“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.