Bright Lights: Book One of the Talia Shaw Series

by Darcy, Christine J

  I brought my feet up to the bed and spread my legs wider. He grabbed my leg and pushed it closer to me, making more space for him. He brought his fingers to me, feeling the slickness. I whimpered. He brought his hand back to himself and stroked. He found a condom in the drawer beside the bed.

  “Laurie,” I pleaded but I didn’t have to. He was already readying himself. I took a breath and he pushed in. I let out a moan, letting myself be as loud as I wanted. There was no one to hear a thing. It felt better than it ever had. We climbed, joined, further up the bed. Laurie pushed in and out of me, over and over. The bed was so soft beneath us, and the breeze so present, it was like we were in the clouds. He slowed himself down a little and kissed me deeply. I grabbed his ass and rode against it while he was still. He groaned into my mouth.

  “I wanna be on top,” I said, between feverish kisses.

  He turned us over and I savoured the position, the new angle, the view of him beneath me, looking at me. I rode him hard and leaned over him to grab the bed head for leverage. Laurie let out a protracted “Fuck.”

  “Not yet,” I demanded.

  “Fuck, Shaw,” he said, not sure he could wait. He used his fingers, rubbing my bundle of nerves. I put my hand over his, adding to the pressure. Then I was screaming as we came together.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said, rolling off him and falling to his side.

  “I’ve missed you so fucking much,” Laurie said, turning onto his side and wrapping an arm around me. His breath was hot and fast against my neck. We lay there like that for about an hour. He may have slept but I didn’t. I was catatonic with the pleasure of it all.

  * * *

  At some point in the morning, we fell out of bed. Laurie put on swim shorts and I put on my bikini bottoms. I was about to put on my top when I realised that we were alone there. Laurie laughed as I threw the top aside. I looked questioningly at him, wondering if he minded. He shrugged with a smile. We walked down the stairs and out to the beach.

  The water was cold to start and then the perfect temperature. We frolicked in the water for a few hours and lay out in the sun.

  We played a little music and ate a lunch of premade salads and cold pastas. We opened the shed at the dock and found the jet skis and rode them dry.

  For dinner, we cooked pizza in the oven and roasted marshmallows on the fire pit for dessert. We made love on the day bed out on the deck and when I took a bath in the smooth marble bathtub, Laurie climbed in and we made love again.

  We dried ourselves off and found our way to the bed. I kept thinking how perfect the day had been. How I could so easily spend a million more days in exactly the same way. We fell quickly asleep, happily exhausted.

  I woke in the middle of the night to Laurie, still dead asleep, bringing my body closer to his. It felt like his body was telling me something that Laurie couldn’t, at least not yet. And, I felt like it was something I could trust. I told Laurie I loved him then, in the dark and quiet. I knew he couldn’t hear me but I had wanted to say it for so long. As I felt him squeeze me tightly, his unconscious body needing me close, it just came out. I felt good having said it. I wished I could say it to him awake. I let myself bask in being so close to him. In the words I’d just spoken. Until I fell asleep again.

  The next morning, I woke to his fingers brushing my hair back from my face. I could tell it was early from the light. He was looking at me. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he said. I smiled and closed my eyes.

  “I like seeing you first thing every day,” he said. I smiled again and let myself sleep for a little while longer. I opened my eyes to find him still beside me. He was sitting up, reading. “What is that?” I asked, touching the book cover.

  “Morning, love. Under the Volcano,” he answered.

  “Any good?” I asked.

  “Very good. You should read it after me,” he suggested. I nodded.

  “I brought you something,” he said, gesturing with his head to my bedside table. I looked over to a fruit platter, all perfectly cut up and looking so fresh.

  “You did that for me?” I asked.

  “I took it out of the fridge and put it on the plate,” he answered. I laughed. I grabbed a piece of watermelon and took a bite. Had watermelon always tasted so good?

  “This is heaven,” I gushed, for near the hundredth time. “How long can we stay?” I asked.

