Songbird (25 page)

“When can we have the first board meeting to go through the program?” I asked eagerly. At the very least it would give me something else to think about other than my overwhelming sadness.

“We’ll be back in Los Angeles in a few days, I can try to schedule something for then?” She was already scrolling through her calendar, pursing her lips as she tried to fit it all together like a jigsaw. Better her than me.

“Sounds great.”

“I’m glad we’re up to this stage actually, it’s been time consuming putting it all together.”

A pang of guilt shot through me. I should have helped more. I guessed that was why Demi had been so distracted lately. Now, I definitely felt guilty. I made a mental note to make it up to her.

Demi shuffled off, murmuring something about rescheduling this and moving that. She loved a good challenge
, and as long as I was around, she always had something to make the long stretches on the highway more interesting.

“Hey, boss,” Ace called from halfway down the bus. “We’re about to play cards, you in?”

I looked at the phone. I could either sit there being miserable or do something to take my mind off it. “Deal me in.”

I put my phone away and headed to the back of the bus. I noticed Elisa was already there, fitting in much better than I ever did. So apparently it wasn’t
just that I was a female, it was that I was the boss that set me apart. Good to know.

Cards were thrown my way and I started assessing my options. It wasn’t a good hand but I knew how to turn that around in a few moves.

“I didn’t know if you’d come back for more,” Marty said, grinning widely. “You know, after I beat your butt last time.” He high-fived Ace, Ronan, and Luke in turn.

I gave him a cocky smile. “I was distracted then. This time, I’m going to wipe the table with you.” Except, I knew I wouldn’t. One of the guys was going to win this hand, and the next, and every other one until we finished the tour.

C
hapter Twenty-Six

I
t was always good coming home. Los Angeles had a feel to it, a vibe I could never quite put my finger on. Perhaps it meant I could retreat to the only place in the world that was truly mine. Perhaps it was the fact my parents were only a short drive away. It could have been any number of things, but I loved it just the same.

My tour bus had dropped me off first. I had spent all afternoon at home, finally able to use all the things I had forgotten to pack. And to sweeten the deal even more, there were no memories of Forest there. He had never come inside my mansion so there were no lingering ghosts haunting me. If I moved, I could get rid of Braydon’s ghost too.

I ran a hand over the dresses lined up in my closet. Was it wrong to miss clothes? I know I certainly did, some of them were like my children. Not to mention the shoes. There was a limit on how many I could lug around the country on tour and it was far too few for my liking.

I picked out some
of my favorites and finished getting ready to go out. I would rather put on my sweatpants and sit in front of the television all night but my agent was on my case about putting some good publicity out there. She thought I looked too boring in all my current paparazzi snaps. As a consequence, she had arranged a setup for me and my L.A. friends.

We went to our usual restaurant, the one that would give the media a good view while we pretended to be annoyed by them.

The entrees hadn’t even been finished before my friends turned their attention to me. I had been quiet, trying to fly under the radar. My agent only said I had to look good in the photos, he never said I had to talk too.

“God, Brierly, you are so lucky,” Sierra started, rolling her eyes to
emphasize her words.

“Lucky how?” I asked, completely confused. Maybe I had been out of the L
.A. scene for too long. I
had
been on the road for sixteen weeks. Being shuffled from bus to hotel to venue did tend to cause you to exist in somewhat of a bubble. That was one of the things I liked about touring.

Sierra took a sip of her water before she replied, everyone else looked on expectantly. “You’re lucky you avoided a scandal with that drummer boy of yours. That could have exploded onto every magazine cover in the country.”

“He played the guitar and there wasn’t a story to be reported.” I was simultaneously annoyed and offended. And I really didn’t want to talk about it, especially with them. Plus, she knew Forest played the guitar, she was riling me on purpose.

“So you weren’t fooling around with a married man then? I’m sorry, I must have misheard,” she said sarcastically.
“I did warn you this would happen, remember?”

“I didn’t know he was married.”

“Hence the scandal.” She pointedly looked at her plate instead of me, passive aggressiveness on the menu.

I didn’t really have any comeback for her. She was kind of right, I was lucky the national media never picked up the story. Thankfully, Demi had managed to quash it somehow. I never asked how she did it and she didn’t volunteer the information. Sometimes it was best not to know.

