Chapter 2
TWO
Travis
Someone was calling me.
I stared at the water, transfixed. Clear pool water, crisp and clean. It looked blue because the inside of the pool was blue. It looked serene and peaceful. The sun caught the surface, sending up sparks of light. I stared.
“Travis,” someone said.
The air brushed my skin, a warm California breeze. The water would be cool, though. I could just lean further, then further still, and then I would be falling. Straight down. Maybe I could keep my eyes open as I fell.
“Travis.”
Would I feel better under the water, in the cool silence? Or would I just drown?
The voice got closer and sharper. “Hey, kid. You’re naked.”
I blinked, focusing my eyes. I knew I was naked. My feet were bare where I stood at the edge of this diving board, my legs too. The warm breeze touched all of my skin, everywhere.
If I tilted face-first into the pool, I’d the feel the water all over. It was my favorite way to swim.
“Travis.” It was Andy’s voice, moving from concerned to annoyed. I heard him snap his fingers. “Are you there? Put your junk away, kid. There’s someone here to see you.”
I blinked again. My eyes were dry. I wasn’t a kid. I was a man, I was standing naked on a diving board over a pool, and someone was here to see me?
“I’m not expecting anyone,” I said, still staring at my bare feet. They were nice feet, actually. Well shaped. They were evenly tanned, too, like the rest of me. I spent a lot of time out by this pool.
“You are expecting someone,” Andy argued. “I told you about it before. They’re in the house waiting for you right now. These women don’t want to see your dong, kid, and neither do I. So put it away. It’s gonna get sunburned, just waving around like that.”
I finally raised my head and looked at Andy. He was standing at the edge of the pool. Andy was sixty-five, and this was his L.A. mansion, where I’d been staying for six months, because I had nowhere else to go.
Ever since my world-famous band had broken up, my career had crashed, and lawsuits had drained me of most of my money, I had been homeless. The Malibu house I’d owned was the first thing to go, with all of the money going to debts and lawyer bills. Then the New York apartment was sold. I suddenly had no fixed address.
At thirty-two, after touring the world for ten years, I was living on an allowance allotted by my lawyer that could barely cover rent in L.A. I was lucky to afford the rented storage unit that contained most of my belongings. My assistants and hangers-on had vanished. My former bandmates hated me. As I fell from the top all the way down to the bottom, my so-called friends and many acquaintances had been conspicuously silent.
I had been looking for an apartment, quietly spiraling, wondering if I could sleep in the storage unit without getting caught, when Andy Rockweller called me.
Andy had been the lead singer of a huge hit band in the eighties. Back then, he’d dyed his hair bright purple and worn it in gelled spikes, and he’d always performed in an all-leather outfit, including a leather shirt with a leather vest over it. It was a lot of leather, but Andy Rockweller had pulled it off. I had met him a few times at parties over the years—parties at which he was sober and I was various levels of wasted. Still, we’d hit it off, and at some point I’d given him my number. When he heard how badly off I was, he’d called and offered me a place to stay.
Today, he wore chino pants, a short-sleeved button-down shirt, and Birkenstocks, and his long gray hair was woven in a neat braid down his back. He might not wear all that leather anymore, but even with crinkles at the corners of his eyes and a graying beard, he gave off rock star energy. He was just that guy.
I wasn’t sure why he had taken me in. We weren’t related. He didn’t need my money. We had been barely acquainted when he invited me. He’d said that since his last divorce, his mansion was too big for one person, and he wouldn’t mind a roommate, as long as I didn’t mess the place up. I’d wondered at the time if he wanted sex, but six months in, I knew that wasn’t the case, either. Andy Rockweller was firmly straight, and even at his age, he could—and did—get laid whenever he wanted. He didn’t need me for that.
I frowned at him, trying to remember when he’d told me someone was coming over. A woman. More than one woman?
He sighed. I wasn’t high or hungover, and he knew it. I was just… absent. I was like that a lot over the past year. Days could go by while I stared at the pool. Being absent was quiet. It was peaceful. It was my preferred state of mind. It was?—
“Put. Your. Pecker. Away,” Andy said slower, as if English was my second language.
My gaze moved behind his shoulder to the house. The floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out to the pool had no blinds on them. I was probably fully visible to whoever was in there. I sighed and walked reluctantly off the diving board, heading for the beach towel I’d dropped over a chair.
“Towel’s not good enough,” Andy interrupted me. “Put on clothes.”
He unfolded the cloth I hadn’t noticed tucked under his arm. He held out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, which he must have taken from my room.
