Love Song Page 5

“That’s pretty,” I said, hoisting my guitar case onto the bed and opening it.

  “Just noodling with it,” he said. “It’s been stuck in my head for three days.”

  “Did you play it through at practice?” I asked.

  “Nah, I’m not ready to share it with anyone yet.”

  I bit my lip. “You’re sharing it with me.”

  “Because I’m writing with you,” he said. “Hit me with your notebook.”

  I slipped on my glasses, then flipped open the hardbound Moleskine that held my lyrics. “I’ll look—”

  He held out a hand. “No, you’ll censor what you give me, and I’ll sit here while you rewrite every damn lyric. Give me the notebook, Jett.”

  “Rafe, really,” I said, skimming through the pages, “they’re just scribbles.”

  “Perfect. Cause I’m just noodling.”

  My sigh was filled with exasperation, but I handed him the notebook. Then I removed my glasses and met his eyes. “Just… you know, nothing’s finished.”

  His eyes crinkled from his smile. “Then why do I have a feeling you will rock my world?”

  The heat in my cheeks slammed down my body and landed right between my legs. I sat on the very edge of the chaise, crossed my legs tight, and cradled my guitar.

  He flipped through my notebook, pausing every so often to make a “mmm” sound, until finally he held it out to me. “This one.”

  He plucked out the notes again as my eyes went to the open page. “You picked ‘Derelict’? For that?” I nodded at his fingers, which were strumming the strings.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “This is like speed metal.”

  “No, it’s a love song.”

  “Maybe if you’re a psycho killer.”

  He chuckled but continued playing the same chords. “Who’d you write it about?”

  “I didn’t write it about anyone,” I said as I turned the pages in my notebook. “Here, what about this one? I haven’t titled it yet…”

  “Nope, I want ‘Derelict.’” The son of a bitch was so damn stubborn. “And I want to know who you wrote it about.”

  My chin jutted out. “Fine. I wrote it about Johnny.” That was a lie.

  Rafe stopped strumming. “As in Frieze?”

  “Is there another Johnny who I dated?”

  “I didn’t know you two were serious,” he said.

  “We weren’t,” I said.

  “‘Derelict’ tells me otherwise.”

  “Love hurts, Rafe,” I lied again. “Just play the damn chords.”

  And as he did, he articulated my lyrics.

  You left me derelict

  Like a boat adrift at sea

  Our maiden voyage ended

  Before we could be free

  In my head it was hard-edged, Presley’s voice wailing over some sick guitar breaks. But Rafe’s sotto voce drew out the heartbreak I’d felt while I wrote it. Heartbreak I masked with anger. Anger over the love I felt for a man I could never have.

  Tears slipped down my cheeks as Rafe came to the end of the chord progression.

  “Hey,” he said. His knuckle brushed against my cheek, swiping at the wetness there. “Don’t tell me you’re crying over Frieze?”

  “No,” I snapped. “It’s just… beautiful.”

  “It’s a beautiful song,” he said.

  “It’s an angry song.”

  “It’s a love song.”

  I lifted my eyes to meet his, and that’s when it hit me. Rafe was right. “Derelict” was a love song. It was a love song about him.

  Shit.

  I was screwed.

  7

  My leg bounced up and down under the table, and I hoped that Fiorella, who had her eyes on my application, didn’t notice. The sympathetic look the waitress gave me when she placed a glass of plain water in front of me told me otherwise. Her squeeze on my shoulder as she walked away confirmed it.

  Parma was where all the celebrities blew their Paleo diets to gorge on some of the most delicious homemade pastas this side of Italy. Or so I’d been told until Tuesday night’s dinner confirmed it. Their food was bliss.

  The good news was that the restaurant was practically at the bottom of Rafe’s West Hollywood hill—and just under two miles away—so I could walk to work while I saved enough money to pay the mechanic to fix my car.

