Hidden Gem Short Story Collection (9781301405985) (3 page)

“
Yeah. Nixed that awhile
ago,” Tyler said, looking down into his coffee for a
moment.

Shit. Change the
subject
, Zoe urged herself as she felt
their conversation veering back toward Gemma-related topics. She
couldn’t think of anything though. Luckily, Tyler spoke
again.

“
So how’s
Gavin?”

Seriously?
Zoe bit both lips back and blinked at him in a
way that answered his question.

“
Oh. Shit.” Tyler ran a
hand over his lower lip, grimacing. “Zoe, I... sorry. I don’t read
the tabloids and…”

“
No. Dude. It’s fine.
There was no way for you to know otherwise,” Zoe brushed it off,
trying to look breezy. With no remaining ties to their old group,
there was really no other way for Tyler to know that she and Gavin
had been split for nearly half a year now. “It’s not a big deal at
all,” she said, perhaps in too much of a rush. Tyler nodded but she
caught the brief squint he gave. She flashed him a look. “I’m over
him,” she said, immediately regretting it.
Jesus Christ, Zoe, when did you start sucking at playing it
cool?

“
Schedules,” he said
simply. “It’s hard.”

“
Yeah.” Zoe nodded.
“Better to just… see a bunch of people here and there. I’m sure you
know.”

Tyler tilted his head to the side. “No, but
I understand that rationale.”

Zoe squinted. She suddenly
remembered a detail about him from one of the first times they’d
hung out together. “
Do
you?” she asked.

A quizzical smile touching
his lips, Tyler cocked his head. “What do you mean by that?” he
asked, though just as he did, his phone vibrated on their table. He
looked down at it, cursing quietly. “My manager,” he groaned under
his breath, grabbing it and answering it before looking back up at
Zoe. Eyes narrowed, he mouthed, “
Hold that
thought.”

Suddenly sitting alone, Zoe did just that.
She flashed back to the first time she and Tyler had really hung
out. They were both barely sixteen. It was a week after he’d
finished shooting a cameo for her show, “Outta This World.” Since
they had both hit it off on set, laughing and chatting between
takes, their publicists had arranged for them to have a very public
dinner that his obsessive following could interpret as a date if
they wanted to. Tyler’s PR team seemed to find it amusing to
torture the fans for a bit before releasing a clarifying statement
that he was still very much single.

“
They think it makes them
love me more because they get all stressed out for a week and then
they’re totally relieved when they hear I’m not actually with
anyone,” Tyler had explained sheepishly while they sat at dinner,
the only unaccompanied teenagers at the posh Japanese restaurant on
Santa Monica Boulevard.

“
And in the meantime,
while they think you’re dating me, I get to receive death threats
and know that I’m the reason a million girls are crying themselves
to sleep tonight,” Zoe said with a laugh.

“
Yeah. I’m sorry about
that.”

“
It’s okay, it’s kind of
funny. I mean it’s better that they think you’re dating a girl
instead of knowing like, the truth.”

Tyler frowned. “What’s the truth?” he asked
with such genuine curiosity that Zoe felt immediately confused. She
had assumed that being the biggest pop star on the planet, he was a
thousand times worse than her co-star Marco in terms of having
flings and one-night stands. Winding a lock of her straightened
hair around her finger, she tried to word herself eloquently.

“
Like… you can have any
girl you want.
Don’t
you?”

“
I don’t want just any
girl.”

Zoe burst out laughing so hard that the next
closest table stared. “Sorry,” she said to them insincerely before
turning to Tyler with a dubious look. “Wait. You’re telling me that
you’re exactly who you are in your songs? That’s… crazy. Dude. If I
were you I’d have one of my people round up all the hottest girls
at my concerts and have them waiting for me backstage once I’m
done.”

Tyler stared at her, unsure if he was
shocked or amused by her. He pulled on the collar of his white
button-down. “That’s… not me.”

