Jenna: I’m not keeping it.
Indie: Talk to Blake first.
Hudson: :-O :-O :-O
Jenna: Clearly, the hormones are taking over my brain. I forgot Hudson was here.
Hudson: My baby is having a baby!
Jenna: You’re not my mother, Hudson.
Hudson: I was actually talking about Blake. His Hugh Grant charm makes my panties wet.
Hudson: Actually, it doesn’t make any sense. But still.
Jenna: I swear, I’ll kill you if you tell anyone. This is TOP SECRET. Indie, how’s Alex?
Indie: Good.
Jenna: Elaborate.
Indie: He’s been writing steadily, and he seems to be really excited about his next album.
Jenna: And the ten-minute song?
Hudson: He decided to split it into two songs.
Jenna: I didn’t know he consults you artistically.
Hudson: He does. Sometimes. When he sits on the toilet and gets bored.
Hudson: Where do you think I got the nickname Little Shite? LOL.
Jenna: What made him change his mind?
Hudson: A girl.
Jenna: Elaborate.
Hudson: The right girl. ;)
I’m the first one to admit that, sometimes, you push things to the back of your head to protect yourself from heartbreak. Like the memory of losing your dog. Or like the time your first crush turned you down. Or that your brother is not completely sane and normal and okay.
Before I’d gone on tour with Alex Winslow, I’d thought talking to Nat and Craig would be the highlight of my day. Turned out it was the last thing I’d looked forward to. Every time my cracked phone rang, I half-wished it was my credit card company telling me to chill.
But it was always Nat, and she was always crying. This time, she’d caught me in a relatively good time. Alex was taking a shower, and I was sitting on the king-sized bed in front of the pale green wall, wondering if he knew how close we were getting to the deep end of feels. I should’ve told him no. Already, I was in over my head, and it wasn’t just my body that wanted to be claimed. The minute I answered the phone, I realized Alex was the least of my worries. Craig was. Craig was always a worry.
“Hey, Nat.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the shoebox above the cupboard before you left?” She sniffed tiredly. Her voice was different. Wary. Sad. She used to sound like sugar pops exploding in your mouth. Sweet and enthusiastic and open—so open—to hug the world and whatever it threw her way. It enraged me that my brother was the one to turn off the light inside her.
My eyebrows crinkled. I tried to remember what I’d put in that shoebox. I didn’t have too many things of interest or value. Some stupid diary I’d written when I was a kid. Love letters from boys in elementary school, not that there were many. Some pictures…I squinted toward the curtained, wide window overlooking SoHo. Then it hit me. All at once.
The pictures.
Oh, God.
Of Mom holding our neighbor’s baby, sweet and blond-curled like Ziggy.
Of Dad bouncing Craig on his lap, pointing to the camera, smiling.
Of both of them helping us build a faux snowman outside our house one Christmas, when it was so hot out the ice cream my mom brought us melted in our hands, and another photo from the same day where we all licked our sticky fingers and laughed.
Memories. Sweet, precious memories.
Memories I was so afraid I was going to forget, I’d had to put them somewhere safe. Somewhere that was only mine.
Memories I was so afraid to remember, I’d hidden them in a shoebox. On a cupboard. Somewhere I couldn’t reach easily, because going there was toxic. I’d never have them back. They were gone.
“Tell me he didn’t do anything stupid…” I said slowly, hysteria gripping my throat. Craig was not allowed to leave the house. I didn’t even want to know what the consequences would be if he had.
“He did.” She burst into tears, just as Alex walked out of the shower, wearing nothing but a towel and a smirk. His dark hair was dripping, just like it did in his gigs, and my lower belly tightened, despite the fact that my heart and mind were an ocean away, in America. He shot me a questioning glare, to which I replied by turning my back to him so he couldn’t see me at my weakest. With my lip trembling and my nose aching like I’d been punched.
“Where?” I cleared my throat, shooting my gaze to the ceiling, steadying my voice. “Where did he go?” I repeated. “Do you know? And when did he leave?”
Nat was about to answer me when Alex snatched the cell phone from my hand and put it to his ear. He walked toward the master bathroom of the suite, and I jumped up immediately, stalking after him. The jerk was fast. It was those damn long legs. He could outrun me while crawling.
“Natasha, I want you to call my PA in Los Angeles. He’ll help track him down.” Alex jumped into the conversation like he’d been a part of it all along, which made my simmering blood chill a little in my veins. “Yeah, I’m sure. I’ve got private investigators to last for a decade in Hollywood and enough connections with the LAPD to take a shit directly on the booker’s desk and still get out of there unharmed.” He stopped by the bathroom door, his eyes unblinking. When I halfheartedly went for the phone, throwing my arms in the air to try to grab it, he plastered his palm over my forehead and pushed me away, making us look like a cartoon where the giant is blocking the little mouse, who is running aimlessly in the same spot. Even though we were physically comical, there was nothing funny about the way he made me feel. He wanted to help, and right now, I knew better than to refuse him. He owed me absolutely nothing. I’d betrayed him by not telling him about Fallon and Will and about the guys’ plan with his leaked photos, and all he’d done so far was bail out, and now search, for my brother.
