MY FATHER WAS giving me a strange-looking grin over FaceTime the following Monday.
"Seriously, why are you looking at me like that?" I asked for what felt like the millionth time, and his smile only seemed to grow wider.
I'd propped my phone up with some old high school textbooks so I could lean back in my pillows and eat some corn chips while simultaneously marveling at the fact that my dad didn't have one strand of gray hair. He used to joke that if he and my mom tried for another child, they might take his hair color and look less like Frozen's Elsa and more like an Anna.
"I'm just happy to see my beautiful daughter who doesn't call to check up on me."
I let out a playful snort. "You're away on business trips all the time, Dad. I barely notice you're gone anymore."
He clutched his chest dramatically, releasing short fake gasps, and I laughed, genuinely, with no respect for the camera this time. Mark had developed a weird interest in me that I could only refer to as obsessive after he'd come across the photos I'd posted to Instagram on Friday night.
Aside from me going from having fifty-three million followers to fifty-three point five in the blink of an eye, I'd also gotten a handful of DMs from strangers I'd promptly ignored, obsessive mentions on Twitter, and several stink eyes from Mark Colton, who was absolutely positive I was keeping something from him—which wasn't far from it. Not to mention the several sections on morning gossip shows discussing the entire ordeal.
Obsessed.
Everyone was completely obsessed.
Mark wanted to break me. He wanted me to give him more than I was, to "quit with the cliffhanger," as he'd put it, so he'd ordered for constant supervision. I was trying very hard to ignore the lenses in my face, unwilling to give him the reaction he wanted.
"I'm not gonna pretend that didn't hurt," my dad said, and the line crackled a bit, but I still beamed at him.
"So, how's Venice?"
"I left Venice a week ago—you'd know that if you called more often. Stopped by Bordeaux and plan to head back to American soil sometime next week."
I felt my face go comically blank. "Please tell me you're not with my sister."
My dad put that grin back on his face. "We went wine tasting yesterday."
"Wow, thanks for loyally sticking to our agreement, Papa," I heard from somewhere off-screen, and my dad angled his phone so I could get a view of Coco sitting on the hotel carpet, casually typing away on her MacBook.
"This is my attempt at making her jealous," he offered. "She loves L.A. so much, she hardly ever leaves the house. Of course I'd want her to know I'm in our hometown."
"Why are you guys at a hotel instead of the house?" I chose to ask, since my sister was refusing to look at me.
"Don't tell her anything about our time together," Coco interjected just as his lips parted to respond to me. "It's none of her business."
"Yeah, that's very mature, Colette."
"I'm not talking to you right now."
I wasn't feeling joyful anymore, but I was desperate to hide it, so I took a chip and put it in my mouth. I'd been working on my poker face for years for a reason.
"Is this about the Takoda thing again?" my dad asked, tilting his device until Coco was out of the frame.
"Yeah. I don't understand why everyone's being like this, honestly."
"Coco's feeling betrayed. I don't know about everyone else."
"Dad!" my sister exclaimed, and he turned to look at her. "Seriously?"
"I don't have a favorite child, Colette. Let me be there for my baby."
"She doesn't need anyone to be there for her. She's made that perfectly clear."
"Okay," I said. "Maybe I should just hang up."
I was about disconnecting the call when my dad redirected his attention to me. "Hey, don't do that." Then he got up and started walking. "Let me just go somewhere else. I hate family conflict."
I ate my chips until he found somewhere downstairs he could sit and be free from my sister's interruptions. For a moment after he was settled, he just watched me with indifference painted on his face, and I continued to chew, the loud crunching serving as background music for this very crucial moment in time.
"I won't say anything if you don't," he finally said, and I playfully rolled my eyes.
"You'll just go tell her everything."
"I feel very offended by you right now, Cleobelle."
