Scene 48

A stoop-shouldered woman in an Uncle Sam hat swung a hemp cord necklace toward Dillon.

"Name on grain of rice? Unique gift for special boyfriend."

Dillon would have ignored her, having already managed to avoid the other hundred clamoring Venice Beach street vendors, but the word boyfriend made her laugh.

"Not today, thanks."

The woman's smirk turned wry. "Perhaps for pretty girlfriend? I have all names. If not your spelling, I make you one."

Dillon paused in front of her table. The last thing she needed was a cheap boardwalk trinket, but it was Kam's birthday. They'd agreed on no presents, just time spent together, but she thought the chintzy tourist souvenir might make her smile. A token reminiscent of the stuffed dolphin won on the pier in what felt like a lifetime prior.

"Alright." She leaned against the cart. "You'll make one custom?"

"Anything you like."

She sorted through the hollow glass charms, choosing a sea turtle. "Can you put two grains in there?"

The woman shrugged. "Ten dollar more."

"Deal." Dillon told her her name, and then spelled out Kam- Kameryn.

"Ohhh, with K , like big movie star." The woman's eyes grew to a disproportionate size behind her magnifying glass as she printed the letters with impossibly steady hands. "She live near here, you know? Not far."

"Oh yeah?" Dillon cocked a disinterested hip, running her fingers through a box of beads. "Smashing."

"Must be nice. Live in big glass tower. Another fifteen dollar—I show you where."

Pulling a pair of twenties from her pocket, Dillon politely passed on the tour. Wouldn't the woman have been disappointed to learn that same big movie star had already given her the backstage, VIP, full-benefits package entirely free of charge?

Kam's flat was only a few blocks away, just past the Santa Monica Pier.

It was as excessive as Kam had warned her it would be. A grandiose rooftop suite screaming with all the amenities of the Hollywood elite. There was no semblance to the life of the girl who'd felt her luck had peaked when she signed her first blockbuster contract for less than a tenth of what her male co-stars made. Recently, a headline had run in the Daily Mail reporting the final Sand Seekers film had landed Kameryn Kingsbury one of the most lucrative deals in cinema history.

The luxuriant penthouse overlooking the ocean was a glaring confirmation.

"It's okay, you can tell me you hate it," Kam had said a week prior when Dillon first arrived. "I know it's ridiculous, especially for how little time I spend here."

Dillon had given a cursory glance through the chef's kitchen, before stopping in the palatial living room surrounded by walls of glass. "I mean, it is a bit cramped," she'd teased, "but it's got you—and a kettle—so it'll do in a pinch."

"Well, I'm glad I got billing above the kettle."

"Who's to say I listed my necessities in order of priority?"

Kam rolled her eyes. "You're an ass—" but the rebuke was cut off in a shrill of laughter as Dillon caught her belt loop and dragged her to her.

"An arse who's glad to be here," she whispered against her temple, and realized she meant it.

For the first time since her failure to qualify for Los Angeles, the world felt a little brighter. A little less daunting. Simply being with Kam restored a glimmer of hope for a future she'd no longer been able to see clearly.

Three weeks earlier, her defeat in Yokohama had felt paralyzing. It had taken something out of Dillon she didn't know how to reawaken.

The loss had left the upcoming race in Leeds a question mark—one she still wasn't sure how to answer. She no longer knew if she had what it took to drag herself back to the starting line.

She'd failed by two-tenths of a second.

Her knee was giving her trouble—unquestionable damage done from pushing too hard, too fast—but it wasn't her fitness that left her uncertain. Had it been her body that let her down, or even the unexpected derailment of the penalty, she would have accepted the loss more easily. Injuries, time faults—they were the unavoidable variables of competing.

But it was her mind that hadn't felt right. Her conviction that went slipping.

Coming off the bike in a near-perfect transition, she'd found the first steps of her run plagued with unwelcome thoughts that snaked their way to the surface. Thoughts she hadn't known how to silence.

If she qualified—even at the time, with a strong lead, her mind had been set on if , not when —what came next?

There were two scenarios at the Olympics.

One: she won.

The other: she didn't.

It should have only been the latter that frightened her. The concern that, if she lost, she still wouldn't know how to concede. She'd promised Seren if it got to be too much—and it had gotten to be too much—she'd hang up her ambitions and walk away. She knew she didn't have another season in her, let alone a four-year campaign. But if a loss was what it came to, would she really be able to let it go and give up on her gold medal dreams?

