by Vivian Lux
"You're crazy."
"You were literally just needling me about chicks."
"Scarlett's not a chick, asshole."
"Really? That's news to me. Might be news to her, too."
Rane rolled his eyes. "No, she's a cold-hearted bitch who took your heart and stomped on it. Or did you forget?"
I didn't forget. I hadn't forgotten a thing. I could still remember that day, three weeks before we were supposed to run away together. She had come up to me with the ring in her hand and shoved it into my palm. She looked wild and desperate and kept glancing behind her like she was being chased, like someone was prodding her.
Knowing Scarlett's parents, she probably was.
"You don't have to do this," I told her back then, reaching for her hand, trying to manhandle the ring back where it belonged.
But she had snatched her hand away. "I have to," she repeated, over and over again, her deep,rich voice catching in her throat, garbled with tears. "My father said he'd..." She swallowed, caught herself. "I have to."
I didn't believe her. I made her take the ring back, murmured soothing nonsense and dismissed it all as cold feet. We were leaving together as far as I was concerned. I was taking her on our first tour, down to New York City on the trip that would make our name.
I never once believed she wouldn't be waiting for me when I came for her. I never once considered she would leave me.
"I didn't forget. You know that better than anyone. But, Christ, it was so long ago. We were kids," I reminded Rane.
He glared at me. Anyone else might have been fooled by my light tone. But not my brother.
"Bullshit," he snarled.
It was bullshit. Kids or no, I loved Scarlett Sawyer. Had loved her. Did love her.
"Fuck off, Rane," I snarled, shoulder checking him as I stalked past. "I don't need a mom."
"What you need to do is fucking let go!" he shouted after me. But I was already heading out into the lot, bypassing the little knots of fans who were hanging by the stage door.
Let go. Of course that was Rane's solution. It had been since we were kids. He was nine when our mom left. I was eight. And though we both lost the same person, our ways of dealing were very different.
Ramona Halligan Wilder was a hippie born too late to really matter. So instead of peace, love and understanding, she embraced pot, laziness, and dissatisfaction with what she called "society."
The way she said "society," you could almost hear the air quotes.
What Mom liked about our dad was that he was outside of hersociety. Her parents, our grandparents, were old money rich. Big echoey houses filled with the yaps of small, nervous dogs rich.
I only went to my grandparents' house a few times as a child,and each time, I felt distinctly unwelcome.
When my mother split, she left behind a lot of the shit my grandparents gave her. Fancy plates and things with ornate handles. One morning, as I pulled the wreckage of one of those fancy handled spoons from the garbage disposal, I held it up for my dad to see. "Hey, isn't this shit valuable?" I asked him.
My father had his feet up in a rare moment of repose, and when he looked over his paper at me, I felt bad for disturbing his one moment of peace with this memory. "Yeah, probably," he grunted. "But not to me, it's not."
I didn't know if our mom ever granted my dad the divorce. That would be just like her, of course. Forgetting about something and moving on like it had never happened. She left like it was the easiest thing in the world--one day she was there, the next day she was gone. And my dad was too damn tired to try to look for her. Maybe she thought he would chase her, maybe she thought he would fight to keep her at his side, but whatever love my father had for Ramona Wilder was crushed by the exhaustion of being with her.
Part of me hated him for that. It was a part of myself that I hated, because hating my father, even just a little bit, was a huge betrayal I could barely abide. But I hated him just the same for not going after her. For not at least trying to salvage their marriage and bring my mom back home again.
For not fixing it.
If there was one thing my mother leaving taught me,it was that you needed to fight for what mattered. If there was one thing my mother taught Rane, it was to let go of what didn't matter. It seemed odd to me that my brother and I could grow up side-by-side but end up with two completely different worldviews.
Let go, I thought. Maybe I could let go of Scarlett.
But first, I needed to see her again. Ask her why she wasn't there, why she never fucking called until just now, when she needed something. Demand the closure she fucking owed me for the past five years.
