The Ballad of Darcy and Russell

Chapter 10

I stared at him.

It was like it took my brain a minute to click into gear. I’d seen images of this man my whole life—on album covers and magazines, in retrospective documentaries and music videos. I’d seen him on TV, at awards shows, and at the halftime show at the Super Bowl. I’d seen him hours ago—how was that possible?—onstage at Silverspun.

But until this moment, I’d never been just feet away from him—with him looking back at me.

Katy had gone down a bit of a rabbit hole last fall when she was working on a project for AP Psych about how our brains aren’t wired for celebrities. She’d explained that, for most of human history, if you saw someone a lot, it meant they were in your village or tribe or whatever, and you knew them. And that in our brains, frequency builds affection. So that when we’ve seen pictures of celebrities for years and years, our brains code them as someone we know. As a friend. When, in actuality, they’re total strangers.

I was feeling that now in real time, standing on the doorstep, as my mind tried to grapple with seeing Wylie Sanders close-up. In person, he looked older than I was expecting. Which made sense, since I was pretty sure he was in his sixties. Part of me—the part that Katy had talked about—was like, Oh! You know him! And the other, more rational part, was like, Holy fuck, that’s Wylie Sanders.

We all just stood there for a moment, and then—Wylie? Mr. Sanders?—reached out and pulled Russell into a tight hug.

“I was so mad!” Wylie Sanders said while hugging his son. I could see that Russell was hugging him back. He tugged on the back of Russell’s hair and then they stepped apart. “Don’t do that again! You can’t just leave like that! We were losing our minds—but I’m so glad you’re okay.” He smiled at his son, but this only lasted a second before it morphed into a frown. “But then you’re getting arrested? And now I’m mad all over again!” He cupped Russell’s face in his hands, kissed his cheek, then shook his head and sighed.

I looked between them, trying to process this—the warmth and worry and love that were as plain as anything on Wylie’s impossibly famous face. This was not the Wylie Sanders I’d been expecting to see.

Wylie slung an arm around Russell’s shoulders. “We’re going to have a talk, kiddo.”

Russell looked at his sneakers. A storm of emotions was crossing over his face—relief, anger, embarrassment. I didn’t know what had happened with his dad—what their fight was about, or how Russell had even ended up in a bus station in the first place. But whatever was going on, I knew my being there to see it was making things worse.

Then Wylie Sanders turned to me and smiled, and it was like I could practically feel a charm offensive coming at me. Like stage lights were clicking on one by one, bathing me in warmth. “And you must be… Darcy.” He seemed to twinkle when he said my name, and touched a hand to his heart in faux humility. “After my song, I presume.” He said this like he was setting up a punch line, like he expected me to say, No, it was from my grandmother, or I was named because of Pride and Prejudice, or My parents just liked it.

I swallowed quickly before speaking—my words were caught against my throat. “Um—yes, actually.”

Some of the practiced charm slipped a little bit, and a more surprised, genuine smile emerged. “Really?”

I nodded. “My dad—he’s a really big fan. So he named me after the song.” I took a breath and made myself say it, since I was very sure I wouldn’t ever get this chance again. “I am too. A big fan, I mean.”

He grinned, a totally genuine smile this time—big and a little dorky, and one I had never seen in any of his pictures or videos. “Really? That’s great!” He jostled Russell—his arm was still around his son’s shoulders. “See? Some kids your age like your dad’s music.”

“Um, okay,” Russell said. The tips of his ears, I could see, were starting to turn red again.

“All right,” Wylie Sanders said. He lifted his arm off Russell’s shoulders and clapped his hands together—they made a metallic clicking sound, probably because of all the rings. I noticed that he was also wearing an impressive number of necklaces—a silver chain and what looked like an enormous shark tooth on a leather cord, and a tiny, dagger-looking thing encrusted with diamonds. “Let’s go in and get all this sorted. Everything go okay with C.J.?”

Russell shook his head. “Not really. She was pretty aggressive. And I think she crossed some lines.” He glanced at me for a moment, then looked away again. “She was really unfair to Darcy.”

Wylie’s face fell, and he winced. “I’m so sorry, Darcy. C.J. sometimes forgets we’re not opposing counsel. I’ll have a talk with her. Okay?”

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure if he actually meant any of this. It was his job to be charming, after all—and his lawyer’s job to make sure the machine kept running.

He stepped inside the house, gesturing for us to follow, pushing the door open wider, giving me a smile. “Darcy, please come in! I’m sure you’re tired. And then I need to hear what happened at this hotel. And maybe one of you can explain to me why I’m apparently playing some kind of corporate retreat next month? And we should get some food in both of you. Priya’s making some penne. And you’re both just in time for Fishbowl!”

I wasn’t sure what most of that meant, but before I could ask—or pluck up my courage to tell him that actually, I wouldn’t be doing any of that, since I was about to leave—a brown-and-white bullet shot past me, brushing against my leg. It was a small dog, moving faster than I’d seen a dog move before—its legs were practically a blur. It took the three steps in a leap, seeming to hang in the air for just a moment before hitting the lawn and tearing across it.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake—Andy!” Wylie Sanders yelled. Russell dropped his backpack and ran after the dog, and after only a second’s hesitation, I did the same, dropping my canvas bag and running after him.

