“You were great,” she insisted. “Everyone was going crazy. I can’t believe you haven’t been signed yet.”
Dakota made a “what can you do?” gesture. “Come and meet the guys,” he said, and led her down the hallway to the tiny, graffiti-covered dressing room where the guys were enthusiastically recapping the show, surrounded by a jumble of speakers, instruments, and power cords.
“Dude, you screwed me on the count for ‘Liar’s Game’!”
“No, you screwed me with that solo, you went three beats too long!”
Ana Lucia, Brie, and Meredith were squeezed onto an ancient, peeling couch in the corner, and another couple of girls loitered nearby, trying to look as if they didn’t care they had nowhere to sit.
“Reed, McCoy, and AJ.” Dakota pointed to each in turn. “Guys, this is Hallie.”
“So this is the girl.” Reed gave Hallie a long look. He was dirty blond in a leather vest and jeans, tattoos creeping down his arms. “Tell us the truth, he didn’t really pull you out of the ocean, right?”
“No, that happened.” Hallie and Dakota exchanged a private look.
Reed groaned. “He hasn’t shut up about it all week. The grand rescue!”
Hallie tried not to show her excitement. He was talking about her! He was thinking about her!
Dakota shoved the stocky drummer, McCoy, aside to make room for them on the couch, and soon, the guys were loudly arguing about the set list again, and whether their song order needed switching. “I’m just saying,” AJ argued, from behind a curtain of dark hair, “if they’re dancing, we don’t want to bring them down!”
Dakota shifted closer to Hallie. “I’m really glad you came,” he murmured, lips brushing her ear. He slipped an arm around her shoulders, and Hallie could have sworn her heart leaped right out of her chest.
“Me too,” she whispered back.
The conversation meandered, but Hallie only noticed the warmth of Dakota’s body against hers, until Ana Lucia cleared her throat and fixed Reed with a dazzling smile. “Who’s up for an after-party? I can get us into Soho House. Some of us,” she added, glancing at the other girls.
“Sure, sounds good.” There was a chorus of nonchalant agreement from the band. They headed outside, but once they were all on the sidewalk, Dakota hung back.
“Maybe I should get this one home. Since you’re still in recovery.” He squeezed Hallie’s hand, and although she was dying to discover the classy members-only club she’d read about in all the magazines, she was dying to spend some time alone with Dakota even more.
“He’s right!” Hallie exclaimed. She tucked her arm through Dakota’s, and leaned against him, adopting a tired expression. “You guys go ahead, have fun.”
“Call tomorrow?” Ana Lucia gave her an extravagant hug. “We’ll do brunch.”
“Fab!”
Hallie watched them pile into a pair of cabs and drive away. “So, where to now?” she asked.
Dakota grinned. “I said I was taking you home.”
“Sure, that’s what you said . . .” Hallie grinned back. The sidewalk was bathed in neon; billboards and streetlights glowing above them. It was beautiful: the buzz of the city vibrating, and she was there, in the heart of it all. With him.
Dakota paused, twisting his fingers through hers. “There is this one place I want to show you. . . .”
Dakota took her up to Mulholland; driving the narrow, twisted road through the canyon, until they crested the top of the Hollywood Hills, the valley sprawling out below them. He parked off the side of the road, and helped Hallie up beside him on the hood of his car.
“This is my favorite place in the whole city,” he told her, gazing out at the blanket of lights: a sprawl of city blocks, the rush of red and white on the freeway, snaking out into the distance. It seemed to Hallie like the whole world was spread before them.
“So many people,” she said softly, trying to imagine the individual lives marked by each tiny flicker of light.
“Sometimes it’s daunting, you know — like, everyone down there has their dreams, and I’m just another kid. Insignificant.” Dakota’s expression was open, almost hungry. Hallie watched him, watching the world. “But then, I think, I’m up here; I made it this far. I can be that one, in a hundred — a million. We both can,” he added with a smile. “Together.”
Hallie’s breath caught as Dakota turned to her; reached to gently touch her cheek. The moment stretched: eyes locked, the very air between them alive with electricity. And then he was leaning in, breath soft on her lips. Closer. Closer.
There.
She closed her eyes, falling into his kiss like it was gravity, like she was drowning all over again. And this time, again, he was the one to hold her up. A hand pressed against the back of her head; her fingers clutching his shirt. Hallie held on as if for dear life, but she knew, it was too late.
She was falling in love with him, and there was no saving her now.
She should have kissed him.
It had been four months now since Grace had shared that almost kiss with Theo on the dark street overlooking San Francisco; four long months in a new town with little else to do but go to school, work weekends at a fancy macaroon store in Beverly Hills, and pull that night apart in her mind to ponder every tiny detail. The streetlights bathing them in neon, his lips so close to hers. She could remember that flutter of possibility in her veins, the invisible force that had seemed to draw her closer, closer . . .
But whatever angle she studied it from, no matter what excuses and justifications she designed — Grace came up with exactly the same answer:
She should have kissed him.
It had been her one shot, her parting Hail Mary pass. And who knew? Maybe if she’d been impulsive, or reckless, or bold, then she would have done it: just blocked out all the reasons why she couldn’t, and kept reaching for him, the way she longed to. But the moment had passed — no, not passed, she’d fled from it! — leaving Grace to face the miserable truth: she wasn’t that girl. She didn’t kiss boys, let alone ones who had never indicated anything more than platonic (or, worse still, perhaps even brotherly) concern. She couldn’t throw herself at someone, never minding the potential ruin to their friendship. She couldn’t be so brave.
Now, when Grace thought back to that night — whenever she caught a glimpse of the photo Theo had taken of them, now pinned above her dresser; or saw Hallie and Dakota snuggling together; or felt her phone vibrate with what might be a text from him — her regret wasn’t so much that she hadn’t kissed him; more, that she wasn’t the kind of girl who ever would. Aside from the fact that he was older, and disarmingly cute, and technically related to her (even if by marriage, not birth), he was, well, Theo. The idea of having the right to press her lips to his, or slip her fingers through his tufts of brown hair, or simply slide her arm around his waist and nestle in the crook of his arm . . . it was ludicrous. She may as well decide to kiss the Hollywood superstar who lined up ahead of her in Whole Foods, for all the chance she had.