The Bet (15 page)

I hear nothing but the crashing waves over the phone.

“Bro?” I say, after waiting a few seconds. “You there?”

“Yeah. I’m here,” Jax says, his voice downturned and low.

“What?”

“Brando. Buddy…”

“Say it, dude.”

I hear him take a deep breath. “I don’t wanna sound like the Grim Reaper here. You’re overdue a good thing.
Way
overdue a girl who can keep you in check. But…she’s your act, you’re obviously really into her, she’s about to make it big… Doesn’t this feel familiar to you?”

I know what he’s talking about. Normally we don’t talk about my past with Lexi, the deal, the devastation – it’s off-limits and he knows it. It’s our code. I met Jax after the break-up, told him all about it one night when we decided to get drunk by ourselves rather than go home and bang chicks. I made him swear the next morning, when we woke up on the bar, never to mention what I told him ever again. I didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to go over it again. I wanted to be a new man, someone different. A man without that in his past. Jax acted like he couldn’t remember me telling him, did the only thing a decent friend would do. Until now.

“Familiar?” I push, daring Jax to break the code.

“Look, I don’t know her. Forget I said it. I’m just telling you to be careful. Friend to friend.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll call you about Thursday.”

I hang up, drop the phone on the passenger seat, and stare ahead for a full ten minutes.

He’s right. It is familiar.

When I go to meet Haley, her friend Jenna from the coffee shop, and the stylist I finally convinced Haley to use, I’m coming with the best news yet. Our biggest chance, guaranteed to make her song a hit, if it wasn’t showing all the signs already.

And yet the memory of what Jax said earlier hangs over me like a dark mist I can’t shake off. This situation
is
familiar. I’m starting to see signs everywhere, in everything I do. The feeling of being almost there, the simple and strong trust I have in Haley, the adrenaline rush I get from seeing my work actually getting results – it’s word-for-word, motion-for-motion what I felt just before Lexi tore me apart. As soon as I set the ball in motion, it feels like it’s getting away from me. What seemed perfect before is now a little
too
perfect to trust.

Jenna sees me in the long, clean mirror of the hair salon as I walk up to her.

“We were waiting for you,” Jenna says, bringing Haley’s attention to me.

“Heeeey!” she says, smiling wide and bright with her face, but keeping her head in place as the bald guy in a tight shirt snips and chops at it.

“Hey you. Good to see you, Jenna,” I say. I should step through and kiss her, make the bald guy stop so that I can plant a long, slow kiss on those lips. But I don’t, and Haley notices, even though she barely shows it.

“Thank you
so
much for letting me in on this, Brando,” Jenna says. “I’ve needed a makeover, like, forever.”

“Hardly,” I scoff. “You’re already flawless, both of you. But I’m glad you’re enjoying.” I glance at Haley. “You need strength to get to the top. But you need strong friends to stay there.”

“I got more clothes today than I have in the past two years,” Haley says, before winking. “I’ll show you if you’re free tonight.”

I smile just enough not to set off her alarm bells, but it takes a lot of effort.

“Actually I’m not.”

Haley pouts.

“And neither are you,” I continue.

“What do you mean?” Haley says, frowning for a second before the bald guy adjusts her head slightly. “I thought the next studio session was tomorrow afternoon?”

“It’s not a studio session.”

“Well, what, then? Quit teasing this out!”

“Yeah, Brando!” Jenna adds for good measure.

I pause a little before answering.

“You’re on Conan.”

Their jaws drop at the same time, and they turn to look at each other slowly at the same time, mirror images.

Then they scream.

The bald guy leaps back, palms out like Haley just combusted in front of him, before turning to me with a glare as if I caused it. I shrug, and the next thing I know Haley’s pressing up against me, hair-filled bib still wrapped around her shoulders, insatiable tongue between my lips.

I try to be cold. Try to be smart. Try to keep myself from putting my arms around her and pressing my lips back on hers. But it doesn’t work. I can’t. Haley’s nothing like Lexi. This is nothing like before. I’ve never felt so good. This time it’s real, and I’m gonna do it the only way I know how – by putting everything I have on the line.