  I took a sip of water to stifle the yawn that threatened. We were up crazy late working out the melody to “Derelict.” So late that I fell asleep in the chaise. I barely remember Rafe picking me up and tucking me into his bed. I recall protesting, telling him to put me on the couch. But his response was that he had a California king. Plenty of room for us to each have our own sides. It had made sense to my sleepy mind. But when I woke up this morning tangled in his sheets, I’d had the arm of a dead-to-the-world Rafe slung over my stomach. So much for his side of the bed.

  At least I had his flannel shirt on over my sleep slip.

  After I’d extracted myself from his heavy arm, I took a shower in the spare bathroom. It was a tight shower stall, but I’d angled my long legs to shave them. I’d put on a pair of slouchy dress slacks and tucked in an oxford shirt, then I’d walked my ass down the big hill (wasn’t going to think about the walk back up), and now I sat across from Fiorella. Just Fiorella, “Like Madonna or Cher,” she’d explained.

  Her reading glasses were perched on the tip of her nose, and she was scanning my job application. The woman’s hair was an enormous mass of teased out curls. I put her at around the same age as my mom. Like Pamela, she went heavy on the makeup. Unlike Pamela, she wasn’t surgically preserved. The pancaked makeup aged her by at least fifteen or twenty years, especially when she pursed her lips like she was doing now as she scanned my sad list of credentials. The wrinkles that puckered around her mouth pointed to some hard living.

  “So, Jett Benson, let’s talk about why you’re really here,” she said, her raspy voice confirming that she was a smoker.

  I blinked at her. “I’m here for the job. I was told…” I petered out. Her hard expression rendered me mute. So much for Rafe vouching for me.

  “You want a hostessing job at Parma with no hostessing experience?” Her eyebrows got lost in the mass of hair tumbling over her forehead.

  “I’m a hard worker and a quick learner,” I said. I wondered what the hell could be so hard about the job, but didn’t voice that.

  “I’m sure you think so, sweetie, but there’s nothing in your employment background that supports your statement.” Her voice oozed like syrup distilled from condescension.

  Fuck me. How the hell did anyone ever get a shot to prove themselves in this town? So much for my “in.”

  I forced a smile. “How about a trial weekend? You don’t even have to pay me—”

  She put my application face down on the table and leaned toward me, her voice low. “Look, I’d love to help you out. You know, Vince is special to me. He even loaned me the money to open this place.” She leaned back and smiled, telling me all I needed to know about that loan and their special relationship. “But Parma is a fine dining experience. It’s not the place to start a restaurant career.”

  With that, she pulled herself up to her barely five-foot, three-inch height and wobbled on her four-inch heels. Her hand poised at an “and another thing” angle, then her eyes lifted. Something over my shoulder caught her attention. Her puckered mouth softened into a dazzling smile, taking a decade off her face.

  “Oh, my bad, looks like I came at the wrong time,” Rafe said.

  I slumped even lower in my chair and slapped the useless job application over my face while the two of them air-kissed each other’s cheeks.

  “So, when does Jett start?” Rafe asked, like I wasn’t even in the room. I dropped the paper away from my face to glare at the two of them.

  She hit him again with that smile. “Rafe! Darling! I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

  “Really? I could have sworn you said you had staffing is
sues,” Rafe said.

  He leaned back on his heels and crossed his arms over his chest. His biceps bulged under his T-shirt. Hard as it was, I had to peel my eyes away from him. He was making my lady parts vibrate.

  “Rafe, darling, you know how cutthroat the restaurant business is in LA,” she said. “I need people with certain experience, and unfortunately—”

  “Oh, come on, Fiorella. She’s bringing guests to their tables, not whipping up tiramisu or whatever. Once she gets trained, I’m sure Jett can wing it just fine.”

  Fiorella gasped and clutched at her chest, and I waited for her faux boobs to deflate. “Wing it?”

  “Unless you want me to call Vince?” He slid his phone out of his pocket. “Have him vouch for her?”

  Fiorella’s face paled.

  Rafe continued, “I know he has money in this place. Don’t know how he’ll feel about you kicking Jett to the curb in her time of need.”

  Fiorella turned to me. “Jett, honey, maybe we can talk about you bussing, what do you think?”

  Bussing tables. Clearing dishes. Setting silverware.

