by Ward, Susan
His smile fades.
His gaze softens.
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Kaley. I just wanted to make you laugh.”
I stare down at my fingers. “Well, it didn’t work.”
“I’m sorry. How do you want your coffee?”
“Just black.
He disappears from view.
Graham comes back into the sitting room and sets two mugs of coffee on the table.
I close my hands around mine. The warmth burns. It feels good. I can almost not feel the tears threatening in my throat.
“So why are you a mercenary for hire? Being a bodyguard must be a little dull after Delta Force,” I tease and earn for the effort the dimples back in his cheeks.
He laughs. “Dull? Hardly. You are anything but dull, Kaley.”
My stomach flutters.
“Then why don’t you want me here with you?” I whisper. “Why don’t you ever make a move on me? I can tell you like me, but you don’t do it.”
Oh crap.
I didn’t intend to ask that.
Graham studies me for a moment and then climbs from the chair. He settles on the ground near me, his posture open, accessible and relaxed, but his body a neutral distance away from me.
“Because I’m not the right kind of guy for you, Kaley. I know it. But more importantly, you know it.”
My cheeks burn.
I brush at my face.
Damn.
Tears.
I feel an arm slip around my shoulders. My body is eased into his. His lips are in my hair. “It’s going to be all right, Kaley. What happened tonight to get you upset enough to take off?”
I peek up at him.
I sniff.
The words gather in my head.
No, don’t say them.
I sink into his chest, sniffling more. The words start fighting their way out. “My dad hates me and he should. I’ve destroyed my mom’s happiness. I’ve ruined their marriage. My dad’s out fucking Jen tonight. My mom won’t forgive that when she finds out and my family is a mess and it’s all my fault. And I’m surrounded by people all day every day and I have never felt lonelier in my life. I don’t even have anything to go home to when I’m finally free of this tour. My boyfriend dumped me…”
He tightens his hold on me. His hand moves on my back in comforting strokes.
“Shush, Kaley. Your dad doesn’t hate you. That’s the first thing you’ve gotten wrong. Also, he’s not with Jen tonight. So you can forget that worry. I can’t tell you where he is, but he’s definitely not doing anything you should blame yourself for. Your family is here and together. That’s more than most families are. If you don’t want to be lonely, stop walling everyone out and try letting people in. As for your boyfriend, crap, I don’t have anything to say about that. He’s an idiot if he dumped you—”
I choke out a laugh. “No, you’re wrong. Bobby is wonderful. I’m the idiot. But it was really sweet that you said that. In case you haven’t noticed I am feeling really bad tonight.”
He nods and makes a pout that’s sort of sexy on such a ruggedly handsome man. “I know. You don’t hide it very well. In fact, you’re pretty awful at hiding what you’re thinking and feeling.”
I laugh more comfortably and give him a push. I drop my face in my hands, clutch my hair, and groan. “God, I have the sorriest life ever.”
His hands close on my cheeks.
He turns me to look at him.
His thumbs lightly brush my jaw. “You don’t have a sorry life. You know what you want and you can have it. You know who you love and you can have them. Don’t you know how fortunate that is? And you are one amazing girl, Kaley Stanton. You’re going to do great things in life. I know it.”
He places a light kiss on my lips. It’s friendly and nothing more. It makes my emotions twirl faster. I feel like a jerk for always being a pain in the ass to him and even for my oh so obvious flirting.
God, what’s wrong with me? By now I should have figured out a way to stop doing one dumb thing after another.
I cry harder.
He folds me against his chest. “Kaley, I’m never wrong. Trust me. It’s going to be OK.”
But it’s not. No matter how true Graham Carson can make that feel by holding me in his powerful arms.
God, I wish I could go back in time.
I wish it were as easy to rewind your life as it is to rewind a video.
I would never have ruined my mother’s happiness.
I would never have made that hideous, shocking website and streaming video.
I never would have hurt and humiliated my father.
I never would have been foolish enough to lose Bobby Rowan—oh crap, the room is spinning—and I wouldn’t have drunk so much tonight. My stomach convulses.
Fuck.
I’m going to be sick.
I try to move.
Too late.
That’s vomit on Graham Carson’s lap.
