Page 34 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

“This was…” Lolli said, but trailed off, her voice wobbling right before she kissed Ramona one more time, her mouth hard and trembling.

Then, before Ramona could get a word out, kiss her back, or even hug her, Lolli pulled away and pressed her finger into Ramona’s dimple again, then turned and ran toward the shadows, and was gone.

Chapter

Seven

Dylan sat onthe cream-colored couch in the lake house Laurel had rented for her, going over the first scene they’d be filming today, when a hand jutted her phone into her face.

Jackflashed across the screen.

“Jesus, no,” Dylan said.

“He’s been calling since six a.m.,” Laurel said. “And I’m going back to LA this afternoon, so you’ve got to handle your phone again.”

“Can’t you just get me a flip phone?”

“No. Put on your big-girl panties.”

Dylan stuck out her tongue at her manager, and Laurel—already resplendent in a pair of white shorts and a sleeveless silk blouse—just smiled.

“Love you,” she singsonged, then dropped the still-buzzing phone on top of the script in Dylan’s lap and walked away.

Dylan closed her eyes, counted to three. In that time, the phone stopped ringing, only to start up again a second later.

“Goddammit,” Dylan whispered, then slid her finger across the screen. “Dad, hi.”

“Hey, Dill Pickle, how’s my girl?” her father said.

Dylan opened her mouth to answer, but Jack Monroe barreled onward.

“I’ve got Mom here too,” he said.

“You’re on speaker!” Carrie Page trilled, her voice pleasantly raspy from spending the nineties sucking on a pack a day. “You ready for your first big scene? We sent you some flowers. Did you get them yet?”

Dylan sighed, already exhausted, then made her voice as cheery as possible. “No, not yet.”

“Oh, that’s disappointing,” Carrie said. “I asked for them to get there by nine. You’re starting at ten, yes?”

Dylan didn’t even know how her parents had this information. She certainly hadn’t told them. Though they were Jack Monroe and Carrie Page—they could pretty much find out whatever they wanted about anyone at any time. Jack’s band, Evenflow, was one of the most popular bands of the nineties, grunge rock, as they called it then. Jack and his best friend, Aaron, started the group in Aaron’s parents’ garage in Marietta, Georgia, when they were seventeen, then soared to stardom after moving to Seattle when the rock scene was exploding in 1991. He met Carrie on tour—her angry-girl band, Halcyon, opened for Evenflow—and the rest was history.

A very wild, very fraught history.

By the time Dylan came along four years later, Jack and Carrie were only twenty-three and internationally famous, had no permanent home—just popped in and out of luxury hotels—and were only a few short years from their first joint stint in rehab, though Carrie had managed to stay clean while she was pregnant with Dylan.

Now, Dylan knew neither of her parents had touched a single drop of alcohol or drugs in ten years, and she was proud of them for that, but her childhood was filled with lines of coke on glass coffee tables and hotel suites packed with fans and fellow musicians until two a.m. Her aunt, Hallie, had taken her in a few times—when herparents were in rehab, or when Hallie had heard enough horror stories and took Dylan back to Georgia with her, but she never sued for custody. She’d always hoped her brother would get it together, always believed when he said he had.

By the time Dylan was twenty, her parents had already been through a divorce and another breakup, only to get married again when she was twenty-five. Now, they were living in Laurel Canyon and grew avocados, acted like eternal newlyweds, and seemed to be attempting to make up for their past shitty parenting. They called and texted Dylan all the time, asked about her life way too damn much, and made sure she knew theybelieved in herand thought she wasthe most beautiful and talented girl on the planet.

“Yes, ten o’clock,” Dylan said now. “In fact, I should get going.”

“Of course, sweetie,” Carrie said. “Have you seen Blair yet?”

“How did you even know Blair was—” Dylan started but stopped herself. There was no point. “No, I haven’t,” she said instead, leaving out her run-in with her costar at the café.

“Well, it’s going to be fine,” Carrie said. “We believe in you.”

“You’re the most beautiful and talented girl on the planet,” Jack said.