by Reiss, CD
“Gave him an earful,” Shane added, scrolling on his phone. “It was ugly. If he said, ‘Justin’s your brother,’ one more fucking time.”
“Broken fucking record.” Gordon tilted his head back to drink his juice. “I promised him I’d apologize to you.”
“Forget it,” I said. “I needed a break from you anyway. You’re a pain in the ass.”
As hurtful as the last few months had been, a lot had changed. I was a different man in ways I couldn’t explain to myself. And there was Kayla, who made it all possible.
“I screwed up with Heidi,” Gordon said. “I love her too much for my own good.”
“Tell her you believe her.”
“Then what?”
“Fucked if I know. I’ve never been with a girl more than . . .” I shrugged the rest off. How long had I been with Kayla? Officially? Unofficially? We couldn’t have met more than a few weeks ago, but she was already a harmony in my life. The melody would be the same without her, but the music wouldn’t have the same depth.
“This girl?” Shane held up his phone to a photo of Kayla and me in her alley, giving a set of blinds the one-finger salute.
“That girl. You should see the video coming out. Gonna ruin both of us or turn us into porn stars.”
I’d tell them about it before it was released. Maybe tomorrow, but soon, because I had the feeling we were going to be responsible for each other again. Just like the old days, but better.
“Pretty free with the fuck-you finger,” Gordon said. “She’s like your soul mate.”
“You got that right.” I nodded to both of them as they stared, wide-eyed at my admission.
“To this girl.” Shane held up his energy drink. “For proving this asshole has a soul.”
We tapped our bottles and cans and drank to Kaylacakes Montgomery.
CHAPTER 25
KAYLA
Evelyn and I sat on the side of the conference room table facing the windows. Talia and my Shawna—my personal and now-beloved shark—were on the other side with notetakers and associates. Together they’d reduced the cost of billing for Evelyn.
A wood panel had been peeled back to show the previous night’s video. Evelyn had left the room for it, and I couldn’t blame her. Signorile hadn’t gotten far up her skirt, thank God, but the attempt was ordeal enough.
“So,” Talia said when Evelyn returned. “You knew who he was, but not his face?”
“Right,” Evelyn said.
“Then, when you were in line for the bathroom, he approached you, put his hand on your arm, and whispered in your ear.”
“So no one else in line would hear. Which made sense if he was telling me about a secret bathroom with no line.”
“And he said he’d let you into the bathroom in the private room.”
“I really had to go.”
Talia let the yellow sheets of her notepad drop closed and folded her hands in front of her. I’d never seen her look so lawyerly.
“He’s usually more careful,” I said. “I think I sent him off the rails a little.”
“Here’s what I’m going to tell you,” Talia said. “It’s not open and shut. He’s going to say you signaled, and you let him touch you and get close enough to whisper.”
Evelyn’s face dropped and her shoulders hunched. When her posture changed, she straightened, becoming the bold, confident woman she was in Regency clothing.
I’d convinced her to wear stays under her jacket, and at that moment, I knew it had been the right thing.
“There was no consent,” Evelyn stated.
“Oh, I know.” My sister glanced in my direction. “I know how he is.”
“We’re together on this,” I said. “I’m coming out. Name. History. Everything.”
“Are you sure?” Talia asked.
“Yeah.” I looked over at Evelyn, who had been willing to go at it herself if I’d let her. I wouldn’t. “We’re in this together.”
Shawna finally spoke.
“Good, because you’ll need each other. It’s more fun to watch justice served with a friend.” The relish in her eyes was infectious. I couldn’t wait. “No guarantees, except this one . . . none of this is going to be easy for him.”
In the underground lot beneath Talia’s offices, Eddie waited at the parking lot entrance. Valets in white shirts and black clip-on bow ties scuttled everywhere, giving up car keys and taking cash. Car doors slammed and locks chirped in a song that echoed against concrete walls, but when he bent at the waist and kissed Evelyn’s hand, we were transported back to a time when a woman’s value was gauged by her ability to marry above her station.
I handed the valet my ticket.
“How was it?” Eddie asked.
“Awful,” she said, then looked at me. “But doable.”
“You’re a brave woman,” he said, taking her hand before addressing me. “Do you need a lift?”
“My car’s here.” I pointed to my white van with its blue stripe. We said goodbye, reassuring each other that it was all going to be all right because we weren’t alone.
“Kayla!” Evelyn called as I was taking my keys. “Fittings for Treasure Hunt start next week. Will I see you?”
“No,” I said, getting into the driver’s seat. “I have other plans.”
She gave me the thumbs-up and the valet closed the door.
I was driving west on Wilshire when my phone buzzed. Hoping it was Justin, whom I hadn’t heard from since he left me at my door, I hit the Bluetooth.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Dad said from the little speaker. “You out of Talia’s?”
Not Justin. Okay. That was fine, but I was getting worried.
“Just a few minutes ago.”
“How’d it go?”
“We’re going to rip him a new asshole and feed him Ex-Lax.”
“Attagirl.”
“I’m terrified.”
