The Real Thing

by Lizzie Shane

  And then he’d seen those goddamn magazines.

  Maggie didn’t even seem to notice them, her smile vivacious and bright as she chatted with the cashier, but Ian couldn’t take his eyes off the glossy covers. He read every headline, getting angrier by the second on her behalf. Some talked about her like she was the victim of some betrayal, but most of them gleefully speculated on her sanity, her love life, or both.

  Ian was so preoccupied glaring at the rack of magazines the cashier had to clear her throat to get his attention. Maggie was loading her bags back into her cart and Ian jerked forward, setting his basket on the conveyor belt. “Sorry, Ellen,” he mumbled, swiping his frequent shopper card.

  Maggie took a step toward the exit and one of the shoppers who had been hovering stepped into her path. “Ms. Tate? I’m a huge fan. Do you think…?” The woman who had been in front of Maggie in line held up her cell phone. Ian expected her to gently but firmly tell the woman no, but instead Maggie’s face lit up as if she’d been hoping for just this sort of interruption.

  “Of course!” Her voice was too cheery, her smile too enthusiastic. Even her posture subtly changed. She suddenly looked far more like a movie star posing for a photo shoot than a rain-drenched woman taking a selfie in a rural grocery store. She sparkled.

  And it made something hard clench in his stomach.

  He’d never seen her turn on the act before. The Star. The other customers who had been lurking lined up to get their own Maggie experience and even Ellen came out from behind the checkstand to beg for a selfie. And through it all Maggie beamed. She flirted and fluttered. Posing for each shot and winking at these people she’d never seen before. Acting like there was nothing in the world she would rather do than talk to them.

  Ian grabbed his single grocery bag. There wasn’t much, just a few things he’d swung by to grab for dinner tonight. He walked over, trying to keep the scowl off his face and having a feeling he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. “Ready?” he grunted.

  “Oh. Of course!” Maggie said, as if she’d forgotten she wasn’t in the store just to meet these random strangers. She said goodbye with hugs and air kisses—and as soon as they stepped into the parking lot, he could hear her fan club let out a group squeal behind them.

  Ian moved quickly to his truck, helping Maggie load her groceries into the cab without a word, hurrying so they could get out of the rain. He didn’t speak until she was sitting on the other side of his bench seat and he was cranking the engine to life. He adjusted the air, turning up the heat and blasting the defrosters, and the question fell out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?” she asked, raising her fingers to wiggle them at the cluster of adoring faces still watching them.

  “The Maggie Show.”

  She glanced over at him as he put the car into gear, shrugging. “It’s what they want.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to give it to them.”

  “It doesn’t hurt anything. The fans got me where I am.”

  “You can’t even get groceries in peace—”

  “You’re looking at it backwards. It’s not about me being bothered while I get groceries. It’s about them having a random, insanely awesome experience while they’re getting groceries. It’s about giving them a story. An experience. Living up to the hype. It doesn’t matter how you feel, you always have to be on for the fans.”

  She wasn’t doing it anymore. Sparkling. He was glad she didn’t feel like she had to put on a show for him. The glimpse he’d just gotten had made him want to protect her from her life, but she was acting like it was totally normal. “Those magazines...”

  She pulled a face—a very un-poised grimace. “I figured you saw those. Same shit different day.”

  “Is it always like that?”

  “Not always. It ebbs and flows. And honestly, I’m usually not aware of it. I’m not in the habit of going to grocery stores and reading the tabloids in the checkout line. It’s probably a little worse than usual right now because of the book.”

  He shot her a questioning look as he pulled out of the parking lot, weaving through town.

  “One of my exes wrote a tell-all,” she explained, as casually as another woman might say, One of my exes left a sock at my house. “That’s part of why my manager hates that I’m staying up here rather than coming back to LA like a good girl. This book just came out and technically it’s fiction so our legal options aren’t as strong as they might be, even though everyone in the known universe knows who Sally Slate is supposed to be.”

