by Ava Lore
I felt my lips press into a thin line.
His eyes narrowed. “Rebecca.”
I stared up at him. His dark hair fell into his face as he searched inside my eyes for some clue, and suddenly I just wanted to tell him everything, wanted to throw myself into his arms and lean on him. The lure of a strong man is dangerous, but so hard to resist. The story welled up in me, crashing against my teeth, and finally I had to let it out.
“My ex-boyfriend,” I blurted. “It's my ex.”
“Jason,” he said.
Shocked, I took a step backwards. “How did you know his name? Did Carter tell you?”
Now it was his turn to look surprised. “Carter? No, he hasn't mentioned anything. I looked at the name on your phone when it was ringing off the hook in the van while you were passed out.” His eyes narrowed. “Why, is Carter keeping something from me?”
“Nothing he shouldn't be,” I snapped. “For god's sake, you're not his dad, stop acting like you need to keep tabs on him all the time.” That was perhaps unkind, but I was pissed. He shouldn't have looked at my phone.
Those blue-green eyes narrowed even further. “Our father didn't give two shits about Carter beyond the money he could make him, so don't talk to me about concern.”
His voice was sharp, and his words were like a slap across the face. I shut my mouth, stunned and hurt.
Almost immediately he seemed to realize he had been too harsh and he closed his eyes. I saw him forcibly relax his body. “I'm sorry,” he said. “You don't know anything about that.”
I shook my head. “No, I'm sorry,” I replied. Yeah, it hurt, but wasn't I sticking my nose in places where it didn't belong? You stick your dick in a beehive and you're bound to get stung. Or so my dad always said. When mom couldn't hear of course. “That was out of line.”
He almost smiled at that, a small, rueful twitch of his lips. “No, it wasn't, but never mind that. What's going on with your ex? Does he live here in San Diego?”
Pressing my lips together, I nodded. “He does.” I hesitated.
Kent saw my hesitation and pressed forward. “Is he harassing you?”
I looked away. “I don't know. He's left a bunch of messages, but I haven't listened to them.”
A large, warm hand alighted on my shoulder, and I looked back to see his face had softened in a way that made my knees turn to jelly. “Would you mind if I listened to them?” he asked gently.
I thought about it for a moment, but I found I wanted him to hear whatever it was Jason had to say. I suddenly realized that just because Jason had expelled me from my former life with his lies, that didn't mean his lies couldn't follow me into this life like bad karma I just couldn't shake.
“Okay.” I took my phone back out of my bag. My hand shook as I passed it over, and though Kent didn't say anything I knew those sharp eyes caught the trembling of my fingers.
He held my phone in his hand, and it looked very small in his long, calloused fingers. I remembered what those fingers felt like on me, and I wished things between us weren't so complicated and weird. And here I was, staring at my phone, in the city I'd fled from only a month ago, wishing I could just forget Jason, forget San Diego, forget Carter and the tabloids and all that bullshit and just throw myself at Kent. Hold me, I thought, hoping he could hear it echoing in my head. Touch me.
But he didn't. “Do you want to stay while I listen?” he asked instead, his voice still gentle, his hand still on my shoulder.
I thought about it. If I stayed, I would be able to hear Jason's voice, as unintelligible as it was, on the other end of the line. On the other hand, if I went, I'd have no clue what he had said. And I had to admit, my curiosity was eating at me, like cancer.
“I'd like to stay,” I said.
He stared at me for a moment longer, and then nodded.
Across from the elevators stood a small bench with a floral cushion on it. The warm hand on my shoulder guided me toward it and I took the seat gratefully. Kent didn't sit down next to me, however. Instead he began to pace in front of the bench as he dialed into my voicemail and held the phone to his ear.
At the other end of the line I heard the mechanical voice of the answering service, and then came Jason's voice.
My whole body tightened, any pleasure at being close to Kent forgotten. I couldn't hear the words Jason spoke, but I knew the tone all too well. The berating tone. The paternal tone. The subtly demanding tone.
