Bewilder
Bryce Oakley
Contents
Untitled
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Thank you!
Preview of Midnight
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Bryce Oakley
Untitled
BEWILDER
By Bryce Oakley
Chapter One
Domino
Domino Rush’s board bobbed in the waves as she sat, eyeing the horizon.
“You can’t avoid her forever,” Meg said.
“I’m not avoiding her,” she said defensively, kicking her legs in the current she could feel pulling at her toes.
She tugged at the wetsuit around her neck. Winter hadn’t reared its head in Hermosa Beach yet, but the water in early November was already too chilly for just her usual bathing suit.
Meg sighed from somewhere beside her.
Domino glanced over to see Meg readjusting her short, wet ponytail, rolling her eyes.
“Look, I need The Shrikes, which means I need you two stubborn assholes to get it together,” Meg said, shifting her weight on her board.
The Shrikes was the band that Domino and her sister Billie had formed back in high school. Meghan Koo was the band’s drummer, and somewhere off jet setting through Europe was Zoey McCarren, their keyboard player.
Domino played bass and Billie had lead vocals and played guitar.
The Shrikes had risen to prominence with their first album, Heart’s Content , around three years earlier.
They were supposed to be writing the follow-up to that album for the past two years.
And yet, Domino couldn’t bring herself to do it. She had never had trouble writing before. The songs that they played throughout high school and college and recorded on bad demos had always come to her so easily. Even Heart’s Content was first written in a two week long fever dream of inspiration.
They had toured the world. Domino had been featured in magazines, hailed in reviews as a clever lyricist, and now, when she held a pen to paper, when she held a guitar in her hands or a keyboard in her lap –– nothing.
To make matters worse, she was currently in trouble with her sister for interfering in Billie’s relationship –– but that was a long story she didn’t want to think about.
That wasn’t Domino. Domino wasn’t the sad, sullen, dwelling type.
The waves crashed around the stilts of the pier from somewhere to her right. The sun rose higher over the horizon, lightening the pink-gray sky, shining over the ripples in the water, illuminating each crest.
“I know we didn’t come out here to talk about feelings, Mego,” Domino forced a smile, teasing. “We can talk about that all over a drink later. In fact, I think it’s downright irresponsible to discuss it without whiskey.”
“How can you think of whiskey at six in the morning?” Meg laughed, shaking her head.
“How can you not think of warmth and happiness right now?” Domino countered. She hated sitting still, letting the chilly morning breeze drift off the water and onto her wet hair and bare hands. Her blood had been pumping as they had paddled out there, but the cold was starting to get to her.
“Okay, I’m going to go for it before I go full Jack Dawson out here,” Domino said, eyeing the water before her for the perfect build-up.
Meg snorted. “I’ll never let go, Dom.”
Domino turned around, watching over her shoulder for the right moment.
When she saw the swell of the wave, she leaned forward, her mind completely clearing of any thought of The Shrikes, or her sister, or the whole laundry list of things she was currently failing at –– anticipation flooded her limbs, and then she was paddling, her board dropping into place as she pushed up onto her heels, glee clenching her stomach as she rode the wave for a few brief, blissful moments.
“This is a mess,” Zoey said from somewhere across the room.
Dom squeezed her eyes shut, pulling the pillow over her head. Her head pounded from too much… well, of something from last night. Were those gin and tonics? Her stomach lurched at the thought of them.
She had a vague memory of a woman coming home with her… Samira? Samantha? She lifted the pillow and blinked into the bright light of the room.
Her bed was empty. Wait, had she gone home with the woman? Or had they ended up back at her place?
“I regret giving you the door code,” she groaned, sitting up and resting her elbows on her knees as she rubbed her face.
“I brought you coffee,” Zoey said, crossing the room.
“I no longer have regrets,” Domino said, reaching for the precious mug of caffeine. “Wait, I thought you were traveling.”
“I got in late last night. It’s in the shared calendar,” Zoey said, taking the lid off of her own cup.
“We have a shared calendar?” Domino asked, her brow furrowing.
“Yeah, it’s in your phone under the very mysterious name of The Shrikes Shared Calendar ,” Zoey smirked.
“Huh,” Domino said, frowning. “I had no idea. Did Billie set it up?”
“Yeah, four years ago,” Zoey said, shaking her head. “What’d you do last night?” She asked, looking distastefully around the messy room.
“I’m not… completely sure,” Domino said, blinking.
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Zoey said, laughing, sinking onto the bed beside her. She pushed her curly hair out of her face and sighed.
Domino sipped the coffee, growing accustomed to the light as she dragged a hand through her hair to get the strands out of her face.
“I had an idea,” Zoey said. “Or rather, Billie and I had an idea.”
“Well, I’m proud of you. Ideas are rather hard to come by in these trying times,” Domino quipped, not liking the sound of the idea just from the introduction. She wasn’t on the best of terms with her sister after she had acted a little irrationally during her sister’s last breakup.
“Apparently, they are,” Zoey said, quirking a brow.