He scrambles for a wastebasket and holds it beneath me, keeping the hair off my face. Over and over again my stomach contents shoot into the can. I can’t stop it. It’s draining. I’m panting. Tense. Waiting for the next round. Nothing. Is it done? How long have I been throwing up with Graham holding me? Oh God, how am I ever going to face this guy again?
He sets the trash aside.
I collapse to lie in a ball with my face against his thigh.
My breathing is ragged.
His fingers in my hair are gentle.
My lids grow heavy.
“I should go back to my room,” I choke out, finding it hard to say the words.
He adjusts my body from its fetal position into something more comfortable for me.
“Sleep, Kaley. Just sleep,” he murmurs. “That’s what you need now. I’ll figure out in the morning how to smooth this over with your dad. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything. Right now you just rest.”
Graham Carson is such a good guy.
He’d be a wonderful boyfriend, if I wasn’t in love with Bobby.
Bobby—I close my eyes and drift away…
Part Two
Kaley’s Dream
“Rewind”
CHAPTER 28
It started as a joke. Just something I worked on one night after learning the last girl from my sorority clique was getting married. I really didn’t do it out of spite or resentment. I didn’t even do it because I polished off a full bottle of Zinfandel that night. It’s just how I fill my evenings when there is nothing better to do: design a blog page, give it a name—How to Train Your Fembot—and start to post.
Who would have ever thought this page would take off the way it has in the past six months and who would have thought there were so many vain guys out there looking to bag a Fembot?
I don’t really think of my sorority sisters as fembots, any more than I think of myself as the token brunette. Sure, I was the only brunette in the clique inside my sorority of rich hotties at USC, but that was totally random and had nothing to do with this being California.
I don’t really resent them all landing their super-duper great guys, marching down the aisle into their oh-so-perfect lives. I had a super-duper great guy. I just didn’t marry him. Oh well, that’s another story for another day and a different blog. Tonight, I haven’t finished teaching overachieving men how to achieve their fembot-perfect wife.
Rule #477: If you want to make the Fembot crawl to you, figure out who her best friend is, and then flirt her up. As much as they pride themselves on ‘the sisterhood’ the second the BFF’s back is turned, she’ll make her move.
My fingers pause and I stare at the screen.
You ought to know rule #477 in spades, Kaley Stanton.
It’s what got me into my current mess. I’m so stupid to have fallen for that one, and definitely over a player like Graham Carson. Graham could write this blog probably better than I do. He made his way through my sorority sisters with a slick-talking, velvet-encased machete.
I take a hearty sip of my wine. I called that one wrong. I definitely have no one to blame but myself. And I definitely deserve to be home alone on a Saturday night writing my pitiful blog post.
I open the drawer in the bedside table and pull out my secret scrapbook. God, I’ve become like one of those lonely cat-ladies, one of those girls with secret scrapbooks, bitchy blogs, and dateless weekend nights.
I start flipping through the pages. As sad as I feel, the pictures make me smile. There is just something so right about how Bobby and I look together. I felt it the first day I met him. We were meant to be, a perfectly imperfect forever kind of couple.
I’ve never been able to imagine myself with someone else. I’ve loved Bobby Rowan since I was seventeen and, up until two years ago, he was also my best friend.
I refill my wineglass, put away the scrapbook and turn on the TV. I’m restless tonight. I should sleep, but there is something frantic and twitchy running through me. A feeling of lack of completion, of loss, and of need.
How long does it take to get over a guy? Maybe it would happen faster if I could find someone interesting and occasionally enjoy that sex thing again. How long has it been since I’ve gotten laid? I try to remember. I can’t. That’s how long it’s been.
God, I always miss Bobby the most on nights like these: alone, blogging, thinking, and drinking.
Ding. I look at my laptop screen. Shit. I forgot to log off, but then again, I never get any chats or comments on this blog except from my one virtual fan who randomly has been dropping in the last six weeks. A lot of people read it, the traffic numbers are very good, but no one wants to admit it by commenting that they visit the site. It’s that kind of thing.
I click open the chat box. OK, what does my cyber groupie have to say to me tonight?
Love-struck Trainer: Instead of posing as a somewhat humorous, sarcastic, devil-may-care princess to hide your bitterness, why don’t you tell guys something useful? How do you get over losing the perfect girl?
My entire body goes cold from head to toe. