Hammers, Strings, and Beautiful Things

by Morgan Lee Miller

  “Okay, I think you got enough,” I told one fan. I didn’t care if she was only sixteen, she attempted a selfie with Reagan about five times, and every time, Reagan tilted her head forward to avoid the camera lens. The girl gave me this heartbroken sulk, but I wasn’t buying it. “I’m sure one of the twenty-seven pictures you took will be good enough for your Instagram.”

  “What a bitch,” she muttered to her friends, but I couldn’t have cared less because she backed away from my bite.

  “Stalking and shoving your phone in her face. Classy,” I said back to her, and she flipped me off.

  When I opened the hotel doors, a few fans attempted to walk in with us. Luckily, the hotel was already on it, and security came running out and pushed them back outside in the heat. As we sprinted to the elevators, I knew the damage had been done. They knew where she was staying and would probably spread the word to internet message boards. I felt responsible for all of it. I was so angry that our good time building sandcastles and the genuine happiness emanating from Reagan about being normal for once was ruined by stalking fans.

  In the elevator, she was silent. She held her glasses in her hand, but her eyes were hidden by her floppy hat.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “I guess I had no idea how bad it could get.”

  Finally, she looked up at me. Neutral expression firm and steady on her face. She seemed just as disappointed as I felt. “It’s not your fault, Blair.”

  “But I dragged you out of your room—”

  “You didn’t, though. I chose to come, and I’m glad I did. This wasn’t anything for the record books. I’m fine.” She attempted a smile, but I knew it was forced.

  The elevator dinged for my eleventh-floor room. As I stepped out, I felt her fingers grab hold of mine, instantly shooting something magnetic into my body. “Can we do wine after the show?” she asked, and when I met her stare, it was like something passed through us. The connection sizzled. “I don’t feel like being cooped up by myself.”

  “I think you deserve it,” I said.

  With that, she let go of my hand, a satisfied grin etched back on her face, and the doors closed.

  Chapter Four

  The Miami crowd was insane. They were loud. Rowdy. Knew more of our songs than I thought they would. I guess Reagan expected it because she brought out giant beach balls that she kicked into the crowd and shot all the energized fans on the floor with a foam gun. I didn’t even know she brought a foam gun on tour with her, so I immediately started planning on how I could steal it from one of the tractor trailers and use it for our next show in Orlando.

  Between the energy from the Miami crowd and watching Reagan perform, I was in no mood for a calm night with wine. Miles and I continued our party on our bus, taking more shots, blasting music, eating weed gummies, pissing off Corbin because he thought we were too loud, rowdy, and intoxicated, and I told him to stop being a thirty-two-year-old grandpa.

  When I got back to my hotel room, still buzzing from alcohol, weed, and the awesome crowd that was Miami, my phone chirped with a text message from Reagan.

  Her text read, Soooo is this wine still on the table?

  I furiously texted back, Wine is never off the table for me. Want me to come up now?

  Yes, please.

  I wanted more than just to sit around and drink wine. My hotel room overlooked a completely empty pool. If my past was any indication, pools on summer nights were my weakness, and taking a nice swim was the best way to unwind, in my opinion.

  I ventured up to the penthouse suite in my robe and flip-flops. A few moments after I knocked on her door, Reagan opened it with a glass of white wine in her hands. She was already in a loose T-shirt and track shorts, so I knew I needed to do some convincing to get this girl back into that white bikini and into the pool.

  She thoroughly scanned my robe, and my stomach jolted when those eyes traced the dip down to my cleavage. She actually did that. Her eyes went straight to the bare skin of my chest the way mine kept going to her legs and butt anytime she wore her bodysuit.

  My heart raced with excitement. Was Reagan Moore checking me out?

  “Oh, wow,” Reagan said breathlessly, still taking me in everywhere but my eyes. “I literally don’t even have to raise a finger and a pretty girl in a robe comes to my door?”

