7. Callie
7
CALLIE
PRESENT DAY
“Wake up, slacker. If I can work three doubles in a row and stay awake, you can stay awake after two days off.”
I throw a pack of gum at Quinton, and he grunts.
“Leave me alone. I’m hungover.”
I groan and throw a candy bar at him. He lifts his hand like he’s going to bat it away, but he’s several seconds delayed. Dumbass. He is hungover hungover.
“It’s boring here now that they stopped caring about you,” he says, his voice muffled in his folded arms. “I thought you were going to be the next Sav Loveless and Torren King scandal.”
“We agreed to never talk about that again.”
“I didn’t agree to anything.” Quinton sits up and faces me with his dark sunglasses still on. “Having my photos taken by paparazzi is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me, even if I was blurred out and cropped in half in the background.”
I shake my head and go back to organizing the candy.
“Those idiots got me fired from my job at the motel, so excuse me if I don’t share in your mourning.”
Over two weeks of being followed and photographed was a miserable experience. Longest eighteen days of my life, and that’s saying something. It almost makes me grateful that my band didn’t work out. Almost .
Quinton picks up the candy bar I threw at him and unwraps it, then takes a bite.
“Yeah, that sucks,” he says while chewing. “But now you get to see me more often.”
He grins with his teeth covered in chocolate and I blink at him, unamused.
“Yes. Because doing twice the work while you sleep off your hangover and pore over tabloids is so enjoyable for me.”
“I know, right?” Quinton sighs and shakes his head, reverting to his current favorite topic. “If only they hadn’t realized how boring you are. It could have been my big break. I just need a less blurry picture. Maybe an interview?—”
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and ignore him. At least he’s awake now.
Once I’m finished with the candy bars, I go to the back to grab things to restock the empties. I’m not in there two minutes when Quinton comes barreling through the door with his eyebrows raised comically high behind his sunglasses.
“Callie. You need to come out here.”
The way he says it, almost like a whispered hiss, has my suspicions spiking, and I narrow my eyes at him. If he’s fucking with me...
“Why?”
“There is someone here to see you.” Again with the whispering, but this time he’s spaced out each word with an unnatural pause, his eyebrows rising even higher than I thought possible. “Come out now.”
“I swear to god, Quin, if this is another one of your stunts...”
I push past him and march out into the store, and then immediately skid to a halt. Pretty sure my eyebrows get higher than Quinton’s did, and my jaw drops open before I can stop it. Torren smirks at me, though, and I snap it shut, bringing my eyebrows to slants.
“Hey. I don’t know if you remember me,” he starts, his voice making the skin on my neck prickle. “We met at the pier a couple of weeks ago.”
“If that’s what you want to call your hulking bodyguard almost killing me. ”
He shrugs, a weak gesture in place of an apology. “He thought you were a crazy fan.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes, then glance over his shoulder at the front door. There’s a big, black, conspicuous SUV parked at the curb, and the aforementioned hulking bodyguard is standing by the door. Good lord.
“Can I help you? I’d like to get it over with quickly before anyone sees you here.”
His brow furrows slightly, and he tilts his head to the side in a move so familiar, my own head spins. Motion sickness by déjà vu. Having those green eyes on me, assessing me like I’m something amusing. Like I’m something to be toyed with...
I have to look away before I snap.
When he finally speaks, his voice is soothing and sincere, but it has the opposite effect I think he wanted. I want to punch him.
“I’m sorry for the media circus you must have experienced after the pier. I know it can be a lot if you’re not used to it.”
I huff a sarcastic laugh.
“Yeah, you can say that. I’d like to avoid another one so I don’t get fired from this job as well.”
“You got fired?”
“Yep. So can you get to the point please?”
“When does your shift end?”
“IN AN HOUR!” Quinton shouts, cutting me off before I can tell Torren that it’s none of his business. When I shoot Quin a glare, he’s brazenly lying over the check-out counter so he can eavesdrop. I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose.
“I’d like you to come with me to my studio in LA when you get off. I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”
I shake my head. I don’t open my eyes. I pinch the bridge of my nose harder.
“No.”
“It will just be for a couple of hours.”
“No.”
He goes quiet. After a long pause, I finally open my eyes and meet his. I arch a brow, urging him to say whatever it is he’s thinking so I can turn him down again and then kick him out. But when he finally does, I’m rendered speechless.