I sank further into my pillows and briefly looked towards my ceiling. May had decided, after being thoroughly convinced by Takoda, to not influence anything the both of us did in this "relationship." No contracts—in response to my wish, because I felt that the more legal this was, the more it would feel like a job, and the more messed up it could get—nothing other than our past binding us together. But we were yet to sit and extensively discuss it—our meeting was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon—and even though she'd applauded me for the Instagram post, for watering the planted seeds, and for the responses it gathered, I wasn't exactly sure how much I was supposed to say.
"Yeah, everyone is," was what I eventually settled on, and my dad gave me yet another smile. A calmer one this time.
"Do you like him?"
I couldn't stop the way my heart slammed against my ribcage. Even though I knew I had some sort of freedom now. To conceal the brief moment of shock, I acted bashful, looking away from my phone and focusing my attention on my fingers.
"Cleo." I could hear the smile in his voice before I looked up to confirm it.
"Dad, stop. I don't think you need an answer to that question."
"Takoda Calebs, huh?"
"I told you to stop. Or I'll hang up."
"I think you both should've told her, though. She was pretty upset."
I scoffed, already sick of my sister's theatrics. "There was nothing to tell. And for what it's worth, both Takoda and I tried to talk to her after the thing went out. She was the one acting all mad and betrayed. It's just really dramatic."
"You know how Coco is with this trust thing. She tells us everything, so maybe a part of her is expecting us to do the same."
At that, I felt a little bad. "She didn't tell Mom why she went to Paris," I offered.
"She told me it's classified, so I think it's between her and her team."
I sighed. "I guess I'm sorry."
"You guess?"
"Yeah. I'm mad at her, too."
He laughed, then got up from where he was sitting, temporarily distracted by a woman asking him a question in rapid-fire French. "All right. I gotta go," he told me after responding to her, and I could tell he was already walking back to the hotel room. "Your grandma desperately wants Coco and I to visit before we leave, and I still have to sort some things out."
"Okay. Say hi to the grandparents for me, and tell Mamie I'm begging her to stop sending me blurry photos of her toes."
He laughed, the sound rich and warm. "Okay. Love you."
"Love you, too. Send me Bordeaux photos!"
I watched Takoda pop open a can of beer and take a long, uninterrupted gulp as I pulled the sleeves of my white top over my palms. His hair was messy, but it somehow managed to work for him this time. That didn't stop me from noticing the rings under his eyes, though. Or the fact that he was drinking alcoholic beer. There was something tense—something off—about him today, much more noticeable than it was on Friday.
Takoda didn't drink. Not anymore.
He picked up the pen lying next to the notebook in front of him and worked it around his fingers for a moment, before scribbling something down in that nice handwriting of his. He got a concentrated look on his face, and just when I felt like he was about to relax, he dropped his pen and pushed himself off the kitchen stool in one swift motion, taking his beer with him to the fridge.
On the other side of the counter, May closed her black binder, finally looking away from the stack of contracts she'd been reviewing for work, and the rings holding them together gleamed with the sudden movement. The way she could multitask was kind of like a superpower.
"Is anyone else in this room but me?" she asked as her gaze met mine over our glasses of water, and I leaned forward while subtly clearing my throat.
Treacherously, my gaze darted to Takoda as he pulled open his fully stocked refrigerator, giving the source of my absentmindedness away.
"I need a new deadline," he announced to no one in particular, staring at the various things in front of him. "I need to call my manager and get him to get me a new deadline."
"Deadline for what?" I found myself asking.
"I have writer's block. Been struggling to rewrite one of the songs in the EP. I promised them I'd have it improved by Friday, but I don't think I can. It's a very last-minute thing, and it's stressing me out."
"There are a bunch of songwriters available to assist you with that, Takoda," May said with a small smile. I'd noticed that she looked at him the same way a mother would at a child she was extremely proud of. I didn't know the whole story, but I knew she'd been there for him during some of his toughest times. "Don't stress yourself out."
"I write all my songs," was his simple answer before he shut the fridge without taking anything out of it.
