I flopped on the bed, and the knot from my robe dug into my empty stomach.
Tearing into the bag of Cheetos, I spilled a few onto the white comforter. I brushed away the neon orange dust and sank deep into the extra-soft pillow-cloud mattress topper, surrounded by extra pillows like I’d built a fort. It was nothing like the beds Keyton and I had snuggled up in. The bed in my room back in Greenwood had been Ikea basic. The one in my apartment back in California had barely fit the two of us. Sometimes in these beds I felt like I could be lost forever and no one would find me.
I grabbed the remote and pulled my feet up, massaging them, and flicked through the VOD program Holden had set up in my room and the telltale musical intro. House Hunters.
With a jump shot from the bed, I sailed the finished Cheetos bag into the trash can in the corner. I’d gotten pretty good at bedroom basketball.
“Let me guess, you cultivate butterfly gardens and your husband studies unicorn science and your budget is $2.5 million dollars.” The welcome distraction of formulaic TV helped soothe me after the high of performing and then being blindsided by Keyton.
The couple on TV rattled off some ridiculous careers, but their budget was only $1 million, so there was egg on my face.
This couple was settling down and buying a place. Putting down roots and starting a family. Sometimes they had families already. The past six years had gone by so quickly. Some days I was sure I’d wake up with a killer hangover from the night I’d sung karaoke, and it would all have been a dream. Keyton would come to my door, and things would be different somehow.
But most mornings I woke up in a bed that wasn’t mine, and someone had to write down the name of the city on a piece of tape at my feet on stage so I didn’t say the wrong one.
Nowhere was my home.
Visiting my mom in her house in California was the closest I had to a home, but it wasn’t the one we’d lived in with my dad, and it wasn’t our place in Greenwood. I felt constantly off-kilter.
But tomorrow I’d get to see Keyton. I held onto that as I snuggled down deeper into my blanket fort. Five extra pillows and two comforters was always my special request. As diva demands went, it wasn’t too extreme. I hadn’t requested they repaint the room in every suite I stayed in like I’d heard some people did.
After enough episodes to know I’d hate myself in the morning, I turned off the lights and hugged a pillow to my chest, burying my face in it. Clean pressed linen. It wasn’t the scent I missed the most. Not the scent he’d worn like it was sewn into his DNA. Not the scent I’d lost.
I’d cultivated the talent of sitting up straight while I napped, which meant I could do it while a team of people worked on my face to make me camera-ready. Sometimes I forgot what it was like to be out in public as me.
The makeup was gone now, rubbed off after the appearance and marketing photos for the upcoming tour. My face stung from the makeup remover and the extra scrubbing that had been required to get to the coffee meeting on time.
I’d been preoccupied all day.
But here I finally was, in the executive business lounge of the hotel. Not exactly the most warm and fuzzy place to meet. It was chilly, like overpowered business people with laptops whirring away would overheat the place—or maybe they didn’t want anyone to stay for longer than it took to down the complimentary snack and coffee.
I squeezed my hands between my knees, rocking in my seat and trying not to look like I was ready to come out of my skin. In flats, black pants and a short-sleeved black sweater, I looked more like I was headed to an accounting interview than here to meet Keyton. There hadn’t been any good wardrobe recommendations for ‘first real meeting with the only guy you’ve ever loved who you walked out on before stumbling into stardom’.
Sitting at one of the eight two-seater tables in the lounge wasn’t exactly incognito, but my options were limited. My nose still burned from the perfume shoot. Apparently dumping gallons of eye-stinging perfume all around the set increased the ambiance. One thing it definitely increased was my sneezing and watery eyes.
They’d be lucky if they got twenty good shots out of the four-hour shoot.
Every time the door to the business lounge opened, my heart raced. The executive lounge on the twentieth floor wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but it was quiet, with muted décor and gentle piano music. Quiet and sparsely populated.
Holden and Emily sat at a table on the other side of the room, close to the door, ready to intercept anyone who might have heard I was here and slipped past security. Their heads were together over their tablets, phones, leather folios, pens and markers, orchestrating my life.
The European leg of my tour started in a little over two months. I had an eight-week reprieve before the grind began again.
I held my mug with both hands. My leg bounced up and down, rattling ceramic containers of sugar cubes and sweetener packets.
There were a few businessmen sprinkled throughout the room, working on their computers and filling up on even more caffeine.
I’d ordered a hot chocolate. The last thing I needed was to be up even later tonight. It wasn’t as good as mine, but I hadn’t made my own in a long time. Had it been two years ago, when I’d been to my mom’s house for Christmas before heading to Australia for a New Year’s show?
In my head I repeated his name over and over. Keyton, not Dare. Keyton, not Dare. It was hard to separate the two in my head. I’d had so much history with Dare, and it hadn’t been erased by a month with Keyton.
Knowing I’d be sitting across from Keyton for the first time in over six years had me keyed up more than the double shot of espresso I’d had at six a.m.
The door opened again, and I sat up straighter.
He was here in a navy blazer and jeans with a crisp white shirt. The boy I’d fallen for and the guy I’d loved back at UCLA had been replaced by a man.
“Sorry, I’m late.” His lips curved, not into a full smile, but the way they did when I ran late to an interview or some other obligation that wasn’t on the top of my list for the day.
I wasn’t used to someone not being happy to see me.
It was a knock—not that I didn’t deserve it. I’d been worried he wouldn’t show up at all.
“D—Keyton.” I shot up, rocking the table even more and sloshing some of my hot chocolate out of the mug. “You came.”
“I said I would.” He sat, unbuttoning the two buttons on his blazer and sliding into the seat, smooth as butter.
I sat back down and mopped up the splashes of hot chocolate from the table.
The server came over with a menu for him, but he waved it off. “I’ll have a coffee, milk and sugar.”
He folded his hands on the table top and leaned back. “Traffic was a bit of a mess getting here. Sorry for keeping you waiting.”
“I haven’t been here long.” Only thirty minutes. It was my second hot chocolate. I would be peeing mini marshmallows later tonight.
“So…” He trailed off looking to me to start the conversation.
There were so many things I’d wanted to say to him since I left him in my dorm room. So many things I’d said in my texts and emails over that first year. Ones I couldn’t even be sure he’d read—and wanted to say when I’d shown up in LA to try to see him again for the last time, racing back from Oslo during a gap in the tour. But I hadn’t known if I’d ever get to say any of it to his face and what I’d needed to say to him then was different than what I needed to say now.