30
The next day was a ceasefire.
Tess spent it like a general reviewing her battle plan: running through techniques from the manual until they had a rhythm of their own, meditating with self-hypnosis tapes narrated by a velvet-voiced guru, practicing body language in front of the mirror with the focus of an actress on the eve of opening night.
Not once did her faith waver—she was steel and silk, in the same breath.
She didn’t camp by the window waiting for the mailman, didn’t picture a medieval courier with a wax-sealed scroll, a carrier pigeon on a leash, or a squad of footmen in scarlet livery announcing—trumpets blaring—the official envoy of Zane Ryder.
Nothing. No nerves, no doubts, no trace of is he ghosting me on purpose?
In fact—and this says it all—during the rare moments she allowed herself a distraction, a smile would drift across her lips.
The kind of slow-motion smile that begged for a backdrop: Chad receiving a photo of her, lips locked with Ryder, on the prow of a yacht.
Wind in her hair, the ocean as stage design, and the whole world realizing that revenge could be visual art.
I, meanwhile, used the truce to tinker with the opening chapters of my novel, though my gaze kept sliding toward the door, half-expecting Ryder to materialize any second. Three weeks would fly by—or so I kept telling myself—and winter was still too cruel for writing outdoors.
Okay, yes, there was always the subway. Down there it was eternally hot, that sticky, brain-fogging heat of overzealous central heating.
In a flash-worthy mental montage, I saw myself cross-legged on a towel at Jay Street station, Olivetti perched on my knees, commuters tossing crumpled dollar bills at me without breaking stride.
Finally: a paid writer—and not even thanks to a publisher.
At one point I had a mini-argument with Tess about the ten thousand dollars she’d waved away with the same ease I’d refuse a stick of black-licorice gum.
“Do you realize what you turned down? Ten grand!” I told her. “You could’ve bought… I don’t know… a couple of handbags, a vacation, a small third-world country.”
She looked at me the way you look at a kid asking why the sun doesn’t have an ON/OFF switch.
“Bea, if I’d taken that money, my magnetic pull would’ve been cut in half.
Think of me as Saturn. You can’t even stand on Saturn.
You’d probably crawl—and even crawling, your head would weigh as much as a dresser.
That’s the kind of gravity I’ve got on Ryder.
If I’d accepted the cash? Poof! Instant Pluto.
Pluto has a third of the Moon’s gravity.
One little hop and—bam—you’re floating into space, no return ticket. ”
I didn’t answer. Not because she was right, but because I liked the idea of having a roommate who explained relationships like a drunk astrophysicist.
The news didn’t knock the next morning—it landed on our kitchen counter in the form of a bulging envelope, the postal equivalent of a guest showing up in a tux with a very good bottle of wine.
Tess took it without a tremor. No raised brows, no held breath. She opened it like it was the electric bill—tore the flap with measured grace and began the inventory.
First item: a CD. Old-school, white label, title scribbled by hand. Midnight in Wolfblood, written in the scrawl of a man who’d clearly spent more time with a Gibson than a notebook.
Second item: a letter on fine, watermarked paper, embossed in the corner with the insignia of the Vellum Hotel—like a wax seal translated into five-star luxury.
Handwritten, signed simply Zane. Not Zane Ryder.
Just Zane. Intimate. As if we were already sitting cross-legged on the floor, sipping red wine and confessing secrets.
The gist of it: inside the CD were unreleased tracks from his upcoming album, “my most Mirov-inspired work yet,” his words. He wanted her thoughts, as a true Lev Mirov fan. And while he was at it, he invited her to his final city concert that Friday, backstage pass included.
Third and final item: a laminated VIP PASS on a lanyard stamped with the official Wolfblood World Tour logo. Heavy, glossy, the kind that practically whispered, You matter in here.
“Damn,” I said, holding the pass between two fingers like it was radioactive. “Things are getting serious.”
Now that I was sober, mind clear as a freshly Windexed pane of glass, I looked at her with respect I didn’t even bother to hide.
Even the night she’d sparred with Ryder had floored me—and I’d told her so with the enthusiasm of a sports commentator—but this package… this felt like something else entirely.
Zane Ryder was actually showing interest.
Had I said it out loud? Maybe only in my head, but the name still seemed to reverberate through the room. Zane Ryder. The man whose face was taped to half the teenage bedroom walls on the planet… now circling my borderline roommate.
Or maybe the borderline one was me.
Tess had already outstripped my most optimistic predictions. My novel about her would’ve been hilarious even if she’d never crossed paths with the rockstar—a full-on Wile E. Coyote routine, with cliffs, anvils, and dust clouds. But this? This was veering into something far more… dangerously real.
“I’m not going,” Tess said.
“What?!”
“Too obvious. I’m not some drooling groupie chasing after the stick just because he threw it.”
“I don’t think he sees it that way. Otherwise he wouldn’t have sent you unreleased tracks.”
“Doesn’t matter. Remember the cat and yarn-ball analogy? Right now he just pounced. Which means it’s time to yank it away. But not too far. Keep it too far, he quits playing.”
“Too far out of his reach?” I echoed. “We’re talking about a man who’s been on the ‘Sexiest Men Alive’ list ten years straight.”
“So what? His brain’s made of the same gray matter as the humblest servant.
Strip down a Ferrari and a beat-up Beetle, and underneath it’s the same stuff—pistons, radiator, oil circuit, brakes, four wheels.
Sure, the engines have different horsepower, I’ll give you that.
But a good mechanic knows where to put his hands on both. ”
“So by turning down Friday’s invite, you’re pulling the yarn-ball away… but how do you plan to dangle it in front of him again?”
“I’ll tell him the tracks are good—but not quite there. Not in so many words, of course. But that’ll be the subtext. Lukewarm encouragement.”
“Doesn’t that risk making you seem completely out of reach? I know it sounds insane to even say that but… yeah.”
“I am out of reach, Bea. But within reach? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? One thing he’s already figured out, though: I’m different.”
“So what’s your next move?”
“Simple. I’ll decline the concert invite, but I’ll leave the door cracked. Something like, my roommate and I might be free when his tour hits Florida.”
“And why exactly am I involved?”
“He can’t think we’re already at some exclusive-intimacy level. He needs to stay in the fog, in that perfect little uncertainty: she accepted the invite—but she brought her friend. Does she like me? Or am I just a buddy?”
“I doubt Zane Ryder has ever been friend-zoned in his life.”
“That’s the point, darling…”
Her smile unfurled slowly, like a lock that only opens for the right combination.