Maybe this was just what I needed to finally let go. Maybe it was a terrible idea.
I couldn't tell the difference.
I pulled out my phone.
Chapter 8
Scarlett
I flicked through the stations, annoyed that my cheap-ass rental car had no A/V input. I hated being at the mercy of terrestrial radio.
The scan alighted on a pop station,and the blaring bass of 'Cocky' by Jaxson Blue made the cheap speakers vibrate with an annoying buzzing sound. I hit scan. That song was played out last summer, and everyone I knew was sick to death of it.
Everyone except my old friend Myra, one of the first friends I made when I moved to the West Coast. She and I used to go to shows together, the loud music drowning out how incompatible we actually were as friends. I was the serious, studious journalist, covering bands for the local free paper and writing lengthy treatises on the influence of seventies disco culture on the club-kid scene. She was a social butterfly who didn't give a shit about the actual music but cared deeply for the celebrity factor. Myra Rains was a self-professed "groupie gadabout" who interviewed Jaxson Blue for her blog back when the song was breaking. She swore up and down that she 'almost' slept with the guy, but was "cock-blocked by fucking Annie Blue herself!"
Now,Jaxson Blue was hot,and his songs had a certain poppy charm, but the idea of Myra coming face-to-face with a legend like Annie Blue, his mother, had me seething with jealousy. That was the kind of interview I longed to do. "What did you say?" I begged her over drinks the day after this supposed cock-blocking occurred.
"I took his cock outta my mouth and told her I was a fan!" she giggled over her margarita.
My Catholic-school-girl ears heated up. Five years out of high school, and I still blushed like a virgin when Myra fired up her potty-mouth. I wondered if I'd ever lose that or if I'd still be embarrassed by sex in the retirement home.
"And what did she say?"
"Thanked me and told her son to put his dick back in his pants. The elevator took me back down after that." Myra stirred her drink with a faraway glance. "His cock was...pretty much as beautiful as you'd expect."
"Do you..." I dropped my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Do you always do that?"
"Do what?"
"You know...sleep with your story?"
Myra looked at me witheringly, and I knew right then and there that I was being dismissed. I was terminally dorky, terminally uncool. They said these things didn't matter once you hit adulthood, but they absolutely did. Myra had the confidence and guiltless zest for life that marked her as a "public school kid." I could practically smell it on her. "I'm not a whore, Scarlett. I'm a slut. Whores sleep with guys for money. Sluts sleep with guys for fun. You really should learn the difference."
I didn't know the difference because sex had never been "fun" for me. In all of my experience--all two guys of it--sex had been serious business. Kevin, back when he was still wooing me, was fastidious beforehand, dutiful during and disappeared into the bathroom right afterward, leaving me lying there with the vague sensation of an itch barely scratched.
And Keir...well, Keir had been way different--enthusiastic and not always completely hygienic--but the resulting seriousness of what we had done together was something I couldn't ever shake.
Sex for fun? What was that?
The scan settled
on an oldies station,and the familiar piano gymnastics of Billy Joel began. With a blush, I moved to change the station, but my finger lingered a moment, then fell away.
It was the first hot day of the year, the kind of day that made high school juniors crave summer vacation right down in their very bones. I usually walked home from Star of the Sea Girls Academy with Kerry Flanagan, who lived three blocks away from my house on Wallace Street, and that day we tied our white blouses under our breasts and rolled our plaid skirts as high as we dared before we set out into the blazing sun.
I was enjoying the warmth on my skin, feeling something tight under my breastbone unknot itself after the long, snowy winter. So I forgot to rearrange myself before I turned onto Wallace Street.
I heard a wolf-whistle from the direction of the Wilders' garage.
I hid my smile behind fake outrage and turned to glare at Keir. "Pig!" I called out.
