Page 4 of The Ex-Best Thing
His grandma’s window? Isthishis grandma’s house?
I’m a little sheepish now, and I can’t ask who this housereally belongs to without giving myself away. “So the door code?—”
“Probably works next door,” he says. “You meant to go to 1068; this is 1066.”
“Cool.” I set the sea lion back on the table gently and back toward the entrance, all while his stare lasers me with intense focus. This isn’t even something I can blame the taxi driver for, because I should have checked the house number myself. A gust of wind blows into the house, ruffling the drapes, and I return to the scene of theliteralcrime with a watery, awkward laugh. I close his window, noting the rain that came in with me and soaked his floor. “Uh, do you have a towel?”
“I can take care of it,” he says.
Of course. Because Benny wants nothing more than for the crazy intruder to get out of his house. BennyRhodes.Whom I haven’t seen in ages and spent a lot of time thinking about in airports today. I still kind of feel like I’m in a drug-induced dream. Maybe that Tylenol I popped earlier to stave off an airport-headache was really a hallucinogen. Can you get visions from acetaminophen? Asking for a friend.
Okay, that’s nonsense. It’s the full day of travel talking.
He walks behind me to the door, where I see that the rain has turned torrential. I grab my suitcase and pull my purse over my shoulder.
“The house on your right,” he says. “Just flash your porch light twice, so I know you made it inside.”
I salute him. Why did I do that?
Just as I run out into the rain, his voice follows me. “It was good to see you again, Bree.”
My foot slips on his slick walkway, and I go down. Hard.
Guess my wig doesn’t work so well after all.
2
BENNY
I really shouldn’t have thrownBree’s name out there like that, but I couldn’t help myself. She really thought she was fooling me. Her wig and makeup and clothes threw me off in the beginning, but all she had to do was open her mouth and my body reacted. I knew that voice. I knew this woman.
I never expected her to drop into my house through an open window, but stranger things have happened.
To be honest, I never thought I’d see Bree again. When we parted ways at sixteen, I was devastated, but it had obviously been the right thing. Bree enjoyed fame. She liked being in the spotlight, and after getting a healthy dose of it, I knew it wasn’t something I could do for the rest of my life. The anxiety that accompanied the fame was already too much for me to handle. My quiet ranch in Montana suited me much better than stadiums of girls screaming my name with manic obsession.
Don’t get me wrong, music is my passion. When I was fourteen, I thought I’d love everything that came along with my record deal, too. How was I supposed to know that the loneliest I could feel would be on stage surrounded by thousands of fans?
Enough of memory lane. Bree scrambles off her hands and knees on the slick path. I cringe, reaching to help her up.
Bree hisses, pulling her arm away from me.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
“I’m fine.” She laughs awkwardly, blinking rain from her eyes. “But uh…how long did you know it was me? I thought my disguise was working.”
“It did for a minute. But you didn’t even try to change your voice.”
She mutters something incoherent. “Noted. Okay, well…this is awkward. Can you please not tell anyone you saw me here?”
My body stiffens. There goes the brief, miniscule thought she came here for me. When I realized who was dripping water on my floor, for half a second I wondered if I was the reason she was here. If she knew I had a hand in her current musical success and had come to thank me. But the longer she tried to pretend she didn’t know who I was, the less I believed that to be the case.
Now she’s watching me with anxious trepidation. I guess all the posts on social media about her disappearance aren’t entirely falsified for attention. This woman really is hiding.
She chews on her lips, waiting for me to promise I’ll keep her secret. So I relax like I’m not the least bit curious about why she’s running away from the fame she loves so much. “Who would I tell?”
“I don’t know. Your grandma? Is that why you’re in town, to visit her?” She doesn’t wait for me to respond. “Just don’t tell her I’m here.”
Don’t tell Bree’s all-time biggest fan that she’s only a few streets over? Yeah, probably a good idea not to loop Grandma in on this.