  His jaw locked. He hated to think of her being betrayed that way by someone she had trusted, though she was trying to play it off as if it wasn’t a big deal.

  “The gossip rags all want to know how I’m reacting to Alec’s book and without me there, they’ll ask anyone who has any kind of a connection to me or claims to have ever had one.”

  He thought of some of the headlines, the thinly veiled or not-at-all veiled accusations they’d made. “Are you going to sue?”

  “It’s fiction—”

  “No, the magazines.”

  “Oh. No.” She shook her head, smiling as if the question was adorable. “It isn’t worth it. You can’t worry about that stuff. You’ll just make yourself crazy. It’s all ridiculous anyway.”

  He frowned, still bothered, no matter how much she told him not to be. Was there anyone looking out for her? Protecting her? What were her publicist and her manager and all those people she paid doing if they weren’t keeping her name out of the muck? He wasn’t even sure he understood all the innuendo in the headlines, and that almost made it worse. “What’s a conservatorship?”

  “Hmm?” Maggie glanced away from the window as he turned onto their shared driveway.

  “A conservatorship—one of the magazines said your legal team was pursuing one?”

  She snorted. “They aren’t. Don’t worry. That’s when an adult has a legal guardian because the courts have decided you’re not capable of making your own decisions.”

  “Are you serious?” he asked, horrified at the tabloid suggesting Maggie’s instability meant she needed one.

  “It happened to Britney Spears.”

  “Jesus.” He pulled in front of her house, the rain coming down even more steadily now. “I can’t believe you walked in this,” he said, opening his door to help her carry her things inside.

  She looked at him, but didn’t protest the help. “It was nice,” she said, flipping up her hood before climbing out of the truck. “Peaceful. Sometimes my life just rolls along without me—like I’m on this conveyor belt and I can’t get off—but when I’m here I can walk in the rain or spend all day going through one box. I get to just be. Even if I’m not usually very good at that.”

  “What does that mean?” He stepped onto the porch behind her, both of their arms full of grocery bags.

  She shrugged, smiling, and shifted her bags to one side so she could juggle her keys. “I’m trying this new thing. Being myself. It’s revolutionary.”

  “Aren’t you always yourself?”

  “Sometimes. Hey, baby!” She stepped inside as Cecil barked frantically around their ankles to demonstrate his joy that they were back. She set down her bags and knelt to cuddle the dog who bounced up on his hind legs so he could lick her face. “Sometimes I have a tendency to perform things.”

  Ian set down his own bags. “Isn’t that what they pay you for?”

  “It is. But it can be hard to turn off. It’s like you said. The Maggie Show—only instead of what the fans want me to be, I’m pretending to be what I want me to be. Happy. Hashtag blessed. Sort of a fake-it-until-you-make-it kind of thing. Like I’m performing this idea of the person I thought I would be when I had everything I ever wanted. This image I made for myself when I was young and hungry. But it never feels like it’s supposed to. I have this reputation for indulging myself, but it’s all
just going through the motions. Playing the part.”

  “Maybe you’re trying too hard.”

  She laughed at herself. “It wouldn’t be the first time. But I’m trying to try less.”

  The groceries were inside. His work here was done and Mrs. Anderson had asked him to come by sometime after eleven to look at the leak that seemed to have popped up in the roof of her garage. He needed to go. He’d told himself he was going to give Maggie a wide berth, that he was going to steer clear.

  So of course he opened his mouth and said, “Do you want to come over for dinner tonight? Try less with us? It’s just gumbo. Sadie asked for it—she calls it rain food—”

  “I’d love to.” Her smile was soft and he found himself echoing it, trying not to think of all the reasons spending more time with Maggie was a bad idea.

  “Good.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Remind me again why I swore off men?”

  Bree groaned at Maggie’s opening question. “Oh no. Who is it this time?”