He emerged from the garage, already tanned golden somehow. He was shirtless, of course, because the boy never let an opportunity to take his shirt off pass him by, and for that I breathed a silent prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Hormones. "Oink oink." He smiled at me. His grin turned into a leer,and his hands moved in an hourglass shape in front of him. "Seriously, Scar, what is this?"
I planted my hand on my hip. I liked the way he was looking at me right then, though I knew I shouldn't. "My uniform," I said primly.
"Fuck me," he breathed. "And wear that when you do."
"You're disgusting."
He hummed a little melody I couldn't place and started singing something about Catholic girls starting late in that gravelly voice of his.
I didn't know what to do with the way his voice was affecting my body, so I feigned indifference. "Fuck off," I sighed, and started across his lawn towards my house.
He was laughing behind me, still singing the song I didn't know. It was the sexiest, most irritating thing ever.
I went home that afternoon and looked up the lyrics as I remembered them.
That was my introduction to Billy Joel. I listened to him, keeping him hidden from my parents, figuring that if Keir was singing it to me, it somehow must be dirty.
It wasn't until I got to Grip that I learned listening to Billy Joel was not "cool." But I still sang along with the radio, feeling my heart fill up.
I was going to see Keir. I shouldn't be so damn happy. I should be focused, maybe even frightened. But here I was, singing the song he used to tease me with at the top of my lungs.
The GPS chirped a perky little warning that my destination was on the right, and I pulled up short, swerving at the last minute into the curving drive of the Ventura Lofts Hotel. And then sat there, slightly stunned.
This was the place Keir chose for the interview, "because it's around the corner from my place," and I had arrived here in twenty minutes flat. The knowledge that he had been this close to me was messing with my head. I could have seen him walking the streets, run into him in a coffee shop or juice bar.
My hands trembled. He had been so close...for so long. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes and I blinked them away, confused as to why I was crying.
The Ventura Lofts commanded a spectacular view of the water. After giving my name at the front desk, I tapped my fingers on the cool marble, waiting to be summoned up to the penthouse suite where Keir was waiting for me.
Keir was waiting for me.
"You can head up, miss. I've unlocked the elevator for you," the clerk said.
"Thank you." My high heels sounded echoingly loud against the marble floor. The elevator doors swished open soundlessly, and I stepped inside.
Keir was waiting for me.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall and swallowed as I remembered. "Keir is waiting for me," I said to my brother. My voice sounded oddly pinched through the pain.
Clark stood in the doorway of his daughter's bedroom, looking at me. My brother's face was heavily shadowed with his new beard, and his eyes showed the weariness of new fatherhood. I was imposing on him by being here, especially with his wife Dayna due any moment with their second. He shouldn't have to worry about me, too.
But Clark was my best brother, closest in age to me, and the only one I could trust. I was grateful that it was him that found me that morning.
The late afternoon sun filtered pink through the princess curtains, casting a rosy glow over his grim face. Hailey was asleep in her crib, her chubby fist curled under her chin. The sight of her only made the pain in my belly worse.
"You can't worry about Keir now," Clark urged me. "I'll tell him. If I can. Dayna's on her way. She's going to take you to the doctor."
The elevator dinged open.
I stepped out, blinking, into the light-filled expanse of the penthouse suite. Outside of the floor to ceiling windows, the Pacific Ocean beat ceaselessly against the ribbon of beachfront. Inside was all blonde wood and white fabric, the open floor plan leaving nowhere for me to hide and collect myself. "Hello?" I called.
It's strange the way memories can cascade. One leads to another, and another, collecting the way a snowball becomes an avalanche bearing down on you from high above.
First it was the sound of his sigh carrying across the room. Then it was the way his footsteps hit the floor, the rhythm of his walk as familiar as my own heartbeat. I ducked my head away from the sight of him in the corner of my eye. That familiar shape.
Then his voice, ragged and gravelly, saying five years' worth of things unsaid in only three syllables.
"Scarlett. Hi."
When he said my name, my head jerked towards him like it was tugged on a string. And though I had seen pictures over the years--magazine covers, album covers, publicity and tour shots--nothing prepared me for the shock of seeing Keir Wilder in the flesh.
