1. Rae
1
RAE
T he cable is loose. It’s fucking irritating. What kind of club doesn’t have the right gear?
The kind I used to play when I was hustling to get where I am.
Where I was until last month.
This is the best of the three gigs I’ve played since returning to LA. The caliber of clubs I’ve booked has gone down since the article released featuring the photo of Harrison and me backstage at Debajo.
My renewed infamy has created a new roadblock. Now I’m not just the woman who might publicly call out a club on their bullshit.
I’m also a hypocrite.
Still, we’re in LA, and this venue is full of beautiful people in various stages of intoxication.
A small film crew occupies one side. Beck’s in the center, security watching him and the crew surrounding him.
The entire set, the loose cable bugs me. Every minute, I expect the music to cut out and a bunch of partiers to throw their designer vodka drinks in my face.
But hey, at least I get to do what I love.
A month after what happened with Mischa, I still get tense during the changeover, doing a scan of the crowd before I unplug and give up the stage to descend into the throng of partiers.
Tonight, there’s a college-aged kid who leans too close, trying to look down the loose black shirt that’s sticking to me with sweat.
A duo of guys flanks me, making God knows what symbol over my head while they snap a pic.
A young, platinum-blond woman drags her friends over. They shift from one deadly high heel to the other while she squeals.
“Girl, I’m a huge fan! Will you be at Wild Fest next year?”
I fix on a “we’re all having fun here” smile I learned from Beck. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
“Ohmigod. It’s going to be the biggest thing.” She makes a duck face next to me as she wraps an arm around my shoulders. “I want life lessons from anyone who can land Harrison King. He’s loaded and gorgeous and that accent… I bet he fucks like an animal.”
As the flash goes off, I’m not seeing the camera or the woman.
All I can remember are the memories I’ve tried to shove down. Harrison King, body straining and damp with sweat, me clinging to him and gasping as he drove into me until we both collapsed.
But it was all a lie. It meant nothing.
“Dammit, one more?” the girl asks, but I’m already pushing away.
“Hey!” A whistle cuts through the noise, and I wait for Beck to catch up. “Heading out early?”
My friend is Hollywood-leading-man handsome, with dark hair and darker eyes that see more than they let on. His looks might’ve helped land him his primetime show, but his shrewdness got him the reality series he’s filming now.
“Yeah. Thanks for bringing the crew here,” I say.
The club made a few extra bucks, plus free publicity, for allowing Beck’s crew to film an episode of the reality show here. If they didn’t already want me back on the strength of my set, they will now.
“How many selfies did you take before someone brought your boy up?”
I shake my head. “It’s been a month. He’s living his life. I’m living mine.” I eye his crew. “You should get back to the girl you were sucking face with. She’s already bailed on her friends.”
He glances back that way, where a beautiful, fresh-faced woman stands next to his security.
He goes to speak with her, then two minutes later, he’s back, ushering me into the rear seat of a limo.
“Shouldn’t have done that,” I tell him as I drop my bag on the floor and he reaches for a bottle of champagne in the fridge.
“You’re my friend.” He pops the cork and pours a glass, passing it to me. “So, I heard that chick ask about Wild Fest. Are you mixing there?”
I stare into the champagne flute, its tiny bubbles at odds with the leaden feeling inside me. “I got on their radar this spring before everything, but they’ve been dodging me since Ibiza.”
“That’s why you’re pissy? It has nothing to do with Harrison King?”
“Nothing.” I take a long drink, the bubbles tickling my throat, then burning after I swallow.
I pull off the headphones still around my neck and tuck them carefully into the bag at my feet.
Beck leans over, his handsome face suddenly close.
I frown. “What are you doing?”
“Testing your claim.”
He covers my mouth with his.
His lips are determined and playful at once as he kisses me.
My hands freeze in midair, too stunned to do anything else. He dares me to pull back.
I let the feeling wash over me. He’s warm, masculine, compelling in a totally unselfconscious, totally Beck way.
But it’s not dangerous or breathtaking. My heart rate is up from surprise, not arousal.
When his tongue parts my lips, I shove at his chest.
Beck drops back against the seat with a laugh. “See? You’re still hung up on the guy.”
“Just because I don’t want to fuck you doesn’t mean I’m hung up on someone else.”
“You’re kidding, right? Have you seen me?”
His words eat at the wall around my heart. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better. Even if it was a fucked-up way to do it.”
“I can’t fix your heart, but I can say you have no reason to feel ashamed of what you did in Ibiza. Whatever makes you so critical started a long time ago with shit you don’t think about in the light of the day, not to mention talk about.”
“You get all that from me not letting you stick your tongue in my mouth?”
He shakes his head. “Been watching you a while, Little Queen. You haven’t made peace with who you are. You want to play the Wild Fests of this world, you gotta do that sooner or later.” His phone rings, and he mouths, “My producer,” as he answers.
I drag out my own phone and pull up my social accounts.
Harrison King watch has resumed. He has left Ibiza. Since the photos of us surfaced, he’s been seen in London. Paris. At his clubs, but also with women.
What surprises me most is how the pictures make my chest ache. An unrelenting ache that lingers through days of trying to work, dinners with friends, nights alone.
How I feel has nothing to do with his hard, beautiful body or strong hands or firm lips or piercing blue eyes, and everything to do with the fact that I felt as if he showed me parts of himself he’d never shown anyone else.
Admitting what happened to his parents, that he’s on a mission to redeem them. He’d do anything to win La Mer and rebuild the empire that fell when they died, the same empire I threatened when I exposed him on social media.
Anything—including using me.
I don’t believe he set up the pictures of us at Debajo, but he must have seen them, and he hasn’t reached out once.
Not a damn word. No defending what happened in his clubs or how it looked as if he used me.
I need to move on.
I haven’t been up to New York because I know Annie will want to talk—the kind of talk with way too many feelings—and I’m avoiding getting into that.
Which is why I’m in a limo with Beck, who has not only given me a place to stay the past few weeks when I didn’t want to be alone, but who should be fucking a perfectly nice girl instead of looking after me.
There’s an email with a subject and sender that leap off the page.
“What’s wrong?” Beck asks, and I realize he’s hung up his call.
“My brother Kian’s getting married in a month. He’s inviting me.”
“Short notice. Where’s the wedding?”
“Napa.” I fold my arms at his raised brow. “I grew up in Orange County.”
His low rumble of laughter has me sighing. “You’ve been back a month, and I bet you haven’t told any of them.”
Shadows flick across his face from the streetlights, but it’s the darkness inside me that makes me shiver.
“We haven’t been close since high school.”
Beck pulls my head down on his shoulder and lays his on top of mine. “Here’s the thing. You could be a superstar. Have the Wild Fests of the world begging you to show. But you won’t get there until you make peace with where you’ve been. No matter where you’re going, you can’t run from you.”
“Have you made peace?” I ask him pointedly.
He’s had trouble with his parents—they’re flush and part of New York society, and from what I understand, having their son turn his back on the career his father wanted for him to pursue acting and come out publicly as bi pushed their self-righteous buttons.
He sighs. “Work in progress.”
I grab the champagne and chug the rest, then turn off my phone and shove it in my bag, leaving the top open. The glint of diamond headphones follows me home.