I grabbed the shorts. I was starting to be present again, and I didn’t like it. “This better be good,” I said as I stepped into them, commando. When I pulled them up, Andy gave me a look that said, Finally.
“It’s good,” he said. He waved the shirt at me, but I ignored it. I slid my feet into the flip-flops I’d left on the pool deck. “You agreed to it.”
“Is it a lawyer?” I asked. I’d had dozens of lawyer appointments. I had no desire to look any kind of respectable for a lawyer, even a female one. She could look at my tats just like everyone else.
“Not a lawyer.” Andy was firm. He stepped in front of me and pushed the shirt at my chest, wedging it there. His expression said that I wasn’t getting past him. “Kid, put this on. And behave.”
“What for?” I asked, taking the shirt from him and pulling it over my head.
“Your big chance.”
I laughed out loud at that. “I’ve heard that before. I remember one guy promising me my big chance when I was twenty. He tried to fuck me twenty minutes later.”
“No one is fucking you except for yourself,” Andy said. “Now go be nice, and pay attention, because this is good. Have I ever led you wrong?”
I ran my hands through my hair, trying to neaten it a little, because yeah, I had to admit, he had never led me wrong. If Andy wanted me to do this, whatever it was, then I’d try it. For a few minutes, at least.
I just wished I could remember what he’d told me about it, because I had no idea what this was.
He slid open the glass door, and when my eyes adjusted, I saw there was no one in the sitting room. Whoever was here hadn’t seen me naked, at least. Andy led me down the hall to the huge kitchen, which contained a dining table that could easily seat six people and didn’t have a view to the pool.
I blinked at the people sitting at the table. A red-haired woman wearing tortoiseshell glasses and typing intensely on her phone. An Korean guy in an open-throat dress shirt who looked like he could be a model. And a second woman, who was wearing large sunglasses and a blue scarf over her head, tied under her chin. Indoors. I saw a glimpse of dark hair and her naturally red lips, and that was all.
I couldn’t figure out the disguised lady, so I turned to the Korean guy, who was the only person I recognized. “Jon?” I said.
Jonathan Kim, my new agent, gave me a brief, sharp nod. “Hi, Travis. Glad you could make it.”
It was a dig, even though he said it politely. Since my old agent had screwed me over so badly I was homeless, Andy had introduced me to Jon. Andy knew everyone in the music business, and he vouched for Jon, so I had agreed to meet him. We’d talked for ten minutes, after which we shook hands, and apparently, I had a new agent. I didn’t bother to feel bad that there was no work for him to agent for me. Anyone taking me on in the middle of my current, well-publicized nosedive probably knew he wasn’t going to make any money.
Since that ten-minute conversation, I hadn’t spoken to Jon again. I scratched the back of my neck, once again wishing I’d paid attention whenever Andy had told me what this meeting was. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“Take a seat,” Jon said, reaching out the toe of one impeccable dress shoe and pushing an empty chair toward me.
I reluctantly sat. I looked at the scarf-and-sunglasses woman again. She seemed to be looking at me, but it was impossible to tell. I could only see my own reflection in the lenses of her glasses.
“Anyone want a lemonade?” Andy asked, walking toward the fridge.
No one else answered, but I was thirsty. “I do,” I said.
There was another second of silence as Andy opened the fridge. Was the air conditioning always this cold? I rubbed my arms, missing the burning heat outside. The scarf-and-sunglasses woman seemed to watch me.
Finally, the redhead finished typing and put her phone down on the table with a smack. “Nice job introducing us,” she snapped at Jon, and then she turned to me. “Travis. Hi. I’m Stella Green.” She held out a hand.
I shook it. It was cold, and suddenly I was all the way back into my head, back into my life. I didn’t remember what this meeting was, but it didn’t matter. The fact that these people were here could only mean they wanted something from me. Otherwise, why had they set up a meeting and come all the way to Andy’s house? People didn’t do that when they wanted to give you something. They did that when they wanted to take.
I ran through the usual suspects of things people had wanted from me over my years in the music business. Money? I didn’t have much left. Sex? My agent wouldn’t be here for that. Music? My band was finished, and no one gave a shit about me without them.
“My client and I appreciate your time,” Stella Green said. I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms and looking at the scarf-and-sunglasses woman again. She must be famous. That had to be it. I turned back to Stella.
“No problem,” I said.
Andy put my lemonade in front of me, and I picked it up and sipped it. It was icy and delicious. Stella turned to Jon again. “How much have you told him?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Jon replied.
“Seriously? You couldn’t have given him the basics?”
“I wanted to hear you pitch it.”