“I’ll give you five grand to come hear me out. If you don’t like what I have to say, I’ll have Damon bring you home, and you’ll never see me again.”
“She’ll go!” Quin shouts, and I glare at him again. He’s eating potato chips like this whole exchange is some fucking blockbuster movie. “What? Five grand for a few hours? You’re a dumbass if you say no.”
Shit . He’s right. Five thousand dollars would pay our rent for six months. I cave, and from that stupid infuriating twitch of a smirk on Torren’s face, he knows it.
“Fine. I’ll go. But you can’t wait here. You have to go drive around the block for an hour or something.”
“You don’t really like me, do you?” he asks, catching me off guard, and my defenses become ironclad. A sword ready to swing if necessary.
“That obvious?” I snark, and he shrugs.
“Why?”
“I need a reason?”
There’s a brief pause as his eyebrows slant, then he gives me a curt nod.
“Guess not. I’ll see you in an hour.”
“Forty-five minutes now,” Quinton interjects again, and Torren releases a ghost of a laugh.
“See you in forty-five minutes,” he amends, and then he’s gone.
Quinton and I watch as he climbs into the back seat of the black SUV before it drives off down the street, and then Quin lets out a long, slow whistle.
“Girl. I don’t care what it is he’s offering. You better take it.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose again. I’m too sleep deprived to deal with Torren fucking King.
I slide into the back seat of the SUV quickly, and the bodyguard shuts the door.
My movements are jerky as I pull on my seat belt. I don’t look at Torren, but he’s impossible to ignore. This whole car smells like him, and even though there’s a good two feet of leather seat between us, I can feel him pressing against me.
It’s probably his ego taking up space.
“Here.”
I glance down at the check he’s holding out to me. Five thousand dollars made out to Calla Lily James. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that he knows my name—it was all over the tabloids—but the possibility that he knows more makes me uneasy.
Is that what this is about? Some kind of follow-up? Is he going to make me sign the NDA I refused four years ago? Belated bribery?
If my nerves weren’t already sky high, they’re in fucking space now. But I can’t turn back at this point. Might as well just plow through for the 5k.
Six months of rent , I remind myself as I take the check and put it in my backpack, then pull out my big headphones.
“Thanks,” I say.
Then I put on my headphones, turn my body away from him, and stare out the window until we’re pulling into the private parking garage of a building of luxury apartments in Downtown LA.
I take off my headphones and sit up straight.
“I thought we were going to a music studio.”
“Oh, sorry, no. My studio. My apartment.” He must see the panic on my face because he responds quickly. “It’s just a meeting. My manager will be there. My bandmates.”
I blink at him and replay what he said over in my head. His bandmates . I’m about to walk into Torren King’s apartment for a meeting with his manager and his bandmates .
Good lord, what have I gotten myself into?
I clamp my mouth shut and follow him stiffly to a private elevator, then I press myself into the corner with my hands folded in front of me while the elevator rockets up fifty-seven floors.
Every few seconds, I feel his eyes on me, assessing in that way that he does. That way I remember so vividly.
What does he see?
I’m a far cry from that girl at the music festival. I’m still in my stupid khakis and work shirt. My hair is dirty. I’m not wearing makeup. I haven’t slept more than four hours for the last few nights, so I know I probably have purple circles under my eyes. I’m fucking exhausted, and it shows, and I hate that I remember everything while he seems blissfully ignorant. He made a lasting impression, and I didn’t even make it past short-term memory.
The elevator doors pop open with a musical ding and then I’m following him into an expansive hallway. He punches in a code, unlocking a door, and swings it wide.
“After you,” he says, gesturing for me to enter, so I do.
And then I stare.
Not only is this “studio apartment” four times the size of the apartment I share with my mom and sister, but it’s got floor-to-ceiling windows and the most modern features I’ve ever seen. The most jarring thing, though, are the four people sprawled out on a large leather sectional that has to be custom-made for the space.
They’re just hanging out as if they aren’t three-time Grammy-winning rock icons.
