46. To The Fuck Ups
To The Fuck Ups
Natalia
“What draws you to him? My brick wall of a brother?” Rithy asks, gesturing towards him.
I look down at the glass. The question should be easy to mock, make shallow. He' s rich, famous, arms so perfect I kind of hate him. All of it's true, but none of it's the answer. I bite the inside of my cheek.
“He’s still,” I say.
The party is noisy around us. Music, laughter, glasses clinking, stilettos on marble, fake kisses landing beside real knives held behind backs. I keep staring at my drink.
“On the inside,” I add, quieter. “I don’t know, he makes me feel calm just by looking at me I guess. Like everything will be okay? I don't know, it's stupid.”
I glance over. Rithy's staring at me, like I've said something in a language he didn't expect me to know.
“What?” I snap, because tenderness makes me mean.
He blinks, then nods, slowly. “Yeah.” His voice is different now. Softer, but not sweet. Rithy doesn't do sweet. “Yeah, he’s like that. Underneath all the movement, muscles and terrible choices.”
The ache in my chest gets worse.
“Everyone thinks I want the muscles.” I say.
“Don’t you?”
I huff. “Obviously. I’m not dead.”
That gets a small laugh out of him.
“But not just that.” I look across the room, though Kiri's disappeared.
Rithy turns his glass slowly between his fingers.
I should leave, go freshen up and throw some water on my face.
I shouldn't ask what keeps spinning in my slightly inebriated brain.
I should leave him alone because it's mean to poke someone exactly where they try to pretend there isn't a wound. But he poked mine first.
“Why are you still in love with Rafe?”
Rithy chokes on his champagne. He coughs, then presses the back of his hand to his mouth, before levelling me with a stare that makes the back of my neck prickle.
His eyes are more intense than I’ve ever noticed, but I don’t look away.
I hold his gaze and let him see I’m not backing down.
I can see the denial forming. The lazy joke or insult.
The easy escape hatch. Then he looks toward him.
Rafe's laughing at something Kasia said.
“Circumstance,” he says. “Timing.” His gaze drops into his drink. “He’d already commandeered Cupid’s fucking arrow before I’d even had my first kiss.”
He turns the glass slowly between his hands.
“He smiled at me once. Just once.” His voice shakes now, no matter how hard he tries to bury it. “Some asshole knocked my books out of my hands at school, and Rafe stopped to help me pick them up. That was it.”
He laughs under his breath, but there’s nothing amused in it.
“Pathetic, right?”
“No, I get it. Kindness is hot.”
His mouth twists. “Don’t be nice. It makes me itchy.”
“I’m not trying to be nice, I'm just being honest.”
He breathes out through his nose. “From then on, nothing else compared. I guess I’ve just been waiting for someone to smile at me like that again. To feel that again.”
Something in me breaks a little. Because I know that feeling.
I know what it's like to have someone look at you once and ruin the lighting in every room afterward.
Rithy reaches for another drink from another passing tray, because emotional honesty demands alcohol support.
He swaps his empty glass for a full one and, with absurd grace, manages to get me one too.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this shit,” he mutters. “I still hate your sister.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “Me too, half the time.”
His brows lift. I take the fresh champagne and stare out at the party. At Kasia, beautiful and composed and so beloved. At Rafe, bending toward her, unable to even stay an inch away from her.
“She’s the ideal daughter,” I say. “I’m the unemployed disappointment.”
Rithy stills. Then he slowly turns his head and looks me over, eyes dragging across the length of me. Not in the Kiri way, there's no heat in it. He's assessing me, carefully, like he's reading a label and can't decide if it's a bottle of poison or vodka.
“Oh,” he says. “You’re the disappointment?”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t sound so shocked.”
“No, no.” He takes a long sip, never looking away. “Now I know all I need to know about your family.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
“It means the standards are so high even God would find it hard not to get disowned.”
The laugh catches in my throat because it is too close to the truth. Rithy lifts his glass, eyes gleaming again, but there's still something bruised under it.
“Makes sense why Rafe is so into Kasia,” he says. “Constantly chasing perfection.”
I look at my sister again. I love her. I do. I love her so much it's sometimes indistinguishable from resentment.
“She's actually perfect,” I say.
“No one is perfect.”
“She’s close enough to be annoying.”
“That, I’ll drink to.”
