Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jamie dove in after her. Her head popped back up to the surface, and he followed a few seconds later. “Are you okay?” he asked, panting.
“Oh my God. My recorder, I—it’s gone.” She blinked thick droplets from her eyes. Her voice was choppy as she trod water.
“That had everything I got from the party tonight. Shit. Shit. Shit!”
“I’ll go down and look for it,” Jamie said. “We’ll get it back.”
He plunged into the pitch-dark depths, again and again, but he couldn’t even see his own hands in front of him.
Once again, he’d been so unintentionally careless with her, like when he name-checked her in his Grammys speech with a poorly worded joke, only to find out how much that had hurt her. He hated himself for it.
He wouldn’t repeat that mistake.
“Forget it—it’s way too dark.” Then, Brinton screamed. “Oh my God—something touched me.”
“Try to keep calm,” Jamie said, swimming closer.
Her eyes skirted across the water line. He had the urge to reach out for her, but she wasn’t kidding about being a good swimmer and was already approaching the dock. When he caught up to her, she was trying—and failing—to hoist herself up the narrow ladder and onto the dock’s wood-planked surface.
He didn’t blame her; in the water, his clothes and boots added ten pounds, easy.
“Lemme help you up,” he pleaded.
She nodded, breaths ragged and shoulders bobbing. He quickly scaled the ladder, then outstretched his arms. Jamie coiled his hands around the curve of her waist to lift her up.
Sheets of water slid down their bodies. Abdomens pressed together, the telltale heat from contact overfilled in his chest, along with the spike of something unnamable each time his hip bones grazed hers.
When she gripped his back to steady herself, noses close enough to brush, he cradled her neck for the longest moment he’d had since the Grammys.
His heart pummeled his ribcage, but he remained cocooned in that moment, content to trace every plump bead of water streaking her lush cheeks. Then, he understood. She was crying.
“Honey, you’re all right—I got you,” he said, breaths tattered as her shoulders shook violently against his heaving chest.
He pulled her tighter. To his relief, she let him.
“If I don’t ace this story, I’m going to get fired.” Her voice came out singed. “And—because of-fucking-course—I lost my recorder and my interviews on my first day. I’m screwed.”
Gently, he angled her chin upward, still gripping her tightly.
“No, you’re not. This was my fault. I brought you out here, so I’m gonna fix it.
I’ll get a new recorder and connect you with everybody you talked to tonight.
And we can re-do all my interviews whenever you want. I’m gonna fix it, yeah?”
He meant every word. He should have been worried about how much he meant every word. He should have also been worried about the little spark that lingered in his chest whenever he was near her, but he wasn’t. He liked her. She was brilliant and, sure, a little awkward, but he liked that too.
In the span of an hour on that lake, she had pushed him to examine his lot in life in a way he’d been terrified to confront. If he did anything to jeopardize her future, he’d never forgive himself.
Brinton loosened her grip on him and took a few steps back. He knew he shouldn’t, but he instantly missed her body’s warmth against his.
“Okay, yeah,” she said. The fear in her eyes seemed to thaw. “Thank you—you’re amazing.”
Her words pierced his heart, filling it with a sweetness he didn’t deserve.
The tenderness reminded him of when Kendall first told him she loved him, and how he didn’t have the courage to tell her the truth.
He’d hurt her, which meant he was capable of hurting Brinton too, even if he wanted nothing more than to have her keep looking at him like the most capable man in the world.
He was a shell of man, reinforced by loneliness, lies, and secrets.
“No, Brinton, I’m not. Believe me,” he whispered.
She shook her head emphatically, batting away his insecurities. “You’re one of the good ones. And I’ve seen enough of the bad ones to know the difference.”
For her, he could become one of the good ones. He let the faint pricks of hope imbue him. This is the right moment. He took the opening.
Jamie could barely hear himself think over his heavy breaths. “Brinton, I’m a fraud.”
“You’re a what?” Her inflection dulled to a croak, and her shoulders shook.
“I—my songs. Fuck, I don’t want you to hate me. Or anyone to hate me, but…Brinton, I have a ghostwriter. My father hired him years ago, and he’s written every song I’ve ever put out.”
His head slumped at the wilting weight of his omission. Wasn’t he supposed to feel better now?
Brinton stared at him for a long moment. Her expression was inscrutable. God, he needed her to say something.
“You lied to me? To everyone?”
“Yes,” he said, chest on fire. “My father told me it was the only way to build my legacy, and I believed him. There was a contract and I couldn’t get out.
But now, I have a chance to start fresh.
I need your help. I need you to break this story with your article so I can make music on my own, without my father.
He wants me to sign a new contract tomorrow, so I need to know tonight if you’ll do it. ”
She stumbled backward. A deep tremor overtook her entire body. He wanted to hug her, to steady her. To steady himself.
Her eyes, heavy with fatigue, cut to the water’s edge behind him.
“No,” she said, so quietly he barely heard her.
Jamie’s stomach bottomed out. “Maybe you need a beat after falling into the lake? But I got you. We’re good now.”
“No,” she repeated, a little steadier now.
“I just thought, at the Grammys—we had a moment.”
“A moment?”
“Yes,” he rushed out. “A moment. You asked me if being a musician—playing for thousands of fans and stuff—helped me express myself more authentically? Well, you, Brinton…I want you to help me do that. I don’t wanna hold myself back anymore.”
“No, Jamie,” she repeated. “I’m sorry, but you want me to go up against your father, one of the most powerful men in the music business? Assuming you’re telling the truth—”
“I am,” he insisted.
“He’ll want revenge,” she continued. “Everyone’s afraid of him and you know it. So whatever he’s planned for you, it’ll be even worse for me. I’ll be blackballed. I probably won’t get another writing gig.”
Finally, he got the nerve to reach for her shoulders, which stilled under his touch. “You said you wanted an angle no one has seen before. Brinton, this is it. We could work together. I could protect you—”
“No, you can’t,” she said. She gently shrugged off his hands and buried her face in her own.
“It sounds like you can’t even protect yourself from him.
” She dropped her hands. “For the record, I don’t hate you, Jamie.
And I’m sure you did this because you felt like you had to.
I know what that’s like. And I wish I were stronger, that I could pull this off for you.
But I can’t take this risk. I desperately need a fool-proof win. ”
His greatest fear had come true. Now he was completely out of options. But he couldn’t hate her either. He respected her too much for that. “I understand,” he said. “But would you be open to thinking about it? Please. If you decide otherwise, we can do the interview any way you want.”
She closed her eyes and exhaled. The sound cut him to the bone.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He smiled despite his mounting despair. “Can I walk you back?”
Once she was safely inside the guest house, Jamie’s body crumpled on the porch steps.
He rested his still-damp forehead against the towering white column.
Tonight, in revealing his secret, he regained a piece of his soul.
Tomorrow, when he regretfully signed his new contract, he would give it all away.