11. Needs, Not Wants
ELEVEN
needs, not wants
We’ve been back home from the sushi disaster for a while. I’m too distracted to know how long. I have no idea when I started pacing, but at some point I obviously did, because here I am, wearing a trail in the carpet.
Without speaking, Brianna and I entered the house and went directly to our separate rooms. I couldn’t tell whether she was pissed at me for getting photographed jawing with that Logan guy or scared. Maybe both.
I have no idea what to think. I’m nervous about how this all looks, one hundred percent. But even worse, even more unnerving, is the intense jealousy that took over as soon as Logan addressed Brianna by name.
Who the fuck is he?
I didn’t recognize him from any videos, nor from the hundreds of photos I’ve seen of Brianna recently. True, I wasn’t paying close attention to the guys she was with. I shouldn’t be jealous like this though. I have no right to be.
I pull out my phone while pacing frantically and open up a browser. I have Star Tracker bookmarked so I can keep tabs on any rumors that include Brianna’s name. As soon as I pull up the site, I see a headline and a photo gallery. Looks like they got every angle of my shove. The way the photos are posed makes it appear like I was attacking the idiot. But the real killer is the caption added to the shots.
Logan vs. Zack: Brianna Royce’s past back to haunt her.
And the sideline story that goes with it is worse. I can only get through the first sentence.
“Brianna’s new boy toy unleashes on Logan Lackey.”
Great. Now I sound like a douche. This can’t be good for Brianna’s reputation.
A knock on my door pulls me away from the rest of the story, thank goodness. Reading the whole thing would probably make me sick. There’s only one person who could be knocking on my bedroom door, and I have no idea what she’s about to say to me.
I pull the door open, my nerves sending me into orbit. Brianna stands there in my favorite red sweatpants, with her hair in the messy bun I love.
Damn. I need to pull my thoughts under control; stop looking at her with lust. It shouldn’t be this difficult to keep the friend-zone boundaries up. But dang it , it is.
Brianna fidgets with something in her arms. I finally notice the bowl of popcorn she’s holding.
“Hungry?” she asks tentatively.
It’s our thing, the popcorn. I know what she’s saying by bringing it to me.
I sigh. “Yeah. Give me a minute to change, and I’ll meet you up on the deck.”
Brianna nods and turns away.
I rush to my drawers and pull out some workout clothes. If she’s dressed for comfort, I’m following her lead. Working out is when I’m most comfortable. I’ve been in her home gym so dang much it’s practically my own room now.
A few minutes later, I find her sitting on the couch on the rooftop deck, the bowl of popcorn next to her like an invitation. I take a seat on the other side of the bowl. Our proximity makes me want to pull it away and slide in next to her, wrap my arm around her. I haven’t held her close since the picnic scene of the video, when we lay arm in arm on the blanket.
My skin heats as I remember that day, so I push the thoughts out and try to focus. We’re here on the roof for a reason, and it’s not for me to get handsy.
Our stilted silence lasts a while as we take in the view from her deck. It still blows me away every time I’m up here. It should relax me, but it doesn’t.
Brianna takes a deep breath eventually and grabs a huge handful of popcorn. “I don’t think I need the little cards to help me tonight. There’s something I need to tell you.”
I zero in on the word: need . Not what she wants to tell me; what she needs to tell me. I lean forward, arms resting on my knees, and nod.
“Logan is my former manager.” Brianna releases a huge breath as if that one statement took all her energy. “He found me when I was sixteen and decided I needed to be a star and he was just the person to do it.
“At first, he was encouraging and positive, determined he could make my name famous. But he controlled everything—my music, my look,my schedule, my social life. Everything. Over time, he became more demanding, pushy, dismissing my desire to create my own sound and branch out. I wanted to leave him, but I had no idea what I was doing, and by that time, I had a record deal. Responsibilities. Expectations. It took years for me to be able to break away.
“Char has been my assistant from the start, my best friend, and I insisted she stay by my side. She watched everything Logan did, read over all the paperwork, kept all the contacts. She learned the job just by being there, without Logan even realizing. When my contract was up for renegotiation, I walked away. Char took over, and we started Siren Song together.”
Brianna stops for a minute, staring at the popcorn in her hands. I don’t ask any questions, waiting for her to finish. When she does, her voice is quieter.
“That’s why he acted like an old friend tonight—like there hadn’t been a major division between us. To unnerve me. Catch me off-guard. That’s what he does. It’s who he is.”
I shake my head. “How’d he know you’d be there tonight?”
She sighs again. “I’ve always suspected he has some way to spy on me. He always seems to know where I’ll be when he wants to play his little games.”
It’s my turn to take a deep breath. For some reason, I’m nervous to ask, but I have to know. “Did you ever ... date him?”
“God, no.” She shakes her head.
I slump back on the couch, relieved.
Part of me worried he was a huge heartbreak she was trying to recover from, but deep down, I know Brianna would never date a guy like him.
“Logan sees dollar signs with me. I may not have dated him, but he did have a hand in every broken heart I’ve ever experienced. Char and I started making plans to leave him when I found out he was orchestrating my ‘fake’ relationships without my knowledge.”