I snort. Rithy holds his glass out between us. “To the blackest of sheep.” I look at him. His smile is crooked, beautiful, tragic in the worst possible way. “To the fuckups,” he adds.
I clink my glass against his and down my drink in one.
Kiri
After a few photo ops with the band on a balcony so perfect it barely looks real, we head back inside.
My eyes go straight to Natalia.
Julian Mercer has returned while Rithy's been gone. He’s sitting beside her on the velvet couch, much closer than he was before.
One arm stretches along the back behind her shoulders.
His body angles toward hers, their knees almost touching.
Natalia’s legs are crossed. Julian’s free hand rests beside her thigh, his whiskey glass tucked into the narrow space between his palm and the black fabric of her dress.
His fingers shift whenever he speaks, close enough that if he moved them an inch, they would be on her.
The reaction hits every part of me at once. Heat climbs the back of my neck. My stomach tightens. Every muscle in my shoulders locks as though my body is preparing to remove him from the couch by force.
Radhika slows beside me. I make myself look at her. Her gaze follows mine to the couch just as Natalia laughs at something Julian says. Then Radhika looks back at me.
“You know her?”
“Nat. Kasia’s sister.” I take a whiskey from a passing tray. “She joined part of the tour.”
Radhika’s attention returns to Natalia. Julian leans closer to speak into her ear. Natalia doesn’t pull away.
“She’s very beautiful,” Radhika says.
“Yeah.”
The word comes out before I can make it neutral.
The party keeps moving. People come over to speak with Radhika. Label executives congratulate us on the tour. A photographer forces the band together for pictures, then insists Radhika join one because apparently nostalgia is excellent for engagement.
I smile when I’m supposed to but my attention keeps returning to the couch.
Julian touches Natalia’s back when she stands.
Later, I see them near the bar. He leans against it while she talks, giving her his full attention in that polished executive way that probably makes people feel as if they’ve been selected from a crowd.
Radhika asks me something.
I have no idea what.
“Sorry?”
Her expression becomes thoughtful.
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said for five minutes.”
“That’s not true.”
“What did I say before?”
I stare at her.
She raises one eyebrow.
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes drift toward Natalia again. She’s heading back to the couch alone now, and some of the tension in me eases. Maybe Julian found another target for the evening. Then I look back at Radhika. She’s studying my face with an uncomfortable amount of perception. I hate how much she can still see.
“I need the bathroom.”
I cross the ballroom, avoiding the couch entirely, and push into the men’s room. I head to the urinals. A man’s voice comes from inside the only occupied stall.
“No, I told you, I have someone on the hook.”
The voice is low, irritated, familiar enough to bother me without immediately placing it.
“I need the stuff now. Where are you?”
A second voice comes through the phone. I can’t make out most of it. The man laughs.
“You disappeared for twenty minutes.”
The voice answers.
“Oh, was it that fat talent scout?”
Another muffled response. The man scoffs.
“She's fucking fat. This is L.A. Anyone wearing a size eight is fat.”
My jaw tightens. He keeps talking.
“If she did the job, who cares, right? You don't have to be hot to suck dick. Did you get what I asked for or not?”
“Excellent. Meet me by the doors.”
The call ends. I stand there staring at the stall. The toilet flushes. I move to the sinks before the door opens, turn on the water, and begin washing my hands.
Julian Mercer steps out. I watch him through the mirror. He adjusts his jacket and checks his reflection, completely unaware of me. Or unconcerned.
At the label, he technically outranks half the people who manage us. He works directly with artists worth more money than some countries. He can bury a new act with one email and make sure a producer’s calls stop being returned. He looks like exactly what he is. Protected.
My eyes stay fixed on him in the mirror.
He smooths his hair, washes his hands, then leaves without looking at me once.
I follow. Julian crosses the ballroom toward the main doors.
I hang back near one of the columns. A younger man in a burgundy jacket appears from the corridor.
They exchange a few words. Their hands meet briefly. Something passes between them.
Then Julian turns toward the bar. My pulse begins pounding hard enough to blur the room at the edges. I could stop him now, but he’ll just ditch the shit, deny everything. Bury The Riven Altar in revenge for interrupting his night. If I’m right, I need to know where the drink is going.
I return to Radhika. She’s speaking with Ronan and one of the label’s international executives. I take my place beside her, but every nerve in me stays pointed toward Julian.
Radhika glances at me.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That expression on you has never meant nothing.”