“Sensible. Listen. Steve. You remember him? From Butter Birds?”
“Handsome guy in the tie?”
“He is cute, isn’t he?”
“Duh.”
“Well. Because Dale did what he did, Steve passed your name to an Italian company that specifically finances fashion brands.”
“If it’s not Vasto, I’m not interested, ha ha . . .”
“It is.”
Even with Bluetooth, I almost hit a Chevy.
“How?”
“Ask him. He said he’d call you. Just pick up the phone.”
Easy.
Picking up the phone was what I was all about.
Covered in sweat and dust, I took another box of old reels to the loading bay and dropped it into the back of the van. I had room for a couple more. I’d found an archive that would take them as well as a nonprofit in the memorabilia business. If the theater was mine, it was going to be mine. Not Grandpa’s.
I checked my phone.
Nothing.
Twenty-four hours after he left me at my door, Justin still hadn’t called. I’d told him how I felt, sealed it with an orgasm in the back of a limo, and now began the ever-speeding slide into getting taken for granted. He’d call me when he got to it, and when I was mad about being ignored, he’d ask me if I was on my period.
Isn’t that how it went every time?
I’d known it was going to get bad, and I’d allowed it.
Not this time.
Justin didn’t take me for granted. Chad was back, and he needed space to deal with it. When I looked for a call from him, it was because I was curious to know how it had gone in Pomona.
Even the voice that gave me a hard time for being a romantic doormat didn’t believe it was true.
Picking up a box, I heard a pop from the other side of the loft, where the windows overlooked the alley. I put the box down and ran over, cranking the window open just as another pop came from the wall near the window and green bottle glass sprayed like glitter.
“Oh shit!” A voice from below.
I leaned out the window with a sm
ile that could have cracked my cheeks. Justin and three guys stood in the alley. I didn’t recognize all of them in the hard glare of the Tesla’s headlights, but I knew who they were, and I knew how it had gone in Pomona.
“You’re cleaning this up this time,” I said.
“Sorry!” he called up.
“You could text me,” I said. “Or nah?”
“He thought this was more romantic,” the stocky one with the goatee said. By process of elimination, that had to be Chad.
“You ready?” Justin said.
“Yeah.” I leaned my elbows on the windowsill.
They huddled. Chad snapped his fingers in time. The skinny one, Gordon, hummed a note, and they all looked up and sang. By the second verse, I recognized it as “The Long and Winding Road,” the first song they ever sang together between Justin’s front windows and the porch. Justin led with a raspy take on the verses, holding his arms out to me as he sang of loneliness and all the unexpected roads that led him to me. Without the distraction of a huge production, I heard the beauty and power of his voice, shaping every word for me. Only me.
The window across the alley opened, and a guy held a phone out to video the surprise reunion of Sunset Boys.
Let him. He was documenting the reknotting of old bonds and the tying of a new one.
The building across the street emptied into the alley, and a dozen people stood in their sleepwear, holding up phones.
They sang in harmony, nodding to each other, letting Justin take the bridge for all it was worth. They were so good, with Chad, Gordon, and Shane humming the string section as Justin begged not to be left standing there, waiting.
Never, never would I make him wait at my door. Not as long as I had a breath in me. Not as long as he wanted me with this kind of honesty.
When they finished, they clapped each other on the back, and I couldn’t wait another moment. I ran downstairs, taking the steps two at a time, unlocking the loading bay gate and yanking it up like a rattling steel curtain. Since I’d lived there, the alley had never held so many people.
But Justin wasn’t lost in the crowd. He would always be just a little bigger, shine just a little brighter. That was for the world, but for me? He’d always be the man my eyes sought out and my heart expanded for.
I ran into his arms.
“That was beautiful,” I said.
“Wait.” He looked at me with curiosity. “Is that . . . are you crying?”
“Only a little.”
His face flashed stark white on one side.
“I want to kiss you,” he whispered. “But I didn’t expect a crowd.”
I leaned my arms on his shoulders and leaped into him, wrapping my arms around his neck. He laughed and held me up.
“Kiss me,” I said. “Show the world who you are.”
“I’m yours,” he said.
Then he kissed me, sealing a promise to always be the man I loved.
EPILOGUE
KAYLA
Justin had offered Kaylacakes Denim enough investment money to launch, but I wouldn’t take it. Even though I was stretched for a while, I wanted to do it without him. I wasn’t quite ready to combine business ventures with my famous boyfriend. I was his and he was mine, but I was still my own. We did move in together, though. I’m no dummy. It got hot in September, and he had a pool.
Vasto came through just before I had to take another costume job, then everything went crazy. I had to hire staff and a contractor. Justin and the guys started writing new songs together while deals were being broken and rewritten. He was so confident in the music, he restarted building the house in the Hills. I was having the seats ripped out of the theater when the last of the papers for Sunset Men were signed and tour dates set. Heidi brought sparkling cider so Chad could drink it. I pulled crystal glasses out of an old box. When we clinked them together, the sound echoed in the rubble.
