Exposed by Kristen Callihan
Chapter Twenty-Two
Brenna
“You’re visiting LA,aren’t you?” the woman in the seat next to me asks.
If you fly enough, eventually you’ll be seated next to a talker who insists on engaging in conversation no matter how deep your nose is buried in an eBook.
I set my e-reader down. The woman next to me appears to be in her early thirties and sports a tan that, short of using chemical sprays, I’ll never hope to achieve.
“How’d you guess?” I ask.
She shrugs, flipping a length of silky blond hair over her shoulder. “You’re all Sex and the City high fashion—love the boots, by the way.” She gives my knee-length floral print boots an appreciative glance. “Whereas if you were from LA, you’d be wearing couture loungewear and sneakers on the plane.”
I can’t help but smile, given that she’s wearing pale pink couture loungewear and pristine Pumas. “I’ll have to go shopping for some good loungewear while I’m there.”
“I have a boutique on Melrose.” She hands me a card that conveniently appears in her hand. “Stop by, and I’ll hook you up.”
So, this is a sale. I tuck the card beneath the protective cover of my e-reader. “Thanks…” I move to read again, but she keeps talking.
“You visiting someone? I’m Valerie, by the way.”
“Brenna. I’m going for business.”
Valerie sighs and takes a sip of a now-watery pink cocktail resting on her seat tray. “I went to New York to visit a guy. Thought he might be the one, you know? The sex was off-the-charts good.”
I nod, not wanting to talk about sex but not knowing how to end this conversation without coming off as totally rude. It never fails to amaze me how some strangers will tell you anything about their lives.
“We’ve been going back and forth, visiting each other for a couple of months. We started talking about maybe picking a coast and making it permanent. But when I got there this time, he was like a totally different person, all distant and cold. He insisted nothing was wrong, it was all good.”
Her eyes go wide as if she’s imploring me to understand. And I do, because I’ve heard some version of this story before. I’m beginning to think almost every woman has lived it at least once.
“Last day, he’s all, ‘hey baby, I’d love to cuddle, but I’m not feeling so good, you think you can run on down to the pharmacy and get me some aspirin?’”
“He told you he had a headache?” I find myself asking in rising outrage.
She nods, her nostrils flaring in remembered annoyance. “And like a sap, I was so sympathetic. Of course, I’d get it for him. Only the fucker insists that I have to go to this one pharmacy twenty blocks away.”
“No.”
“Yes. Oh, and he wanted soup from a specific deli too.”
I turn in my seat, leaning in so Valerie can speak her pain without being overheard. But she doesn’t seem to mind anyone else hearing. In fact, her voice rises. “Took me nearly two hours, and when I got back?” She pauses, lifting her hand as if to say she needs a moment. “That fucking fuckface was kissing some skank goodbye at the door.”
“That was…” I struggle. “Fast. And…wow.”
Valerie sits back with a huff and toys with the toggle on her hoodie. “He wanted to get caught. I swear, they all want to get caught. It’s the easy way out for them.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. I’ve seen the wreckage of too many failed relationships, and nothing anyone says seems to take away the pain. This is why I avoid them. Why risk the hurt when the majority of people out there are total assholes?
“I’m sorry I wasted money on these stupid trips,” Valerie mutters then snorts bitterly. “Long-distance never works. Never mind, I keep picking the man version of low-budget cling wrap—the ones who claim they’ll hold on tight but then slip and slide away the second you relax enough to let go.”
I laugh, but a niggle of doubt creeps over my skin. Am I a female version of cheap cellophane? I never try to hold on to a lover. I always find an excuse to let go, get away: they weren’t right for me, fatally flawed in some way, I was too busy, I didn’t need them. Looking back on my various attempts at relationships, I can’t say I missed anyone or regretted ending things. But it still bothers me. Because the fault can’t all have been with them. Part of the problem has to be with me.
Doesn’t it?
Why is it so hard for me to find someone I want to stick to?
Unbidden, Rye’s face rises up in my mind. He’s full-on smirking, one brow quirked like he thinks I’m full of it. Annoyed, I bat the image away. It doesn’t silence his voice in my head, telling me that I can lie to myself all I want, but I’m still running.
I’m not running this time. It’s a legitimate trip. A trip to see if I’ll take a job that moves me out of his life.