His face had always been a jumble of beautiful contradictions. His dark eyes, so heavy and hooded, were somehow both sleepy and sharp. His lips, so full as to be almost girlish, were nearly hidden in the dark shadow of his stubble. A stylist had clearly gotten ahold of his hair, but as he watched me, he ran his fingers nervously through it, sending dark tufts up to stick out wildly in all directions.
My hand moved to smooth it down. I clenched it against my side.
He stepped behind the white sofa as if he wanted to keep something between us, something he could hold on to. It was him. The first man I loved. The only man I had ever loved, truth be told. The best, most wonderful moments of my life were spent with Keir Wilder, and suddenly, they all hit me at once.
"Hi, Keir Bear." I smiled.
He blinked at my nickname for him, rearing back as if slapped. His eyes narrowed, and he turned on his heel.
"Fuck," he snarled. He sounded like he was in pain. "This was a fucking mistake. I can't do this."
"It's okay," I said. Numbly. Mindlessly.
"No, it fucking isn't."
I ducked my head. "I know."
He looked at me. "Don't do that."
"What?"
"Look all hurt. You don't get to do that."
A flash of anger heated my blood. "I don't 'get' to? How do you think you have the right to tell me what I can and cannot feel?"
He was breathing deeply, like a bull ready to charge. "You need to go."
For a moment, I forgot my job. I forgot that I was here to interview him, to play a role. To be impartial. How did I ever think I could be impartial? I was seeing him again after five long years, and he was already cutting me off. "Wait!" I demanded, lifting my chin. "Are you really going to tell me to leave? Now? After all this time?"
His shoulders sagged, and for a second, I had him. I knew I had him. I almost smiled.
Then he turned his back on me. "I mean it. Get the hell out of here."
Chapter 9
Keir
I stood in front of the elevator right up until the moment I heard the gears start to grind. Then I moved away, out of spite.
I wanted to see her before she saw me.
Wa
s that petty of me? Fine, I could accept that. I wanted her to feel just a fraction of how off-kilter I was feeling.
Then the doors opened and everything tilted sideways.
Her hair was still honey blonde, but the California sun had kissed it platinum in places, and she had cut it into a short bob that swung against her long neck in a way that made me swallow hard. Something about how her neck was bare to me, right there and ready to be kissed, licked and bitten...
"Hello?" she called, and fuck, I was gone.
I had to lean against the back of the couch, slouching to hide my completely inappropriate hard-on. "Scarlett," I said, tasting her name. "Hi."
Five years had taken some of the baby fat from her face and strengthened the determined set of her jaw. But otherwise, she was the exact same girl I loved so long ago. She looked so goddamned eager that it broke my heart. "Hi, Keir Bear," she said softly. Then turned pink at the intimacy of the old nickname.
Fix this, a voice in my head insisted. And I should have been able to. After all, it's what I did.
But what happened between Scarlett and me--that was beyond fixing. Not after so long.
It was her, she was here, and all I had to do was ask her and five years of wondering would be over. But my pain choked the words from my mouth.
I swallowed, hearing an audible click where my anger closed its fist around my throat. Rage was a living, breathing thing inside of me. I exhaled. "Fuck, this was a mistake."
She tried to protest, but my blood was boiling in my veins, my heart sounding in my ears. I wanted to shout at her, grab her and shake her. I wanted to throw her down on the couch between us and kiss her until her lips were raw. I wanted to feel her nails gouge rivers down my back as I fucked her so hard we had no choice but to be one heart again.
"I mean it. Get the hell out of here. "
I didn't mean it. Of course I didn't mean it.
But Scarlett turned to leave all the same. Her shoulders sagged. She had always held her head so high, even when life gave her no reason to do so. A flicker of pain passed across her face, and my heart squeezed hard in my chest. As angry as I was, I still wanted to hurt whatever had hurt her.