The only problem was that Marigold’s only real connection to anything Hollywood, aside from Ashton Radley, was through Cindy and me. And I was going to do my best to keep Cindy away from her meddling stepfamily. Not that she needed any encouragement. Cindy was obviously mortified by the entire ordeal. The fact that her private family drama was now public family drama seemed like it really got under her skin.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again as we drove. We were approaching our destination now, and she was behind the wheel. “I wish you had never met them.”
“I’m glad I met them,” I told her. “They didn’t mean to, but they led me back to you.”
Besides, now I knew what to expect. They were horrible, manipulative people who should be avoided at all costs. Cindy made a lot more sense to me now that I’d met her family. How she’d managed to make it out of that mire with her sanity and kindness intact was incredible.
“They’ve got no shame,” Cindy said. A flash of anger slipped through her generally optimistic personality. “I can’t believe they would want fame so badly they’d be willing to lie on national television.”
“In my experience, people who crave notoriety as much as your sister Quincy seems to will have no trouble lying to anyone,” I told Cindy. “But the truth is, nobody believes what they see on reality television. That’s the kind of programming that people watch to feel better about themselves.”
“That’s almost worse,” Cindy said. “They’re making themselves into something for people to pity.”
“Or hate.”
“I think the only person that show is setting up to hate is me,” Cindy said. “They’re making me look like the man-stealing bad guy.”
“Lucky for you, there’s no reason you ever have to be involved in that show,” I reminded her. “Let them have their fifteen minutes of fame. It’ll all blow over.”
She frowned. “Maybe, but they’ll never leave us alone. As long as you’re near me, they’ll look for ways to use you. That’s how it’s always been with me, and all I could do was wash laundry and put up with their bullshit. You’re worth far more to them than I’ll ever be.”
Her voice was resigned. I wished that I could save her from it, but at least she knew the truth.
I reached out and squeezed the hand that wasn’t on the wheel. Her hand was tiny in my own and seeing how delicate it was only made me want to protect her more. “Honestly,” I told her, “who cares? They can chase us around if they want to. They don’t matter. This is just a temporary annoyance; everyone will forget about them soon enough. So, let’s forget about them now. We came up here to escape, remember?”
Cindy smiled at me, although it looked a bit strained. She swallowed. “I’m still not sure what we’re doing up here, exactly. I’ve never been to Napa.” She blinked out the front windshield. “It is beautiful though.”
She was right, of course. Napa is beautiful. Rolling green hills spread out before us in every direction, lit by the ever-present California sunshine, and perennially graced with mild, pleasant weather. Just a few puffy clouds dotted the otherwise pristine, blue sky. It was hard to be in a bad mood when the scenery was so good. At that was just outside the van.
“Do you like wine?” I asked Cindy. “I guess I should have asked you before now.”
She giggled at my suddenly pained expression. I hoped I hadn’t messed up. What if she was a beer drinker?
“I don’t really know if I like wine or not,” she said eventually. “I’ve never had much wine at all, and what I have had has been pretty cheap and bad.”
“Well, maybe we can find out if you like wine then,” I told her. I wanted all of Cindy’s firsts.
“You won’t judge me if I end up disliking wine?” she asked.
“Of course not.” I laughed. “That would be like judging someone for disliking oranges. It’s not a reflection of character. It’s just a beverage.”
“Do you know about wine?” she asked. Her expression turned nervous. “Because I don’t know anything. I’m totally uncultured when it comes to stuff like this. I assume that the cheap chardonnay Marigold drinks, the kind that comes in a cardboard box, is not a great example of what’s out there.”
I shrugged. “I really don’t know much, either. But I’m willing to learn. It’ll be fun. And maybe we’ll find out that we both prefer the wine that comes in cardboard boxes. There’s nothing wrong with that, either.”
She smiled shyly at me.
Eventually we pulled off the highway and down a smaller side road. As Cindy had been driving, I’d been making hotel reservations on my phone (continuing to ignore the increasingly pushy text messages from my real life). We needed rest in an actual bed, not curled up in the little nest at the back of the van. And I had found just the place for us to stay.
Yountville is like Disneyland for rich people who like wine. Nestled beneath the shadow of the Mayacama mountains, the picturesque Napa Valley town is surrounded by vineyards and high-end restaurants, hotels, galleries, shopping, and entertainment. I’d booked us a private villa at one of the nicer, newer accommodations, and we pulled up to it just a few minutes later.
Cindy stared out the window in disbelief.
“This whole thing is ours?” Cindy stuttered. “Tommy, this is a whole house.”
It was, in hindsight, possibly a bit excessive. Five bedrooms, a palatial kitchen and living room with twenty-foot ceilings, a private outdoor pool and hot tub, and all furnished in style, the villa was possibly a bit more than we needed for a two-night getaway. We could have just gotten a hotel room somewhere, but I’d wanted privacy.
“Do you want to go somewhere else?” I asked her. “You don’t like it?”
She blinked at me. “I didn’t say that. I like it. It’s just… a lot.”
I smiled, relieved. She liked it.
“Want to go look around?” I asked. “We can always go somewhere else if you hate it.”
