Chapter 9
9
Gage
Dmitri and I leave Low Vice. My bodyguard, Jake, follows behind. The sun has nearly set, and long shadows fall over the parking lot.
A form emerges from those shadows.
Jake immediately moves between us and our surprise guest. But as the stranger steps into a slant of weak sunlight, I realize he isn’t a stranger at all—I just wish he was.
Harvey Billings. He looks even older than the last time I saw him. His suit hangs off him like he’s lost weight recently, and his eyes appear hollow above dark gray circles of fatigue.
I step around Jake, my fists clenched. “What the hell are you doing at my club?”
“Waiting for you.” He sounds tired, defeated. “We need to talk.”
Perhaps he’s right—we do need to talk. But I don’t want Dmitri or my bodyguard to witness it. Everything he did to us, everything that was said—it’s private. Or as private as it can be.
I turn to Jake and Dmitri. “Can you give us a moment?”
Jake immediately steps back against the building. Dmitri hesitates.
“Please.” I nod at him, trying to convey that I’m serious.
Dmitri retreats to stand next to Jake. Billings and I move a few yards away. Not so far that Jake and Dmitri couldn’t rush to my defense—but I don’t think it’ll be necessary. Billings looks like he’s already lost whatever fight is happening.
Billings doesn’t say anything right away; he simply looks at me like he’s trying to see the boy I once was.
I don’t have time for this. “So, what do you want?”
“I didn’t see you at Nic’s service.”
“I sent flowers.” Anything more would have been fodder for the media circus surrounding it.
“People talked.” He clears his throat. “Because you weren’t there.”
“They would’ve talked more if I had gone.” And while Nic loved drama, I don’t think she would’ve appreciated the kind of drama that meant I was more talked about at her funeral than she was.
Billings holds out his hands. They’re soft, the skin loose. “Gage. My boy. Where did I go wrong?”
“Don’t act like a father to me. You know where you went wrong. Taking us in, acting like our—our dad. Then asking us to simulate sex for the cameras.”
“It was a job—it was what the show demanded?—”
I cut him off. “We were underage. It was wrong.”
“People wanted sex in the show.” Some of his old fire and confidence returns. He waves a hand as if he’s shooing off an insect. “Not just the older actors—all the hot young people. It’s more than the story. The fans wanted sex , and lots of it.”
“Again. We were teenagers .”
“So? Teenagers have sex.”
“Not onscreen. Not with everyone watching and judging. Do you know what that does to a kid’s brain?”
“You liked it.” That’s the same dismissive tone he’s used all along. “Don’t tell me you didn’t—you couldn’t have done all that for the cameras if?—”
Before I realize what I’m doing, my fist flies at his mouth. There’s a loud smack as my knuckles make contact.
Dmitri and Jake are at my side, ready to defend me.
Billings rocks back on his heels. He wipes the blood off his lip with a handkerchief, but more gathers. He holds the handkerchief in place, speaking around it. “I suppose I deserved that. I won’t press charges. But Gage, I do need to talk to you. Soon. When you’re in a place to listen, call me. Don’t wait too long.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a card.
I consider letting the card fall to the ground, but some gut instinct, deep inside, compels me to take it.
Then he’s gone without another word.
I stand between Dmitri and Jake, my heart pounding, my hand aching. There’s blood on my knuckles. I don’t know if it’s mine or Billings’s.
Pressure gathers in my throat, behind my eyes. We were kids. We were kids .
I’m losing my mind. I can’t let this go. Billings is just walking away, barely chastised. Hollywood didn’t punish him. The Shinies couldn’t punish him—again, we were kids. Stupid teenagers who didn’t understand what we were signing on for. I want to go back in time and shake myself. Why the fuck would anyone agree to film that? It doesn’t matter that Jess’s parents, of all people, found out about the orgy scene and put a stop to it.
The scene never aired. Not in its entirety.
Clips were, though. Taken out of context. Everyone who’s seen Season Five thinks they’ve seen my face during an orgasm. They’ve seen more of my body than they should have.
Nic leaking our sex tape was nothing on this. At least in that footage, I’m an adult.
I press my hands against my eyes, trying to keep the pressure inside. I can’t do this.
“Gage.” Dmitri places his hand on my shoulder. “Gage, we’re supposed to meet Leah soon.”
