Page 103 of Nothing to Do

“It is a big deal! You’re wearing a… thing. Oh my God!”

Taking Alessia’s shoulder, she guided her onto the balcony. “Come out here with me.”

The table was set under a parasol, but Alessia rushed to the edge and gasped at the view. “It’s so beautiful!” She spun around and dropped against the glass barrier. “I can’t believe you’re with a billionaire. Have you told Mom?”

“No, I didn’t call yet. Did you?”

Sitting down, she poured from the pitcher brought up earlier. A special insistence from Miss Roxie, apparently. Even when not present, she still played hostess. Maybe they owned the Grand Hotel chain too, she’d have to ask Zane.

“I was going to call, but, geez, who has time to shoot the breeze? Mom will have a million questions and words just don’t do this place justice!” Tipping her head back, Alessia shook her hair over the edge. “Can we just live here forever? Ask Zane if we can move in permanently.”

“Mom might miss you,” she said. “Come and have a drink. The room service menu is here. Pick something. What do you want to eat?”

“It’s been a whirlwind, don’t you think?” Alessia came over to sweep up a drink and the menu but went back to the glass barrier. “It feels like we just got here, yet it’s like we never lived anywhere else. How could anyone get a taste of this life and not want to keep it forever?” She gasped and flapped with the menu. “Did you hear what happened last night? Is that how you got your foot thing? Were you in the fight?”

No surprise that her sister wanted to gossip. It was a surprise those weren’t the first words out of her mouth. Okay, maybe not asking whether she was in the fight, but about the fight in general.

“I wasn’t in the fight,” she said. “I was already at the hospital when that happened. And it wasn’t even a fight.”

Not that she’d got many specifics on exactly what it was. When it was a game of who shouts the loudest, the truth rarely prevailed.

Alessia jerked. “You went to the hospital and didn’t call me?”

“Roxie came with me. I was fine and you were having fun.” Straightening her leg, she gestured at the boot. “This isn’t a big deal. I wear it for a few weeks and my ankle heals, that’s it. Nothing more exciting than that. And nothing anyone could’ve done standing at my bedside. It was better for you to enjoy your night, the experience of being in this incredible place with your new friends.”

“Didn’t Zane come to the hospital with you?”

What a memory that was. “He carried me to the hospital. So, yes, he did. Like I said, I was fine, my drama is boring. How was your night?”

“How was my night…?” Rushing over, Alessia dragged a chair closer and sat down, transfixed. “My night’s irrelevant. My night’s nothing to what went on here at the hotel. Not if all I’ve heard is true. Tell me what happened? Who hit Sway? Did she start it? Was she pitting them against each other?”

She never liked it when women demonized each other just for the sake of it. Especially in lieu of blaming a guy or in defense of him. It might be easy to do, and maybe she wouldn’t have cared, when talking about an abstract figure, but Sway wasn’t abstract in her world, not anymore.

“Why do you want to put it on her?” she asked, genuinely curious. Malice didn’t exist in Alessia. Still the impulse of the reaction intrigued her. “Since we got here, when people talk about the relationship, they put its failure on her.”

“You don’t leave someone when they need you. He was at his lowest and she walked away. Who does that?”

A person pushed to the edge. A person beyond love filled by the trauma of all that suffocated them. Someone strangled by the yoke of dependency disguised as love.

“Did you ever think about what it was like for her? Roman went to rehab, got months to talk about his issues, medications, doctors, everything he needed, and all the understanding in the world. If he couldn’t make her happy, there’s no way she’d have made him happy. Just being together isn’t enough. The substance of the relationship matters.”

“Is that what she said to you?”

“No,” she said and touched her sister’s face.

In her naïveté, Alessia didn’t mean harm. None of Roman’s fans would, not really. In life, private life, people only had to face those around them. In the stratosphere of fame, a planet full of people awaited, and sometimes wished for, scandal and failure.

“What did she say? She must’ve said something.”

Handing over the words couldn’t explain the grief that bled out of Sway when she’d talked. Witnessing that burden was not something that could be conveyed. Not by her. She didn’t have the capacity, the skill.

If she couldn’t share the details, she had to at least share the wisdom and sentiment gifted in Sway’s confessional.

“I hope we never know life like that,” she murmured to her sister. “Every minute of every day belonging to some substance, to the disease.”

“If she didn’t love him any more…”

“What? When was she supposed to leave? Would you fans have treated her better if she left while he was high? What would’ve happened to him if she wasn’t there to hold together his career and reputation for him? While he was in the quicksand, she was supposed to bolt? Would you have forgiven her then?”

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