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I swallowed quickly before speaking—my words were caught against my throat. “Um—yes, actually.”
Some of the practiced charm slipped a little bit, and a more surprised, genuine smile emerged. “Really?”
I nodded. “My dad—he’s a really big fan. So he named me after the song.” I took a breath and made myself say it, since I was very sure I wouldn’t ever get this chance again. “I am too. A big fan, I mean.”
He grinned, a totally genuine smile this time—big and a little dorky, and one I had never seen in any of his pictures or videos. “Really? That’s great!” He jostled Russell—his arm was still around his son’s shoulders. “See? Some kids your age like your dad’s music.”
“Um, okay,” Russell said. The tips of his ears, I could see, were starting to turn red again.
“All right,” Wylie Sanders said. He lifted his arm off Russell’s shoulders and clapped his hands together—they made a metallic clicking sound, probably because of all the rings. I noticed that he was also wearing an impressive number of necklaces—a silver chain and what looked like an enormous shark tooth on a leather cord, and a tiny, dagger-looking thing encrusted with diamonds. “Let’s go in and get all this sorted. Everything go okay with C.J.?”
Russell shook his head. “Not really. She was pretty aggressive. And I think she crossed some lines.” He glanced at me for a moment, then looked away again. “She was really unfair to Darcy.”
Wylie’s face fell, and he winced. “I’m so sorry, Darcy. C.J. sometimes forgets we’re not opposing counsel. I’ll have a talk with her. Okay?”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure if he actually meant any of this. It was his job to be charming, after all—and his lawyer’s job to make sure the machine kept running.
He stepped inside the house, gesturing for us to follow, pushing the door open wider, giving me a smile. “Darcy, please come in! I’m sure you’re tired. And then I need to hear what happened at this hotel. And maybe one of you can explain to me why I’m apparently playing some kind of corporate retreat next month? And we should get some food in both of you. Priya’s making some penne. And you’re both just in time for Fishbowl!”
I wasn’t sure what most of that meant, but before I could ask—or pluck up my courage to tell him that actually, I wouldn’t be doing any of that, since I was about to leave—a brown-and-white bullet shot past me, brushing against my leg. It was a small dog, moving faster than I’d seen a dog move before—its legs were practically a blur. It took the three steps in a leap, seeming to hang in the air for just a moment before hitting the lawn and tearing across it.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—Andy!” Wylie Sanders yelled. Russell dropped his backpack and ran after the dog, and after only a second’s hesitation, I did the same, dropping my canvas bag and running after him.
I hadn’t gotten far before Russell reached the dog—Andy. He scooped him up and started walking him back to the house.
I’d expected the dog to struggle, try and get away—he had been very intent on leaving—but his stub of a tail just wagged furiously, and he tried to stretch up to lick Russell’s face.
He was a small dog, probably ten or twelve pounds, with curly brown and white fur and a black nose. He ears flopped over, but it also seemed like he could lift them up, like he was doing now as he looked up at Russell beseechingly, as though asking why a belly rub wasn’t happening. He was, in short, very cute.
I turned and headed back to the house too—which was when I saw Wylie had gone inside, and my bag and Russell’s backpack had both disappeared. I didn’t understand why, at this place, my possessions were constantly disappearing.
Russell stepped inside and gestured me in. “Shut the door.” He nodded down at the dog in his arms. “Otherwise he’ll try to get out again.”
“Right.”
Russell’s voice was clipped and terse. I tried to remind myself that was how I’d resolved to talk to him as well, and I shouldn’t be upset that he was doing this too.
Only after the door was shut did Russell put Andy down. The dog shook himself once, a full-body shake, then trotted off.
Russell glanced at me and frowned. “You okay?”
“Um,” I said. My eyes were wide as I tried to take in everything around me. I was attempting to play it cool, but apparently I wasn’t pulling it off.
We were in the entranceway of Wylie Sanders’s house. But whereas my house’s foyer—if you could even call it that—was the place where we kicked off shoes and dropped bags and keys and coats, this was different. The ceilings were incredibly high, and I needed to tilt my head back almost all the way to see up to the top. But that wasn’t what I was staring at.
It was the art.
There was a Picasso across from me. A Picasso. It was hung on the wall, with no glass or anything, just the canvas in a wood frame. I automatically looked to the side of it, for the little white plaque that would give me the name and date of the painting, but of course it wasn’t there. Because this was someone’s house. There was a mobile hanging from the impossibly high ceiling, turning slowly this way and that. It was the kind I’d seen in museums before, even though I didn’t know the name of the artist. But the most difficult thing to look away from wasn’t the Picasso, or the mobile. It was the portrait right in front of me.
I didn’t think this was an artist I was supposed to know, despite the fact that it was hung next to what I was pretty sure was a Kehinde Wiley. It was an oil painting, and huge—well over six feet. It looked like the kind of painting I’d seen on the covers of old paperback sci-fi novels. Wylie Sanders was depicted standing, shirtless, on some kind of desert planet—there were three moons and a sun behind him, at any rate. He was raising a sword above his head in triumph, his long hair blowing in the wind. There was a blond girl in some kind of desert-bikini thing pressed up against his well-oiled torso as a spaceship rose into the air behind them.
“Yeah,” Russell said, seeing where I was looking. “Right. My stepmother had that commissioned. Ex-stepmother, now.” He shrugged. “We’ve all just gotten used to it.”
“Oh.” I forced myself to look away, even though it was challenging. I glanced around the foyer—but didn’t see my canvas bag anywhere, to say nothing of my tent or duffel. The last thing I wanted was to need anything from Russell—even information—but it didn’t seem like I had a choice. I folded my arms and took a breath. “Do you know where my stuff is?”
“No idea. Probably inside.” His voice was still cold, chilled all the way through. He shook his head. “I’ll see if I can track it down.” And with that, he walked inside the house and left me alone.
I hesitated for a moment—was I supposed to wait for Russell to come back with it? Or follow him? Was I really supposed to wander around a rock star’s house? But I needed my stuff back, and I didn’t see any other way to make that happen.
