Tell me when its over, p.1
Tell Me When It's Over, page 1
Tell Me When It’s Over
B. Celeste
Contents
Title Page
Playlist
Other Books by B. Celeste
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Kyler’s Interview Transcript
Acknowledgments
About the Author
© Copyright 2020 B. Celeste
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover Design: Letitia Hasser, RBA Designs
Editing: KBM Editing
Formatting: Micalea Smeltzer
To those who have stuck it out with me, and those who are giving me a shot.
Playlist
“If Our Love is Wrong” – Calum Scott
“Lose You To Love Me” – Selena Gomez
“Waking up Slow” – Gabrielle Aplin
“I Don’t Dance” – Lee Brice
“Ocean Eyes” – Billie Eilish
“Please Don’t Leave Me” – P!nk
“You Found Me” – The Fray
“When You Say Nothing at All” – Alison Krauss and Union Station
“Everything Has Changed” – Taylor Swift ft. Ed Sheeran
“I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes” – Dierks Bentley
Other Books by B. Celeste
The Truth about Heartbreak
The Truth about Tomorrow
The Truth about Us
Underneath the Sycamore Tree
Where the Little Birds Go
Where the Little Birds Are
Into the Clear Water
Color Me Pretty
If I Could
Prologue
“Are you going to leave again?” I ask him.
There’s a small pause that feels like it stretches an eternity as my heart thumps loudly, rattling my ribcage. Then, from the bed before me, there’s a quiet, “No.”
“Are we going to talk about it?”
He rasps, “No.”
There’s thick tension permeating the air, but it hasn’t suffocated us yet. “Can I sleep in here tonight?”
I wait for the inevitable “no” to follow the hesitant silence, but it never does. After waiting a few long heartbeats, I walk into the room, toward the lump under the thin sheet he sleeps beneath.
Even though it’s dark, I see his eyes moving in my direction, feeling them piercing my face until my skin tingles. To my surprise, he says, “Okay.”
I toe out of my shoes and slide into his bed, keeping plenty of distance between us. We don’t touch or talk, only breathe until another eternity passes.
I turn onto my side, back facing him, and whisper, “I think I may break up with Chase.”
No answer.
No sound.
Is he even breathing?
Then there’s a tug on my hand as nimble fingers wrap around mine, then a palm, and I swallow down my words. He pulls me closer to him, both of us facing each other now, his mouth dangerously close to mine, and stays there.
He doesn’t move.
Doesn’t speak.
Throat bobbing, I press a kiss against the corner of his mouth. I do that. I become that person, and I don’t think about the consequences when his breath hitches or when he moves enough where our lips line up like he’s daring me to do it again.
And I want to.
I crave it.
Both of us breathe hard, making it the only sound in the dark room. His hand tightens around my palm, his nose caressing mine, his lips so close I can practically taste them.
I close the distance, kissing him lightly, slowly, unsure, but wanting. Neither of us moves to deepen it, we just breathe into each other like we’re giving one another life. As if, in this moment, the faintest touch of our lips is all there is.
Nobody else matters.
Nothing else could get to us.
In that moment, I realize something soul crushing.
Maybe I’m not so different than Mom after all.
And when I wake up in the morning, he’s already gone, the sheets on his side of the bed cold.
Chapter One
Kyler / Present Day
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I watch all the assholes crowding the gate with their cameras flashing at the tinted windows waiting for their money shot. I have no intention of giving them one. “How did they know, Gordy?”
My manager straightens, tugging at the t-shirt with my name across the chest. “I don’t know.”
The thing about Gordon Fuller is that he’s a terrible liar. But the son of a bitch is my oldest friend, so I won’t fire him even if I’m tempted to sometimes. “How. Did. They. Know?”
He visibly swallows, yanking at the collar of the tee again before wincing at the pointed glare I cast in his direction. “Don’t be angry. I’m only doing what Mia—”
“Mia?” Fucking hell. “What exactly did my sister tell you to do?”
His hesitation as the driver gets through the gates that the paparazzi are trying to break past has me closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose. I don’t know what my devil worshipper of a sister told him, but I know it had to be good for him to go behind my back. “When she called about the rumors that you were coming to visit, she made me talk. Said it was about time you came home.”
