“You read my mind.” I laughed, as my stomach growled again.
“Need a ride or will you meet me there?” He was hesitant. “I don’t want Zane coming after me with a shotgun.”
“You can just pick me up. I’ll be ready in half an hour.”
“I’ll see you then.” Braydon hung up the phone, and I stared at it, wondering if I had made the right decision. There was something about Braydon that I couldn’t quite figure out. He was always friendly and always seemed genuinely happy to see me, but there was something that was a little off about him and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Normally, I would have avoided him, but after Zane had banned me from talking to him, along with the whole Zane-dating-all-of-his-exes thing, I had decided to continue to see him. It was like I was caught up in some sort of twisted hurricane and I couldn’t get out.
***
“I hope you like tacos.” Braydon grinned as we drove up to a taqueria. “They aren’t expensive, but they sure taste good.”
“I love tacos.” I laughed, surprised at how at ease I felt with him.
“Shall we try one of each?” he asked, licking his lips. His hair had started to grow back and he looked surprisingly sexy.
“I don’t know if I can eat that many tacos.” I shook my head.
“I’ll finish all the ones you can’t eat.” He grabbed my hand and led me to a table. “Sit here and I’ll go order.”
“Okay.” I sat down and looked around me. There was nothing impressive about this hole-in-the wall Mexican restaurant, which was why I loved it. Braydon could have taken me anywhere to try and impress me. I had been expecting a swanky place in Beverly Hills or Hollywood, but he had taken me to a gritty part of Korea Town, and we were sitting at an old wooden table. I realized that I didn’t really know Braydon. He was turning out to be a guy I would never have associated with being a big-time Hollywood star.
“Okay, here we go. We have carnitas, lengua, carne asada, shrimp, fish, and chicken.” He carried the plates back to the table in a delicate balancing act.
“That’s a lot of food, but they all look delicious.” I reached out, grabbed a shrimp taco, and took a bite. “Oh, my, this is amazing.” I laughed as sauce ran down my chin. “Oops.” I grabbed a napkin and wiped it away.
Braydon laughed. “I’m glad you like them. This is my favorite place in L.A.”
“Really?” I was even more surprised.
“Yeah, Noah and I used to come here every other day.” He laughed. “Good times, man.”
“So what happened to Noah?” I questioned, deliberately keeping my voice light. “I know he passed away, but what happened?”
Braydon froze as he was eating, and his brown eyes turned dark. “Zane told you he died?”
I nodded silently.
“Wow, I’m surprised. He never talks about Noah.” He wiped his mouth, and took a sip of his horchata. “Noah was one of my best friends, you know. Zane always hated that. I think that’s where the jealousy started.”
“Because you two were friends?”
“Because I kind of took him away from Zane. Since their mom left them, it was kind of them against the world, but then Noah started branching out. He wanted a life outside of the Beaumont walls, you know? He was flashy and cool. But he also had a softer side. Zane is just intense and crazy all the time.”
“Not all the time.” I frowned. “He can be light and happy at times, too.”
“Wow, you really drank the Kool-Aid, huh?” Braydon grabbed my hand. “I don’t need to know what happened with you and Zane, I don’t actually want to know. But trust me when I tell you, he is not a good guy. He’s not like us, Lucky. He can’t just enjoy life and be happy.”
I sighed at his words. “I just don’t understand. Did Noah commit suicide or something?”
“No.” Braydon jumped up. “Hold on, I need to get some more napkins and water.”
I watched as he walked away quickly and sighed when two teenage girls ran up to him, gushing and asking for his autograph. I didn’t understand the secrecy behind Noah’s death. Why did no one want to talk about it? I knew how hard it was to open up after a loved one had died. I didn’t want to talk about my parents for months, but if someone asked me what happened, I wasn’t hesitant or secretive. I saw Braydon signing one of the teenage girls’ T-shirts and picked up my phone to check the time. I groaned when I saw five missed calls and three texts from Zane, demanding to know where I was and if I was okay. “I would hardly be able to text you back if I wasn’t okay,” I mumbled to myself. I pushed my phone back into my bag without answering any of his texts. I was twenty-two years old and Zane was not my keeper. Let him go jump off a cliff or something, I told myself. I couldn’t keep up with him and his moods. And I didn’t think I wanted to know if he had only used me to get back at Braydon.
