Between the Lines (8 page)

“Well, I’ve never heard Graham play, so it’s hardly something I can decide here.”

“Maybe we should stage a little competition in my room later,” Brooke suggests. “They can both play for all of us.”

“Sounds cool,” Tadd says. “Alas, I didn’t bring my guitar this trip. I forgot my laptop, extra contact lenses, hell, I barely remembered pants.” Emma laughs softly next to me. She’s so damned cute I can barely stand it.

“You can borrow Graham’s,” Brooke says, turning to ask Graham after the fact, “Is that okay?”

“Sure, no problem.” He couldn’t be more compliant. She
must
be sleeping with him. “Let’s call it a jam session, though, rather than a competition.”

“You know, if there’s no competition, you can’t
win
,” she adds, and I hear this comment with the gossip I just passed to Emma in mind.

“Winning is overrated,” he answers.

“Huh,” Emma says, and Graham’s eyes snap to hers.

Four?
he mouths, and she shakes her head once, glaring but looking more like she’s trying not to smile.
Three
, he mouths, and she rolls her eyes and mouths back
fine
.

Um,
what
? I glance at Brooke and see her thoughts are similar to mine, her eyes darting back and forth between them.

Emma and Graham don’t look at each other again the rest of the meal.

*** *** ***

Emma

Brooke suggests that we all raid our mini-bars of tiny liquor bottles so we can pool our resources. Her room, predictably, is the one I saw Graham enter my first night in Austin, less than a week ago, when I didn’t know who he was. Now we’re becoming friends, but he hasn’t said a thing to me about Brooke.

I call Emily when I’m changing in my room a couple of hours later. “He seems like a nice guy… and she seems like a junior Chloe.”

“You don’t know him well enough to point out
that
kind of hazard. If they’re just screwing around, and you guys are just friends—you
are
just friends, right?”

“
Yes
.”

“He’s a guy, Em. They think differently than we do. You can bet a
guy
invented the whole friends-with-benefits thing. Though if Quinton Beauvier showed up at my door and said, ‘Which way to your bedroom?’ I’d be like, ‘Right this way!’  But, you know, we wouldn’t be friends. We’d just be benefits.”

I shake my head. For all of her talk, Emily’s the most guarded person I know when it comes to actually getting involved with a guy. Smart of her, because once she’s involved, she’s in all the way. She’s had her heart shattered twice, and standing on the sidelines was the hardest thing ever for me. “Well, at least you have your standards. I’m putting you on speakerphone while I get dressed for the guitar hero challenge.”

“What are you wearing to this little soiree?”

“Brooke suggested PJs.” I toss the phone on the bed after hitting speakerphone and adjusting the volume.

“What are you guys gonna do? And moreover, if all these hot guys are going to be there
why was I not invited?
”

I groan. “Emily,
focus
. I have no idea what the agenda is, beyond the guitar playing. I’ve never been on a set with so many people in my age group. I’ve always been pointedly excluded from cast get-togethers, what with me being a decade or several younger than everyone else.” I stand in front of the mirror holding up a pink t-shirt and then a black tank top, back and forth. “Plus you
know
if you were here, I’d share.”

“Fine, you’re forgiven. Got capri pj pants?”

“Yeah.” I pull a pair out of a drawer and shake the creases out. “They’re pink with black polka dots. Too babyish?”

“No, perfect. Pink and black are so retro lingerie, very chic. Slap your black tank on and you’re ready to go.” I pull the pants on, tie the drawstring loosely, and then pull the black tank over my head. Mirror check. Cute.

“Emily, you’re a genius.”

“Yeah, yeah. Text me when you get back in your room, I want to know
everything
.”

“You are such a gossip whore, Emily.”

“Hey, just be glad I’m not asking you to set up a webcam… wait a minute, that’s an idea…”

“Bye, Emily!” I laugh, shaking my head.

“Text me, text me, text me.” Her disembodied voice comes from the bed. “Do
not
forget!”

“I won’t forget! You know I tell you everything. Miss you.”

“Miss you, too.”

As I pass Graham’s room, he exits with his guitar in one hand and a standard-sized bottle of tequila in the other, which reminds me that my hands are empty. “Oh, I forgot—” I say, turning back.

