And the ghost of everything that could have been with Ben.
Chapter Twenty-four
The relentless, mocking Southern California sun grinned down at Bria. She yanked her aching, sleep-deprived eyes away and tried to focus them on the road, stealing a quick glance at the boy beside her.
A hot boy with a motorcycle and an awesome band and just the right amount of snark to keep things interesting. A boy with warm arms and soft lips. A boy who’d pursued her with unwavering loyalty.
Rafael was saying something about Battle Goat.
“Cool,” she said and that seemed to be the right answer.
She pulled into the high school and parked on the opposite side of the gym. Stepping out of the Corvair, she flicked her eyes over the crowded parking lot.
“We should get you a helmet,” Rafael said, steering her toward the school with his arm around her waist. “So we can ride the Indian.”
She scrunched up her eyebrows. “You want me to get on the back of a motorcycle?”
“You’ve already got the leather.” He tugged on the collar of his jacket. “I think that looks better on you than it does on me.”
It almost fit too well. “Maybe I’ll keep it.”
“Maybe I’ll keep you.”
She twisted away from him and headed toward the art room. “I need to talk to Ms. Fury before school starts. I’ll see you in a few?”
“Sounds good.” He planted a kiss on her lips and that weird feeling of being claimed slid down her spine again. “See you later.”
She kept her head down, wishing for once that she could blend. In a sea of 2,700 students, shouldn’t be too hard to avoid Ben. And with Rafael’s arm around her shoulder and Dolores as backup, she’d managed to avoid Abby’s questions too. So long as the musical came together and no one flaked on homecoming, she’d be happy.
But that wouldn’t stop Ben from finding her.
She made it to the art room where Ms. Fury spun around the room, hands, hair and clothes all fluttering. The familiarity brought out a smile, and Bria exhaled. At least the art room still made sense. “Do you have a minute, Ms. Fury?”
“Always for you, sweet girl.” The art teacher waved her into her office, an even greater haven of chaos than the art room. She frowned at the stack of books on the chair in front of her desk and swept them up into her arms. She dropped them on a low filing cabinet, already heaped with CD jewel cases. Bria held her breath for fear one wrong puff of air would send the whole thing toppling.
“…Bria?”
She floated back to the present in time to hear the end of Ms. Fury’s question.
“It’s my portfolio.”
“Have you finalized your selections? I think the five you already picked are spectacular. Once you finish the sea-storm, it’ll be one of the best I’ve ever seen. That mural was a stroke of genius. Oh! And I almost have your letter of recommendation ready too. I just need to find the letterhead…” She tossed her head around, as if she might stumble upon it by accident.
“I don’t think you need to worry about it.” Bria swallowed and tapped out a steady beat inside the toe of her boot. Five times seven is thirty-five. Five times eight is forty. Five times nine is forty-five. Five times…
“Oh. I know it’s optional, but I do think it will strengthen your application, help them understand your place in the artistic community. I didn’t mean to take so long.”
“No.” She took a deep breath. Ben might have proved himself to be the biggest jackhole ever to grace the planet, but he wasn’t wrong about everything. “I’m not going to Pratt.”
Ms. Fury blinked a few times and tilted her head to one side. “I don’t understand. Is there another school? You can apply to more than one.”
“I want to go into accounting.”
“Account…?”
Bria already felt the weight lifting from her shoulders and sat forward in her chair. “I love math. I started helping my dad with his invoices, and then took over his expenses and now I even do our taxes every year. I enjoy it. I make him budgets and find ways he can cut down on his overhead and improve his bottom line. Numbers make so much sense. If I get something wrong, I can pick it apart until I find my mistake and fix it.”
Ms. Fury smiled and her eyes cleared. “Oh, Bria,” she said. “If you could see your aura right now. The purity of your energy. I can’t even feel sad with that glow about you.” She rose and swept Bria into a hug.
“Thank you?” Bria said, not exactly sure how else to respond. Accounting and glowing auras didn’t exactly click, even in her head.
