by Mimi Strong
“An executive position?”
“Yes. I’m just looking over your personnel file. I have the results of your drug test, and I’m very pleased to see it’s clean. You don’t know how rare that is these days. I can tell you’re the sort of employee who cares about her career.”
“You’re promoting me because my drug test came up clean? But why? I don’t understand.”
“Nature abhors a vacuum, Miss Rivera. Yesterday, I lost a vice president, and at least five executives. Nick had to go, of course. And there were a few more I wasn’t sure about. To be safe, I cleaned house.”
“Nick’s gone?”
“Jessica, you don’t seem like your usual whip-smart self today. Weren’t you the top of your class? Don’t tell me that was all an act.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Morris. I’m a bit off today, because… Dylan Wolf broke up with me last night.”
His voice becomes thick and sweet like molasses. “Oh, sweetie. Chin up. I have three daughters, you know. I can practically see your little face, all scrunched up.”
His sudden sweetness makes me feel disgusted at myself for telling him. I take a sharp inhale, and my situation comes into focus.
If everyone thinks I’m going to mope around over Dylan endlessly, they’re underestimating me.
I put on a big, confident smile.
People shouldn’t underestimate me.
“Thank you, Mr. Morris,” I reply with equal sweetness. “I did have a difficult night, but it’s a new day today.”
“There’s my girl!”
“I have to ask you something, Mr. Morris. Did you already know about everything, or did I give it away?”
“Did I know David Ambler was running around pretending to be some mysterious talent scout named Q? Yes, I knew about that. The part that surprised me was that he found actual talent. He was never so motivated when he was working for me.”
“You were playing him?”
“Everyone’s playing someone.”
“But… it was Q who broke up me and Dylan. He told Dylan that I took money to get closer to him. Why would he do that?”
“When did he do that?”
“Yesterday. In the afternoon.”
There’s a pause, and then Mr. Morris answers slowly, “They say revenge is a dish best served cold.”
“Revenge?”
He sighs. “I suppose you should be thankful it’s over. Perhaps your Dylan will come back to you, in months or years. There’s that expression about loving something and setting it free. I probably know a dozen cliches I could tell you right now, about love and life. None of them will help, Jessica. The only thing you can do is keep moving forward. Now, come up to my office and we can talk about your promotion.”
“Give me… ten minutes,” I say softly.
“Take fifteen.” He hangs up the phone.
My whole body is numb again. I reach for my purse and start digging through it for makeup.
Q destroyed my and Dylan’s relationship as an act of revenge. And because he could.
If I’d just told Dylan the truth in the first place, we could have laughed at Q’s efforts. We could have survived this.
I was wrong to worry that his success would be the thing to tear us apart.
It wasn’t success, or even revenge.
It was me.
Chapter 15
Time has passed, and softened the pain.
For a while, every song I heard was about my heartbreak. Everywhere I looked, people were paired in couples.
Time is good.
Time doesn’t heal, but it softens.
As of now, months later, my time with Dylan feels like a collection of photos.
I see him in one photo, playing that beat-up old guitar.
He didn’t even buy the guitar, or play it until it got worn. He found it, left behind in the cabin he retreated to for a year. He never told me the whole story, but I’ve seen him tell it on talk shows.
Sometimes he talks about me. He never says my name. It’s always “this one girl.”
He acts like the handful of stories he tells about me are about different girls. But he and I both know I’m “this one girl” he broke into an abandoned house with. I’m “this one girl” who gave him a hard time about his driving. And I’m “this really fun girl” who christened his new swimming pool.
Most importantly, I’m the girl who inspired his big hit song.
His new song made Blue Shoes look like a throat-clearing cough, by comparison.
We broke up in the spring. He wrote the song and Morris Music released it within a week.
The song was picked up instantly, and went viral before Morris Music even had a video up. For the next four months, Dylan’s song blasted from every car stereo in this city, and across America. It was the anthem of summer.
The hit song, Where You Belong, was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Dylan. He grinned out at me from magazine covers. I couldn’t escape him, so I had to get over him.
People love the contradiction of the song. Or maybe they don’t even notice. The lyrics are about being used, getting played, and then dropping your lover off on the street where they belong.
But the melody.
The melody is genius, like a roller coaster that keeps you in constant suspension. Despite the devastating lyrics, the song sounds like how a day at a summer carnival feels.
I’ve caught Riley and Amanda singing it.
I don’t like the song, but I still love his voice.
I still love him.
He branded himself into me, just like he said he would.
Loving Dylan Wolf, and feeling heartbroken over losing him, is just a part of me now. Like breathing.
I’m trying to move on, but you can’t stop breathing.
Chapter 16
Chet Morris walks into my office and plunks himself down on the visitor chair.
“It’s going to rain today,” he says. “Big storm. Maybe an inch or two of rain.”
I laugh and look over my shoulder out the window. It’s a typical sunny LA day.