  “I don’t have anything to do for the next month.” Then he was going on tour.

  “I want to stay forever.”

  “You can, if you want. I don’t think he’d mind. Beautiful girl living on his island.”

  “Maybe I should buy an island,” I said, with a laugh.

  “Can you afford one?” he asked.

  “How much was this one?”

  “Sixty-three million,” Laurie answered. My mouth dropped. He pushed my lower jaw back up.

  “That’s intense,” I said, trying to figure out if it was worth it. If it was ours and I could be there with Laurie then it would be. “You wanna go halvsies?”

  He laughed. “Let’s do it.”

  He tossed the book and grabbed me, pulling me across him and dipping me as if we were dancing. He leaned down and kissed me. ”Good Morning,” I said, brightly.

  “You taste like watermelon,” he said.

  “You taste like coffee,” I answered. “I wouldn’t have thought they’d go together but I like it.” I pulled him back to me.

  He let me go and I sat back up. I ate my fruit, feeding Laurie when he turned his head to me.

  The sun was shining brightly making the water around the island sparkle. The breeze was a perfect temperature, coming in and out of the room at regular intervals and gently moving the curtains and the tendrils of hair around my face. Laurie read quietly beside me, his hand sneaking over to my thigh between page turns.

  I remembered thinking about how this relationship could go. I thought we were heading for the monstrously bad version but there we were in Paradise.

  Twelve

  We lay on our backs floating just off the beach. The sun was setting and the sky had turned a purple pink colour. “We should go in,” Laurie said, standing up.

  “No,” I whined. The waves gently rocked me, healing my tired body. We’d spent the day hiking to each end of the island just to see what else was out there.

  There were little coves and beaches, none as pretty as this one. There was a little gazebo on a clifftop on one end. I couldn’t help but imagine how nice a place it would be to get married. I was never the kind of girl who planned every inch of my wedding before I’d even met the right guy, but I would see things and think, ‘I want that on my wedding day’. It was almost as if Laurie knew what I was thinking because he grabbed me and spun me around until we were waltzing under the gazebo roof.

  “Come on,” Laurie said, climbing off the foam. I kept my eyes closed, wanting to soak up every last bit of the sun. Laurie pulled the foam slowly back toward the beach with me as his passenger. I opened my eyes watch. His back had become so tanned. His hair had grown longer. The dark brown tendrils clung to the top of his strong back.

  * * *

  As he cooked dinner that night on the barbeque, I went on my laptop. I checked my Facebook, for the first time in months, and discovered dozens of messages from people I hadn’t school asked to be one of my backup singers and another asked if I needed a personal assistant. No, ‘how are you’. No ‘it’s been a long time’.

  “Oh my god.”

  “What?”

  I couldn’t answer. Laurie took my laptop from my lap and read the latest message.

  “Oh.” I looked at him. “That’s kind of how it goes,” he explained.

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t ever really stop. People are always going to want something from you.”

  “I want to help people but--” I didn’t know how to explain it without sounding like an asshole.

  “You gotta find the people who really need it,” Laurie said.
“It feels pretty good to be able to do that.”

  I knew Laurie did things for people often but didn’t talk about it. He didn’t want it to be publicity.

  “What’s this?” he asked. He turned the laptop to me. He’d seen a message from Saffy. It said, ‘Happy birthday for tomorrow.’ It was sent yesterday.

  I smiled, bashfully, caught.

  “How could you not tell me?” he asked, setting the laptop aside.

  “It’s not important,” I answered. He took my hands and lifted me up. He kissed me deeply.

  “Happy birthday,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I answered.

  “I didn’t get you a gift,” he said, annoyed.

  “Yes, you did,” I assured him.

  “How could you not tell me it was your birthday?” he asked.

  “I hate birthdays. Honestly, I’d forgotten myself,” I answered.

  He shook his head and let me go. He went back to the barbecue.