Because Valerie is right; long distance never works. If I give up Kill John, I’ll have to give up…God, am I really thinking of quitting my boys? Quitting Rye? I can’t. I cannot.
Crap. What I cannot do is think about this anymore. I won’t be able to function.
“I’m asking for some champagne,” I say to Valerie. “Do you want one?”
She perks up. “Sure. Why not?”
By the time the plane lands, and I’m in the back of the town car I hired, I’m fairly buzzed and overly warm—because champagne is evil that way. My head aches, and I hate all the traffic.
New York has horrible traffic. I’m fairly certain it makes most visitors cry in panic. But LA is a different kind of hell. In New York, you can bail and walk, take the subway. Here, you’re stuck in the car until you get where you need to go.
The sun is too bright and hot. I have no idea how anyone would voluntarily want to walk down the overly exposed sidewalks. When the car begins to snake up Benedict Canyon, the movement making my stomach roil, I’m cursing LA and wishing I were back in New York.
I swallow thickly, breathing through the pounding pain in my temples. My period is knocking on the door, and I am regretting the timing of this trip already. I should have waited.
The car pulls up in front of a gate that must be twenty feet high, and the driver stops. “Is there someone to buzz you in, miss?”
“I got it.” I’m already tapping the code into the app Rye sent me. The gate slides open, and the car makes its way up a long drive that hooks around a sharp bend. Mature olive trees with lacy little silver-green leaves flank the drive and provide both welcome shade and privacy.
The house doesn’t appear until we round the bend. Low-slung and L-shaped, it’s a massive modern structure of steel, expansive windows, and honed wood.
Finally, the car stops, which is a blessing. I’m not going to make it another minute. I grab my bags, wave the driver off, and head toward the house.
The front door is fifteen feet high and made of wood stained a rich, warm brown. It opens with surprising ease, and I find myself inside the soaring space that’s both cool and light filled.
Leaving my bags in the hall, I head toward the back where glimpses of a pool beckons. My heels echo in the silence. It’s a beautiful house if you like modern, but I don’t see what would cause that secretive little smile that I’d seen in Rye’s eyes when he spoke of it.
All of the main rooms face the back of the house with expansive canyon views. It takes me a minute, but I finally figure out how to operate the window walls. They slide back without a sound, opening the house up to the outside courtyard and garden. As soon as I step out, a sweetly scented breeze lifts my hair and kisses my overheated skin.
This is why people deal with the traffic and the ugly sidewalks that stretch for miles without succor. This lovely weather, the gentle rustle of palm trees, and the sweet scent of jasmine and chamomile dancing in the air. I breathe in deep and let it out slowly.
The pool stretches along the side of the house and is flanked by an orderly row of loungers. A pavilion has groups of low-slung couches, a fire pit, and what appears to be an outdoor screening area. There are a few outbuildings, little guest houses if I had to guess. They’re well hidden, surrounded by more olive trees and potted lemon trees. Each house has a pretty patio set up.
Again, though it’s beautiful, I don’t know why this excites Rye. It isn’t anything we haven’t seen before.
Turning back into the house, I make my way past the living room. Each room is designed for comfort, with slouchy, deep couches and chairs, and inspiration in the form of art on the walls and objects of interest that I recognize from our various trips around the world. Rye is a collector. On our off days, he heads to the markets or small shops in whatever city we’re visiting.
My fingers trail over a teak Danish-modern sideboard, drift past a Georgian marble bust of a young girl with one of Rye’s baseball caps resting jauntily on her head. And then I find it. Peppered around the lower wings of the L-shaped house are recording studios. Beautifully fitted and comfortable studios.
Knowing my boys as well as I do, this place would be a dream to record in. There’s an upstairs and downstairs gourmet kitchen and several expansive bedroom suites. All the amenities of home, coupled with state-of-the-art facilities. One could entertain or hang out while not recording, swim in the pool, exercise in the gym, or sweat it out in the sauna.
Every room, every view is soothing and serene. Inspiring.
Smiling, I reach for my phone and dial.
Rye answers on the second ring. “You get in okay?”
“Just now, yes.” I sit in a gray, velvet club chair. “I’m in your house. Or should I call it a recording studio?”
“Both, I guess. What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful. I wish we’d had places like this to use with earlier records.” Technically, I never need to be at any of those sessions, but it seems that where Kill John goes, I go. I am utterly enfolded in their world.
