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And it’s either a killer call or the call that will kill everything. I’m not just betting my life, and what I want with Jess, I’m shaking the dice on Mom’s and Coley’s future too. The safe thing to do is deliver the contract I signed. Step into the steady-paycheck boat. Coast out the next year. Follow the advice Mom’s been giving me all my life. I rub the back of my neck and come away with a damp hand.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you nervous, kid.” Billy rubs his beard.
Probably because he’s never seen the real me. “Mom scored me Ryder.The Packoffered me Jax. Reading for the TV movies was cake. I’ve never had to try for anything. AndElvenisn’t a guaranteed win.”
Billy laughs. “Most of life ain’t, son. I tried to tell your mom that. But she wasn’t having any of it.” He doesn’t have David’s bark. In a weird way, I miss David not being here to tell me to suck it up.
The door opens and a woman holding an iPad leans out. “Gabriel Wade?” She fixes her gaze on me.
This is it. What Billy calls my breakout chance. I don’t care about the breaking out part. I just want the chance. The chance to change my life. Subtly wiping my palms down my pants one last time, I follow her through the door, and hope I don’t screw everyone else over instead.
chapter 67
Jess
The stages of grieving made no sense. Or maybe I was just doing them wrong.
~ fromWherever I Goby Jessica Thorne
(formerly titledJess’s Sucky Second Book)
Gabe’s autograph on my skin might’ve faded, but his mark on my life lives on in bold color. It’s been three weeks since I broke up with him. Two weeks since I stopped Googling him. One second since I last thought about him.
Out of all the pictures people posted of us, I saved one. Balancing my laptop on myHello Kittycovered thighs, I lean back against my headboard and touch the wallpaper on my screen. Someone caught Gabe watching me on the escalator that first day at the hotel. There’s this focused intensity in his eyes that brings back what he told me when he pulled me into that public restroom.You had this lost look, like you were twisted up inside, and there was this second when I felt like whatever was twisting you might get what was twisting me.
Knowing he’ll never look at me like that again bends the part of my heart that believes it still belongs to him. But I can’t delete the picture. I can’t even remove it as my wallpaper. Every time I try, that curve in my chest feels like it might snap.
What if letting him go was a forever kind of mistake? It’s not so much that I need him, not the way Lizzie needed T in the diary, it’s that I want him. I miss him as my boyfriend, but I miss his friendship more.
Dad knocks on my open bedroom door and leans in. “Wordcount?” It’s his daily question—one I put him in charge of asking. He skims my pages too. Turns out, he’s a ninja storyteller, and he finds all my plot holes.
“Thirty-three thousand.” I push my computer off my legs next to the first book in his special ops series.
If he notices that I’m finally reading his books, he doesn’t say anything.
“But I just killed off Lily’s mom in chapter eight, so I probably lost a few thousand. I’ll get them back though. Grieving is wordy.” And unpleasant. The thesaurus in my head taps into how things ended with Mom, kicks that word out, and starts finding synonyms foragonizing.
Excruciating.
Heartbreaking.
Distressing.
“That’s one way of dealing with your mom issues.” Dad rests against the wall, haloed by my newestHello Kittyposter.
“The whole car accident, drawn-out death didn’t help as much as I thought.” Maybe one day Mom’s rejection will stop burning like wildfire under my skin.
“Do you want to come with me to get Vi at the airport?” He walks further into my room. “We’re stopping for fajitas on the way home.”
I shrug. “Sure.”
Over the last month, Vi’s flown in every weekend, leaving more and more of her stuff behind. What started out as a drawer in Dad’s dresser and a spot by the sink has turned into three-quarters of his closet and ninety percent of his bathroom counter. And I’m bizarrely okay with it. Minus the lime lingerie hiccup last Saturday.
I trade my bed for my vanity stool. If I’m going out, I probably should brush my hair.
“You want to bring a friend?” Taking the spot I vacated, Dad sits on the side of my bed and crosses his booted feet.
“All my friends are fake.” Pulling the brush through waves that aren’t interested in being tamed, I meet his eyes in the mirror. “As in imaginary.” Except for Gabe. But he’s a thousand miles away. And no longer part of my life.
