I was lying facedown on my bed in Moscow, listening to my heartbeat through the silence of the pillow, when Blake walked into the room. It was the first time in weeks he left me unattended for more than two minutes. I’d fault him for being so distrusting, but I did think about that champagne in my bag more than I wanted to admit. My own, bloody security blanket at this point.
“There’s something you should know.”
I stayed silent, allowing him to finish his grand announcement. If Fallon were here, she’d call his behavior “extra.” Which, in itself, was extra. Hollywood just made people really insufferable.
“Lucas was saying he felt bad about Blue catching a stomach bug earlier. He’s going to the drug store to get her some crackers and Advil.”
I elevated my head, ignoring the dull pain it sent to my neck. “Is he fucking deaf?”
Blake kicked his smart shoes against a dresser, unbuttoning his smart shirt.
“I’m serious,” I grunted. “Is Stardust’s pussy worth his job?”
“Is Fallon’s worth yours?” Blake retorted. Spastic. I was engaged to Fallon. Lucas barely knew Indigo.
“At any rate, he might already be on his way to her room,” Blake said, now standing by the bathroom door. “Look, I’m not sure what’s going on between you and her, but I know you were in the bathroom together, and not for a short time, either.”
I rolled to my back and stared at the ceiling, marveling at his words.
Hanging out with Indie was the opposite of what I was trying to do. Singapore had been a one-off. I’d wanted to show her we were compatible, and I had. Now it was time to take our relationship to the strictly sexual zone. On the other hand, the idea of Lucas spending time with her was even less appealing than doing it myself. And she was going to say yes to Lucas, not giving much damn about the restrictions I put her under.
She wanted to see the world.
She was going to see the world.
Whether I liked it or not.
I had two choices—be the one who’d show it to her, or watch my backstabbing frenemy do it.
“Cheers for the heads-up.” I jumped up, padding to the walk-in closet. Whoever Blake had hired had already hung up all my crap and ironed my stupid jeggings—forever a great liar, I moved the champagne from my suitcase to my duffel bag before they got their hands on it. The concept of having it, in itself, kept me saner. Or at least less crazy. Like a suicide pill.
I slipped into a dark gray coat. Blake watched me silently from the threshold of the bathroom as I walked into my shoes on my way to the door, stuffing my wallet into my back pocket.
“Let me accompany you,” he said politely.
“Fuck off,” I answered, also politely.
I slammed the door just to be a dick and sauntered down the hallway. My first stop was not, in fact, Stardust’s room. It was Lucas’ door. I took a step back toward the opposite wall and crashed my foot into it, leaving a foot-sized dent. I’d told him, time and time again, not to mess with my babysitter. This was a warning to let him know that next time, he was going to hitchhike back to England, because I was going to fire his arse and empty his bank account. Also, Britain was an island, so I hoped to fuck he was a good swimmer, because the odds of him completing the tour weren’t in his favor. I made my way back to Indie’s room—it was in front of mine, as per usual—and drummed on the door with open palms dramatically. She opened after a minute, looking fresh, her hair dried, a silky beige dress hugging her tiny figure. She had a matching wool scarf a shade darker wrapped around her delicate neck.
“Stardust.” I placed my elbow on her doorframe, staring down at her.
She looked a little confused by my being there. Like she still couldn’t believe I actively sought her out.
That makes both of us.
“You look pissed,” I observed.
“You told your friends I’m having a poop crisis.” She blinked slowly.
“Telling them the truth would’ve given you a heart attack. Besides, Alfie and Lucas started looking at you like you were their next meal, and I didn’t like that. Two birds. One stone.”
“Why are you here?”
Because I can’t bear the thought of Lucas standing in my spot.
“Wanted to check if your head is still intact and not blown up from embarrassment for doing something dirty with a boy. That’s the chivalrous thing to do, correct?”
She hugged the door and nibbled on that poor lower lip of hers, all cracked and bruised. “First of all, you’re giving yourself way too much credit, and second of all, you’re as chivalrous as a Tasmanian devil. Your business is hanging all over the tabloids, literally and figuratively. Your penis is the new kittens on YouTube, for Chrissake.”
“I see you finally decided to Google me.”
She shrugged. “Lucas gave me his laptop until the end of the tour.”
Red cloth.
Angry bull.
Clenched fists.
Don’t kill Lucas. He’s not worth the jail time.
I grabbed her hand and yanked her out of her room. “You just earned yourself a new laptop. My treat.”
I bet if I’d told Alex that Lucas let me crash at his place, he’d buy me a whole house just to spite him. It was obvious that whatever was happening between him and me was also a direct result of trying to keep me away from his drummer. A different girl may have taken a step back, but my life was such a hot mess, on and off the tour, Alex was the least of my problems.
After he bought me a laptop—which I insisted on not taking, but he maintained I’d make use of after the tour ended—we took a ride. Moscow was cold, gray, and old, like a stern grandmother. When I got back to the hotel, I immediately installed Skype and tried to call Natasha, but she didn’t answer. Then I stared at my crack-screened phone and willed it to ring, feeling hope slither out of me like blood from an open wound. Finally, I threw in the towel and started working on my Paris dress. It was well after eleven p.m. local time, and I was just starting to relax, the hum of the mini sewing machine lulling me out of my anxiety about Craig. Only two more months until I’d get back and take care of them. Already, the bi-monthly payments helped pay for so many necessities back at home.
This particular dress I was working on was a difficult one to make, because I had to write on the patches with a fine pen. It took twice the amount of time to produce, but I knew too well that things we earn through hard work are always more precious.