  I could do that. I could totally do that! I was being offered a job!

  “Bussing is great.”

  “Jett, do you really think bussing is your, you know, thing?” Rafe asked.

  “I’m sure I can manage.”

  “But you’ll be balancing heavy plates, that sort of thing,” he said, one eyebrow cocked at an angle that drove home his skepticism. “You’re not exactly… Nikki.”

  I scowled at him.

  Fine. So I wasn’t the most athletic person in the world, unlike my sister who was a CrossFit fiend, but I could handle cleaning up after people. I’d had loads of practice.

  “Rafe, I really need a job, and I am positive I can do this.”

  Skepticism still masked Rafe’s face. But he shrugged. “Your funeral.”

  Right.

  I turned to Fiorella and gave her a slight smile. “When can I start?”

  Her own grin was unhappy. “Let’s do a trial tonight.”

  I swallowed. “Tonight?”

  “Four o’clock. Black slacks, black tee. Slip-proof shoes.”

  I nodded slowly while mentally checking my wardrobe. I had nothing. Shit.

  “No problem,” I lied, but did it damn chipper.

  She gave us both a curt nod, turned on a heel, and clipped away.

  My eyes flew to Rafe. “So, one more favor?”

  His own eyes went to the ceiling. “You need to go shopping?”

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  “Come on, Beanpole. Let’s get this done.”

  8

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered, staring out at the sea of familiar faces that populated Parma.

  It was like Vince had thrown a party and his two hundred closest friends had shown up, with more waiting at the bar. Likely because he was an investor. Great.

  Cristo elbowed me in the ribs. “Table three. Water.”

  He shoved a freshly filled silver pitcher in my hands. I started toward the mass of customers, eyes darting between tables, trying to remember which one was table three.

  “The napkin,” he said, grabbing my elbow and careening me back toward the server station. He wrapped a crisp white napkin around the sweating vessel and tied it in a knot under the handle.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  He just rolled his eyes. Crap.

  “The drips, remember the drips,” he whispered. “Fiorella sees any water drip, she will skin both of us. Remember that, Giorgi Girl.”

  My shoulders hunched up to my earlobes. My God, that name. I preferred Beanpole to Giorgi Girl.

  I had spent the slow part of the evening shadowing Cristo, an aspiring actor and Fiorella’s head busser. He looked like a modern-day Rudolph Valentino, with thick black hair and smoldering eyes. He was also about five feet tall and had a rather colossal head for such a diminutive man. Although most actors I met had jumbo heads, both literally and metaphorically. They all looked normal on screen.

  Anyway, Cristo was not my biggest fan. I didn’t have Presley’s grace or Nik’s athleticism, so I’d spent most of the early evening plodding along beside him, getting in his way. Fumbling the breadsticks, dropping the silverware. Cristo had caught a bread plate that I’d dropped with such dexterity, I’d wondered if he had played baseball as a kid. The cross look on his face had kept me from asking.

  Armed with a no-longer-dripping pitcher, and the I-can-do-this resolve I needed to get through the night, I headed back out to the floor, spying what I thought had to be table three. A party of two had just settled in and were pretending to read the menu, while actually taking in the scene. Their water glasses were still overturned.

  Shoulders back, head up, I walked rather smartly to the table. I flipped the glasses over and began my silent pour. No one wanted to talk to the bussers, Cristo had warned me earlier as he gave my outfit a once-over. Then he’d asked if I was wearing Armani. That was when he’d started calling me Giorgi Girl. Ugh.

  Yes, Rafe had taken me to Giorgio freaking Armani to get clothes that by the end of the night would be covered in tomato sauce and wine.

  “It’s not like you’re gonna keep this job, Beanpole,” he’d said as he handed the cashier an Amex Black. “May as well have some Armani in the old wardrobe.”

  “I won’t be able to get my own place now that I have to repay you for these ludicrous clothes,” I’d groused in return.