  I read through the other messages carefully and clicked on their pages to see if I could understand what was going on in people’s lives. I emailed Manny to ask how I could go about giving money to people without it being made public.

  Saffy had uploaded a new picture. Date night with Peter. I liked it.

  “Do you have a Facebook?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Why? You wanna be Facebook official?”

  I laughed at him. “I want to see all your photos.”

  “You don’t need my Facebook for that. They’re on my laptop.”

  “Can I look?” I asked, rising from the chair.

  Laurie gestured to the living room where his laptop sat. “Be my guest.”

  He had dozens of albums, named for different years. I clicked on the most recent. There were pictures at his concerts, behind the scenes, pictures of him with girls that I clicked past very quickly. There were pictures on video and photoshoots, at events, then some at home with his family.

  “Your mother is so beautiful,” I said, honestly. He got her eyes and her skin but she was prettier. Laurie came over and looked. “Your sister looks so like you,” I said.

  “Don’t say that to her,” Laurie warned. He went back to the barbecue.

  I clicked through the previous year’s photos: Christmas, Holidays, he’d been on safari in Africa. And to Croatia with another girl. Another supermodel.

  “You went skydiving?” I asked, shocked.

  “I did. Years ago.”

  “Was it terrifying?”

  “It was. In a great way. Such a rush.”

  There were pictures of him free falling, then sailing down under the parachute, then landing and getting up off the ground. The smile on his face was the biggest I’d seen. I wanted to see that smile in person.

  * * *

  That night we sat at the windowsill in our bedroom, looking out at the stars that were wildly clear from there. We sat across from each other, our feet meeting in the middle. Laurie tentatively broached the subject of Grammies night. “How are you feeling about it?

  I took a breath. “Pretty much the same.”

  “It was such an idiotic thing to do. He was wrong to do it,” Laurie said. I nodded. “I’m not saying there’s any excuse but as far as I know, Easton has a lot of problems.”

  “I know that,” I said. “I don’t blame him. I mean, I do. But, I’m trying not to.”

  Laurie smiled. “That’s good of you.”

  “Don’t congratulate me for it. I’m still mad. I’m still upset. I’m just trying not to be.” He shifted forward and picked up my feet, placing them in his lap. “What are you doing?”

  “Rubbing your feet,” he answered.

  “Have you got a foot fetish or something?”

  “Shut up,” he answered. “Relax.”

  I shifted a little, uncomfortable, as I watched him massage my feet. But I couldn’t help but relax into it. “You’re actually really good at that,” I said.

  “I don’t think I congratulated you,” he said. I looked up to his face. “It’s a huge achievement.”

  “Thank you,” I said, blushing.

  “You’re welcome,” he answered, that same charming smile.

  * * *

  The next day we spent by the pool, just lazing. Laurie disappeared for a bit and I almost fell asleep on the deck chair. The sun was beating down and I was feeling hot. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and stood up from the deck chair. I put my book down and wandered over to the tiled edge of the blue pool. I dipped my toe in just a touch. The water was cool.

  I heard quiet footsteps moving fast behind me. I turned to look and Laurie was running at me. I screamed as he crashed into me and pulled me with him down into the pool.

  He came up cackling. I came up, coughing water, confused.

  “Laurie!” I shouted. His laughter made me laugh. I pushed the hair back and out of my face as Laurie put his arms around me. I threw my arms over his tan shoulders and kissed him deeply, savouring the sensation of our warm tongues and lips, and the cold water against our skin. He pulled away and looked at me. He focused on my nose.

  “What are you looking at?” I asked.

  “Your freckles. The sun brought them out.”

  I touched my nose.

  “Just here,” he said, brushing over the bridge of my nose and the space either side on my cheeks. “They’re pretty.” I smiled. He said things like that and I felt so beautiful. I kissed him again.