“Sorry about that. Those girls asked for my autograph.” Braydon stood at the table. “I’m really sorry about this, but do you mind if I take you home now? I have something I need to do.”
“No problem.” I jumped up. “I should be getting back. By the way, did you find out if Angelique got home okay?”
“Angelique?” Braydon looked at me in surprise. “She’s a big girl. I’m sure she got home fine.”
“She was really sick.” I frowned. “You—”
“Shit, what did she say?” He leaned towards me angrily. “Did she say I gave her something? She’s lying. I’m not—”
“Stop.” I help up my hand in confusion. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh. Sorry. Forget what I said.”
“What did she take yesterday?” My mind started churning. “Is that why she was sick? Was she on something?”
“How am I supposed to know?” he snapped and he drove off while I was still buckling my seatbelt.
“Did you guys take drugs before you came over?” My voice rose. “You were acting pretty weird last night as well.”
“If you mean, did we smoke some pot, then yeah. Doesn’t everyone?”
“I don’t.” I frowned and bit my lip. “You guys weren’t high on weed. I’m in college, remember? I’m around potheads every day.”
“Lucky. You’re starting to annoy me.” Braydon’s sweet tone was gone. “I thought you were a cool girl and I came all the way from Miami to make sure you were okay.”
“I never told you to come,” I protested, now irritated.
“I’m looking for a wife; someone who is ready to commit. I thought when we first met that you were a possibility, but I don’t think you are. Zane has poisoned you, obviously. I don’t want to deal with this shit anymore.”
“Whoa, what just happened here?” I looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m not trying to be a bitch, but I’m not even interested in you like that, Braydon. And that has nothing to do with Zane. You came on way too strong. You’re a nice enough guy, but you will never have my heart.”
“I don’t want your heart.” He laughed manically. “You’re not cut out for our crowd, Lucky. Take my advice, leave Los Angeles and go back to Miami. Zane is going to chew you up and spit you out. And you’re going to find your heart ripped out and dumped on the side of the road. And you know what? You’re going to have no one to blame but yourself.”
I bit my lip and looked out the window as he continued driving. I wasn’t going to respond to his vile comments. Braydon’s true personality was coming out and it wasn’t pretty. I was so glad that I had chosen Zane over him—even if Zane couldn’t commit and was just using me for some sort of sick revenge plot.
“Thanks for the ride.” I jumped out of the car and slammed the door without looking back. I ran up to Zane’s front door and paused as I realized I didn’t have keys to get in. “Fuck,” I muttered and wondered if I should ring the doorbell or call Zane. Before I could even make a decision, the door opened and Zane was standing in front of me with a furious look on his face.
“Where have you been?” His voice was deceptively low. “I have been
calling you all day. I have been going out of my mind with worry.”
“I went—”
“And was that Braydon? Didn’t I tell you not to see him? Didn’t I tell you to stay away from him?”
“He just—”
“He’s bad news, Lucky!” he shouted, his nostrils were flaring and his face was red. “I don’t know what else I have to say for you to get it through your skull. He’s bad news. I don’t want to have to worry about you as well. I’m already worried about Angelique.”
“I’m sorry I’m not your precious Angelique,” I blurted out, angry at his patronizing tone.
“Are you trying to make me angry, Lucky? Are you trying to make my blood pressure rise?” He sat on the couch and I sat down next to him, hoping he would calm down. “If anything had happened to you …”
“We just went to lunch, Zane,” I sighed. “I get it, I really do. He’s not a good guy. I saw it today.”
“Oh, my God. What did he do?” Zane jumped up. “Did he give you anything?”
