An alarm bell rang in his mind at the trust with which she had accepted his hand. He'd been in her place. He'd trusted and respected someone who had decided that nineteen was old enough to be played with.
Vy
Helen was at the window when she stormed in. She didn't say anything as Vy threw her clothes into a corner. Each piece made a revolting squelchy sound.
"Did you see that? Please tell me you saw that bitch pushing me in the pool!" Vy said, wrapping herself in the thick blanket. It was a pretty warm day, but her teeth were chattering.
"Well, she sort of made it look like she was arranging her chair."
She stared open mouthed at Helen. "Are you serious?"
"I'm sure she meant to push you in," Helen added hurriedly. "But that's how it looked."
"Her butt accidentally bumped into my butt and I'm such a slip of a girl that even a soft breeze could cause me to jump head first into the water?"
Now that she was dry and warm again, Vy slipped back into her joker persona, theatrically exaggerating her outrage. To her credit, Helen tried not to snigger while she got herself ready for her practice with Lauren.
"You can laugh," Vy said, sighing. "I am but a clown, here to amuse you."
Vy smiled warmly at Helen who was giggling. There was no trace of malice in Helen's laughter, and Vy loved her for that.
"The cherry on the whole messy business of course was that the least funny person in this whole place was there to see it," she said.
Instead of being even more amused, Helen stopped brushing her hair and frowned.
"That was quite interesting," Helen said. "It was very... Ariel and the prince."
Vy's jaw dropped, but she recovered. "It was embarrassing, that's what it was."
"I don't know about that," Helen said. "From where I was, I thought it was kind of hot."
Nope. She could not afford to go there. She gritted her teeth, fighting the treacherous shiver that went through her at the memory of his breath on her skin. And those eyes... she shook herself.
"Well, from where I was, it was downright humiliating. I swear that bitch Michelle is as bad as Nikki and they're seriously getting under my skin."
"They're afraid of you, Vy. Michelle has a nice voice and lots of experience, but your voice rivals Bryce's in volume."
She smiled at the comparison. Helen's crush was so sweet. "Bryce's? Really? Not TC's?"
"Meah," Helen said, with a shrug. "You're already way better than TC. I have to go."
Helen left for her afternoon session with Lauren. Their team Captain preferred to work with each pair of competitors, so the rest of the team could wait around with nothing to do or try to find one of the smaller music rooms free.
Vy wrapped the blanket around herself and shuffled to the window. She didn't know what she expected to see. Maybe the ghosts of herself and Andrew King frozen in that strange moment. To her surprise, King was still there, sitting in one of the pool chairs, the only concession to the warm weather was that he was now in a short sleeves t-shirt. He was still wearing jeans and boots, but his shirt was draped across the back of his chair. Vy knew his tattoos from the music videos, but it felt wrong to see them on his actual skin. His warm skin that had touched hers.
Michelle didn't seem to have the same sort of hang-ups. She was on the chair next to his and she was taking advantage of Andrew's closed eyes to look him up and down. Vy imagined her as a cartoon cat licking her lips.
She shook her head. It wasn't her problem how gorgeous Michelle was ogling her team captain. It certainly wasn't her problem how hot said captain looked.
Michelle was in King's team, so they wouldn't have a chance for direct competition until the semifinal. Right now, she had three days left to get ready for her first-round confrontation with Emily Bachman. Before the damn audition, she would've been sure that she would win. Emily's voice was nowhere near as broad or bold as her own, but at thirty-two, she was one of the oldest contestants, with a solid musical education, and years of experience as professional singer.
She had to train harder. That might also help her not think about... distracting topics. She looked one last time at Andrew King before she stepped away from the window.
Chapter 6
Andrew
The first episode of Sing X was broadcast that Friday. He didn't want to see it, but he recorded it anyway. The final votes would be cast by the viewers, but IBC could sway them to a certain extent. He should know what they showed about his contestants and about the other teams. But not that night. He couldn't afford to see HER in his home. He muted the TV and retreated in his favorite armchair with a glass of scotch and a book.
The hours flew by, and Diane's ringtone broke the silence. He glanced at the TV screen when he took his cell from the coffee table. Robinson Dean had started his goodbye speech. He smiled to see Diane's picture light up his phone.
"Hi, honey. You watched the show, huh?"
"Hi, Dad. Of course I did."
He almost heard his daughter's eye roll. D-oh, dad, of course I did. Her next words surprised him.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm fine. Everything okay with you?"
She ignored his question. "Were you sick that day?"
"No. Why do you ask? Did my voice sound funny?"
He stepped out onto the terrace. The small park outside their apartment building was one of Diane's favorite places in the wholes city. He didn't want to make her sad by mentioning it, but looking at it whole talking to her gave him the illusion that she was there.
"Not your voice," Diane said. "But something was wrong with you."
"What are you talking about?"
"Vy, Dad! How could you?"
Andrew closed his eyes, and prepared himself for his daughter's merciless indictment of his stupidity. Diane was an opinionated little girl and she had acquired an extra layer of knowing-it-all-ness he used to find amusing, but which now made him miss her all the more. She kept supplying him with Vanilla Velvet videos she found online, and asking if he signed a contract with them already. He had foolishly hoped that his daughter would be happy to see Vy on Sing, and gloss over his failure to get her on his team.
