“Not at all,” I lied. “That’s actually my thinking face.”
“Oh, damn. I hope you don’t do that very often.”
“What, think?” I chuckled. “No, not very often.”
“What a relief,” she said, her teasing tone a welcome reprieve. I didn’t want heavy right now. I didn’t want to think. All I wanted was a few hours of peace, away from those who judged, and Jess offered that to me. She had no skin in the game, no reason to steer me wrong. And even though we were effectively strangers, she understood there was no turning back. The show was over. The audience had gone home. The damage—and it was colossal—had already been done.
I could almost hear the commentator in my head.
Congratulations, Quinn. Now that you’ve successfully blown up your life, what will you do next?
Well, Chuck, I’m going to Disneyland!
Oh god. My brothers were going to absolutely destroy me. Not that they needed a reason to lay me out, but this… Oh, yeah… They wouldn’t be able to contain themselves. And how could I blame them? Had the roles been reversed, I would’ve absolutely annihilated them too. No, it wasn’t my brothers I was worried about, but my parents. They’d look at me with the same disappointed acceptance in their eyes that they’d had when I’d quit my last band… and the one before that. And when I’d turned down Jake’s offer to produce a solo album last year. I didn’t want handouts, I’d explained at the time, but it was clear they thought I needed them. Look, I got it. Fiscal fatigue was setting in. My parents were probably tired of shelling out the supplemental income they paid monthly to me so I could go off in pursuit of my dreams… dreams that might never come to fruition.
Shit. They were going to cut me off, weren’t they? Who could blame them? They’d given me ample time to get my act together, even suggesting other avenues of employment—for example, trade school. Not the worst idea. Maybe I could become a plumber. Really, I was already halfway through the education. I had a strong stomach, knew my way around a plunger, and could eventually learn to love Hanes classic brief underwear.
Of course, there was always college. I could be that hot older guy in the back, pulling in all the eighteen-year-old chicks. But what would I study? Besides music, I really wasn’t good at anything other than psychoanalyzing myself, and I sure as hell didn’t want to major in that. Music was my beating heart. Take that away and I wasn’t so sure how long the rest of me could survive.
A quick glance at the notifications on my phone confirmed the inevitable—missed calls or texts from at least half of my family members. How did they even know? Had Hollis called and tattled on me? I contemplated answering them but thought better of it. The consequences would be the same whether I checked in with them now or whether we touched base tomorrow morning. They’d be ‘disappointed’ either way. They always were.
Silencing my phone, I shoved it into the depths of my backpack, and when I looked back up, I noticed Jess staring. She was a perceptive one. I offered up my ‘you caught me’ smile and left it at that. To my surprise, Jess didn’t comment on my shifty behavior, and I was struck by her unobtrusive solidarity. Lately it seemed most females I encountered either giggled extensively upon first introduction or talked at a high rate of speed. Jess seemed content to just absorb.
Settling in for the drive, I sat mindlessly, taking in the concrete scenery until it occurred to me I had absolutely no idea where we were going. In the beginning of our journey, Jess had made a few freeway changes, but that was about the same time I got myself all wound up in alternate employment options and lost track of direction. And now, it seemed, Jess was taking us south on the freeway. I really didn’t care where she took me as long as it wasn’t into the nearby mountains for an invigorating nature hike. If there was one activity I’d never been a fan of, it was scaling up steep terrain for no apparent fucking reason.
“Um… I have a question,” I said, raising my hand.
“Yes, Quinn. Go ahead.”
“Does your fun involve hiking, biking, or ants crawling up my pants?”
“Dude, if an ant can get up those pants, it deserves to build a hill.”
She made a good point. And getting out of these pants was of highest priority, but Jess was avoiding my question, and I was pretty sure I knew why. “We’re hiking, aren’t we?”
“I take it you don’t like the great outdoors?”
Oh yeah, we were definitely scaling a mountain.
“No, I like the outdoors just fine—I just don’t like dusty trails and tiny hunters and gatherers making pup tents out of my skin.”
“Hmm.” Jess tapped a finger to her tinted lips. “I wish you had clarified your hiking, biking, and ant nesting guidelines before telling me to, and I quote, ‘Take me someplace fun.’”
“Okay but, in my defense, you didn’t strike me as an outdoorsy type either, so I figured I’d be safe.”
“What makes you think I don’t like nature?”
“I mean…” My eyes traveled ever so slowly over Jess’s fashion-friendly body until they landed on the wedge heels strapped to her feet. “You.”
Jess. How to explain my getaway girl? She was exactly what I’d needed today—and the very last thing I’d expected. When Jess had first rolled down her window for me on the boulevard, only a few steps away from my brother’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, I’d been surprised to find a female behind the wheel, considering ninety-five percent of the time my RYde drivers had facial hair and day-old body odor. Nabbing an honest-to-god five-percenter—and a smokin’ one at that—was like winning the ride-share lottery.
My first instinct had been to miscast her. Maybe it was because I’d met her under the glittering lights of show business, but I’d just assumed her true passion was in the entertainment industry. Most of us wannabe stars, myself included, had side gigs as waiters or ride-share drivers or pizza delivery boys. And Jess looked the part of aspiring actress, with her long raven hair dipped in gloss. Pair that with her tanned skin, black t-shirt, and jeans ripped in all the right places and Jess was the poster girl for LA cool. Everything about her was put together, from her airbrushed face, her full, lush lips, and her fluttery lashes. Even the gathering of beach-chic knotted cloth and silver charm bracelets climbing halfway up her forearm screamed showbiz.
Really, Jess could have been any up-and-coming starlet desperately pursuing her dreams or any of the talentedNext in Linesingers who’d been holed up in the hotel with me over the past month. But to my surprise, she seemed to be actively shunning celebrity, and that made her a rare breed… in my world, at least.
“Nice. So now you’re stereotyping me?” she asked, her perfectly arched eyebrows side characters in her angry bird act.
I met her disapproving query and raised her one. “You called me Prince Gaston, Jess.”