“Tommy, there’s no way I’m going to hate this place,” she said, wide-eyed and disbelieving. Her voice wavered a bit as she spoke. “This is by far the nicest place I’ve set foot in. It’s just…” She bit her lip.
“Just what?” I asked.
“This doesn’t feel like my life,” she said, staring at me, then at the house, then back at me. “None of this feels like my life.”
“This doesn’t feel like my life either,” I told her. “If it makes you feel any better, this is nothing like my life most of the time. But we deserve a break. Don’t you think? A little escape from our regular lives?”
“I’m not even sure what my regular life is anymore,” Cindy said, shaking her head. “But I’m not going to turn this down.”
I brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her. “We can figure this out. Your family. My career. Everything. But first we need a nice meal, a drink, and some relaxation. Let’s just… be for a while.”
I could think of nothing I wanted more than to spend a couple of days with Cindy. To learn more about her. To figure out if this compatibility and easy chemistry I thought I felt was real. It felt real. It felt good. And I wanted—no, I needed—to see where it went.
She still looked a bit skeptical, but she nodded. “Okay.” Then she yawned. “I might need a nap first though.”
29
Tommy
While Cindy conked out on the plush king bed in the villa’s master bedroom, I lay next to her and reluctantly read through my texts. The messages were universally pushy, irritable, and needy. Apparently, I was some kind of monster for wanting a couple of days off. Everyone I knew seemed desperate to hear from me. It had literally only been twelve hours since I left LA and the world was already ending.
Why aren’t you answering my texts?
You’re late!
You have to do this-and-that.
You have to be at so-and-so appointment at so-and-so time.
I rolled my eyes at my phone. I didn’t have to do jack shit. I wasn’t going to do anything I didn’t want
to do for the next two days. It had taken me years to find anyone that I liked even half as much as Cindy and I wasn’t about to let anything rip me away from her. Not yet. Not until I knew if this was real.
Next to me, Cindy dozed peacefully. She was so beautiful in her sleep, which was really a trick because I probably looked like an idiot while sleeping. But she looked angelic, her blonde hair sprawled across the pillow and her hands clasped, prayer-like, beneath her cheek. The afternoon light peeked in through the heavy drapes and painted her in a shaft of white light. Her pale skin glowed peachy gold, and her long eyelashes cast shadows on her cheeks. It was hard not to simply stare at her. I was tired too, but too transfixed to sleep.
Then my phone rang, and I had to leave the bed or risk waking her. I stalked off to the other room and threw myself down on a couch.
“What?” I asked, picking up the phone and whispering into it irritably. “What part of ‘I need a couple of days off’ was so hard to understand?” My frustration was making me short.
My agent, Elaine, made a frustrated, inarticulate noise back at me. “Tommy, you can’t just disappear off the face of the earth right now,” she said when she’d finally recovered the powers of speech. “Your poor publicist is working overtime and so am I. We’re trying to accomplish something here, in case you forgot. You have a shot, a very good shot, at winning an Oscar in a couple of weeks. But only if you follow the playbook.”
I growled back at her with my own frustrated noise. “Elaine, I have to have a break. I’ve met someone—”
“Cindy Brown?” she asked incredulously. I could tell she was far from happy. “Please tell me you aren’t with her right now.”
Elaine was a formidable woman on the phone. In person, she was vaguely terrifying. But at the moment I was neither intimidated nor terrified; I was just annoyed.
I bristled. “I am with her right now. She’s napping in the other room.”
I wished I was in there with her right now and not talking to Elaine. I couldn’t wait to get back to her.
I could almost hear Elaine counting to ten like she did when she was frustrated with me. “Tommy,” she said after approximately ten seconds, “have you seen her family’s reality show?”
I took a deep breath of my own before answering.
Stay calm, I reminded myself. Elaine is trying to help you. She doesn’t really hate Cindy.
“Cindy wants nothing to do with them. They aren’t her family,” I told Elaine. “They’re just her stepfamily. And she’s cut off contact with them. It’s all water under the bridge.”
“I know, we talked about this already,” she reminded me. “What was true yesterday isn’t true today. But that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?” I asked irritably.
“I’m so glad you asked. If you’ll stop interrupting me, I’ll be happy to tell you.” Her sarcasm was strong.
I sighed. “Fine.”
“Thank you. The problem is that Quincy Wilson and her mother have created a narrative that casts you, and Cindy, in a less than favorable light. You’re pretty much Hollywood’s two least favorite people right now. According to that show, you cheated on Quincy with Cindy, and Cindy is a nut job. Now, none of that might be true, but it’s out there now. You need to be seen in a favorable light. You need to be America’s golden boy if you want to win that little golden boy. That means staying out of sticky tabloid situations.”
I smirked at her choice of words. “I thought I already was America’s golden boy.”
That had been the entire plan for my career, after all. All my role selections were carefully curated to ensure that I came off favorably in the public opinion. I didn’t play villains, unless they were sympathetic. Even when I played asshole antiheros, they were criminally likeable. If you want to win the Oscar, the prevailing wisdom taught that you needed to subtly influence the way people saw you both onscreen and off. I’d been doing exactly that for the last eight or nine years.