Why don't we have rent money, Rebecca? I thought you were going to take care of it at work.
Don't bother coming to rehearsal, Rebecca. It'll be boring today.
I was out with friends.
I thought you loved me.
My arms came up and I hugged myself tight, suddenly so grateful to Kent that I could cry. The messages on my phone had been burning a hole in the back of my head for days. I knew I would listen to them, and they would take me back, back to here, back to that time when I lived with nothing but lies and I didn't even know it. And as I watched, Kent's face grew darker and darker, until his expression was as black as a thunderhead.
When the last message was finally done, he dropped the phone from his ear and stared down at me.
I stared back up at him, unable to even think.
He held up the phone. The shiny black screen seemed suddenly sinister, like a one-way mirror.
“Rebecca,” he said, “do you mind if I hold on to this for you?”
I felt my lips thin. “I'm not used to being without my phone...” I said.
“If you want it to browse the internet or check your mail, you can use mine,” he said. “But I don't think you should have this in your possession.”
I clenched my teeth. “Why? What did he say?”
To my shock, Kent hesitated, and then suddenly dropped to his knees in front of me, so our faces were level. I was still hugging myself, and he didn't make a move to disengage my arms, merely put the phone down next to me and reach out to put his large, warm hands on my arms. The heat of him rocked me, the touch of him slicing through the fear and the cold inside me.
“I don't want you to listen to those messages,” he said. “But I don't want to delete them. For legal reasons.” His vivid eyes searched my face. “Do you understand?”
I scowled at him. “I'm not stupid,” I said.
He smiled a little in return. “No, but you are emotional.”
“That's sexist.”
“Only if it's not true. You think I didn't notice the spotless kitchen? The well-scrubbed toilets? The polished baseboards? When you're all messed up inside you're like June Cleaver on amphetamines.”
...Goddammit. “Yeah, well, you're like Trent Reznor on 'roids,” I shot back.
To my utter shock he laughed at that. “Maybe,” he said, “but I still want to hold onto this for you. You don't need this kind of hassle. Let me handle it for you.”
I shook my head. “Why are you being so nice to me? You've been avoiding me like the plague and now... bam. What's the deal?”
As though he suddenly realized we were touching, he swallowed hard and pulled his hands away. His eyes dropped and he stood. “You haven't heard the new album yet,” he said. “Carter said he wrote it for you.”
I blinked, not getting it. Maybe I was stupid.
He slid his eyes to mine. “You know, when I first saw you sitting in the middle of all those suits, looking like a teenager who gave no fucks about anything, I thought, 'she'd be a great lay.' People who don't give any fucks about anything are crazy in bed. But you do give a fuck. You really do. About Carter and about whatever it is that drove you out of this city.” He frowned. “I'm not explaining this right.” One hand raked through his hair as he began to pace. “What I mean is, you care. You just... you overflow with it. You've... you've been good for Carter. And given the new album, you've been amazing for this band... Shit, I don't know.”
I stared at him, stunned that confident, self-assured Kent somehow had no idea what to say.
H
e looked at me again and stopped pacing. He held out the cell phone. “Look. Rebecca. You don't need to care about this, okay? Let me care about it for you.”
There was a curious stinging in my eyes and when I swallowed, it was around a lump in my throat.
“Okay,” I said.
His shoulders relaxed at that, a tiny, imperceptible easing. “Good,” he said. “Now come on. We're going to be late.”
Dazed, I followed him into the elevator, too preoccupied and too touched by his offer to give a shit for me that I didn't notice his wording. But when the doors opened on the fifth floor, they revealed the rest of the band already divested of their luggage and waiting to go down to the bottom floor.
As they piled into the elevator, I started to squeeze my way out.
A hand caught my arm, and Carter said: “Whoah, wait a minute. Where are you going?”
I turned in surprise. “To the room.”
He shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Come on, Mrs. Girlfriend. You gotta be on set in thirty minutes! Getting in make up and everything.”
I blinked at him dumbly. “What?”