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” I tell him. Even as I answer, though, I notice the stormy clouds on the horizon.
An ominous feeling washes over me. I think I know why Chet is in my office.
He leans forward and picks up all the things on my desk, one at a time, to examine them. His bright green eyes miss nothing. He picks up a wooden puzzle box and solves it in seconds.
Chet Morris was appointed the new President of Morris Music four months ago. His uncle, Carter Morris, sold part of the company to a silent investor overseas. I haven’t seen Mr. Morris Senior since Chet took over.
I’m not sure how I feel about Chet Morris. He’s young—under thirty. His hair isn’t white, like his uncle’s, but it is light blonde. When you look at him, all you see are those emerald eyes. He’s charming and charismatic.
For a while, I thought Chet might be interested in dating me. He was always asking if I was seeing someone. But then he never made a move.
I suppose it’s better to keep things professional, because we work so closely.
He hasn’t appointed a vice president yet, and I don’t know if he ever will. The company had a contractor come in and split Maggie Clark’s former office into six smaller executive offices. I’m in one of the new offices, and the six of us on the tenth floor are his team.
Half the company probably thinks Chet and I are dating, or at least sleeping together. It’s pretty hard for people to believe I started at the absolute bottom and worked my way up to the tenth floor in half a year.
But I didn’t sleep with Chet, or anyone else, except for that mistake with the rock star.
The day I went up to his office, Mr. Morris Senior promoted me to Marketing, on the eighth floor. I had a few good ideas, and worked hard. It definitely helped that, unlike the other people my age, I wasn’t dating or partying. I put everything into my career, and soon I was in charge of a handful of people.
I’m still part of the marketing department, but Chet says it’s better for me to be up here, two floors away. This way they don’t all come running to me with small problems. The team figures things out, and I supervise.
Some days I feel a twinge of guilt for doing so well, and still being so young. But then I see what some of the successful artists make, and I laugh at my modesty.
Chet reaches across my desk for my coffee mug. I pretend to slap his wrist, but don’t. He sniffs my coffee and wrinkles his nose.
“How can you drink this stuff?” he asks.
“Is there something you wanted, Mr. Morris? Or are you really that worried about my caffeine and sugar intake? If you didn’t work us all so hard, I wouldn’t have to drink my breakfast at my desk.” I laugh to let him know I’m teasing.
“You can’t avoid him forever,” he says.
The ominous feeling washes over me again. He’s talking about Dylan Wolf. We haven’t spoken since he kicked me out of his car that night. All his dealings with Morris have been through other people.
I do what I can to avoid him.
When I see his face, it hurts to even breathe.
“I don’t have to be in today’s meeting,” I say.
“The meeting concerns your department. I’ve given you some leeway so far. I’m not heartless, like my uncle.” He laughs at his joke.
I can’t even manage a smile.
“If you insist, I’ll go.”
“Three o’clock,” he says. “I won’t insist. I trust you’ll do what’s best for the company.”
He gets up and walks out.
I drop my professional facade and make a face at his back.
I turn back to my computer and try to work. There are a dozen things waiting for my input. I usually love the challenge, but I’m distracted. I’ve got Dylan’s gritty voice bouncing around in my head.
Turning on other music helps, but now it’s not his voice. Now I’m feeling his lips on mine. His hands running down my body. His hot breath on my throat.
After several hours of self-torture, I push my chair back and grab my purse.
It’s two-thirty now. If I’m out of the building, nobody can haul me into the meeting.
I duck into the elevator and call Riley for a late lunch. When she’s not traveling for work, her schedule is pretty flexible.
She says she was just about to call me, so this is perfect timing.
I leave the building and walk down to our favorite lunch place. I’m making enough money to buy a car, but I want to save up a little more first. Morris has a few cars I can use when meetings take me elsewhere, anyway.
I’m not waiting long before Riley comes in.
“Look at the two of us,” she says, grinning. “You look gorgeous, sis. Are we drinking?”
“Maybe we should. You-know-who is probably heading to Morris right now, for a meeting. Chet wanted me in the meeting, but I told him to screw himself.”
“Sure, you did,” she says, nodding. “You like Chet. You want to kiss him.”
I shake my head, laughing. When we lived together before, as kids, all we did was fight. It’s taken this long for us to get to the fun part of being sisters.
As soon as I understood that she ran away from home to protect me, it changed everything.
The waiter comes by, and we order our lunch. We like to get two different things, and then share.
After a moment, Riley looks straight at me, her brown eyes serious. “You should at least talk to him. It would be good to get closure.”
“Yeah, right,” I snort. “He can stab the knife into my chest a little deeper. Then I’ll go through your whole Percocet supply.”
“Show him he can’t hurt you.”
“But he can. It’s like what Amanda says. You can’t make your heart love, or stop loving someone.”
She fidgets with her straw in her drink, splashing iced tea onto the white tablecloth.
“If you still love him, then you have to see him,” she says.
