Chapter Fifteen Eleanor
After a day of wild stress combined with desert heat, my skin is past the point of what any reasonable person would consider dewy.
In the back seat of a cab on our way to the bar to pay off our tab and pick up Adam’s ID, I rifle through my bag in search of a tissue or napkin—anything I can use to blot my face.
When I come up empty I swipe the back of my hand over my forehead in an effort to control the shine.
I’m not the only one concerned about my appearance. I keep catching Adam tenderly touching his face. When he resorts to pulling out his phone and turning his camera to selfie mode, I take pity on him.
“It’s really not that bad.”
He lowers his phone and rolls his head against the headrest to look at me. “It’s not great, though.”
“No, it’s… very rock ’n roll.” I maintain a straight face for a five whole seconds before we both start laughing. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard someone earnestly call something rock ’n roll in my entire life, so it’s no wonder he didn’t buy it. “Honestly, I’d be more concerned with your shoes.”
“Shit.” He looks down at his feet, apparently having forgotten that he is still wearing hotel slippers. It reminds me of our first cab ride this morning, and I don’t understand how only a few hours have passed since then. Feels like a lifetime ago.
“I should probably do something about that,” Adam muses. We pull up outside the Desert Cowboy and I wait in the car while Adam runs inside to pay the tab and recover his ID. When he slides back in beside me a few minutes later, he hands me some folded cash.
“What’s this?” I ask as I unfold them and count six twenty-dollar bills.
“Your half of what was left over.” He leans forward and asks the driver if he could reroute us to a shoe store.
“Sure. What one?” the driver asks.
“Doesn’t matter. Any shoe store that carries men’s shoes.”
While the cab pulls away from the curb, I fiddle with the money in my hand.
Part of me wonders if we really had that much left over, or if Adam gave me more than half of what was left.
But asking means skirting around the fact that Adam now knows I’m flat broke, and I’d rather not get into that yet again, so I pocket the money and say nothing.
The driver chooses a discount shoe store near the brewery called Kinky Boots. I don’t even attempt to keep a straight face this time. Based on the pictures taped to the window, it seems like the sort of place the dancers at Deja Vu would buy their footwear.
Adam grimaces at the sign, and apparently can’t resist casting a glare my way—which only makes me laugh harder—before paying and getting out of the car.
“Solid choice,” I tell the driver.
He meets my eye in the rearview mirror and shrugs, but I catch his grin as he looks away. Despite everything that has gone wrong on this trip, I’ve truly been blessed with some excellent cabdrivers.
I slide out after Adam and the cab starts to pull away when my phone buzzes. Yet another text from Iris.
Did you get my voicemail??
Shit. She’s really freaking out about this. Not that she needs to—I was always going to do whatever I could to make her big day perfect.
“I’ll wait out here for you,” I tell Adam, who nods and heads into Kinky Boots with the air of a man walking the plank.
I shake my head and turn my attention back to my text chain.
Considering how prominently Duchess was featured in my sister’s engagement photos, she’ll probably be the star of the wedding, anyway.
So really, I should be honored. Both that Duchess likes me, and that Iris trusts me to care for her incredibly high-maintenance dog, who she possibly loves more than her future husband.
And why shouldn’t she trust me with this?
I can be responsible. I will get Duchess down that aisle, and we will look fabulous doing it.
Yes
OMG wait I just remembered this is Dempsey day!!!
Ignore me, we’ll talk later
Good luck!!!
Iris knows better than anyone how obsessed I am with Dempsey. She listened to me endlessly rave about them when I first discovered their demo, then rant after they slipped through my fingers. It’s why she chose their concert as the place to finally confront me about Griffin.
They were touring their debut album, and Iris snatched up tickets the moment they went on sale. Just two.
Sister night, she’d captioned the text when she sent me a screenshot of her ticket confirmation, no boys allowed.
It had been ages since Iris and I had gone to a show together.
We did our preshow ritual, hitting the bathrooms before they got busy, the merch line before the good T-shirts sold out, and then grabbing bottles of water before finding the best vantage point.
They were playing a popular venue in Echo Park, and Iris and I weaved our way along the side of the balcony until we found a spot right against the railing, close to the stage.
