Beat didn’t appear to be breathing.
“I always think, this is the time I’m going to impress her. Or she’s going to finally be interested in my life. She’s finally going to see me. And every year, I’m wrong.” This was the first time Melody had ever said these words out loud and they sunk in her stomach like great big stones. One year, in her early twenties, she’d even taken guitar lessons to try and impress Trina, but when her mother actually arrived, Melody didn’t even tell her about the biweekly classes she’d been taking. She was too afraid to find out that even learning to play “Rattle the Cage” on her acoustic Gibson was underwhelming. “She goes back to her nudist colonies or her adventurous friends and I just . . . wait for next year.”
“Mel . . .”
“Sorry, just let me get this out.” She waited for him to nod. “I’ve been working on myself for a long time. Independently. I’ve been going to therapy. Lately, I’ve started venturing outside of my comfort zone and I think it’s time. Finally time to stop the visits in February. They just make me feel terrible. Inadequate.” She took in a breath and released it slowly. “I have nothing to lose here, Beat. My relationship with Trina either needs to change or . . . be paused for a while. Moneywise, too. In which case, a million dollars would go a long way to achieving some independence. Finally.” Thinking about that made Melody feel a little light-headed. She’d been living with Trina’s wealth for so long. “Maybe The Parents’ Trap is the only way to shake up my relationship with Trina enough to elicit a change. And if it doesn’t work, at least I’ve done something new and scary. I’ve pushed myself. I tried.”
Something brushed her kneecap beneath the table and when she realized it was his fingertips, she almost swallowed her tongue. “You shouldn’t have to pull a stunt to make her see you.”
“It’s easy to say that when fate gave you the elegant philanthropist mother.” Melody shrugged and attempted a smile, tamping down the urge to fan herself. “Fate gave me the wild child. She requires explosions.”
He remained still. “Do you really want to do this or are you inventing a reason to say yes?”
Melody appreciated him asking, because whoa, this was moving very quickly. When she woke up this morning, she did not expect to be agreeing to a live reality show before lunchtime. But truthfully, she’d been stuck lately. Stuck between this world of solitude she’d built after years of being raked over the coals by the press and the need for something more.
There was more out there for her.
If not a solid, healthy relationship with her mother, then a better sense of who she was supposed to be, instead of a side character who had been shoved into a claustrophobic box by the media. And underneath it all, there was Beat. A chance to spend time with Beat. He’d become a fairy-tale figure in her head, but he was a real human being.
“Do you need me to do this show with you, Beat?” murmured Melody.
Beat shook his head. “I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on you, Peach.”
Thwack went her heart. The nickname he’d given her at age sixteen came seemingly out of nowhere, yet it felt like he’d called her that a thousand times. Maybe because she’d replayed those gruff consonants so often over the years.
“Do you need me?” she asked again.
He didn’t answer right away. “There isn’t a single other person in the world I would ask.”
A ripcord released and pleasure flooded in from all directions. “Then, okay,” Melody said. When Beat only continued to look at her in an unreadable way, she picked up the last beignet, ripped it in half, and handed him one side. “I don’t usually share food. Don’t get used to this.”
His lips jumped. “Noted.” He tossed the confection into his mouth and chewed, the world spinning behind his eyes. “One more thing, before we go put Danielle out of her misery.” That gaze captured hers and held. “If the cameras and the attention—any of it—become too much, you have to tell me, Mel. I’ll shut it down so fast, they won’t know what hit them.”
Her mouth turned drier than a saltine cracker. “I’ll tell you.”
“Good.” He exhaled roughly. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Me either.” An involuntary smile played around the edges of her mouth. “Can you imagine if we actually pulled it off, though? Brought Steel Birds back together for a reunion show? The world would lose their collective minds.”
“It’s never going to happen.”
“Never,” she agreed.
Still. When Beat stood up, grinned, and offered Melody his hand, nothing felt impossible.
Chapter Five
When they returned to Danielle’s office, they were already being filmed.
With Melody walking at his side, Beat’s first instinct was to swat the lens away and hustle her out of there, but Jesus, this is what they were signing up for. Life under the microscope, even for just a brief period of time. Just under two weeks remained between now and Christmas Eve, when this supposed Steel Birds reunion would take place. If he and Melody were going to deliver their best effort, they needed to start immediately.
But God, he already didn’t like this.
Melody knew. She knew he needed the money, even if she didn’t know why. But Beat knew the blackmailer wasn’t going to be his only problem over the next thirteen days.
Beat rarely spent that much time with anyone outside of his immediate family. He kept things surface level. Casual. Spending long lengths of time one-on-one with someone meant getting personal. It was why he vacationed in large groups of coupled-up friends. Why he always snuck out of the party earlier than everyone else. To avoid those booze-soaked moments where a longtime buddy was expected to open up.
He’d learned the hard way that if he allowed himself to be vulnerable, people didn’t always like what they saw.
Everything had been handed to Beat. Not only was he born into wealth and tangential fame, but people naturally took a shine to him. He’d assumed it was normal, the way everyone seemed to be smiling at him everywhere he went. Paparazzi would compliment his clothes. If he didn’t have a chance to study for an exam at the private Hollywood school he’d attended, the date simply got switched. His mother and father never stopped telling him he was special, that he made them proud.
But life wasn’t like that for everyone.
At age thirteen, Beat had been sent to summer camp for two months, at the behest of his father. Rudy Dawkins had grown up in rural Pennsylvania and believed a break from the LA smog would do his son good. Being in nature, breathing fresh air, crafting things with his hands. Sounded interesting. How hard could it be?
Over the course of that summer, living in cabins with boys who didn’t have famous parents, Beat had been smacked in the face with the knowledge that he led a ridiculously charmed life.
Money and his mother’s notoriety had essentially handed Beat anything he needed on a silver platter, right down to his six-hundred-dollar sneakers. These kids made their own breakfast. No teachers gave them special treatment. They wore knockoffs and shared bedrooms with siblings. Their parents had sent them to summer camp because they worked and needed childcare, not on some nostalgic whim.