Escaping Perfect (18 page)

I could practically see the scenario playing out in her mind's eye. How the second I went back to Sweetbriar she'd show up at his hotel, ask him out for drinks, maybe convince him to walk some red carpet with her somewhere. It would probably be great for her, or for any one of them, to snag the hot new prospect in town. My stomach turned at the thought.

“Okay, let's take five!” the photographer announced, popping a flash off his camera.

Jasper's shoulders relaxed, and he walked over to join us. “Ladies,” he said, with his practiced, flirtatious grin. “How's it going over here?”

“Actually, I think I could use some fresh air.”

I picked up my bag and headed for the hallway. I could feel the girls watching as I went, and I heard someone titter that awful laugh. Then Jasper caught up to me.

“Hey. You okay?” he asked, as the door swung closed behind us.

“I'm fine,” I lied, feeling like I wanted to crawl out of my skin. “You should go back in there.”

He smiled a knowing smile. “Lia, come on, you're not jealous of those girls, are you?”

“The Amazonian goddesses? Why would I be?” I shot back.

Jasper reached up to touch my cheek, his hand warm and familiar. “You are prettier than all of those girls put together.”

“You mean like if you chopped them up and then Frankensteined them back together?” I commented. “Yes, then I could see how I might be prettier.”

Jasper laughed, a real, hearty laugh. “Don't go,” he said. “You're only here for a couple of days, and I don't want to be without you.”

I took a deep breath, letting his words work their magic to uncoil my heartstrings.

“I know, but—”

“I told you, I only have eyes for one girl now,” Jasper said, lowering his voice.

I smiled, and he leaned down and kissed me, pressing me back against the wall next to the door. I pulled him to me, holding him close, trying to make an impression for him to take back in there for the next two hours of being clawed by supermodels.

Then the elevator pinged and we broke apart. A short woman with purple bangs scurried over to us, a photographer right on her heels.

“You're Jasper Case, right?” she said, breathless. “I'm Virginia Daly from the music blog
Nashville Today
. Evan Meyer said he'd set aside some time for an interview.”

Without warning the photographer lifted his camera and snapped a picture. I quickly turned away. Sweat prickled my upper lip. Had he gotten my face in that shot? What if it was published?

“Right. Yeah. He told me you'd be here,” Jasper said.

“And is this your girlfriend? I'd love to talk to you, too,” Virginia said hungrily. “Get the inside scoop on what Jasper's really like.”

I heard the camera reel off another few shots. If I was in them, it was only the back of my head, which looked entirely different than it had a couple of weeks ago.

“What do you think, Lia?” Jasper asked.

“Actually, I really have to use the bathroom,” I said,
making an awkward circle around them, trying to keep my back to the photographer. “You should get back in there. I'll just be a few minutes.”

I rushed down the hallway and ducked around the corner, waiting for their voices to fade. When they did, I glanced over and saw the door to the studio swinging closed. I heard Jasper's laugh, muted by the door, and felt one horrible pang of regret before I changed into my sunglasses and bolted for the stairs.

Chapter Eighteen

“You sure you have to go back so early?”
Jasper asked the next morning, stifling a yawn.

I slung my bag over my shoulder, wishing like hell I could stay. But I had a brand-new job and was expected to be there first thing tomorrow. I couldn't let Tammy down. Not if I wanted to stay in my apartment.

“I'm sorry. The Sunday bus schedule sucks.” I leaned in to the bed to kiss him good-bye. He draped his heavy arm around me and almost succeeded in dragging me back down into the rumpled covers. Almost. I regained my balance and stood up straight.

“What're you doing today?” I asked.

“More meetings,” Jasper said, reaching for the room-service
menu. “But I may actually get to listen to some demos. Apparently the label has a dozen songwriters who want to work with me. I'm cool like that.”

“That's awesome. But they
are
going to let you record your own songs too, right?” I asked. “Because your songs are great and you need to get them out there.”

“Yep. It's in the contract,” Jasper replied, then gave me a slow smile. “Look at you, looking out for me.”

“Hey, if I don't, who will?” I joked back.

Jasper laughed, then snapped his fingers and got out of bed. “Speaking of which, I bought you a present! Well, two presents. I mean, one's more for me and the other's more for you, but . . .”

Wearing only his boxers, he looked so completely gorgeous that I almost gave in to myself and crawled back into bed. Who needed a job? My boyfriend was about to be a superstar.

But I knew I couldn't think like that. Jasper (or his record company) had paid for every meal I'd eaten over the past couple of days, and it was starting to feel wrong. Like I was a kept woman. I wanted to rely on myself for a while, not go from relying on my mom to relying on some guy.

“Why do I get presents?” I asked.

He came back from the closet with his hands behind his
back and a serious grin on. “Which one do you want first? Yours, or mine?”

“Um . . . mine, I guess.” What could he have possibly bought for me?

He brought his right hand out. It was clutching the neck of a cherry-red violin.

“What the—Jasper! You didn't!” I cried, my heart leaping.