“What were you thinking, Brierly?” Chrissy chimed in, her perfectly made up eyes wide. “Surely there must have been clues about him being
married
.” She spat the last word out like it tasted awful on her tongue.

“If there were clues, don’t you think I would have ended it sooner?” I shot back. “I wouldn’t do that to another woman. Married men are off limits in my book.”

“That radio show obviously found clues,” she continued relentlessly. “I don’t know how you could
not
know. Didn’t he ever say anything that was a little… off? Did he ever get phone calls and then leave the room to take them?”

I tried to remember something – anything – about Forest that would have warned me of his marital status. But there really wasn’t anything. He had
appeared completely open and honest with me the entire time. He didn’t even try to be dark and mysterious like most guys I met.

The f
unny thing was, he appeared to be more real than any of the girls at my table, and he was the one that turned out to be fake. If someone had told me before that radio interview that he was the biggest liar out of everyone I knew, I would have thought they were insane.

As it turned out, apparently I was the insane one. “There were no clues,” I repeated. “I swear to God there were no signs.”

Chrissy pursed her lips, displeased with my answer. “If anyone did that to me, I would kill them. Nobody makes a fool out of Chrissy Hinch.” Did she just call me a fool? I’m sure there was a veiled insult in there. “Tell me you kicked his butt to the sidewalk the moment you found out.”

“Of course I did.”

“Good. You should have told the media about him anyway, let the world know what a scumbucket he is.”

That thought was never in my mind. Yeah, I could have told whoever would listen about how I was betrayed and hurt by the sleazeball who had played me – for a fool, apparently. But what good would it have done me? I already felt horrible for falling for it, I didn’t want to relive the moment for all of eternity.

And despite what Forest did, I couldn’t do it to him either. He didn’t deserve to have his life ruined by zealous fans who took my fight on as theirs or unscrupulous reporters who wanted something salacious for the ten o’clock news. Nobody deserved that kind of attention.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was dating Brierly Wilcox, he was dating just Brierly. I’m sure he didn’t see me as the pop
star version of myself. I was just the girl he liked, the one who would laugh at his jokes and give him a reason to go to bed early.

“Leave her alone,” Mikayla stepped in. At least one person was on my side. “You can’t help who you fall in love with. The heart wants what it wants.”

“Thank you, Mik,” I said. “At least someone here understands.”

She shrugged like it was no big deal. “If you want my advice, I would write a song about it. I hear Billboard chart topper written all over the sad tale.”

“Oh, and then when you’re promoting it, you can tell everyone how your heart was broken by a mystery man. They’ll go nuts trying to work out who you mean,” Sophia said excitedly. She had my entire release plan worked out, apparently.

“They’d probably think it was Braydon,” Chrissy replied, squinting at the mention of his name. Apparently it was
This is your life,
the Brierly Wilcox edition. I hoped they didn’t decide to delve even further into the archives. I swear, if someone muttered Oscar’s name, I was going to flee. I would keep running until I tripped over my stilettos and the paparazzi got some cool new shots for the tabloids.

Sierra looked at me curiously, in a way that screamed I didn’t want to know what was on her mind. She leaned in, speaking so low only I could hear her. “You know, you can thank me for helping you stay on track and out of trouble.”

“Why? What did you do?” Did I really want to know? Probably not.

“I sent you a little gift when you were on the road.”

My brow wrinkled with confusion until her words sunk in. A little gift? The only gift I had received was very much unwelcome. “
You
sent those photos? The death threat?”

She straightened back up again. “You’re welcome.” I wanted to throw my drink at her and her flippant attitude. I had so many questions I didn’t even know where to start.

“Why? Why did you freak me out like that? I thought someone really wanted to kill me.”

“You needed a wakeup call, Brierly. Your head was in the clouds with that guy, you needed to be reminded of your reality or you would have completely floated away with
him.” She said it so matter-of-factly, like I should be thanking her by now. Clearly reasoning wasn’t going to work with her. But I didn’t want to cause a scene in the restaurant with all the photographers outside. She would have to keep for later.

There was only one thing I could ask her civilly. “How did you get them into the venue? You didn’t show up on any of the security cameras.”

