Chapter 10
Quiet as a mouse. Still as a cucumber.
Mommy used to say that to me all the time. She made it into a game, but we haven’t played that game in a very long time. Or rather she doesn’t say those words anymore. I simply know to be.
Quiet as a mouse. Still as a cucumber.
Especially when Grayson’s around.
I sit across from them in the back of a limousine.
Wearing a white business suit, Mommy stares blank-faced out the window.
Chicago evening lights pass by from other cars, street lamps, and building illuminations.
With light hair and blue eyes, everyone says I favor her.
I hope that’s true because Mommy is very pretty.
Beside her, Grayson scrolls his phone.
I don’t normally come with them on their trips, but Grayson gave a big speech tonight and wanted me on stage with him.
He even picked me up which he only does when we’re in public.
As expected, I smiled and waved to the blur of people who filled the auditorium.
Grayson affectionately squeezed me and I knew I had made him happy.
It makes me feel good when I make him happy.
I wish I could make Mommy happy. She’s always so sad.
Grayson puts his phone down, looking across the space to me. I straighten up. “You did well tonight, Laura.”
It’s not often he speaks to me. “Thank you,” I say.
His gaze slides to Mommy, narrowing slightly. “You on the other hand.”
She makes no sound, no movement, just keeps staring out the window watching Chicago go by.
“Tonight was a huge deal,” Grayson says. “Laura is five years old and she did better than you.”
Still no sound or movement from Mommy. I barely breathe as I stare at her.
“Look at me,” he commands.
She doesn’t.
He slaps her. I flinch. She looks then, her head turning slowly, still no expression.
“You have everything you could ever want and still nothing is good enough. Most women would be bowing at my feet for the things I provide.”
She scoffs.
He lunges, his fingers wrapping around her throat. He squeezes tight, the veins in his hand popping, the muscles in his neck clenching. Mommy doesn’t fight him. She doesn’t even make a sound. She glares, almost like she’s daring him to do it.
He lets go and breathing heavily, he returns her glare. She turns away, going back to staring out the window at the Chicago skyline, her neck red where he’d squeezed.
Still breathing heavily, Grayson looks right at me. My heart pounds loud, thumping inside my ears.
Quiet as a mouse. Still as a cucumber.
He picks his phone up and goes back to scrolling and I don’t move one single muscle the rest of the trip.
Eleven years later and here I am, staring at the same nighttime Chicago scenery. It rolls by as we navigate the streets to our hotel.
From Memphis, it took us roughly ten hours to get here, stops and all. Luckily, I slept some, which isn’t always easy to do.
Now I stand in the hotel lobby, crowded with tech crew, performers, and staff. I find a spot in a corner while Anne waits in line to check us in.
Through the crowd, West comes right toward me, a little glimmer playing across his features. “You look a little caged in over here.”
“A lot of people,” I murmur.
“How is it riding with Tech? They seem like a bunch of stinky boys.”
My lips twitch. “No one is stinky.”
“I don’t know about that,” he jokes, casting a suspicious eye across the lobby and the hodge-podge of roadies.
I take a look at them, and yes, some of them do need a good scrubbing.
“Especially that one,” West mumbles, nodding to his friend Simon who is currently standing over in the corner, breath spray in hand.
“I’m going to tell him you said that.”
“He’s getting ready for Kirstie. She should be here soon.”
“That’s sweet.” I’m glad West seems chipper. Whatever funk he was in last night has obviously dissipated.
He leans in, closing all the space between us, and his sudden nearness makes my nerve endings stretch. “Maybe I can talk you into riding with me in our big, bad tour bus,” he says, and I want desperately to tell him to give me some room.
He leans in a little farther, and I don’t stop the words from tumbling out, “Can you back up, please?”
West doesn’t immediately move, and then my words must sink in because he takes a quick and cautious step back. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” I say, releasing a breath, so very glad for the space.
He just studies me. I wait for him to make an excuse and leave, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “A few of us are going out for a quick bite in the city. Want to come?”
I’m so shocked at the unexpected invitation, I don’t know how to reply.
He teases, “What, you got a hot date or something?”
I huff a laugh. “That would be a no.”
“You make that sound like it’s a ridiculous idea.”
It is a ridiculous idea, but I shrug. “I don’t typically date.” Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t even know how to go on a date.
