Chapter 6 – Henrik
Chapter Six
Henrik
I f I had cell service, I would be calling Cameron to give him a piece of my mind.
It was one thing to send us away to work on faking better chemistry and to flame the romance rumors so our show would flourish. It’s something else altogether to strand us in a one-bedroom cabin with nothing to do but read, puzzle…and chat with a woman who hates me.
What fun. Not.
We wouldn’t even be able to scroll mindlessly on our phones for four days because there was no wifi. Hell, the TV even looked like it was twenty years old and had a built-in VHS player. Had we gone back in time!?
Bryn stayed in the bedroom for most of the morning. I can’t blame her. After the weird moment we shared, things feel different. Not a bad different, but I’m also not sure it’s a good different either. Only time will tell.
Falling into the plush cushion of the sofa, I stare at the empty fireplace. The next four days were going to be long. Very long days. I wish I could call my sister. Check in and make sure everything’s okay.
Just as I’m getting comfortable on the sofa, I’m up and moving again. I’m too hyped up and annoyed to stay still. And I can’t let myself dwell on things that I can’t currently control. So I’ll snoop.
While Cameron clearly did not indulge us with a luxury cabin, I’m hoping that he at least did right by us with food and drink. He couldn’t seriously think Bryn and I could repair, let alone build, an amicable relationship without lots of good food.
The way to my heart was definitely through my stomach.
“Oh thank Christ.” Relief floods my entire body as I open up the fridge and see each shelf full with prepared foods, veggies and drinks. Almost crying with glee, I reach in and grab a bottle of ice coffee, hugging it to my chest.
While sipping my guilty pleasure, I continue my exploration of the kitchen. We have more than enough food to get us through four days. Yet I feel like I’m missing something.
“What the hell is it?” I whisper into the half-empty bottle. “What am I missing?” I saw pizza, cold cut sandwiches, creamer and kombucha in the fridge. Crackers, chips and bottles of water in the cupboard. What other essentials were we missing? I knew there was something.
Leaning back on the island in the middle of the kitchen, I look out the window, hoping for an epiphany. When one doesn’t come, I scan the surrounding area.
My eyes scan over the wall to the left and over, but an odd object catches my attention. I double back. Not sure what I’m seeing, I push off the island and get closer.
“Weird,” I mumble, inspecting what looks like a button in the wall. Bringing my hand up, I’m just about to touch it when a gasp from right behind me has me jumping.
“Don’t press it!”
“Jesus woman! You almost scared me to death.”
“Were you seriously about to push an unknown button in the wall without knowing what it does? You could have killed us!”
“You honestly think there’s a kill switch in this place?”
“I don’t know what to think, but I know from years of watching scary movies and shows that pressing a strange button never leads to anything good.”
Damn. She had a point.
Then it hits me. What we’re missing.
Turning back to the button, I squint at it. Yeah, it was a dark purple color so maybe…
“What did I just say!” Bryn cries out and reaches for me, but she’s too late.
I press the button.
There’s a strange click, then what sounds like wheels turning. I glance over at Bryn, noticing that her eyes are wide and her body is stiff, waiting for something horrible to happen.
Nothing does. After what feels like a minute of nervous anticipation to meet our doom, there’s another click and hiss. A crack in the wall appears. Then row after row of compartments reveal themselves from inside the walls.
“Oh my God,” Bryn gasps. “It’s a wine fridge. Inside the freakin’ walls of the kitchen! That’s so wild.” There’s so much joy in her voice that I can’t help but laugh. She was right. This was wild. And the one item we were missing in this vast kitchen.
“Now that’s some big money. I have got to get me one of these.” I step up to the first fridge door and pull out a bottle of red. The fridge is only slightly cooled but there have to be at least fifteen bottles stacked neatly here.
“You a red or wine girl?” I ask her absently mindedly as I scan the bottles for what I want. I miss her giving me a once over glance.
“Red. Cabernet if it’s available.”
I pause, glancing over my shoulder at her. “That’s my preference too.”
Her lips scrunch up, like she wants to say something but is holding back. Not wanting to make the moment uncomfortable, I turn back to the wine fridge and grab the bottle of Cab I was eyeing.
“Let’s pop this baby open,” I cheer, heading to the other side of the kitchen in search of a corkscrew.
“It’s two in the afternoon,” Bryn states with a tone like I’ve offended her. I brush it off.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere Princess. Chill. We’ll open this bottle, have a glass and practice lines or whatever. The Cabernet will help calm us in this new environment and loosen up.”
She doesn’t look completely sold on my explanation, but she doesn’t stop me when I locate the opener. Instead, she walks to the cabinet and takes out two long stemmed wine glasses. I pour us a generous amount and raise my glass to her.
“Here’s to The Burning House of Firelight.”
Bryn raises her glass and gently clinks it against mine. “To The Burning House of Firelight.”
The dry, crisp wine dances in my mouth as I savor it around, picking up hints of blackberry and tobacco.
“Damn, that’s good.” Bryn hums in agreement, studying the wine again before she takes another large sip. “Not gonna lie,” I tell her, following her out to the open living room. “I don’t drink this high quality of wine but shit, I might just start.”
“I’m the same,” she admits, falling into one of the plaid wingback chairs. “I buy by the box and nothing like this either.” I almost feel my heart jump out of my chest when Bryn looks over at me with a genuine smile. The wine couldn’t have mellowed her out this quickly, could it?
“I’m surprised you like wine, honestly. I thought a big rockstar like you would prefer whiskey. Or maybe absinthe.”
I try not to take offense to her words but they still sting. She’s really holding on to his persona of me that I have no idea how she came to.
