Chapter 39
TIANA
Sylas’s face fills my phone screen, far too close and entirely too serious.
“TJ, Dad made pasta.”
I pause with one earring halfway through my ear. “Okay…”
“With sauce from a jar.”
I gasp so dramatically my voice echoes off the hotel bathroom tile. “No!”
“Yes.”
“Was there at least cheese?”
“Nope.”
I clutch my chest. “This is neglect.”
A low voice sounds somewhere in the background. “That is not what happened.”
My entire body reacts before my brain gets permission. I don’t see Griffin at first, but I hear him, gruff and low.
My stomach tightens in a way I refuse to acknowledge as longing.
Sylas’s eyes dart away from the screen. “But you did make jar sauce.”
I press my lips together, trying not to laugh.
“Whatever,” Griffin mumbles.
Sylas turns the phone slightly, and his dad comes into view.
Griffin is sitting on the couch, his arms crossed over his chest, long sleeves rolled to his forearms. His hair is a little messy, his jaw shadowed, and even through a screen, he looks like he was carved out of stone.
Our eyes meet for half a second. Then his gaze moves away first.
My smile stays in place because I am nothing if not committed to lying with my face.
“Otherwise, how are you surviving without me?” I ask Sylas, forcing my attention back where it belongs. “Be honest. Is the house collapsing?”
Sylas leans closer to the camera and lowers his voice. “He folded my blanket wrong.”
“In front of you?”
“Yes.”
“Monster.”
Griffin exhales in the background. I bite back a laugh so hard it almost hurts.
I miss that. The muttering and brooding. The way his presence takes over a room even when he’s standing silently in the corner.
I hate that I miss it.
After everything—the hot and cold and the way he pulled away from me—there is still a part of me that softens at the sound of him.
I’ve barely spoken to him since I left for LA.
We’ve only exchanged practical messages. He gave me space, and now I am stuck dealing with the irritating reality that space does not feel as satisfying as it should when you still miss the person standing on the other side of it.
“Also, he put my blue cup where the green cups go,” Sylas adds.
I widen my eyes. “This is worse than I thought.”
He giggles, and my chest squeezes so hard I have to look away for a second under the guise of fastening my other earring.
God, I miss this little menace and his dinosaur debates and random facts. His sticky fingers on my leggings and his tiny footsteps racing down the hall.
I miss Seattle.
I miss Griffin’s stupid house.
I miss… Griffin.
“Are you coming home tomorrow?” Sylas asks.
“First thing in the morning,” I tell him. “My flight leaves early; I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“On the snack drawer?”
“On the snack drawer,” I confirm.
That seems to settle something in him.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you, TJ.”
“Love you too, bug.”
He looks off to the side. “Dad, say bye.”
My stomach flips.
Griffin moves closer. He stays just behind Sylas’s shoulder, his face partially visible, his expression guarded in that way I know too well.
“Have a good night,” he says.
“You too.”
Griffin’s eyes hold mine through the screen. Sylas grins, then the call ends.
The room goes quiet. I lower the phone and stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
My makeup is done, curls are pinned, and I’m wearing a silky black dress I packed for exactly this kind of event.
The commercial shoot wrapped this afternoon and it went well. Amazingly well, actually.
The first day, I was so nervous I thought my body might simply reject consciousness and drop me on the studio floor.
There were too many lights, too many people adjusting things around me, too many instructions being called out.
But Renee stayed by my side the entire time with her calm voice and her terrifying ability to bully a room into giving me five minutes to breathe.
She reminded me when to eat, fixed my hair between takes, and kept whispering, “You’ve got this,” like she could somehow pour confidence directly into my bloodstream.
And @built2last helped too.
For every break, anxious spiral, or whenever I stepped into the hallway to breathe, there he was, saying the exact thing I needed without making me feel like I was being too fragile.
When I told him I was nervous, he said nerves meant I cared, not that I was unprepared.
When I sent him a picture of the set and said I felt like I had infiltrated a world for more polished people than me, he told me polished people were always the least interesting ones in the room.
When I texted him after the director said I’d nailed the last take, he replied, “Obviously. It’s you, Trouble.”
I stared at the message for so long, Renee asked why I was smiling at my phone like that.
I told her it was nothing, which is a lie—it is not nothing.
I am getting attached to an internet stranger.