  One hundred and fifty dollars for a plain black tee. I was seething. Although the cotton was soft, and the cut made me look like I had a waist. The cigarette pants—a cool two ninety-five—were similarly flattering. I was no clotheshorse, but wearing these items, I got the appeal. Bonus—we’d swept into the store, and the sales associate had looked me up and down as Rafe explained what we needed. Then we’d left. Walked out. An hour later, four sets of the busser ensemble, in two different sizes, had arrived at the apartment. The two sets that hadn’t fit went back via courier.

  So, Armani had its advantages.

  But did one put clothes like this in the washing machine? I didn’t even want to think about the dry-cleaning bill.

  “Jett Benson?” came a gasp of surprise from the table.

  I looked down, and a heart-shaped face stared back at me.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  “Oh my God!” The surprised tone of her voice slithered up my spine. “Aaron, do you know who this is? One of Satan’s Sisters is filling our water glasses!”

  “Uh… I, uh,” I stammered at her and, I guess, Aaron while she dug into her purse.

  “No one will even believe this! I must get a picture with you!” She pulled out her phone and smiled. Huge.

  “No, no pictures,” I said.

  “Really?” She looked disappointed. “I mean, I’d expect that from Presley. I thought she was the bitch in the band.”

  I backed away from the table, trying not to make any more eye contact.

  “How rude,” I heard her complain to her companion as I skulked away.

  “What are you doing?” Cristo hissed at me when I got back to the server station. “Fiorella saw the whole thing, and she’s pissed.”

  “The whole what?” I asked. “I said nothing to them!”

  “You smiled!”

  Was he serious?

  “I did not smile.”

  No. I definitely did not smile.

  “You did.”

  “That was a grimace.”

  “Well, don’t do that either.”

  Breathing in, I reminded myself that I needed this job. I needed the money. Tip payouts could be several hundred a night, Cristo had said. That’d clear the way for an apartment share, easy. It could even make a dent in full-time tuition. I’d not smile—or grimace—for that.

  He snapped his fingers. “Table seven. Clear the salads. Their entrées are coming out.”

  It was all I could do to keep from slapping at his snapping fingers. With a no
d—no smile or grimace—I was off to table seven, wherever the hell that was.

  My eyes scanned the restaurant for empty salad plates, but oh God, this was LA. No one ever finished anything on their plates, not even salad.

  “Table seven, table seven,” I muttered to myself as I tried not to look aimless wandering through the restaurant. A waiter—I think his name was Scott—sidled up beside me.

  “Which table do you need?” he asked, voice low.

  I shot him a desperate look. “Seven.”

  He put his hands on my waist and turned me around. “Two tables to the right,” he said into my ear. The tickle of his breath against the back of my neck sent a not unpleasant shiver down my spine.

  “Thank you,” I said, forcing myself not to smile.

  The stern expression on his face softened when he winked at me. “Anytime.”

  “Stop flirting and put some speed on it,” Cristo hissed as he breezed past me. “Fiorella is watching.”

  I lifted my head to see Fiorella glaring at me from behind the bar. Making eye contact with her was a mistake. She crossed her arms as if daring me to screw up again.

  My resolve built as I headed toward table seven. No way was I going to fail at this. Not while Fiorella was rooting for it. As I noted that the salad plates looked like they’d barely been touched, my eye wandered back to the busy bar, two deep with people waiting for tables. I spied Rafe holding court at the end, circled by a group of women who all looked more or less the same—perfect hair, perfect makeup, perfect boobs, perfect asses. My ears heated while my brain calculated how I fell short of the cascade of perfection that surrounded him.

  Rafe’s attention, however, was not on the beautiful women who made up his orbit. Instead, a measure of discontent was aimed at something across the restaurant. I followed his gaze and saw his scowl zeroed in on Scott.

  Weird.

  Whatever.

  I swept over to table seven and cleared the salads, stacking one plate, the one that had more on it, on top of the other.

  As soon as the bottom of one plate hit the top of the other, I realized my mistake. Fiorella was a staunch believer in vinaigrette dressing, therefore it was the only kind Parma served. It was heavy on the olive oil, and it made the plates slippery suckers. I just barely caught the top plate before it slid right off the oil slick of the lower. A piece of limp lettuce plopped on the pristine bamboo wood floor.