"Yes, I'm aware. I said they could assist you."
"I don't want assistance," he grumbled, coming back to claim his spot next to me. But he remained restless, and May gave me a look, as though she was asking me for assistance.
Clueless about what would be considered helpful at the moment, I asked, "What's the song about?"
Almost immediately, Takoda slumped forward, crossing his forearms on the countertop and placing his head on them. For a beat, he stayed quiet, with his eyes closed. Then, "It's this very sensual acoustic piece about freefalling. I mean, the entire EP is full of that kind of energy, but . . ." He sighed. "This one's special. I don't know why it's giving me such a hard time."
I hesitated for a bit. "Maybe you're just overthinking it."
"Or maybe you should just use the old version," May added.
"Something wasn't right about the old version," he said. "Something was missing."
"Maybe," she tried again, holding up her index finger, "you just need to get out. Go have some fun. You could really do with some fun."
"The last thing you want to do while writing about something as intimate as this one is have fun. You need to be in a certain headspace for it. Somewhere calm and quiet." He still refused to lift his head from the counter.
"And what has calm and quiet helped you achieve so far?"
He made a sound that strangely made me want to reach out and run my fingers through his hair. Head massages used to help him relax, and I knew that it was a helpful thing to want to do, but I didn't dare. "Not helping, May." A beat of silence passed. "Do you know where I put my phone?"
"Should be in your room. I haven't seen it since I got here."
Reluctantly, he dragged himself out of the stool and out of the kitchen, and my eyes followed him the entire way. When I looked back at May, she was giving me one of those smiles.
"You know he's lying, right?"
I paused for a start, wondering what she was talking about. "About what?"
"About the song stressing him out," she offered, reaching to her feet for her designer handbag. She put her binder in it as she expanded, "He's stressed out in general, not just about the song, or the EP. He's been like that ever since he got back, and it looks like he's not feeling any better."
"Oh."
"I shouldn't be discussing any of this with you, since I'm bound by several contracts, but you're close with him. Maybe you should try getting him to open up, or relax, at least."
I played with my fingers, refusing to meet her eyes. "You know we're not really on good terms, right?"
"I can read body language. And you two also told me about everything that happened."
"So what makes you think I want to ask him anything about his wellbeing?"
The hum of the refrigerator was the only thing that filled the silence in the next few seconds, and I wondered if I'd truly rendered PR goddess May Ong speechless, or if she was just choosing to remain quiet. I wasn't surprised to find her staring at me again when I raised my gaze from my hand, but I was definitely surprised to see her face blank. She was just . . . looking at me. Like she was trying to get something from me. Like she was waiting for me to take back my words.
Truth was, I wanted to. I didn't mean any of that. As much as I claimed to hate him and be mad at him, I couldn't deny that a part of me still cared. Especially not when he looked the way he did. Especially not when he was as restless as he was. But I couldn't admit any of that to May.
"Trust me when I say he's really appreciative of you doing this for him right now," she finally said. "This is a lot, and I know he knows that."
I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to.
May sighed, then placed her bag next to her on the counter and leaned forward. "I'm guessing he didn't tell you about the paparazzo."
That got my attention. "No."
"Well, he's threatening to press assault charges."
"What?"
A little while after the end of our fling, word got out that Takoda hit a pap. While he claimed that the young man got in his personal space and verbally provoked him, the pap claimed he was just "doing his job," and that Takoda attacked him. There was no proof that the photographer insulted him, no witnesses to that part, but there was proof on the former's face that he was, in fact, hit. And a handful of people saw when Takoda did it.
It had caused quite the uproar, because Takoda had gotten in a few disagreements with paps over the years, but he'd never physically hurt any of them, not even when one snuck onto his property to illegally take pictures of his mom. A lot of his devoted fans were with him, saying his side of the story was probably the accurate one, and when I found out that he'd left for his break, I'd assumed he'd settled everything with him.
Apparently not.