“Okay, okay, tell me your idea,” Domino conceded, eyeing up her friend.
“Your house is a mess,” Zoey said.
Domino blinked. “So?”
“Well, I have this friend,” Zoey started, as if not knowing how to just say what she needed to say.
Part of Domino enjoyed seeing her bandmate try to carefully broach an uncomfortable topic, since Zoey was almost always cool and collected. She was a fashion “it” girl, but Domino had known her for years before she had ever graced the cover of magazines. Before they both had graced the cover of magazines. She waited, watching Zoey, wanting to delay the inevitable lecture she was about to receive. She sipped her coffee, watching Zoey’s hand gestures become more erratic.
“I’ve hired a home organizer for you,” Zoey said quickly. “She’ll just be doing a few spaces. Your clothes closet, linen closet, that sort of thing.”
Domino blinked, blindsided. She definitely wouldn’t have guessed that.
Zoey stared at her, biting her lip in awkward discomfort.
“Uh, why?” Domino asked, sitting up straighter.
“Okay, hear me out on this,” Zoey said. “Your laundry is on the dining table.”
“I just haven’t folded it,” Domino interjected.
“Your surf
board is blocking a main exit of your home,” Zoey continued.
“I didn’t want to leave it outside,” Domino countered.
“You have the Church’s boots I gave you last winter in the oven, I don’t think I know what your bathroom floor tile looks like, your closet looks like a tornado ran through it, your spare room has boxes you haven’t unpacked in seven months—”
“Wait,” Domino said, putting up a hand. “Those cute Chelsea boots with the embroidered bees are in the oven?” She had been looking for that pair for weeks.
Zoey stared at her blankly, shaking her head.
“Anyway, we’ve hired a maid service to come first, and then the organizer is coming for a consultation,” Zoey said, nodding her head as though the plan was settled.
“Why do you suddenly care if my underwear is arranged by color?” Domino asked, looking around her room.
She wasn’t dirty, per se, but she wasn’t extremely tidy. Her house was more like carefully controlled chaos. She knew where everything was, even if that meant she had to dig for it.
“Because I think if you have some level of organization and calm and control, you’ll have a clearer head,” Zoey said, her voice quieter with the admission.
“Oh, so that’s what this is about,” Domino said, narrowing her eyes. “So, Billie thinks if my house is clean, I’ll write better? And she sent you because she knows that if she came herself, we’d end up yelling at each other?”
“Something like that,” Zoey said calmly, reaching to fluff the pillow under her head.
Domino sighed, pushing her short hair out of her face.
Zoey sat up quickly, pulling a pair of lacy underwear out from under the pillow where her hand had just been. Her mouth gaped as she tried to untangle them from her fingers. “What the fuck, Dom?”
Domino pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. She shrugged, unsure of what to say Sam… Samshira? Was that a name?
“Just… meet with the organizer, okay?” Zoey said, standing up from the bed.
“Fine,” Domino groaned, seeing no way out.
“Perfect. I’ve set up the consultation meeting for you tomorrow,” Zoey said, walking into the attached bathroom and turning on the faucet to wash her hands vigorously. “Cleaning service will be here soon. Also, lacy underwear girl left a note on the side table. You really shouldn’t lead girls on.”
“How do you know it’s the same girl?” Domino teased. Sincerely, she didn’t know. How long had those underwear been under that pillow?
She grabbed the note, reading the usual Didn’t want to wake you but had a great time, let’s see each other again tonight/soon/next week. She crumpled it into a ball and tucked it into the drawer on the side table.
Zoey gaped at her again. “You’re an awful person.”
Chapter Two
Sabrina
Sabrina Meloy stood over the dresser in her closet where she had carefully laid out all of the contents of her purse the day before.
Each evening, when she came home, she unpacked her purse, storing her wallet, keys, and all of the miscellaneous junk that she had ended up acquiring in an organizer that let her see exactly what she had and what she needed.
She was meeting a potential client that day –– the kind of client that could explode her entire career in publicity.
Everyone loved Domino Rush. Even Sabrina was a big fan of The Shrikes –– when they were making music a handful of years ago, at least.
Domino frequented all of the same lesbian and gay bars that she did, especially in WeHo, but Sabrina had never spoken to her. Of course, she never would have approached Domino, mainly because she was always surrounded by gorgeous women. To walk up to a woman with a model hanging off her arm –– that was a level of confidence that Sabrina only aspired to.
Domino was an enigma, and half of the reason that Sabrina had accepted the client and felt a bit nervous was because she thought that Domino was an exceptionally attractive enigma.
Not that she’d ever cross the client-organizer line, but a girl could dream.
She had an active social media presence, from what Sabrina could stalk, but Sabrina couldn’t find a single photo of her home.
An adored rock chick like Domino surely had a cool house. She bet that it had some kind of surfer or bohemian vibe, and that it was bathed in natural light.
She smiled to herself, thinking of how wonderful that would look in her portfolio and online. Zoey had only agreed to doing a few spaces, but Sabrina was sure she could up-sell her services to Domino somehow.