I hadn’t gotten far before Russell reached the dog—Andy. He scooped him up and started walking him back to the house.

I’d expected the dog to struggle, try and get away—he had been very intent on leaving—but his stub of a tail just wagged furiously, and he tried to stretch up to lick Russell’s face.

He was a small dog, probably ten or twelve pounds, with curly brown and white fur and a black nose. He ears flopped over, but it also seemed like he could lift them up, like he was doing now as he looked up at Russell beseechingly, as though asking why a belly rub wasn’t happening. He was, in short, very cute.

I turned and headed back to the house too—which was when I saw Wylie had gone inside, and my bag and Russell’s backpack had both disappeared. I didn’t understand why, at this place, my possessions were constantly disappearing.

Russell stepped inside and gestured me in. “Shut the door.” He nodded down at the dog in his arms. “Otherwise he’ll try to get out again.”

“Right.”

Russell’s voice was clipped and terse. I tried to remind myself that was how I’d resolved to talk to him as well, and I shouldn’t be upset that he was doing this too.

Only after the door was shut did Russell put Andy down. The dog shook himself once, a full-body shake, then trotted off.

Russell glanced at me and frowned. “You okay?”

“Um,” I said. My eyes were wide as I tried to take in everything around me. I was attempting to play it cool, but apparently I wasn’t pulling it off.

We were in the entranceway of Wylie Sanders’s house. But whereas my house’s foyer—if you could even call it that—was the place where we kicked off shoes and dropped bags and keys and coats, this was different. The ceilings were incredibly high, and I needed to tilt my head back almost all the way to see up to the top. But that wasn’t what I was staring at.

It was the art.

There was a Picasso across from me. A Picasso. It was hung on the wall, with no glass or anything, just the canvas in a wood frame. I automatically looked to the side of it, for the little white plaque that would give me the name and date of the painting, but of course it wasn’t there. Because this was someone’s house. There was a mobile hanging from the impossibly high ceiling, turning slowly this way and that. It was the kind I’d seen in museums before, even though I didn’t know the name of the artist. But the most difficult thing to look away from wasn’t the Picasso, or the mobile. It was the portrait right in front of me.

I didn’t think this was an artist I was supposed to know, despite the fact that it was hung next to what I was pretty sure was a Kehinde Wiley. It was an oil painting, and huge—well over six feet. It looked like the kind of painting I’d seen on the covers of old paperback sci-fi novels. Wylie Sanders was depicted standing, shirtless, on some kind of desert planet—there were three moons and a sun behind him, at any rate. He was raising a sword above his head in triumph, his long hair blowing in the wind. There was a blond girl in some kind of desert-bikini thing pressed up against his well-oiled torso as a spaceship rose into the air behind them.

“Yeah,” Russell said, seeing where I was looking. “Right. My stepmother had that commissioned. Ex-stepmother, now.” He shrugged. “We’ve all just gotten used to it.”

“Oh.” I forced myself to look away, even though it was challenging. I glanced around the foyer—but didn’t see my canvas bag anywhere, to say nothing of my tent or duffel. The last thing I wanted was to need anything from Russell—even information—but it didn’t seem like I had a choice. I folded my arms and took a breath. “Do you know where my stuff is?”

“No idea. Probably inside.” His voice was still cold, chilled all the way through. He shook his head. “I’ll see if I can track it down.” And with that, he walked inside the house and left me alone.

I hesitated for a moment—was I supposed to wait for Russell to come back with it? Or follow him? Was I really supposed to wander around a rock star’s house? But I needed my stuff back, and I didn’t see any other way to make that happen.

It’s okay.Didi’s voice was surprisingly gentle. It’s almost over. Just get your stuff and you can leave.

I pushed my shoulders back and walked into the next room. But I wasn’t sure if room was the right word, since it seemed to be basically the whole bottom floor of the house, just without any dividing rooms or doors. The kitchen—enormous, with two islands and no visible refrigerator—flowed into a dining area, which became a huge TV room. The TV room had a fireplace, lots of chairs, a coffee table, and was ringed with an enormous, squashy sectional couch.

There was more impressive art on the walls, but there were also family pictures, portraits and candids and Polaroids, hung up right next to the Rothkos.

I could see Russell standing off to the side of the room, talking to a dark-haired woman in her twenties who was holding an iPad. In addition to them—there were a lot of people in this house—there was a big group sitting around a massive dining table, which was right in front of floor-to-ceiling glass windows. And through the sliding glass doors I could see the backyard and a huge pool glowing with soft, subtle lights.

There were at least eight people sitting around the table—including Wylie Sanders—and most everyone seemed to be talking at once, laughing and yelling, their voices overlapping. It had to be getting close to eleven at night—why were all these people here? And who were they? What was going on?

The woman with the iPad walked across the room toward me, and I stepped quickly into her path. “Hi—do you know where my stuff is?”

She raised an eyebrow at me, and I realized a second later I’d asked this in the stupidest way possible. “Um—I’m Darcy,” I said, and her eyes widened in recognition. “Kendrick and Bella brought my things somewhere?”