  Maggie sank down at the kitchen table, still staring out the window at the rainy driveway long after Ian’s truck had disappeared from view. “No one. I just…” Cecil leapt onto her lap and she cuddled him close, his tiny tongue licking the underside of her chin. She’d called Bree as soon as Ian left, needing someone to remind her of all the reasons why she couldn’t fall for her neighbor, but now that she had her on the phone, something else entirely came out of her mouth. “I think I like him.”

  “Okay. Who do we like?”

  “My neighbor.” Maggie heaved a sigh, groaning. “It’s not the way he makes me feel—because I always feel sort of like a useless idiot around him. And it’s not about the way I think I will feel if he wants me—like with Demarco, how I thought if he wanted me it had to mean I had finally arrived. I just…like him. He’s nice, Bree. He’s an amazing dad and he cares about his mom and his whole job is helping his community. He’s kind. I can’t remember the last time I said that about a guy.”

  “Nice is good.”

  “Yeah. Nice is very good.” But she was still scared.

  “Are you seeing him?”

  “He invited me to his place for dinner tonight. But I think it was a pity invite. I don’t think he’s actually interested—which of course only makes me crazier about him.”

  Bree snorted. “Sweetie, you’re Maggie Tate. I’m pretty sure he’s interested.”

  “No, you don’t know him. He doesn’t care about that stuff.”

  “That ‘stuff’ being your insane hotness, excess of charm, and general awesomeness?”

  Maggie huffed a soft laugh. “I was thinking more about my fame and fortune.”

  “Ah. That.”

  She smiled, but the smile faded quickly, eaten away by her nerves. “What if I’m just conditioned to like him because he was the first boy I ever kissed?”

  “He was what now?” Bree demanded. “How have I not heard this story?”

  “It was a long time ago. The summer I turned thirteen. I used to come up here and visit my aunt and Ian and I had always played together, but that summer I had such a huge crush on him. My first crush. It was this fierce, consuming, obsessive thing. God, I was wild about him. He’d only come down to Long Shores on the weekends with his parents, but I think that just made it worse. All week felt like it was building up to seeing him again. I would pray for rain—because on the rainy days sometimes we would stay inside and listen to music and he’d play his guitar. I waited for him to make his move all summer. I was so sure he was going to kiss me. But he never did and then it was August and I was leaving—I remember Aunt Lolly was actually loading my stuff into the car and I just knew I would regret it forever if I didn’t kiss him. I ran all the way to his house, but no one was there—it was a sunny day and his family did stuff on the beach on sunny days. So I ran to the beach. I got to the top of the last dune and I saw him—just coming out of the water, wearing a wet suit because he’d been windsurfing and the water was cold. I ran right up to him and I kissed him—and then I ran away. He didn’t say anything, I didn’t say anything—my heart was beating so hard I don’t think I could have spoken if I tried. But I smiled all the way to the airport. I couldn’t come back the next summer—I don’t remember why—but when I did see him again, we were sixteen and it was different. That summer, he kissed me, but I will never forget how brave I felt—or how scared I was—when I kissed him.”

  Bree sighed. “Okay, you guys obviously need to get married.”

  Maggie laughed. “Because of one kiss when I was thirteen?”

  “Okay, maybe not married. But that is the cutest story. So you guys are having dinner tonight?”

  “With his daughter. It’s not a date. They invited me to dinner over the weekend too and it was platonic. We’re platonic,” she repeated, reminding herself.

  “Uh huh. So why did you swear off men again?”

  “Because I’m self-destructive in relationships,” she reminded Bree—and herself. “Because I need to figure out how not to look to men for validation and self-worth. Because when I get desperate for everyone to love me I do stupid things like hook up with my exes even though I’m engaged to a perfectly lovely man who has never been anything but wonderful to me.”

  “Okay, those are pretty good reasons,” Bree acknowledged.

  “Exactly. So no crush on Ian. No matter how great he is. I’m working on myself.”

  “Absolutely,” Bree agreed, though her enthusiasm sounded exaggerated.

