* * *
Mid-afternoon,the intensity of the sun drove me off the beach; it was crazy-hot today. I made my way back up the rocky path through the trees in my bare feet, slowly, enjoying the fragrant, coolish air between the trees. Or trying to enjoyit.
I was wearing a light, lacy cover-up over my bikini, and it was fluttering around me in the breeze. This feeling; this was why I came to Hawaii. Peace. Quiet. And that ever-present ease in the air, the smell of the ocean, the flawless blueskies.
Paradise.
And yet, with Seth gone… it didn’t feel the way it should anymore. I just couldn’t absorb any ofit.
I’d spent an hour on the beach, alone, and I couldn’t relax. I couldn’t stop wondering if there was something I should’ve done differently, said differently, to somehow make himstay.
It was a dangerous line of thought. Too close to the questions I’d asked myself in the days and weeks, and even months, after Jesse leftme.
I’d been avoiding my phone since that phone call with Ash, but now, as I reached the top of the path and stepped through the trees, I realized maybe I should’ve been answeringit.
Because there was a camera crew in Woo’syard.
It was Liv, standing on the back patio with Joanie, and a camera guy sitting nearby, tinkering with his camera, setting it up on atripod.
“Fuck.” I stopped up short. “Seriously?”
Flynn, who’d been trailing silently in my wake, stepped past me. “I’ll get rid ofthem.”
“No.” I caught his arm, stopping him. “I want to see what shewants.”
I already knew what Liv wanted. More “sound bites” for the documentary series. And if she’d come all the way here, to talk to me, when there were plenty of other band members closer to where she was that she could be harassing… this was aboutSeth.
As I stepped through the gate, they all saw me and Livsmiled.
“They just got here,” Joanie explained, hurrying over to me, probably expecting me to be pissed. I wrapped my cover-up around me as I approached, though they weren’t filming. “I was just on my way down to tell you. You weren’t answering yourphone…”
“The tripod’s a tad presumptuous, Liv,” I told her as I reached her on the patio. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, and I didn’t want her to think crashing my vacation time with a camera was in any way okay withme.
Brody would be hearing aboutthis.
“Well,” Liv said, “I was hoping I could get that footage. You know, you, on camera, sharing your thoughts about Seth Brothers and whatever’s going on between him andDirty.”
“You should’vecalled.”
“I did,” she said. “So didBrody.”
Great. So Brody knew about this. Approved it,maybe.
He’d definitely be hearing aboutthis.
“I have nothing to say right now. I’m onvacation.”
“I realize that,” Liv said. “And I’m sorry. But the band is planning to resume auditions as soon as you’re back, and the footage of Seth’s audition is likely going in the show, which means I need someone to talk to me about it. And since you came here with him, I figured, you and he must be…” She trailed off. Apparently, even Liv didn’t have the stones to outright accuse me of screwing Seth. “Friends?” shefinished.
“I told you. I have nothing tosay.”
“Right. But obviously you have anopinion.”
“An opinion I’m not prepared to share at this time.” I could feel Flynn hovering, edging closer. Just itching to interject and escort Liv and her guys off theproperty.
A couple of other crew guys had appeared around the side of the house, hauling equipment bags. They held back, observing thenegotiation.
But Liv was not backingdown.
