Chapter 5
Chapter Five
GIA
I’ve seen the nice and the crap parts of town.
And grand neighborhoods like Shaughnessy, where JC’s parents live.
We visited at Christmas after his mom kept pestering him to meet me.
Their never-ending mansion made me dizzy with its scent of roses, expensive perfume, and polished floors.
JC’s pad in Coal Harbour is also prime-level moneybags.
Fancy with many untouchable things. Sofas that look cool and uncomfortable.
But it smells like him: citrus punched with spice, clean but warm.
And holy hell, the view.
“Wow, this is dope.” The view is framed by floor-to-ceiling windows, and I feel dwarfed by the craggy North Shore mountains in the distance. The vast ocean in front of them is as endless as the plush rug I’m standing on. “You have good taste,” I say. “Or your designer does.”
JC laughs. “I bought most of it. Fully adulting. I have an aesthetic now. And everything.” He stands next to me, tall and muscled and utterly perfect, watching seagulls wage war with the wind currents. “Can I get the lady something to drink?” he asks. “I have it all.”
If I knew anything about wine, I’d throw out some obscure Transylvanian vintage from the 1880s to see what his cellar is made of. Instead, I ask for a rum and Coke. You can take the girl out of Burnaby, but you can’t take Burnaby out of the girl.
JC wanders into the shiny stainless-steel kitchen, where sharp knives and his chefly grace live. He loves to cook, and I bet that Sub-Zero fridge is full of fancy cheeses with names I can’t pronounce.
I take a seat on his surprisingly comfy sofa.
On the credenza behind me are many silver-framed photos, and one in particular catches my eye—a beautifully shot black-and-white portrait.
All the Trenton men, minus Rhys, in crisp tuxes, a carpet of immaculate lawn behind them, sprawling to the cliff’s edge.
“Was this taken at Sawyer’s wedding?” I ask.
“That was his second wedding,” JC calls back, aware of the photo I’m referring to. “Rhys keeps joking that the third time’s a charm.”
I study the photo. Damn, JC cleans up fine.
But his father looks nothing like the shell of a man I met last month, slumped in a wheelchair, withdrawn and grouchy.
He was as stunning as his sons, dark hair slicked back, arrogance in his stance.
I recall how JC’s body language tightened up in his presence.
“How come you’re not married?”
“Haven’t found my rock-and-roll bride. My mom keeps hoping, though. Right now, the pressure’s on Rhys and Dani.”
“They’re a great couple. Inspiring.”
JC returns, handing off my beverage. We cheer, my heavy crystal glass to his craft IPA bottle. Settling next to me, he drapes one arm dangerously close to my shoulder. “My family really likes you.”
“Except Sawyer,” I correct.
JC half-smiles, eyes sparkling. “He said you were as cuddly as barbed wire.”
I give a tiny shrug of resignation. “I guess hating him is out of the question. I respect anyone who tells it like it is.”
“For the record, I don’t think about you that way.”
My head snaps up. There’s a specific tone in his voice that makes me blush.
“Because I’m paying you to like me,” I say it fast, to match my heart rate.
“I’m not doing this for the money, Gia.”
“I hope not.” I try to pull off joke-y, while my insides turn squiggly. That look in his eyes is back. “Your allowance was probably more than what this gig is paying.”
A soft laugh. His fingertips graze my shoulder in a casual rolling drumbeat. “Close.”
The air stills in my lungs. For a second, it feels like he’s going to kiss me. And the vague tremor in my heart tells me, once he does, things will never be the same.
“So then…” I swallow, my mouth dry as dust. “Why did you agree to this?”
In one blink, his expression shifts. I get the sense, in some undefined way, that I’ve pressed on an unexpected button. We’ve talked about almost everything since we met—fame, family, fuckups. But he’s sidestepped any relationship chatter. And this topic.
I’d scrawl my name in blood to share the stage with him.
Did the feeling go both ways?
JC had watched our entire show at the Troubadour last March, camped at the front of the stage. When he dragged his eyes to mine, for one charged second, it felt like fire sweeping over me. It wasn’t only longing in those hypnotic pupils. There was something haunted and base. Dirtier than desire.
That look seared into my heart.
After the show, I waited backstage, nerves in knots, praying he’d show up. Nothing. Not a single ping on my socials. I checked every day for weeks. Me drizzling my rum and Coke onto his hat mid-set was my lame way of saying, I see you. Talk to me. We’re the same.
But are we?
In his eyes, am I a woman about to detonate with astonishingly debauched fantasies? He ruffled my hair in the diner like I was ten!
With my pulse racing in my throat, I shoulder-bump him. “Talk to me.”
