“Then so am I,” I say, stalking toward the door.
Chapter 16
Haley
I’m still in shock over Lexi’s visit when there’s a knock at the door. I stop doing laps around the living room and pulling at my hair to turn and look at it. There’s another knock. I step slowly towards it. When I open it, I can’t control myself. I leap onto Brando, bury my face into his neck, clutch his back as tightly as a lifesaver. For the past hour I’ve been wondering if I’ll ever see him again, if the one guy who can make me feel like he does is about to disappear from my life forever. The idea alone crushed me, chewed me up, made me feel like a ghost. Just seeing him again is enough to make me break down.
“Haley,” he says slowly, pushing me off him gently and closing the door behind him, “I’ve got some bad news.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head and feeling my heart grow heavy. I back away slowly. “No.”
His face is serious, unhappy. I pray he doesn’t speak, gathering every bit of strength in my body to tell him not to speak, and it’s still not enough. I bury my head in my hands.
“The label dropped you,” he says, bluntly and sadly.
I look up slowly, feeling like somebody put a hot towel on my face.
“And you chose Lexi.”
His face changes. “No, I didn’t. Rowland did. Majestic did. Not me.” He pauses, realization dawning. “You knew about the ultimatum?”
I nod, steeling myself for an answer I probably don’t want to hear. “So what did you choose?”
“Haley,” he says, rushing toward me and lifting my face in his hands, “why are you even asking me that? I chose you. Of course I did. I quit on them. Same as last time. Same as when we had to go it alone before.”
Something inside me cracks open, releasing a flood of happiness that flows into every fiber of my body. I pull Brando’s face to mine, as if the feeling’s too much for one person, and the only way I can share it is by pressing my lips against his. A kiss more intimate than erotic, but no less necessary.
When we pull away slowly, Brando gazes inquisitively into my eyes, brushing away a tear-track from my cheek.
“How could you even doubt that?” he asks gently.
“With Lexi back and the way things have been going with us, I just thought—”
“Don’t think,” he says, affectionately.
Brando drives us to his apartment like we’re racing a jet, only stopping to run into a coffee shop and come out a few minutes later with a carrier tray of coffees and a bag of donuts.
“Who is all of this for?” I ask, as he puts them in my lap and revs the car away.
“You’ll see.”
We get to his apartment and Brando bursts through the door like he’s about to perform a robbery. I follow behind and try not to be too surprised when a bunch of college students immediately crowd around me, grab the coffees, and then go back to sitting around the open laptops on Brando’s coffee table.
“What’s going on?” I ask as Brando stands in front of them. “It looks like you’re running a sweat shop in here.”
“Haley, this is Michelle, Simon, Ross, Steven, and Jessica. Guys, you know Haley.”
They mumble a distracted greeting in unison like an uncoordinated choir group. Still confused, I raise a hand weakly in response.
“So, what’s the situation?” Brando says, his voice turning authoritative.
“We can’t do anything,” Jessica says, shaking her ponytail. “Every time we post something about the sore throat we get a hundred replies – every one of them about Rex Bentley.”
“Same here,” Ross adds, “we’re commenting, but it’s getting lost in the mix. It’s a drop in the ocean compared to what’s going on. It seems like every two minutes another site posts the story. We can’t keep up.”
“No takers for the Mick Jagger story so far. Sorry,” Simon shrugs.
I glare at Brando with bewilderment at this last one. He shakes his head in a clear ‘don’t ask’ gesture.
“Shit,” he says, walking to the window. “Okay. The bottom-up approach isn’t going to work.”
“Why doesn’t Haley just do an interview?” Jessica says. “She doesn’t have to go in deep. Just deny it with a word and leave it at that.”
“This is the internet,” Brando says, turning around. “There are no ‘denials’ and ‘confirmations.’ There’s just ‘admitting’ and ‘ignoring.’ Haley’s got everything to lose, and everything to gain from this. If she goes on record and denies it, all that will happen is that this thing will get another boost. People expect her to deny it. The only time denying something works is if you’re too big, or respected, or have nothing to—”
Brando looks up suddenly, his mouth open and his eyes round as if he just caught sight of something amazing.
“What?” I say.
Brando walks over to me and puts his hands on my shoulders.
“Haley. Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do,” I reply, still confused, but able to answer that much.
“I’m going to do something you won’t like. But it’s our only option.”
Before I can say anything, he’s kissing me deeply, and then grabbing his keys as he makes for the door.
Chapter 17
Brando
I don’t need to call anyone to find out where Rex Bentley lives; anyone who’s been in LA longer than a week knows the place. It’s one of the biggest mansions in the city, and was bought when rockstars like Rex were giants who couldn’t seem to fit their egos into anything smaller. A Tuscan-style villa, its walls are a combination of stark angles, sections jutting out in every direction, as if somebody took a small English village, smashed it all together, and colored it white. It’s the kind of place only a rockstar or a supervillain could live in – and I’m hoping Rex isn’t both.
I roll the car up to the tall black gates and push the button on the intercom conveniently placed on the driver’s side. After waiting for about as long as it takes someone to get anywhere in a home that big, a young woman with an accent answers.
“Hello?”
“Hey. This is Brando Nash. I’m here to speak to Rex Bentley.”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Brando. Nash.”
“Just a moment, please.”
I drum my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. This time the wait is short. The intercom crackles into life again.
“I’m sorry. Rex isn’t here right now. Can I take a message? What was your name again?”
“Okay,” I say, in my ‘enough bullshit’ tone. “I know Rex is in there, otherwise you wouldn’t have had me hold. Please tell him it’s extremely important, and can’t wait.”
“Hold on just a second.”
I stare through the gates, the massive fountain at the front of his mansion just visible across the curve of the driveway. The intercom crackles.
“Rex isn’t here. Do you want to leave a message?”
“Fuck this shit,” I mutter, to myself rather than the intercom, as I push open the car door and get out. I start jogging alongside the wall, and hear the intercom behind me as it crackles off.
The vast grounds of Rex’s mansion are surrounded by the high walls of someone who has a lot of people he wants to keep out. But it’s also surrounded by plenty of gigantic trees trying to keep those same people from looking in. Though I’ve never climbed trees for the fun of it, as a teenager I went up plenty of drainpipes with a pretty girl at the back window and judgmental parents at the front door.