I could feel his heart beating in his chest; suddenly I felt a little guilty. “You should ask for a raise,” I muttered, and he let me down, the spell broken. I tried to look cool as I picked up my ice cream and promptly spilled some on my shirt. “I have practiced that fall a lot, you know. I was never in any danger.”
“I know, Miss,” he said, stepping back against the fridge, “because I’m here. And I caught you.”
“No—”
“Just like I said I would.”
“No, I meant—”
“Miss.”
“Alright, buddy,” I said, starting to laugh in spite of my attempts to sound serious and calm, to match the way he spoke, that barely detectable sense of humor buried under the brutally chilly exterior. After I managed to contain the laugh, I continued. “I’m very good at that fall—I had to do it for the stage show we choreographed last year, and I can kind of land like this—”
“Please don’t demonstrate again, Miss—”
“Stop interrupting me, Jaco—”
“Yes…. Miss.” I was laughing so hard at this point that I had to put the ice cream down or risk spilling more of it in some kind of dork-fu
lfilling-prophecy. I leaned on the countertop and giggled until I could control myself.
“You are too much,” I muttered, then looked over at him.
I caught him smiling at me. So I smiled back.
We stood there for a long moment before he seemed to realize what he was doing and crossed his arms over his considerable chest, leaning back into the shadows. It made my knees weak to think that I’d just been pressed against the broad expanse of muscle, that those arms were wrapped around me. Jacob was pointedly looking out at my living room area, scanning the windows. I watched him for a long moment, until the warm feelings inside of me faded away.
I didn’t have a lot of experience with guys—normal experience, anyway. I started working really young and my mom pulled me out of school when I was fifteen; I asked her to, because I wanted to focus on my music, but I was also really tired of getting bullied. Being a famous middle schooler is not cool; famous in high school is even worse. I don’t care what anybody tells you, or what the money must look like—not that I saw any of it then, anyway, or even now, really—it just isn’t. Other kids fawn on you and hate you viciously all at the same time, which, from what I understand, is kind of what middle school is like anyway, but this is with the added pressure of the whole world watching you as well. Your adolescent crushes filmed on posters behind your head as you sing a song and miss a note in a video update that’s already an hour late. Your zits on full blast while your make-up is almost a joke and you debut a new hair-cut that you saw on someone who is much prettier. I mean, being thirteen sucks, no matter what. Being thirteen on camera was a nightmare. But fourteen? Unmentionable.
I could’ve stopped, any time. No one made me do it.
But it was how I coped with my dad dying, and I didn’t want to stop. No matter how awful things got with the other kids, my mom and I were close, and I had his memory. I remembered what he loved more than anything else, even more, I guess, than us, it felt like, at least in the end: music. So I devoted my life to it, and I wasn’t going to quit no matter what happened.