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25
WILLOW
Iwas supposed to be facilitating the one-on-one interview with Brendan, Michio’s agent and best friend, but I kept messing up. Long seconds would pass while Brendan waited for me to feed him the next question.
“God, sorry,” I shook my head and blinked down at the next question. “Describe what it’s like to see your client reach heights in his career you never could.” I winced, the impact of the words only hitting after I’d said them out loud and made an apologetic face at Brendan.
“Christ, draw blood already, Miller,” he grumbled, shifting around in his seat. Then he grinned self-deprecatingly and began his answer.
Normally, I loved facilitating the interviews, especially when Miller wasn’t around to bark at me when I took the barbs out of some of his questions. Today, though, I just couldn’t focus. My head felt funny, stuffed with cotton, like I was getting sick. I didn’t feel bad though.
Maybe my double life was finally starting to take a toll. Waking up with Julian, sneaking out to call Fletcher. Lying to both. Falling in love with this job, forgetting I hadn’t earned it on my own merit. Falling in love with Julian, forgetting that one day he would hate me.
“Wills, what’s the next question?” Brendan asked, and I realized he’d wrapped up his answer.
“Sorry,” I repeated, scanning the list to find where we’d left off. Another nasty one. I skipped it and went down to the next. Brendan began answering. My mind went right back to Julian. I was in love with him. I’d been teetering on the precipice for so long, but at some point, I let go of all the reasons I shouldn’t love him and fell in. I didn’t know how he felt. Was he talking about meeting my mom and wanting me to meet his friends because he felt the same way? Or was this just what a normal coupledidafter three months?
I realized Brendan was holding out his hand for the list of questions. I shook my head instinctively. I didn’t want him to see some of the things Miller had written.
“C’mon, Wills. I can handle it.” He leaned forward and plucked it from my fingers, smoothed it out on his knee, and cleared his throat. We did the rest of the on-camera session that way. Brendan answered things I wouldn’t have asked, though his voice took on the rough, wry tone of someone who was trying not to be offended.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said at the end of the session. “I don’t know where my head was.”
“No problem.” Brendan helped me pack up and then walked me out to my car. His was the last interview of the day, and now the sun was at its lowest point in the sky, just about to slip beneath the horizon. It would be almost eight before I got to Julian’s.
“You don’t look so good, Wills,” Brendan said after we’d loaded the gear into my trunk. “I mean, hot as ever, but sick.”
I laughed. Brendan had long ceased to flirt with me and become an overly honest, blunt, big-brother figure. “I’m just tired. Long days.”
“Don’t work so hard then.”
Now we both laughed. We both knew that this business didn’t let you choose how hard you worked. It was feast or famine. Too much work or not enough. I hugged Brendan goodbye and got on the freeway, pointed toward Venice. It didn’t even occur to me that my own apartment was closer. Julian’s place was my default now. Camper was even there, set up with a sleek, self-cleaning litter box that Julian had brought home one day.
Maybe that was the day I’d let myself fall in love with him. I couldn’t remember now. I rubbed a knuckle into my tired eyes as I drove. Sleepiness hit me like a wave, crashing over me, nearly pulling my eyelids shut. I straightened up in my seat and took deep, long breaths. What was going on with me tonight? Had I really just nearly closed my eyes on the freeway?
I glanced at the GPS. I knew the way to Julian’s place by heart, but I put his address in anyway to see what traffic was doing. It wasn’t terrible. Not great, but I’d be there in thirty-five minutes. Then maybe I’d go straight to bed. I called my mom, figuring that hearing about her next adventure would help keep me alert, but she didn’t answer. Julian would already be home, making dinner, so I turned the radio on instead.
I don’t know where the car came from. Traffic had thinned, and one minute there was no one in the lane beside me. The next, there was a truck bearing down on me. I screamed and my hands instinctively yanked the wheel to the left. There was a screeching of horns coming from all sides. I hit something–metal crunched, wheels squealed. The car spun sickeningly, my head cracking against the window. Suddenly, it came to a stop, but that was no better. It was too bright, headlights boring in through the passenger side window. Not normal. Not right. Not good.
Those words ran through my mind quickly, running together and over one another. And then there was nothing.
* * *
Iwasn’t unconscious for long. I heard the ambulance coming. I was aware of my car door being opened, the hinges screaming and the sound of tearing metal accompanying it. Someone undoing my seatbelt, pulling me out. But it was like I was underwater. It wasn’t until I was in the ambulance that I fully came to and was able to open my eyes.
From there, my memory fragmented. I was in the ambulance, and then I was in the hospital, and then my mom was there, holding my hand, the sky dark behind her. She was humming a song I vaguely recognized from my childhood. A Linda Ronstadt song. No lullabies for my mom.
“Hi,” I said, my voice scratching my throat. I untangled my fingers from hers and reached up to feel the side of my head. I had a bandage wrapped around it. “What happened?”
“You were in a car accident.” My mom picked up a large thermos filled with water and held the straw to my lips. “You hit your head.”
I sipped weakly, then leaned back against the pillows. My head throbbed dully. I was hungry, but the undertow of sleep was tugging at me again. My eyelids were pulling themselves closed, the room dimming out and then going black.
“Where’s Julian?” I murmured, my bruised brain forgetting that my mom didn’t know who Julian was. Well, she knew whoJulian Lewiswas, but she wouldn’t know why I was asking about him. I’d kept him a secret even from her.
“Don’t worry about work right now, honey.”
The next thing I knew, it was morning. My mom had moved to the small, narrow bench and was reading a book. She looked over and smiled, beautiful as ever. No one would ever think she’d spent a sleepless night at a hospital bedside. Then she said something that shocked me.
