Page 30 of It Happened on a Sunday

Sloane

Sly looks like a deer in the headlights as he searches for what I’m sure he considers an appropriate response to my question. It’s obvious he can’t find one when he finally settles on a simple, “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

Part of me thinks he’s lying because he doesn’t want to deal with such a difficult subject in the middle of a date that went south half an hour ago. But then I look at him—really look at him—and realize he’s just as clueless as he says he is.

How is that possible? How the hell can he be twenty-seven years old and not know what I’m talking about?

He was in college when it happened, at a time when a huge percentage of Jarrod’s fan base, and my own, were eighteen-to-twenty-five-year-olds.

I know he must have lived and breathed football to make it this far, but it’s hard to imagine he was so dialed in that he never heard anything about how my entire life went up in smoke.

God knows, just about everyone else on the planet did.

As I stare at Sly’s concerned but clueless face, I don’t know whether to laugh or scream or cry at how fucking unfair this all is.

Here I was, beginning to think Sly actually liked me despite my past. And not because of it, either, like some of the creeps I’ve met through the years.

Now I find out it’s neither. He simply knows nothing about it.

No wonder it was so easy for him to decide he was interested in me. He missed all the warning signs screaming at him to hightail it in the other direction.

I probably should have paid more attention that first night, when he told me he only knew the lyrics to a few of my songs. Apparently, he actually meant it—not just about the songs, but about the whole pop culture that surrounds them. It boggles the mind, but it’s also…refreshing.

For a moment, an incredible sense of freedom tears through me, making my heart pound and my blood sing.

Freedom from my past as a siren who lures men into danger. Freedom from my present as the Black Widow, the pop star who kills the men who love her.

And maybe most importantly, freedom to pursue a future with someone who doesn’t have a clue about the darkest days of my past.

Who wouldn’t be tempted?

The bubble bursts as soon as I acknowledge it. Sly’s ignorance about my past doesn’t change its existence any more than it changes who I am because I lived it.

“The song was ‘No More,’” I tell him, because surely he’s heard the title even if he doesn’t know the meaning behind the lyrics.

After all, the song shot to number one as soon as it was released and stayed there for months, even racking up a posthumous Grammy for Jarrod—his third.

The fact that I was also nominated for Best Song that year didn’t exactly go unnoticed by the musical world, and neither has the fact that I haven’t been nominated even once in the five years since.

“Okay.” Sly nods like it’s no big deal. What the hell? Apparently he really was living his best party life back then.

“Do you know what it’s about?” I ask.

“Umm… A relationship gone bad?” he asks and answers. “The singer is asking for forgiveness from the woman who’s left him.”

“He wrote it for me right before he died.” It’s not just a confession. It’s a detonation. The kind that leaves ash in the air and bitterness on my tongue.

I wait for him to speak, to connect the dots the way everyone else has and create a picture that paints me as the villain everyone else wants me to be. But Sly doesn’t say anything. He watches me through eyes filled with more emotion than I’ve let myself feel in years.

Again, I think about not saying more. We could just finish the date, go on our merry ways, and never say another word about it so long as we both shall live.

But Sly doesn’t talk about this date like it’s a one-shot deal.

He talks like he wants there to be more—even after I jumped out of that damn SUV.

The fact that I’m coming to realize I want more dates, too—more chances to sing along to the radio or shop for ridiculous disguises or be kissed like nothing and no one else in the world is watching—only makes this whole conversation more difficult.

Because now I have two choices: not tell him and go on another few dates, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, or tell him and end whatever this is before it has a chance to begin.

The fact that I want to choose the former—even knowing the heartbreak it will bring—tells me more clearly than anything else that I need to pick the latter. Better to get rid of Sly now. Before I actually start to care.

Even as I think it, my mind flashes back to the damn calla lilies and peonies he insists on sending me. To the way he calls me corazón . To the kiss that reached inside me and made me feel things I never thought I could.

That’s the real reason I have to tell him. Because I’m already starting to care far more than is safe. It’s better to get out now, with what few shards of my heart and reputation I have left intact.