“Let’s see, Eve and her hot date.” West ponders me for a second. “He would be a studious type, I think. Maybe into poetry. No, a painter. No wait! A welder. Yes, one of those tragic starving artists—”
“That lives in a loft.” I get in on the fun. “And gathers scrap metal, and he makes those weird, inspiring pieces that we would discuss until the early hours of the morning.” I ponder the image. “No, not my type.” You’re more my type, I want to admit.
West snaps his fingers. “Dang. I thought I had it with the welder.” His mischievousness slowly fades as he studies me again. What does he see when he does that? I try picturing myself as this flirty girl, giving it right back, joking and touching. Or if not that, just a normal conversation.
And so I try. “How about—”
Anne comes up. “Yo, sexy,” she says to West, then hands me a card key. “We’re in room 302, let’s go.”
“How about?” West prompts.
Anne looks between us, and I swallow a sudden flare of nerves. “How about we all get a coffee before you go out with your friends.” I nod to the lobby coffee shop and its little clump of tables.
West brightens. “That sounds good.”
Anne shoots me a playful smirk. “I’ve got plans. But you two have fun.”
Plans? She doesn’t have any plans. But before I have a chance to say that, she beelines into the elevator, leaving me and West alone for our “coffee date” that I just invited him on.
I slide my card key into my back pocket, and we pile our stuff in the corner of the coffee shop before heading over to the counter. “What do you want?” West asks
“Just a medium light roast, please.”
As he places our order, I take a seat at a table and run my clammy palms along my jeans. I can do this. I can be normal. I can sit with West and have some coffee and conversation. I like West, I do, but I need him to know whatever this is between us has to be friendship and nothing else.
I need that boundary. Plus, what about that gorgeous Asian girl I’ve seen a couple of times now? Isn’t she his girlfriend?
Simon wanders in and gives me a little wave before sitting at his own table and pulling out his phone.
West brings our drinks over and busies himself with cream and sugar. As he does, he glances down to the Charlie Brown screen printed on my tee. “Wile E. Coyote, Pink Panther, Tom and Jerry, and now Charlie Brown. You must really love cartoons.”
He kept track? “I do.” It’s the one pleasure I held tightly to growing up. “I was in a thrift store with Anne and they had a whole rack of tees. I bought nearly all of them.”
“Do you have a favorite?”
“Oh, I’m a big fan of the Muppets. Do you like cartoons?”
“I do. I’m wearing Daffy Duck boxers right now. Actually, I have a whole collection that feature Daffy.”
“Why Daffy?”
“Because he’s got an overblown ego but a screwball personality. Kind of like me.” West imitates a duck’s voice, “Oooh boyyyy.”
I laugh. “That’s good.”
West sips his coffee. “What are you looking forward to the most on our tour?”
“The music. Seeing new stuff. Shadowing Ford.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“I did.”
“He’s cool?”
“Yeah, I think it’s going to be great.”
West takes a sip of his coffee. “What else are you looking forward to?”
“Making friends. Speaking of…” Instead of being nervous about the conversation, I mimic how West always makes things lighthearted.
“As you’ve probably picked up on, I’m not very good with boy-girl stuff.
The flirting.” I make a face, and he grins.
“I want to be friends. Is that okay? I get the impression you’re used to a lot more with girls.
Plus, don’t you maybe have a girlfriend? Are you even allowed to be flirting?”
He offers a friendly look. “Eve, I do not have a girlfriend.”
I find this statement pleases me way more than it probably should.
“Of course, it’s okay to be friends,” he continues, but something in his tone tells me he doesn’t entirely mean that. And that pleases me more than it should as well. “We’re going to New York in a week or so. Ever been?”
That question lightens the mood even more, and I grab the folded map I had shoved in my back pocket.
“Where’d you get that thing?”
“At the rest stop on the way here.” I unfold it and spread it out on the table the best I can.
He scoots his chair around to look with me. “I’ve been to New York a lot. Maybe I can help.”
I’ve actually been to New York too. I’ve been to tons of places with Grayson and yet nowhere really. Sure we traveled but what is there to really see when you go from hotel to event to dinner, all while playing a role?
I run through the mental list I made the last time we were in New York, and I wasn’t allowed to do anything other than follow Grayson around. “Well, I want to visit Ground Zero, Statue of Liberty, and all the other major stuff. Oh, and I definitely want to eat in Little Italy.”
“Simon!” a girl squeals. With curly auburn hair and freckles, she races into the coffee shop. She launches herself at him, and he catches her up in a big hug.
My lips curve as they sweetly kiss.
“So in love,” West jokes.
“They’re adorable,” I say. They’re perfect.