“Of course you did.” Her tone was scathing. She turned back to me. “Sorry about this, Travis. Your agent was supposed to prep you.”
“I’m the reason you have this meeting at all,” Jon shot back.
“Then if you aren’t going to help, be quiet and let me talk.”
“Please,” Jon said to her. “Go ahead. We’re both listening.”
Stella sighed. “Katie has an unusual situation. I’m a big fan of Seven Dog Down, so when I thought of solutions to her problem, your name came into my head. I think that the two of you could help each other out.” She glanced at the scarf woman, who I assumed must be Katie. I didn’t know of anyone famous named Katie. Stella continued on. “We came here today on the understanding that everyone here agrees to be discreet. Nothing we discuss today leaves this room, even if we can’t make a deal, and?—”
“Stella, enough.” The scarf-and-sunglasses woman spoke for the first time. Her voice was tense. She turned to me. “Mr. White, I’m sorry for how weird this is.”
While I tried to process being called Mr. White , she took off the sunglasses and tugged off the scarf, revealing gray eyes, dark brown hair in soft waves, and a heart-shaped face with a perfect chin. She was gorgeous. I had never seen her before in my life.
“I had to wear this,” she said, gesturing to the scarf, “just in case anyone spotted me coming here today. I didn’t want to be recognized. My name is Katie Armstrong. Do you ever watch Netflix?”
“Not really,” I said.
Katie nodded, and her cheeks turned pink. “Okay, um. I’m an actress, and I’m on there a lot. I’m really, really sorry to bother you with this.” She pinched the bridge of her nose in embarrassment. “Stella, this is totally out of line.”
“It isn’t,” Stella reassured her. “Go ahead.”
Katie sighed and dropped her hand. “I need a boyfriend,” she blurted.
I felt my eyebrows go up. I should probably feel surprise at some point in the rest of my life, but today was not that day. “Yeah?” I asked.
“I know you’re busy,” Katie plowed on, ignoring the fact that I very obviously wasn’t busy. “And I know that this is going to seem strange, but there are reasons, and we discussed it, and—this all sounded so reasonable in my head an hour ago.”
I looked at the faces around the table, taking this in. Andy was in the kitchen somewhere behind me, lounging against the counter and probably being wildly entertained. I scratched my chin.
“Anyone want to elaborate?” I asked the room.
Stella leaned forward. “We propose that the two of you have a relationship—a fake one, of course. We’ll set up photo ops for the two of you to be seen together. Katie and I have a script.”
“A script?” I looked at Jon. He shrugged.
“I’ve read it,” he said. “It looked good to me.”
I narrowed my gaze on him. I knew about fake relationships—everyone in Hollywood did. Getting photographed with another famous person as if the two of you were dating was a great way to get free exposure and publicity for both of you. I had never done the fake thing myself, but the idea didn’t shock me.
What surprised me was that everyone in this room thought that this was a good idea for me. That this woman—Katie Armstrong—was a good idea for me.
“Jon,” I said.
Jon held up his hands. “Hear us out. Katie is an excellent actress with a great reputation. She could redeem you in the eyes of the public. Get your career going again.”
Redeem . Right. I hadn’t exactly had a great year. Or a great eighteen months, if you wanted to split hairs. When Seven Dog Down ended and my life crashed, well…mistakes were made. By me. In public.
Still, redemption hadn’t crossed my mind. That I needed it. That it was even possible if I did. That I would care enough to try. Reviving my career hadn’t crossed my mind, either. All I’d wanted for a while now was to sit by Andy’s pool and stare at the water, thinking about the color blue.
I realized the table was silent because they were waiting for a reaction from me. They thought I might take offense to the idea that I needed redeeming. No one at this table was sure of exactly what I would do—rage? Laugh? Weep? Walk away? None of them knew me, except Andy a little bit. I didn’t even know myself anymore.
If I were smart, I would ask questions. There were a lot of them. Why had they come to me with this? Why did this Katie woman need a boyfriend? Why couldn’t she get one for herself? Why did she need a team of professionals, and why had they all picked me? Why would I bother redeeming myself to anyone? What was in it for her? What was in it for me? Was there money in this deal? If so, who was paying, her or me?
Could I fake date a woman? This woman? Could I do it convincingly?
I took another look at Katie. Her ribcage wasn’t moving—she was literally holding her breath. She looked terrified, but she was also gorgeous, because of course she was. She was an actress.
Date a hot woman and make it look real? Who did they think they were talking to? I’d do it for free, just because it would fuck with people. It turned out I had no questions at all.
I smiled at Katie, and when I spoke, it was directly to her. “All right,” I said. “When do we start?”