by Tracey Ward
“Washington, remember?” I snap sarcastically. “It was your brilliant idea.”
“We’re not even selling tickets to the Washington show. That’s a charity event. With the cost of hiring a new roadcrew, new dancers, and bringing in vendors, we’re going to lose money on this.”
“Then why the hell am I doing it?”
“Because you’re changing the narrative, remember? You’re setting yourself up for a comeback. You just have to figure out where you want to go when it’s over. You know what I’m hoping for.”
“A new album,” I parrot obediently. Tiredly.
Grant nods. “It’s what you do, man.”
“Not lately.”
“I think it’s time to change that.”
“I’m not really good at change,” I mutter, staring blankly out the window. Lights flash by as cars race past us on the busy street. They blur across my vision, making my head hurt worse. “I learned it from my dad.”
“Maybe it’s time to start remembering all the things you learned from your mom.”
I shake my head so slightly I doubt he can see it. But I feel it; the resistance. I’m living it down to the blood in my veins. The marrow in my bones.
Grant watches me closely. “It’s late.”
“It’s not that late.”
“What are you going to do, Ryker?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want to do?”
I think about that question long and hard. It should be an easy one. How messed up does a guy have to be to not know what he wants? Unable to choose between sleeping and drinking. Living and dying.
Pretty fucked up, but that’s where I’m at. Trapped in the half-light. On stage in an empty theater.
“E-I-E-I-O,” I sing quietly to myself.
Grant’s brow creases with concern. “What’d you say?”
“Nothing.” I reach for the door handle. “Let’s get inside. You’re right. It’s late. I’m going to bed.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Greer
I spin my drink in front of me, the clear liquid swirling up to the edge of the glass, threatening to spill over, then settling back down inside. It’s a delicate balance, a dangerous game I’m playing, but I can’t stop. I’m too distracted. I’m wound too tight to be still. The night is ending but I feel like I’m just getting started. Just waking up.
Cam knocks back the last of his bourbon, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s late. I’m tired. Let’s call it a night.”
I look at my watch and cringe. It’s almost two in the morning. And I have an audition tomorrow. With Jace Ryker. Because what the ever-loving-fuck?
I’m dying to tell the entire table what happened in the theater tonight after they left. That I stood in the dark singing nursery rhymes with Jace Ryker, but I don’t for a couple of reasons. One, he asked me to be discreet about the audition. And two, no one would believe me even if I told them.
“You guys go ahead,” I tell the table. “I think I’m going to stay a little bit longer. Maybe have another drink.”
“Well, you’ll be drinking alone then,” Bryce tells me briskly. “None of us are getting your tight little ass home safely.”
“I can manage on my own. Thanks.”
“Sure thing, half-pint.”
He waves goodnight to Mia, Cam, Samantha, and I before disappearing into the crowd, heading for the exit. I watch him go feeling a sense of relief. And irritation. And a sick desire to sneak out after him, jump him from behind, and see which of us can take care of themselves. The girl from the ghetto or the gay from Connecticut?
“I’ll stay with you, but I gotta hit the head,” Cam promises, standing slowly from the table. He’s a little off on his balance; one too many shots with Samantha taking their toll at last. “Then we’re walking home. No cabs. I need fresh air.”
“Deal.”
Cam weaves his way to the back of the bar. Samantha, Mia, and I sit silently in our dank little corner, not a damn thing to say to each other. Or maybe they’re like me. Maybe they have a million things to say but no idea how to say them.
Samantha sits back with her drink, falling into the shadows as she studies me closely. “You got a thing for him?”
I frown at her. “A thing for who? Bryce?”
“Cam”
“You’re insane,” I chuckle.
“That’s not a denial.”
“Okay, fine. Here’s a denial; no. I do not have a thing for Cam. Where is this coming from?”
“Nowhere. Just asking. Everyone thinks you’re sleeping together.”
“We’re just friends.”
“Sure. Right.” She takes a sip of her drink, her eyes never leaving mine. “And how do you know each other again?”
I run my sweating palms over my thighs. “Our families are old friends.”
“Your family is rich?”
“No.”
“No, I didn’t think so. Not with that outfit.”
“Fuck you very much.”
“Cam’s family has money, though,” she continues. “So how are they friends with yours?”
“Because they are,” I reply slowly.
Samantha wrinkles her nose doubtfully. Her eyes are piercing even in the dark of the bar. I can feel her examining me, trying to uncover my secrets just by dissecting my appearance. The scary thing is, I’m not a hundred percent sure she can’t do it. “I don’t know. I’m not buying it.”
“Why do you care?” I deflect, my pulse racing in my throat.
“Because I’m curious. I like to know things. Everything, if I can, and no one knows that much about you. No one but Cam and he just says exactly what you say. Your families are old friends. You were sick when you were little and didn’t get out much, that’s why I’ve never met or heard of you before you came to New York. You’re here to pursue your dream of being on Broadway now that you’re healthy, although you don’t look very healthy to me. A little pale. Maybe malnourished.”
