Page 61 of Counterpoint and Harmony

Chapter Thirty-Four

Trainwreck:a slang term that refers to a major error that occurs during a performance, either due to an incorrect entrance by one or more performers, or the performers getting out of time or off pitch with each other

Charlie

“Uh, Charlie?”

Stretching, I blink my eyes at the sound of Damian’s voice, turning to face him in the semi-darkness, the only light coming from his phone. “Is everything okay?”

He moves his head, but I can’t tell if he’s nodding it yes or shaking it no. He has his glasses on, and he’s staring intently at the screen.

I push myself up to sit propped against the headboard. “What’s going on?”

He clears his throat. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Clears his throat again.

“Damian?”

“Uh. We’re … our pictures are all over the place.”

With a sigh, I lean over to see his screen. He scrolls slowly through some article, pictures of the two of us together interspersed with words. As expected, there are pictures from last night. Me handing him the flowers. Him pulling me on stage. Our little bow.

But not just last night. There are pictures from Jonathan and Gabby’s wedding. Of us talking in the corner of what I recognize as the little theatre where I gave the show here in Boise in March.

There are other pictures too. His high school yearbook photo. A picture of me on the red carpet at the Grammy’s a few months ago. With some other guy, of course. Because that was before I fired my mom.

I don’t even wait for him to get to the end of the article before I’m reaching for my phone. “I’ll take care of it. Give me a minute.” I send a quick text to Natalie. If she’s up, I’m sure she’s already contacted our PR team, but since I don’t have any messages from her, she might be sleeping in.

Next I pull up the direct number for my PR person. Even if Natalie’s already made contact, I want to talk to her myself. But Damian’s hand closes over the screen before I can hit the call button.

Raising my eyes to his, I still can’t decipher the look on his face.

His Adam’s apple bobs repeatedly like it’s a struggle to swallow. He clears his throat yet again. “Take care of it how, exactly?”

I decide it’s the lack of light in the room with the drapes closed that makes it hard to read him, so I reach over and turn on the bedside lamp before answering. He blinks a few times, his eyes looking particularly owlish behind his glasses with his hair down and mussed around his shoulders. But my examination of his expression by lamplight still doesn’t give me a clue as to how he’s feeling. Upset? Angry? Betrayed? Violated? Conflicted?

It’s not good, clearly. Because disguising happiness doesn’t make sense. In fact, usually guys who get photographed with me can’t wait to tell me how happy they are about it, what a good bump it’ll be for their publicity or status or whatever. Or, when I was the lesser star, they’d be sure to crow about our pictures being everywhere so they could collect on what they thought I owed them.

But Damian’s neither of those types. In fact, he’s the opposite, finding my celebrity more troubling than something to be excited about.

Now I’m the one struggling to swallow and clearing my throat before speaking, my eyes sliding away from his because now I’m worried about what this might mean for him. If finding out I’m a celebrity sent him running, then what will having his pictures plastered everywhere do?

“We’ll issue a statement, then contact security for you—your family too if they’re getting harassed—until the excitement wears off.”

He doesn’t say anything, and after a long moment where his hand still covers mine on my phone, I raise my eyes to his. He’s examining my face now, trying to parse deeper meaning from my words if I had to guess.

I put out my free hand palm up, fingers spread. “Is there something else you’d prefer me to do?”

“No.” He pulls his hand back, looking down at the blanket, then across the room at the wall. “What kind of statement? Are you going to tell them we’re just friends again?”

I flinch, not expecting that question or the bitterness in his voice. “No.” I draw out the word. “That wasn’t what I planned on saying. Unless …” He looks at me in the pause, and I clear my throat again. “Is that what you want me to say?”

His mouth opens and closes, then his head jerks once in a quick negative. “Before you said that was the easiest way to keep them away from me.”

“Yeah. It was. From the pictures at the wedding, we were obviously there together, so I couldn’t deny knowing you. And you’d basically broken up with me by the time I put that statement out. I wasn’t going to share all the sordid details of our relationship and subsequent breakup with the press. Friends was a tidy explanation that would explain our being photographed together but also keep them from being overly interested in you when we didn’t show up anywhere else together.”

I pause, looking him over. Some of the tightness around his eyes and mouth has relaxed, but his face is still solemn and closed. Setting my phone down, I reach for his hand, threading our fingers together.

“Things are different now, though.” I take a deep breath, looking up at nothing, considering all the available options. “I could do the ‘just friends’ thing again. But since I plan on seeing you after this, its power wouldn’t last. Especially since we’ve already done that once, and now here we are photographed together again. And in a much different situation than just attending a mutual friends’ wedding together, which is more easily written off than me bringing you flowers after your performance and us dashing off into the night together.”

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