He went back inside and poured himself another scotch, murmuring agreement once in a while, to assure her that he was still listening to her arguments.
"You were so… so… cold."
He hung his head. Good. If he had managed to appear cold, he'd done a good job.
"I love you, too, honey."
He pictured her rolling her eyes again.
"Of course I love you, Dad, but how could you let her get away?"
He wished there was a way to explain his behavior to his daughter, without lying to her, and without telling her the truth.
"I don't know. I just..."
He sighed. What could he tell her?
"Vy is amazing", Diane said. "She is going to be a megastar. And she was so perfect for you. You're going to kick yourself when she wins this whole thing and you didn't fight to get her on your team."
He stopped her torrent of words. "You can relax about that. I'm kicking myself already. But she's the one who chose Carter."
Great job, Andrew! Blame the girl. As if he hadn't been a dirty old man who wanted her for very unprofessional reasons. He pushed away the thought that Carter might have felt the same, and yet fought for her without scruples.
"Did you not watch the episode?" Diane asked as if talking to an idiot. "She said she wanted you. They asked her before the show. When Dean asked her on whose team she wanted to be. She didn't even mention TC, and I was for sure she was going to say both of you. She's so real rock!"
He steered the conversation gently away from Vy, and they spent the next half hour catching up with her life in America. Diane and Christine had been gone for three months and he couldn't get used to the deafening silence in his apartment.
When the call ended, he sat on the couch, unmuted the TV and looked for the recording of the firs
t episode. Diane's words made him curious. Even without all the Vanilla Velvet recordings he'd seen, he would have said that Vy's musical taste was split down the middle between the Waves and Wanderlust. Had she said only his name?
He never enjoyed watching himself on the screen. He remembered the auditions as if they had just happened the day before, not a couple of months earlier. In those two months, he got to know more about his team, and some of the others. His growing interest in Vy was only one reason to keep some distance between himself and everyone else. He didn't want to get involved in their lives, or care about them as people. He didn't have the emotional resources to cope with nurturing them, only to cut them loose.
He sped through the episode, sped through his almost sincere speech that hadn't persuaded Claire to join his team. He had genuinely liked her voice, but the speech had been more a parody of Carter's highly emotional, completely manipulative speeches, than a true expression of his desire to have her on his team. Claire's voice was good, and with careful training, she could be excellent singer. Choosing Carter meant that she was more interested in becoming an entertainer.
Vy showed up on the screen after Claire's audition.
He saw her friends in the waiting room with Robinson Dean. He recognized the drummer and the base guitar of Vanilla Velvet. Dean asked them in which team they saw her. The girl said TC, the boy said King.
They cut to another scene, when Dean had asked Vy. "On whose team do you see yourself?"
She hesitated for a moment before answering. "King."
He watched Vy sing behind that curtain, looking so real rock as his daughter said.
When the curtain rose, her eyes went straight to him. He replayed many times those few moments when Vy looked at him. The memory of that connection throbbed in his chest.
No matter how many times he watched it, the end was always the same. With the glum look on his face when TC scooped her in his arms.
Sleep evaded him that night. He went to the music room downstairs, and tried to exorcise the dark ghost of the song from his mind. The Vy he saw every day in the House was vibrant and funny and full of life. The Vy who had said his name was heartbroken and heartbreaking.
And he wanted both of them.
#
They were a week away from recording the first duels, and every minute of practice on the main stage was precious. To his frustration, some of his best voices had issues being on stage, and some of the people who had a strong stage presence had technical difficulties.
"From the top," he told Bryce and Luke, signaling to the sound guy to replay the background music.
He sat down in Lauren's chair, to get a better angle on their choreography. Even if he considered it less important than the music, they needed to look good on the stage.
He saw the piece of paper at the foot of the chair, and picked it up without thinking. He didn't quite realize what he was reading until he noticed that Bryce had stopped singing. A glance at his panicked face told Andrew that Bryce had wrote the love letter in his hand. He folded it and offered it to Bryce.
"Yours?" he asked, holding out the paper toward him.
The young man's face was turning a deeper shade of red, and he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. Some words had popped up at a glance. Heart. Eyes. Voice. Standard for a love-struck man in his twenties. He wondered if more interesting body parts made an appearance further in the description.
Bryce stammered something that could be yes or no, and made no gesture to retrieve the paper. The stage door opened, and he turned his head to see Vy storm in.
"Sorry, we forgot someth-"
Her eyes fell on the paper in his hand. She looked from him to Bryce, who was crimson and shaking. The staccato of her heels in the silence sounded like a burst of gunfire as she hurried toward him. She snatched the letter from his grasp.
"Thank you," she said, and turned on her heels leaving the room without another word.
For a moment, the world became a dark and stifling place. His chest burned as if someone had lit a roman candle inside his ribcage. Vy and Bryce? His mind tried to calm the frantic beating of his heart. They were young, and free to do what they wanted. It wasn't his business. Why did he even care?