I check the time on my phone. “Too late.”
“Just go. I’ll pay and get your lunch to go.”
I give her a cross look. “I’m hungry.”
“You are so stubborn, Jessica. And you always have to be so perfect. Yes, you were the top of your class. Yes, you’re the youngest executive at Morris. But don’t let it go to your head. None of us is perfect in love. It’s messy and ugly, and sometimes you have to crawl around in the mud.”
“Like you and Bryce? How’s that working out for you?”
As soon as I say the words, I regret them. But it’s too late. My insult goes flying across the table like poison arrows.
Riley hunches her shoulders, flinching at my words.
She and Bryce dated, on and off again, for a few months. He was a dick to her most of the time. He could be sweet, but his ego was so fragile. He’d get hurt feelings over nothing. And when something happened that boosted his ego, he thought he was a god, and we were all like ants in the dirt below him.
They finally split up for good a month ago, and she swore off all musicians. Her relationship with Bryce is probably the main reason I don’t have any fantasies about a future with Dylan. I feel like I got to see my potential future, through Riley and Bryce.
Fame isn’t pretty.
I’ll stick to my career, which I love, then eventually date someone nice. Someone normal. Like the cute waiter who keeps coming by to refill my glass.
Riley doesn’t fight back with me. The longer she sits staring at her iced tea, the worse I feel.
“Musicians are dicks,” I say. “I’m sorry I mentioned Bryce. He’s dead to me. I’m going to put really ugly art on his next cover, and rename his album something stupid.”
She cracks a smile. “Don’t do that,” she says.
“No more musicians.”
I reach across the table to offer her a handshake to seal the deal.
“No more musicians,” she says.
She shakes my hand, smiling to hold back the tears.
Our salads show up, and we start off picking from each other’s plates.
“I saw your friend Nick the other day,” she says.
“He’s not my friend.”
“Well, I didn’t see him in person. It was an article, on a food blog. He and his mother are opening up that music-themed restaurant.”
I shake my head. “That is so weird. It was their cover story, and they’re actually doing it.” A chill goes through me as I think about Q, David Ambler. I never heard from the guy again, after his text message. He’d better stay far away from me.
Riley must be reading my mind. “It’s just the two of them,” she says. “No creepy guy with thick glasses in any of the photos, and no mention of that Ambler loser in the article.”
“That’s too bad. I’d like to go to their grand opening and get myself arrested.”
Riley chuckles. “Oh, Jess. I’m glad you’re on my side.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go see Dylan at that meeting?”
I look down at my plate and stab a cherry tomato with my fork. “No. I’m hungry.”
Chapter 17
People are staring at me.
I’m on the tenth floor, walking past the open-air meeting space on the way to my office. I’ve just come back from a late lunch. It’s not unusual for me to take a late lunch, but I still feel eyes on me.
Chet was right about the rain. The sky over Los Angeles rumbled while I was at lunch. It started to rain while I was walking back.
I smooth down my damp hair. Why is everyone staring at me? I’m not that wet.
I wave at the people gathered around some printed reports. They quickly look away.
People can probably tell I had a couple drinks at lunch. I just wanted to calm my nerves after talking about Dylan.
I look down at my feet and focus on not walking like I’m tipsy.
There’s someone in my office, sitting in my chair.
WTF.
It’s Dylan Wolf.
I stop in my tracks and grab onto the doorframe to steady myself.
I start peppering him with questions. “What’s going on? Isn’t your meeting over? Why are you in my chair?”
He gets up from my chair and offers it to me. He doesn’t say a word. He makes his way around my desk and sits in a guest chair.
I smooth down my rain-damp hair and take back my chair. It’s still warm from his body.
I glance over at him, then quickly pull my eyes away. He’s really here, in my office. I can’t change the radio station and make him go away.
Now he’s staring.
“It’s raining,” I say.
He leans to the side in his chair and rests his chin on his fist. His nearly-black hair is cut in a different style now. It’s shorter, but still messy. His dark brown eyes don’t give away his thoughts, but they do make me feel like I’m falling.
I want to look away, but I can’t. He’s captivating. Even more in person than on a tiny screen. No wonder interviewers get tongue-tied around him.
“How was your meeting?” I ask.
He shrugs.
“You’re not talking to me? Great. Just show up in my office, uninvited. That’s your style, isn’t it?”
His eyebrows raise, but he still doesn’t say anything.
I let him have it.
“You broke me, Dylan. I thought I was tough, but you let me out on that street corner, and you broke me. I will never be the same. At first I blamed myself. I’m truly, truly sorry I kept things from you. But what you did to me in return was cruel. You broke me.”
He nods slowly.
I take a deep breath and let it out noisily.
“I feel better,” I say. “Closure feels good. Thank you for stopping by.” I turn to my computer and wiggle the mouse to turn on the screen. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. I don’t get paid to be amazing and put in celebrity appearances when it suits my schedule.”