Page 27 of Dirty Like Seth
I’d be stupid as fuck to pass up the opportunity to make amends with anyone in the band. But despite her apology, I still wasn’t quite sure if that was what was happening here ornot.
All I knew for absolute sure—and I knew that Elle knew it, too—was that the rest of the band, and Brody, were not gonna be happy aboutthis.
I was doing itanyway.
And for some reason that was completely beyond me, so wasshe.
* * *
The flightto Lihue Airport was just over six hours, on a luxury chartered jet, and there were only four people in the giant cabin. Me, Elle, her assistant, Joanie, and her bodyguard, who’d grudgingly introduced himself to me as Flynn. Five people, if you counted the flight attendant ghosting in andout.
The four of us sat in opposite corners of the cabin, and there was very littleconversation.
Joanie slept most of the flight. Flynn read magazines and didn’t say aword.
Mostly I just played my acoustic,quietly.
Elle was on her laptop, ear buds in, and rarely lifted her eyes from her screen. I had no idea if she was working or what. But she didn’t speak tome.
As soon as we landed, she was on her phone. Flynn got us a rental car, a luxury SUV, and piled everyone’s bags in back. I had no bag, just my guitars, because I wasn’t exactly gonna ask them to detour into Santa Monica so I could collect my shit from Lauren’s place. Flynn got in behind the wheel, Joanie was up front, and Elle, beside me in the back, was still on herphone.
“I don’t know, Ash. I’ll let you know when I’m back,” she said. “I don’tknow. We can talk about it later, okay?” She sounded irritated, anxious to get off the phone. Ash didn’t let her off, though, for another few minutes of semi-arguing.
It was the dead of night. Los Angeles was two hours ahead of us, but still. I had no idea if Ash knew Elle was here with me, but she definitely didn’t bring itup.
When she got off the phone, she sighed softly, stuffed her phone in her purse, and lay her head back on theseat.
Within a few minutes, her head lolled against the window. She wasasleep.
Forty-five minutes later, as we rolled up Woo’s winding, tree-lined driveway, sparkling with lanterns in the night, I was still studying her. Trying to figure herout.
To figure out what she was really doing here withme.
I’d heard her on the phone with Ash, and it wasn’t the kind of conversation friends have. Obviously there was something going on there. And I’d seen the way men looked at her. Men at the airport. Our pilot. EvenFlynn.
It wasn’t just that she was gorgeous. Beyond her looks, Elle had always had thatsomethingabout her; she just wasn’t your ordinary girl. She carried herself in a way you could feel across a room. Literally, heads turned forher.
She was a star, in every sense of theword.
And I wondered where that bright, sassy, but down-to-Earth girl I used to know hadgone.
I could still see her, sitting there, just an arm’s length from me. Under the designer clothing and the makeup. I saw her, living this massive, glamorous life, just like it was second nature to her, yet she didn’t seem comfortable in the middle of it. More like… practiced. Like she’d learned to live withit.
I saw how she wore it, like a tailor-made dress, one she’d forgotten how to take off at the end of the day. Her cool detachment from it all. Her aloneness in the middle of her ownlife.
The most famous member ofDirty…
I shouldn’t have been able to get nearher, of all people, but for some reason, she’d let me in. At least thisfar.
She was the only member of Dirty who’d extended the olive branch tome.
And I could not figure outwhy.
* * *
“Bella will setyou up in one of the guest cottages,” Elle said, as she introduced me to Woo’s housekeeper. We were standing in his enormous kitchen, one wall of floor-to-ceiling windows standing open to the night. It smelled of freshly-brewed coffee and flowers and the ocean. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore beyond the yard, below the rockycliffs.
“It’s all ready for you,” Bella said, smiling up at me. She was a tiny, lively sixty-something. “I can show you the way, if youlike.”