Jonah Hendrix, the lead guitarist for The Hometown Heartless, has one of his legs thrown over the arm of the couch, while Sav Loveless, the band’s guitarist and lead singer, sits with her feet propped up on a modern glass coffee table. The drummer, Mabel Rossi, is cross-legged, her socked feet tucked cozily under her knees on the couch cushion. Even Wade Hammond is here, the manager who made headlines last year for renegotiating the band’s contract with their record label. The terms were kept confidential, but everyone knows they were groundbreakingly in favor of the band. It paved the way for a whole new set of possibilities for artists.
I hate how much I envy them despite my loathing. I remind myself how toxic they are. How they’re rarely shown in a positive light in the media. And despite the good their recent contract did for the music industry, the iron hold they have on it is despicable.
Sure, they’re talented as hell, and their rise to fame was mostly based on merit and hard work. Sure, they earned it, to an extent. But fame, as usual, has poisoned them, and now they’ll step on anyone to maintain their place at the top of the industry hierarchy.
I can’t stop the way my eyes narrow. I wish I had more control over my face, but I’m overwhelmed and running on no sleep. It cannot be helped .
“Hey.” Torren steps beside me and addresses the group. Immediately, four sets of eyes settle on me. “This is Calla Lily. Calla Lily, this is Hammond, Jonah, Sav, and Mabel.”
“Hi. And it’s just Callie. No need to drop the government name.”
The smirk that pops up on Sav Loveless’s face fills me with a surge of pride before I beat it back into submission. I do not care about being liked by Sav Loveless.
I do not care about any of them.
As if hearing my thoughts, Sav studies me closer, her gray eyes narrowing slightly and her head tilting a bit to the side. I’m a bug under a microscope to her. Another person she might be able to use. My hatred surges up my throat like bile, but as much as I want to stare her down, I can’t. I look away and focus on Jonah Hendrix and Mabel Rossi as they greet me, instead. Then Wade Hammond—or Hammond, as he seems to go by—claps his hands together once and gestures to a plush leather chair.
“Have a seat. We’ll get started.”
Like a robot, I walk to the chair and have a seat. Back ramrod straight. Hands folded in my lap. The picture of discomfort, and everyone can tell.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, Miss James?—”
“Just Callie. Please.”
Hammond nods and plows forward. “I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule.”
“Sure.”
“We have a proposition for you, but before we begin, I do need to ask that you sign a non-disclosure?—”
My gut twists, and my mouth goes dry. Of course. The NDA. I almost want to laugh.
“—that states you won’t talk about the topic of this meeting today. Even if you decline the offer, it is still imperative that this doesn’t make it into the media. Should you take it to the media, we will take legal action?—”
I open my mouth to protest, to say thanks but no thanks and leave, but Wade Hammond holds up a palm and silences me. Like witchcraft, the words turn to dust before even making it out of my throat.
“This NDA requires nothing of you but your agreement to keep what we discuss confidential, but there is a caveat that states you are free to share your story with anyone you wish should we suggest or engage in anything illegal. However, once you sign this, we will also ask that you sign a release allowing us to record this meeting. As a precaution.”
My eyes widen. “I wouldn’t lie,” I protest.
“As I said. It’s a precaution.”
My nostrils flare, but the caveat has softened my resolve, and I take the tablet from Hammond’s outstretched hands to look over the PDF document on the screen. Sure as shit, it’s cut and dry. I understand every word. No sneaky legal jargon. No fine print. And no mention of the music festival four years ago.
Damn if my curiosity isn’t thoroughly piqued.
“Fine.”
Hammond offers me a stylus without my having to ask. Silently, I sign the NDA and then sign the video release form. Hammond takes it back, sets it on the couch beside him, then pushes a button on his phone, which I assume is starting a recording. I glance around the room for a camera, and Mabel laughs.
“You’re very on it,” she says with a grin, then she starts pointing. “There’s one up in that corner, one on top of the television, and one in the kitchen. There’s also one on the elevator, the emergency exit, and the front door. Nothing in the bathroom or bedrooms. And before you ask, yes, all of our places are like that.”
My eyes flare at the need for such excessive security measures.
“A precaution?” I ask, and everyone nods.
“Now that that’s done—Torren, you have the floor.”
Hammond turns his attention to Torren, so I do too. Reluctantly. When Torren makes eye contact with me, my pulse starts to race. His face stays blank, his voice even when he speaks the words that completely knock me on my ass.
“I’d like you to enter into a PR relationship with me.”