by Kacey Shea
“You mean my YouTube channel?” I hold back the sarcasm in my tone, just barely.
“Our self-defense tutorials? What about them?” Jayla quickly amends.
“I’d hardly call them that. Each one ends with Austin on the ground.”
“And that’s a problem?” The playful smile on her lips does something to my insides. Why is she so damn beautiful?
“Well, yes.” Vince’s tone is hard. “You see, people don’t pay hundreds of dollars for a concert ticket to be inundated with your feminist agenda. They want a night of entertainment.”
What the hell? I glance at the guys and they all looked as bowled over as I feel.
“I don’t know, Vince.” Sean chuckles. “The videos are entertaining as fuck if you ask me.”
I nod and smile, thankful for his attempt to lighten the tension.
“We need you to stop,” Vince says.
“Stop?” I laugh, but when he doesn’t continue I realize he’s not joking. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah. No more. I get that you don’t realize the ramifications, but 3UG has never been political. You don’t address issues. You play rock music. And Jayla isn’t here for the spotlight. She’s supposed to be keeping this tour safe. We’re not paying her to empower women. Or black people. Or whatever this is.”
“Wow,” Jayla says, her eyes wide and blinking. She looks about two seconds from telling him off.
I can’t have that, because then she’d get fired. “I’m sorry, Vince, and maybe I’m dumb. . . but how is the two of us demonstrating to others how to protect themselves a bad thing?”
“Come on, Austin. Tell me you watch the news. The ‘me too’ movement. All this ‘black lives matter’ stuff. Whatever you want to name it, we don’t want the band taking sides. It could impact ticket sales.” He clears his throat. “No more videos. Have I made myself clear?”
I open my mouth to argue, but it’s Jayla who answers first.
“Yes, sir,” she says.
“Fuck that.” I shove to my feet and reach for Casey’s phone, intending to take this asshat off speaker and tell him where he can shove his ticket sales. But I’m not quick enough.
Jayla grabs Casey’s cell out of reach, and brings the speaker up to her mouth. “There won’t be any issues. Good-bye, Vince.” Her words are clipped, the tone professional. She doesn’t wait for a response before ending the call and handing the phone back to Casey.
“What the hell?” I hold my hands out and stare.
“Austin, it’s fine.” She crosses her arms over her chest.
“It’s not. Not even a little. And guys like Vince don’t get to make these decisions. That’s my YouTube channel. I’m not taking the videos down. They can tell me where to play and what to record, but they don’t control the content of my personal media accounts.”
Casey raises his hand. “Actually, they do.”
“Fuck off, Lipshitz.” I glare until he looks away.
“Austin, it’s fine. Let it go.” Jayla shakes her head. “It’s not that big a deal. Not worth getting yourself or the band into hot water with your label.” She smiles tersely at the rest of the guys, not meeting my glare before turning her back and walking toward the door.
“But—” I step over Opal’s legs and jog to catch up with Jayla. She’s out the door before I can close the space. I glance back at the guys, but they’re already on to something else, laughing and joking as if our management isn’t the devil incarnate.
I swing open the door and find Jayla a few yards away in the open corridor. “Hey! Wait up.”
“What?” She spins, hand on her hip and expression annoyed.
“You’re going to pretend that didn’t happen. Act like you’re okay with being told what to do, even if it’s unjust?”
“Sometimes it’s not up to me to determine.” She shakes her head. “I have to follow orders, even when I don’t want to.”
I can’t believe she’s so quick to lie down for this. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
Her brow rises and she juts out her hip. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I should take it back. Or apologize, but I can’t believe she doesn’t care. Or that she’s so quick to give up making these videos. Sure, we’ve only done a few, but I thought she enjoyed the time with me. I take a step closer and lower my voice. “It means I never pegged you for a spineless soldier.”
She rears back as if I’ve slapped her. “You know nothing about me. You think that was bad? You have no clue.” Her eyes narrow but I can’t help but notice how they also fill with unshed tears. I hate that there’s hurt there.
“Enlighten me,” I all but demand.
“No, thanks.” She straightens her spine and steps forward to leave.
I block her path. “Don’t. Don’t push me away.” I grip her shoulders and stoop so she can’t avoid my gaze. There’s no one in the hallway but us and a few hired security guards, yet I whisper my next words so they’re only for her. “Don’t force me away and carry it all.”
“You’ll regret it.” Her words lack conviction, and even her shoulders slump under an invisible weight.
“Lay it on me.” Trust me.
“You want to know what it’s like to be a black woman on the force? You want to know how many names I’ve been called, or how many people have tried to humiliate me? Why I left?” She lifts her chin with challenge and there’s venom in her words, as if she thinks that’ll scare me away.
“I do. I want to know. I want everything you’re willing to give me.” I want the opportunity to prove I won’t run.
She pauses to scrutinize the truth in my eyes. At long last there’s a shift in her expression and I know she sees me, the Austin she always knew.
“The worst were the supervisors,” she says. “The co-workers. The people who were supposed to be on my side.” She swipes a tear from beneath her lashes before there’s a chance for it to fall. Her body radiates strength, but her voice shakes. “That’s why I quit. It wasn’t the shitty low-lives I arrested, or served to protect, it was the men I worked with. The ones who were supposed to have my back.”
