Page 70 of Tell Me When It's Over

We’ve had this conversation before, but before I can point that out, he cuts me off. “I won’t book you for anything if you don’t want me to. If someone asks, I’ll send them off. Do this for you, man. Make yourself happy again. Leighton wouldn’t want you holding back, and if she figures out you’re staying away from recording because of her, she won’t forgive herself.”

Have I been that transparent? I haven’t been as miserable as people say I am, though I’m starting to wonder if I’ve come down with Resting Bitch Face or some shit.

I’ve told Gordy before that Leighton should come first. She needed to settle down and get into the groove of being back without paparazzi bombarding her with stupid questions like she used to get. I don’t consider myself a selfish man, and it feels like agreeing to do even one song would make me exactly that.

“I wish people would stop assuming I’m not happy,”

I grumble more to myself than him.

We slide into the car, Gordy slamming the door shut behind him and turning his body toward me. “It has been a little hard to ignore your moodiness, and I’ve tried. Trust me. I’ve seen you snap at people you never would have before.” He’s referring to the ebony-haired eighteen-year-old at home who he’s witnessed my less than stellar moments with. After the first time he saw our verbal spat in the kitchen, he’s been on my ass about watching what I say. He’s still protective of her, except it’s different now. It’s like he’s the big brother, stepping into the shoes I used to fill.

What the hell does that make me?

Rolling my eyes, I look out the window as we start driving through the city. “I’ll think about the song,” is all I tell him. For me. For Lenny because I know he’s right. For my fans.

The rest of the drive is silent.

Chapter Nineteen

Leighton / Age 14

“Leighton, what’s your favorite thing about living with the Bishops?” a female reporter asks, shoving a recording device toward my face.

I want to say “not this” but I know better. Harry’s PR person taught me better than that, and both Kyler and Mia said to be the bigger person. In fact, it was Kyler who told me to give them my sugar-sweet smile and say nothing at all.

I’m walking toward the school after Mom dropped me off down the street when traffic got backed up. We’re running late because she overslept, and I had to go into the room she and Harry shared since we moved in back in March. It’s been months, but the fascination of the Bishops bringing me and Mom into their lives doesn’t seem to fade. It took her thirty minutes to get dressed, another ten to do her hair and makeup, all to get inside her car and drive. She wasn’t even getting out, but she tells me we have to be prepared to be seen.

I guess she’s right. I’m flattening out the wrinkles in my uniform when the reporter shoots off another question. “What does Kyler eat for breakfast?”

Oatmeal with a banana and peanut butter mixed in. I don’t tell her that though. I keep my head down, eyes pointed at the shiny Mary Janes that Mia bought me for this school year and count the cracks in the sidewalk.

“Is it true that Mia started seeing Hannah Taylor’s ex-boyfriend Dylan Casanova while they were still together?”

It’s hard to keep my composure when a question like that comes out of left field. Without my consent, my nose scrunches and the reporter’s face beams like she’s onto something, when really, I’m just confused. Hannah’s name sounds vaguely familiar. I think she used to be Mia’s best friend at one point if memory serves, but that can’t be true if what this woman is saying is right, because Mia would never do something like that.

“Do you have any thoughts on the matter?” the persistent woman pushes, plucked eyebrows raised.

I shake my head, gripping the strap of my bag tightly in my hands. “Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have to get to school.”

My steps pick up and she doesn’t follow once I pass the school’s sign. They’ve learned to back off when Saint Michael’s security booted more than one press junkie off the property since Kyler raised a fuss.

I’m itching to pull out the cell phone from my skirt pocket and send a message to Mia telling her what I was asked. It took a while, but Harry finally told Mom it was safer for me to have a phone now that people knew who I was. Not even her forgetting to pick me up at school convinced her that it was necessary. Something that Kyler got into a fight with her about.

Mom had said something like, “She’s too young for technology.”

“Don’t you think when strange men are taking fucking photos of your daughter, she should have a way to contact someone immediately?” That’d come from Kyler.

Mom had rolled her eyes and simply stated, “She can handle herself,” which only made Kyler angrier, roaring, “She shouldn’t have to if you were the kind of mother who gave a shit!”

Harry had to intervene, being the one to tell Mom that a cell phone was more than necessary at this point. In that moment, I felt like I had him on my side, because I didn’t feel good knowing there could easily be a repeat of the photographer lurking in the bushes anywhere I went. There won’t always be a phone nearby if it happens.

Ever since we moved in, Harry has spent more time with me. I can tell Mom doesn’t like it, like I’m somehow stealing him from her, because one night when it was just her and I, she’d said, “I hope you’re happy. Always vying for attention when you get enough of it already.”

I’d brushed it off then because she was in one of her moods and always said hurtful things when she got like that. I’d planned on waiting up for Harry to get back from wherever he met with Mia in the city to talk more about the research I’d done on Stanford. Turns out, he’d gone there for a year before transferring to Harvard, and he admitted he liked it—being close to home, since he was born and raised in Los Angeles. It was common ground, even if he still thinks I should shoot for something besides public relations.

When I get to my locker, Nora, Beckham, and Striker are all waiting for me like every morning. Our group has become a norm that I look forward to seeing, and I’ll miss this when summer break starts in a few weeks. “Morning,” I greet quietly, opening my locker and depositing my things inside.

Striker and Beckham joined Nora and I at lunch one day shortly after some stuff appeared about me and the Bishops online. People whispered, making me squirm, and I hadn’t been completely honest with Nora, so she’d been just as much in the dark about my position with the Saint Michael’s royal family as everyone else. It turns out, Beckham Reeves wasn’t. Even before he’d seen Ky pick me up from school, he’d known who I was because his father is the Assistant Dean.

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