Her clients thus far had been rich housewives –– and there were plenty of rich housewives in Los Angeles that wanted color coordinated closets. She, of course, had never grown tired of helping out the women who called her, but it was so much of the same. Fridges full of organic food, watch collections on display for their husbands –– she had even organized one woman’s doll collection, with carefully labelled bins for each of their clothes. She shuddered, thinking about the hundreds of blank doll eyes.
When her friend Zoey had called, she had imagined that she’d be organizing Zoey’s closet, but she had requested that Sabrina meet with Domino, instead.
Of course, Sabrina had talked Zoey into letting her work her magic on Zo’s closet, as well.
Zoey’s gifted Louboutin and Gucci and Tom Ford heel collection, arranged by color and style… now that would be the ideal portfolio piece. She could imagine the blog post about it now.
It all fit into her one-year, five-year, and ten-year plan. By one year she’d be flush with clients and hire her first employees. By five years she’d have a book deal and maybe a regular segment on some sort of television show. By ten years she’d have a national brand with employees and businesses throughout the United States and Canada.
Nothing and no one was going to step in her way.
“Are you daydreaming?” Isla said beside her in her cheerful Kiwi accent. Her roommate had a terrible habit of sneaking up in cat-like silence.
Sabrina jumped, holding a hand to her heart as it beat erratically in her chest. “Cheese and rice, you scared the heck out of me,” Sabrina said, adjusting her glasses and gasping, trying to regain her breath.
Isla grinned, leaning against the closet doorway. “I just asked if you were daydreaming instead of getting on your way. You’re going to be late,” she said.
“I have plenty of time,” Sabrina said, checking her phone. She lived in Pasadena, but the meeting was closer to Hermosa Beach, for Domino’s convenience. The meeting was at 11am, but it was only 9:30. Her navigation had said it would be a 50 minute drive. She was golden.
“There’s a huge crash on the 110,” Isla said, raising her eyebrows. “You’ll have to take the 405, which has construction.”
“No, that routes me through downtown,” Sabrina said, her heart beginning to pound again. She did not like changing her plans. “I’m going to be late.”
Nothing was worse than being late. In general, but the top tier of worstness was definitely being late to a client meeting.
Isla grabbed her shoulders. “Breathe. You’re meeting Domino Rush. She is like the ultimate laid-back cool girl,” she said. “She’s like the epitome of relaxed and cool. Just call her and let her know you’ll be a little late. Also, grab an umbrella or else your white dress is going to show a little too much.”
Sabrina stared at her with wide eyes. “Maybe you’re right,” she said, considering it. But then again, admitting defeat this early on in the client relationship? She shook her head. “No, I can make it. I will make it.”
“You’re an adorable psycho,” Isla said, laughing.
“Do I look okay?” Sabrina said, turning back to the full-length mirror near the door. She was wearing a crisp white sheath dress that she had found in her favorite vintage shop, paired with heels that made her legs look amazing, in her very professional opinion. Her dark, waist-length hair was parted neatly in the middle and fell smoothly over her shoulders. She second-gu
essed the white, knowing that it was raining on and off, but it looked so good with her hair and she had already spent an hour choosing it, steaming it, staring at it, and steaming it a second time.
“Hmm,” Isla said, then turned and left the room in silence
Sabrina stared after her, then smoothed her dress down, watching her reflection. Hmm? That was all she got?
Isla returned after a moment, handing her a pair of bright tassel earrings. “Domino is cool . You need to be much cooler than you currently are.”
“Oh yeah? You’re the expert on coolness, now?” Sabrina teased, shaking the tassel earrings at her.
“I’m as much of an expert as you’re going to get,” Isla said, quirking one of her perfectly manicured eyebrows. Isla was classically gorgeous, with naturally highlighted hair and tan skin, but she was also extremely tall and gawky in an endearing cluelessy-gorgeous-could-be-a-supermodel kind of way.
“Ooh, these are pretty,” Sabrina said, putting the earrings on. She furrowed her brow, staring at them. “Look, I’m cool.”
“You’re completely put-together, and you have great style, but you’re not rock star levels of cool,” Isla said, grinning.
Sabrina glared at her while putting her things in her purse. “That’s simply untrue,” she said with mock sincerity.
“You say heck,” Isla said, crossing her arms as though the matter was settled.
“I am extremely cool,” Sabrina said, walking out of the room.
“I bet your plans tonight are to sit on the couch, eat popcorn, and watch the new Netflix romcom,” Isla called behind her.
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
The car lurched to a stop and Sabrina threw the shifter into park. She looked at the time on display.
10:58am.
She had made it.
She reached across the console and grabbed her bag, which had spilled out all over the seat and floor during the five thousand times she had to slam on her brakes, weave around idiots, or run reddish-yellow lights.
But it had all been worth it, because gosh darn it, she had made it.
Bewilder (The Kaleidoscope Album Book 2) Page 1