“Anyway,” he continued. “I’m glad you came. It’s a really good idea. The pageant, I mean.”
“Are you going to enter?”
He shook his head emphatically. “No way. I get major stage fright. I did my middle school play because I needed the extra credit, and I honestly still have nightmares about it. Looking out into that auditorium and not being able to see anything, but just knowing everyone is sitting there staring at you…” He shuddered. “Never again.”
Merritt nodded, feeling a pang of empathy. “Itisscary. But that’s what makes it worth it.”
When she’d started out, she’d thought of herself as a songwriter first, but it hadn’t taken long for her to get addicted to the rush of performing. She’d never found anything that could touch that high—but the lows that surrounded it made sure she never broke even. Now she spent every day recommitting to a stable life in the middle, avoiding those peaks and valleys that had defined her teens and twenties, trying to convince herself she didn’t miss them at all.
He glanced over at her. “I don’t think I could handle you judging me.”
A pang of guilt shot through her. Was that how he thought of her? “I wouldn’t judge you,” she said quietly.
He tilted his head. “Didn’t you agree to be a judge?”
“Oh. Right.” She was thankful it was dark enough that he couldn’t see her flaming cheeks.
He pulled up outside Dev and Olivia’s house. She met his eyes across the cab of the truck.
Just thank him, say good night, and get out of the car.
But she didn’t move.
“Who were you?” she asked.
“What?”
“In the play.”
He grimaced. “A cow. I didn’t even have any lines. And then I puked as soon as I got offstage.”
Merritt pursed her lips, trying not to laugh. “I threw up, too. My first time. But before, not after.”
A homemade demo she’d given to her father’s old manager at fourteen had led to her spending fifteen and sixteen in New York, writing and recording her first album in collaboration with men—always men—two or three times her age. Then,suddenly, she was in LA kicking off the tour to promote it, freshly seventeen, pacing backstage, a pit of snakes writhing in her stomach.
That wasn’t technically her first time onstage, but she thought of it that way, anyway. Her first time that mattered, cleaving her old life from her new one.
She had no fucking idea why she’d shared that. He must’ve seen on her face how much she didnotwant to elaborate, since all he did was let out an amused breath through his nose.
He cleared his throat. “This weekend still good for you?”
She hesitated.
Clearly, avoiding him was not going to work. Whether she liked it or not, he was going to be a major part of her life for the next few months. She was going to have to figure out a way to deal with that. Or, at the very least, figure out how not to get quite so flustered in his presence.
Maybe exposure therapy was the way to go after all. If she spent enough time around him, he was bound to eventually reveal some unsavory trait or opinion that would snap her out of it and turn her off for good—like that he listened to toxic bro podcasts, or kept his bananas in the fridge. She would just have to be firm in her boundaries until then, and keep things as professional as possible.
Sometimes the only way out was through.
“I could come tomorrow, if that works.”
He raised his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth turning up. “Oh yeah? Your schedule clear up?”
“Something like that.”
He inclined his head so his eyes were shadowed. “Okay. See you tomorrow, then.”
“See you tomorrow.”
