Lyric laughs. “Glad to hear it. He’s a pushover for a pretty face and harmless, but if he oversteps with yours, let me know.”
“He’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“That I already know. Doesn’t change anything. Work is work and these boners seem to forget that not all women are there for their dicks’ pleasure.”
“He asked me out. I said no. He let it go. There was no boner touching involved.” I step onto the now empty elevator and hit the button for the garage. I gnaw on my lip, hoping my brother and his friends are already in their cars and racing out into LA traffic. “I thought Wild Minds was still on tour.”
“No. They returned home yesterday. Why do you ask?” she continues cautiously.
I bluster out a breath, leaning back against the wall as the car descends. “Because I had to hide behind one of your spiny plants in the hall to avoid my brother.” And Henry!
She laughs. Kinda loud, actually. “Eden, you could just tell him you work for me. He’ll find out eventually and no matter what he says or thinks, he’s not the reason I hired you.”
“I know that.” At least I think I do. But Lyric has been close friends with my brother and his bandmates for years. Has produced their albums for years. And even though I don’t want to trade on his name, I know he’s the reason I got the summer internships with her while I was in college.
I’m grateful to him for that, but I need this job to be about me. Not him.
And I know that if, when, my brother finds out I’m working here, not just interning, he’ll think I’m taking advantage. I need to earn my stripes before that happens and finishing Cyber’s Law’s album and having it be a success is the first step.
“Good. Because I’ve been following your work with Cyber’s Law and it’s good. Really good. The two songs you produced are every bit as well-honed and polished as the ones I did with them on the rest of the album. Monday, I want you to shadow Steven who is working with one of our solo hip-hop artists. Watch and learn the way they create the background instrumentals and how they pair that with her voice.”
“Okay. That sounds great. I’m really excited to learn that side of things.”
“That,” she says. “That right there. Your enthusiasm and willingness to take on whatever I throw at you is why I hired you. You remind me of me when I first started interning for Robert Snow. And to be fair, he was friends with my father and how I got the job. So I understand your position and your trepidation. But just like how I earned my way up, you are too. You’ve got this job, Eden. You truly do. Wow yourself, wow me, wow the industry with your talent, and no one can touch that.”
I smile so big my cheeks hurt. “Thank you, Lyric. I won’t let you down.”
We disconnect the call and the smile on my face and the giddy flutter in my chest carry me all the way down. I’m not a musician like Keith is. I can’t sing a note.
But I know how to create music. How to blend it and arrange it.
How to make it more than just voices and notes.
I know how to make it come to life.
I just need to believe in myself. To hold on to my courage and convictions.
To never let anyone hold me down or back again.
Stepping off the elevator, I head toward my car and immediately my jubilant smile and steadfast thoughts crash to the ground, shatter, then scatter like pieces of broken glass across the cement floor of the garage.
I stand frozen, immobile for a beat too long before I regain my composure, realign my mask of cool indifference, and saunter toward the man leaning against the passenger side door of my car, not so patiently waiting for me with an icy reception.
Two
EDEN
One of the cruelest power trips of nature is our inability to bend time to our will or change the course of our hearts when our minds truly know better. I don’t bother asking what he’s doing here. It’s obvious he saw me and with that realization, humiliation creeps up my face in the form of an inconvenient blush. I was, after all, hiding behind a freaking plant.
I hold his gaze anyway, refusing to back down.
“How did you know this was my car?” I ask instead of addressing anything else.
Henry doesn’t smirk, smile, or even speak. He just stares at me with an indecipherable expression, large arms folded casually over his equally large chest as he watches me draw closer and closer. He’s alone, which is a relief, and it isn’t. I’m glad Keith is not with him because one confrontation at a time is plenty, but I almost wish there were a buffer to dull the mounting tension swirling between us.
I shrug up a shoulder when he doesn’t answer, feigning indifference. Keith bought me this car as a graduation present, and since all the members of Wild Minds are practically lovers they’re so close it shouldn’t surprise me that he knows this is my car. I doubt they take a piss without consulting each other and sharing pics of the event.
Hitting the clicker, I get in, doing my best to ignore the man still poised against the door, angering me the way only he can.
Three years ago, when I saw him in the club and he approached me, I had never been happier in my life. I was no longer a little girl. I was a woman, nineteen, and all grown up.
He started talking to me. Flirting with me. Then he propositioned me. And when he kissed me in that dark corner with a passion I wasn’t expecting but delighted in all the same, it was a dream come true. It was more than just sex to me, as I knew it would be, but there was a connection. A spark. It all felt too good, and I knew I wasn’t alone in feeling that. I freaking knew it!
Then, when I realized he didn’t know who I was, I was heartbroken. No, my heart was so much more than broken. It was annihilated. It was as if every piece of girlish hope that had ever resided inside me died, leaving me cold, empty, and humiliated. I told him my name when he finally got around to asking it and watched as the gears clicked into place. As his eyes filled with recognition and then… regret. Revulsion.
The bastard said he wouldn’t have touched me if he had known it was me.
God, could anything hurt worse after what had just happened between us?
The sear from his rejection burned me deep, leaving irrevocable scars. Scars that lasted. Scars that lead and fed into other things that lead to scars of their own.
Only his are infinitely more resonating, indelible, destructive.
I’ve spent the last three years of my life avoiding Henry Gauthier. Not so easily done when he’s your brother’s best friend and chronically attends family functions and holidays with us. I forced myself to get over him. To not think about him. Now he’s here and there is no avoiding him since I’m on his turf, in his city, and working for his record label.
Now he’s seeking me out. This time knowing full well who I am. Only I’m no longer the same girl he treated like trash that night. And if he thinks I will follow him around, the way I tried to when I was just a girl, he’s got another thing coming.
The car starts up, The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” pulsing loudly from my speakers, and I blare the horn, starting to lose some of the cool I was hoping to cling to a little longer. “Move.”
He does, but not the way I want him to.