were all song titles. She always referenced the artist in the caption. Horns up if you’re here for Metallica, that kind of thing.
Be Yourself
Dog Days Are Over
Never Going Back Again
Lost Cause
Don’t Tread On Me
There seemed to be one every week, at least. Her mood for the week?
And they seemed to get progressively darker the further I scrolled back.
When I reached the first post of this year, on New Year’s Day… there it was.
Gimme Shelter
Her mood for the year?
I started to scroll back to the top, letting the images blur by, an eddy of color—pinks, purples, blues—with the black around the edges being my life. My existence, here in this room.
I stopped partway and shut the app. Other than the song titles she’d posted, her whole account was a blur of color. Joyful and bright. Pretty and confusing, like her.
Because there was no way Taylor Lawson/Lawczynski’s life could be as perfect as it looked on social media.
Beneath the surface, there was always darkness.
Chapter Four
Taylor
Heaven Coming Down
No. Way.
There was no way I was taking on this assistant job myself.
Not happening.
I realized on my way to meet up with Courteney that I’d been thinking about it. In the back of my mind, the entire time I’d talked to her brother this morning, and ever since then, I’d been weighing the possibility of whether or not I could take the job as his assistant.
The answer, of course, was a resounding no.
No, no, no.
This one was a major fixer-upper, and I was totally done with fixer-uppers.
“Lookin’ good, baby.”
I shot the sun-leathered construction worker a look. He was standing at the edge of the sidewalk, leaning on a shovel, and unfortunately I had to walk right past him.
“I am not your baby,” I informed him.
He looked stricken at the unexpected backtalk and averted his eyes. His friend snickered.
I walked on by, sighing.
Men.
Couldn’t live with them… couldn’t really stand to be without one for too long. It was nature’s cruelest joke, really. The last time I’d gotten any action at all had been a drunken shit show under some mistletoe with a rock star, and way too much spiced eggnog in my system. And that was six long months ago. Those construction workers could probably smell it on me.
Lust.
I hadn’t even noticed them standing there until one of them decided to hit on me. I’d had Allan Rayman playing in my earbuds while my mind drifted in a hot daydream about no one in particular. Just some faceless Adonis who’d lost his shirt… and okay, who kinda-sorta looked like Cary Clarke… and was definitely about to lose his pants. Yup. This was the stuff I entertained myself with whenever I was doing such mind-numbing things as riding the bus.
Music and sex fantasies.
I’d hopped onto the bus at the bottom of Main Street, near my place, and hopped off here in Mount Pleasant to walk up to my favorite café. Nudge Coffee Bar was on a residential street lined with big, leafy trees, the café located in the front rooms of one of the beautiful heritage homes. I walked up the wide front steps to the porch—convinced that I would never work with Cary Clarke, that I wasn’t sure I could actually find anyone to work with him… and fortifying myself to be completely, even painfully, dead honest with his sister about it.
And I already felt bad about it.
I wasn’t sure if I felt worse about the fact that I was planning to be completely honest with her about things she might not want to hear… or the fact that I was never going to see her brother again.
It was really fucking bothering me that it bothered me.
I’d met the guy once. I had no reason to ever see him again.
Why did I feel this strange sense of disappointment that that was the case?
When I walked into the café, Courteney wasn’t there yet. It was just after lunch and there was a lineup at the counter, so I got in line.
Nudge was owned by Katie Mayes’ sister, Becca, and her husband, Jack; Katie was basically a local celebrity because she was married to a rock star, but she also happened to be a dear friend to my best friend, Danica. In the last few years, Nudge had become something of a hangout for local hipsters who wanted to pretend they had access to rock stars because they sipped lattes here. But I had actual access to rock stars, so that wasn’t why I came. I’d chosen the location