“I’m sorry.” And I am.
“I don’t want your sympathy. But you wanted to know. Now you do.” She takes a step back and crosses her arms over her chest. She’s done. Closing off. But I don’t want our conversation to end.
“How long were you on the force?”
She presses her lips together and I wonder if she’ll push me away again. To my relief she doesn’t. “Six years. It was my ticket out of a life going nowhere. I couldn’t afford college, and my grades weren’t that good. Not after moving to Cali, I was working retail to help with rent after my dad left. But then I saw an ad. LAPD was hiring. Looking for diversity.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“I wanted to protect people like me. I could be a part of the solution.” She opens her mouth as if she wants to say more but instead glances away.
“What changed?”
“Chief Benson.” She blows out a harsh exhale. “He came on and everything changed. All of a sudden I was partnered with the most racist guy in our squad who thought I went through the academy for the sole purpose of filling out his paperwork and picking up food. Anytime we had a race-fueled protest, and those happen weekly, I got assigned to work security. I was no fool. The only reason they wanted me out there was because it looked good for them on the five o’clock news.”
I swallow hearing her truth. “That’s horrible.”
“It was the beginning of two very long and agonizing years. I thought I could stick it out because giving up my career, everything, felt like the ultimate failure. I didn’t come this far to quit.” Her jaw works back and forth and she doesn’t quite meet my stare.
“What changed?”
“During my last review, I asked if he would refer me to the detective training program, or how I could work toward that, and you know what he said?” Her eyes find mine, and the hurt I fin
d in her gaze cuts as badly as her words. “He said, over his dead body would a black woman get promoted under his command.”
Rage. It’s all I see. The need to hurt this idiot and make his life hell overcomes me. “What’s his name?” The anger in my question is unmistakable.
Her lips pinch with disapproval. “No.”
“What’s his name?” I lift my brows. “I want to talk to that son of a bitch. See what he says when a civil suit is slapped in his goddamn face.”
“Austin. He’s not worth it.” She shakes her head.
“You’re worth it.” You’re worth everything.
“Stop.” She drops my gaze.
I lift her chin with my fingers until her proud gaze is locked with mine. “You know that, don’t you? You’re worth it.”
Her breath quickens but she doesn’t avoid my stare when I drop my hand back to my side.
“Someone like him should never be in a position of power.”
“But he was,” she whispers.
“Was?” My pulse races with the use of past tense.
“He died of a heart attack last year.” The words leave her mouth void of anger or bitterness. It only exemplifies the character and strength this woman has.
“Good.” I can’t help myself.
“Yeah.”
“Could you go back?” Is that what she wants? Did me bringing her on this tour take that opportunity away?
“He wasn’t the only racist, sexist man in the department, Austin.” The light chuckle that leaves her mouth is humorless. “I was way too optimistic to think I’d make the difference.”
“That’s why you ended up in private security?”
“I ended up working security because I needed to pay my bills.” She rolls her eyes. “But my passion project is an after-school center in LA. I started volunteering there, teaching self-defense classes, mentoring. It’s how I make a difference. Well, did. Now I’m stuck on this tour with your ugly face.” Her lips twist with a smile.
“I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.” I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. That I didn’t protect you when I could. I can’t make up for not being there, but I want to anyway. If I could take this from her, I would.
“I don’t need you to apologize for someone else’s poor behavior.” She shakes her head and glances over my shoulder, but there’s nothing happening right now. It’ll be another hour before this stadium is full. “It doesn’t do any good re-hashing this.”
“No, but it helps me understand.”
“You’ll never understand what it’s like to be me.” She’s right.
“But I can empathize. You can let me in. Help me understand. You shouldn’t have to carry all of this on your own.” I reach my hand out to hers, and risk the possible rejection of her not holding mine back. “I’m sorry for what I said to you about Vince. About the videos. I was wrong. You’re the strongest woman I know.”
She slides her hand in mine and squeezes once. “You’re not the worst when you drop the act, you know that?”
“What act? I’m a fly motherfucker twenty-four-seven.”
She shakes her head. “I see we’re back to making everything a joke.”
“Hey, Jayla?” I try not to fixate on how good her hand feels in mine. Or that I never want to let it go.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For trusting me with your story.”
“It’s just a small part.” She pulls her hand back and balls it into a fist.
My gaze stays on her hands, watching them contract and release, like a nervous habit. “Another part I missed.” I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the guilt of it.
“Hey, Austin?”
I lift my gaze. “Yeah?”
A phone pings, and she pulls her cell from her back pocket. After glancing at it briefly, she offers me a smile. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”
“No.” I shake my head. It’s never nothing. “What were you gonna say?”
“Why didn’t you ever call or write after we moved?” Her gaze drops, almost as if she’s embarrassed to ask. “You promised you’d never let us drift apart.”
Her comment takes me back to that day. Back to when we’d been spending so much time together. With her dad out of work, her parents fought all the time. And my mom’s latest loser boyfriend didn’t want me anywhere near the apartment. Every day, we snuck onto either her balcony or mine, out of sight, and found escape in each other. But then one day she was gone. I knew the moment she didn’t show for school there was something wrong. I never could have predicted her family would just up and leave. But they did.