“It's used, but refurbished,” he said. “I got it at a little shop downtown. I had some free time when I first got here. They said it's perfectly tuned, so you can just have right at it.”

He ran back to the closet for the bow and handed it to me.

“This is amazing!” I placed my chin in the chin rest and played a few notes of Tchaikovsky. The violin's sound was strong, its tones true. A shiver raced down my spine. Jasper watched me happily.

“I didn't think you should go another day without owning your own instrument,” he said.

“Thank you so much!” I said, leaning in for a kiss. “It's perfect.”

“You're welcome. The case is in the closet. But first, the second present.”

I put the violin and bow down on the bed, and he handed me a clear plastic bag. “Sorry. I shoulda wrapped this one, but I hope you like it.”

I pulled a small box out and gasped. It was an iPhone—the new one they'd introduced just last month. “Jasper, this is too much,” I said.

“No, it's not. Like I said, it's not even for you, really; it's for me,” he said, reaching for a T-shirt and pulling it on. “If I'm going to be here on occasion and you're going to be there, I need to have a way to get in touch with you.”

I smiled. He really couldn't have been sweeter. “Thank you.”

“It's all activated and whatever. You're on my friends and family plan.”

I stood up on my toes and gave him a nice, long, grateful kiss. “Thank you. And now I have something to play with on the long ride home. I don't think the bus driver would want me messing around with the violin.”

“I wish you were going to have me to mess around with,” he replied. Moving his hips against mine, he pulled me to him.

I shoved him away with a laugh, and he waved me off like he was done with me. He went to the closet for the black violin case, put the instrument and bow away carefully, and then snapped the lid closed.

“Oh, and do me a solid, would ya?” he asked, crawling back onto the bed. I swear he was just rubbing it in. “Go by
Daria's and check in on her. She's not used to not having me around to bother her.”

Like Daria was ever going to be anything other than strong, wise, independent Daria.

I smiled. “Will do.”

After one last lingering kiss we said good-bye, and I found myself in the hallway, feeling heavy and sad and tired. Walking out of that room was a lot harder than I expected. When the elevator doors closed behind me, I leaned back against the wall and sighed. Then I heard a ping.

“What the—”

It took me way too long to realize it was my new phone. I dug it out of the box and checked the screen. There was a text from Jasper. It read:

MISS YOU ALREADY.

And I laughed, all alone, as the elevator zipped toward the ground.

*  *  *

When I stepped up onto Daria's porch that evening, uninvited, I was armed with a chocolate marble Bundt cake from Bake Me a Cake on Main Street. I had vivid memories of sitting around Daria's kitchen table, devouring one of these with her and Jasper and Gigi, laughing as we played Monopoly Junior and Jasper tried to buy up everyone's properties so he
could be Lex Luthor. Which made sense at the time even if it didn't now. I couldn't believe Bake Me a Cake still sold these things, but then, if you managed to create cake perfection, I guess you didn't mess with it.

I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. I knew I was risking a lot, giving Daria some one-on-one face time. If she recognized me, I was in deep trouble. But I'd promised Jasper. And I'd only stay long enough to have dessert and a quick chat. Long enough to be able to assure him that Daria was just fine.

She opened the door. I put on my biggest smile, but it instantly fell. It was clear Daria had been crying.

“Oh,” she said, with about one tenth of her usual enthusiasm. “Hello, sweet pea.”

“Hi. I'm sorry . . . is this a bad time?” I asked.

Daria sniffled and straightened herself up, but her efforts did nothing to erase the redness around her eyes or the puffiness of her cheeks.

“No, no. I'm fine. Just an old woman being far too self-indulgent.” She eyed my bakery bag. “Whatcha got there?”

“Chocolate marble cake,” I replied meekly.

“Well, that's my favorite,” she said, brightening a bit. “Weren't you sent from heaven at the exact right moment? Come on in.”

Night was falling, and there wasn't a single light on inside the house. Everything felt dreary, even though nothing was out of place. Daria went right to the coffeemaker on her kitchen counter as I stood awkwardly in the doorway, wondering if I should turn on the light.

“I heard you went to see Jasper,” she said, squinting back over her shoulder at me.

“Yeah. He sends his love.” I placed the bakery bag on the small kitchen table and hung my bag on the back of the chair.

“Nashville's probably eating him alive by now.” She reached for a tin of coffee and paused. “You mind turning on the light?” she asked. “When did this day get away from me?”

“Sure.” I flicked the overhead light on, and the room was bathed in brightness so harsh I had to blink a few times to see. “And he's not being eaten alive, I promise. He seems very happy there, actually.”

My heart turned a bit as I remembered Becks and the others, and my hand went to the phone in my back pocket. No new messages.

Daria scoffed. “He thinks he wants to be famous, but he doesn't know what it can do to a person.”

I wondered if she was thinking about my dad. The way
he pulled away from her best friend, my Gigi, once the cele­brated Montgomery family sucked him into their world of red carpets, state dinners, and summers at the Vineyard. But of course I couldn't ask.