  She leaned against the doorway and sipped her wine, the corners of her lips tugging upward. My eyebrows folded. She was checking me out. She was hitting on me.

  “I’m not really sure how to take that,” I said.

  “Take what? You’re literally in a robe.”

  “I have a bathing suit on underneath.” I pulled my bikini straps up to show her. “Let’s go swimming.”

  Her smile unraveled. “Swimming? It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

  “So?”

  “So? I’m pretty sure the pool is closed.”

  “That’s why you whisper.”

  “I’m not gonna break into the pool after hours.”

  “You know you can’t get arrested for sneaking into a pool?”

  “You can. It’s called trespassing.”

  “I got caught sneaking into a neighbor’s pool in high school. Wanna know what happened? The cop brought me home to my grandpa, and I got in a lot more trouble with him than the cop. So, you’re fine.”

  “Oh, that’s reassuring.”

  “You’re famous and loveable. Nothing will happen to you. Enjoy that famous privilege. Come swimming with me.” I grabbed her hand and tugged her toward me.

  “Blair,” she said through her laugh.

  “I already scoped out the pool. It’s empty. Coast is clear. Throw on your suit. Chug the wine. Let’s go!”

  After debating it for a few more moments, she rolled her eyes and then tossed back the rest of her wine. “You’re a bad influence, I hope you know that.”

  “You know you like it.”

  “A little. Must be the sleeve.”

  Drop it. There’s no way she’s hitting on you.

  Ten minutes later, I led Reagan to the outdoor pool on the seventh-floor deck. Below us, the humming of cars driving by filled the air, and the sweet summer breeze gently blew the fake palm trees on the pool deck. The lights from the pool crawled up the side of the building. I’d almost forgotten how thrilling it was to sneak into a pool. Reagan Moore, on the other hand, had almost forgotten how to live like a normal human being. And I was determined to bring back the simple things in her life without anyone noticing.

  But that would be easier said than done with her current pace. She tiptoed behind me, curled up in her white hotel towel as if that was her invisibility cloak, and surveyed the scene over her shoulders every other step she took.

  Breaking into the outdoor pool was easy. You literally just lifted the gate and tossed your towel to the side, which I did with my robe. Not getting caught was the harder part. Miles and I always snuck into my Irvine neighbors’ pools in the dead of night when we were teenagers. We had almost become professional pool hoppers at sixteen before getting caught. Eight years had passed, so I was a little rusty.

  As I slowly eased into the shallow end, Reagan peeled off her towel so slowly that it was as if she was hoping we’d get caught before she exposed the red-handed evidence of her bathing suit.

  “Oh my God, girl, live a little,” I said as I trudged through the shallow end.

  “I do live a little. I live a lot. Usually on the other side of the law.”

  “You do realize you’re just going into a pool for an innocent swim. I’m not asking you to strip naked or have sex with me in it.”

  I continued trudging farther into the pool like an eager child until I glanced back to check on her. When our gazes met, her stare fell to the concrete deck. And then I hesitated. Because she hesitated. And a warm feeling dove low into my chest. Was it something I said?

  “Get in,” I said to break the silence.

  “Maybe we should whisper?”

  “Maybe we should stop
being wimps and just get in the water,” I said a little louder to irk her. “If it makes you feel better, I really don’t think TMZ is interested in you sneaking into a hotel pool. I am, though.”

  She let out a long, frustrated sigh and tossed her towel aside. She took one cautious step at a time until she reached the shallow end, and a shiver ran through her when the water hit her waist. The pool lights illuminated her face, and the reflections danced on her skin. I loved how tiny beads of moisture stuck to her as she doggy-paddled over to me, and something about the way she swam stripped the “Big A-list Celebrity” title from her. Maybe because she wasn’t standing on an enormous stage the size of her celebrity status. Maybe because she wasn’t wearing her Gucci sunglasses or sitting in her luxurious tour bus or hotel penthouse. In that Miami pool, she didn’t have anything luxurious surrounding her. She was a normal twenty-three-year-old girl swimming in the pool after hours.