“No.” I shook my head. “We just went to get tacos and then he had to leave.”
“He most probably had a drop-off,” Zane said cynically.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He sighed and took a deep breath. “You can’t just leave like that, Lucky, I was so worried.”
“Worried about what? I’m a big girl. I can look after myself.”
“I wasn’t worried that you were hurt, Lucky.” He turned towards me. “I was worried that you had left.”
“I would still work on the documentary if I left.”
“Fuck the documentary,” Zane cursed, and paced up and down. “I was scared you left me. I was worried all night, and then this morning, I didn’t know what to say or do. Then I had to take Angelique home, and she had to go get some prescriptions. And I hurried back to apologize for how I spoke to you yesterday and you were gone, and then my heart constricted. I was so worried. And you didn’t answer your phone. Why didn’t you answer your phone? I thought you went back to Miami. That maybe you were done with me. That I was too fucked up for you.” He came and sat back on the couch and stared at me, the intensity in his eyes made them look like shining sapphires. “I don’t want you to leave me, Lucky.”
“You don’t even know me, really.” I heard myself speaking, but it didn’t sound like me. “Why would you care if I left?”
“Why would I care?” He laughed bitterly. “Maybe because you’re the first person I think about when I wake up in the morning. You’re the reason I stayed in Miami for so long. I lived for those dates on Friday. I used to think it was because I was finally getting solid information, but it was because I got to see you. You don’t realize it, but you’re such a beautiful and bright human being. Seeing your face every Friday was the highlight of my week.”
“I don’t know what to say.” My heart was soaring at his words, but I was scared to get my hopes up too high.
“When I was younger I used to read this poem by William Wordsworth, and—”
“Not ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’?” I spoke up excitedly.
He nodded. “You know it?”
“I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o’er vales and hills,” I began.
“When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils,” he continued, and held my hand. “That’s my favorite poem.”
“It’s mine as well,” I said shyly.
“I’m used to it being me against the world. I always had to be strong. I had a brother I had to be strong for. I never wanted him to see me sad or depressed. But I was lonely.”
“I’m sure Noah appreciated it.”
“Noah wanted me to get out there.” He sighed. “Ironically, he wanted me to be weak, and he wanted me to open my heart. Because that’s what he did. He fell in love. Over and over again. And he got his heart broken and he would retreat into himself, but then he would get better. He always got better.”
“A broken heart is a part of life, Zane,” I sighed. “You shouldn’t avoid relationships because you want to avoid pain.”
“It killed him, you know.” Zane’s voice was pained.
“A broken heart killed your brother?” I frowned, very confused. “How?”
“He never got over it. I think this time he thought she was the one. He was so in love with her that when she dumped him, he needed something else. Something that I couldn’t give him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He thought he could fly.”
“What?”
“The night he died, he thought he could fly.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He turned to drugs.” Zane sighed. “He was on angel dust, you may know it as PCP, and one night, he thought he saw Angelique waiting for him on a cloud, and he jumped off the roof of a building to join her because he thought he could fly.”
“I’m so sorry, Zane.” I squeezed his hand and tears welled in my eyes.
“It’s not your fault.” He sighed. “There are so many things I wish I could change. I wish I had been there for him more, I wish I hadn’t been so closed off. I wish I would have killed Braydon the first time he tried to offer me drugs.”
“Braydon?” My voice rose in surprise.
“That’s why I didn’t want you close to him. Braydon is a drug dealer.” Zane sounded angry.
“But he’s an actor.”
“He doesn’t make enough money to keep up his lifestyle, so he deals drugs as well.” Zane frowned. “I’ve been trying to get enough dirt on him so he can get prosecuted as a drug trafficker. He’s responsible for my brother’s death.”
“Angelique was your brother’s girlfriend?” I hoped he wasn’t mad that I had changed the subject away from Braydon, but as soon as he had mentioned her name, my heart had stopped.