She didn't know. And it bothered her even more that the alternative outcome came with its own set of worries.

What happened if she won and it still wasn't enough? If she still felt this hollow? This incomplete? What purpose did she have if there was nothing left to prove?

It was that idea that scared her more than anything.

Over and over, she'd replayed the events of Yokohama. She'd asked herself a thousand times if she'd been careless with her goggles, purposely flirting with the possibility of a penalty? When it came to the footrace at the finish, could she swear to herself she'd truly given everything? Or had she held back, justifying the loss on the pain in her knee?

The truth was, she wasn't sure.

And still today, three weeks later, her future felt unclear.

However, of one thing she was certain, being there with Kam—spending the days cloistered behind the walls of the laughably lavish suite, lounging in the rooftop pool, swimming at dawn in the sea—had made her failure of Yokohama more bearable, and alleviated her all-consuming thoughts on the upcoming decision on Leeds.

Dillon pocketed the sea turtle and told the old street vendor to keep the change.

On a different morning, she would have walked the long way back to Kam's flat via the water. The cushion of the sand had proven good for her recovery after a run. But there wasn't time for that. Tonight, Kam was hosting a small party in celebration of her twenty-sixth birthday. It was something she'd been planning ever since returning from her on-location filming in the Middle East.

Dillon wasn't looking forward to it. Despite knowing the people coming were Kam's most intimate friends—all of which were privy to her relationship with Dillon—the thought of socializing with them made her uneasy. She wasn't sure how she'd fit in.

But today wasn't about her, and she wanted nothing more than for Kam to have the perfect evening.

"The secret to good fondue," Dani Hallwell gave a practiced flip of her hair over the strapless neckline crossing her shoulders, "is in the amount of wine added. The more, the merrier."

Dillon watched from the corner of her eye as Kam's co-star, Elliott, the target of Dani's attention—and ill-advised cooking counsel—glanced up from the hors-d'oeuvres table. "Is it? Well, my compliments to the chef. This is truly epicurean."

Misconstruing his polite acknowledgment for interest, Dani slapped on an air of authority. All evening she'd been attempting to engage the actor in conversation, and apparently decided this was her golden opportunity. "If I were to guess, I'd say a 1959 Latour was used in this specific dish. I tend to have a good palate for these things."

Elliott paused with a roasted Brussels sprout midway to his mouth. "A red wine? In fondue?"

Dillon had to hand it to Dani—the ignorant twit covered her blunder with a convincing wave of her hand. "A little kitchen secret. It's what makes the cheese so creamy."

"Huh." He popped the sprout into his mouth and looked to where Dillon was setting out flatware in the kitchen, offering her a subtle this-chick-is-full-of-shit wag of his brow. "How odd."

Dillon had to look away to cover her smile.

She'd been surprised how much she liked him. Despite everything Kam told her, she'd still half expected him to be the suave, self-preening Lothario he presented to the media. But he was far from it. She found him amusingly self-deprecating. Unexpectedly cultured. When he asked her questions about herself, his interest seemed genuine.

"Aren't you an accomplished culinarian, Dillon?" he said now, spearing a prawn off the table. "I think Kam mentioned that."

"I don't know about accomplished, but I know my way around a kitchen."

"I'm curious," he darted a glance toward Dani, before returning his attention to Dillon, "what's your go-to for fondue? I'd always heard white wine or vodka."

Dillon wasn't thrilled to be dragged into the conversation. Dani's distaste for her was evident; she'd been making digs at her all night. But out of respect for Kam, she'd ignored them. She knew the turbulent friendship was already on the rocks and had no wish to contribute to its downfall.

"Most recipes tend to call for a dry white, but I'm sure there's a lot of room for variation."

"At least we can all acknowledge the most important thing is alcohol," snapped Dani.

Dillon should have let it go. The woman was a petulant socialite with less than two brain cells. But it was wearing, the way she glared at her for no reason. The way she felt she was an expert on everything.

"Not in this particular dish," she muttered, closing the cutlery drawer.

Dani's eyes flashed to her. "And how would you know?"

"Because I substituted apple cider."

"Don't break my heart and tell me you made all this, Dillon," said Grady Dunn, arriving with a martini in hand. "I was hoping to beg Kam for the name of her caterer."

"Now you know to refuse an invitation to Dunn's poker game on Thursday nights," Elliott teased. "He'll be trying to trade you a buy-in for an appetizer."