“Write it down,” Alex ordered, giving her a cell phone number, then a code you needed to dial to put you through the line. Alex never gave his number out, and, normally, he didn’t need to. Blake and the others were always around. It was weird to think it was just Alex and me now, and even weirder to imagine he’d be actively working for something. Something to do with me.
“Text me when he finds him,” Alex added, pressing my phone between his shoulder and ear and lighting up a cigarette. He was commanding and forbidding, his expression so distant, you wouldn’t think he was dealing with feelings. And this, perhaps, was the part of him that would be my ruin. He was kind without being kind to me. I parked my waist against the nearby closet facing the bathroom and watched him as he killed the line and tossed my phone across the room and onto the mattress. He swiveled, pointing his cancer stick at me.
“Get dressed.”
I shook my head, watching him from under my lashes. “You can’t go out. You’re a superstar, remember?”
“I’m also a goddamn person. Two bodyguards are on their way here.”
“Bodyguards?” My spine straightened on cue. “You hate bodyguards.” I didn’t even have to ask him to know that it was true. I saw the way he’d reacted every time one or two had had to tag along throughout the tour. Apparently, Alex Winslow was one of the rare celebrities who didn’t have full-time bodyguards on their payroll. He just hated being babied. And I was his babysitter. The fact he was nice to me at all was a blessing. He sauntered past me, grabbed his skinny jeans, and black muscle T-shirt, throwing his leather jacket on top, already lacing his army boots.
“Hey, ho. Let’s go.”
“I didn’t peg you for a Ramones fan,” I said.
Alex was the greatest music snob of all time. Especially considering he’d sinned by making sweet, Ed-Sheeran, let-me-hold-you-in-my-arms music at some point in his career. The glint in his eyes told me I was right.
“I’m not. I’m a let’s-go-fucking-eat fan.”
One could argue Alex Winslow was one annoying, eccentric, arrogant man. But there was no disputing this weird mixture was enchanting.
Slowly—so very slowly—I made my way to the shower, the hot steam still clinging to the glass. He was really going to do it—get out of the hotel, knowing he was going to get noticed. Alex hated crowds. And people. And the paparazzi. The only humans he was okay with tolerating were his fans. I was worried this might prompt a breakdown, which would later lead to drug use.
I hesitated over the threshold, throwing him another look. “The paparazzi will probably see us.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t care?”
“Giving fucks is not exactly my forte.” He quirked a thick eyebrow, turning on the TV and making himself comfortable on the bed. “Chop, chop, now, Stardust. I turn into a pumpkin at midnight.”
“It’s noon, and you turn into an artist at midnight,” I corrected, stepping out of my dress in front of him. Bare for him, I watched him as he watched me. Like he understood me. Like our intimacy was a living entity, sitting between us, its warm, ultraviolet rays caressing me softly.
“I’m always an artist. Sometimes, I’m an artist who gets screwed over by Suits,” he amended, blowing smoke through his nostrils like a vicious dragon and smirking to the ceiling. “Now, go.”
I had a quick shower, then proceeded to try on a dozen dresses. I knew we were not a couple. Of course I knew that. But I also knew the tabloids would be speculating, and I didn’t want to be the mediocre-looking girl with the funky hair and cheap dress. I tied my locks into a loose chignon, tresses of arctic-blue waves slipping down my nape, and wore my classic, maroon velvet dress. Lipstick. Mascara. Mental pep talk. I was ready as one could be.
I stepped out of the bathroom.
Alex didn’t react to me. Not at first. He was engrossed with something on his phone, and when he looked up, something on TV caught his attention. I stood there for a few long seconds, my heart vaulting behind my ribcage. For once, I wasn’t the one talking to my heart, but it was the one talking to Alex.
See us.
Feel us.
Love us.
I was no longer able to quiet it down. My heart wanted Alex to love it. The rest of me did, too. And when his head whirled, almost in slow-motion, his mouth fell open, just an inch, his golden eyes twinkling with something I’d never seen there before. Or maybe I just wanted to see it, and it wasn’t there after all.
“Midnight Blue,” he whispered. “Illicit and elegant at the very same time.”
I tucked a curl that had escaped from my chignon behind my ear and cleared my throat. “Let’s go eat.”
When we were walking down the hallway and toward the elevators, a thought occurred to me. It was so obvious, it made me want to laugh and cry all at once. Alex didn’t want to go out. He didn’t want to move around with bodyguards on his tail. And he definitely didn’t want to board the rumor train and have people talking about us, especially after that picture in Greece, which Blake, of course, maintained was photoshopped every time he’d been asked about it.
“Thank you,” I said while we were waiting for one of the elevators to ping.
He grunted, knowing exactly what I was talking about.
He was distracting me from thinking about Craig.