She nodded. “Russell just asked me the same thing.” I looked over and saw that he’d now joined the group at the table. The woman gave me a nod and started to walk again. “I’ll track it down. Are you staying for dinner?”

“No—” I began, but she was walking past me and into the kitchen. I started to follow, when a pony stepped into my path.

A second later, I processed that it wasn’t a pony. But I wasn’t that far off—it was a harlequin Great Dane, with ears that stood straight up. It was light gray and dappled, with black spots all over. This dog was huge—its head was higher than my waist, and as it plodded over to me, head cocked to the side, I just blinked at it, trying to make sense of this massive creature that had suddenly appeared.

“Oh—right,” the woman with the iPad called, looking over at me from the kitchen. “That’s Tidbit.”

“Tidbit?”

“Darcy?” I looked over and saw Wylie Sanders walking from the table to the kitchen. He was motioning me over with a smile. “Come meet everyone!”

“Oh,” I called to him, still trying to get my head around the fact that Wylie Sanders knew my name. “I just need my stuff?”

“Hm?” he asked, cupping a hand around his left ear. “Come on!” Maybe thinking he was being called, Tidbit padded gravely over to him. Wylie scratched his neck, without even having to lean down to do it. Clearly getting jealous, Andy stood up from under the table, shook himself, and ran over to Wylie, walking under Tidbit to accomplish this.

Feeling like I really didn’t have a choice, I walked over to the kitchen, where I could see that in addition to the woman with the iPad, there was a South Asian woman in her thirties who was stirring something on the stove.

“Give us your opinion on this pasta sauce,” Wylie Sanders said to me with a kind smile.

“Yes!” the girl at the stove said as she turned around, looking irritated. “Everyone keeps adding stuff to it and they’re messing with its integrity.”

“We just want to eat, Priya,” the woman with the iPad said, a faint Southern accent lurking in her words. “We’re trying to move the process along.”

“And we will,” Priya said, “when the sauce is right!” She looked at me expectantly.

“Oh,” I said, shaking my head, even though my stomach growled in spite of myself. “I’m actually not staying—”

“Hey!” Wylie Sanders yelled to the room at large. When nobody at the table paid him any attention, he put two fingers in his mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle. Every human in the room stopped talking, even as the dogs started barking frantically. “Hush,” he said in the dogs’ direction. “Everyone,” he continued, raising his voice. He pointed at me. “This is Darcy. She’s Russell’s friend.” Eleven people—and two dogs—turned to stare at me and I felt my face get hot. Russell, I noticed, was deliberately not looking in my direction. Wylie smiled at me and took a comically large breath. “Ready?”

“Um,” I said, not exactly sure what he was talking about.

“That’s my daughter Montana,” he said, starting at one end of the table. I tried not to do a double take when I realized I recognized her from her yacht escapades. She looked like she was in her late thirties, with long dark hair, and she waved at me cheerfully.

“My son Connor, her brother,” Wylie continued. Connor looked like he was older than Montana—in his forties maybe, with a sandy beard—but I could see the resemblance between them. “His wife, Sydney,” Wylie continued, pointing to an Asian woman next to Connor. She gave me a friendly, if slightly confused, wave. She was wearing a very cool jumpsuit and had perfect, straight-across blunt bangs. “My son Wallace,” he continued, nodding at a guy in his late twenties who, bewilderingly, had a pile of small, folded pieces of paper in front of him. He was Black, with trendy oversized glasses.

“Russell you’ve met,” he continued, and we made eye contact for half a second before looking away again. “I’m Wylie,” he said, and then chuckled, like it was the best joke he’d heard in a while.

“Dad,”Wallace, Montana, and Connor groaned in unison.

“Now,” he said, gesturing to the other side of the table, where three women were sitting. They all looked back at me and I felt my eyes widen—because I recognized all of them. I was looking at three of Wylie Sanders’s ex-wives, but what were they doing here? And sitting next to one another?

“This is Kenya,” he said, nodding toward a regal-looking Black woman wearing a flowing caftan. I gave her a smile, hoping it wasn’t clear that I recognized her from paparazzi photos and red-carpet pictures. “Wallace’s mother and my ex-partner.”

“Nice to meet you,” Kenya said, sounding polite but confused.

“Connor and Montana’s mother, Paula,” he said, gesturing to the white woman sitting next to Kenya. She gave me a nod and a smile—the smile I recognized from when she’d been featured on the cover of the Nighthawks’ second album, wearing a statement necklace and not much else. Now, though, she was wearing a button-up shirt over a bathing suit, her silver-streaked hair damp.

“And this is Chloe, my ex-wife.” I nodded, still trying to get my head around all of this. Chloe was probably the ex of Wylie’s I was most familiar with, just because she was the most recent. She was as stunning in person as she had been on the cover of People after she and Wylie had gotten married despite only knowing each other for a weekend—Fifth Time’s the Charm! the headline had touted. She had long blond wavy hair and dark blue eyes. She had a dusting of freckles, and I could see a constellation of tiny earrings in her ear, multiple piercings. She was wearing slouchy sweatpants that said Free City on one leg and a white T-shirt. But somehow, these didn’t look like the sweats and tees I normally wore—you could somehow just tell they were expensive.