“I’ll make it easy for you. Here’s everything you need to know about me.” I flip her off. “Clear?”
Samantha grins thinly. “Crystal, Kansas.”
“What’s going on here?” Cam asks, taking in my middle finger.
I lower my hand. “Girl talk.”
“It looks like it’s going really well.”
Samantha shrugs. “I’m enjoying it.”
“Great. Maybe we should call it a night after all.”
I nod, sliding off my chair. “I think that’s a good idea.”
Cam reaches around me to drop a fifty in the middle of the table.
“Cam, don’t,” Mia protests. She reaches into her purse for her wallet. “We can all chip in.”
“Why? Bryce didn’t.”
Mia shakes her head in disgust. “What an asshole.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying. And don’t sweat it. You girls can pay my way next time.” He puts his hand on the small of my back, nodding to Samantha and Mia. “I’ll walk you outside and get you cabs.”
“That’d be nice, thanks,” Mia agrees with a smile. She stifles a yawn as she pulls on her cardigan, her small body disappearing inside the thick material. I don’t know how she can stand to wear that thing in this humidity. Even this late, it’s still sticky hot outside.
When Mia and Samantha are gone, sharing a cab headed uptown, Cam and I start our walk downtown fifteen blocks toward home.
“Samantha is catching on that we’re not old friends,” I tell him irritably.
He nods, his lips pursed thoughtfully. “I’m not surprised. She’s smart. And she’s known me for years. If anyone was going to figure it out, it was gonna be her.”
“She hasn’t figured it out. Not really. She just suspects and she asks a lot of questions.”
“Do you want to tell her the truth? It’s the only way to make her stop digging. And she might keep it to herself once she knows. If there’s anything Samantha loves, it’s lording things over peopl
e. The information has more power if she doesn’t go telling the world about it.”
“She’d blackmail me,” I argue. “Not a chance in hell. Let her ask all the questions she wants. She’ll never guess the truth.”
Cam smiles, throwing his arm over my shoulders. “Okay, but from my standpoint, I don’t mind if people know. I don’t care what they think.”
“They’ll say you’re crazy for bringing a stray into your house.”
“Fuck ‘em.” He squeezes my shoulder, pulling me in tight next to him. “And you’re not a stray, Greer. You’re a human being. One I’m proud to know.”
“I could have killed you in your bed that night.”
“Ditto.”
I smile up at him. “Thank God we’re not murderers.”
“It’s a bonus for sure.” We walk in silence for a block and a half. Cam’s arm is starting to sweat across the back of my neck. My whole body is coated in a thin sheen of perspiration clinging my clothes to me. Making me dream of the air conditioner in the apartment.
“I mean it,” he says suddenly. Seriously.
“You mean what?”
“That I don’t care if people know. We can tell them the truth whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m not,” I answer immediately. “I’m not ready.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Not then and not now.”
“You don’t like lying and I make you do it every day. And after what you did for me, taking me in like you did, teaching me to dance for real, showing me how to audition… I don’t know, I’m just sorry. Let me be sorry.”
“Okay. You wallow in your guilt.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He takes his arm off my shoulders to look at his phone. He’s got a text message. I don’t mean to look, but I see the name flash across the screen. It’s Samantha.
“Is she asking about me?”
He looks down at me in surprise, immediately darkening his phone. “What? No. She—it’s something else. It’s nothing. Just Samantha being Samantha.”
“Sometimes I feel like she’s as bad as Bryce.”
“That’s harsh,” Cam laughs.
“Really? You don’t think she’s even a little awful?”
He shrugs. “Not really. I’ve known her a long time. She wasn’t always like this, and there are times when she’s different. Times when she’s softer. I think she acts tough to keep people from getting too close.”
“Why?”
“Because when she was a kid people used her a lot. They got what they could from her and left when they were done with her. Now letting people in scares her.” He looks at me sideways. “Sound familiar?”
I stare straight ahead, avoiding his knowing eyes. “Vaguely. But I’m not a bitch about it.”
“No. You’re not.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” I ask abruptly, unable to keep it inside anymore. Desperate to change the subject.
“Is it something I’ll have to lie about?”
“No. I promise.”
“Then hit me with it.”
“I have an audition tomorrow,” I say quietly, the words sounding strange and surreal to my own ears, and I haven’t even gotten to the crazy part yet.
“Really?” he asks, his voice odd. Surprised, but not really.
“Yeah.”
“When did you get it?”
“Tonight. After the show. There was—”
“Someone in the audience?” he asks, looking down at me.
I gape at him. “You too?”
“Looks like it. Did you get approached by his agent? Grant Benedict?”
“No,” I reply, looking away. Focusing to keep my feet falling flat on the ground as they threaten to rise off the pavement, taking me away into the sky. “I, um, I got approached by him. By Jace.”
Cam stops me, pulling on my arm to spin me around where he can see my face. “You met Jace Ryker? He spoke to you directly?”
“Yeah,” I admit breathlessly, a smile tugging at my lips.
“Holy shit.”
“That’s what I said!”
“And you’re just now telling me?”
