AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Shaking my head, I listened to the voicemail: “Emily and I have been invited to play at Carnegie Hall in a Thanksgiving special, so we won’t be hosting the holiday. You’re free to join us there if you can find a flight and a hotel room.”
That was the entire message. Thanksgiving was less than a week away. No doubt my family would stay in a suite at a posh hotel, but she didn’t even offer for me to stay with them. Not that it mattered, because it was unlikely that I could change my flight on such short notice.
I’d known she was pissed, and not only because Emily had told me—she’d iced me out. I hadn’t spoken to her the whole time I’d been in LA. That wasn’t surprising, but it was a new low for her. Or perhaps not. She’d always cared more about her career than she did about me. Hell, she hadn’t bothered to pick out a name for me—my grandmother had done the honors. All my mom had cared about was getting rid of her pregnant belly so she could get back to playing her cello at peak performance.
I wiped the tears out of my eyes. Had we been on speaking terms, I probably would have been included in my family’s plans. But what upset me was why we weren’t on speaking terms. All I’d ever wanted was her support for the things I was passionate about. But since singing pop music didn’t fit into her hoity-toity world, she wanted nothing to do with it and nothing to do with me.
Fuck it.I would stay in LA over the holiday week. I would get a massage and go to the movies, maybe even go on one of those cheesy celebrity home tours. There were a lot of other touristy things I hadn’t bothered to do, so I shouldn’t have trouble occupying my time.
As fun as that would have been any other time, the thought of eating yet another prepackaged salad alone on Thanksgiving made me sad. I’d never missed a turkey day with my family, but apparently, they weren’t bothered by the prospect of my absence.
The door opened, and Georgia stepped through. Exhaling, she sank into her chair. I tucked my family problems into the back of my mind and gave her a sympathetic look. “Is Walter okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “He was just a little confused. This break will be good for him. The show schedule is too grueling for him.”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m fine.” She smiled, and I studied her, trying to determine whether she was putting on a brave face. “I had a momentary trip into self-pity land, but I’m just fine. I’ll be great as soon as I get out of this dress and corset. Can you unzip me?”
“Of course.” I pulled down the zipper then held the dress as she stepped out of it.
“I hope it’s okay, but I’m going to stick with Walter and Brandon tonight.”
I situated the dress on a hanger. “Why wouldn’t it be okay?”
Georgia shimmied into her skinny jeans. “We usually hang out after reveal shows.”
“It’s no problem,” I lied. The truth was that I had no desire to go back to my hotel alone, but I didn’t have a monopoly on my friend’s time.
“What time is your flight tomorrow?” she asked.
“Um… I’m not sure.” It was scheduled for early afternoon, but I supposed I would just eat the cost of the airline ticket. I probably should have told her I was planning on staying in LA, but I didn’t want her to offer to do something crazy like cancel her trip to stay with me. I wasn’t sure if she would, but I wouldn’t put it past her, and she had been looking forward to seeing her family.
“Mine is at seven a.m., which means I need to get to the airport by five. Ugh. I’m thinking I might be better off staying awake all night, especially if I’m going to be out late.”
“That sounds like a good plan.”
Georgia stuffed her massive can of hair spray into her bag then zipped it closed. “I’m glad I’ll be able to switch out my wardrobe and do my laundry at home instead of in the hotel laundry room.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t even want to think about what’s been in those machines.”
I chuckled. “My clothes, that’s what.” Georgia raised a good point that I hadn’t considered—there was nothing stopping me from going home and doing laundry in my own washing machine. The thought of hanging out alone in my apartment was even more depressing than staying out here, though. At least in LA, I could do some sightseeing. Either way, I had little time to decide.
“Do you want to take my rental car back to the hotel?” Georgia offered as she held open the dressing room door for me. “You’ll have to turn in the keys…” She trailed off at the sight of Trenton leaned on the wall outside our dressing room, scrolling through his phone.
The man turned wall leaning into an art form. He should look lazy, all slouched over his phone like that, but he looked sexy as hell. It was due to his height and the way he folded himself in all gracefully.Hell.Who was I kidding? Just about everything that man did was sexy.
“Trenton, good to see you,” Georgia said. She turned to me with a sly smile. “Looks like you have your own ride. See you.” She sauntered off before I could call after her to stop. It was presumptuous to assume that Trenton would drive me to the hotel, which was in the opposite direction of his house. Oh well. I hadn’t planned to take the rental car, anyway, because I was sure the contract stipulated that she was the only one who was authorized to drive it.Uber, it is.
“She seems like she’s bounced back,” Trenton commented.
“Her positive attitude is baffling,” I admitted. If I’d been in the bottom three so early in the competition, I would still have been curled up in the fetal position.
“I’m glad she’s taking it in stride. I wanted to make sure she was okay.”
As I stared at him, my heart warmed, the sensation slowly filling my entire chest. My own mother couldn’t be bothered to actually speak to me to essentially disinvite me from a family holiday, yet this man had waited around to make sure my friend was okay. He cared about Georgia not because he knew her well enough to care but becauseIcared, and he cared about me.
I’d slept with him in what was supposed to be a one-night stand and then ran away, not fully understanding what—who—I’d been leaving behind. If not for serendipity, I never would have seen him again.
What the hell am I doing?I’d been keeping him at arm’s length, but I didn’t know why—maybe so I wouldn’t repeat my mother’s mistake. But I was not my mother, and her message that evening taught me that I never would be, because I would never treat someone I cared about the way she’d treated me. If I made mistakes in my life, they would be my own. And so far with Trenton, the only mistake I could see was ignoring the potential between us. Trouble was, I didn’t know what to do with that epiphany.