We built two individual lives connected by shared goals, mutual attention, and trust. I read the scripts his agent sent and listened to his music. He tried on my jeans and gave opinions I could take or leave. We built the house in the Hills as if it was a joint venture. A day didn’t go by without us talking, no matter how much distance was between us. And when there was no distance between us, we twisted around in bed as if we were trying to shred the sheets.
Which we did, that one time. And that other time when he came home from twenty-four straight hours in the studio.
He’d always be Justin with the slouched posture and a “nah” for everything, and I’d always be Kayla of the quick temper and fierce fuck-yous.
“You’re wearing that?” I asked from the bathroom when he came upstairs in yellow sweats with the crotch six inches too low and a bleached-white T-shirt with a wide neck. I took my mascara wand from the tube.
“Yeah,” he answered from behind me, putting his arms around my waist and kissing my shoulder. “Problem?”
“It’s your party.”
We’d been living in his new house for a week, and it was time to celebrate. Downstairs, the housewarming guests hadn’t arrived yet. The sound crew was testing the speakers. The sun had started to set over the miles-long view, the food was out and the staff buzzed around, and the benches on the little overlook where we’d first kissed were surrounded in plants and flowers.
“It’s our party,” he said, jerking his thumb to the window overlooking the courtyard.
“Sure.” I brushed the mascara on, trying to lean forward with him holding me from behind.
“What?”
With only one eye done, I put the mascara down and twisted to face him.
“You spent a lot of time and money on this house, and you should be proud.” I poked his chest. “You. Justin Beckett.”
“You were there for the entire thing.”
“Lots of people helped.” I pushed him away. “I don’t want to get makeup on your white shirt.”
“Maybe I’m not wearing this, then.” He pulled me closer.
“It’s perfect on you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. It says, ‘This is my new house, and I’ll wear whatever the fuck I want.’”
“Okay.” He let me go. “I was going to wait on this, but nah.”
He left without a word, and I followed him to the bedroom. His closet door was open, and he’d disappeared into the depths of it, flicking lights on.
“Wait on what?” I called.
“I figured, after a year and a half or whatever, you’d get the hint.” His voice was muffled by the L shape of the walk-in closet. “But you’re stubborn. You know that? You’ve got some garbage in your head you’ve got to let go of.”
“What garbage?”
“Stupid garbage,” he said, reappearing and closing the closet door behind him.
I was about to chide him for his way with words, but he held something in the palm of his hand that stole my breath. A small box covered in light-blue velvet.
“Justin . . . ?”
“It’s easier if you sit.”
I sat on the edge of the bed without complaint. He knew how to ask me to do something in a way that didn’t trigger my resistance to being bossed around.
“Like I said.” He tossed the box between his hands. “I was gonna wait until your birthday, but you’re making me crazy.”
“You are crazy, player.”
“Yeah,” he said, dropping to one knee, stretching the low crotch of his sweatpants and throwing him off balance. I caught him by the arm, and he hitched a pant leg up so he could kneel properly.
“You don’t have to kneel,” I said. “Because the answer is—”
“You’re ruining this.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll shut up.”
“A’ight,” he started, opening the box to reveal a diamond ring the same size as the top button on my jeans. “This is the deal. Straight up. We’re not a normal couple, but that’s cool. You’re my woman. You’re always going to be my woman. No matter what you say, this heart, right here
?” He tapped his chest. “When it’s quiet at night and I can hear it beating, it’s saying your name, and it’s gonna keep saying it until it stops. So, I figure we might as well make it official. We don’t have to. It’s up to you.”
“Oh, Justin.”
“Figure it’s easier for the kids that way. I mean, if you want a couple or three.”
“You know I do.”
“Cool. Yeah. Cool. We don’t have to be married for that, though, but I just want to.” He scoffed at himself. “Yeah, I know. I’m really selling it.”
Outside, the sound system went on, testing with our only song request: “The Long and Winding Road.”
“You’re doing great,” I said.
From the courtyard below, Louise’s voice interrupted.
“Louder! Crank that baby!”
“Jesus, Weezy,” he said, as the volume went up a notch. “The neighbors.”
“Did you tell her about the sound ordinances?” I asked.
“I will, but . . . you wanna marry me or nah?”
With my hands on his cheeks, I kept his head still and his eyes on mine so he’d know the answer was true.
The music cut out, and the crew’s voices drifted up to us.
“I want to marry you, Justin. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want to call you my husband.”
“Yeah?” His eyes went a little wider, and under my hands, he smiled.
“Yes.”
He took the ring out of the box, and I held my finger out. When he slid the ring on, I smiled, too, and when he put his lips to mine, we could barely kiss around our grins. He pushed me onto my back, and I wrapped my legs around him. We had two hours before the guests arrived. More than enough time to shred the sheets.
“Justin!” Louise knocked, calling from the other side of the bedroom door. “Are you in there?”
“Weeze! I’ll be right out.”
“These people you hired don’t seem to know this is a party.”
He bowed his head against my chest, and I laughed.
“We have our whole lives,” I whispered. “Take care of her.”
He picked his head up, kissed me on the lips, and turned to the door.