“Four years I’ve taught you,” she continued. “I’ve watched you grow as a person and as an artist and I’ve never seen you so alive. Go, be free little butterfly.”
Bria knitted her brow and backed toward the door. “Thanks again, Ms. Fury.”
“There you are.” Rafael lifted his head from the sketchbook clutched in his lap and grinned. “Everything okay?”
“I think so.” She glanced back at Ms. Fury. “She is so weird sometimes.”
“You’re telling me,” Bas said. “She keeps telling me I need to exercise to clear my chakras.”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Bria said.
“I beg to differ. Exercise can hurt a lot.”
Rafael touched Bria’s hand. “You look a little dazed.”
“I told her I’m not going to art school.”
“For real?” Bas said.
Rafael set down his pencil and sat up straight. “Why not?”
She pulled the pencil free from her hair, releasing her purple waves. “Because I love this too much to ruin it with school.” With a twirl, she set the pencil to paper and, for the first time in ages, she didn’t care if what she did was good enough to impress anyone else.
~
With most of the set pieces built, Abby’s vision neared completion. The crew had erected a series of scrims intermixed with the flats and Styrofoam pieces to create the appearance of set changes without moving anything. While Bria teetered at the top of a ladder to finish her work on the flat, the lighting guys focused a Fresnel in response to Abby’s directions from the booth.
“Give me a hand?” Dolores called from down below.
Bria set her brush aside. “Sure. What do you need?”
“I need your opinion on some props.”
Bria climbed down, her boots clunking against each rung of the metal ladder.
“So.” Dolores led the way to a back room crammed with fake plants, furniture, wigs and a Victorian wheelchair. “Are you okay?” She shut and locked the door behind them.
“Fine.” Bria crossed her arms over her chest.
“What are you going to do about this?”
“Nothing. I’m just going to avoid him until graduation. It’s only like seven more months.”
“Except you’re forgetting that his sister is your best friend. We do everything with her. We practically live at her house.”
Someone knocked on the door and Dolores reached around to unlock it.
“What’s going on?” Abby asked. “I need you guys to tell me if these gobos look right.”
“Homecoming,” Dolores said. “We’re talking about getting ready for homecoming.”
“You guys are coming over to my house, right? Mom said we could use her makeup and stuff.”
Dolores glanced back at Bria. “Won’t your brother be there with his friends?”
“No way. Ben and the rest of the team are together all weekend. I probably won’t even see him until Monday. Did you see he got nominated for homecoming king? So lame.”
“We’ll be there,” Bria said.
“What about tomorrow?” Abby hoisted herself onto a table. “Season premiere of Unearthly. We’re watching together, right?”
Dolores pulled the end of her braid through her fingers. “We always hang out at your house. Your mom needs a break.”
“My dad finally fixed our cable,” Bria said.
“On the b
ig TV?” Abby’s eyes lit up.
“Sure. If my dad isn’t using the screening room.”
“Oh my God, Bri. I take back everything I ever said about you holding out on us. Best season premiere ever!”
“I’ll order pizza,” Bria said. “I’ll even get some with real cheese for Lor.”
“Sweet. Now, I really need you guys for these lights. They’re going to make or break this whole production.”
“You say that about everything,” Bria said.
“Yes. And I mean it every time.”
“We just need another second,” Dolores said.
Abby clapped her hands together and jumped down from the table. “You guys are seriously the best.”
“See,” Bria said. “Not a big deal.”
Dolores closed the door again. “You can’t avoid him forever, and if you’re going to go all praying mantis on him, I need to know.”
“I’m not even mad.” Bria sank into the wheelchair. “I just feel like an idiot. He did exactly what guys like him do. It’s my fault for thinking he could be different.”
“Sweetie.” Dolores enveloped her in a hug.
“It’s fine.” She sniffed and wiggled loose.
“Hey.” Dolores tapped her chin up with a knuckle. “At least you’ve got Raf. Best revenge is moving on. Right?”