And while I knew she was Wylie’s ex-wife—I’d read all about their contentious divorce, the fight over their twins—sitting here, with no makeup that I could see, she looked incredibly young. Younger than most of the people at the table, and that included Wylie’s kids. A second later, I also realized that she was the girl in the sci-fi oil painting in the foyer, the one who’d commissioned it.

“Hey,” Chloe said, drawing one leg up. “Darcy.” She raised her eyebrows at my name. “Pull up a chair. Allegedly, we’re eating dinner.”

“I’m working on it!” Priya called, sounding stressed.

I lifted my hand in a wave that I immediately regretted. “Uh, hi.” I tried not to sound as baffled as I currently felt. But I was truly stunned by what was in front of me—the web of exes and kids and partners that had just been laid out. What was going on? Why were all Wylie’s kids from different relationships hanging out together? Why were three of his ex-wives all sitting next to each other, none of them in a screaming match? Weren’t Wylie and Chloe going rounds with lawyers over the custody of their twins? That was what I had heard was going on, at any rate. What was happening here?

I glanced over at Russell, and he met my eye for just a second before looking away. I felt my anger rise again as I thought about what he’d told me—that he was an only child. How he’d pretended to agree with me, to know what it was like. And here he was, surrounded by a family that was living proof of the lies he’d told me.

“This is Priya, Montana’s partner,” Wylie said, and the woman at the stove gave me a nod. “Bronwyn, who keeps the wolves at bay,” he said, indicating the dark-haired woman in the kitchen who was still bent over an iPad. “Astrid and Artie and Dashiell are here too, but they’re sleeping,” he said, checking these off on his beringed fingers, then turned to me. “So! Any questions?”

I actually had a lot—including, but not limited to, where my possessions were—but before I could answer, Wylie was continuing.

“Everyone, please give Darcy a nice Sanders family welcome, okay? So she doesn’t think we’re complete savages and reprobates.”

“She’s going to be disappointed when she finds out, then,” Montana said with a grin. She shot Russell a significant look, like she was indicating she thought I was a lot more than a friend. Russell, however, just stared pointedly out the window.

“Name a celebrity,” Wallace said to me, adjusting his glasses, pen poised over a scrap of paper.

“Wallace,” Kenya chided, taking a sip of her wine. “Is that how we welcome guests?”

He rolled his eyes. “Hi, welcome. Name a celebrity.”

“I… what?” I looked around, but everyone was just looking at me expectantly, nobody explaining what was happening. Was this some sort of weird Sanders hazing ritual? Was I supposed to say Wylie Sanders? Or was I not supposed to say him?

“Just anyone,” Connor said. “We need it for Fishbowl.”

“First person that comes into your head,” Sydney added, giving me a smile.

Wallace pointed at me. “Go.”

“Um. Um. Steve Guttenberg?” The second I’d said it, I regretted it, and felt heat flood my face. Steve Guttenberg?

Deafening silence greeted this answer, and I saw Wallace widen his eyes at Connor before looking back at me. “Sure,” he said, nodding. “Uh—thanks.”

“Good pick,” Wylie Sanders said cheerfully to me, which somehow made everything worse. I was getting pitied by a multiple Grammy winner because the only celebrity I could think of was Steve Guttenberg. It was like a nightmare, but one I hadn’t had before because I hadn’t been creative enough to think up these specifics. Wylie steered me away from the table and toward the kitchen. “Now, sauce help.”

“I was actually—”

“Here.” Priya was suddenly shoving a spoon at me. “Opinion, please.”

I took the spoon from her, figuring it was the path of least resistance. It was a vodka sauce, and good—until the end, when it suddenly got very spicy. “Ah,” I said, trying not to look like my mouth was on fire. “Um. Good. A little spicy?”

She whirled around to face the dark-haired woman who was still bent over her tablet. “I told you, Bronwyn! We didn’t need that extra pinch of chili flakes.”

She glanced up from her iPad. “I’m from Texas,” she said. “Don’t ask me about spice level if you don’t want a real answer.” I noticed she was dressed a little more professionally than everyone else, who were mostly in sweatpants or bathing suits with cover-ups. She set down her iPad with a relieved sigh. “Okay, there’s no chatter about the hotel. We’re monitoring the social media accounts of the Silver Standard employees and front-desk workers, but nothing so far. And C.J.’s going to be getting NDAs to them first thing tomorrow.”

“Wait, what’s happening?” Priya asked, frowning.

“Nothing,” Bronwyn said cheerfully. “Because I’m very good at my job.” She turned to me. “Bronwyn Taylor. I handle Mr. Sanders’s PR. Just wanted you to know it looks like everything is locked down in Jesse.”

“Where?” Priya asked, turning around from the stove. “Stop distracting me if you want to eat!”

“Are we eating?” A man in his fifties wandered in. He was Black, and wearing a sweatshirt that read Sedona! “It’s getting late.” He stopped when he saw Russell. “Russ is back!” he said, smiling at him. “Where did you come from?”