Dillon didn't have the time to laugh before Dani had once again turned herself into the center of attention.

"Oh, my God!" She dramatically covered her mouth, staring at Dillon. "I wasn't thinking when I mentioned the wine in the fondue. Of course, you would substitute." She lowered her voice into a pseudo-whisper. "I forgot you were… well, you know, that you had a… um, drinking problem." She cringed.

Blindsided by the comment, Dillon didn't know what to say. The way Dani made it sound—that's not how it had been. Had Kam really told her that?

"Are you an idiot?" Elliott hissed behind her back, his vehemence directed at Dani.

Dillon's entire body tensed as she laid out the remainder of the cutlery. It wasn't like her to find herself embarrassed. Who cared what the little bitch thought? But it was Elliott's defense, and Grady's sympathetic glance, that brought an unwelcome rush of heat to her cheeks.

"I don't know where you heard that," she said, managing to keep her voice indifferent, "but you're mistaken. I skipped the wine because Trader Joe' s didn't carry an unoaked chardonnay with high enough acidity to keep the gruyère from stringing together. So I chose a better alternative." She turned, crossing the kitchen to the wet bar, her heart pounding an angry meter.

There was a bottle of Beluga Gold and dry vermouth sitting on the counter, left over from where she'd stirred Kam her favorite vodka martini.

"I don't drink during race season because it makes it harder to recover." She pulled a glass from the hanging rack. It wasn't the entire truth, but it was none of anyone else's business. She wasn't willing to accept a label for something she hadn't struggled with in many years.

So fuck Dani Hallwell for trying to humiliate her.

She uncorked the vodka. "But you know what, it's Kam's birthday—what better reason to make an exception?"

Dillon didn't look up from stirring her third martini. She'd known Kam would seize the opportunity to interrogate her the moment she was alone, so it was no surprise when the familiar scent of Miss Dior cut through the aroma of vermouth.

"Hey." Fingertips brushed her elbow. "Is everything okay?"

"Cracking." Dillon drew a paring knife through the rind of a lemon. "Never better."

"Dillon." In response to the sarcasm, Kam pressed her fingers firmly against her arm. "What's going on?"

"Did you really tell her I was an alcoholic?" Dillon finally turned. Her gaze flicked to where Dani was standing on the threshold of the balcony, holding Grady's wife hostage to another me -centered soliloquy. "Is that what you tell everyone?"

"What?" Stung, Kam dropped her hand. "I've never said anything like that." She lowered her voice, aware of the way her words carried across the open floor plan. "When she asked me what alcohol to bring, I told her you didn't drink. That's the only thing I said."

"But apparently that's what you think?"

It was a cheap shot. She knew it the moment she saw the hurt sweep across Kam's face.

She knew Dani had only come looking for trouble. She should have turned the other cheek.

But if Dillon was honest with herself, she knew she'd just been waiting for an excuse. Whatever reason she could find to palliate the guilt of taking that first sip.

"How would I know what to think, Dillon?" Kam stepped back. Her friend Sophie called her name from the dining room; they were ready to light the candles. "You never tell me anything."

Leaning against the wet bar, Dillon set the glass to her lips, watching her walk away.

She was borderline drunk—she knew that. Half a decade without alcohol followed by back-to-back-to-back martinis tended to have that effect.

But she couldn't bring herself to care.

She'd forgotten what it felt like—the rush of endorphins delivering all the highs of a win without the struggle or work it took to get there. The way the burn of vodka crept into all the hollow places, filling her with temporary peace.

She watched as Grady carried out the two-tier cake and they all sang Happy Birthday . For a moment, Kam's eyes found hers as she made her wish, but by the time Dillon convinced her lips into a smile, Kam had already looked away.

The night slogged on. There was a toast to Kam, parlor games, a competitive round of movie trivia Dillon used as justification to get another drink.

By midnight, the small group had dwindled. From her place by the window, Dillon saw Elliott check his watch. Grady and his wife shifted in their seats. Dillon was tired, the effects of the alcohol waning. She was ready to be alone with Kam. She owed her an apology.

But Dani appeared to have no intention of leaving.

Unlike the other guests, who'd made little fanfare of their exotic gifts—ranging from L.R. Sims' bestowal of a photography session with Annie Leibovitz, to Elliott's ten-day excursion on the exclusive atoll of Tetiaroa, or even the diamond-encrusted bottle of Glenfiddich Waylon MacArthur had discreetly sent over via courier—Dani seized on the opportunity of the captive audience, commanding attention to the center of the room.