“That was the idea,” he says. “I’m planning to lend it out to friends when we’re not using it.”
“Not rent it? You’d make a killing.”
He chuckles, and the warm sound rolls over me in a hazy wave. I close my eyes and sink into the chair.
“I’ve been thinking I could produce more, Bren. Make music that way.”
His hands.
A lump rises in my throat. “You’d be great at it.”
No one knows music the way Rye does. He’s already produced more than half of Kill John’s albums, and I honestly don’t know why he doesn’t do all of them, because the ones he handles are the most popular.
We’ve been quiet for too long, and Rye clears his throat.
“Thanks.” The tentative tone makes me wonder if I’ve surprised him with the compliment. Then again, I haven’t given him very many over the years. Regret lies heavy on my shoulders.
“I mean it, Rye. You have a way with music that’s transcendent. Killian and Jax might write the lyrics, but you polish everything up and breathe life into them.”
Why hadn’t I ever told him? Because we’d always been focused on hating each other.
His breath hitches, and I know I’ve affected him.
“Thank you,” he says with a rasp. Then pauses. “The guys stopped by. They…ah…well, they knew something was up and wouldn’t go away until they got it out of me.”
“The fiends,” I tease softly, like I’m not quietly aching for him. He’d been so alone, when he didn’t have to be.
He hums, a bit self-deprecating, before forging on. “I told them about…everything.”
I know this. Scottie had texted. But the quiet, almost shy pleasure and relief Rye can’t quite hide in his voice pokes at my tenderized heart. He’d needed his guys’ support but didn’t know how to ask for it. “I’m glad, Rye.”
“Yeah, me too. We’re working things out.”
“Good.”
Emotion shouldn’t be able to reach through a phone and wrap around a person’s heart. But it does. I’m not certain either of us knows how to handle it.
Rye clears his throat, and when he speaks, he’s back to his old, playful self. “You meeting with Mr. Taco today or tomorrow?”
I roll my eyes. “Mr. Taco is the worst name ever. It’s not even clever.”
“It’ll grow on you,” he insists in a teasing tone. “By the time you meet him, that’s all you’ll be able to picture.”
“Are you trying to sabotage me?” I ask lightly, because I know he isn’t really.
But he answers with quiet seriousness. “No, Berry. Never that. I’d wish you luck right now, but you don’t need it. And, admittedly, I don’t know if I can wish you luck.”
“Why?” I whisper, feeling the need to follow his hushed tone.
“Because I don’t want you to go.”
My breath hitches, the fluttery feeling in my heart threatening to make me say things I shouldn’t. “Rye.”
“But I will,” he says quickly. “Let you go. You deserve to be where you’re happy.”
He’ll let me go. Because I’m not really his. And he’s not really mine. I stare blankly at the wall and wonder why everything aches.
“I understand,” he says steadily. “And the guys will too.”
Right. He wasn’t talking about us, but about me and my role with Kill John. My period is definitely knocking on the door, because I’m on the verge of weeping for no particular reason. It occurs to me that the last time I had my period was the first time Rye kissed me. Has it been a month? Before I know it, our time will be over and done, and I have the feeling it will all seem like a strange dream.
I need to get off the phone with him. I’m maudlin and weak-willed right now.
“I’ve got to go,” I say. “The flight wore me out.”
“Take the bedroom on the second floor at the end of the hall. I called ahead and had the service make it up for you.”
Tears threaten again, damn it.
“Oh, and the house is stocked with food and drinks, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
I pull in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I’m the one who takes care of things for others. And I take care of myself. Always have. I don’t know how to handle this type of simple kindness. All I know is if I don’t get off the phone now, I’ll be begging him to join me.
My will is my strength. I can’t crumble.
“Thanks, Ryland.”
He huffs a laugh and then says the one thing he’d promised not to. “Good luck, Berry.”
I almost hate him for that. Almost.
* * *
Rye
I goto Chicago with Whip. Nothing left for me in New York, so why not? It’s a nice distraction from all this thinking I’ve been doing.
Only, and this is a damn annoying problem, I quickly find out that you cannot run away from thinking about certain things. I’ve spent a lifetime cramming down the bitter disappointment I felt when my dad cheated on Mom. I did a pretty good job of not dwelling on how, as a kid, when he left her, it felt as though he left me too.
