Page 68 of Touch in the Dark

I get out of the shower, wrap a towel around me and forego getting dried, just grab my phone and open up Google. I type in his name. It comes up with a lot of hits but after changing it to an image search, I come across a picture of a distinguished looking older man with other older men in suits. They look like businessmen, or politicians.

I click into the photograph and walk backwards, dropping onto the chair by the window in my bedroom. My eyes fly over the article about how he is the CEO of a multimillion-dollar conglomerate who made his fortune on the stock market and now owns so many different kinds of businesses, it’s impossible to figure what they all do. He’s based in California, it doesn’t surprise me to find out he lives in Beverley Hills. The man is a millionaire many times over.

The business world is all Greek to me. I’m by no means dumb but this is all high-level CEO stuff that I’ll never be able to understand. I read article after article about him, his charity work, his philanthropy. His family. There are photographs of him and his wife, who is the same age as him. He has three children, all of whom work for him in high level positions. Two sons and a daughter. I shake my head at the family resemblance, particularly to the eldest son.

After a while, I toss my phone on the dresser beside the chair and close my eyes. That was a massive information dump. I’d gone from knowing nothing, to knowing everything. Including the fact that when I was born, Derrick Atwater was happily married with his first son on the way. Rhett Atwater is the same age as I am.

So that is why Doris hates him. That is why no one wanted to talk about him, or why he wasn’t around.

I’m a bastard.

It’s a damn good job Max picked me up again because I barely managed to get out of bed after my alarm went off. Someone is going to have to use a lot of make-up on me today. I hope it won’t be Elsa. She’ll see right through whatever façade I put on for everyone today. Luckily, Archer isn’t up, and I doubt he will be for a while given the mess in the living room. It had to have been wild for Arch not to clean up before he went to bed.

I’m almost reluctant to get out of the car when we pull up at the studio, but I do it, because it’s expected of me. I’ve always got to turn on the Nick Chambers persona. It doesn’t matter that I’m dying inside. That the realisation I meant nothing to the man who fathered me fucking hurts. But I’m angry too. Angry that he abandoned my mom. We didn’t have much growing up, mom worked hard to give us the things we needed. That scumbag hadn’t supported us. Part of me knows mom would have been prideful and not expected anything. I’d looked at that photograph again before I left and all I’d seen in her eyes was happiness, and hope. The more I studied it, the more it looked as if Atwater hadn’t realised he’d been photographed.

Fuck, it would ruin his reputation if anyone found out he had an illegitimate son. I enter the studio with a heavy heart but smile at everyone I meet, ask how they are, and I accept a coffee from the woman who gave me her number the other day. A number I’d found in my jacket pocket when I was trying to sort out my grandma’s accommodation, crumpled up and tossed away.

Elsa had seen that encounter, and it surprised me how she looked when she did. I’d expected her to have a knowing look, like it was what she expected of me, but that wasn’t what she conveyed. She seemed irritated, but at the woman. At the time, I’d been elated by that reaction, but it all fell by the wayside when I got the call about Doris.

“Oh fuck, you look like hell.”

I look up to see Arizona marching towards me. There is a lot more activity and equipment in the studio today, large cameras and although there are sets, they are nowhere near as elaborate. I'm surprised to see a number of guitars lined up against the wall and I’m momentarily distracted by the fact they’re all Warwick’s. I vaguely recall Francis saying they were using this as an opportunity to partner up Warwick and Instinct. He was brokering a deal for it that was going to see me getting paid extra for advertising their instruments.

“What on earth were you up to last night?”

“Sorry, it was a late one. I’ve had some issues with my grandma.”

“Oh, shit, yes. I’m sorry. How is she?” he asks, genuinely concerned.

I explain the situation and although he looks at me as if to say that doesn’t seem to warrant the shit show I look this morning, he doesn’t comment further. Just marches me towards the make-up and wardrobe room. Jackie is inside laughing with a woman I don’t recognise. I’m half glad and half disappointed not to see Elsa in here. Jackie smiles broadly when she sees me, then her lips tilt into a frown.

“Yeah, I look like shit,” I say, dropping my bag and walking to the chair.

“Well, I wasn’t going to comment.”

“Like hell you weren’t,” I give her a tired smile. I hold out my hands. “You got your work cut out for you today.”

“I’m up for the challenge,” she laughs. “I think.”

“Well, we’ve got about twenty minutes before we start filming, so you better get the trowels out,” Arizona looks frazzled but leaves us to it muttering something about Louis kicking someone’s ass. Mine I suspect.

“Late night party?” Jackie asks.

“Something like that,” I smile, though I catch my reflection and see it looks about as fake as it feels.

I lean back and close my eyes, letting her get to work. It doesn’t take her long and she does actually work a fucking miracle because I look good when she’s done. This time they’ve gone with my usual floppy and messy hair, not the slicked back look. I remember this is supposed to be the real us, so I’m just a more polished, more pore-less version of myself. Wardrobe arrives next and I’m stuffed into another pair of tight white boxer briefs. I forego the robe because it’s hot as hell in here, despite the vast space, and head out to the set.

“Arizona must have been seeing things, or Jackie needs a raise,” Louis tells me.

“The second one,” I say with a half-smile.

“We’re just finishing setting everything up, Arizona will run through what we need from you today. It’s pretty standard, we’ve lined up some of your music to accompany the scenes, but we have a board showing you how it’s gonna play out, good with you?”

I nod. Louis claps her hands and Arizona appears out of nowhere, ushering me over to a large whiteboard with a number of drawings, pictures and directions. Once I’m sure of what they want, I head over to the array of guitars, the sight of them taking my mind away from the turbulent thoughts I’ve not been able to stray too far from. I pick one up and pluck a few chords. A man approaches. I recognise him from Warwick and lower the guitar to shake his hand. We make small talk and I manage to pull off that I’m not dying to get this over with. That’s when I see her.

Elsa comes out of a room just behind the Warwick guy, and like the magnet that always seems to appear between us, her eyes automatically find me. And it’s like everything else ceases to exist. She smiles hesitantly, it looks like she’s warring with herself, but politeness wins out and she heads over.

“How is Doris?” she asks straight away.

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