Zip, Zero, Zilch

  Pete sits down beside me. “Glad you came,” he says. He points to the dance floor where Edward is slow-dancing with the brunette. Edward is so awkward that it’s almost amusing. But knowing where he came from, it’s not. Not at all. He deserves some happiness.

  Suddenly, two guys push through the crowd on the dance floor and stumble to a stop in front of us. Cody has his arm around Garrett’s shoulders and they’re both breathless.

  Garrett looks behind them and grimaces. “Is there a really big guy coming up behind us?” he asks me.

  “Two of them,” I say. And they are big. And angry. “What did you do?”

  “Apparently, they were offended by our public display of affection.” Garrett and Cody are gay and so in love that it makes my heart skip just watching them together. “Fucking homophobes,” Garrett says. He’s a little drunk. More like a lot. Because he can usually overlook stupid comments.

  Pete gets up to cut the guys off before they can say anything more to Garrett and Cody. “I wish Reagan was here. She would kick their asses,” he says to me.

  Before Pete can get out a word to either of them, one of them takes a swing. But Pete’s fast. He’s married to Reagan, after all, and she’s a fucking kick-ass ninja fighting machine. He has to be tough to survive her. Pete ducks, and the blow flies over his head.

  I see Edward shoving through the crowd on the dance floor so he can come to help.

  “Be smart, man,” I hear Pete warn.

  But when alcohol flows, people lose whatever reserve they might have once had. The idiot swings again, and Pete takes him down, holding him with a knee on his back. “I’ll let you up, man, but you have to leave my friends alone,” Pete says, his chest heaving with exertion. The guy is huge. But Pete’s fast. And strong. And he has good intentions on his side.

  But these guys have friends. “Oh, shit,” I breathe, and I pick up my crutches so I can go help.

  I see Edward swing, and suddenly bodies are flying.

  It feels like hours later, but I know it’s only minutes. The police push through the front door, and people start to scatter.

  “Get out of here,” I hear Pete hiss to Edward. Edward is still on probation. If he gets caught in a fight, even if it was just helping out his friends, he’ll be in violation.

  “Give me your shirt,” I say, already yanking mine over my head. “Trade!”

  Pete nods at Edward and Edward hooks his elbows in his shirt and jerks it over his head. We trade, and I put on Edward’s bright red shirt, and he takes my light blue one.

  “Give me your hat.” I jerk Edward’s worn baseball cap down over my head. “Now get out of here,” I hiss. I shove him. “Go!”

  Edward backs out of the room, with Abby leading him by the elbow. He looks at me over his shoulder and I can see the fear in his eyes as she drags him toward the rear entrance.

  “Thanks,” Pete says, wiping his brow. The police put him in cuffs, and his features harden. It’s not the first time he’s been in cuffs. But he hoped the last time would actually be the last.

  “You would do it for me,” I say.

  He did do it for me. He took the rap and went to jail for me. He lost two years of his life for me. I’d do just about anything for him.

  The police put cuffs on me, too, and I see phones raised snapping pictures. I motion toward my crutches. “I can’t walk with these things on.”

  The officer removes one of them and I follow him to the car. They shove me and Pete into the backseat, and the others go in different cars. At least Edward got away. That’s all I can think. That boy deserves a shot.

  Paul is going to fucking kill us.

  ***

  They let Pete out of the cell almost as soon as we get here. He works with the juvenile detention center as an advocate, so they know him here. I can see him through the bars having a great time chewing the fat with the officers.

  Me—they don’t let me out. Not until Sky gets here.

  Sky is my brother Matt’s wife, and she’s my manager. She was an attorney before she met Matt, and she quit to raise their family. The decision was easy for her, since her parents are loaded. She has a trust fund that’s worth a lot more than my signing bonus with the Skyscrapers was. I needed an attorney to handle my contracts and to manage my career, and she volunteered.

  She has her hair pulled back in a ponytail when she gets to the station. They take me to a room where she’s waiting with a stack of papers in front of her.

