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Juliet: I want to see you later, jackass.
Finn: Good. You know where to find me. I’ll be in my suite by seven.
THIRTEEN
Finn
Of all the insults that Juliet had aimed at me in our acquaintance—that I was a rich snob, that I was an asshole who tried to pay her to go to her sister’s wedding, that I was a douchebag—I found that one had gotten under my skin. It had stuck with me in a way I didn’t like, a way that made me uncomfortable in the odd moments when it bubbled up in my mind.
I’m sure it’s easy for you to take a weekend in a posh Seattle hotel. It isn’t like you have anything else going on.
Sitting in my posh room at this posh hotel, I put my feet up and dialed a familiar number. I needed advice.
Travis White picked up on the third ring. “Yeah,” he mumbled, as if he was half asleep.
“It’s me,” I said. Frowning, I checked the time. Since he was in L.A., we were in the same time zone, and it was six p.m. “Why are you asleep?”
Travis made a mumbling sound, and I heard shuffling. I prayed, briefly and hard, that he didn’t have a woman there in the background. “Hey, Finn. I’m up,” he protested. “I’m up.”
“Did you sleep all day?” I asked. I was more worried than judgmental. Travis had had a rough year with Seven Dog Down breaking up, and he wasn’t handling it well.
“Just a nap,” he said. “I had a flu thing. I’m fine, I swear.”
“I don’t believe you. I’m making this call a FaceTime.”
He groaned. “What are you, my mother?”
“Shut up and hit Accept.”
He did, and I waited while he propped his phone up on a table and sat on a sofa. He’d lost a few pounds since I last saw him, and he’d had his dirty blond hair cut above his ears, though the long strands on top fell over his eyes in sleepy disarray. He was clean shaven, wearing a threadbare navy T-shirt. A silver stud glinted on one earlobe.
He was a handsome guy, rock star handsome, with blue eyes and a sharp jaw, but he hadn’t looked much like the world-famous lead singer of Seven Dog Down recently. He’d crashed hard—mentally, financially, and emotionally—since the band broke up. The split was messy, and the lawsuits involving their management and record label were viciously expensive. Travis had handled the pressure by getting dumped by his famous girlfriend, drunkenly trashing a hotel room, and telling a radio shock jock to go fuck himself during an interview. The media labeled him a problem, but he’d stayed at my house for a month, and I knew the truth of what Travis was—a depressed guy teetering on the edge of chaos while he laughed at danger.
I stared closely at him now, trying to assess him through my phone screen. Travis looked tired and slightly homeless, but at least he didn’t look high.
“Check me out,” he said, lifting his arms from his sides and leaning back so I could see him better. “I’m the picture of health.”
“That isn’t your house,” I said, looking at the sofa and the room behind it. “Where the hell are you?”
“I had to sell the house in Malibu. Lawyer bills. I’m crashing with Andy for a while.”
I didn’t know who Andy was, and I didn’t ask. Andy’s house looked rather nice. I hoped to hell he wasn’t a drug dealer.
“If you need somewhere to stay, you know my security code,” I told him. “Gary loves you.”
Travis grinned and lowered his arms. “I love that dog.”
“I mean it.”
“Thanks, brother. I’m good. Aside from crawling up my ass, what are you calling me for?”
I sighed and rubbed my forehead, willing to admit that Travis was okay, at least for the moment. “I’m calling because I’m having a small crisis.”
“I live in crisis,” Travis said, the truest thing ever spoken. “Shoot.”
“Do you think I should start recording again?”
Travis laughed. It took a minute, because the laugh trailed into coughing, but he recovered. “Is that a serious question?” he finally asked.