“Yes. She still feels guilty. That’s why I’ve been so concerned about her. I’m worried she’s going to do something silly.”
“I thought she was the girl you loved.” I rushed my words, suddenly feeling light. “I thought she was the girl you loved who broke your heart.”
“Angelique?” He laughed. “No, no, no. She was Noah’s girlfriend for two years. She even helped me pick this place out when they were dating. She dumped him when her career started taking off. She got a big modeling contract in Italy.”
“Oh, wow.”
“She still loved him, but she didn’t want to give up her career so she told him to move on. He couldn’t take it. The pain was too much for him. He never understood why they couldn’t be together when they were still in love.”
“That must have been a hard decision for her to make.”
“She regrets it every day of her life.” Zane sighed. “But it’s not her fault. It’s Braydon’s. Noah never did hard drugs. He only used to smoke some weed, but Braydon got him hooked. He was with Noah the night he died.”
“He was?” I was shocked, but it seemed to make sense. “Why didn’t he get arrested?”
“The police had nothing on him. He told them he had no idea Noah was on drugs. I knew, of course. I found out a few weeks before Noah died that he was on something, and I confronted him. We had a big fight, and he went and moved in with Braydon. I was going to go ask him to come back, but my pride got in the way and then it was too late.”
“Oh, Zane, I’m so sorry.” Tears streamed down my face, and I wiped them away quickly. “My heart aches for you.”
“I don’t want to make the same mistake twice. I don’t want to keep my feelings to myself with you, Lucky.” He took a deep breath. “Shit, this is hard. I really like you. Like, really like you. And I don’t want to let that go. I think we could have something. I know this is coming from nowhere, and I know I can be crazy and moody and schizophrenic, but I want you to give me another chance. I want us to start again. I want to see if I can be the guy you’ve been waiting for. Will you let us start again?”
“Oh, Zane.” I stared at his face and I wondered how I had never noti
ced the fear in his eyes before. I’d always thought he was so strong and hard, but he was a human being, just like me. He had fears and worries just like me.
“Answer me, Lucky.” He grasped my hands tighter. “Please.”
“When I lost my parents, I thought my world had caved in on me. And then a few weeks later, my boyfriend dumped me. And then I knew that was it. I knew the world was about to end. I couldn’t breathe or even sleep. I never wanted to feel again. My life became perfunctory. I protected my heart. And I was happy with that. I wanted to make sure that the next guy I dated was the last guy I dated. I knew that I couldn’t take one more heartbreak, and I didn’t want to sleep around. But then you started coming into the diner, and all I could think about was what it would be like to date you, to make love to you, to be the girl with you on that date.”
“About the dates, Lucky,” Zane interjected.
“Wait. Let me finish.” I smiled tenderly. “When I saw you at the party and we talked, all I wanted was to get to know you better. I wanted to talk to you all night long. And then I saw you with Angelique. I was jealous and I wanted to scream. I think that was when I kind of knew I liked you as more than the guy who came into the diner a lot.”
“You did?” He smiled hopefully.
“And then my car broke down and you came swooping in like I was some damsel in distress, and you irritated the shit out of me. Yet I kind of liked that you were there to take care of me.”
“I always want to take care of you, Lucky.”
“I don’t need anyone to take care of me.” I shook my head. “I’m strong, Zane. That’s what I want you to understand. I broke my rules to be with you, even though I knew it could all end with me having a broken heart. But I was okay with that because I know I’m strong enough to handle it. I would rather have a month, or a week, or even a day with you than no time at all. There is something about you that makes my heart soar. I’m addicted to you. Your smell drives me crazy and your kisses make me wild. And your smile makes me believe in angels. I don’t need a promise of tomorrow when I’m with you, because today is all that matters.”
“I want to be able to give you a promise of tomorrow, Lucky. I want to give you everything you deserve. You’re stronger than me. You’re more open than me.” His voice cracked. “I don’t want to promise anything I can’t give you.”
Exposed: An Anthology Page 75