“Your dancer, Holly, was on my tour last year. I sent them to her and asked her to deliver them for me. She was keeping me updated with what you were up to. I was halfway across the country, I couldn’t go personally, that would ruin the surprise.” Sierra returned to her dinner, stabbing a bean with her fork. There were suddenly plenty of things I wanted to stab with that fork. “You can thank me later.”

Oh, I would. I put on my mask, I had to move on or I would break down. “Can we change the subject,
please?” I asked, actually I practically begged. “Sophia, aren’t you meant to be dating that guy from the vampire show? Confirm or deny?”

Sophia lit up with the opportunity to be the
center of attention again. The faint blush of her cheeks told me the rumors were true before her voice did.

My problems were momentarily forgotten by the group as we switched subjects. It was the only way I managed to get through dinner without stabbing Sierra with a fork. As it turned out, my friends never really changed much. I’d just forgotten that fact in my absence.

Afterwards, we walked to our waiting cars slowly, making sure to smile and grimace at the cameras. I made sure to grin more than moan about my privacy. Demi’s voice was in my ear, reminding me to play along with my agent. ‘They work with you, they are trying to do what’s best for you’. I’d heard that lecture more times than I liked to admit.

I decided not to go home with the other girls, instead I hailed a cab. My refrigerator was pretty bare and I was craving some ice cream. There was nothing sadder than going home to an empty house with no ice cream.

The cab driver dropped me off at Walmart, pretty much the only supermarket still open at the late hour. And it was almost empty, bonus.

My stilettos clicked in the nearly-deserted aisles as I made my way through to the frozen section. I was already weighing up my
flavor options. Cookies and cream was really nice, but then so was triple chocolate. Considering the way my life was going, triple chocolate might be the only thing left in the world that could have saved me.

I stood in front of the brightly lit cabinets. Pictures of all the other
flavors were tempting me to change my mind. It was the biggest decision I had made in a long time. I didn’t have Demi to look to for some guidance. That was why I shouldn’t have been allowed out on my own, the whole Forest debacle proved that.

“Get raspberry ripple, that was always your
favorite.” The male voice made me jump. I hadn’t heard anyone approach. I spun around to be face to face with Braydon.

“Out of all the supermarkets in the world, you have to walk into the only one I’m in,” I replied, wishing I had gone straight home instead. “Are you stalking me, Braydon? Because the moment I return to L.A., you seem to always be there.”

“Maybe I’m your lucky charm.”

I snorted, I couldn’t help it. “More like bad luck charm. It’s been a year and I stil
l can’t seem to rid myself of you. Perhaps I should break a mirror or walk under a ladder or something.”

He looked me up and down, turning the stalker theory into something truly plausible. All he needed to do was lick his lips and the look would be complete. “You look like you are doing alright to me.”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

“You’re right, touching is much better.” He licked his lips as he smiled, he really did it. And so completed the stalker triangle of doom.

“Braydon, what are you doing here? It’s almost midnight – on a school night. Don’t you have a home or something?”

“Don’t
you
?” He shot back quickly, like I might have insulted him. Little did he know that I knew he didn’t get offended. His arrogance didn’t allow his brain to believe anyone would make fun of him.

“Yes, where I’m going right now.” I opened the freezer door and pulled out a tub of triple chocolate. Raspberry ripple hadn’t been my
favorite in a long time. Just like my choice in men had changed, so had my ice cream preferences.

I turned to leave, already imagining being on my couch eating the ice cream. Hell, if the checkout chick had a plastic spoon behind the counter, I’d start in the cab on the way home.

“Brierly, wait,” Braydon panted as he caught up with me. He kept pace at my side, I had no intention of slowing down for him. He was like the ghost of relationships past that never left.

“Go home, Braydon.”

“I was wondering if you would like to grab some dinner sometime? Are you in L.A. for a while? Maybe we could catch a movie or go bowling? It could be just like old times.”

That made me stop. I stared at him, not believing what my ears were trying to tell me he said. “Are you seriously asking me out on a date?”

He waved his hands around as he spoke, one of the signs he was nervous. I hated that I knew him so well, I wanted to permanently erase all traces of Braydon from my head. I didn’t want to be remembering all his little habits and cute little things he did. It was too dangerous and I wasn’t that stupid… anymore.