  There was just something so pure about her as she found her spot in the four-foot-deep pool, and then she looked at me quizzically as if waiting for me to make the next move.

  “How you doing, James Dean? Rebel without a cause?” I asked.

  “This is actually kind of…nice.”

  “Uh, right?”

  “It’s so peaceful. Just listen.”

  A wind blew through the air and ruffled the faux palm trees surrounding the deck. The city and cars below us continued to sing to each other, and the whole scene was nothing short of the sounds I’d fallen asleep to on Reagan’s noise canceling machine.

  The sounds pulled the corners of her mouth to the night sky as she leaned her head back, allowing the pool to take in her messy bun. She closed her eyes, and the chlorinated water lifted her body to the surface. After a hectic day of running around from the stampede of fans, kicking oversized beach balls, and blasting foam guns at the twenty thousand people, she finally found the peace she’d been looking and hoping for. Something normal she could enjoy without a single person to ruin the moment.

  But after a few shots of tequila right before, I didn’t want my pool-hopping buddy to relax into the ripples and enjoy the peace and quiet. So, to capitalize on the energizing liquid running through me, and also for my own entertainment, I ducked underwater, and pushing through the chlorine burning my eyes when I opened them, I flipped her around. I heard her shriek. When I emerged, her hair was soaked, and she wiped away the pool water dripping down her face. Her messy bun was ready to dismantle at any time, and I couldn’t control the laughter I’d bottled up in my lungs in order not to breathe in water.

  “Blair! What the fuck!” She sent a wave of water my way.

  I laughed, and she threw a glare at me, pressing her finger against her lips, but I couldn’t stop laughing. The look she gave me when she pulled her face from the water, so disappointed I ruined her quiet moment, was hilarious to me. It gave me a good laugh, something I hadn’t had in a while.

  “That was priceless,” I said to her, holding my stomach from the laughter tightening my muscles.

  “Want me to splash you again?”

  “No, I’m sorry. Truce.” I put my hands up to surrender. She relaxed into a tread as a victorious smile took over her face. “Honestly, I wanted you to come out here to enjoy this. A pool. No one around. I just wanted you to feel a little normal since you can’t build sandcastles or go to the movies, so I’m just trying to give you that.”

  Her lips pursed in amusement. “God, you’re so soft, you know that? I thought a whole sleeve tattoo was supposed to make you a badass.”

  “Are you calling me soft because I care about how you feel?”

  “It’s a compliment, Blair. You surprise me, that’s all.”

  “I surprise you?”

  “Yeah.”

  I straightened my back, intrigued by where this could possibly go. “Oh yeah? How so?”

  She looked up at the starless, city maroon sky, biting her lip playfully, before looking back at me. “I, uh, I don’t know…”

  God, was she blushing? Or did the light highlight the pink she got from the sun? Just the thought of her blushing about me made me blush.

  “What? Tell me!” I begged, dying to know if it was the blush or sun that reddened her face. Did Reagan Moore get a sunburn in Miami, or was she blushing over me in Miami? This was a detail I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep without knowing. “Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!” I chanted and splashed her.

  She winced as she fought the splash, but her quiet giggles added to the rustling palm trees and talkative streets. “Blair! Stop it!”

  “Tell me!” One last splash.

  She looked at me. “You just look…you…you’re fun to hang out with, even if it sometimes means that you drag me into doing things against my will.”

  I grinned. I looked something, and I was determined to dig out that secretive adjective until dawn broke out in the sky. “I look what?”

  “I said you’re fun to hang out with—”

  “After you said I look ‘something’ and then you stuttered.”

  “Are we really making this a big deal right now?”

  “Yes, because you’re not answering my question.”

  Yup, that was definitely blush, not sunburn. I could tell because it crawled up her face the more I begged. I loved it.

  “Ugh!” She slapped a hand on the water. “You look nice in a bathing suit, that’s all. See. Nothing.”