  Maggie said the words again, just to convince herself they were true. “I am immune to Ian Summer.”

  * * * * *

  She was not immune to Ian Summer.

  And she was starting to think it wasn’t some residual crush left over from those summers. For one thing, he hadn’t had the beard back then—and she was developing a definite thing for his beard.

  He was in the kitchen when Sadie let her in, and the man looked good. He glanced up at her from the pot he was stirring, slanting her a smile, all confident and comfortable in his space—which was really sexier than a man should be allowed to be.

  “Hey,” he rumbled, as Sadie fell to gushing over Cecil. “Good timing. Dinner’s almost ready.”

  “Great,” Maggie said breathlessly, all fluttery and girly—Christ, at this rate she was going to start simpering like a Victorian maiden. She cleared her throat, joining him in the kitchen. “Anything I can help with?”

  “You wanna pour yourself a glass?” He jerked his chin toward an open bottle of red wine on the counter with an empty glass beside it. He picked up his own half-full glass from beside the stove as he stirred with the other hand. “We’re very casual here.”

  Maggie took the suggestion, giving herself a small pour, but taking a large sip. She was always careful with alcohol. With her mother’s history, she didn’t believe in taking chances—and she’d never liked the feeling of being out of control anyway, but tonight she wanted that little hint of looseness wine could provide. Not too much, just enough to take the edge off her nerves.

  She inhaled, the scent of the wine mixing with the heavenly richness of the gumbo. “That smells amazing.”

  “Emeril. I only steal recipes from the best.”

  She leaned a hip against the counter, watching him. “When did you learn to cook?” She’d never seen him in the kitchen when they were kids.

  “When Sadie was little I got super into those cooking shows. She loves them too.”

  “Masterchef Junior is the best,” Sadie piped up from the floor behind the breakfast bar where she was lavishing attention on Cecil. “Though Chopped is pretty good. And Top Chef is cool.”

  Ian grinned. “We decided we wanted to know what some of these dishes tasted like and started trying more things and the rest is history.”

  Maggie raised her wine glass in a toast. “To benefitting from history.”

  Ian reached across the space to clink his glas
s against hers, meeting her eyes as he took a sip—and her knees actually went weak. “Tonight, we’re on a mission,” he told her, turning back to the stove.

  “Does this mission involve eating gumbo?”

  “As a matter of fact, it does.” He shut off the stove and turned back to her with his glass raised. “Tonight, Maggie Tate, Sadie and I are going to teach you how to enjoy the simple things. Gumbo.” He nodded to the stove. “Fire in the fireplace.” He gestured with his wine glass to the fireplace where logs had been laid. “S’mores.” He indicated the counter, where packages of marshmallows, graham crackers and Hershey’s chocolate bars sat. “That’s it. Tonight there’s no performance. Tonight, you, Maggie Tate, get to just be.”

  Oh wow. How was she supposed to resist this man?

  She smiled, lightness filling her chest like champagne bubbles. “I think I can do that.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Where were you last night? I must have called ten times.”

  Maggie grimaced at the nagging note in Mel’s voice, tempted to remind her that she worked for Maggie and not the other way around. “Sorry. I left my phone.”

  “Maggie.” That scold again. The one that made her want to snap that she wasn’t five years old. “You can’t wander off without any means of calling for help. I’m not there. Your security team isn’t there. I talked to Max and he can send one of his guys up there—”

  “No. The last thing I want is a team of bodyguards descending on sleepy little Long Shores.”

  “I don’t care how sleepy it seems. You’re a public figure. Your safety—”

  “Is not in jeopardy any more than any other person in this town’s—which is to say very little.”

  Mel sighed irritably. “If you promise me you won’t turn off your phone and you’ll carry it with you wherever you go—”

  “Melanie,” Maggie snapped, making her voice hard enough to stop Mel in her tracks. “I will do whatever I choose to do—and if that means leaving my phone home so you can’t track my movements from afar, that is what I will do.”