I never should have let down my barriers and defenses. “I can’t.”
“But…dinner with Leah.”
“Fuck dinner.” My voice comes out harsher than I intended. I keep my injured hand in my pocket and try to soften my tone. “Please. Call Leah, tell her I can’t make it tonight.”
“Seriously?” Disapproval, disbelief, dismay color his tone.
“Seriously.” I turn on my heel and walk back into the club.
This is better.
* * *
Leah
“I’m sorry,” Dmitri says over the phone.
“No, it’s okay.” I clench the phone tighter and turn to my bodyguard. “Lauren—we’re not going to Abdul’s after all.”
She keeps her eyes on the road. “Where to, then?”
“Just pull over for a second, and I’ll plug in directions.”
“Hey.” Dmitri’s voice is soft. “You and I should still go out. You need to eat, don’t you?”
“Yeah…but I just thought of something I should do.” I touch my bag. The sage-green journal is nestled inside, with all the hate I scrawled across its pages.
“Are you sure? We could get ramen again.”
“I’m sure. Tomorrow, though?”
“Family lunch at Granddad’s. Do you want to come?”
I shudder. “No. Probably not a great idea yet.”
“I’m sorry my parents are assholes.”
“Mine are, too. And yours are still way better. At least yours feel bad about things. And they took me in when my stepdad kicked me out.” I will always, always be grateful to the Montroses for that.
“You’re sure about tonight?”
“Yeah. Thanks, though.”
I hope he doesn’t think that he’s not worth a dinner date on his own, without Gage. It’s just—I have to do this.
Dmitri and I say goodbye. The car is still idling, Lauren waiting for me to tell her where we’re going. I know the address by heart, so I punch it into the navigation system.
Nobody except for the Ironwood SUV follows us. I’m relieved to have the extra car, but I worry that my paranoia has been getting the best of me. At some point, I need to live my life without fear.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re pulling up to a generic-looking house that can almost brag it’s part of the Old Thirty-Three district. In reality, it’s on the border of Bellefleur. If my mom and stepdad tried to sell it, I think they’d be eating a loss. The neighborhood is getting worse, not better.
The wood siding has been painted since I last saw it—from an ugly shade of yellow to an ugly shade of blue. Twilight isn’t helping its cause.
When Lauren moves to get out of the car with me, I shake my head. “This is my parents’ house. I’m safe here.” Physically .
“If you’re sure.” Her brown eyes narrow.
Nope . I nod. “Thanks.”
I haven’t been here in years. I came back once, during my second year of college. Mom wanted me to have dinner with them. I think she missed me, in her own weird way. Peter had been on his “best behavior,” which meant he glowered at me the whole time. By the end of dinner, though, he and Mom started bickering about some bullshit thing—I think the full trashcan. I’d quickly kissed Mom’s cheek and said a hasty goodbye to them both.
I haven’t seen her since.
I walk up and stand in front of the door. I don’t know why I’m here. Do I expect their relationship to have changed?
The TV blares inside. A basketball game, from the sounds of it.
I hold up my fist to knock, but Peter’s loud voice from inside stops me.
“Don’t tell me what to do. I’ll do it when I’m goddamn good and ready!”
My mom’s voice comes out just as sharp. “You never do a damn thing around here, and it’s all me.”
“Then fucking leave! I don’t care.”
A cupboard slams. I jump reflexively.
After that, silence. My mom’s silence. Peter’s. The two silences hang oppressive in the air, like the stench of roadkill.
This is a marriage? This is love?
It’s exactly what I was heading toward, with Mick. If things hadn’t happened at that auction with Dmitri and Gage…would I have stayed forever, accepting the twisted “love” Mick offered?
With this example I grew up with, it’s no wonder I’m fucked up and afraid.
I stand on the front porch for so long without knocking, I’m worried Lauren or the other Ironwood bodyguards are going to check on me. So I spin back around and return to the car.
Lauren doesn’t ask questions. She deserves a two-hundred-percent raise for that alone.
I stare out the window at the darkening neighborhood. I spent my formative years in that shitty environment. My mom kept saying, “It’s marriage. For better or worse.” But is it? All I want, right in this moment, is to rush home into Gage and Dmitri’s arms.
That should tell me something, I think.
I wish I knew what the hell that something is.