He grinned at me. “You're starring in our video, Mrs. Girlfriend.”
I stared and his grin grew wider.
“What, did I forget to mention that?”
For the first time in a week, the thought, gentle and serene, floated across my brain:
I'm going to kill him.
Chapter Eleven
The lighthouse on Point Loma is a beautiful little picturesque building, small and white and perfect for weddings and wedding pictures. That was probably why it was cheap enough for the recording studio to spring for. The band would have the run of the grounds and even take a few shots inside the museum.
As we pulled up to the lighthouse, I couldn't quell the butterflies flitting around in my stomach. I had no idea what to expect. I'd never shot a music video before. Shit. Okay, maybe once. In third grade. For a school project.
I was doomed.
The whole way to the lighthouse Kent sat next to me and brooded. Or maybe he was thinking about bunnies. It was hard to tell with Kent sometimes, since it seemed like everything made him brood. Manny shotgunned Red Bull, trying to wake himself up, and Carter sat in the front seat again, although this time he couldn't seem to stop bouncing in his seat like a little kid.
I was going to kill him, I'd decided. How could he spring this on me? I should have known something was up, though. I mean, in hindsight Carter was just the sort of guy to pull a stunt like this.
When we arrived Sonya parked the van, a wheeling, dangerous maneuver that had me thankful that I had been either high or asleep during the drive down, and popped open the door. “Ride's over, boys,” she said, and hopped out. The rest of us followed suit.
The smell of the ocean hit me, salty and vast, and I breathed deeply, trying to get my bearings. In the parking lot were a couple trailers already set up. People bustled around, carrying equipment and looking busy, and shit, I was already lost. I had no idea what to do. Someone trundled past hauling a huge camera on his shoulder. I stared at him, amazed anyone could carry such heavy equipment like it was a box of cotton balls. He didn't even give me a second glance.
“Are you coming?” Carter called.
Whipping around, I realized the band was climbing into one of the trailers and I hurried to catch up. Unfortunately I was stopped, along with Sonya, at the entrance, by a girl who looked like she was just out of high school. “You two are in wardrobe first,” she said, shooing us to the other end of the trailer where another door stood.
Sonya didn't say anything, merely whirled around and stomped off in her customary huff. I flashed the girl a smile of thanks but she didn't even look at me. She was already hustling the boys inside.
I followed Sonya through the other door and into the most claustrophobic space I had ever seen.
Racks of clothes closed the trailer in on both sides, and a man who looked like he would be happier sucking turds looked up from his outfitting of another young woman and sighed.
“Find an outfit with your name,” he said, waving a hand. “See if it fits.”
Sonya, clearly having done this before, moved to a rack of clothes and began to sort through them. Each outfit had clearly been coordinated beforehand and swaddled in clear plastic. Sonya pulled one off the hanger and moved to the back of the cramped room where she started taking her clothes off.
Jesus. I looked at the rack of clothes. There were three with my name on them. I had no idea what to do, so I closed my eyes, ran my hands through the plastic-swathed fabric, and picked one blindly and pulled it out.
A gray tank top, a dark blue fitted blouse. Ripped jeans, relaxed. A bag of accessories. Pressing my lips together, I checked the sizes and was surprised to find that they would probably fit. I'm not sure what I thought would happen, but I'd been certain that wardrobe wouldn't have anything that fitted me since I wasn't Hollywood skinny like Sonya. I had to hand it to Turd Sucking Wardrobe Guy—he knew his stuff if he'd been able to eyeball my sizes from photographs. Or maybe Kent or Carter had told him my sizes. Ugh.
I took the outfit and wandered back to the changing area. Sonya was already almost changed completely, wearing a dark brown dress with a floaty skirt with an uneven hemline and a tight, skimpy bodice with a row of white buttons down the front. She looked amazing and I suddenly wished I'd picked out a dress, too, if there had been a dress there. But truthfully this outfit was more me. I hung it up and lifted the plastic up over the top before undressing quickly. I didn't want to show off my TV-fat body any more than I had to.