“That’s Darcy,” Kenya said, indicating me. “Darcy, this is my husband, Doug.”

“Hi,” Doug said, nodding at me. “Nice to meet you. Are you staying for dinner? Is dinner happening… anytime soon?”

“I’m working on it!” Priya cried from the stove. “I have to cook for all these people, you know, and then two more show up…”

“It’s really okay.” I took a breath, about to explain that I wouldn’t be staying, or eating any more of her very spicy vodka sauce, so she didn’t have to include me in her count.

“Don’t pressure my girlfriend,” Montana called from the table.

“I’m just hungry,” Doug grumbled as he walked over to Kenya and kissed the top of her head. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect dinner before eleven at night.”

“Pretend we’re in Spain,” Chloe said with a smile.

“So we’ll continue to monitor this,” Bronwyn said to Wylie, her voice a little softer now. “But I don’t think you need to be concerned. We’ve got the situation well in hand.”

I suddenly realized that I had just been guilty of an egregious lapse in manners. But in my defense, nobody had ever used their celebrity status to get me out of a jam before. I knew I needed to thank Wylie Sanders—it should have been the first thing I’d done—but should I also offer to reimburse him for the helicopter ride? For the legal counsel?

“Um, Mr. Sanders,” I said. “I just wanted to thank you. For… uh… helping out.” Russell glanced over at me, and his mouth twisted in a frown. “I’m so sorry that we put you in that position. I never usually… I mean…” I didn’t know why it was important to me that this rock star I’d never see again knew that I wasn’t the kind of person who went around breaking into hotel pools, but for whatever reason, it seemed to be. “I’m really sorry. And really grateful.”

He gave me a smile. “You’re welcome, Darcy. I was happy to help.”

Chloe snorted, got up from the table, and walked into the kitchen with her wineglass. “Babes,” she said to Wylie, rolling her eyes. “You were livid. You were not ‘happy to help.’?”

“I wouldn’t say livid, Chloe,” Wylie Sanders demurred.

She snorted again. “Sure. Is there more of the sauv blanc?”

“Mumma?” I looked over to see a small blond child in Spider-Man pajamas standing in the kitchen.

“Artie,” she said with a sigh. “What are you doing out of bed?”

Russell had mentioned an Artie—but he’d told me that was his cool older cousin. Not a three-year-old—which meant this was one more lie Russell had told me. I glanced over at him, but he was laughing with Wallace about something. Probably about me picking Steve Guttenberg.

Chloe scooped Artie up and rested him on her hip, and I was jarred by it all over again—how young she looked. Too young to have been married, divorced, and the mother of a kid old enough to have superhero preferences.

“Artie, help us out,” Wallace called across the room to him. “Name a celebrity.”

“The Rock,” Artie said immediately.

“Thanks, bud,” Wallace said. He shot me a brief look, one that clearly said Was that so hard?

“Did you wake your sister up?” Chloe asked him.

“I didn’t,” he protested, trying to wriggle down. “I’m just hungry.”

“Ooh, try my sauce!” Priya said. She turned around with a spoon, just as Artie spotted Russell across the room.

“Russell!” he yelled, and launched himself in his direction.

Russell grinned when he saw him coming, a real smile, one that opened up his whole face. He got out of his chair, picked up his little brother, and swung him around.

“Where were you?” Artie asked, even as he laughed, clearly delighted to be flying around in circles. “You didn’t come back on the plane with everyone. And you promised me that you were going to play Brontosaurus.”

“Sorry, bud,” Russell said. He stopped spinning him and set him down. Artie took a few wobbly steps. “We can play tomorrow, okay?”

“Or now!”

“No,” Wylie and Chloe said in unison.

Artie grabbed Russell’s hand and started pulling him toward the kitchen. Russell met my eyes, and I could tell that this was the last place he wanted to be—anywhere in proximity to me. “Can we go swimming?” he practically yelled.

“Take it down a notch, bud,” Wylie said.

“Yeah,” Chloe agreed, glancing upstairs. “Your nephew is sleeping.”

I bumped on nephew before I remembered how this worked. Presumably, one of Wylie’s older children—like Connor—must have kids of their own. Which would mean that this three-year-old was someone’s uncle.

“Want some pasta, kid?” Priya asked, taking her pot off the stove. Artie’s eyes lit up.

“Yes, please,” he said. “I like the bow kind. With a little butter and the cheese from the green can.”

“I have this great sauce!”

“No thank you.”

“At least try it?”

“Hey, buddy,” Montana said, walking over to the kitchen. She tickle-lunged at Artie, who shrieked in delight and ran a few feet away. “Dinner almost ready, P?”

“Fishbowl is ready,” Wallace called, sounding irritated. “Are we not playing?”

“After dinner,” Sydney said, clapping her hands together. “I need to eat something or I’ll get grumpy.”

“Get grumpy?” Connor asked. She whacked him on the arm.

“Before we eat…,” Wylie Sanders said. He clapped his hand on Russell’s shoulder. “We need to have a chat.”

Russell sighed. “Yeah.”

