“Twenty percent of landfills is wasted food,” Zia said. “And half of that is from businesses.”
“That much? I should know that.” Clay addressed a passing assistant. “Hey, can we do something about all this leftover food? Donate it to a shelter, and order less next time? We shouldn’t be throwing anything out at the end of a shoot.”
The assistant nodded, making a note. Zia was impressed and maybe a little jealous that for someone like Clay, it was easy to make change.
He lingered. “Thanks for that. And for today. I really like the down-to-earth approach.”
“I had a feeling you did.”
“Well, bye.” He opened his arms. She moved into them for a hug. Their bodies pressed together, hip to hip, her soft breasts against his hard chest. Warm, solid muscle enveloped her. A feeling of complete safety filled her entire being. Her eyes drifted shut, relishing the closeness. The intimacy in Zia’s life was all platonic. It’d been way too long since she’d held another person like this.
Someone called Clay’s name. Zia pulled away.
He pressed a folded scrap of paper into her hands. “Gracias, Zia. Por todo.”
Clay was hurried off, the center of a traveling circus onto the next town. Zia headed for the exit, feeling like a tightrope walker who’d just made it safely back to solid ground.
20
Zinc Bar was a well-regarded jazz club in New York’s West Village, the backroom of which generally hosted a respectful audience of locals and tourists. Except for Monday nights. Monday nights were different.
They were reckless. Wild. Completely unhinged. And that was because Zach Livingstone was in the house, whipping the crowd into a Dionysian frenzy. Look at him now, standing in front of the Steinway, shirt soaked, hair a mess, fingers dancing up the keys.
“C’mon, New York, let’s hear you!”
Darlene revved into their crowd-pleasing closer, “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse. “ ‘They tried to make me go to rehab—’ ”
“ ‘I said, No, no, no,’ ” scream-sung the crowd.
The set started lukewarm, the audience chatty and distracted and not planning on getting wasted on a Monday. But song by song, Zach worked the crowd, getting them hot. Now, people were dancing on tables, doing shots, and making out with strangers. Darlene was on the floor, in the crowd, belting it out in that smoky, sexy voice of hers, “ ‘Yes, I’ve been black, but when I come back—’ ”
“ ‘You’ll know, know, know!’ ” shouted the crowd.
Despite the chaos, Zach never missed a note. This feeling of being in sync with another musician, and the audience, and himself, was better than anything. Even sex. And there was no one he was more connected with than Darlene. Maybe it was the way their differences fit together: she was technical, he was instinctive. She was polished, he didn’t own an iron. American, Brit; Black, white; girl, boy. Or maybe it was just that indefinable thing called chemistry. Offstage, it was muted. But onstage, it was neon bright, and everyone in the club could see it and hear it and feel it in waves.
They finished with a flourish, crowd and musicians singing as one: “ ‘He’s tried to make me go to rehab, I won’t go, go, GO!’ ”
The crowd went nuts, cheering and screaming and stamping their feet. Darlene caught Zach’s eye and laughed, the stage lights bouncing off her hair and body. She looked absolutely bloody beautiful.
This gig was always, without fail, the highlight of Zach Livingstone’s week.
Offstage, Zach high-fived the bartender and returned with two shots of tequila. He and Darlene did them together, and it filled him like fire, like starlight, like love. He shouted over the still-noisy crowd, “You killed it!”
She waved it off. “I was pitchy in that last chorus—”
“Mitchell! You crushed it!” And somehow they were hugging, which they never did, his arms around her soft, perfect body, holding each other hot and close, spontaneous and free.
Life was very, very good.
After a few too-short seconds, she let go. He could see her organized brain putting a wall back between them, moving them onto load-out and logistics. A young man with surfer-blond hair and an obnoxious tan swaggered in front of them. Annoyingly, Zach was forced to back up.
“Hey.” The surf rat smiled at Darlene. “Ripper of a set. You guys were on fire.”
Australian. How soon till this idiot mentioned kangaroos?
Darlene smiled back modestly. “Thank you so much.”
“Yeah, you had me bouncing around like a bloody kangaroo.” Australia ran a hand through his hair just to show off his bicep. “Buy you a drink, gorgeous?”
As if Darlene was going to go for this peroxide prole. She only dated men with brains the size of planets. Her last boyfriend, Awful Charles, was a smug git who was constantly publishing articles about what an intellectual wanker he was. With his scrub of ginger curls, and Father Christmas paunch, Charles was no pinup, but he was a celebrated mind, and he and Darlene dated for what felt like forever. So Zach was more than surprised when Darlene accepted the offer. “Vodka tonic. But we need to load out first.”
Australia grinned. Zach readied himself to step in, but before he could, someone slung an arm around his neck. “Hey, lady-killer.” The female version of Zach—summer-blue eyes, thick brown bangs—smirked at him. It was his older sister, Imogene. Behind her were their parents, Mark and Catherine.
“Guys!” Zach hugged them one by one. His family had seen him and Darlene play only once or twice over the past two years. “What are you all doing here? You didn’t tell me you’d be in town!”
“I had meetings in the city.” His dad’s voice boomed over the noisy club.
“And Mum’s helping me with the never-ending search for a wedding dress. Honestly, kill me.” Imogene was getting married to Mina Choi, her girlfriend of five years and fellow overachiever, at the family’s Hamptons estate in September. In Love in New York had been hired a year and a half ago to plan the wedding. The key vendors had all been locked in before Eliot passed, but Zach hadn’t quite gotten around to sharing the current state of the business, purely out of loyalty to Liv. Fortunately Imogene had been more focused on finding a dress that wasn’t a giant marshmallow.
“We wanted to surprise you, Zach.” His mum’s vaguely pretentious habit of elongating random vowels produced his name with an extra syllable: Za-ach. Catherine looked formidably refined in a snow-white sheath dress. Her pale blond hair was expertly twisted into a cross between a seashell and a croissant. His mother’s bloodline boasted some distant dukes, but in his parents’ circle, that ancestry was as common as pennies and postmen.
“We’re starving,” Imogene announced, hooking her arm into his. “C’mon, Zook: let’s go stuff our faces with pasta.”
Relishing the chance to interrupt her conversation with the Aussie tosser, Zach asked Darlene if she’d mind handling load-out so he could have dinner with his family. “I swear I’ll make it up to you,” he said, bribing her to stop by for a cocktail or two before she went home, with the promise his father would pay. “Best negronis in the city.”