41. Serena
Serena
Grayson: I don’t think they care what you’re going to wear
Lillie: UR ENTIRE LIFE ISNT RIDING ON THIS, GRAY
Georgia: Neither is yours, Lil. Just wear that pink dress—it’s cute on you. Goes nice with your hair
Sid: Gag. Stop being so nice to each other or I’ll leave the chat.
Sid: This is what I’m wearing
Sid: Image
Georgia: Sid, you are not wearing that
Sid: Who’s going to stop me
Lillie: My Chrysler Pacifica, my rules. That fedora will be burned if it comes within two feet of my baby’s sliding doors
Sid: Fine.
Sid: This is discrimination.
Sid: Censorship.
Grayson: I think the hat is hot
Serena: can u guys stop blowing up my phone? i’m trying to get ready
Serena: also, Lil, you don’t have to drive. they’re sending a car for you
Sighing, I silence my phone and turn it over and try to focus on what I’m doing with my makeup.
Since we got here, the guys have been showering me with an obscene amount of gifts.
“Some TV producer started a make-up line,” Ryan said as he dropped some fancy gold boxes on my bed. “Wanted to gift me some, but I thought you might be more into it.”
Turns out, that random producer is insanely famous, best friends with Zendaya and was, apparently, personally mentored by Rhianna. Her new make-up line is already sold out for the pre-order.
So now I sit in front of the mirror, practicing with a blue eyeliner, trying to perfect a line around my eye in a way that looks cool, and not like a kindergartener face-painting a raccoon.
Finally, after wrestling with the look for ages, I give up on using most of it and decide to give half the makeup to Lillie. She’ll lose her mind for it, and I’m much better with the classic shades, anyway.
Feeling sort of anxious, I head down the stairs and into the main foyer.
Travis’s country estate is like something from The Sound of Music—grand in a way that I’m still struggling with.
When I tip my head back, the ceiling is at least twenty, maybe even thirty feet high, and adorned with a shimmering golden chandelier.
The floors are marble. None of the windows on the first floor open, since they’re protected by the historical society. Through the front windows, you can make out the long roads splitting off, dividing the front lawn, which is, of course, larger than a football field.
But at this moment, none of that—not the fancy paintings or sculptures, not the way the late afternoon light shines in through the massive windows, not the trailing ivy on the back of the house or the gardens beyond—has my attention.
What has my attention is the table in the middle of the foyer.
It’s usually decorated with a vase of flowers, typically picked from the gardens outside. Now, instead of flowers, an antique record player sits directly in the center, the brass horn shining, freshly polished, in the glowing sunlight.
“What…?” I ask the empty hall, walking up to the record player, laying a hand on the side gently, as if it might fall apart. It should be back at the house, with my roommates. How the hell did it get here?
“Here,” Travis says, stepping into the room, flipping a vinyl around in his hands. It’s one of my grandma’s, a Beatles record with a fraying cover. “Let’s try it out, shall we?”
I stare at him, then watch in disbelief as he slides the record from the sleeve and sets it carefully on the turntable. After a few adjustments, he drops the needle and takes a step back.
A moment later, the first few funky notes of “Come Together” fill the hall, and a rush of emotion fills my throat. I meet Travis’s eyes, still not quite understanding.
In this moment, I can see my grandma dancing, laughing, her arthritis not stopping her from twirling around the kitchen and shaking her bum. When the chorus hits, I can see her holding a sauce-laden spoon up to her mouth, singing into it like a microphone.
This is the same record she played. The same song that made her feel alive.
I expect to burst into tears—that’s what’s been happening to me so often lately—but maybe I’m taken with her spirit. Maybe I’m tired of being sad about everything. Or, just maybe, it’s Travis standing in front of me, having found a way to fix my most prized possession.
Instead of crying, I step forward and take his hand in mine, tugging him into a dance move like my grandma did to me when I was a teenager.
A grumpy, angry-at-the-world teenager who didn’t feel like listening to music at all, let alone dancing around the living room.
She was my saving grace, the thing that softened me into the person I am today.
She helped me to appreciate art. To see and capture the beauty in the world.
So now, I do just that. I set my cheek against Travis’s cheek as “Something” plays, and after a moment’s hesitation, he relaxes, settles his cheek against the top of my head, and falls into step with me.
I’m certain Travis took dancing lessons growing up. It seems like exactly the kind of thing a rich kid does in his spare time, and I can feel it in the precise cut of his movements. But he doesn’t strong-arm me, doesn’t force me to fall into a pattern.
Instead, we float around the foyer, two bodies melded into one, until I can’t feel anything but the sound of his breath and the warm sunlight pooling into the room like glittering, precious love.
I’m certain I’ll never forget this moment.
“Hey,” a voice says from the stairs, and I look up to see Ryan working at a cuff, stepping down two at a time. “What’s going on here?”
When I pull back from Travis, I have to swipe the backs of my hands over my cheeks. So, I cried after all. Tears of joy. “Travis fixed my record player.”
“Well,” Travis says, “I had it sent to the original manufacturer, then to a vintage refurbishing expert.”
Ryan rolls his eyes, steps in and slips me away from Travis and says, “Such a show off.”
Travis flips him the bird and Ryan just laughs.
He takes me into his arms and we dance to “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” goofier and lighter. Ryan twirls me as often as he can and taps me on the back in time with the beat.
“I’m pretty sure this is actually a morbid song,” I laugh, just before Graham cuts in and takes me for “Oh! Darling.”
Graham tucks me into his body, smelling like the garden outside, and I breathe him in. I’m too happy, too happy with these men, with this situation, with my friends on their way here right now.
If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
It took no effort from Alex to put the record player out in the rain.
One second, we were fine, then everything was terrible.
Travis went to all this trouble to get the player repaired for me.
The guys are, so far, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
If losing Alex set me on a semi-reckless path, barreling into Travis’s office, then what would happen to me if I lost Travis, Graham, or Ryan?
Or all three of them at once?
I close my eyes as Graham sweeps me up into his arms, cradling me and singing along with the lyrics, the other guys laughing and teasing us. It’s all I can do to keep up the flood wall against the sinking, terrible feeling that this is all going to come to an end.