He shouldn't care.
He didn't care.
The lie exploded into a million pieces when he looked at Bryce. He was still beetroot red, and his customary open smile was nowhere to be seen as he stared at the door Vy slammed behind her.
His heart had long ago learned to submit to his mind. "Right," he said in his normal tone. "Take it from the top again."
Vy
As soon as she was back in their bedroom, she took out her phone. Her hand shook as she scrolled to find Alice's number. Alice had taken the time to read the thick rule book before Vy signed the contract with IBC.
She hadn't realized how much she missed her best friend until she heard Alice's voice. Her rolling R's warmed her heart. Alice only slipped into the French accent when she was among friends. After chatting with her for a quarter of an hour, she remembered to ask about the rules.
"Is there a rule against dating someone in competition?" she asked.
"Viola Alexandra Cesara, what exactly is going on there?" Alice asked with mock sternness.
"Nothing," she said. "I'll tell you when we meet," she added, uncomfortable to lie to Alice.
"I'll hold you to that," Alice said. "There isn't a rule about dating between contestants. The IBC staff is out of bounds. And that includes the Captains."
She blushed at that. Yes, the Captains were definitely out of bounds. Not to mention married, with children. Well, not all of them. Just the one who made her heart flutter and who now believed she was fooling around with Bryce.
She snuck into bed, and curled up under the blanket. The look on Andrew's face when she took Helen's letter... Why should she even care what he thought? She didn't. Of course she didn't care.
When Helen had told her she might have dropped a note from Bryce during her stage practice, she had taken off without hesitation. Ever since Helen and Bryce had grown closer, Vy started to worry about the legal issues. The practice at her father's law firm had been more than menial tasks. Paul Cesara had always made it clear that she wanted her to follow in his footsteps. As the future lawyer she was, she knew that the age of consent was eighteen. She had made the right call. Bryce was only twenty-two, but at seventeen, Helen was underage.
What a difference two years made. In the eyes of the law, she had the right to have sex with anyone because she was nineteen, but if Helen did it, Bryce would end up in jail. She heard Helen's footsteps next to her bed.
"Vy?" Helen whispered very softly.
"Not asleep," she confirmed.
The mattress dipped when Helen sat down on the edge of her bed.
"Thank you again," Helen said. "For the letter."
She raised her head from the pillow to look at her friend. "I hope you understand this is serious. It can land Bryce into a lot of trouble."
"But we're not doing anything," Helen protested.
"Just hear the words: relationship between a twenty-two-year-old man and an underage girl."
Helen gasped. She was sure that Bryce and Helen weren't going to start having sex in the bathroom, and she was damn sure that she wouldn't let them have sex in their bedroom, but if it got out, it could turn into a scandal. Bryce would be kicked out of the competition. Maybe Helen, too, but even if she weren't, she'd still be publicly branded as a victim or a slut because that was how things worked.
If Alice was right, and she always was, there wouldn't be any problems if King said anything to the production staff about her alleged relationship with Bryce.
In all her years of watching the show, she had never seen a romance starting in the house. Maybe they hadn't showed it, or it really didn't happen. After all, everyone in this house was a competitor. Even she and Helen.
"I can't believe he likes me that way," Helen said.
Vy
sat up, raising her eyebrows, intrigued. "You're cute, smart and funny. What's there not to like?"
"Not being unduly humble here, but why me? I mean... did you see Michelle? And Nikki? And Claire, and Yasmine, and-"
"I get the point," Vy interrupted her. "And thank you for not starting the list of drop dead gorgeous babes with me."
"You're... you. I'm not saying you're not pretty you're just so much more."
"If there was a compliment hidden there, it was well hidden."
"You can be such a jerk sometimes," Helen said with a suppressed giggle.
She pretended to be shocked and hurt, hoping to make her laugh. "How am I the bad guy in this? I did you a solid."
Helen laughed. "I love it when you talk street."
"Shut up," she said and flopped back in bed.
It was like having a younger sister. Sebastian was two years younger than her, but he often behaved like an older brother. Alice was her own age, but she usually acted like she was thirty.
What was Andrew King thinking about her at that moment? His comments about her performance in the first duel had warmed her heart. TC and Ryann had been complimentary, but in a way she didn't quite believe. King's words thought… she still replayed them in her mind. She'd been happier to hear his praise than she'd been when Carter had chosen her over Emily. She couldn't wait to see that episode on TV. She hadn't dared to look at him as much as she wanted when he spoke.
Chapter 7
Vy
Round 1 was behind them, and all four of them were safe. They'd find out the next day who they were up against for round 2. Until then, they could celebrate. They snuck into the kitchen as soon as the staff left. It was ten in the evening and the House was locked up.
"We need champagne," Helen said.
"Even if we found any," Vy said, "you'd still have to drink soda. So, it's better we can't find any."
Helen scowled at her, but she was swept in Bryce's arms who spun her around like she was a feather.
"We made it!" Bryce said. "We all made it to round two!"
Dark Dream (Love in Illyria Book 1) Page 5