“
Why not?” Zoe asked
incredulously. “Why have the type of fan base you have if you’re
not going to hook up with them?”

“
Do
you
hook up with your fans?” Tyler
challenged.

“
My fans are mostly girls.
I don’t think they’re into me that way. Pretty sure I’m not
either.” Zoe looked down at the printed chiffon tank top her team
had chosen for her. She made a face, tugging on it until some
cleavage showed. “Once I change my image to something older though,
and I get some dudes in my fan base, you can bet your ass that I’ll
hook up with the hot ones.”

“
You say that
now.”

“
And I’ll say the same
thing in a few years. There are too many gorgeous people in this
town – in this world – and I’m going to get to know all of them,”
Zoe declared triumphantly. “While you keep looking for
one
girl. Wherever she
is.”

Man, I used to be
obnoxious
, Zoe thought as Tyler ended his
calla and returned to their corner table.
I’m probably still obnoxious
, she
realized with a little laugh as he took his seat.

“
So tell me what you meant
by that before,” he said, smirking in anticipation. He had to know
a little of what she meant but she decided last minute not to go
into it.

“
Oh… nothing. I was just
questioning how much you could understand that mindset compared to
yours truly. If you read tabloids you’d know that they’ve been
calling me the female Casanova.”

Tyler raised his eyebrows. “Been
dating?”

“
You could call it that,”
she laughed. So did he.

“
Anyone I
know?”

“
Not personally. But
people you’ve heard of. Probably at least half of them so… twenty
out of the forty?” Zoe replied, smirking as Tyler tried to contain
the look on his face – probably horror. “That was an exaggeration,
by the way.” She shook her head at him.

“
How am I supposed to know
that?” he laughed. “I remember what you said when we were younger.
You were going to get to know every beautiful man in the world or
something.” When Zoe grinned, he shook his head and snorted. “Oh
man. I’m guessing that wasn’t a huge exaggeration just
now.”

“
Hey. It’s not like I just
pick cute guys off the street and bring them into my bed. I don’t
have one-night stands every week. I just hang out with the boys who
give me a little thrill here and there and I keep it short and
sweet. Our schedules – they don’t give us the time to form some
deep connection.”

“
Yes they do. You and I
both have found people with whom we’ve had a
connection.”

“
And then what happened?”
Zoe challenged, eyebrow cocked. But it took all of a second for her
to feel instantly guilty. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as
Tyler cleared his throat, shifting in his seat and looking once
again down at his coffee. “Sorry. I just…”

“
No, it’s okay. It’s true.
There are ups and downs and the downs can be pretty fucking
shitty.”

Zoe nodded, somewhat awed at the fact that
they were having this conversation in public. Thankfully, no one
was close enough to hear.

“
It’s a catch twenty-two,”
she shrugged. “Falling in love. It’s amazing because suddenly
you’re one half of a whole but it’s also crap because… you’re one
half of a whole. Some other person has the power to make you feel
happier than anyone else ever could but they also have the power to
tear you completely apart. Wouldn’t you rather be in total control
of who you are and how you feel?”

Tyler ran a finger absently against his
lower lip. “There are people who think that tradeoff is worth it to
feel the things that love gives you.”

“
And what are those
things?”

“
Emotional and physical
connection, gratification, knowing there’s someone who’s in tune
with every part of you, someone who thinks about you the second the
wake up and before they go to bed. Who’ll always be there for
you.”

“
Until he’s not.” Zoe
swallowed. “And then the high of all those feelings turns into the
worst low in the world, which doesn’t seem worth it when I can
almost replicate that high by getting to know other boys. Lots of
them, from everywhere.”

Tyler made a face. “This is a good time to
point out that quantity doesn’t replace quality.”

