Bounce (12 page)

Yep. That's what I'd do.

Obliterate that day from existence.

  
Chapter 14
  

Skyler

B
rooks and I stand there for the longest time, staring at one another.

“What just happened?” I ask.

But I know. The look on Grey's face stays seared behind my eyes like the afterimage of a bright light. Disgusted, angry. Disappointed. But deeper than all that. A flicker of some wild, almost animal hurt that I can't believe really has to do with me.

Brooks stoops to pick up the pages of the script, which he hands to me with an abashed smile. “I guess he didn't like us using his room? He's a little moody lately. Something to do with his mom.”

I nod and smooth over the corner of Grey's comforter, wanting to do something to put things right. I pick up the headshot—my headshot—that he had propped next to his bed, and I can't decide whether to return it to its original spot or take it with me. Finally, I put it back, facedown, next to the lamp.

“And maybe he has a bit of a crush on you,” Brooks adds, his eyes moving from the picture to my face. He smiles at me and holds me in the intensity of his gaze. “Not that I could blame him.”

I don't know what to say to that. It's flattering. Exciting, even. But hearing it makes me feel even worse for being in his room—with Brooks.

I'm not a dummy. I know Grey had the picture for a reason. I imagine him looking at it. Thinking about me. Like I've thought of him, replayed our kiss a dozen times, his solid arms wrapped around me, the smoky sweetness of his tongue and his body pressed against me.

I've thought about our conversations, too, how quick and funny he is, thought about the sound of his voice, which I know in a whole new way now, because I've heard him sing.

Hell, if there'd been a headshot of Grey, I might have kept it on
my
nightstand, too. I completely regret not stealing the CD from his car.

But that's a fantasy—some harmless fun. He's too young and clearly too much of a mess to be anything more than that. Anything real.

“You feeling good about everything?” Brooks asks. His expression is calm, encouraging. It all feels so effortless with him, like he can take on anything, solve any problem with no fuss, no storms. “The audition, I mean. We can keep working on it if—”

“No, I'm good.” I wonder if I can sneak out for just a second to find Grey. I'm itching to talk to him. To clear up whatever wrong idea he has—of what Brooks and I were doing. Of me. The injustice of it sits like a rock in my chest. “I think . . . ​I'm ready. But can I have just a second?”

“Sure. Why don't you come into the office when you're all set?”

“Okay. I'll be right in.”

He heads to Adam's office, and I slip off in the other direction, toward the living room, thinking I might find Grey there. Instead, I come upon Mia and Beth on the couch together, and from the look on Beth's face, I can see she's unhappy. Which crushes me on the spot.

“But you can't possibly know that—” Mia's saying, though when she spots me, she falls silent, which makes me feel like an intruder.

All of this seems so unfair. Grey. Now Beth and Mia. All I wanted was a little scratch to get my cello out of hock and to keep my mom in groceries and electricity. I hate to be party to anyone's unhappiness, and now Grey's angry, and Beth's in tears.

“I blew it,” she says. “It's wide open for you, girl.”

Mia shakes her head. “Like I said, you can't always tell. Sometimes I think I've shot a piece that's absolute garbage. But I go back and look at it later and it feels different. So much better.”

“Believe me,” Beth insists. “I know.” My chest tightens at the look on her face. I think I liked it better when I was nine, and everyone got blue ribbons just for participating.

“Maybe they'll let you read again?” I suggest.

She shakes her head and gives me a weak smile. “No, I kicked that door closed pretty hard. It's all on you now, Sky. Go represent for the Valencia Three.”

Our nickname—the three of us in our little apartment on Valencia Court. Though Mia's moving out—slowly, eventually. And if I don't do this thing I may end up packing my boxes, too.

“Okay,” I say. “I'm so sorry, Beth. I hope it's better than you think it is.”

“I hope so, too,” she says. “And maybe after we get a couple of drinks, I'll let myself believe it. In the meantime, there's no reason you can't kill it.”

This whole night feels like one big reason, but I keep that to myself.

Garrett comes into the room. “Come on, love,” he says. “Let's get this done before I turn into a pumpkin.”

We go into the office, where Adam looks up from his cell phone to give me a smile and Brooks stands, holding a digital video camera like the one Mia uses. He directs us over to a cream leather sofa by a broad picture window. Outside, the evening sky is a flat somber gray, but ocean sounds spill in, giving the room a contained, soothing feel.