“Can we walk?” I ask after several long seconds go by.

While I’m still working on redirecting the spiraling thoughts surrounding what happened five years ago, it’s been a long time since I’ve deliberately gone there.

I don’t know much right now, but I know that if I have to stand still when I’m talking about it, I’ll completely lose my mind.

“Yeah, of course.”

Griffith Park is a great place for a fun, no-pressure first date.

It isn’t exactly a fabulous place to have this conversation.

Between the zoo, the observatory, the modeling shoots, and the kids playing on the playground after school, the park is usually a hotbed of activity.

But school isn’t out yet, and everyone else seems occupied elsewhere.

For now, we have this small trail to ourselves.

As we start down it, I cross my arms over my chest and rub my hands along my upper arms in a futile attempt to keep the encroaching chill at bay.

It’s a beautiful afternoon in Los Angeles, but that doesn’t seem to matter. The cold is coming from within me. Right now, there’s not enough sunshine in the world to chase it away.

Sly walks next to me, his hand resting lightly on my lower back and gaze focused intently on my face.

I want to tell him not to look at me, that sharing this is hard enough without looking him in the eyes.

But that will only make me look sadder than I already feel—if that’s possible—so I just let it go as I scramble for a way to begin this talk that I have absolutely no interest in having.

“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Sly tells me when several minutes go by and I still haven’t figured out how I want to start it.

“Do you want to go out with me again?” I ask him point-blank. “Or did you write me off after my freak-out earlier?”

“Does anything about the last half hour suggest I’ve written you off?” he shoots back, looking insulted for the first time today.

“Well, then, we need to have this conversation. Because if I don’t have it with you, someone else sure as hell will.”

Probably Marquis—he seems like the type who would know all the drama, real or imagined.

The insult fades from his eyes, replaced by a wariness I understand but still wish wasn’t there. “Okay.”

Again, it’s not quite the reaction I was hoping for, but when have I ever let that stop me? I walk a little farther before I actually begin. And when I do, I look anywhere—everywhere—but his face.

This story is painful enough without me having to see his condemnation when I tell it.

“I met Jarrod when I was nineteen years old,” I start. “We were both on Saturday Night Live . He was doing double duty as host and musical guest, and they brought me on to do a duet with him because the woman he recorded the song with was touring in Europe.”

I have to work not to shudder as I go back to a time I normally do everything I can to never think about. “He was funny and charming and talented, and I was hooked from our very first meeting.”

Apparently, falling for the charming, funny, smoking hot guy is a trend for me, considering I’m in the middle of doing the same thing with Sly, whether I want to admit it or not.

“I’ve seen pictures,” he says as I try to internalize the truth I just now figured out. “The two of you looked really happy together.”

“For a long time, we were. And then…then we just weren’t anymore.

” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“At first, we had a really good time together. We’d stay up all night talking about books we’d read and places we wanted to go.

We’d write music together or watch the most ridiculous movies at three a.m. because we traveled a lot—for work and pleasure.

I went places with Jarrod I’d always dreamed of but never had the chance to go to because my mom couldn’t afford it when I was younger, and by the time I could , she was already gone.

“He wanted me to travel with him, and I wanted him to do the same with me. So, in an industry where people who are together are rarely in the same place, we were rarely apart—for a while, anyway.”

Sly and I approach a tricky part of the trail, and he steps in front of me without me even having to ask. Then he takes my hand and guides me steadily over the exposed tree roots and down the rocky slope to the flat trail below.

You’d think it would make me feel closer to him, but somehow it just makes us feel farther apart.

“And it was amazing. Jarrod was always the one to get the party started. People—women especially—gravitated toward him whenever he was in the vicinity. He was charming and funny and always super kind to everyone he met. No matter how tired he was or how many things he still had to get through in his day, if someone wanted to talk to him, he always stopped and gave them a few minutes. It was actually one of his best traits. And he had a lot of really good traits.”

Until he didn’t.