  “They’re letting you out,” she says.

  “How mad is Paul?” I ask. I sink down across from her and drop my head into my hands.

  “He’ll be pissed when he finds out.”

  I choke. “You didn’t tell him?”

  “I did call your coach and the Skyscrapers’ PR team. You have a meeting with them next week. And as for Paul, I don’t think I’ll have to tell him.” There’s a TV in the corner of the room, hanging on the wall. She points to the screen. “I don’t think I’ll need to.”

  There’s a picture of me being shoved into a police car, with Pete right beside me on the screen. I wish I could hear it.

  But I don’t need to hear it, because by the next morning when I get to the shop, Paul is staring at the stack of tabloids in front of him. Apparently, the media has made up its own story. Actually more than one.

  Sam Reed arrested for drugs!

  I flip to the next one.

  Sam Reed purchases prostitute! Caught in the act!

  Paul growls.

  Skyscrapers’ rookie injured in bar brawl!

  And the worst one of all:

  Skyscraper’s cheerleader pregnant with Sam Reed’s baby! Lovers quarrel lands him in jail.

  Paul opens his mouth, probably ready to ream me a new one. But I don’t wait. I hobble out of the shop and hail a taxi. There’s only one place I want to be. And it’s not here.

  I know Peck lives in the same building as Emily and Logan, and since she’s not answering her phone, I decide to go to her, instead.

  I walk into the lobby of the building and Henry, the doorman, raises a brow at me. “What up?” he says, trying to sound like a thug.

  I laugh. “Do you know if Peck’s home?” I give him a quick hug. I haven’t seen him since the beach, and I miss the old guy.

  “She’s out with the girls,” he says. He narrows his eyes at me. “Did you need her for something?”

  “I just need to talk to her.” Henry kicks a chair toward me, and I drop down into it.

  “Everything okay?”

  I nod. But I say, “Not really.”

  He flips the newspaper in front of him open. “Does this have anything to do with the news?” he asks. He turns it toward me. I’m on the front page.

  What bullshit. “They didn’t even arrest me. They let me go.” I blow out a breath.

  “What happened?”

  Since he actually took the time to ask, I tell him. He whistles softly. “That’s fucked up,” he says. “But what’s it got to do with Peck?”

  “Nothing.” I avoid his gaze.

  “You’re a terrible liar.” He chuckles.

  “One of the tabloids printed a story…”

  “And?” he prompts.

  “And they kind of implied that I got a girl pregnant and that it was the cause of the fight. So I wanted to tell Peck about it before she sees it.” I duck my head and avoid Henry because sometimes he can look all the way into my soul.

  Suddenly, someone pushes through the front door. The smell of liquor precedes her, and her hair is a stringy, unwashed mess. She has last night’s mascara blurred beneath her red-rimmed eyes.

  She stops at Henry’s desk and Henry scoots his chair back. “May I help you?”

  “Is this where that rock band lives?” she asks. She can’t even look Henry in the eye.

  “Who wants to know?” Henry asks.

  “I’m the drummer’s mother.” She raises herself to her full height, which isn’t that tall. But she stumbles over her own toe a
nd nearly falls, clutching the edge of the desk.

  “Oh, shit,” I breathe, just as the door opens and Fallen from Zero comes walking in.

  Peck

  Today wasn’t easy, but now it’s done. We had to meet with the label to adjust our tour schedule because of my wrist. They didn’t like it, but our dates weren’t set in concrete, so they were able to push the tour back by two weeks. They weren’t happy with it, but they were able to do it, particularly when we gave them the good news.

  It took a lot of begging to get her to agree to it, but Emily is going to tour with us for six weeks. We need her on lead guitar, and with her new single out, she’s the perfect person to open for us. She didn’t want to do it to begin with, but then Logan—Sam’s brother and Emily’s husband—agreed to go with her, and they’re going to bring the baby. Logan will take care of the baby when she’s busy with us, and they’ll be nauseatingly perfect the rest of the time.