16

Haley

A SORE THROAT. That’s why I’m here in the green room of one of the biggest late night talk shows in the world. The lead singer of the band that was
supposed
to play got a sore throat. That’s all it took.

That, and Brando.

“How you feeling?” he says, and I spin around to see him standing there, always big and strong, always supporting me. I press a hand against his cheek and kiss him gently.

“My teeth are chattering, my knees feel like they’re made out of silly string, and I’m not sure if this new haircut makes me look incredibly hot, or like a preteen who found her mother’s hair product,” I say. “But I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good in my life.”

“You’re gonna knock ‘em dead. By the time you wake up tomorrow there won’t be a person in the country who doesn’t know your name.”

“Thanks,” I say, “that thought’s gonna do wonders for my nerves.”

Brando chuckles softly, gently brushing the back of his rough hand against my cheek.

“You’re not really nervous,” he smiles. “I can tell. You’re growing, Haley, coming into your own, turning into something amazing.”

The muscles in my face soften as I gaze at him.

“Brando Nash?!”

The voice comes from a weedy guy in the doorway. It takes a second call and another moment for Brando to turn and see him.

“What?” Brando says, curtly.

The weedy guy walks up to us and jabs his thumb at the door.

“You need to come with me,
now!
”

“What’s going on?” Brando says, instinctively resisting.

Weedy guy sighs before speaking.

“I’ve got a fifty-six page document covering your song’s copyright, usage rights, liability for the performance, and about a thousand other legal technicalities sitting
unsigned
on my desk. It should have been signed before today, but right this second will have to do. It also should have been signed by the artist herself, but she’s going out in a minute, so you’ll have to do it on her behalf.”

Brando waves him away, unconcerned. “Relax. I’ll sign it. Just give me a second with my client.”

“This is network television, Mr. Nash, not karaoke night at the surf n’ turf. If I don’t get ink on those papers in the next thirty seconds your girlfriend doesn’t play and we have to do an unrehearsed skit with one of the d-list guests –
and nobody wants to see that
.”

I press a hand on Brando’s shoulder and he looks at me.

“Go,” I say. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you after the show.”

Brando smiles at me and then follows weedy guy out of the green room. I watch him go, the feeling of something amazing about to happen between us hanging in the air like swirls of smoke. I smile and wonder if he’ll be there in the audience, right in my eye line once again.

Then someone walks into my eye line who is almost the polar opposite of Brando.

“There she is! The girl of the moment!”

He’s short and squat, with the kind of paunch even pregnancy clothes would struggle to hide. His face looks like it was constructed out of play-doh by a team of soda-injected toddlers, and his hairpiece looks like it was fished out of a plughole at a Turkish bath. Despite all this, he’s wearing the loudest, shiniest, most eye-catching Hawaiian shirt I think I’ve ever seen.

Still, I try not to judge on appearances – so I decide it’s the way his voice sounds like slime oozing down a gutter that creeps me out about him.

“Who are you?”

“Davis Crawford,” he says, offering me a hand with the texture of cold fish, “I’m a friend of Brando’s. Where is he?”

I narrow my eyes. This guy is way too sleazy to be friends with Brando. “He had to go do some business.”

“Ah,” Davis says, lopsided lips forming what I assume is a grin. “That sounds just like him. Always doing some kind of ‘business.’ Always neglecting the talent.”

I offer an unconvincing laugh in response, hoping it’ll bring the conversation to a close.

“Just
look
at you! You’ve come a long way from that open mic, that’s for sure! Who would have thought the mousy little girl down there would have made it all the way up here, am I right?”

“You saw me at the open mic?” I say, a second before I remember his face, the first time I ever met Brando.

“But of course!
I’m
the one who chose you!” Davis rasps out a sound that’s almost but not quite a laugh. “Needless to say, you can tell Brando he won the bet.”

“What bet?” I say, beginning to get frustrated with Davis’ condescending tone.

Realization, smugness, and mischief combine on Davis’ face to bring it to a whole new level of disgusting.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“
What. Bet,”
I repeat with venom, suddenly feeling irrationally angry. I need to go onstage in five minutes and this guy is standing here talking as if he knows something I don’t about the only two things I care about – Brando and my career.

