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“Uh, I guess—” Remy said, looking at Vivi, hoping the pain in his eyes wasn’t too profound. “My brother was an addict. But he’s clean now. My family is really religious…” He stumbled, unsure where to go next. What constituted a scandal in Vivi Swan’s world? He swallowed, mentally thumbing through his secrets.
“Religious how? Cult religious?” Aspen asked.
“Aspen, you’re sort of intense,” Vivi broke in gently and laid her hand on top of Remy’s for a fraction of a second. It was enough to make his heart race and breath slow at once, which made him feel even more unhinged, a car engine trying in vain to turn over.
“Vivi, I’m just trying to make sure we’re not in the middle of a Scientology disaster. You remember what happened to Serena Evanson?” Aspen said politely.
“My family is Pentecostal,” Remy said before Vivi could respond.
“Scary religious, not cult religious. Okay. Any DUIs? Drug arrests? Hookers?”
“No.”
“I’m serious about the hookers—ever been to a massage parlor? That counts.”
“No.”
Aspen said, “Okay. I’ll leak that you’re working on a song together. Just loose, casual, because-he’s-on-the-tour-anyway type stuff. Do you want me to call Noel’s managers?”
“Call George, but don’t call Noel. I’ll handle him,” Vivi said, pulling her hand back and sounding battered. “After yesterday’s disaster with him, I need to be the one to head it all off.”
“Okay. Remy, make sure you look clean and put-together when you leave. You need to be carrying your laptop where everyone can see it. Put together a notebook and writeUntitled Vivi Swan Songat the top, carry it so if there’s a photo, people can see it. Vivi, make sure you stand in the doorway for a second, have an instrument—you’ve got a guitar on the bus, right? Make sure you’ve got it in your hands.”
“Got it. Thanks, Aspen,” Vivi said, voice sounding a little gentler, a little more relaxed. Remy wondered if it was the caffeine taking effect or the fact there was now a plan for the whole Remy-slept-here thing.
“Literally what I’m here for,” Aspen said. “I’ll call back in three hours to let you know if anything leaked, okay?”
“Thanks,” Vivi said and hung up before Aspen could respond—though Remy got the impression traditional phone etiquette wasn’t really a thing with the two of them.
“I’m so sorry,” Remy said again, slower this time, wishing he could crack himself open and show how really, truly, very sorry he was.
Vivi nodded and sort of half smiled. “I convinced you to stay.”
“But still.”
“But still,” she agreed. “It might be nothing. Better safe than sorry, though.”
“Hey, I understand,” Remy said reassuringly, though given the fact there were still pillow lines on his face, he wasn’t sure he was being particularly convincing.
They sat in silence for a long moment, Vivi sipping her coffee, the idea of a smile toying at her lips. Remy ran his fingers along the lip of his laptop. It was the sort of silence that wasn’t easy or simple but was so warm and rose-scented, he didn’t want to break it. He was content to let it stretch out, dissipate into nothingness, rather than cut into it directly. When Vivi finally sighed, they both had the look of people rising from sleep.
“What I said before, about the disaster—with Noel, I mean…” she said.
“Nondisclosure,” Remy reminded her. “I won’t say anything. And I don’t know anything about it anyway.”
Vivi looked some combination of wounded and relieved, an expression that made her eyes wider and lips more heart-shaped all at once. “No, it’s not that. It’s…things are sort of tense with me and Noel. It’s hard, in this industry. You’re not just dating a person, you’re dating a brand. And, well…Noel’s brand isn’t always my thing. But the clean-cut boys were always breaking my heart, so when our managers introduced us, I figured I’d give a broody bad boy a shot, you know?” She forced a laugh at the end, like she was working hard to make the phrase into a joke if the conversation turned that way.
“I can see how that’d be a problem. Your brand is so…” Remy began with a nod but found himself afraid to finish. Glitter? Sparkles? Revenge? Romance? The words sounded both like an insult and woefully incomplete—like describing himself simply asshortor Val asangular. “Your brand doesn’t mesh with his,” Remy said, trying to save the sentence.
Vivi gave him a sardonic look, all eyes and a half smile. “No,” she said then inhaled. “My brand is Disney love. Kissing and grand gestures and getting ice cream with your girlfriends when he leaves you. It doesn’t really line up great with dark-poetry eyes.”
“Maybe he’ll become less…dark?” Remy offered, unsure what else to say—it wasn’t like he felt comfortable shit-talking her boyfriend to her, and he was hardly the guy to give sincere relationship advice.
“Ha,” Vivi said with a humorless laugh.
“What about you, then? Maybe you can go dark? Like that last scene inGrease. He won’t change, so you put on leather pants and go to the carnival. And then a car inexplicably flies,” he said, and it made Viviactuallysmile—which made Remy feel like he’d slain a Noel-Reid-shaped dragon.
“The flying car, I could work with. That feels on-brand. The leather pants…don’t think I can go there,” she said, still grinning, still making him feel lightweight. She exhaled. “Noel would be into that, though. And hey, we could share eyeliner.”