"Oh," she exclaimed loudly, as if an afterthought had struck her, digging a palm-size navy blue parcel out of her Louis Vuitton purse. The glance she cast toward Dillon held the hint of a challenge. "I almost forgot!" She handed the box to Kam. "It's just a little thing, but I did have it made custom…"

Caught off guard at the interruption from her conversation with Grady, Kam tugged the filigree ribbon loose, flipping the box open.

"I—" The word hung in the abrupt silence. "It's… wow, Dani."

From the reflection in the vase beside Kameryn, Dillon could see it was a necklace. A heavy chain of yellow gold hung with an emerald-studded star pendant. It amazed Dillon, after so many years, that Dani still knew Kam so little. That her own love of showy flamboyance blinded her to Kam's preference for the understated. Delicate chains. Petite charms. Her fondness for silver…

Impatient at Kam's hesitation, Dani snatched up the necklace to display it to the room.

"Twenty-two emeralds—your birthstone, of course—to celebrate every year of our friendship. And the star goes without saying. It's pure gold, so I took the liberty of including an insurance policy."

"‘ It's just a little thing ,'" Elliott mimicked Dani's voice with surprising accuracy. "Says the woman handing out bespoke Harry Winston as she goes out of her way to pretend it's nothing." He rattled the ice cubes around his glass before tipping back its contents. The remnants of his limited filter had vanished, down the hatch with the whiskey. "That's the kind of gift I typically reserve when I'm trying to get someone to sleep with me. Look out, Dillon," he winked in her direction, "you might have some competition."

Dani shot him a hostile glare. She was noticeably drunk, but not so drunk as to mistake his taunting for playful banter. All evening he'd called her out on her showboating. There was no question he didn't like her.

She ruffled herself, clinging to her air of superiority. "It's hardly surprising a guy like you has to buy his way into a woman's bed. Indisputable proof money can't buy good breeding."

"Ironic, coming from the woman gasconading a thirty-thousand-dollar hunk of metal while trying to pass it off for anything other than what it is—a last-ditch-effort buy-in."

"It's almost like you're jealous. Perhaps I'm not the one with my eye on Kameryn?"

"‘A hit. A very palpable hit,'" Elliott covered his heart with dramatic flare, entirely amused at the irony of her accusations. It was evident Dani wasn't privy to his secrets. "‘False face must hide what the false heart doth know.'"

"Oh please," Dani huffed, "take your Bible verses elsewhere."

"Methinks you've mistaken MacBeth for Matthew ."

Oblivious to the reference, and furious at his uncensored—however warranted—roasting, Dani spun her focus back to Kameryn.

"As I was saying," her knuckles were white where she clutched the medallion, "as the friend who knows you better than anyone—I wanted to give you something personal. Something a little more intimate than, oh, say a trip to French Polynesia." She cast Elliott another withering glare.

Elliott mimed a tennis serve, tossing a balled-up napkin onto the floor. "Game, set, match. All that blustering and you're still falling one point short of a victory. Because something tells me—if bequeathing the most intimate gift is the killshot of the evening—it's Dillon who's got the one-up on all of us."

"Okay," Grady—who'd remained silent through the back-and-forth exchange—laughed, clapping his hands to his knees while shooting his wife the universal let's-get-out-of-here signal. "On that note, I think it's time—"

"And what exactly would that be, Elliott?" Dani challenged, ignoring Grady's attempt to break the tension. She was unwilling to let it go. Unwilling to accept that Kam's life no longer revolved around her. "I mean, honestly," she shifted her gaze and, with it, the focus of her anger, across the room to Dillon. "I'm trying to understand: what exactly does she have to offer?"

"Dani!" Kam warned. All playful raillery had departed, and what had started with Elliott's flippant spar of words had turned into something darker. But heedless of Kam's sharp rebuke, the woman plowed ahead with all her pent-up fury.

"Cheap costume jewelry?" she waved her hand toward the lovespoon hanging in the shadow of Kam's throat. "The thrill of an illicit relationship? Oh, let me guess: the promise of a gold medal?" She laughed, her caustic words rattling like gravel. "What a joke. I mean, let's just call a spade a spade—she's got you wrapped around her little finger, Kam. All that money spent on her medical bills and the truth is, she's just a washed-up has-been!"

Kam was immediately on her feet. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Dani!?"