Chapter Twenty-five
At the end of crew, the sun still hovered above the mountains, glowing around the edges as everyone left the auditorium for the night.
Bria wove her fingers around the strap of her bag. Beside her, Dolores attempted to start conversation after conversation, anything to draw her out of the hollow shell she’d spent the day inside.
Dolores stopped abruptly and clutched Bria’s forearm, holding her in place.
“Hey.” Rafael leaned against his motorcycle, feet crossed at the ankle. His helmet hung from the handle bar and a leather jacket hugged his body from his shoulders to his hips.
“Hi.” Bria stood stock-still.
“I’ll see you later,” Dolores said. “I forgot I told Abs I’d help with something.” She scurried away before Bria could protest.
“I didn’t see you at crew tonight,” Bria said. She expected him to come back with some cocksure comment about her missing him.
“I went to get this.” He held out a red 3/4 helmet.
“Isn’t that your helmet?” She pointed at the matte black one he always wore.
“This one is for you.” He stood and walked close enough to tuck one of her loose curls back into place. “You’re stressed. I want to help.”
“By trying to kill me?” The hopeful skip in her heart scared her even more than the bike, but it was easier to deflect than consider she might be falling for Raf.
“I’m a really good rider. My uncle is a pro and he taught me. I’d never take you out on it if I thought you’d get hurt.”
“It’s still a motorcycle. I don’t do motorcycles.”
He placed his hands on her waist, long, callous-roughened fingers rubbing circles against her back. “Do you trust me?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want to help. Can you trust that?”
She tilted her head down, trying to keep herself from overthinking. “Where do you want to go?”
A smile softened his eyes. “Up the coast. No canyons or crazy speed or anything. Just a few miles into Malibu. Totally safe.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She shut off the nagging warning in her head. “I have to put my bag in my car.”
“But you’ll come?”
She nodded and his smile exploded, thawing the frozen shell of her heart, even if it didn’t quite reach the core.
Bria dug around the Corvair, finally finding a pair of jeans to pull on over her tights.
“You sure you’re okay with this?” Rafael asked, holding the spare helmet toward her.
Bria narrowed her eyes at the sleek metal and shiny chrome Indian balanced on two wimpy wheels. “If you’re sure I’m not going to die.”
Rafael grinned. “You’re going to love it.”
Instead of questioning the origins of her apparent death wish, she grabbed the helmet from his hands and jammed it onto her head.
“Hold still,” he said, looping the chinstrap through the other end. He pushed closer, hips pressed to hips, and slid a finger between the strap and her jaw. “Can’t have it too loose.”
His black eyes drank her in and he didn’t move his hand right away. Instead, he caressed her skin, his touch feather-light.
“Can you even feel that?” she asked, unable to move but not frozen, not rigid. “Your callouses are so…”
His fingertip swept across her cheek to her lips, lingering for a moment. “What do you think?”
Her breath hitched, but then that wicked gleam lit his eyes and he pulled away, throwing his leg over the bike.
“Come on,” he said, strapping on his own helmet. “Hold on tight.”
Bria slid on behind him, tightening her grip when he gunned the engine. With her thighs pressed to his, the vibration of the bike passed through him into her.
Almost without warning, Raphael released the clutch and they shot forward. She curled her fingers deeper into his chest and leaned her head against his back. She’d never pressed so tightly, so urgently against another person in plain sight. The sheer, naked intimacy of it brought heat to her face even with the wind whipping by.
The Pacific Coast Highway opened before them and she gasped, letting the air off the ocean rush at her.
Loosening her stranglehold on Rafael, Bria settled into the motion, the rumble of the bike, and the steady thrum of the engine chewing up the road in front of them. The sheer cliffs of Malibu rose to their right, small tufts of grass and wild flowers poking up through pinky-grey rock face.