“
But it still makes me
happy. It still gives me a thrill, even if it’s not the same as the
one I got with Gavin,” Zoe argued, her mouth snapping shut the
second she said his name. She hadn’t planned on it but it had just
come out. She wet her lips, looking down at the table as she
continued, quieter now. “This…
true
love thing. Yeah, it feels incredible and
nothing’s like it. But it’s not worth it if you get to either have
that feeling or the opposite, where you’re reeling and hurting so
bad that your chest actually hurts. Because apparently, heartache
is real.”

“
Yes,” Tyler said, as if
it were obvious. He laughed when Zoe flashed him a look.

“
Sorry, I just thought it
was this cheesy myth you used to sell albums.”

Tyler pretended to wince. “Damn, you had to
go there.”

“
Kidding. But I’m just
saying. I feel satisfied with the way I love.”

“
Do you?”

Zoe narrowed her eyes at Tyler. “Don’t sass
me. I do. And I want other people to adopt my style of love so the
world can be free of heartache and I’ll win the Nobel Peace
Prize.”

“
That’s not what the Nobel
Peace Prize is for.”

“
Well, it should
be.”

“
And they’re just quick
fixes, anyway.”

“
What are?”

“
The guys you see. The
satisfaction is temporary.”

“
Hey, it’s satisfaction,”
Zoe said, unable to help a grin as she thought about certain boys
who were particularly good when it came to providing on that front.
Drew was one. Olivier was another. “That’s good enough for
me!”

Tyler laughed, wrinkling his nose at the
expression on her face. “Right. But honestly, is it? When was the
last time you had a date where the conversation wasn’t just stupid,
surface stuff? I’m talking deep, meaningful conversation that made
you think hard and learn new things but laugh your ass off and feel
more attracted to the other person when you didn’t think it was
even possible? Those kinds of conversations are like the foreplay
to the foreplay. You share a connection and it gives context to
everything that follows. And it makes it feel that much
better.”

Jesus
. Zoe stared at Tyler. She shook her head. “God, you’re such
a lyricist.”

He laughed. “Really though. Think about
it.”

“
I don’t have to,” she
retorted.

Because she knew the answer. The last night
she’d had like that was in the spring. April Thirtieth. She was
somewhere outside Beauford, New Jersey with Gavin, at his Aunt
Mira’s lake house. The place had essentially become his home that
summer since Mira no longer lived there, having moved back to
Manhattan to live with her new husband, Hudson. With three days off
in her schedule, Zoe had spent every one of them there. She had
played house with Gavin, going grocery shopping with him to buy
eggs and bacon, which she’d burn while attempting to cook for him
in the mornings. He still ate it all, anyway. She had let him pour
her glass of red wine at night, after his own failed attempt at
cooking dinner. Over Chinese takeout, they would watch whatever was
on television since they weren’t really paying attention to the
screen anyway. And after falling asleep on the couch for a few
hours, they’d go out around two in the morning and jump into the
lake – the only part of their day that resembled their usual
spontaneity, the unpredictable havoc that dictated their schedules
outside of their pretend world of domestic house life.

“
Is there anything in this
water that might bite my naked ass?” Zoe had asked, wary since on
that final night, she had stripped down to nothing when on the
nights before, she’d at least worn her bra and boy
shorts.

Gavin shook his head. “Besides me? No.”

“
Ha. Seriously though –
none?”

“
You’re good. I know this
lake. I used to do this all the time in high school,” Gavin
grinned, wading over to her and pulling her into his muscled chest.
His eyes looked greener than ever with moonlit water reflecting off
of them.

“
This isn’t the house you
grew up in though, is it?” Zoe asked, confused as she wrapped her
arms around his neck. He shook his head.

“
I grew up in the Beauford
house. Kind of. At least during high school. Before that I lived in
the Upper East Side with my parents.”

“
But then you brought a
capybara to your fancy school and they kicked you out.”

“
Yep.”

Zoe giggled as Gavin kissed the crook of her
neck. “So which place do you consider your hometown? Manhattan or
Beauford?”