“Carry this.” He hands me the tequila. “Should be enough entry fee for both of us.” He’s wearing a different pair of drawstring pajama bottoms than the other night, paired with a heather gray t-shirt.

I’m about to go into a room full of people near my age, all wearing pajamas and drinking. Cue a hearty dose of panic. “What exactly are we doing?”

He shrugs. “I assume Tadd and I are going to provide some musical entertainment. And then, I don’t know. Sit around and talk, I guess.”

Talk. Right.

Thanks to Emily, I didn’t miss
all
of my high school experiences. I tagged along to enough parties with Em and her friends where there was a keg, or someone’s parents didn’t lock the liquor cabinet, or a fake ID was good enough to score a case of beer or a bottle of vodka. Talking isn’t what people end up doing when they’re young and plastered. But this is a small group, and we still have most of the film to shoot. Things can’t get too out of hand or it will be insanely awkward.

We stop at Brooke’s door and I take a deep breath. Graham touches my arm. “Hey, don’t stress. I’ll make sure you get to your room safe and sound. Well, safe and as sound as you can be if you have any of
that
.” He points to the bottle in my hand.

“All right.” I’m just hoping that me plus alcohol plus Reid Alexander in the same room won’t equal potential humiliating candor.

“Ready?” At my nod, Graham knocks,
thunk-thunk
, just as he did a few nights ago. Tadd opens the door, and Graham stands back, smiling down at me. “Ladies first.”

Chapter 12

REID

I got to Brooke’s room first. When she opened the door, it was déjà vu for about two seconds. And then not. Four years ago we would have been all over each other before I got five feet inside her room. Tonight, she just glared and backed up enough for me to enter. “Reid,” she said.

“Brooke.” I set several small bottles down on a table, keeping a couple and opening one, which I downed immediately. Tossing the bottle into her trash, I opened the second. “So how long has it been?” I said, knowing this was a reckless path to navigate.

Her jaw tightened and she plopped onto the loveseat, trying to look indifferent and fearless at the same time, raising her chin and looking me in the eye. “I have no idea.”

A knock sounded then and I turned, relieved, to admit MiShaun, Quinton and Jenna. A moment later, Tadd arrived.

Brooke holds court from the loveseat while MiShaun flips through the most recent
Cosmo
from the only chair. The rest of us lounge across the floor, chatting, while I wonder how disturbed I should be that Emma and Graham are the only two who haven’t shown yet. Five minutes pass before they show up, together.

“The prima donnas arrive,” MiShaun teases.

“Seriously, what took you guys so long?” Brooke’s eyes dart back and forth between the two of them.

Emma picks up on her territorial vibe and bristles visibly, her shoulders stiffening. “I had a phone call to make.” She holds out the bottle in her hand. “Um, where—?”

“Put it with the other stuff.” Brooke indicates a side table boasting a dozen miniature bottles. Emma hands the tequila to Quinton while Tadd lines up gift shop shot glasses with college emblems stamped on the sides. Smiling up at Graham, Brooke pats the cushion next to her, while Emma sits on the floor in the space between Jenna and me, exactly where I want her.

“What’s first, children?” Brooke asks.

Tadd stands, places one hand over his heart and enunciates as though delivering a line from Hamlet. “I require a dose of liquid courage for the challenge before me.”

“I second that.” Quinton pries the wrapper from the neck of the bottle Emma brought, which I suspect came via Graham, twists off the lid and begins pouring tequila shots.

 Grabbing a bottle of rum from the stash and pouring it directly into her Diet Coke bottle, Brooke suggests we toast the success of the film, “before we’re all too hammered to remember what we’re doing.” Everyone obediently clinks glasses and bottles, murmuring
to the film
.

“Where’s Meredith?” Jenna asks.

“The
boyfriend
was waiting for her in the lobby when we got back from dinner.” Brooke shrugs. “Looks like splitsville to me.”

“Okay, wait.” Tadd is incredulous. “The guy showed up
on set
to break up with her? What a douche.”

“I don’t know who’s breaking up with who, just that it looked imminent. So, Mr. Wyler, what are you performing for our listening pleasure?” she asks as Graham hands him the guitar.

