A moment later, I have a CD in and Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" blasting out of the speakers. Somehow, as we're driving fast on this open road, it seems appropriate.
"Tell me something," I say, when the song ends and I turn the volume down. "When I first came to your studio, you asked what kind of game I was playing. And then you said it again." I put my feet on the floor so I can turn in my seat and see him better. "What did you mean?"
He doesn't look at me, but his hands tighten on the steering wheel, and the car slows until we're actually driving within the speed limit.
"Wyatt?"
His chest rises and falls twice before he speaks. "Do you remember what I told you about my dad?"
I think back, nodding a little as those days in the Santa Barbara sun come back to me. "I know he was a CPA. And I remember that he felt invisible, too. The way I sometimes did."
"Yeah. And he always felt like someone wanted a piece of him. Like he wasn't valued because he wasn't a big name in Hollywood. But at the same time his only value was that he was close to big names in Hollywood."
"People wanted favors, you mean?"
"People wanted everything. Do you know why my grandmother has no mailbox? People kept stealing it. She finally had a drop slot installed in the fence with a box behind it. If they want her mailbox, think how much they want time or attention from her family."
"That must have been hard for him." I reach for his hand, gratified when he takes it off the steering wheel and twines his fingers with mine. "Hard for you, too."
I already know that he's using W. Royce for the show because he wants to make a splash in his own right. But hearing this makes me understand that decision even more. What I don't understand is what this has to do with him saying that I was playing a game.
"A Hollywood game," he explains when I ask him.
I shake my head, not following.
He releases my hand long enough to run his fingers through his hair. "When I came back with the sodas that night and found you gone, I thought I'd pressured you. That you were angry at yourself. At me. And that you bolted."
"Oh, Wyatt. No."
"I was kicking myself. I couldn't believe I'd been such an insensitive prick. I knew how inexperienced you were. How strict your family was. It should have occurred to me that you couldn't handle it. At the very least your first time shouldn't have been at a huge party with dozens of kids roaming around the same damn house."
"No," I whisper again. I want to tell him how wrong he is-how wonderful he made me feel-but he rushes on.
"I felt like the world's biggest ass. Or at least I did until I went back to the club and overheard that bitch Grace and her idiot friends."
"Why? What did they say?" I couldn't imagine what Grace could possibly say about me leaving. But when Wyatt tells me-about the game, about winning points for sleeping with a celebrity kid-I'm pretty sure I'm going to throw up.
"That bitch," I snap. "That goddamn bitch."
Beside me, Wyatt actually laughs.
"What?" I snap, irritated by pretty much the whole world right then.
"It's just that if I hadn't already realized that Grace was full of shit, hearing you curse would convince me."
"Oh." I lift a shoulder. "Yeah, I still don't do that very often. I'm kind of a freak that way."
"A refreshing freak," he says, erasing the rest of my foul mood.
Wyatt's grin fades, however, and he turns serious again. "My dad killed himself that day."
"What?" His shocking words chill me to the bone.
"I found him-I found him hanging in his office."
My chest clenches. "Wyatt, no." I swallow as tears prick my eyes. "I heard that he committed suicide, but only long after the fact-I didn't hear much about anything those first months when Griff was in the hospital. And I heard he died in LA. So I never thought-I mean, it never occurred to me it happened around the time Griff got burned. Oh, God, Wyatt. I'm so sorry."
"He just couldn't take it anymore," Wyatt continues." And I thought-" His voice breaks. "Fuck. Kelsey, I should have known better. I should have known you better. But all of that mess got into my head. I let myself believe Grace's nonsense."
He exhales loudly, and he's squeezing my hand so tight I have to fight the urge to pull it free.
"I think that, instead of being angry with my dad, I let myself be angry with you," he continues. "And I let myself believe all of it. That everything my dad thought-about the world not valuing him-was true. I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so sorry."