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“The media knows who she is,” Knox defends, his back up.
River’s defenses are just as high. “Because you include it in every press release you send out.”
“You what?”
That question didn’t come from River or me. It came from Nicole, who is exiting the bathroom with a platinum-blonde wig hiding her identifiable locks. “We agreed that we would do this from the ground up. That it would be our victory.”
Her “we” and “our” cut through me like a knife, but the glare she hits Knox with during her statement makes them more papercuts than fatal wounds.
“I tried. I swear to you, I did,” Knox defends, his voice almost babyish as he tries to subdue her with charm instead of facts. “But no one was interested until your connection to Rise Up was exposed.”
How the fuck can that be? Nicole had only seconds to prepare before her performance last night, and she hit it out of the park. I was in complete fucking awe and desperate for more, so how aren’t disc jockeys rushing for the chance to play her songs?
I can’t help the smirk that forms on my face when a groveling Knox follows a furious Nicole to the front of the plane. I’m not happy they’re arguing loud enough to overtake the clicking of paparazzi cameras on the tarmac. I am pleased Nicole is standing up for herself and giving Knox some of the sass I sampled last night.
I wipe my smile off my face when I realize how disturbing I am being.
I fucked my best friend’s girl, and now I’m sitting back and watching with eagerness as their relationship crumbles.
Neither are points I should peacock about.
“What do you think he’s saying to her?” River asks, giving me an excuse for my inability to take my eyes off Nicole. “She’s calming down pretty quick.”
“She is,” I agree, disappointed. “Do you know much about their…”—nope, I can’t say relationship, either, when Nicole is part of the equation—“dynamic? Knox seems different with her.”
He was more a do-as-I-ask-or-I’ll-raise-my-hand-at-you man before I went away. He would have never chased a woman and pleaded for her to listen to him. He said there’s too many fish in the sea to worry about the feelings of one.
“He is,” River agrees this time around. “But I don’t know if it’s a good thing.”
After taking his backpack to lighten his load, I bounce my eyes between his soul-baring pair. “What do you mean?”
He waits a beat before murmuring, “He’s kinda obsessed with her.”
“I get it,” I stammer out before I can stop myself.
When that gains me River’s upmost devotion, I try to crawl out of the trench I just threw myself in. “I mean, come on, look at her. She’s gorgeous.”
“She is,” he agrees again with nothing but honesty highlighting his face. “So why doesn’t he just sleep with her instead of women who look like her?”
“What?” My shock delivers my question so ear-piercingly loud, River’s eyes aren’t the only ones boring into mine. Knox’s and Nicole’s are as well.
Incapable of tattling while being gawked at, River walks to the exit. “We should finish this later.”
“River…” I plead, desperate.
I hate cliffhanger endings.
I absolutely loathe them.
And although his expression is apologetic when he flashes me the quickest smirk, not a syllable escapes his lips as he exits the private jet to the frantic flashes of paparazzi cameras.
* * *
The crash of the paparazzi as we leave Van Nuys Airstrip is intense. Even wearing a disguise doesn’t stop Nicole from being asked a hundred questions about her connection to a band I’ve never heard of during the short walk from the jet’s stairs to a blacked-out SUV.
The West Coast paps' interview points don’t veer far from the ones asked in Florida, but since Knox helms Nicole’s walk to the awaiting car, they don’t obtain the snapback response they forever seek when hounding celebrities.
Knox’s gallantry makes it seem as if their shark-attack tenacity isn’t the publicity he’s seeking, and it has Nicole’s anger slipping from the boiling point back to a gentle simmer by the time we reach a studio theater on the outskirts of Burbank.
