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“Why did you want to work at Midnights with Gia and me? You worked for Apollo Sole for years, right? So how did the tornado that is Gia convince you to leave stability to work for some long shot of a high-end club?”
Talia sets her food down and sits back in the booth, her eyes on me. “I’ve played things safe my entire life and it never got me anywhere. When Gia laid this option, this risk, right in front of me, it was hard to say no, you know?”
Oh, I know all about risk, I think, but don’t tell her that. My crime-laden past isn’t exactly something I want to divulge, but I find it interesting that Midnights was the opposite for me. Gia offered me a chance at stability, and here, for Talia, Midnights was her risk, our opposing paths somehow bringing us together.
“Why play it safe?” I ask, leaning an elbow on the table.
“What do you mean?” Her brows pinch together, and that little crease between them pops up again. Reflexively, I reach up and smooth it away with my thumb.
“Why play life so safe?” I clarify.
Talia takes a moment to think about her response, and then slowly says, “I guess, growing up, watching my parents live this flighty, risky lifestyle of travel and business endeavors—which turned out good for them, they’re successful business owners now, but there was no order to my upbringing. There was certainly some smothering, but no real order.” She laughs and continues, “And so I grew up wanting control. I wanted to trust my environment and make it just the way I liked it, not the way my mother liked it.” She shrugs.
I’m left to ponder the duality of our upbringings.
“Why play life with so much risk?” she asks, finally popping the bruschetta in her mouth.
The corner of my mouth quirks. Perhaps I can divulge just alittleof the real me to her. “My upbringing was different than yours. It was filled with control from my father, lots of expectations and weights on our shoulders. He tried to burden me with the responsibility of the Atlas Company as his eldest, but I didn’t want it. I wanted to have fun, hang out with my friends, play music, drink.”
“You play music?” Talia asks incredulously, eyes and smile wide. “What do you play?”
“Guitar, of course.” I smirk at her over my wine glass. “But my father hated that I did, so any guitar I brought home he threw out into the driveway, so eventually I stopped bothering with it, and him, and just left.”
Talia’s face falls. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I don’t need pity for my past or my choices. I don’t regret any of it.”
“Still…” Talia traces the rim of her glass. “No one should treat a kid like that.”
This time, I shrug. “That was just life with my father. It’s not like it matters now. He’s dead, and Kieran and I, and Atlas, are better for it.”
Talia looks at me out of the corner of her eye, her tracing of her glass’ rim halting. “So you’ve lost both parents?”
I sit back in the booth, allowing a pregnant pause to stretch between us. I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of both parents dying, or what it was like losing my mother young. I would rather show her the good parts.
“When we’re done here, I’d like to show you something important to me,” I tell her.
She nods, and our server arrives with the rest of our food, bringing the conversation to an end for now. Something in me is nervous about showing her what I intend to, but another part is excited. It’s not something I’ve shared with anyone but Kieran.
But looking at Talia, the way she smiles warmly at the server with a ‘thank you’ for her food, I think that she’s someoneIcan trust.
Chapter Eleven: Talia
Kay drives us up a sloping hill in a ritzy neighborhood just outside of Malibu. The street is lined with ostentatious houses, windows softly aglow in the blue evening of a clear-skyed Malibu night. He has the windows down, the sounds of classic rock turned down low, and there’s something about the moment, about the dim light of the dashboard and the music, the warm breeze and Kay’s quiet company, that calms me.
Then again, that could be because I’ve never come so hard in my life, and before the appetizers no less. And I can’t stop thinking about his fingers inside me, the way he pulled me to him to muffle the moans he got out of me.
I clench my legs together in my seat.
His eyes flicker over to me, not missing the movement, but he says nothing.
A moment later, we’re pulling into the driveway of an illustrious old mansion. It’s the type of old LA mansion with cylindrical rooms and pointed roofs, columns that hold up an awning over a porch and brick covered in climbing ivy.
Wordlessly, Kay stops the car and gets out. I don’t forget his demand and wait for him to come around to my side to open the door. Rising out of my seat, he closes the door behind me and joins me at my side, slipping a hand around my waist as he guides me up a curved sidewalk lined with untrimmed bushes and flowers. The surrounding garden is overgrown, which is very uncharacteristic of LA, but I’m rather fond of the wildness the house seems to have.
Kay pulls out a key and sticks it in the lock.
“What is this place?” I ask as he unlatches the old deadbolt.