He was saving me from drowning in dark thoughts about my family.
He was no knight in shining armor, a far cry from a savior. He was just a broken, sad boy who was given a great gift that put him on display for the world to see and to judge.
And that boy saved me that day.
Again.
The good thing about walking with a Londoner in London was that you saw it through their eyes. Alex knew London like an old lover. Every curve and line and beauty spot. He was originally from a town on the outskirts of the English capital, but this was where he hung out. This was his domain. And he ruled it the way he did all things: mercilessly and methodically, like every inch of it was his.
First, we hopped into the underground train, to which he referred to as “the tube.” The bodyguards, Harry and Hamish, were sitting a few seats away, pretending to read a local newspaper. Alex and I sat together, and maybe it was his beanie and shades, or maybe it was just how casually he’d acted, but no one took notice of us. Once we poured out of the train at Camden Town station and took the escalators up, we visited a little market where we inhaled two portions of vegan tacos, each. They were delicious and spicy, and we washed them down with chocolate milk we’d bought at a nearby convenient store. Then Alex showed me around. He said the market was going to turn into a massive mall soon, and that he was happy he wouldn’t be there to see it happening, because it was the equivalent of tearing a piece of his heart and using it as an ass transplant for a Hollywood starlet. I laughed and asked him how his soul was these days.
“Good. And it will get even better once I break it to Jenna that I want to produce my own album. No more Suits.” Our pinkies collided and curled around each other.
“No more Suits,” I repeated.
We walked through the gray streets of Camden Town, past pubs that reeked of stale, warm beer and cigarettes. The scent of fried food constantly floated in waves, and it could have been a lot less pleasant if the air was not so fresh from the rain. We walked uphill until we reached the Cambridge Castle, a small pub with a two-floored apartment building above it.
“This is where I said I’d live if I ever made it big.” He pointed at the apartments above the red banner of the pub.
“So how come you’re not living there?”
He shot me a look I couldn’t decode. A mixture of disappointment and annoyance. “I’m an idiot who lost sight of what’s important. I really should be living there, shouldn’t I?”
It looked kind of small, kind of old, and kind of stuffy. But it was a part of his dream, and when life gives you the tools to fulfill your dream, it’s your duty to do so.
“Definitely.” I nodded.
Alex took my hand in his and jerked his chin to the chipped, wooden door. “Drink?”
“Virgin,” I warned.
“I’ll rectify it later.”
We had cranberry juice and chips—see: “crisps”—at a secluded table. It was just us and the bartender, who was new, and even though he couldn’t remember Alex’s golden years at the venue, he still asked for an autograph and five selfies.
Afterward, we took the tube to London Bridge and visited the London Dungeon. It was really scary, and I found myself jumping several times and clutching Alex’s leather-clad arm. We were walking around with a group of tourists from Eastern Europe who didn’t speak a word of English, which worked in our favor.
Though they asked for autographs and selfies, too.
We decided to head back to the hotel at six o’clock. We took a black cab, watching the streets of the capital flashing by. London was gorgeous and cruel, just like Alex. Too busy. Too hectic. Too brooding. Too dark. Yet I couldn’t help but drink her in like I did Alex. Like I’d finally found the one thing I hadn’t known I was missing.
Alex took off his beanie for the first time since we’d left the hotel room, and his wavy, shaggy hair was sticking out to one side, which was so adorable I needed to look away to protect my heart.
“I love your London,” I blurted out to the window. “I love that people shoulder past me and avoid eye contact and have a no-bullshit attitude. I love that no one looks the same. I love that it’s rich, but grim. Poor, but classically beautiful. It inspires me.”
“I hate your Los Angeles,” he replied. “I hate how it doesn’t suit you. I hate how it’s flat and sparse and shallow. The agreeable weather and the big-teethed people. You deserve better, Stardust. You deserve to be inspired. All the time.”
“Maybe,” I said. I wasn’t unhappy. But I wasn’t happy, either. I just didn’t know if Los Angeles was to blame, or the general chaos that was my life. “Maybe when it’s all over I’ll travel from planet to planet, city to city, to find what I’m looking for.”
“You should know, though”—Alex’s voice sounded sad and far, like he was already drifting away from me—“Craig is your rose. He will root you in place and never let you go. I’ve had these kinds of roses back at home. You don’t have to put up with Craig’s shit in order to still be there for Ziggy and Natasha. You need to tell him to get better, or he never will.”
Turning around to look at him, I put a hand on his cheek. “Are you happy, Alex?”
“I’m an artist. My job is not to be happy. My job is to feel, to suffer, and to conjure the same feelings in others.”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. That he could create greatness whilst holding onto his bliss. But I didn’t know if it was true, and I knew better than to hand out empty promises, like the ones my brother gave me.
I said nothing, even when Alex slipped his hand into mine and laced our fingers together.
My heart was loud enough to hear, even in the midst of London traffic.
And it spoke all the words I couldn’t give him.