“I didn’t know where you went. How to get hold of you. Fuck, I didn’t even know if you were okay, or still in Phoenix. Everywhere I went I was always looking for you. Your hair. Your face. I called out your name to strangers. I drove myself crazy wondering why you’d just up and leave without any way for me to contact you.”
Her gaze hardens. Eyes narrow, and it’s almost as if she’s analyzing not only my words but the truth of them.
I lift my hands at my sides. “Jayla, what the hell? You were my best friend. The girl I fantasized about every night. And you just . . . disappeared.”
“You’re lying. You have to be,” she accuses, but her words come out unsure with disbelief.
“What are you talking about?”
“I wrote you letters.” She points her finger at my chest. “You were the one who moved on without me.”
“Letters? When?” If this is a joke, it’s not funny. My stomach coils with dread.
“All the fucking time.” She shakes her head and pins me with a glare.
“I never—” My jaw clenches with the realization of another thing my mom and one of her stupid fucked up boyfriends ruined. If things were bad when Jayla lived across the building, they became desolate after she left. My mom’s live-in boyfriend at the time spent more time getting high than anything else. And when Mom wasn’t working, the two of them went out partying, leaving me to play babysitter on the weekends he had custody of his kid.
He never liked Jayla. Never liked me. I’d bet money he made damn sure those letters never made their way into my hands. Hell, it could have been my mom. My jaw hardens with the onslaught of memories I rarely visit.
“Austin?”
“Sorry, I—” I run a hand across my face and push the rage from my voice. “I can’t believe you wrote. They never gave me your letters.”
The hardness on her features soften with understanding. She was there enough to know. “Your mom?”
I shrug. “Or her boyfriend.”
“Are they still together?”
“No.” I swallow the anger and guilt. “I don’t really speak to anyone.” Not since the big blow up. Not since leaving home. Running away. At the time, it was the only way I knew to survive, but looking back I realize how utterly selfish it was. If I had been there, then maybe—
“I’m sorry.” Her apology cuts through my spinning thoughts.
“No, I’m sorry. All this time . . . I thought you forgot about me.” I step forward. Wishing, wanting to pull her in my arms, but knowing I have no right.
Her gaze seeks mine. “I thought the same.”
“Miss Miller?” A deep timbre pulls her attention away.
“Yes?”
“We’re ready to open the doors. Brian said to get you first.”
“Yes, I’ll be right there. Thank you.” She brings her gaze back to mine, hiking a thumb over her shoulder. “I better . . .”
A grin pulls at my lips. I don’t know why, but the knowledge that all these years she didn’t just walk away, that she cared, it changes everything. “Yeah, go do your thing. We’ll talk later.”
“Good luck tonight.” She backs away, but there’s a reluctance to her steps, as if she’s not ready for this moment to end. Her lips mirror mine with her smile. “Break a leg. I can say that, right?”
“Jayla, you can say whatever you want.” My face hurts, that’s how big m
y smile grows, and before she turns, her laughter echoes off the walls and it’s my new favorite sound. The pit of my stomach bubbles with a sensation akin to excitement and nerves before a big show, something I haven’t felt in years. The source is clear, though, and it has everything to do with Jayla and the fact she’s in my life for good—or at least for the remainder of this tour.
125
Jayla
I think about Austin for the rest of my shift. No. Obsess is more accurate. We had moved back to California to be near family when Dad hadn’t been able to find work and Mama couldn’t support us on her own. Only everything that transpired that first year in Cali broke down what little was left of their marriage, and our family fell apart. I wrote Austin often at first. It was my way of holding on to our friendship and surviving my new life in spite of the hundreds of miles my parents forced between us. In all the years, I never once considered he hadn’t received my letters. Eventually, I lost hope in everything, including Austin.
But now, everything is different. He never read my letters. He didn’t ignore me, or move on. Not the way I imagined. All the anger I’ve directed toward him for years is no longer justified. In its place grows a seed of interest. Now more than ever, I want to know him.
While running the security team, I can’t help but sneak a few glimpses of the show. They’re fantastic performers, all of them, but my eyes seek out Austin every time. Everything about him screams sex on that stage. His confidence; the way his hips rock with each strum of the guitar; his lips as they part against the microphone to serenade for backup vocals. Most of all, those long, nimble fingers. Sweet Jesus. They’re my undoing. I wonder what it’d be like to have him touch me the way he caresses those guitar strings.
Unprofessional. Wrong. Not a good idea. I remind myself over and over, but the more I repeat the reasons, the more they feel like excuses. Given his current revelation, they seem insignificant. I need to live in the moment. Get to know Austin as the man he is today. We missed out on so many years, and I won’t allow myself to waste more time worrying about what might or might not happen. Besides, I don’t even know whether I could handle being with him. I don’t enjoy being touched intimately by anyone, and as amazing as Austin is, he won’t be able to erase my load of emotional baggage. If we were to cross that line, I’d have to explain things I’d rather leave in the past. I’m not sure I could do that, even for him.