The tank top slipped easily over my head, and the jeans slithered nicely up my legs, but the fitted shirt was just not happening. I wasn't sure if I should try to button it or not, and the mirror in front of me wasn't giving me a good perspective. All it did was show me how bad my skin was and how un-skinny my body happened to be. Why did I eat all those potato chips? The front wouldn't even close over my chest, and the arms were tight. I felt my face growing hot as I tried to maneuver in it, pulling a thick belt through the loops of the jeans and lifting my arms to loop the necklaces that came with the outfit over my head.
“Hmph.” Turd Sucking Wardrobe Guy stood right behind me and I gasped, turning. He stared at me in the outfit for a long moment, then reached out and began to tweak it. “You have tits,” he said, as casually as someone might remark that it was raining. “No wonder Carter likes you.”
I stared at him in shock as he turned and studied Sonya, who was messing with the neckline. “You look fine,” he said.
She just grunted at him. “I need some shoes.”
“Got you covered.” He reached behind her and pulled open a drawer. She turned, looked idly into it, and then pulled out a pair of chunky platforms. TSWG glanced at me. “What size?” he asked.
“Um. Seven and a half?”
He reached in and pulled out a pair of pink Keds.
I stared at them.
“What?” he said. “You think you can do better?”
I shook my head. “No! I just... I could have bought those at, like, the mall. I just expected something more expensive.”
TSWG threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, god!” he said. “Fuck no, what do you think wardrobe is? I'm not your personal shopper.”
I glared at him and snatched the shoes from his hands. “I didn't say you were.”
He still looked amused. “It's not like this is some club video. Don't need anything greater than twenty bucks at a thrift shop.”
I wanted to ask him what thrift shops he'd been going to, because the ones I'd been to had all been t-shirts that you could have used as tents and old bridesmaids dresses in neon colors. I bent over and picked up my Chuck's. “I couldn't wear these?” I said.
If anything, his face twisted up into an even sourer expression. “Ugh,” was all he said, then flapped his hand. “Go, go to makeup. Get out of here. Send the boys in.”
We exited the trailer. The who
le thing couldn't have taken longer than fifteen minutes.
Sonya stomped around to the other side of the trailer and ripped the door open. “Go get dressed!” she hollered inside and then stood to the side, her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at nothing in particular. Sonya seemed to run on rage. If her endless depths of hatred could have been plunged for fuel, we'd never have another crisis.
I fiddled with one of the rings on my finger—a huge lumpy thing that would never be practical in real life—and waited for the boys to come out. Finally, they did.
First came Carter. Carter was a good looking guy, but now his hair was done, his eyes lined with dark kohl, and his face almost—but not quite—made up to look natural. Manny was next. His wild mane of curls was even wilder now, and his eyes were also lined. He looked strangely handsome. He noticed me staring at him and flashed me a grin.
Then came Kent.
God, he looked amazing. Wild dark hair, half-tousled and held in place with hair spray, fell around his cut face. His skin, usually pale, was now luminous with make up, and his kohl rimmed eyes were smudged, giving him a messy, post-coital look that had me licking my lips before I knew what I was doing.
His eyes caught mine and he flicked his gaze up and down my body, and suddenly I was glad for the tight blouse thrown over the tank top. The wardrobe guy was right—I had tits, and with the way Kent's eyes settled on them, it seemed like not just Carter might like a girl with some curves on her. Dresses hung beautifully on girls like Sonya, but last I checked guys didn't give a shit about dresses.
Then he looked away and I was left breathless as Sonya swept past me into the makeup end of the trailer. Change places! I thought, somewhat giddily. It was now starting to sink in that Carter had decided I was going to be in the next music video for The Lonely Kings of Lifeless Things and once I stepped into the brightly lit mini-styling salon I felt the beginnings of a major freak out start up.
Sonya had already seated herself in one of the chairs and was staring sightlessly ahead as a woman immediately dissolved into a flurry of activity around her, applying foundation and powder with a rapidity I thought was only available to meth heads.