“He said it was a secret. That the auditions are invitation only and he asked me not to talk about it.”
“That’s what Grant said too. But you met Jace Ryker? Your wet dream, in the flesh?”
I blush, shoving his shoulder to walk past him. “Shut up! He is not.”
“What was he like?” he demands, hurrying to catch up to me.
“I don’t know. Brooding. Intense. Kinda dark, I think.”
“Really? That’s not what I expected. He’s always so, I don’t know, I guess ‘up’ when he’s on camera. He’s all charisma and panty dropping smiles.”
I shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you. My panties stayed firmly up.”
‘Firmly’ might be overselling it, I think, remembering the way I felt standing there in the dark with him. The way I wanted to touch him. All the ways I wanted him to touch me.
“Weird,” Cam muses.
“Maybe he’s having a bad night.”
“Maybe.”
“What time is your audition?”
“First thing in the morning. You?”
“One in the afternoon. Did you ask what it was for?”
“Yeah, but Grant said that wasn’t something he could talk about. I asked if I had to get naked and he promised that no, there was no nudity.”
“I probably should have asked that.”
Cam laughs. “I would love to have been there to see you ask Jace Ryker if he wanted you to get naked. I’m sure you would have already been stripping as you asked.”
“He’s not that hot,” I reply flippantly, lying through my teeth.
“Yeah, okay,” Cam chuckles, stowing his phone in his pocket. “Whatever you say.”
CHAPTER NINE
Jace
Sarah lowers her sunglasses to the bridge of her pert nose, taking me in with a tight stare.
“You look like shit, Ryker.”
I smirk at her candor. “Thanks, Sarah. You look beautiful.”
“I know.”
And she does. You can see it in the way she crosses the hotel room; like she owns it. Like she owns everything in the world and we’re all just lucky she lets us borrow the breaths we take. She’s exactly the kind of person you want as a Publicist. A lion with a spine of steel and twenty years of experience making the media wish she was dead. Reporters hate her. Paparazzi are afraid of her. I adore her.
She shoves her sunglasses up into her black hair and plops her big blue Birkin bag down on the table in front of me. She tosses it open, immediately rummaging through it.
“Here.” She hands me a small tube of concealer. “Use this under your eyes. And tonight have an ice mask sent up from the spa. Sleep with it on.”
“Should I get my legs waxed while I’m at it?” I ask sarcastically.
She gestures to my eyes. “Conceal. Now. I don’t want people coming in here and seeing you look tired. They’ll think you’re strung out. They’ll assume it’s drugs or alcohol, and all this hard work Grant and I are doing to make you look sweet and wholesome will be shot to shit.”
“Why do I need to be wholesome? I thought we were just shooting for ‘not an addict’. I can do that without concealer.”
“You’re dodging pervert too.”
I sit forward, my eyes going wide. “Pervert?”
“There were underage girls in that audience and they all saw your bells and whistle. You’re lucky we’re not being sued.”
“Yet,” Grant chimes in, not looking up from his phone.
“Because if it comes to that,” Sarah continues, “you will go to court. Someone will press charges and you could end up on a sex offender registry. Do you have any idea what that will do to ticket sales?”
“We could talk to Channing Tatum and
get him in that new Magic Mike show instead.”
“Grant, shut the fuck up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I won’t be able to hold concerts anymore,” I fill in reluctantly. “I’ll fade out. I’ll disappear.”
Sarah nods. “Exactly. So to avoid that we’re swinging you to the opposite extreme and making you Beaver-Fucking-Cleaver. No more drinking, no more partying, no more smoking, no more women.”
“I know. I know. I’ve had the rundown from Grant. But how long are we gonna do this? How long do I have to pretend to be this guy?”
“Who are you kidding? You are this guy.”
“Bullshit,” I laugh.
“Oh really?” Sarah stands back, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re going to look me in the face and tell me you’re not the sensitive type? That you’re a badass rock star who loves partying and drinking and drugs? Loose women and all night benders? That’s all you’re about?”
“Yes?” I answer hesitantly.
Sarah’s not buying it. “I’ve known you half your life, Ryker, and I know for a fact you don’t enjoy any of that shit half as much as you pretend to. You gave it a shot but it’s not you. It was an act, one you have never been very good at. And I think ever since your mom died, you’ve known it. You just can’t admit it because without this act, you don’t know who the fuck you are.” She pauses, looking down at me sternly. “How about that, sweetie? Am I getting warm?”
I lick my lips. They’re dry again. My head is starting to pound with my pulse, erratic and angry. “How long do I have to perform this new act? The wholesome shit?”
“As long as it takes for people to forget what your dick looks like.”
“Fuck.”
She snorts derisively. “Don’t worry. It’s not that memorable.”
I offer her the tube of concealer back. “I’m not wearing makeup.”
She snatches it out of my hand. “Yes, you are. And since when do you care? You wear makeup all the time for interviews and shows. Don’t get squeamish on me now.”
Before I can protest, she’s smearing cold, tan cream under my eyes. I wince as her long nails come too close for comfort.