If I wasn’t America’s golden boy by now, I didn’t know who was.
“You were doing great,” Elaine continued, “until you met Cindy Brown and her family decided to make you a cheating subplot on their little show. Right now, you’re coming off as an easily manipulated playboy. Hardly a good look for a leading man.”
“How many Academy members actually watch reality television?” I questioned. This all felt silly to me. “How many people really even care? They can’t honestly believe anything that they’re seeing on that vapid show. Obviously, I didn’t cheat on Quincy with Cindy. I only went to lunch with Quincy to try and find her stepsister.”
“It doesn’t matter what the truth is,” Elaine told me. “I know that seems harsh, but Cindy Brown is a liability to you right now. She’s bad news, though it’s probably no fault of her own. We need to discuss who your date is going to be to the Oscars this year. It obviously can’t be her.”
I frowned at Elaine through the phone. “Why? Why not?”
I hadn’t really thought about taking Cindy to the Oscars, but now that Elaine was saying I couldn’t do it, I really wanted to. Cindy would probably like it, if only for the fashion on display. Besides, I wanted to show her off. It was a caveman impulse, but I couldn’t deny it. I wanted the world to see the wonderful, beautiful girl I liked.
Elaine took another ten seconds to reply. “Because that show that premiered today is already a hit. Somehow, some way, America seems to love the idea of a couple of pretty, young pageant girls trying to make their way in Hollywood. They even like the idea of a conniving, evil stepsister trying to sabotage them, and the fact that you, a major Hollywood star seem to have gotten yourself stuck in the mix.”
“Cindy is not a conniving, evil stepsister—” I started to say. Were we in some kind of twisted fairytale?
Elaine interrupted my defense with a loud, drawn-out sigh. “I’m sure she’s not. I’m confident that she’s a perfectly nice, innocent, blameless girl who isn’t going to betray you when the moment’s right to serve her family’s ambitions. But that’s not the point. Perception is reality, remember? Cindy looks like a villain right now. You don’t even look that good. You look like a moronic pawn.”
“I don’t care how it looks. The truth has to count for something.”
I could tell that Elaine was convinced that Cindy was in on her family’s plan. I had to admit it wasn’t impossible, but I didn’t believe it. Cindy had gone through too much trouble to keep me away from her family to succumb to their plans either knowingly or unknowingly. She wasn’t conniving enough to participate or stupid enough to be manipulated.
“Not in this case,” Elaine told me. “The truth doesn’t matter at all.”
I ground my teeth. Rationally, I knew she wasn’t saying any of this to piss me off. She also wasn’t saying it to hurt me or Cindy. Elaine was in my life to do her job, and sometimes her job was to protect me from myself or my own bad decisions. I’d always listened to her in the past. It had always been a good choice. It would probably be a good choice to listen to her now. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
“Look, Elaine,” I told her, “I know this is bad timing, but I just need a couple of days off. I know you can buy me that.”
“Promise me you’ll break up with that girl,” Elaine begged. “I’ll give you your couple of days if you break it off with her. I’ll cover for you. But after this weekend, you’ve got to get away from her before she undoes all the work you’ve done—that we’ve done.”
“I can’t promise you that,” I told her, shaking my head. “I just can’t. Not until I know whether this thing that we have is real or not.”
“If it is real, is it worth trading your chance at Best Actor for?” she asked.
I blinked. Good question. I thought I knew the answer, but I wasn’t quite ready to admit it to myself yet. And certainly not to Elaine.
“Just give me a couple of days. I’m going to hang out with the girl I like, drink some wine, and come back better.”
“No promises.”
30
Cindy
“When you said we were going to wine country I guess I just didn’t immediately associate it with paint ball. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have worn a skirt.”
Call me crazy, but I expected, well, wine to feature a bit more prominently in this experience. But when I woke up from my nap, Tommy told me that he had found something better for us to do this afternoon. His enthusiasm had convinced me. We’d climbed back into the van and driven past several lovely looking vineyards to a ranch that offered up ‘the ultimate game of tag.’ He promised there would be wine later.
Tommy grinned at me as he fastened his helmet. He somehow managed to make the whole paintball getup look absurdly sexy. He could probably make a feathered chicken costume absurdly sexy. It was unfair.
“Scared?” he teased. His voice was smooth and low. It made my heart pound.
But I wasn’t going to let his sexiness throw me off my game. I rolled my eyes at him and adjusted my own armored vest. It looked far less attractive on me than it did on him, but at least he was wrong. I grew up with firearms in the forests around Altoona. My dad had been taking me hunting since I was old enough to carry his ammo. For once, I actually somewhat knew what I was doing.
“After jumping out of a plane on our first date, I think you should know by now that I wouldn’t let that stop me even if it were true.”
His grin widened. “That’s my girl.”
Was I his girl? My heart spasmed in my chest. Forget butterflies. I had a swarm of angry tarantulas in my abdomen, all hungry. I wanted to be his girl so much it hurt. So much it threatened to consume me.
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