“Former rockstar,” I correct her, making sure she’s looking at me when I say the words. “And I was never into the hard stuff. Sure, I got drunk with the band every now and then but I knew my limits.”
She gives me a skeptical look. I stare back, needing her to see the truth.
“Why former?” she asks, her voice quiet but speaking volumes in the space between us. “Why are you trying out acting now?”
For a beat I think about lying to her. Telling her the same tale that I’ve been telling everyone outside my circle of trust. It would make sense, to keep her at a distance. She was, after all, holding tight to my old image.
Yet, when I open my mouth to give her the practiced speech, I find myself telling her something real instead.
“My sister has substance abuse issues.” The words hang between us and I direct my attention down to the glass that’s balanced between my fingertips. “She was in the band a couple years ago, but when we hit the peak of our fame, she hit her lowest low. Left the band for something else.”
“She’s a country singer now, right? She’s still in the limelight.”
I smile, thinking of Torri and the name she’s built for herself. The odds she’s overcome. “Yeah, she’s still in the spotlight, but she’s calling the shots now. Not someone else. It’s made all the difference.”
“And she’s okay now?”
“Yeah,” I smile at Bryn. “She’s doing really well. No one really knows that’s why she left the band. There was speculation but before she could really be targeted by the media that action star– I can’t remember his name–got attacked by his stalker and took the focus off Torri.”
Tucking her feet under her, Bryn leans forward, prompting me to continue. I liked seeing this softer side of her. “It’s because of Torri that I took a step back from the band and tried out for this role. It was something out of my comfort zone. Something completely new and exciting.I’m getting tired of touring. Of the hard lifestyle my bandmates continue to live. I thought acting would be cool.” I laughed to myself. “And I thought I was good at it. Apparently not.”
The room goes quiet. The awkwardness of the moment makes me anxious so I take a large sip of my wine. The glass is almost empty now.
“You are good at it,” I hear whispered from across the room. Lifting my head, Bryn’s eyes meet mine. “You are good. It’s me that’s been dragging you down.”
Instinctually I want to tell her no. That it’s not her fault. But some of it kind of is. Like she can read my mind, she snorts out a laugh. The sound must surprise her because she slaps a hand over her mouth and her cheeks go bright pink.
A laugh breaks out of me. Howling, I fall back into the sofa cushions, balancing my drink while also holding my belly.
“I do not know where that came from,” Bryn giggles, still covering part of her face with her hand.
“It came from your nose Princess. And it was brilliant!”
“Shut up.”
“Never. I loved it.”
“Asshole,” she mumbles. The profanity rolls off me this time. She’s smiling as she teases me.
When our laughter dies down and we’ve both taken the final sips of our drinks in the aftermath, I watch Bryn as she internally gathers strength to do something.
“Look, I’m not proud of the way I’ve been acting towards you. But what happened all those years ago at the audition have really stayed with me. It’s stupid I know,” she holds up a hand like I was about to interrupt her, “but what you said haunted me for months afterwards. Every casting I went to, every audition. I could hear your damn voice in the back of my head reminding me I wasn’t enough.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I honestly don’t remember saying anything vicious about your audition for our music video. I voted for you, not against you.”
“You said, and I quote, t he blonde girl isn’t hot enough–she looks like she just got back from the horse ranch .”
I stare at her, waiting for her to say more.
“That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s it. Isn’t that bad enough!”
“I don’t see the problem.”
Leaping up from her seated position, Bryn slams down her wine glass and begins to pace from one end of the room to the other. “Are you fucking kidding me right now Henrik? That comment devastated me for years. Are you seriously going to tell me you didn’t say those words?”
“I said them–”
“ See ! How could–”
“–but they weren’t directed at you.”
She stops moving. “What? No, that’s impossible.”
“It’s very possible,” I corrected her. “I’m not proud of what I said, but if I remember correctly after I talked about horse girl I told the group that I wanted to go with the brunette. You were the brunette.”
“No, I was blonde at the time.”
“Nope, not from what I remember, You had streaks in your hair but it was brown hair.”
“Highlights,” she interjects.
“Whatever. You had highlights in your brown hair.”
“My hair color was dirty blonde. In what world is that brunette?”
“Well obviously I fucked up. But those comments weren’t about you. I thought you had a great audition for us, that you fit the hot girl persona that we were aiming for in the video. But we worked as a democracy back in those days and my vote was outnumbered.”
“Oh my God. That’s why you hired the redhead.” Bryn’s head falls back so that she can look up at the ceiling and a chuckle of realization leaves her. “I bet another one of your bandmates didn’t know the difference and tied the votes so that the other girl won.” Her hands glide through her hair before falling down to her sides in defeat. “I’ve held this in my chest for years. I’ve hated you for years–all because you don’t know the difference between dirty blonde and brunette.”
She collapses back onto the chair, a stunned look on her face still. I can tell she’s going to need a minute to come to terms with everything.
“I’ll just go get us a refill.” I tiptoe out of the room, grabbing her empty glass on the way. Bryn doesn’t make a sound.
Placing the glasses down on the kitchen island, I brace both palms on the cool surface and give myself a moment to process what just happened. We’d both shared and discovered a lot in the last hour. It was a lot.
Taking a deep inhale before shaking out of my thoughts, I feel a tingle of hope in my chest. We just put a lot out on the table and came to terms with some hard truths. It sucks that Bryn has been thinking I’m a giant asshole this whole time over something she heard incorrectly, but in the end, I can’t really hold that against her. I did say some shitty things—just not about her.
And I feel good about telling her my reasons for going in a different direction than being part of a band. We’re both searching for more. Something to get us both back on track.
Maybe, just maybe, we could help each other reach something great.