She got everything measured the way she wanted it, then hit the on button and went for a knife, forks, and plates. I stood there feeling as if I should offer to help, but she moved so quickly she didn't even give me time. At the table she nodded toward the chair my bag was on, then sat down across from it. Obediently, I sat as well.

“Jasper may seem like he has it all together, like he's this confident adult person, but inside he's still a lost little boy.”

Daria pulled the cake box out of the bag and popped it open. We both inhaled the thick, chocolatey scent of the cake, and my tongue prickled in anticipation.

“I don't know,” I said, as she sliced into the cake. “He seems to be thinking a lot about his past and his future, and he even told me he feels solid right now. Like everything's coming together.”

“That's great,” she replied. “Until it all falls apart.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. “I never knew you could be so negative.”

Her eyes flashed a bit as she lifted a slice of cake onto a plate. “Well, you hardly know me at all, do you?”

My face burned. She handed me the plate, and I placed it in front of me but didn't feel like eating. “I just meant . . . from the way Jasper talks about you. . . .”

Really I was thinking about the way Gigi spoke about Daria back in the day. Like she was the be-all and end-all. Wise beyond her years. Solid and strong and always with her chin up. In Gigi's mind Daria was a cheerleader, the type of person who let the bad roll off her back. That was not the person staring back at me with watery eyes.

I wondered what had unsettled her so deeply, and then I thought of what Jasper had said.
She's not used to not having me around.

I cleared my throat. “He's going to be fine, you know. And he's going to be back before you know it.”

This was the mantra I'd been clinging to all day too. That soon Jasper would be back, and everything would return to normal. Sweetbriar felt empty without the possibility of bumping into him at every turn, of hearing his laugh just around the corner. But he'd be home again. Back before I knew it.

Daria took in a deep, broken breath, and her lips flicked quickly into a semblance of a smile. She took a bite of cake and closed her eyes, clearly savoring the taste. I felt proud of myself, suddenly. I'd said the right thing. I'd done the right thing.

But then she opened her eyes again and sighed. “Yeah, but not for long, honey. Not for long.”

*  *  *

“New phone?”

I looked up from my lap, startled. Shelby stood in the doorway of the stockroom, her slim arms crossed over her chest. Her appearance was perfect, as usual, in a light yellow sundress with a white belt, her hair up in a high ponytail. If anyone ever popped in looking for extras for a movie that took place in the 1950s, Shelby was their girl.

“Yep. Bought it over the weekend. I lost my old one.”

Wow. The lying was coming a lot easier these days. For some reason I didn't want to tell her that Jasper had given it to me. Jasper, whose radio silence was making me tense. Not that I thought something had happened to him, but what if he'd been distracted by something so huge that he couldn't check in? Or someone? I got up, shoved the phone into my back pocket, and went back to folding sweaters. Shelby just stood there.

“Oh.”

Shelby leaned against the doorjamb, watching me. The longer she watched me, the hotter my skin burned.

“Did you need something?” I asked.

“You could have gotten a new one for free, you know.
Over at Teddy's? I mean, if you had the insurance. Did you have the insurance?” Shelby asked.

“No,” I lied. Why were we talking about this? “It was a pretty cheap phone.”

In fact Cecilia Montgomery's phone had been the most expensive phone on the market, complete with state-of-the-art GPS tracking system. Which was why it was now a wet pancake, probably sitting in a lab somewhere being analyzed by an expert CSI.

“Well, that one's not cheap.” Shelby nodded at the bulge on my butt. “How'd you pay for that? I know you couldn't have been making much at the diner.”

“How is it any of your business how I paid for my phone?” I asked incredulously. I grabbed a pair of jeans and whipped them in front of me to straighten them, but also to punctuate my point.

Shelby lifted her shoulders, unfazed. “I just think it's weird. You appear as if from nowhere, no phone, no clothes, no money. This is, what, your second shift here? Just wondering how you found the cash to buy a swanky phone.”

“It was a gift from Jasper, okay?” I snapped. “Happy now?”

Shelby blinked, and I realized I'd hit her where it hurt. But my blood was up and I just wanted her to go away. And
who knew? Maybe if she realized how serious Jasper and I were, she'd back off.

I pushed past her into the store, not really sure what I was doing. I just felt like I needed to move. But as soon as I stepped onto the floor, I saw the black Town Car again, through the plate-glass windows. It was pulling into a parking space right outside the door, and this time someone got out of the backseat. Not just anyone. This man was tall, no-nonsense, with square shoulders, gray hair, and a well-cut suit. His shoes shone in the morning sunlight as he buttoned his jacket closed. Then he adjusted the back placket, like he was trying to conceal something. Something like a holster.

I turned around again and bolted for the storeroom, slamming Shelby in the shoulder and knocking her sideways against the counter. The side door was completely barricaded with boxes, each one half dented and overflowing with clothes. Total fire hazard. Panic rose up in my throat. I had to get away. I had to get away.

“What are you doing, you freak?” Shelby demanded, clutching her shoulder.

The bells on the front door rang. I ducked behind a rack of winter coats.