“Yeah, why?”
“This is like speed metal.”
“No, it’s a love song.”
“Maybe if you’re a psycho killer.”
He chuckled but continued playing the same chords. “Who’d you write it about?”
“I didn’t write it about anyone,” I said as I turned the pages in my notebook. “Here, what about this one? I haven’t titled it yet…”
“Nope, I want ‘Derelict.’” The son of a bitch was so damn stubborn. “And I want to know who you wrote it about.”
My chin jutted out. “Fine. I wrote it about Johnny.” That was a lie.
Rafe stopped strumming. “As in Frieze?”
“Is there another Johnny who I dated?”
“I didn’t know you two were serious,” he said.
“We weren’t,” I said.
“‘Derelict’ tells me otherwise.”
“Love hurts, Rafe,” I lied again. “Just play the damn chords.”
And as he did, he articulated my lyrics.
You left me derelict
Like a boat adrift at sea
Our maiden voyage ended
Before we could be free
In my head it was hard-edged, Presley’s voice wailing over some sick guitar breaks. But Rafe’s sotto voce drew out the heartbreak I’d felt while I wrote it. Heartbreak I masked with anger. Anger over the love I felt for a man I could never have.
Tears slipped down my cheeks as Rafe came to the end of the chord progression.
“Hey,” he said. His knuckle brushed against my cheek, swiping at the wetness there. “Don’t tell me you’re crying over Frieze?”
“No,” I snapped. “It’s just… beautiful.”
“It’s a beautiful song,” he said.
“It’s an angry song.”
“It’s a love song.”
I lifted my eyes to meet his, and that’s when it hit me. Rafe was right. “Derelict” was a love song. It was a love song about him.
Shit.
I was screwed.
7
My leg bounced up and down under the table, and I hoped that Fiorella, who had her eyes on my application, didn’t notice. The sympathetic look the waitress gave me when she placed a glass of plain water in front of me told me otherwise. Her squeeze on my shoulder as she walked away confirmed it.
Parma was where all the celebrities blew their Paleo diets to gorge on some of the most delicious homemade pastas this side of Italy. Or so I’d been told until Tuesday night’s dinner confirmed it. Their food was bliss.
The good news was that the restaurant was practically at the bottom of Rafe’s West Hollywood hill—and just under two miles away—so I could walk to work while I saved enough money to pay the mechanic to fix my car.
I took a sip of water to stifle the yawn that threatened. We were up crazy late working out the melody to “Derelict.” So late that I fell asleep in the chaise. I barely remember Rafe picking me up and tucking me into his bed. I recall protesting, telling him to put me on the couch. But his response was that he had a California king. Plenty of room for us to each have our own sides. It had made sense to my sleepy mind. But when I woke up this morning tangled in his sheets, I’d had the arm of a dead-to-the-world Rafe slung over my stomach. So much for his side of the bed.
At least I had his flannel shirt on over my sleep slip.
After I’d extracted myself from his heavy arm, I took a shower in the spare bathroom. It was a tight shower stall, but I’d angled my long legs to shave them. I’d put on a pair of slouchy dress slacks and tucked in an oxford shirt, then I’d walked my ass down the big hill (wasn’t going to think about the walk back up), and now I sat across from Fiorella. Just Fiorella, “Like Madonna or Cher,” she’d explained.
Her reading glasses were perched on the tip of her nose, and she was scanning my job application. The woman’s hair was an enormous mass of teased out curls. I put her at around the same age as my mom. Like Pamela, she went heavy on the makeup. Unlike Pamela, she wasn’t surgically preserved. The pancaked makeup aged her by at least fifteen or twenty years, especially when she pursed her lips like she was doing now as she scanned my sad list of credentials. The wrinkles that puckered around her mouth pointed to some hard living.
“So, Jett Benson, let’s talk about why you’re really here,” she said, her raspy voice confirming that she was a smoker.
I blinked at her. “I’m here for the job. I was told…” I petered out. Her hard expression rendered me mute. So much for Rafe vouching for me.
“You want a hostessing job at Parma with no hostessing experience?” Her eyebrows got lost in the mass of hair tumbling over her forehead.
“I’m a hard worker and a quick learner,” I said. I wondered what the hell could be so hard about the job, but didn’t voice that.
“I’m sure you think so, sweetie, but there’s nothing in your employment background that supports your statement.” Her voice oozed like syrup distilled from condescension.
Fuck me. How the hell did anyone ever get a shot to prove themselves in this town? So much for my “in.”
I forced a smile. “How about a trial weekend? You don’t even have to pay me—”
She put my application face down on the table and leaned toward me, her voice low. “Look, I’d love to help you out. You know, Vince is special to me. He even loaned me the money to open this place.” She leaned back and smiled, telling me all I needed to know about that loan and their special relationship. “But Parma is a fine dining experience. It’s not the place to start a restaurant career.”
With that, she pulled herself up to her barely five-foot, three-inch height and wobbled on her four-inch heels. Her hand poised at an “and another thing” angle, then her eyes lifted. Something over my shoulder caught her attention. Her puckered mouth softened into a dazzling smile, taking a decade off her face.
“Oh, my bad, looks like I came at the wrong time,” Rafe said.
I slumped even lower in my chair and slapped the useless job application over my face while the two of them air-kissed each other’s cheeks.
“So, when does Jett start?” Rafe asked, like I wasn’t even in the room. I dropped the paper away from my face to glare at the two of them.
She hit him again with that smile. “Rafe! Darling! I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Really? I could have sworn you said you had staffing issues,” Rafe said.
He leaned back on his heels and crossed his arms over his chest. His biceps bulged under his T-shirt. Hard as it was, I had to peel my eyes away from him. He was making my lady parts vibrate.
“Rafe, darling, you know how cutthroat the restaurant business is in LA,” she said. “I need people with certain experience, and unfortunately—”
“Oh, come on, Fiorella. She’s bringing guests to their tables, not whipping up tiramisu or whatever. Once she gets trained, I’m sure Jett can wing it just fine.”
Fiorella gasped and clutched at her chest, and I waited for her faux boobs to deflate. “Wing it?”
“Unless you want me to call Vince?” He slid his phone out of his pocket. “Have him vouch for her?”