“What’s happening?” Montana asked.

“Russ is in trouble,” Chloe said in a low voice.

“Not trouble, exactly,” Wylie said, then paused. “Well—actually, yeah. Trouble.”

“Yikes,” Priya said as she started pulling down bowls from a cabinet.

“And no offense,” Doug said, hustling into the kitchen, “but we might not wait.”

“Good luck,” Montana said. She cleared her throat and rested her hand on her heart. “?‘It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest that I go to—’?”

“Okay,” Russell said, shaking his head. “We don’t need to make this worse.” He headed out of the room, following his dad, but then stopped and turned back to me. “So you’re going to go?” His voice was icy, but not believably so—like a lake that looked frozen but would crack with the first step.

“Yep.” I made sure to keep my tone clipped. If I’d needed another reason to keep being mad at him, all I had to do was look around me. This whole life Russell had that he’d kept from me, spinning an entirely new picture just for kicks.

“So I guess this is it?”

“Guess it is.”

“Don’t go on my account.”

“I wasn’t ever going to stay. I’m leaving as soon as I get my stuff back. I’m not sure where it went.”

“I’ll find Kendrick,” Bronwyn said, setting down her iPad and striding out of the kitchen. Her response made me all too aware that everyone around us could hear our conversation, and that nobody was making any effort to disguise the fact that they were listening.

“Well—bye.”

I folded my arms. “Bye.”

We looked at each other for a moment, but Russell didn’t make any move to leave. And it hit me all at once that this was how it ended. That our night, fated and random, wonderful and terrible, was over.

“Okay,” Wylie said after a moment in which the silence stretched on to the point of uncomfortable. He gave me a smile that seemed real. “Lovely to meet you, Darcy. Get home safe.”

“Thank you for everything,” I said, meaning it, trying to put all the warmth in my tone that I was keeping from Russell. Wylie gave me a nod and headed down the hallway.

Russell looked at me for a moment longer, his eyes searching mine. He took a breath—

“Russ!” Wylie called.

He hesitated for one second more, then turned and left the room, following his dad. I watched him go, trying to ignore the pull I felt in my stomach. This was what I wanted, after all. It was.

So why did this feel so awful?

“Where’s home?” Chloe asked me. I jumped slightly—I hadn’t realized she’d ended up right next to me.

“Oh—LA.”

“How are you getting there?” She was watching me closely, her dark blue eyes slightly narrowed.

“I’ll get a bus. I’m sure there will be one soon.” And even if there wasn’t, I would wait, but I didn’t think I needed to share that part with Chloe.

“A bus?”

“Sorry,” Kendrick said, hurrying into the kitchen. He was carrying my duffel, my canvas bag, and the tent. “These were put in the Bleecker Street guesthouse. I thought you were staying?”

I took them from him. “No, I’m heading out. But thanks so much.”

“Want some pasta, Kendrick?” Priya called.

He shook his head. “I wish. I’m keto right now.”

“Your loss.”

“It literally is,” he said, flexing a bicep. “Ten pounds and counting!”

“Wait,” Chloe said, shaking her head. “I’m not sure we should let you just go to the bus station alone.”

“It’s really fine,” I said as I pulled up my rideshare app. My phone was charged enough now for me to call an Uber, and though I didn’t have a huge amount of money in my account, it looked like I had enough for the ride to the bus station. I’d just wait there for the next available bus, and be on my way back to LA.

“Let me drive you down to the gates,” Kendrick said. “I can get the golf cart.”

I shook my head, trying not to look exasperated. Maybe this was what having millions of dollars did to you. I was certainly capable of walking down a driveway. “That’s okay. But thank you.”

“It’s a long driveway,” Montana said, raising an eyebrow at me. “I’d take him up on it.”

“I’m fine.”

“Well,” Kendrick said a little uncertainly, “just wave to the camera when you get to the bottom of the gates. Security will open the door for you. You have a ride coming?”

“Uh-huh,” I lied. I saw that Chloe was looking at me closely, her expression skeptical. I was sure she was going to say something, but then Priya yelled that dinner was ready.

In the stampede for food that followed, I was able to shout a goodbye and thank-you in the general direction of the room, then grab my stuff and head back to the entrance hall.

In the foyer, I took one more look at the Chloe and Wylie sci-fi desert picture, then walked outside, closing the door quickly behind me so that Andy wouldn’t get out.

I stood there on the step for just a moment—the quiet a contrast to the chaos in the house. I felt like I was turning off a movie halfway through, or leaving a play at intermission. Like the story was going to continue on without me—and I wouldn’t know how it ended.

I shook my head and walked down the steps, pausing to look at the balloon dog for one last moment before crossing the lawn to the gravel driveway. The fact was, I needed to leave. And I was positive Russell wanted me to go just as badly as I wanted to.

But if that was the case, why had my stuff been brought to one of the guesthouses? I only let myself think about this for a second before I pushed it away—it was probably just crossed wires, nothing else. I looked up and suddenly understood why Kendrick had offered to drive me.