JC throws his gaze to the other side of the room before it sweeps back to me. “Because you’re going to be a star. And if I can help get you there faster, I will.”
My body suddenly feels heavy, like it’s filled with crumbly sand. Sometimes when he looks at me, my heart feels too full for my chest, so brimming with blood that it aches.
“Wow. That’s fucking extra. Thanks. Wish my mom supported me like that.” My voice wavers a little. “No faith. It sucks.”
“Parents are like that. Either killing your dreams, or in my case, being pushed to live out their parents’ unfilled dreams.”
I don’t miss the way his eyes drop. Or the light tone of regret in his voice. Clouds smother the sun outside, and just like that, the room feels underlit and less welcoming.
“Is that what it felt like for you?” I ask carefully.
JC takes a long moment before he says, “According to my mom, Dad shoved anything that could make a noise into my hand as a baby. He was tone-deaf and instrument-illiterate. Brutal irony for a man in the music biz who wanted to be the next Bob Dylan.” He smiles, but there’s a sadness to it.
“I was too young to recognize what it all meant.”
“Is that why you quit? Because of him?”
I hold space for him to answer, but JC takes another swig of beer.
Dammit. It felt like the right time to ask, but is there ever a right time to rip open a wound?
I guess Mama does know everything. Maybe I’m full of myself, thinking this silly bout of couch talk qualifies as a safe space where JC can unload his secrets, no questions asked.
But I’m happy to share.
“I think my mom resents me,” I say into the silence, the truth quietly hurting. “My birth killed her dreams.”
JC blinks. And there it is again, a shadow passing over his eyes. “Parenthood is a dream for some.”
I take a slow sip of my drink. “Do you want kids?”
He drains the beer, hand over his mouth to muffle the burp. “Do you?”
“Eventually.”
He spins the empty bottle in his hands. Look up the word “pensive,” and his face would be there next to the definition.
A quiet settles between us.
The bottle keeps spinning.
I lean back to stare at the ceiling that goes up and up. Mom’s dream for me is a life where you know what to expect, free from disappointment. She wants rules and frameworks, security, and a career ladder. Not a daughter who escaped high school with the bare minimum grades.
But sometimes you have to go for it or die trying.
“You have a lovely ceiling, Jameson.”
“Thank you, Regina. It’s what they call ‘coffered.’”
I tip my head right to look at him. “Does that mean overpriced?”
A laugh bursts out of him, filling the room with its warm, happy sound. The perfect antidote to the weird malaise that had drifted over us.
“One hundred percent not judging,” I’m quick to clarify. “My ceiling consists of ancient spackle, glow-in-the-dark stars, and squashed mosquitoes.”
“Really?” His face animates. “I had those stars in my bedroom. It felt like my own private universe.”
“I need to keep reaching for the stars, which is why I’m looking forward to the tour bus and change of scenery.”
“Speaking of that.” JC taps his knee against mine, leaving it there to scorch my bare skin. “I’m calling top bunk.”
“Have at ‘er. Little Miss Five Foot Nothing here can crawl into her lower bunk just fine.”
“Solo,” he reminds me, eyes dancing over my face. “In case you forgot your own rules. I’ll be watching.”
“Get that chaperone idea out of your head,” I warn. “I don’t need a babysitter. Especially one who…” I clamp my mouth shut, but the unspoken words hang between us like napalm.
JC’s eyebrows sink. “What?”
“Nothing.”
He looks skyward, a muscle around his jaw working. “I know what you were going to say.”
I swallow, feeling like a crumb. “Am I wrong?”
I don’t know what my face is conveying as I stare at him, heart thumping double time. An awkward beat seems to go on forever before JC clears his throat.
“Not entirely.”
My gaze falls to the floor. It feels like I swallowed rocks. Well, that was special, Gia. Why not call him a player to his face while you’re at it?
I’m suddenly so aware of my rainbow knee socks and leather romper. They looked oh-so-cool in my bedroom mirror.
Now I feel stupid.
This elegant space is where a man brings a woman after a civilized night on the town. A world of soft rugs and sleek, lacquered furniture. A ceiling that probably cost more than Dad’s Rav4. A girl with teacup boobs and hips as straight as a ruler has no business in this manly condo.
Not when she almost accused him of the worst.
And as if I’d said those exact words, JC sits up abruptly, a whoosh of air following him as he pushes off the sofa with an uncertain smile.
“Let’s check out the studio.”
The tight dark confines of JC’s studio are thick with the smell of warm electronics and his cologne. Framed and faded Read My Rights concert posters hang two by two, covering the far wall. And me, stapled to my chair with the lyrics he just sang to me.