“Oh my! You didn’t
know?
Haha! This is too delicious!” Davis pauses for effect before continuing. “
You
were the bet, my dear. You! Or rather, the pitiful little thing that was trying to sing up onstage at the open mic was. All he had to do was get you into the charts in a single month. And by God, he did it!”

I shake my head, rolling my eyes, wondering why in the hell this guy thinks I’d trust in a man who looks like he’s wearing somebody else’s face. “Bullshit. Why would Brando take a bet like that? He’s not stupid. What would he get out of it?”

Davis’ smile gets so wide that I can see the lines of his face lift. I feel somebody tug my arm.

“Haley, you need to get moving, like,
now!
” I glance in the direction of the voice, a nervous-looking runner standing to the side. I shake his arm off and glare back at Davis.

“You’re right, he’s certainly not stupid. Not at all. But every man has his price. Brando’s was ten grand and the pick of my acts – or, to be more specific, as it is rather obvious, don’t you think? – Lexi Dark.”

The words hit like a punch, knocking me out of my body. I freeze and stare, grasping for some sense of reality.

“Rather a bizarre proposition, when you think about it,” Davis continues. “To build up an entirely new star just to get his old one back – but then again, it was never about the business with Brando. A man like that will do anything for love. Anyway, I’ve got to go grab my seat. I’m looking forward very much to your performance!”

He backs away slowly.

“Make it a good one, Haley! You’ll have some competition from this point on! Hah!”

He disappears. A man says something about taking our spots. I feel hands pressing my shoulders, voices calling me, and I close my eyes, wet and misted. When I open them Brando is standing in front of me, my bandmates standing around him.

“Haley! You okay? What’s the matter?”

I stare up at him, his eyes so trustworthy, his voice so calming – I could almost believe he actually cares.

“Commercial’s over in sixty seconds,” the runner says pleadingly to my left, “we’ve got to get going.”

“Are you okay?” he asks again, big and strong, a liar and a fraud.

“I was just a bet,” I mumble through a gurgling throat. “That’s all I was. A game you played.”

Brando’s eyes widen when he realizes I know, realizes he’s been found out.

“What? You… Wait, Haley. It’s not like that – I mean, it was, but it turned out different. Please Haley, don’t—”

I narrow my eyes, hurt and anger roiling inside me. “Just a way for you to get Lexi back.”

“Haley, no…”

“It’s time for us to take our spots, Haley, can’t you guys talk about this after?”

Brando nods at the band members to leave us and they go, leaving us alone – the last place I want to be, with the last person I want to be there with.

“What else was a lie?” I snarl through gritted teeth. “The story of your childhood? It being ‘all about the music’?”

“No, I didn’t lie. It was all true. Please Haley, you know it was. Surely you can feel that it was all tr—”

I smack him. Hard and fast. The tight, boiling pressure inside of me spiking so much I can’t hold it in anymore. He brings his hand to his cheek and turns back to face me, his face vulnerable. Another lie.

“You were right about one thing,” I say, raising my head and setting my shoulders back. “I
am
growing. And I’ve just outgrown you.”

I shove him aside, grab my guitar from the couch and march out to set. Full of determination, full of bravado, full of pain and fury and an unbreakable resolution to trust myself, and only myself, from this moment on.

17

Brando

NOBODY TELLS you that girls hit the hardest, but they do. A good hit from a guy will knock you out, leave a nasty bruise, a black eye – but you’ll wake up, heal up. A girl can cleave your heart in two forever with a slap you barely feel, rip shreds out of your soul and leave you a walking zombie. Lexi was the first girl to teach me that.

Shit. This is familiar.

Then the show starts. First the announcer, then the audience, then the music. All muffled through the walls of the green room, but still impossible to ignore. Haley’s music is louder, harder, more exciting than I’ve ever heard her deliver before.

In a trance I leave the green room, passing through the backstage area slowly, the music getting clearer and louder. I remember the time I walked into the studio to find her singing her heart out, a revelation, a turning point. A realization that she was the one, that she’d save me. When I turn the corner to see her from the side stage, the revelation’s different this time. She’s still the one, but she won’t save me.