As soon as we were settled in, Iris turned to me. “So. When are you going to dump Griffin?”
My head reared back, and for a moment I could only blink at her. “What the fuck?”
She shrugged and lifted a single brow. She’s a few inches shorter than me, but standing there with her feet firmly planted and her arms crossed, she looked immovable. Ready for a fight. “You heard me.”
“Where is this coming from? I thought you liked him.” Griffin had made an effort with Iris.
He’d taken her with us to fancy, Michelin-starred restaurants on more than one occasion.
He’d referred some TV producer he knew from the country club to her for personal training.
He’d been nothing but nice to her, because he knew she was the most important person in my life.
Iris sipped her water, finally letting her gaze flick away.
She licked her lips and fiddled with the cap before finally speaking in a careful voice I’d never heard from her before.
“He can be very charming. And he’s good-looking and rich.
But, Ellie, come on.” She turned to face me again.
“He is a complete jackass and he doesn’t treat you right. And I feel like you know that?”
My jaw clenched. She was being shitty. It pissed me off that out of nowhere she was springing this on me, calling my long-term boyfriend a jackass. But my anger accounted only for a small part of the heat washing over me. Mostly, I was embarrassed.
I stared at the stage, empty aside from the drum kit and sound equipment. We’d gotten here as soon as the doors opened, and the floor was finally starting to fill in. Dempsey would be coming on any minute.
“Have you been thinking this the whole time we’ve been together?”
She didn’t respond, aside from a purse of her lips.
My mind filtered through all the times they’d hung out together, Iris laughing at Griffin’s jokes, and I’d known it was forced, could tell her smile was strained, and I’d ignored it.
My hands tightened around my bottle of water, crinkling the plastic. “You could’ve said something sooner,” I snapped.
Iris scoffed, exasperated. “When would I have done that? At the party my roommates and I threw last month that you didn’t come to? Or at Mother’s Day brunch, when you brought Griffin for some reason?”
“Well, his own mom is dead—”
“Because he’s like a million years old.”
“So, what, this is all because you think he’s too old for me?”
“No.” Iris waved her hands, as if to erase her previous comment.
“It’s not about his age. I don’t care about that.
It’s—he’s your boss. It’s fucking weird that he pursued you in the first place.
But whatever, I’d get over that, too, if I thought he actually deserved you. If I thought he made you happy.”
“He—”
“Ellie, don’t fucking lie to me. Look me in the eye and tell me you’re happy.”
My mouth opened. Then snapped shut as a lump formed in my throat.
She was right. It would be lying to pretend I was entirely happy.
The truth was, I was anxious all the time.
Always worried about disappointing Griffin, or saying the wrong thing and having to listen to some condescending lecture about how I should have done better.
I hated my job. The job I’d worked so hard for, that I used to love, I now hated, and it was his fault.
Because he’d promoted me so he could micromanage all of my projects and now everyone else at work despised me more than ever, thought I didn’t deserve to be there.
And Iris was right—I’d barely seen or spoken to her for months, because Griffin always needed me to be with him, even if it was just to hang off his arm and listen to people verbally fellate him at some boring party.
The buzz of the crowd grew to a roar as Dempsey took the stage.
As luck would have it, they opened with my favorite song.
Track five from their debut album—a song about what it’s like to lose yourself in someone else, and to feel untethered without them.
About how romantic it seems when someone first steals your breath away, until eventually parts of you start to die without oxygen.
I’d always loved the song simply because Sheridan’s lyrics are brilliant, but listening to her sing it live, especially right after that conversation with Iris, I connected to it on a whole new level.
I was suffocating in my relationship. And it had happened so slowly, I’d barely even noticed until I was in too deep, and I couldn’t picture my future without Griffin in it.
But as Sheridan sang onstage, I forced myself to picture it. And I liked what I saw.
That night I went home—not to Griffin’s place, but to my own apartment I rarely slept in anymore—and applied for a job at Blue Sky.
Being with Griffin had impacted my friendships, my relationship with my sister, had made me lose my passion for my work.
But Iris had helped me realize I still loved music.
I still wanted to work with artists, even if it meant I had to start over somewhere else.