There. I said it.
But it’s happening.
He has become the person I reach for when something good happens. The person I want to message when I’m nervous, annoyed, or when I see something ridiculous and need someone to appreciate it with me. He’s been with me in the spaces where others haven’t, which is both comforting and terrifying.
Sometimes, I think about asking him to meet.
The thought makes my stomach twist with nerves and something too close to excitement.
Maybe when I get back to Seattle, I’ll ask if he wants coffee. Public place. Daylight. No murder vibes. Very responsible.
My phone buzzes on the counter and my stupid heart jumps.
@built2last
Last night in LA.
I’m already smiling.
I glance down at my dress, then snap a photo of the hem and my heels.
@tianawithlove
unfortunately I’m being forced to attend the influencer party.
@built2last
That sounds like a tragedy.
I snort, leaning my hip against the bathroom counter.
@built2last
Are you going alone?
I stare at the message, my thumb hovering over the screen.
Something about the question sends warmth through me, which is annoying because concern from faceless men should not be attractive. I do not have time to develop a protective-stranger kink. My emotional schedule is booked.
@tianawithlove
Renee is coming with me. and a few people from the shoot.
I bite the inside of my cheek and check myself in the mirror again. Tonight, I look like a woman who belongs in LA—even though she is already counting down the hours until she can go home.
@built2last
Have fun tonight, Tiana.
He uses my name sometimes. And every time, it catches me low in my stomach.
@tianawithlove
I’ll try.
@built2last
And text someone if you need an escape.
I smile softly.
@tianawithlove
someone?
@built2last
Your faceless emergency contact.
The warmth in my chest spreads.
@tianawithlove
noted.
Renee knocks on my hotel room door. “TJ? You ready?”
I lock my phone, tucking it into my clutch. Then I take one last look in the mirror, smooth my hands down my dress, lift my chin, and walk out the door.
By the time we get to the event, the party is already in full swing.
The venue is beautiful. All open sky with the Los Angeles skyline glittering beyond the rooftop like someone spilled diamonds across the dark.
Heat lamps glow between clusters of low couches, music pulses through hidden speakers, and every table has some kind of floral arrangement that looks expensive.
Renee hooks her arm through mine as soon as we step off the elevator.
“Chin up,” she murmurs. “You look amazing, the shoot went amazing, and this is basically one big networking opportunity.”
I sigh.
Now that I’m not pouring every ounce of my energy into saving up for Willow’s, I’ve shifted my focus back to influencing, which is both the obvious choice and the thing I’m currently dreading the most.
Influencing is never just posting pretty photos and hoping people like them. It’s being on all the time, smiling when I feel like crawling out of my own skin, and making connections that feel genuine while also knowing everyone in the room is calculating what they can get from each other.
And lately, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve outgrown this version of my life.
Renee steers me into the crowd before I can change my mind and flee back to the hotel like the socially delicate flower I am pretending not to be.
For the first hour, it’s fine.
I make small talk with a beauty creator I’ve followed for years, and she tells me she loved one of my reels about getting ready for auditions, which makes me smile so hard my face almost forgets how to be normal.
A lifestyle influencer whose kitchen has gone viral approximately six hundred times compliments my dress.
Another woman I vaguely know from brand events asks me about the commercial.
Everyone is nice.
I laugh when I’m supposed to. I nod at the right times. And I ask questions that make me sound engaged and not like a woman whose social battery is currently lying facedown somewhere near the charcuterie table.
Still, even surrounded by people who technically do the same thing I do, I feel like I’m watching them through glass.
I’ve never really made friends in the influencer space.
Not real ones, anyway.
It’s not that I think I’m better than them.
God, no.
I just don’t fit here easily.
Renee gets pulled into a conversation near the bar with one of the producers from the shoot, and I end up standing with three women I know well enough.
One of them, Alana, is telling a story about accidentally going live while fighting with a hotel concierge.
I throw my head back, laughing, when my gaze drifts past her shoulder.
Then everything inside me stops.
Across the rooftop, near the entrance to the lounge area, is Markell, chatting with some people and with a drink in his hand.
For a second, my brain refuses to understand what my eyes are seeing.
It can’t be him.
But then he turns slightly, and the light catches his profile, the curve of his mouth, the line of his jaw, the easy confidence he wears like everyone in the room already owes him attention.