Surely, I can spend a few days hanging out with Whip and not let myself think about a certain redhead. And if my chest feels a little too tight, my stomach a bit hollow, that’s easy enough to ignore.
“Why the hell did we decide to go to Chicago in November?” I ask, as we leave the warmth of our hired car and step into the frigid air. It’s got to be twenty degrees already—and that’s not counting the freaking wind that cuts to the bone, which I am most definitely counting.
Whip hunches into the collar of his coat. “Stop being a wimp. If you stayed in New York, you’d still be playing sad songs on the piano.”
“At least I wouldn’t be freezing.” We hustle our ass down an alleyway, flanked on each side by a security guard. “All I’m saying is that we could have gone somewhere warm like—”
“California?” Whip supplies dryly.
I don’t dignify that remark with a response. But given that Brenna told everyone she was headed out to LA on “business” and the fact that Whip is smirking, I’d say he’s on to us.
We’re almost halfway down the alley when a side door opens, releasing warm air that steams in the cold and a wall of thumping bass. A man steps out, his solid frame silhouetted in the light. He catches sight of us and smiles.
“You made it.” He clasps Whip’s hand and draws him in for a shoulder bump then turns and catches my hand next.
“Tariq, long time,” I say when we half hug. The world knows him as ShawnE, but I met him as Tariq and the name is stuck in my head.
“When was it?” he asks. “London, 2016?” There’s a gleam in his brown eyes that says he’s remembering our mischief.
“Think so.” We’d hung out at a private club we’re both members of. I have fuzzy memories of getting drunk, willing women on our laps, and doing something downright dirty with a bottle of Creme de Cacao—however, the details of that remain scant. Probably for the best.
With a chuckle, he leads us into the blessed warmth of the hall. Inside, the music surrounds me like a much-needed hug, pounding into my flesh and pumping my heart rate up. A surge of energy follows as Tariq heads down a narrow staircase.
The club is an underground lair, filled with dancers and flashing lights. I only get a glimpse of it through a two-way mirror before we enter a private room. Tariq gets us settled with a couple of beers, and we chat for a while. The club is Tariq’s baby, bought after his first album went platinum. He hosts a variety of artists and has made many an up-and-coming DJ famous.
“So,” he says to Whip, “you ready, man?”
Whip rolls his shoulders and then bobs his knee in an agitated rhythm. “Need to let off a little steam.”
Tariq chuckles because he knows how it is. Guys like Whip and Tariq have an energy that can only be burned off by creating beats. Tariq raps and Whip plays the drums, but they’ll both go out some nights and DJ at a venue for a couple of hours just to recharge their creative wells.
Right now, I get all the highs I need from Kill John. If I want to refill the well, I get it by producing on the side, helping others find the right sound and smoothing out rough tracks. Tonight, however, I’m Whip’s wingman.
The door opens, and the club manager pops his head in. “Whip, Rye, how you been?”
“Jay.” I give him a wave.
Whip greets him. “My set all right, man?”
Whip likes to do things old school, which means he spins using vinyl. It’s an unwieldy process hauling crates of records around then setting everything up. He’d come to the club earlier today to arrange things.
“Good to go.” Jay glances at Tariq. “Need a word. You got a minute?”
“I’ll be out in a second.” Tariq turns to us. “You good to go in thirty?”
“Yep.”
When Tariq leaves, I stand and wander around the room. I’m restless in a way that no amount of performing will settle. It’s her. She’s in my blood now. When I’m with her, it’s like nothing else. No better high. When I’m not with her?
I am lost.
I’m lost, and she’s in LA—thinking about moving there.
Shit.
What the hell am I doing with her?
I stop at a vintage arcade Donkey Kong that’s in the far corner. The big screen is bright with its glaring, simplistic ‘80s graphics. “You ever played this?” I ask Whip.
He gets up and ambles over. “Nah. To tell you the truth, these old games freak me out.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “What?”
Whip grimaces. “It’s ridiculous, right? But there’s something about the twitchy-ass way the characters move that makes my stomach clench.”
I can’t help it; I laugh again. “Sorry,” I say after a moment. “It’s just so…”
“Whack?” he supplies with a self-deprecating smile.
“Random. It’s random as fuck.”
“Yeah, well…” He glances at the game. The intro is playing and Donkey Kong paces—in an admittedly twitchy fashion. Whip scowls and looks away. “Nope. Still drives me bug fuck.”
