As she dove into the back of the giant black car, she felt the reality of her situation bearing down like an iron maiden. Shewasgoing to have to move to LA for a quarter of next year. She and Willow had discussed coming to California as a family versus her doing it on her own, but now they were staring down the barrel of actual decisions. The idea that she could live without him and their girls for three months was wild. But it wasn’t more insane than her and Willow not being able to fuck each other properly anymore.
What if she told her husband about the contract and he said,‘No, it’s fine. Why don’t you go by yourself?’the same way he had tonight. Maybe it would mean nothing. Maybe it would be the tiny tear in their marriage that pulled the two of them apart. The beginning of the end.
The traffic was as bad in the early hours of Sunday morning as it had been before midnight. The car crawled past clubs swarming with well-dressed, beautiful people. Eden studied their faces and wondered when she’d gone from a DJ who’d sell her soul for a massive night out in LA to a producer who’d rather watch a movie with her kids, get banged by her husband, then go to sleep.
She was being ridiculous. Ridiculousanda hypocrite. Other people had changed? She’d changed. She didn’t want to go to a club. She didn’t even want to be in LA. She’d always love making music; maybe she was even still cool, in a‘you’re not young, but you’re fine’way. But she’d transformed from a dirty, underfed, underground DJ to… whatever she was now.
Fuckin’ change. So easy to see in old friends. So hard to catch in the mirror. She’d waited for Willow to get back to normal after the accident and he’d waited for her to get used to the new way he wanted to fuck. And what good had that done them? It had led to a situation where she might have to move to California by herself.
“Oh lord,” she said, pressing her face into her hands. “What am I gonna do?”
The driver had put up the little divider between them and either didn’t hear her question or ignored it, which was probably a good thing. She didn’t need strangers weighing in on what could be the biggest or worst transformation of her life.
The car crawled past a sex store, the window outfitted with mannequins in leather harnesses and sexy sailor costumes. Andthen Eden saw it: a dress that had her lightly tapping on the divider.
“Hey,” she asked the driver. “Could we please maybe stop?”
The guy put the divider down. “You need something from around here?”
Normally, Eden would have been at least a little embarrassed to have a random dude watch her go into a fuck-shop, but the driver had the blank eyes of someone who could be watching her puff a glass pipe and wouldn’t care.
“I just need to duck into that store,” she said, jerking her head at the sex shop. “Is that okay?”
“No problem. I’ll pull up if I can. Otherwise, I’ll circle ‘till you get back.”
“Or you might still be stuck in this exact place?”
The driver laughed a little, unlocking the doors. “Be brave out there, kid.”
It was a strange thing for a stranger to say, but Eden liked it. Sometimes you couldn’t be safe. Sometimes, buses slid, and people got hurt, and hard choices rose up like tidal waves. But you could always try to be brave. And as she strode alone into a random LA sex store, Eden decided that was exactly what she was going to do.
2
Willow wished the hotel pool was empty, and he was the only person drinking by the water. It would have reminded him of home, both Rockhampton, where he’d grown up by the beach, and St Kilda, where he, Eden, Jupiter and Mercury lived by the bay.
But much like New York, LA didn’t seem big on sleep. The sauna, hot tub, and Olympic pool were full; the surrounding deck chairs were full. He’d forgotten headphones, so he stuck to scrolling social media until he landed where he usually did—his folder of Eden photos. Eden on stage. Eden sitting in the sand. Eden holding baby Jupiter, her eyes glassy with whatever they put in epidurals. Eden in bed, her hair all rumpled.
She was just… incredible.
When he was twenty-three, hell, when he wasthirty-three, he’d never have believed he could be so obsessed with one woman. A woman he’d already married and had two daughters with.
But that was stupid. The fight wasn’t over because you got a ring on a girl. She wasn’t tied to you forever just because you had kids. Eden was as beautiful now as she’d been the night he’d mether. More. She was sharper, kinder, smarter, more impressive. She’d always been out of his league, but now…
He went to the last photo he’d taken of her—standing in front of the massive angel wings at the observatory. She was smiling, but it didn’t touch her eyes; she was clearly somewhere else, probably thinking about the stupid fight they’d had that morning.
Sighing, he finished the last of his beer and went to the pool bar to reload. If he couldn’t be alone by the water, at least there was someone around to pull taps. He got another lager and returned to his deck chair, consciously not making ‘dad noises’ as he sat down. He seemed to be surrounded by actors, models, and fitness models. Nothing like LA to make him feel like an old man before his time.
Eden was younger than him, and beautiful. She fit in here. He wondered if she’d been offered the job yet. He knew she’d get it. She came to life whenever she talked about the project. And it made sense. To Quinley and Sony and all their corporate assholes, Eden was what she’d been when he’d met her—a sexy underground talent. Not a mum. Not someone who almost died last year.
Against his will, he went back there, to the memory that had taken up permanent residence in his brain.
He’d been at the park. Jupiter was on the monkey bars, Mercury in the baby swing, kicking happily as he pushed her. His phone had buzzed in his pocket, and he’d ignored it—probably a scam. They called again, then again, then again.
“Go away, scammer,” he said to Mercury, who giggled and asked to be pushed higher.
“No, baby, this is high enough.”
On the fourth call, he’d rolled his eyes, drew Mercury to a standstill and answered his phone. It was a doctor. Eden’s tourbus had skidded on a sharp turn in Bundaberg and spun off a cliff.