Closing my eyes, I lean back against the leather seat and hold in the string of creative curses. Leave it to Mia Casanova, formally known as Pop Princess Mia Bishop before marrying Dylan Casanova, to make a scene. I haven’t been to the Hills since I left almost three years ago. This shit show, the one of strangers yelling my name and questions outside the property, reminds me why.
“I’m sorry,” my best friend says. “You know your sister terrifies me. She said she’d find inventive ways to castrate me if I didn’t confirm your arrival, and your mother wasn’t speaking up about it when Mia asked her.”
“And I suppose Harry wouldn’t even return her call,” I pry, referring to our father. It would be a cold day in hell before I’d call him one. We’ve been on a first name basis since he sold me off as a child star and took all the money I made to put toward my “future” as a national singing sensation like he was doing me a favor. It isn’t like I hated the job. Singing feels freeing, strumming my acoustic is a passion, and seeing people sing along to every song fills my chest with a hell of a lot more love than Harry Bishop could manage. Our biggest problem is that he never saw me as a son—simply an employee. Someone to make him money, and I learned a long time ago to stop expecting anything different.
As suspected, Gordy clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck as the car parks in front of the massive stonewashed mansion that’s five times too big for my sister, her husband, and our mother that moved in with them last year. Then again, if what the tabloids are saying is true, I’m going to be an uncle soon. Not that a baby, three adults, and two annoying as fuck corgis need a 9,000 square foot house.
“She didn’t say,” admits my clammy friend. He wipes his palms down his thighs, letting the denim absorb the sweat that he’s producing in record-breaking time. People told me not to hire him to manage me, but I ignored them. He knows his shit, and better, he knows me. That comes in handy when he’s brokering deals on my behalf. “I have to warn you, though. Mia mentioned that she had a surprise for you. I know you’re not a fan of—”
“A surprise?” I groan, palming my face. The last time Mia surprised me it was a going away party I strictly told her not to throw. She decided to invite all my “friends” who actually hated my guts after I spilled some gossip to a few reporters. I still don’t feel bad about it considering they fucking started it. You can’t sleep with another guy’s girl and expect him to be cool with it.
“If it makes you feel better, she said you’d like it. I couldn’t press her for any details, not that she’d give me them anyway.”
He’s got that right. I love my egotistical big sister. She’s the only one who stands up to my father for me and encourages me to do whatever the hell I want. When she found out that I was leaving California and taking a hiatus after turning down a huge role that would have “cemented my title as the next James Dean”, at least according to H
Turning down the role took no hesitation, though. I don’t want to act. I want to write music, maybe do a gig or two, and breathe. Being a Bishop is suffocating. Living in my father’s and older sister’s shadows is like a boot to the chest that never lets you up.
Mia only pushes when she thinks someone is making a big mistake, and she let me walk away into my own slice of peace for a few years. Still working, just behind the scenes. If I disappeared altogether I’m sure she’d have more to say—probably would have shown up at my place just outside New York City to give me a piece of her mind that I definitely did not want to hear. Then or now.
“Somehow, I don’t believe her,” I grumble, sliding toward the door. Looking over my shoulder at the mayhem behind the gates, I shake my head. “I wish she would stop with her theatrics. She’s always trying to make a point.”
The point being that I hide too much—that people are interested. Of course they are. Me surfacing means more money in the pocket of those vultures calling out to me right now. They want the scoop. The scandal that’ll buy them a new house, Lambo, and wife. As far as I’m concerned, they can go fuck themselves.
Gordy chuckles lightheartedly. “She wouldn’t be Mia without her theatrics.” He would know. He’s been my friend since we were in our early teens. We went to the same prep school and had the same classes, except we come from very different families. His may be rich, but they are the biggest assholes on the planet and treat him like trash for no reason other than they can. His father is some investment banker, his mother comes from old money involving a shoe line, and Gordon is their only child after spending years struggling to have any at all. You’d think they’d see him as royalty then, spoil him rotten, but some people just aren’t meant to be parents, and they’re at the top of that list.
He knows what my sister can be like, aka a pain in the ass when she’s determined, or how my mother is when she gets into her wine after a “long day” which is always on days that end in “y”, and what a dickhead my father is. All in all, Gordy knows my secrets. But unlike most people, I trust him with them.
Opening the back door, I slide out with my head down and instantly hear people shouting my name. I know Gordy is right behind me, ushering me toward the front doors like he can protect me from the paparazzi even though he’s five-eleven to my six-three and a solid fifty pounds lighter thanks to my incessant need to work out and weight train.
