“Familiar?” I push, daring Jax to break the code.
“Look, I don’t know her. Forget I said it. I’m just telling you to be careful. Friend to friend.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll call you about Thursday.”
I hang up, drop the phone on the passenger seat, and stare ahead for a full ten minutes.
He’s right. It is familiar.
When I go to meet Haley, her friend Jenna from the coffee shop, and the stylist I finally convinced Haley to use, I’m coming with the best news yet. Our biggest chance, guaranteed to make her song a hit, if it wasn’t showing all the signs already.
And yet the memory of what Jax said earlier hangs over me like a dark mist I can’t shake off. This situation is familiar. I’m starting to see signs everywhere, in everything I do. The feeling of being almost there, the simple and strong trust I have in Haley, the adrenaline rush I get from seeing my work actually getting results – it’s word-for-word, motion-for-motion what I felt just before Lexi tore me apart. As soon as I set the ball in motion, it feels like it’s getting away from me. What seemed perfect before is now a little too perfect to trust.
Jenna sees me in the long, clean mirror of the hair salon as I walk up to her.
“We were waiting for you,” Jenna says, bringing Haley’s attention to me.
“Heeeey!” she says, smiling wide and bright with her face, but keeping her head in place as the bald guy in a tight shirt snips and chops at it.
“Hey you. Good to see you, Jenna,” I say. I should step through and kiss her, make the bald guy stop so that I can plant a long, slow kiss on those lips. But I don’t, and Haley notices, even though she barely shows it.
“Thank you so much for letting me in on this, Brando,” Jenna says. “I’ve needed a makeover, like, forever.”
“Hardly,” I scoff. “You’re already flawless, both of you. But I’m glad you’re enjoying.” I glance at Haley. “You need strength to get to the top. But you need strong friends to stay there.”
“I got more clothes today than I have in the past two years,” Haley says, before winking. “I’ll show you if you’re free tonight.”
I smile just enough not to set off her alarm bells, but it takes a lot of effort.
“Actually I’m not.”
Haley pouts.
“And neither are you,” I continue.
“What do you mean?” Haley says, frowning for a second before the bald guy adjusts her head slightly. “I thought the next studio session was tomorrow afternoon?”
“It’s not a studio session.”
“Well, what, then? Quit teasing this out!”
“Yeah, Brando!” Jenna adds for good measure.
I pause a little before answering.
“You’re on Conan.”
Their jaws drop at the same time, and they turn to look at each other slowly at the same time, mirror images.
Then they scream.
The bald guy leaps back, palms out like Haley just combusted in front of him, before turning to me with a glare as if I caused it. I shrug, and the next thing I know Haley’s pressing up against me, hair-filled bib still wrapped around her shoulders, insatiable tongue between my lips.
I try to be cold. Try to be smart. Try to keep myself from putting my arms around her and pressing my lips back on hers. But it doesn’t work. I can’t. Haley’s nothing like Lexi. This is nothing like before. I’ve never felt so good. This time it’s real, and I’m gonna do it the only way I know how – by putting everything I have on the line.
Chapter 16
Haley
A sore throat. That’s why I’m here in the green room of one of the biggest late night talk shows in the world. The lead singer of the band that was supposed to play got a sore throat. That’s all it took.
That, and Brando.
“How you feeling?” he says, and I spin around to see him standing there, always big and strong, always supporting me. I press a hand against his cheek and kiss him gently.
“My teeth are chattering, my knees feel like they’re made out of silly string, and I’m not sure if this new haircut makes me look incredibly hot, or like a preteen who found her mother’s hair product,” I say. “But I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good in my life.”
“You’re gonna knock ‘em dead. By the time you wake up tomorrow there won’t be a person in the country who doesn’t know your name.”
“Thanks,” I say, “that thought’s gonna do wonders for my nerves.”
Brando chuckles softly, gently brushing the back of his rough hand against my cheek.
“You’re not really nervous,” he smiles. “I can tell. You’re growing, Haley, coming into your own, turning into something amazing.”
The muscles in my face soften as I gaze at him.
“Brando Nash?!”
The voice comes from a weedy guy in the doorway. It takes a second call and another moment for Brando to turn and see him.
“What?” Brando says, curtly.
The weedy guy walks up to us and jabs his thumb at the door.
“You need to come with me, now!”
“What’s going on?” Brando says, instinctively resisting.
Weedy guy sighs before speaking.
“I’ve got a fifty-six page document covering your song’s copyright, usage rights, liability for the performance, and about a thousand other legal technicalities sitting unsigned on my desk. It should have been signed before today, but right this second will have to do. It also should have been signed by the artist herself, but she’s going out in a minute, so you’ll have to do it on her behalf.”
Brando waves him away, unconcerned. “Relax. I’ll sign it. Just give me a second with my client.”
“This is network television, Mr. Nash, not karaoke night at the surf n’ turf. If I don’t get ink on those papers in the next thirty seconds your girlfriend doesn’t play and we have to do an unrehearsed skit with one of the d-list guests – and nobody wants to see that.”
I press a hand on Brando’s shoulder and he looks at me.
“Go,” I say. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you after the show.”
Brando smiles at me and then follows weedy guy out of the green room. I watch him go, the feeling of something amazing about to happen between us hanging in the air like swirls of smoke. I smile and wonder if he’ll be there in the audience, right in my eye line once again.
Then someone walks into my eye line who is almost the polar opposite of Brando.
“There she is! The girl of the moment!”
He’s short and squat, with the kind of paunch even pregnancy clothes would struggle to hide. His face looks like it was constructed out of play-doh by a team of soda-injected toddlers, and his hairpiece looks like it was fished out of a plughole at a Turkish bath. Despite all this, he’s wearing the loudest, shiniest, most eye-catching Hawaiian shirt I think I’ve ever seen.
Still, I try not to judge on appearances – so I decide it’s the way his voice sounds like slime oozing down a gutter that creeps me out about him.
“Who are you?”
“Davis Crawford,” he says, offering me a hand with the texture of cold fish, “I’m a friend of Brando’s. Where is he?”
I narrow my eyes. This guy is way too sleazy to be friends with Brando. “He had to go do some business.”
“Ah,” Davis says, lopsided lips forming what I assume is a grin. “That sounds just like him. Always doing some kind of ‘business.’ Always neglecting the talent.”
I offer an unconvincing laugh in response, hoping it’ll bring the conversation to a close.
“Just look at you! You’ve come a long way from that open mic, that’s for sure! Who would have thought the mousy little girl down there would have made it all the way up here, am I right?”