  But it was something. I only had a few straight friends, and they didn’t go around telling each other how nice they looked half naked. Her compliment held some weight. Good weight. And it made me relax into the pool because Reagan Moore said I looked good in a bathing suit.

  “I look nice in a bathing suit?” I repeated for clarification. “Is this a second part to your robe comment earlier? Are you hitting on me?”

  She let out a mirthless laugh. “Because I said you looked nice?”

  “You said I look good half naked, so yes, I take this as you hitting on me.”

  She could deny it all she wanted, but I knew she was hitting on me. I would frame those words in my mind forever. Reagan Moore, world tour headliner, Billboard’s number one singer, the girl who won three Grammys for Best Album, Best Pop Record, and Best Pop Song a few months before just told moi that I looked good in my bathing suit after two weeks of insulting my taste in alcohol and tattoos.

  Frame that shit like her platinum albums.

  I raised a skeptical brow. I had to get to the bottom of why she was hitting on me. “I’m going to ask you a personal question.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, okay.”

  “Have you dated a woman?”

  “Oh my God, Blair. You went in for the kill right there.”

  “You literally just said I look good in a bathing suit, so the question is nothing but fair.”

  She started to swim away from me. “I’m never complimenting you again. Seriously.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I really hate you.”

  “Oh yeah, it shows,” I deadpanned. “Now, answer the question.”

  She stopped swimming for a moment to toss me major side-eye from over her shoulder. She sighed and then looked skyward again as if debating whether or not she should answer my question. “I’ve dated a woman, yes.”

  My mouth dropped. How the hell didn’t I know this? How the hell did Alanna not even know this? I was almost positive—with the two of us combined and dreaming about hot celebrity women coming out as a lesbian or bisexual or anything in between—that we would have known something about Reagan Moore. But nope, I could only tell that she dated a famous heartthrob actor, Zeke Fowler, for a highly prolific few months, and that was it. The rest of her love life was a mystery, and I think that was the whole point she was trying to get at by how she cautiously tiptoed around her highly publicized life.

  “Holy shit.” The shocked words slipped right out of me. “Who? When?”

  “She was the last person I dated.”

  “The l
ast person you—holy shit.”

  She coughed up a laugh. “Okay, Blair. It’s really not that groundbreaking.”

  “I didn’t even know you were into women.”

  “That was the point. The media was all over Zeke and me. Everywhere we went, we had cameras in our faces and were constantly in the tabloids. You know I once saw on a tabloid that I was pregnant?”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I was nineteen. Stalked by grown men and my sex life written as entertainment for everyone before I even had sex. It was mortifying. Once we broke up, I swore to myself I would be smarter about what I put on my social media, and any relationships weren’t going to be on my accounts. Especially dating a woman. All those men would be fantasizing about it.” She shuddered.

  “That sounds pretty awful.”

  “It kind of is. The past seven years have been great in terms of my career. I love it so much, and I’m truly thankful for it. But with great success in this industry comes a great sacrifice, and that means your dating life tanks.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, besides the stalking? I don’t trust anyone. No one. All my past relationships have given me a reason not to trust a single person who seems interested in me. Even platonically. Are they using me for attention? Are they going to be intimidated by my success? Are they using me for fame? Hollywood ins? When I was recording my first album, I had a boyfriend, this kid from my high school. Right when my album came out and it was getting all this praise, he treated me so differently. Like, he always wanted to be around me. He wanted me to bring him to every little thing I was invited to and then he would be pissed when I wouldn’t.”

  “He sounds like a tool.”

  “He was my first boyfriend, so I gave him about ten chances to change his act before I was completely drained from the relationship. And then I broke up with him, and he was pissed, to say the least, because he had no in to the Nashville music scene. Don’t worry, though, my older brothers, Colton and Hunter, ran into him and gave him crap. I was satisfied. But after that relationship, I told myself I would only date people in the industry because they wouldn’t use me. So, a couple of years later, I met Zeke, and we dated for a few months. I thought it would be different since his career was already established and booming.”