"Yeah."
"What exactly does he want?"
"Honestly, at this point, I think the agency that bought the "pre-assault" photos from him is making him do this. Takoda is mostly dirt-free, so if you can't find a story, create your own. It's what most of them are doing, which was the main reason why I suggested to him that you two'd better curb the relationship thing before it gets out of hand. His manager has already reported an unbelievable number of interview requests, Takoda doesn't want to do any interviews until further notice, he has an EP coming out soon, then there's the hiatus thing . . . It's all just creating a breeding ground for tabloid reporters and even more paps. It would make them start getting really creative. All publicity is good publicity and all that jazz, but he's not really in love with any of what's happening right now."
"Wow," I said quietly. "I had no idea so much was happening." In comparison to all this, my worries were equivalent to crying about being stuck in the rain when a hurricane was causing far more destruction somewhere else. I felt a little stupid. For being too caught up in the me part of this, even though I knew that my feelings were, as Takoda had put it, valid.
"I'm not saying any of this to make you feel sorry for him or anything like that. He just really values you, and I know that if there's anyone he's willing to talk to, anytime, it's you."
I stared at her, and she smiled at me, but before either of us could say anything more, Takoda returned to the kitchen, his phone in hand.
"Zachary is on it," he announced. "Hopefully, I don't mess up the team's schedule too much."
He said it with such a light tone, but there was still a stiffness in his shoulders, proving that May was right. This was the least of his worries.
"Zach is always on everything." She was talking to him, but her eyes remained on me. "Anyway, I have a date to get to—and, before you ask, yes, I go on dates—and I'm assuming we're clear on your relationship backstory. We've worked around all the plot holes, and like I said before, this belongs to you two, so feel free to tweak it as you see fit, but still make sure to run everything by me so I can review the effectiveness. Are we clear?"
"You lost me at date," Takoda said, making her reach across the counter to playfully smack his arm. That made him smile.
"Cleo, please explain things to him. I doubt he heard anything I said." She took her bag and rose to her feet. "I'll see you two later."
Takoda and I said our versions of goodbye, then we were left alone.
I nervously brushed stray strands of hair behind my ears and adjusted my weight on the stool. May had given me a task I wasn't sure how to go about. Next to me, Takoda remained quiet, but I couldn't tell if he was looking at me or something else.
After what felt like an eternity, I saw him turn to face me in my peripheral vision, and was forced to regard him.
"I could drop you off when you're ready."
"Is that code for get out of my house?" I asked, meaning for it to be playful, but it didn't quite come out sounding that way.
Takoda watched me for a moment, unblinking, then turned back to his notebook.
Realizing my error, I offered, "I meant that as a joke."
"You tell very unfunny jokes." He shoved hair away from his face and picked up his pen.
"I thought it was common knowledge that I have no sense of humor."
"You do," he answered, his voice quiet. "You just have that face."
"What face?"
He looked up at me again, and it kind of surprised me—the swiftness with which his eyes connected with mine. "You're unreadable sometimes is what I meant."
I tugged my sleeves further down, wondering where to start. I knew what to do to help reduce that tension in his shoulders, in his eyes, but my thoughts had halted there.
Just do it, something told me. Just do it, Cleo.
I was about to make a move when my phone vibrated with a text from my mom on the countertop, and, not as brave as I thought I was, I took that as an opportunity to stall.
Booked you a nail appointment for tomorrow. 2pm. Your jewelry arrived a few minutes ago, and I'd kill for the rings.
I smiled, then typed my response: Thanks mom. ILY mwah!
The moment it was marked as read, I placed the device face down on the countertop and was on my feet before I could scare myself off again. I hitched up the waistband of my pants as I said to Takoda, "All right, get up."
He looked at me with raised eyebrows. "Why?"
