I didn’t know if it was in spite of being so far from home, or because of it but I was feeling better than I had in ages. I hadn’t needed to reach for my lifesavers in days, and I couldn’t remember the last time that had been true. Jax made everything seem a little bit easier. Being here in Los Angeles felt strangely uncomplicated—I felt, in some ways, freer than I’d felt in my whole life.
A voice I didn’t recognize, with a thick Boston accent, ripped into my thoughts. "Hey, strawberry, whatcha dreamin’ about?"
I turned around to see a short, bearded man with half a dozen earrings. It was the first time I’d seen him in person, but I didn’t need an introduction: Torrence Henderson, the director. He’d shot the video for half a dozen number one hits, among them Lady Dada’s last single, and his distinctive celebrity photos had shown up in every glossy-paged fashion mag in the business. Henderson was a perpetual red carpet fixture, and designers lived and died by which shows he watched at Fashion Week.
"Excuse me?" I said, not sure what he wanted from me.
He reached out to the ends of my hair and held it in his fingers. "Nevermind. What dye is this? It’s beautiful."
I felt my face getting hot. "No dye."
"Natural. I like that. Gorgeous," he said, looking me up and down in a way that was starting to make me uncomfortable. "Do you have any questions about your costume? I assume you’re next up for makeup."
Oh. He wasn’t being inappropriate, he just thought I was there to be on camera. "I’m not an actress, you must be—"
"Crazy to hide a model under all that zombie makeup? I agree," he said, giving an exaggerated shrug and sigh. "But this video is high-concept, you understand? If it helps, you can think about all those actresses that won awards for playing ugly. Nicole. Charlize. Halle . . ."
I shook my head and cut him off. "This is all very flattering, but you’ve got the wrong girl. I’m not here to be in the video." I hadn’t acted since flubbing half my lines in my middle school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream—and I wasn’t about to try again with Jax’s career on the line.
"Then what the hell are you doing on my set?" In spite of the words, he didn’t sound angry, just confused.
"I’m here with J—" I started, then quickly corrected myself and extended my hand. "Excuse me. I’m Riley Hewitt, tour accountant for The Hitchcocks."
His brow wrinkled. "You don’t look like any accountant I’ve ever seen."
I gave my best glam pose, my hands framing my face. "All the accountants look like this where I work," I said in a vampy voice, then broke into a grin.
"Then let me tell you, I’ve been doing my taxes with the wrong people," he said. "Listen, really, sweetheart, we could use a few more extras for the crowd scene. You sure you don’t want to be in a video?"
"I’m more of a behind-the-scenes kind of girl."
"But hear me out, I’ve got this perfect part. See, the zombie nurse that comes after the band will have this giant syringe, and you’ll be in a nurse’s uniform . . ." He grabbed a costume, still on its hanger, from one of the racks. I could only imagine what Palmer would say if he saw me spending company time wearing a skin-tight nurse’s uniform in a rock video.
"Uh huh." I pinched at the fabric of the zombie costume’s micro-mini latex skirt. "And what artistic statement is this making, exactly?"
"Darling, it’s all about the nature of fame."
"Fame?" Under different circumstances, I might have told him off about the "sweetheart" and "darling" treatment, but I didn’t want to piss off The Hitchcocks' director right before he shot their video.
"When a band like The Hitchcocks gets big, their fame locks them inside themselves," he said, suddenly much more animated, talking a mile a minute. It was like I’d turned his dial up to eleven. "They’ll start in straitjackets, each band member in a different cell, but even when they escape their cells, the zombies try to keep them from succeeding. You know, the critics, the fame leeches . . ."
Just what I want Jax to think of me as, I thought. A fame leech and a nurse with a face like a rotted corpse coming after him with a giant syringe.
I was trying to think of how to exit gracefully when I heard my name being called, somewhere behind me. "Riley?" I looked around, but couldn’t see the source of the voice. Louder, this time: "Riley, hey, is that you?"
I looked through the crowd of extras and saw a figure pushing through them. Tall, fair-skinned . . .
My stomach dropped to the floor.
No. It can’t be him. Not here. Not like this, not right now.
"Riley? It really is you, holy shit!" He came closer, running a hand through his auburn hair. "How have you been? What are you doing in L.A.?" I caught a flash of gleaming white teeth hiding between his lips as he drew them into a fake smile.
"Connor." The name came out flatly in spite of my shock, and I felt my arms pull up against my chest numbly. "Why are you here?"
He smiled wider."Here as in Los Angeles, or here as in this studio?"
I want to know if you’re following me around, I thought, but I kept my voice under control. "Either. Both."
He laughed. "You know, I could ask you the same thing."
I narrowed my eyes. "You first."
"Well, let’s start with the city. I moved here for work." He spoke with the slick syllables of Southern California, any trace of his old New York accent long since gone. "As to your second question, I’m here shooting a commercial for my firm on the next soundstage over. I saw your hair and wondered if it was you."
At least he’s not following me. I looked back over to the set and realized Jax and the band were setting up on the soundstage. The last thing I needed was for Jax to meet Connor. Jax may have had his secrets, but this was one part of my past that I wasn’t ready share with him, which meant I needed to finish our conversation without starting a scene. Forcing my voice into politeness, I said, "It’s been a while. Are you still in law?"
"You got it. McDonald & Ritter. Entertainment law. Mostly films, a little music too. So are you acting now?"
"Accounting."
Connor was trying to make conversation, but I didn’t want to engage.
"You mean you stuck with accounting even after we broke up?" His tone, subtly arrogant, made me feel about three inches tall. I gritted my teeth. "I thought you were only in that major so we could take classes together."