To the left, the ocean boomed, pushing and pulling at the sand, rushing in and retreating in a frothy spray. Gulls circled, crying as they swooped toward the water.
Minutes or hours or days might have passed in the wild space beyond the city. Rafael’s body disappeared and it was only her own and the sensation of flying, suspended between the mountains and the sea.
The bike slowed and she drifted back to earth, landing with a rapid exhale on a turnout overlooking the ocean.
Raphael dropped the kickstand and turned around.
“So?” he pulled off his helmet, grinning with the same wild, reckless joy slamming around her chest.
“Yeah.” She unstrapped her helmet and let it slid from her fingers to rest on the ground. “Yeah.”
“God, you’re beautiful when you’re alive.” He caught her face between his hands and pressed his mouth to hers.
With hungry abandon, she leaned in when he pressed his hands to the small of her back.
Instead of Ben’s tentative, questioning kisses, this one didn’t hesitate, didn’t wonder. She knew what she wanted as much as Raf did.
Except she didn’t.
She pulled back and pressed her lips into a tight line to keep her mouth from finding his again. “So.”
“So.” He nodded his head toward the coast.
The view hit Bria all at once, the sun sinking in the sky and gilding the entire world. The glittering ocean. The cotton candy threads of cloud. Soaring cliffs, deep green vegetation. “Whoa.”
“Right?” Raf shifted his arms around her, holding her against his chest without the violent need of moments before. “This is where I come to write,” he said. “I strap my guitar to your seat and spend days here.”
“Days?” She rolled her eyes at him. “Do you eat? Or sleep?”
He shook his head. “Music is enough. Music is everything.”
She twisted to see him better. “Everything?” The ecstasy on his face said more than everything. “You’re not kidding.”
The rapture faded and he lowered his eyes to meet hers. “I don’t know. This is pretty awesome too.”
“I don’t I feel
like that about anything,” she said.
“Not even art?” He followed her to the guardrail, wrapping his hands around the splintered wood.
She shook her head. “I am art. I can’t not sketch. It’s a compulsion, not a passion.”
“There was never anything else for me,” he said. “Always music. Always songs in my head, in my fingers.”
The melancholy in his voice pushed a lump into her throat. She slid her fingers under his and closed them around his hand. Slender and rough, they felt nothing like Ben’s.
Maybe that was a good thing.
“Hey.” She nudged her hip against his. “You’ll make it.”
He flashed a smile at her, all the cockiness rushing back in. “Of course I will. Come on or we’ll be really late.”
She reeled from the sudden shift in his demeanor and let go of his hand. “Just like that?”
“What do you mean?” He picked up her helmet.
“I mean, every time I glimpse a part of the real you, you close back up.”
He shifted the helmet in his hands. “Because you’re so open? And honest? You blow hot and cold until I’m dizzy. I’m just trying to keep up.”
The lump came back and she swallowed. “I guess that’s fair.”
“I like this.” He motioned between them. “Whatever it is. I like me and you.”
Shit. The DTR talk. “Me too. So let’s just let it be.”
“Except that a couple days ago, you were blowing me off and today you…”
“I know.” She lowered her eyes. “I was dealing with some stuff. But it’s done now.”
With two long strides, he stood inches away from her, speeding up the rhythm of her heart. “So you’re with me? For real?”
She forced herself to nod, feeling sick and guilty lying to the boy she was supposed to like, wanted to like, and didn’t.
“Good.” He brushed her cheek with his lips and handed her the helmet. “But we should still go. It’s already dark and I did promise to keep you safe.”
Bria slid the helmet back on and followed him to the bike. She itched to reach for his hand again, but she couldn’t forget the feeling of Ben’s just yet.
Chapter Twenty-six
The temperature plummeted as Bria and Rafael sped along the coast, back into town. She wrapped her arms tight around his chest and nestled deeper into his back, taking in whatever heat he could offer. He reached down to squeeze her thigh at a stoplight, reassuring and gentle, yet infused with yearning.
The Art of Falling Page 15