Almost as soon as my body surfaces, the loud inquiries start from behind me.
“Kyler! How does it feel to be home?”
“Kyler, why did you decide to come back?”
“Who’s the girl inside, Kyler?”
The girl inside?
I almost turn but hold myself back, not having much time to think about the question before the front door opens and my sister greets me with her arms stretched wide. “You made it, little brother! My god, you must really be eating your vegetables over there.”
I roll my eyes and give her a one-armed hug. It isn’t like she doesn’t stalk my Instagram whenever she can. I’ve seen her comments, which are usually annoying albeit hilarious roasts on some of my pictures. I make sure to post so I don’t become a “Where Are They Now” special down the road like she and my agent fear. There isn’t anything exciting on my feed. Some selfies, a few candid shots of my workout routine at the gym, and a couple of some dates I’ve been on that never went anywhere but the bedroom. I have no qualms with admitting my one-and-done way of “dating” since half the people I go out with only want one thing from me anyway. To say they bagged Kyler Bishop. So, whatever. It’s equally beneficial. We both get off, and they go home.
“Can you let me inside now?” I ask, unwinding my arms from her slim body. She doesn’t look pregnant, but who knows. Mia has always been obsessed with staying a size zero, dieting to new fads, modeling couture fashion that looks like it belongs on prostitutes, and wearing a face full of makeup that ages her. She got used to the lavish lifestyle early on when her first single went to the Billboard Top 100 and her agent insisted that she wear makeup to make herself look older than the fifteen years she was when she hit instant stardom. Clearly, she’s still living in the fantasy world where she isn’t in her late twenties. Not that I would remind her. I like having my balls attached to my body.
“Of course.” She walks in, all but dragging me along with a strength I forgot she has. My sister always asks me if I’m the one doing ‘roids, but her freakish grip makes me wonder if she slips something extra into those weird ass shakes she loves. “Mom is out back with Dylan and the boys, and we’ll join her in a few minutes.”
We stop in the foyer and I look around to see nothing much has changed. There are new pictures hanging along the walls of her and her husband Dylan and their two dogs, or “the boys” as she always refers to them. My mom is in one of them and she looks thinner than I remember, but healthier than the years she was tied down by Harry. Happier. Off to the side is a massive white marble staircase that leads to the second and third floors, carpeted by a hideous white that never made sense to me considering everything here is monotone. Too bright. Too boring. Too fucking clinical. It makes me miss my place on the east coast. It was nothing special, a lot of wood and stone, but nothing like this museum where I could talk and hear my voice echo.
“Before we go any further, I have a surprise. I’m sure Gordy—” She pins my friend with her eyes until he shrinks back. “—already told you because he can’t keep his mouth shut, which is why I wouldn’t tell him what it is. But you’re going to love it.”
I eye her doubtfully until I hear light footsteps coming from behind me, then a soft voice call out a hesitant, “Ky?”
Spinning around so quickly my vision blurs for a second, I’m met with a heart-shaped face wrapped in a tan complexion from the brutal west coast sun, big hazel eyes that I know from the past lean more toward gray than the other colors they’re mixed with, and that button nose she said people used to pick on her for because it made her look “too young” despite her being just that. Young. Real fucking young.
“Jesus Christ.” I don’t even think before I’m in front of her, arms wrapping her up in the tightest damn hug I’ve ever given anybody. Her head lands just under my chin, which means she’s gotten taller over the last couple of years.
“Hey, Lele.” The nickname feels foreign on my tongue as it passes my lips. I squeeze her tighter like I don’t believe she’s really in my arms before stepping back, giving her a quick once over to see what time has done to the girl I once believed was family.
“I wish you’d stop calling me that.” Her cheeks blossom with pink as she kicks the carpet with a sandaled foot. Yep. Still loves those ridiculous strappy things that leave ugly ass tan lines on her feet.
I grin. “Never.”
Leighton Grier. Lele to me, but we all mostly call her Lenny. She must be close to five-eight at least. Tall. Long legs, short torso. Lean. Grown up. Her ebony hair falls well past her shoulders in tight curls I know she hates, and the strands have lighter highlights now to make the dark color less intense. I know for a fact she loathes keeping her hair down, so it wouldn’t surprise me if, by the time I leave today, it’s in one of those braided over-the-shoulder ‘dos Mia always helped her with.