“Do you prefer a certain side?” Garrett asks.

“Side?”

“Of the sofa. Do you like to be filmed from a certain angle?”

“I . . . ​I don't know.” God, could I sound like a bigger dunce?

“Skyler needs some help picking out her good side,” Garrett tells Brooks.

Brooks folds his arms across his chest and considers. “I mean, they're all pretty good.” Everything he says sounds like flirting but not. Maybe it's that there's nothing hesitant about it. He's just rock solid. Putting it out there so I can decide what I want to do with it. Garrett comes to stand next to Brooks, and the next thing I know, he's got his hands on my jaw, and he's turning my face from one side to the other. Then he steps back.

“You're right. They are both pretty good. Really good, in fact.”

They're giving me the feeling of being a super attractive bug under a microscope. It's flattering but creepy.

“So, why don't we just, um, go with your good side, Garrett?” I say. “Just put me where you want me?”

Garrett sits right in the middle of the sofa, which is no help at all. I just choose a side, his left, and sit beside him. I spend a little time trying to get comfortable, deciding whether I should cross my legs or not. Trying to figure out what to do with my hands, which suddenly feel like lifeless lumps of clay at the end of my arms.

I can't stop thinking about Beth. And Grey. It'll be a miracle if I can remember my lines. And who knows how well I can act, really, when you put me with someone like Garrett. Someone who knows what he's doing.

I guess I'm about to find out, I think.

“We ready?” Brooks asks.

“I need just a second, please,” says Garrett. He closes his eyes and leans against the back of the sofa. I watch his chest rise as he takes big, deep breaths, and a calm settles around us. When he opens his eyes to look at me, it's like I'm pulled into this tight, intimate space with him. Just the two of us in this placid little bubble.

He reaches for my hand, and I give it to him. His palm is warm and solid.

“You're going to nail this,” he says, and it's not a question or a demand. Just a statement of fact. He releases my hand with a wink and turns to the others, patiently waiting. “I'm ready.”

We play the scene, another argument between George and Emma, but this one's from earlier in the script. It's playful. It doesn't have quite the heat of the scene I played with Grey—for a lot of reasons, I guess—but I can still feel this crackle in the air between Garrett and me, this ease that makes it feel, truly, like we've known each other forever. It's everything I thought it could be.

At one point, Garrett goes off script a little, teasing me. No, teasing Emma. Digging into her character flaws, challenging the way she likes to meddle, the way she thinks she has all the answers. I improvise back, my brain calculating all the possibilities for how to play it—angry, sad, strident—but I come back a little softer, more vulnerable.

This confidence of Emma's is a mask; I know that somehow. She gives it right back to George, goes toe-to-toe, but I let the insecurities show, just a bit. Let the hurt show, the feeling of casting about in life, of trying to find her rudder by steering the lives of others.

And then Garrett moves us effortlessly right back to the script. Damn, he's a pro. The scene seems to move us through dozens of emotional beats—flirting to serious to funny to wistful, and I ride along with it all, anticipating, more with my body than my mind, how to play each moment.

Everything else falls away, except Garrett, who's right there with me, ahead of me sometimes, guiding me with his eyes, micro-movements of his body that I can read like I've studied him forever. It's magical, the best kind of harmony

We finish, and there's a second of silence in the room. And then applause.

“Wonderful!” Brooks exclaims.

I look over at Garrett, who gives me a wide, wide smile, those blue eyes alive and captivating. “Just like I told you,” he says. “Nailed it.”

  
Chapter 15
  

Grey

T
he first thing I see when I wake up is Skyler's headshot on my nightstand. It's facedown, and I know I didn't do that, so there's really only one explanation: she saw it. And didn't like that she saw it.

I press my eyes closed, anger moving through me like a hot sting. It's not like I meant for her to see it.
I
didn't invite her in here. Images flash through my mind. Skyler's soft lips just after I kissed her during our scene. Skyler jumping into the car when I picked her up at her place last night. Skyler sitting on my bed right where my left hand is.

With Brooks beside her.

I grab the headshot and rip it up. I can't make myself throw the pieces in the trash, though. I toss them back on my nightstand. It was just a stupid infatuation. It's not like anything was going to happen between us, and there are plenty of other girls out there. Whatever.