  * * *

  One morning I woke up earlier than Laurie. I went to the bathroom and realised I hadn’t bled overnight. The day before, my period was supposed to come. I was never ever late. A day maybe. Never more than one. I had told him months ago that I was on the pill and so we stopped using condoms. But I was on the pill. I knew that there were a small percentage of people who got pregnant on the pill. 2% or something like it. I didn’t even consider that I could be in that group. I thought it was too impossible. And, it still might be, I thought, trying to calm myself down.

  No way was I telling Laurie. When everything was so perfect. But I was an anxious person and days later when it still hadn’t arrived, I had to find out.

  “Do you think we could go to the shops?” I asked, as we ate breakfast one morning.

  “We’ve got groceries coming today,” Laurie answered.

  “Oh great.”

  “Do you want anything particular?”

  I thought for a moment. “Can we go ourselves?”

  “You wanna leave the island?” He acted offended.

  “No… there are just some things I need,”

  “I’m sure he can get anything you need.”

  “Laurie…” I began.

  “What is it? Tampons or something?” he questioned.

  “No. I just want to get it myself.”

  “Why are you being weird?”

  “I’m not… why can’t I just get something?” I was becoming defensive.

  “You can.”

  I hated this look on his face. Like I was being a brat. “My period is late. And I’m never ever late. I just want to take a test.” He stopped eating. “Don’t freak out.”

  “How late?”

  “Almost a week.”

  “That’s not a lot, is it?” he asked, cautiously.

  “I’m never ever late,” I reiterated.

  “How is that possible?” he asked. He’d suddenly gone white. I started telling myself it was a mistake. But I couldn’t suck the words back into my mouth.

  “I’m on the pill, and we’ve used protection but still, it can happen,” I explained. “But I might just be late. There’s nothing to stress about, okay? I don’t even need the test. Let’s just forget about it.”

  Laurie stood up. “No. I can’t just forget about it. We’ll get a test.”

  He grabbed his phone and walked into another room. I expected a freak out but this was just… cold. I supposed I couldn’t judge him. It was a scary thing. But he didn’t need to be cold. For someone who’d always
been so kind, so sensitive, it grated.

  He came back in a few minutes. “It’ll be here this afternoon.”

  He didn’t sit back down. He just stood there. Silent. Not looking at me. “Laurie,” I tested the waters.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “Do you want to talk about this?” I asked.

  “Nothing to talk about yet, right?” he said, nonchalantly. “I might go for a run.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but he was always running up the stairs. He came back down quickly, in running gear, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and ran out the back door, starting on the track that had been made for the golf cart.

  “Okay,” I said to myself.

  He didn’t come back that whole day. About six hours. He didn’t take any food with him. Just the water. He wasn’t subtle. He was avoiding me. Maybe blaming me for something we weren’t even sure of yet. I shouldn’t have said anything, I told myself. But it would have driven me crazy. It was driving me crazy. And, I was dealing with it all alone.

  Laurie arrived back just as the speedboat pulled up with bags full of groceries and meals. He helped the captain carry everything to the house.

  “Where have you been?” I asked, annoyed.

  “I went for a run and then a swim,” he explained, firmly.

  “For six hours?” I yelled, unable to help myself.

  “Thanks, mate,” Laurie said to the Captain, handing over a tip and leading him out the door.

  I went to the bags and shuffled through them all. Laurie turned out to see me find the test. “You’re taking it now.” It could’ve been a question but in my head it sounded like a demand.

  “I’ve been sitting here alone all day stressing about it. Of course, I’m taking it now,” I answered and walked to the bathroom. I slammed the door behind me.

  I pulled the cap off the stick and pulled down my underwear. And, there it was. Not a lot but the littlest bit of blood. Like it had begun just seconds before. What a bitch. What kind of timing was that? I was relieved, of course. Nineteen was definitely too young to have a baby and Laurie definitely didn’t seem to have any desire to be a young dad. But I had opened my stupid mouth. And, he had reacted badly. I was sure the worst was yet to come. I put the cap back on and walked out of the bathroom.