She missed the sound of Bryn’s laugh and her terrible jokes and her amusing anecdotes about Gloria and the way she talked about her family. She missed sharing meals with her, and had even enjoyed cooking for the first time in her life. With her. Damn it, why did being around Bryn have to be so easy? So… nice.
Fuck!
Before she could stop it, the memory of Bryn’s kiss slammed into her. Her lips tingled reflexively and the soft sound Bryn had made when she deepened their kiss echoed in the hollow of her chest. She closed her eyes and willed the ache to leave her.
It didn’t budge. Maybe if she just answered Bryn’s text she’d stop thinking about her. She’d say congratulations and wish her luck. That would close the door.
Vivian picked up the phone and had no idea how to fill the emptiness. Her thumb hovered over the keyboard. An unhinged thought popped into her mind. She could say something real, something that wasn’t a dodge or a performance.
Why was it so hard to say she was scared? To admit that she didn’t want to go back to a place like the Platinum Voice awards. That it was just the same old garbage in a different suit. Vivian shook her head. This wasn’t about her. She could tell Bryn not to go, but she wanted Bryn to have the external validation she’d worked for. The one that would show her she had real talent. But somehow a message like that felt condescending.
Vivian stared at the blinking cursor in the message field, that tiny impatient light. She dropped onto the couch and stared at the screen, a wash of too many emotions coursing through her at once.
Vivian didn’t type.
She didn’t put the phone down, either.
She just held it, staring at the open text like it was a hand extended toward her across a gap she didn’t know how to cross, even if she wanted to.
ChapterSeventeen
It was a mistake.Vivian knew it from the moment she left her damn hotel room. Since she’d been sitting on the stupid flight, if she was honest. But she hadn’t listened to the alarm bells blaring in the form of a pounding head and unrelenting nausea. She hadn’t listened to herself, and now it was too late.
Walking in sky-high Manolo Blahnik’s—designed to cut off all circulation to her toes and send a shock of pain through her heel bone every time she moved—Vivian was in it. In it and wishing she were anywhere else but stepping into kick-off drinks on the rooftop patio of an overpriced Manhattan hotel teeming with industry people.
And she had to pee. God, why had she worn rib-snapping Spanx? And why the hell did she have to pee so bad?
She should go back to her room. Go back to her room and take off her tight dress and tighter shoes and wipe off all the fucking makeup it took a team of three to apply, and tear out the extensions her glam squad had apparently clipped right into her skull. Shower off the evidence of her stupidity and go the hell home.
“Vivian del Castillo!” A woman screeched at her the moment she crossed onto the patio and into the roar of too many voices, all of them picked up by the mild summer breeze and slammed against her eardrums.
Mouth like the fucking Mojave and her sweat-soaked back concealed by her black cocktail dress, all Vivian had in her overloaded nervous system was a nod.
“I’d recognize you anywhere,” the woman said, wide eyes peering into Vivian. “My dad was a huge fan.”
Vivian stiffened. Quick math on the young woman’s probable age told her she didn’t want to know a single other detail about her father.
“I have drink tickets for you,” she continued at a mercifully rapid pace. “I’m only supposed to hand out two,” she added in a stage whisper because it was too loud outside for anything else. “But I’ll give you as many as you want.” She beamed.
“Two is plenty,” Vivian said as politely as she could, considering the onslaught of cackling laughter and top-of-their-lungs conversation—a jarring choice for people whose livelihood depended on their voices. Although given that the talent was mostly there to swarm producers and casting agents from big publishers, Vivian supposed it was a calculated risk. One she wouldn’t be taking.
“Okay,” the woman replied without losing a shred of enthusiasm. “Well, follow me so you don’t have to wait in line.”
“Thank you,” Vivian said, rather thanI don’t need to be handled, because the woman so desperately wanted to be helpful.
Instead of embarrassing Vivian by taking her to the front of the criminally long line, the woman asked for her drink order and slipped in behind the bar. With surprising subtlety, she had the bartender make a dirty martini without drawing unwanted attention.
Vivian handed back a ticket, but the woman refused.
“Keep it.” She smiled. “Have a nice time!”
Vivian couldn’t let the woman go with such a kindness imbalance. Everything in this world was transactional, and Vivian had made it a point never to be in anyone’s debt. Not again.
“Would you like a selfie?” Vivian asked, attempting to unclench her back teeth.
“Really?” She looked around. “We’re not supposed to ask?—”
“You didn’t.” Vivian flashed a lopsided smile she hoped didn’t telegraph the pain in her feet. “I offered.”