“And now you’re in another one.”
I look at her as I say it. She looks me in the eye too for the first time since coming up to the deck. I feel terrible for Brianna. What the hell kind of life is this?
Her eyes remain locked on mine. Emotion fills them, sending a silent message I can’t decode.
Then loud pings from each of our phones break the loaded silence. We pull them up to check. Char’s sent a group message between the three of us.
Char:
The headlines are perfect! Zack, you are officially a badass!
I’m no badass. I laugh, stopping as soon as I glance up at Brianna. I can tell from the look on her face she’s not pleased. Fuck , I hate seeing the sadness in her eyes. She continues gazing at me as she speaks.
“I’m sorry about all this. I feel like I’m using you.”
Hearing her apologize, I suddenly need to set some things straight. I reach into the bowl and take a handful of popcorn. Brianna watches me with a sad sort of curiosity.
“My turn,” I say.
She nods.
“Want to know why I agreed to do all this?”
Another nod.
“You.”
Brianna’s eyes soften, open and vulnerable.
“Actually, at first, I had no idea who you were. I thought Ms. Royce was the casting agent until my roommate informed me otherwise. Then I looked you up, wanting some idea of what I was getting myself into. Those outtakes from your last video, the one with you by the window—they changed my mind. I saw something in your eyes. I needed to find out if I was right.” I lean closer to her. “That day on the rooftop, when we first met, you kept your sunglasses on.”
Brianna looks away from me, but I keep going.
“And honestly, I wondered if you’d be the diva everyone thinks you are. I wondered if you’d be pampered and demanding. But you gave me a glimpse that day, Bree. I saw you as more than the diva. What really made me say yes was when you finally took off your sunglasses and I could see I was right. You were so afraid, but you tried to hide it. You can’t hide it from me, Bree. And I just want you to be safe. Tofeelsafe.”
Brianna watches me silently for a moment. I wonder how she’s taking this.Then she finally speaks.
“But now I’ve made you do all these phony outings, nothing’s been ... real.” She hesitates on the last word, her voice coming out as a whisper. “I feel terrible.”
“I don’t.” There’s no hesitation for me—not now.
Brianna’s eyes shoot to mine.
“Not if it means the fear in your eyes is gone.”
Our eye contact is deep, almost heated. She’s hidden from me since I moved in, and now she’s looking at me like this? I don’t understand why, exactly. So I look away. But I find myself grabbing for the popcorn again. This time I need to be honest in my questions, not just my answers.
“If I’ve helped make you feel safe—and I think I have—why have you kept to yourself so much when we aren’t forced to have phony dates?”
“Because you were right.”
I snap my gaze back to hers. “About what?”
She shakes her head. “I was afraid. So afraid I could hardly breathe. And sometimes I still am, but you do make it easier. I’m still not sure why, other than I trust you. Call it some kind of instinct, I guess.”
“But why would that make you hide from me?” Is she afraid of me because I made her less afraid? That makes no sense.
“I haven’t been hiding. I’ve been writing. Songs. I used to write all the time, but Logan would never let me record any of my own music. Then I just stopped, figuring why bother, right? Then I lost the desire to write music. Just the thought of trying to write a song was exhausting. But ... feeling safe, feeling okay again, I don’t know. I just suddenly had a burning need to write. And once I started, I couldn’t stop. I’ve written almost a full album of new songs so far.”
I let Brianna’s confession sink in and smile, positive of one thing. We’re doing this whole fake-dating thing completely wrong. And I intend to fix it.
“I have an idea.” I latch onto her gaze. “Let’s drop all the fake stuff. Let’s just be us and do what we want instead of what’s scheduled for us.”
Brianna shakes her head. “Zack, there’s a reason Char set things up the way she has.” She pauses, leaning in to get my attention. It’s not like she needs to. This woman’s had my attention since day one. “The paparazzi are relentless. If we come off looking happy, real, they’ll stalk it like sharks in the water, looking for anything they can exploit to bring us down. They love nothing better than watching a celebrity couple break up. But if our ‘relationship’”—Brianna uses air quotes around her words—“makes everyone cringe and question our sanity, they’ll encourage us—focus on the relationship itself, and not on us as individuals.”
I take in her words, wondering if there’s a way around this mess. Except the best way to get through something is right down the middle. A direct line.
“So let’s prove them wrong.”
“But—”
I cut her off. “You said yourself there’s things you love that you don’t have the time for. Let’s just create our own fun with the time we’ve been given. What we want to do, on our own terms. Bree, what better way to kill their theory?”
Brianna pauses, thinking over my plan. I can see it on her face. She just wants to live her life. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’d recover if I was real and they used it against me.”
Her vulnerability gives me the courage to do what I’m about to do.
I lean across the couch and grab her hand with one of my own. My other hand cups her jaw, my thumb lightly grazing her cheek. My eyes lock onto hers as I whisper, “I won’t let them, Bree. Trust me.”
“I do. I always have.”
I feel the strength and the truth in her whispered words.
Now that I know I have her trust, I hope like hell I can keep it.