  Watching the two of them together is like watching a fairy tale unfold. It’s like turning the pages of a popup book and finding blissful happiness on the last page. They’ve been like that since they met, and it sometimes makes me wonder if that’s possible. But then I remember that people don’t stay. Not real people. Perfect is for storybook characters. Not for people like me.

  We get home and I stumble to a stop when we get to the foyer of our apartment. Emily and Logan live in the same building, and that’s actually how we found it. Emily suggested it.

  Henry, our doorman, stands up, and I see a familiar face beside him. My heart skips a beat. But then I smell the woman standing in front of them. I cover my nose and step back. God, she stinks.

  Henry motions for us to walk past, and I think that’s probably a good idea. But then the woman turns around. Sam gets up and touches her shoulder, and she looks toward him. We slide past them all and walk quickly into the elevator. I stare out the elevator door until it closes, because something about her seems so familiar. She turns to face us and yells just as the door closes.

  “Who was that?” Fin asks, scrunching up her nose.

  I shrug. “N-no idea.” But something tugs at the back of my mind. A memory pushes to the front of my brain. I shake my head, shaking it off like a dog after a bath.

  We go into the apartment and I drop my keys onto the side table. But before I can walk away, a knock sounds on the door.

  Fin goes and opens it, and steps back with a laugh. “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” she says. “I thought you’d be tired after the night you had.”

  Sam smiles and drags a finger down his nose. “Can I come in?”

  She steps back and motions him forward, and he hobbles into the room.

  “How’d you get past Henry?” Fin asks.

  He grins. “Me and Henry go way back.”

  I go to the kitchen and get a drink. Sam follows me and I nearly bump into him when I turn around.

  “Sorry,” he says. He stares into my eyes. “Can we talk?” He looks toward my sisters. “Privately.”

  My sisters scatter like rats from a sinking ship. Traitors. They all go to their rooms and close their doors. Fin gives me a thumbs-up and grins at me. And Wren makes kissy faces until her door closes. I flip her off.

  Sam grins at me. “Watching you with your sisters is like me with my brothers. God, I love them, but they sure can grate on the nerves.”

  I motion toward the sofa and pull my drumsticks from my back pocket. “Is something wrong?” I ask, as I start to tap on the end table. He watches my hands and his eyes narrow.

  He scratches his head. “Well, sort of,” he says quietly.

  “Is s-someone h-hurt?” I sit forward on the edge of my seat. Then I wince as I realize I spoke without tapping.

  “Oh, no,” he rushes to say, swiping a hand through the air. “There was a problem last night, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  I nod. “Okay.” Tap. Tap.

  He pulls a tabloid sheet from his pocket and lays it down in front of me. I scan it really quickly and my heart nearly stops. “Congratulations?”

  The girl he said he wasn’t sleeping with is pregnant. With his baby.

  “It’s not true. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I got in a fight last night, but it wasn’t my fault and it wasn’t over a girl.”

  “You got arrested?” Tap. Tap.

  He shakes his head. “No, they took me to the station and then let me go.”

  “So, when’s the baby due?” I finally look into his face. His eyes are clear blue and meet mine with no hesitation.

  “There’s no baby.” He sits forward.

  “But the cheerleader.” The woman with the perfect figure and the perfect hair and the perfect voice. The one with no stutter and no ass.

  “She’s not my girlfriend, and to my knowledge, she’s not pregnant. And if she was, there’s no way it could be mine.” He reaches out like he wants to touch me.

  I fold up his paper and hand it back to him. “Why are you here, Sam?” I sit back and wait.

  “I didn’t want you to see that and think…anything.” He fidgets.

  “Why does it matter what I think?” Tap. Tap.

  “Because I care what you think.”

  I shake my head. “What I think doesn’t matter.”

  “It does,” he protests. He turns his head and whispers a curse. Then he looks back at me. “It matters to me what you think of me.”