Grinning, I push away from the machine and start pacing again.
“You nervous?” Whip sounds a little surprised. As he should be; we never get stage fright. That’s Jax and Libby’s specialty.
“No.” I’m not. I’m…I don’t want to think about it anymore.
But Whip watches me with those ice-blue eyes of his that see far too much. He leans against the couch back, crossing his arms over his chest. “We ever going to talk about this?”
About her. The one person I’m trying to forget for the moment.
I kept it secret. But, fucking hell, Scottie knows, Jax knows. Why can’t I talk about this with my closest friend?
With a sigh, I find an armchair—some ultramodern piece made out of metal and leather straps—and flop down. The damn chair groans in an ominous fashion. “She doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“But I guessed it,” Whip fills in. “So you’re not really breaking her secret.”
A snort escapes. “That’s a thin-ass excuse, and we both know it.”
“But it’s the defense we’ll go with if asked.”
“Sometimes I forget your mom is a lawyer.”
“Try growing up with her. I couldn’t get away with shit.”
“That’s why you’re cagey as fuck now.” I rub a hand over my face. “All right. I’ll talk. Mainly because I’m…Well, shit. I don’t know what the hell I am anymore.”
In the halting tones of the reluctant and confused, I explain what happened, starting on the night I eavesdropped on her conversation with Jules. I leave out the personal bits and give him the bare bones of the situation.
“Problem is,” I say when I finally get to the present situation with her going off to LA and me sitting here twiddling my thumbs, “I can’t think straight anymore. I miss her when she’s not around. A lot. I hate hiding what we’re doing, but I understand why she wants to. At least that’s what I tell myself. But in here?” I thump a fist to my chest. “It feels like bullshit, keeping quiet and pretending we are the same as we were before. Because we’re not. We’re…Shit. That’s the other problem. I don’t know what the hell we are.”
When I finish, Whip sighs. “What made you think getting physical with Brenna without the possibility of any kind of real relationship in the cards was a good idea?”
I stare blankly at him. “My dick?”
He chuffs. “Yeah, I just bet your dick was doing all the thinking.”
“To be clear, I’m not regretting the decision, and neither is my dick, because the sex is off-the-charts fantastic—shit, I didn’t say that! You did not hear me say that.”
Whip laughs and takes a long drink of water. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he looks away, clearly thinking about something. When he turns back to me, his expression is considering. “This arrangement you’ve got going with Bren isn’t working for you, is it?”
The words gut-punch me so hard, I hunch over, pressing the heels of my hands against my tired eyes. “No.”
It tastes like betrayal. Like the end. At this moment, I’m not sure what hurt more to say, that my hands were jacked or that I can’t continue like this with Brenna and keep my head up.
My body is tense, wired. I close my eyes. The rhythmic thump of bass and the occasional cry of the crowd in the club punctuate the silence in the room.
Whip’s voice, soft yet insistent, slides over me. “You gotta end it. I know it seemed like a good idea at the time, but you keep going like this and it will get so twisted, neither of you will come out of it intact.”
“I know. I know, all right? I just…” Can’t. Not yet. I need more time. More of her. Our official “day” is tomorrow, and I’m going to miss it. My throat closes in on me. “I like her, Whip.”
Like is too weak a word. But it’s the only one I can say.
“Yeah, I know.” His quiet acknowledgment cuts deeper. He pauses. “Bren asked Scottie to check on you.”
My heart starts trying to pound its way out of my chest. “What?”
But it’s not a question; it’s shock.
Whip nods in acknowledgement. “She knew you needed us but were too stubborn to ask for help.” His smile is brief but fond. “Probably because she’s stubborn about showing her feelings too.”
Brenna always had to be tougher than any of us. To her, revealing any hint of emotional weakness meant the possibility of losing everything.
I rub a hand over my tight chest, as Whip lets it all sink in.
“I think you know what you have to do to fix this.” Whip and I have a connection deep enough that I understand what he means. Of course, I do, because he’s read me too well and knows exactly what I’ve been thinking. It’s not an easy decision to make.
Truth is, the whole thing scares the shit out of me. But a person can only lie to themselves for so long, and I’m no longer willing to play myself a fool.
“It’s a risk,” I say.
Whip shrugs. “Everything worth having is a risk.”