My window overlooked the Red Square, which I’d been to earlier that day with Alex. We had a driver, and that made me feel like some kind of a princess, and not in a good way. When we were walking toward the Kremlin, Alex gave me the brief history of the place. He said it costs two hundred thousand dollars a year for the museum to maintain Lenin’s corpse in perfect condition, and that it was already one hundred forty-seven years old.
“I’m telling you, Stardust, I’ve seen pictures. He doesn’t look a day over fifty-six. A little waxy, sure. But no more than the average Hollywood starlet.”
Alex told me he’d been to Moscow three times before, and if the tour wasn’t so condensed, he would’ve loved to have shown me around. I didn’t believe him at all, knowing he was a liar, but it was still nice to hear. When darkness blanketed the Russian capital, Alex asked the driver to take us to see “the ugliest, most awesome thing in the world.” I laughed as I tucked myself in the back seat of the Renault Duster and tried to swallow down my excitement when butterflies cartwheeled in my belly. He scooted so close I could feel his breath on my skin again, and my thighs clenched when I thought about the last thing he’d said to me about being on my knees for him.
“It’s pretty dark out.” I tried to sound indifferent to spending time with him. Alex wasn’t wrong, I decided, when I drank in Moscow like bitter coffee with a bite. It looked new, with skyscrapers and manicured parks and smoggy air, virtues of a fast-paced city. At the same time, it looked old, with trains of mass-built buildings from its Soviet past stretched out for miles.
I found out what Alex was talking about when the car rolled toward an embankment. The driver cut the engine and sat back. The monument was unmistakable, because it hovered over the Moskva River like a monster. Winslow, once again, had been correct. It was huge, elaborate and…scary. Yes. Plain creepy. Like something out of Game of Thrones. Of a man on a ship. The statue was holding something in his hand, staring in the distance.
“That is…” I started.
“The tenth ugliest building in the world according to the Virtual Tourist,” Alex finished for me, sticking his head near my shoulder and grinning to catch a glimpse of the statue, too. “Peter the Great. The irony is, not only is it quite ugly, but Peter the Great didn’t even like Moscow. He changed Russia’s Capital to St. Petersburg before they switched it back. Welcome to human logic.”
Our driver started texting, making himself invisible, and it was easy to forget we weren’t alone.
“How do you know all these things?” I asked.
“I like history.”
“Why?”
“Because it gives me better tools to understand the future.”
I nodded. Alex wasn’t being patronizing or blabby. In another rare time since the first time I’d met him, he showed genuine interest in something, and was sharing it with me. It frightened me. The idea that he could be open and real. Because the very thing that held me together was the idea that Alex Winslow was, in fact, a pile of stereotypes sewn together into a persona even he couldn’t distinguish anymore. He ticked every single box: rock star, troubled, drug addict, tattooed. It was embarrassingly familiar.
I swiveled my head to the window again.
“Can we go back to the hotel?”
“Why?”
Because I want to survive you.
“I would like to call my family.”
Alex shrugged in a women-huh-what-can-you-do, catching the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror, who returned the same international ‘man, woman’ signal.
We rolled forward.
A soft knock on the door made me snap out of my reverie. I frowned, turning off the sewing machine positioned by the drawn curtains. I stood up, knowing it couldn’t be Alex. He was never lenient, always rough and dirty, and maybe that was why my heart throbbed fiercely every time I did as much as hear something drop in the other room. I opened the door, staring back at Lucas.
“Hey, sleepyhead. Where have you been?” Lucas flashed me a tentative smile.
I took a step sideways, leaving it for him to decide whether he wanted to come in. I didn’t give a damn about Alex warning us both off, but I wasn’t sure where Lucas stood on our boss’ threat. He’d probably come here to grab his laptop, anyway. I turned around to seize it from the desk, but Lucas snagged my wrist.
“Can you tell me one thing?”
I looked up at him. His face was angelic, even while tense. Open, fresh. He was Alex’s age, but he didn’t share the same internal hardship, and that somehow made him look so much younger. Alex was wrong. There was no way Lucas could be bad or vindictive. I read faces the way bookworms reread their favorite paragraphs. Religiously. And I knew that whatever Lucas was doing, he had his reasons.
“Maybe,” I answered. “I need to know what it is first.”
He licked his lips. “If—and I’m not asking you to tell me what’s going on between you and Alex because that’s none of my business—at some point he’s too much for you, would you let me know? It probably looks like we hate each other, he and I, but trust me, we go way back.”
I stared at him blankly.
“I’m just worried.”
“For who? Me or him?” I asked.
“Both of you. In different ways. You’re a strong girl. He’s like a black feather. Less resilient than he appears.”
Pause. I stared at my feet. It looked like Lucas didn’t want us together, and I was starting to feel like maybe Alex had a good reason to think his frenemy wanted me.
“Never mind.” Lucas shook his head. “Just let me know if you need me. He thinks I want in your knickers—hell, you probably feel the same way, too—but trust me, I just want to be here for you,” he said.
My eyebrows nearly touched at this. Maybe the tour was forcing me to embrace my inner cynic.
Luc rushed to add, “You’re on the road with a bunch of blokes you’ve never met before, and your boss is giving you crap. Whatever’s going on with your family back in L.A., I’m sure it’s not easy on you.”
“It’s not,” I admitted.
“I’m here to help.” He offered me his hand.
This time I took it, unaware of the chain reaction it would prompt.
Unaware of all the secrets we held between our palms.