  “How many other women did you go visit to make this declaration?” I feel bad the moment that comes out of my mouth, but I can’t take it back.

  He folds the paper and stuffs it into his pocket. “You know what?” he bites out. “Never mind.” He gets to his feet and hitches his crutches under his arms. He hops two steps and turns back to me. “Do I matter to you at all?”

  My hand shakes as I brush my hair from my face. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you care about me at all?” he asks. “Tell me the truth.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say.” I scoot to the edge of the sofa.

  “I don’t know how you feel,” he says quietly.

  “We don’t even know each other…” I begin. But I don’t know how to finish.

  “I want to know you.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “Do you want to know me?” he asks quietly.

  “Sam…”

  He hobbles his way toward the door.

  “Sam!” I call, because I feel bad, and I feel like something important is about to walk out the door.

  “What?” he snaps, turning to face me.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want to take you on some dates.” He shrugs. “I want to learn about you, and let you learn about me. I like you. A lot.”

  “I’m not your kind of girl,” I say quietly.

  His eyes narrow. “What does that mean?”

  I point toward his pocket. “I’m not like…them. I’m just…me.” I shrug my shoulders.

  He hobbles back toward me and stops when he’s right by my face. With him on crutches, I come up to his nose. It’s strange meeting a man who’s taller than me.

  “I like talking to you,” he says. He points toward my sticks. “Even when you’re tapping, although I’d like to find out what that’s all about.” He kisses my cheek really quickly, and I can feel it all the way to my toes. I cover my cheek with my hand. His voice goes soft. “I really like kissing you. And I’d like to do it some more.”

  “But…”

  “But every time I call you, you don’t answer. When I come to see you, I can’t get past the front desk.” He throws up his hands. “If you don’t want to see me, please say so. I won’t like it, but I’ll go away.”

  I want to see him. I want to see him so badly. “Sam…”

  He lifts a hand to my cheek. But then his phone rings. “Hey, Henry,” he says. He looks at me, his eyes narrowing. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll tell her.” He hangs up his phone. “There’s someone downstairs who wants to see you.”

/>   “Why did Henry call you to tell you that?” Why didn’t he call us?

  “Your security took her out of the building, but she’s waiting outside for you.”

  “Who?”

  “That woman who was in the lobby.”

  “The drunk?” God, she smelled awful.

  He nods. “She was someone who once knew you. She wants to reconnect.”

  She knew me? “Who was it?”

  “She said she was your mother.”

  My knees go weak, I drop my sticks, and I sink onto the sofa. Sam sits down beside me.

  “Are you all right?” he asks.

  “M-m-m-m—” My mother. I want to say my mother, but the words won’t come out.

  “Sign it,” he says, and he lifts my hands from my lap.

  My mother was here?

  He nods.

  What did she want?

  “To talk to you.”

  How did she look? Even after all this time, I still care. I shouldn’t care.

  “Strung out.”

  She always was.

  “She’s sitting outside. They can’t make her leave the street. She’s waiting for you. Screaming that she’ll wait all night.”

  I drop my head back on the sofa. I’ll leave and go to a hotel. I can’t just stay here and wait for her to invade my life. Trapped like a rat in a cage.

  “Come home with me,” he says. He looks hopeful, his eyes skittering over my face.

  No, I sign. It’s a quick slap of my first two fingers and my thumb.

  “No one will find you there. If you go to a hotel, the wait staff could rat you out. The paparazzi will be all over the place.”

  I heave a sigh.

  “Come home with me. I have a spare bedroom, and I live alone.”

  The bedroom doors open, which makes me think my sisters were listening all along. I’m pretty sure of it. “You should go,” Star says to me. “You’ll be safe there.”

  I have other choices.

  Wren comes around the sofa and puts her hands on my shoulders and squeezes. “You should go,” she says.

  I can go to Emilio and Marta’s, I tell her.

  Star shakes her head. “She knows where they live.”