Almost as if I'd been possessed, I reached for both of his hands, and just like last Friday, his body instantly seized up beneath my touch. I felt his muscles go taut, felt his eyes on my face seconds before I saw them, felt the warmth from his skin zap through me, felt my body seize up in response. Time had frozen, and I realized then that I'd made a mistake. His hands were larger than mine, warmer than mine, and as our fingers remained joined, it was like I was watching a memory play out in front of me.
And what punctuated it was warmth. His warmth. And how it always felt right.
When I tugged him forward, I was barely aware of it, but it managed to pull us both out of whatever haze it was that had temporarily clouded our eyes. I subtly cleared my throat and put a smile on my face, trying to pretend like nothing happened. "Up, Takoda."
For a moment, he just kept on looking at me, and I wondered if I was wrong and he'd gotten lost on his way back. Maybe to the physical eye, it didn't seem like anything. It was just two people with history soberly holding hands for the first time in almost seven months. But it was more than that. I felt it. This wasn't about holding hands. This was about all the unsaid and undone, and how they hung between us, no matter how hard we tried to ignore them.
I recalled what he said the day I let us brush all our issues under the carpet by having sex. He wanted us to talk about it. He wanted another chance. He didn't want to lose me.
But I didn't want to relive the past by having that conversation, and even though I knew that this PR arrangement we were going into would only be made easier if the air between us was clear, it didn't stop the hesitance, the willingness to just forget.
His face went a bit sour as I tugged harder on his arms, but he didn't budge. "I don't wanna move, Cleo. Stop." There was no fight in him, his tone of voice soft and careful. As though he didn't want to disturb the still.
I tilted my head at him. "Don't make me force you. Come on."
He looked at me for a second longer, then reluctantly got out of the stool with a sigh. With the way he towered over me now, it was almost easy to push him back down and tell him to forget about it, but while this new body of his was slightly intimidating, I was half-determined. To help him relax. To forget.
I didn't let go of his hand as I led him through the hallway to his living room, and with every new second, his warmth seeped deeper into my bones. I tried to ignore it—of course I did—but at one point, I think I stopped tugging because he started following, willingly, and I think he closed the distance between us to reduce the strain on my arm.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"To your couch," I told him over my shoulder, before letting go of his hand so I could walk to one of his couches and take my spot.
He stopped walking when he noticed what I was doing, and I smelled his disagreement before he voiced it.
"Cleo, you don't have to. I'm fine."
I ignored him as I slipped off my Nike's and settled cross-legged on the soft couch. Then tapped my knees. "Don't worry, you can thank me later."
I wasn't sure he was going to leave his spot, even though I hoped so, but after a few beats of just standing by the living room entrance, he pushed hair away from his face again and came over to me.
It all felt natural.
Takoda lowered himself to the couch, then adjusted his entire frame as he discarded his slides on the tiles. Then he was lying down, and his head was in my lap.
Our eyes met as he got comfortable, but I quickly averted mine while pretending to do the same.
After he crossed his ankles, then his hands over his stomach, and released a breath, I got to work. My fingers moved slow, through his hair for a few seconds first, before I moved my thumbs to his forehead and applied pressure as I worked them in gentle but firm circles. They went over his eyebrows, a little bit down the bridge of his nose, down his temples, and a satisfied smile graced my lips without my permission when his eyes fluttered closed.
With his eyes shut, I could stare at him without feeling uncomfortable, could pay closer attention to the many ways his face had changed. Last Sunday, there was only so much I could focus on.
Takoda was beautiful. In a way a lot of people weren't.
When people talk about perfection, they mostly mean flawlessness. An absence of error. But perfection depends greatly on timing, on precision. Things and people might not be perfect, but in a certain context, and to a certain degree, they could be. Every time I looked at Takoda, whether I was conscious of it or not, I always thought he was his own kind of perfect.
"This is classified," he said, his low voice cutting through the silence, "but there's a documentary about my dad set to be released on Netflix in October."
I focused on his hair as I responded, "That's great."
He hesitated for a moment, eyes still closed. "I guess."