“Either
Stairway to Heaven
or some John Mayer,” Tadd proposes, standing and picking out a few chords, testing the instrument.

“If that’s all you’ve got, then definitely John Mayer. What are we, fifty?” Brooke says.

“Zeppelin is classic!” he insists, which earns him a steady
boo
from the girls.

“The queen has spoken,” I say, handing him a second shot of tequila, catching Brooke’s eye and grinning as she seethes. She’s determined to be pissed at anything I say or do; might as well enjoy it.

Tadd downs the shot, plunks the glass on a table and starts strumming, singing lines of
Your Body is a Wonderland
to each of the girls, strolling around the room and ending the performance perched on MiShaun’s lap. As everyone applauds, he bows and passes the guitar to Graham.

“Graham, no Zeppelin, as I believe we’ve already established,” Brooke says.

“I thought I’d do something I’ve been working on.”

“Something you wrote yourself?”

“Still a work in progress, but, yeah.”

“Cool.” She touches his arm lightly, and I bump Emma lightly and raise both eyebrows in the universal gesture of
do you see that?

Graham slides to the edge of the loveseat and starts playing, the chords complicated, his fingers moving over the neck of the guitar like he’s caressing it. The vocals are definitely good. Unlike Tadd, he doesn’t look at anyone while performing, except once, towards the end of the last chorus, when his eyes meet Emma’s for a split second. I move from
guarded dislike
to
I hate this guy
.

When he finishes, everyone erupts into applause. He and Tadd trade sets while the rest of us sip whatever poison we’ve decided to utilize, and Quinton suggests a drinking game.

Brooke explains the rules to Jenna, who’s never played. “This game has two objects: we learn stupid stuff about each other, and everyone gets wasted.” She scoots off the loveseat, taking Graham’s hand and pulling him down. “Tadd will start by saying, ‘Never have I ever,’ followed by something he’s never done. Anyone who
has
done whatever it is has to take a drink. Girls, we can handicap ourselves by taking half-shots.”

The first Never Have I Ever that pops into my head involves Emma, and isn’t one I can say aloud. Besides, I intend for it to be invalid by the end of the week, if not the end of the night.

*** *** ***

Emma

Quinton pours out shots as Tadd supplies the first never-done thing. “Never have I ever… been an only child.”

Reid and I each down our glasses, and as the tequila blazes a path down my throat, I gasp. I’ve never been much of a drinker. During the parties I attended with Emily, we pretended to drink more than we actually drank.

“This isn’t a good start for us.” He grins as my eyes tear. “That, or it’s an
awesome
start.” He leans the length of his arm against mine for a moment, his skin a couple of shades darker, his forearm chiseled, the fine blond hairs raising goosebumps where we touch. “Are you cold?” He runs a finger along my arm, multiplying them.

“I guess so.” I don’t want to admit that I have goosebumps all over my body, that my stomach has just gone end-over-end due to his proximity and attention. He moves closer until our sides are pressing together. Oh yeah.
That’s
gonna help.

“Never have I ever bungee-jumped,” Jenna says.

“Well, crap.” MiShaun throws back her half-shot, along with Tadd.

“Far be it from me to suggest you wear more to warm up.” Reid’s warm breath stirs the baby hairs behind my ear, his smile hungry after a glance towards the just-low-enough neckline of my tank.
Thank you, Emily
.

My turn. “Never have I ever sung on stage.” I know I’ll be in the minority in this room full of film and theatre types.

“Diabolical,” Reid says, his voice a low hum, admiration in the smirk he gives me before he joins everyone else in another shot. The beginnings of a buzz make my head swim, and I fight not to sway towards him like a magnet towards a steel bar.

Reid turns to the room, aware that it’s his turn even if I’m aware of little beyond him. “Never have I ever… kissed a guy.” All four girls roll our eyes and down our half-shots, and I realize I’m on my way to a colossal hangover. Good thing there’s no filming tomorrow.

“Way to out me right away, dude.” Tadd throws back his shot, smiling wickedly. “And let me know if you want me to fix that for you.”

Graham downs his shot as well. “Damned independent films,” he growls good-naturedly as Quinton hoots with laughter.

 “Never have I ever eaten lobster.” Quinton says, and everyone in the room grabs their shot glasses.