The driveway was gravel, impossibly long, with enormous palm trees planted on either side of it. It was the kind of driveway I’d only seen in movies—I half expected to see carriages arriving for a ball, or Ethan Hunt’s sports car driving up it. At the end, a very long way off, I could see a set of metal gates—it looked like there was a WS worked into the iron.

“Okay,” I said. Because what else was there to do except start the trek? But now that I was no longer inside a house with Wylie Sanders himself, I figured it would at least be okay to wear his merch. I set the duffel and tent down and dug my sweatshirt out of my canvas bag, looking at it for just a second, thinking how strange it was that I’d now met him. That Wylie was no longer just an image on a sweatshirt or a voice in a song—he was an actual person who’d really tried to make me feel welcome.

I pulled it on—it was a chilly, clear night, the sky an inky dark blue, with a few stars visible. Then I picked up the duffel and tent and walked down the driveway.

I couldn’t help thinking back on how nice everyone had seemed. It was nothing like I’d thought it would be. They’d been bantering and joking together, exes and current partners and kids all sitting around a table as a family. All these siblings and half-siblings, getting along and hanging out. And it was clear they all really liked each other.…

Unbidden, I flashed back to the one and only meal I’d shared with my three half-siblings. How awkward it had been. How my defenses had been up going in, and how it only got worse every time I had to watch Gillian mothering them, laughing with them, helping to cut their food—not doing anything extraordinary, just being a regular mom. How I’d decided after that it was proof that it was better to keep things separated—me and my dad, Gillian and her real family. That trying to do stuff like have dinners was just too complicated.

Katy coughed discreetly. More complicated than five ex-wives and millions of dollars and the world press reporting on it?

Even as I tried to push it away, I thought about how Gillian’s daughter Freya kept requesting to be my friend on Instagram. How I kept ignoring it. And all at once, it didn’t feel like I was taking the high road or staying above it all. It just seemed small. And mean.

I shook my head and made myself keep walking, no sound except my sandals crunching over gravel. My thoughts kept returning to the happy, busy world I’d just left—everyone sitting down to a pasta dinner as a family, preparing to play Fishbowl (whatever that was). Now that I’d experienced it firsthand, it was like I could feel the depth of Russell’s lies. All the people he’d just erased when he told me he was an only child.

I mean, it’s not like you were being honest about Gillian,Katy pointed out. Or Stanwich.

But she wasn’t actively lying,Didi countered. She was just eliding the truth.

I think it’s the same thing,Katy said. And that Darcy shouldn’t be mad at him for something she was doing.

Maybe that’s why sheis mad, Didi suggested.

I increased my pace, trying to ignore this. None of it mattered, after all. I wasn’t going to see these people ever again. I was leaving tomorrow. I was off to the barren wasteland that was Connecticut. Even if I could understand a little more where Russell was coming from, what was the point of any of it?

We’d said goodbye. It was over.

What I needed now was to put all of this behind me and think about my next steps. I’d get to the gates, call my Uber. During the ride to the station, I could look up the next bus to LA.…

My phone rang in my bag, breaking the quiet of the night and startling me. It had been off for so much of tonight, it was almost like I’d forgotten that it was on and working now, and people could use it to reach me.

Gillian Beaulieuwas the name on my screen. I stared at it for a moment, like this was a mirage that would disappear instantly. My mother’s British husband, Anthony (Ant-ony)’s last name was pronounced Bewley, which was always hard to remember when I saw it written out. Most of the (very few) conversations I’d had with Anthony had revolved around him telling me not to pronounce certain letters in his name.

I stared down at my phone, trying to figure out what was happening. Why was Gillian calling me when it was getting close to two in the morning her time? Why was she calling me at all?

Unless—a cold fear gripped me—what if she wasn’t calling me? What if something had happened?

I stopped walking and slid my finger across the screen, answering the call before it went to voicemail. “Hello?”

“Darcy.” It was Gillian’s voice, and I felt a clear flash of relief shoot through me.

“Hi,” I said. “Um—it’s late there.”

“I know.” Her voice was terse and angry, and my relief was immediately replaced with irritation, like someone had flipped a switch, changed electrical currents. “I’ve received a call from a lawyer in Las Vegas?”

“What?” I dropped my duffel and the tent onto the gravel—they really were heavy. “C.J. called you?” Why was C.J. calling my mother when she’d made me sign a legally binding document that said I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone? Why would she be expanding the circle of people who knew about this, rather than trying to make it smaller?

“No. Some yawning person named Sarah.” I could hear the anger in my mother’s words, running just underneath them like water. “Waking me up. Waking Anthony up.”

“I’m sorry that she woke up Anthony,” I said, meaning it. After all, he didn’t have anything to do with this. “But why would she call you?”

“I don’t know!” Gillian snapped. “She seemed to think I would know something about what you’ve been up to. And when I asked why she was calling so late, it became clear she thought I was still in England.”

“Oh.” That one actually was on me, but I wasn’t about to apologize for it. This situation was starting to make a little more sense—Sarah must have been trying to do damage control, make sure I hadn’t talked to anyone before I signed the NDA.

“What is this, Darcy? What did you do?”

Just like that, I was irritated, my hackles up, the way I only ever felt when talking to Gillian. “I didn’t do anything.”

