Page 88 of Final Serenade

He shook his head. “I can’t be mad at you. I’ll be lonely, though.”

“I want to make sure Ashton hasn’t sold my stuff on eBay while I’ve been gone,” I joked.

“Okay.” He laughed softly.

Then came a long pause.

“Frank?” I reached for his hand. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“I know.” He smiled, and this time, the smile reached his eyes and also reached my heart.

Roman took me to Burbank right after the dinner. The closer we got to my apartment, the greater my fear of a paparazzi ambush grew. Frank didn’t insist on my staying in Malibu. He understood I had a life and I had a family that needed some sort of attention.

My seventeen-year-old brother pretty much lived on his own and had very little supervision. I suspected he’d found the Xbox and played video games in secret, but Levi and I had figured out a way to keep him busy. Every week, we’d given him a new assignment. Turned out, my brother wasn’t half bad at sorting music. His best-to-worst list of all the Korn albums had become his first officialRewiredpost. Of course, the article had gone through some heavy editorial revisions, but it was real. It was available for people to read and Ashton’s name proudly sat below the entry.

I heard voices from the staircase. My heart flipped in my chest as I hauled my bag to the door.

In the living room, Levi and Ashton sat cross-legged on the floor and sorted through Levi’s gear.

“What’s going on?” I marched past the bags and tripods and peeked into the kitchen, where a sink full of dirty dishes and a stack of pizza boxes greeted me.

“Welcome back, sis!” Ashton grinned. “How was Oregon?”

“Boring.” I shot him a warning glance and assessed the geek central convention taking place in the middle of the apartment. “What are you two doing?”

“Getting ready for the big day,” Levi explained. “Showing your little bro some basics.” He patted Ashton’s back.

My mind was blank. “What big day?”

“Didn’t you get my message?”

“Yes. The ‘Ambivalent’ cover went viral.”

“Frankie Blade wants to meet Isabella.”

I knew that too. I sort of made it happen.

Gaze bouncing between Levi and me, Ashton bit his lip. He was itching to tell my partner he’d met Frankie. I knew that smug expression on my brother’s face like the back of my hand.

“Can you please wash all those dishes?” I waved in the direction of the kitchen and picked up my bag to take it to my bedroom.

“A little busy at the moment,” Ashton countered and held up one of Levi’s battery packs.

“Right now. Please.” I was beginning to regret my decision to spend the night at home. Come to think of it, I didn’t even know where home was anymore. The total number of days I’d slept in my own bed over the course of the past two weeks was awfully close to zero.

Levi rose from the floor and followed me. I heard running water and the clanking plates. Ashton was cleaning up his mess.

“Are you sure this is a good idea to bring him along?” I whispered, shutting the door to my bedroom.

“Why not?” Baffled by my skepticism, Levi gave me a perplexed look. “You wanted to keep him busy. Thiswillkeep him busy. I can teach him how to log footage.”

I took off my jacket and walked over to my closet. “I’m sorry, I’m just tired,” I confessed, sifting through a pile of T-shirts on one of the shelves. This, the constant back and forth, exhausted me.

“Is this serious?” Levi probed, his tone discrete. “The thing you have going on with this dude we’re never going to meet?”

“I don’t know.” I grabbed the first tee that stood out and spun to face him. Muffled noises drifted into my room from the kitchen. Ashton was singing a Korn song. Of course, he was light years from Jonathan Davis, but the sound of his pitchy voice still filled my chest with a happy flutter. It’d been a long time since my little brother was so engrossed in music, and as much as I didn’t want him hanging around Frankie during his meeting with Isabella, he needed this gig more than anyone. The fake internship that had turned into a real one was the only thing that kept him from wasting his time on the devious Xbox.

“We got an okay from Linda for all three nights. One photo, two passes,” Levi said matter-of-factly.

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