Somewhere behind the cannonade of blood rushing between her ears, Dillon was aware of Kam's outrage. Aware of angry voices. The breaking of a glass. The slamming of a door.

But it was little more than background noise, like the static of a radio submerged in water.

She found herself on the balcony, her flaming cheeks little soothed by the breeze creeping up from the sea.

Had her mind been clear—had she not plunged headfirst into a bottle of self-pity—she wouldn't have left it to Kam to defend her. She could hold her own against an imbecile like Dani. But tonight, she'd only wanted to get away. To escape into the shadows.

She stood leaning over the glass railing, trying to catch her breath. Her anger went so much deeper than the vitriol spewed by Dani. It was so much more than just one night... one month… one race… one injury… one rollercoaster of a year.

She hurt in ways she couldn't describe. Ways that had nothing to do with the injuries, the surgeries, the wear and tear on her body. There was part of her that had begun to forget how to push back the hollowness threatening to rise. And another part—a more frightening part—that no longer cared.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the little glass sea turtle with its two grains of rice tucked neatly in its shell. The gift seemed so ridiculous now.

What exactly does she have to offer?

The insult had been flung right through her—as if she wasn't even there.

Behind her, footsteps sounded on the tile. Slow. Tentative. She didn't have to look to know they belonged to Kam.

"Dillon?"

Quickly curling her fingers, she hid the turtle in the palm of her hand.

"I…" Kam's voice trailed off as she stepped beside her. Their shadows touched, the misshapen lines blurring into a single silhouette, but the physical distance between them felt unsettling.

A long silence passed. Below them, the lights of the pier continued to glitter, a spectacle of bokeh splashed across the black backdrop of the shore.

"I'm sorry," Kam finally whispered through a shaky breath. "You know none of what she said is true."

Dillon watched a couple walk hand-in-hand across the sand, disappearing beneath the pilings. "I know."

"She's a jealous bitch. She always has been. And I'm sorry I ever let her—"

"Kam." Dillon interrupted her. She didn't want to talk about Dani. "I think I'm going to go home for a while."

From her peripheral, she could see Kam's entire body stiffen. See her fingers grip the salt-crusted rail. "Please." The word hung on the verge of tears. "Please, don't. What happened tonight—"

Dillon couldn't bring herself to look at her. "It's not you, Kam. Or even her. Or honestly anything to do with tonight at all. It's…"

How could she explain? It was so many things she didn't know how to talk about. Feelings she had to sort through.

It wasn't new. It was how she felt after her DNF in Yokohama. The same as it had been the Christmas morning she found out Kam would be a Hollywood star. It was the feeling of being told she would never race again after her accident. And the way she felt the day she learned her dad had died.

"I just need a little time."

She needed to get back to training. She couldn't focus here. Being with Kam made it too comfortable to forget what she wanted. Too easy to quit on herself.

She's just a washed-up nobody .

Leeds was five weeks away. At whatever cost, she was going to qualify.

Dani could go fuck herself.

"Are you coming back?" Kam's voice was carefully neutral. The question felt so loaded, so much more implied than what was asked.

"Yeah," she said after a long pause.

Kam passed the back of her hand across her eyes, her face hidden in shadow. "Is that a promise, Dillon?"

"Yes." She breathed the word through a strained smile, adding it to the long list of promises getting harder to keep. "You can't get rid of me that easily."

Kam struggled through a deep breath before turning to face her, a trail of mascara darkening her cheeks. "You know I love you, right? More than all of this."

She didn't need to define this . They were standing on a glass balcony a dozen floors above the Pacific Ocean. Kam's face was plastered on every bus that lumbered down the street. Taylor Swift had left a voicemail singing her happy birthday. The Cartier diamonds hanging from her ears could have put a deposit on a Lamborghini.

Dillon wanted to reach out. To touch her. To smooth the tear streaks from her face. Stains that never should have been there, especially tonight.

But, she didn't.

"You're daft, Kam-Kameryn," she forced another smile instead.

This time, Kam smiled back, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm going to make us a cup of coffee. Will you come inside?"

"I'll be right behind you."

When she had gone, Dillon released a deep exhale, feeling her entire body sag. Her knee ached, the mercy of the alcohol long faded, and an unfamiliar sting came from her palm. It was the sea turtle, she realized, unclenching her fist. She looked at the little creature for a long minute—at the incongruity of the names trapped inside—and then allowed the figurine to slip from her fingers, disappearing over the railing into the dark.