Well, Katy said.

Um, Didi added.

“I didn’t do anything you need to concern yourself with,” I amended.

“Well, clearly you did,” Gillian snapped. And for just a second, I could hear something underneath her annoyance—worry. I remembered how my heart had seized when I’d thought, just for a moment, that something might have happened to her. Had she had the same thing when she’d gotten a middle-of-the-night call about me?

“I’m fine,” I said, running my hand over my eyes.

All of a sudden, though, I felt just how long the night had been, everything hitting me at once. I was wrung out and exhausted, in a bone-deep way. I dropped the last thing I’d been holding, my canvas bag, and then I joined it, sinking down onto the gravel. I felt my lower lip tremble.

I wanted to be at home. In my own state, in my own bed. I wanted someone to bring me something to eat and brush my hair back from my forehead and tell me that everything would be okay.

I wanted my mother.

“Darcy?” Gillian’s voice was a little more hesitant now, some of the anger gone.

And my mother was right there. She was with me now, just on the other end of the phone. But this was the whole problem, and always had been. Because while most of the time I told myself I was fine with the fact I didn’t have a mother, that Gillian was never going to be what I wanted her to be—at certain moments, like now, it was as if the curtain was pulled back. And suddenly all I could see was the gulf between what I wanted and what I had.

And what I had was so little.

I shook my head, even though I knew Gillian couldn’t see me, and sat up straighter. She didn’t get to know anything about my night. It was information she wasn’t entitled to, a level of clearance she hadn’t earned.

“I’m fine,” I repeated, even as I could feel that tears were incipient, threatening to spill.

“You don’t sound fine.”

“Oh, how would you know?” I snapped. “From all your experience with me? From the twelve hours total you’ve spent with me over the last ten years?”

I heard her draw in a sharp breath over the other end of the phone. The kind you take when someone sucker-punches you. “That’s not fair. I’m trying—”

“Oh, you’re trying? Alrighty, then. Great! So now everything is fixed.”

“Look,” Gillian said, and I could hear the irritation in her voice again. “I was woken up in the middle of the night—”

“I’m sorry, okay?” My voice was rising. “I didn’t know they were going to call you. I didn’t tell them to.”

“Are you in trouble? I don’t understand why they called me at all.”

“I’m not in trouble. And they called you because they were under the mistaken impression that I had a mother. I’ll be sure to correct them on that account, okay?”

She didn’t say anything, but somehow I could hear the hurt in her silence, radiating out over the phone line, crossing the country from her in Connecticut to me in Nevada.

“Well.” Her voice was going into cold-and-frosty mode, which always made her sound extra British. “The next four years will certainly be fun.”

“That’s your doing,” I reminded her. “I didn’t ask you for any favors.”

“No, but you accepted them.”

I blinked at that, surprised into silence. This was technically true, but…

“We can talk about this another time.” Gillian sounded like she was trying to pull us back to more solid ground, not this dangerous place where we might accidentally tell the truth. “But… are you okay? Do you need something?”

That was all it took for my chin to start wobbling. I’d needed so much from her over the years—I’d needed things I’d never even admitted to myself, because it would just be that much harder when I never got them.

“No.” I was trying to control my voice, even as I heard it crack. “Sorry that you were woken up. It won’t happen again.” Then I ended the call. I held the phone in my hand for a moment, tears balanced on the edge of my lashes, waiting to see if she’d call me back. Waiting to see if she would have heard something in my voice—known something; known that I needed her right then.

But the phone remained silent, and I could practically see it in my mind—Gillian setting the phone on her nightstand, getting back into bed, murmuring an apology to Anthony, not giving this another thought.…

I ran my hands through my hair and took a shaky breath. I was fine. I was more than fine. I was figuring things out on my own. I didn’t need her.

Really?Katy whispered, her voice gentle.

And that was all it took. The tears spilled over, and I put my hands over my eyes and cried.

I didn’t care, in that moment, that I was sobbing in the driveway of an international celebrity. I gave up on caring if anyone saw me—because there was no stopping this.

I was crying for my mom. And all that I’d wanted and hadn’t gotten. And how exhausting it was to pretend that I didn’t need her or want her, when it was a flimsy lie that wasn’t even fooling me. I was crying for the way that even when she was saying all the right things, I couldn’t trust that she meant it. I was crying for the way I’d spoken to her, and how I already regretted it.

I cried for me, and for Russell, and the way it felt like we’d come close to something real, something special, for just a moment tonight before it all fell apart. I cried for the fear and exhaustion of the last three days, having to be so vigilant, while Romy got to run off and do whatever she wanted, because she knew that I would be there, holding down the fort and picking up the pieces. I cried for the way college already felt ruined and tainted, and for how I wasn’t excited and optimistic about it like my friends—like this was just one more thing I didn’t get. I cried because of the mess I’d made of everything, and the way I felt so trapped.

And finally, I cried because I was tired and cold and hungry and alone, and there were rocks digging into my legs.

I was just starting to pull it together a little when I felt something small and soft climb into my lap, and I froze.

Andy—who’d managed to escape again—was looking up at me.