"What, you don't think so?"
His jaw worked for several beats before he admitted, "I don't know." My hands slid down to assist in massaging it, and briefly, he let his eyes open. They met mine with a softness that darted across the bottom of my stomach, and this time I didn't attempt to look away. No one looked at me quite like he did. Not even in two seconds. "It's his fifth anniversary," he told me as he shuffled closer to my stomach, his words vibrating through my skin.
"I can't believe it's been five years."
He released a humorless laugh. "Yeah. The thought is slowly driving me insane." He fell silent, and I stopped my hands from moving, leaving them to just lie against his jaw. "We had to dig up some old photos and videos of him for the documentary, and it was all just . . . bittersweet. An entire life summarized in a few photographs. It got me thinking."
"How long have you been holding onto this?"
"A year, basically. Starting next month, I have to go sit for some interviews with my mom and grandparents about it. We would've done them earlier, but I procrastinated, and everyone wanted me to be ready."
I gave him a sad smile he couldn't see. "And you're still not ready?"
Another short laugh. "I'm not."
"I think he would like this." I wasn't even sure I was making sense, or if he cared much about what I had to say. This was his dad, after all. I'd watched Chayton Calebs on TV growing up. His songs were the highlight of my formative years; they were basically what shaped my musical taste. That was different from actually living with him, knowing his strengths and flaws, knowing who he was away from the spotlight, knowing what he smelled like, what it felt like to suddenly have him be ripped away.
"Yeah, I think so, too. I'm just not fully done with this grief thing yet, I think."
I rubbed my palms up and down his jaw. "That's okay. Everyone does it differently."
"You know, I'm still trying to understand something."
"What?"
His eyes opened again, this time with a faraway glaze in them, and my shoulders went taut with realization. "Why are you talking to me right now?"
Impulsively, I chuckled. "What, you'd prefer I don't?"
"You're deflecting, Cleo." That time, he spoke like he was telling me a secret, and it was my turn to work my jaw.
I didn't understand what he wanted to hear from me, what he was trying to achieve, but this was still a pretty delicate moment, so I settled on, "Is there a reason you're asking?"
"I'm pretty sure you hate me, so I'm checking to see if I'm safe." I saw the small smile as it broke through his distress, felt it in my hands.
"Aw, you ruined my plan," I told him, playing along. "I was going to make you fall asleep, then furiously rip your throat out." As I said the last part with a playfully sinister voice, I lowered myself so that my face was mere inches away from his, and the subconscious gesture made his smile widen, made his eyes brighten, and consequently, my face lit up, too. As though we were opposite ends of magnets. Drawn to each other even when we didn't want to be.
My thumbs had started drawing soft, steady patterns on his skin without me realizing it, and for a suspended moment, one foggier than the weekend we spent together, I leaned closer to him, so much that my hair fell over my face and brushed against his. So much that his smile fell into something delicate. So much that my heart started this drunken rhythm behind my ribcage.
Takoda reached up slowly, his eyes on mine, and brushed the back of his hand against my cheek. The contact completely melted me inside, and in that moment, I hoped my touch was doing the same thing to him.
"You're beautiful," he told me in a whisper, and I thought he looked a little dazed then. "And I'm pretty sure I've fallen asleep already."
"I still plan to bite your throat."
He laughed, quietly. "Okay, Mikaelson."
I didn't mock the fact that he knew who the Mikaelsons were—he hardly ever watched TV—neither did I attempt to pull away, to slap some sense into myself, into him.
No, I gave in to the sudden urge to be close to him, to remain right where I was, to hear him call me beautiful again. I brushed my nose against his, let my eyes flutter closed, let my body do the navigating.
When my lips found his, I kissed him, my face in the opposite direction from his, and he kissed me back, reaching up again to place a hand against the spot where my jaw met my neck, to pull me closer. This time, there was nothing frantic about it.
*cleo voice* this isn't what it looks like.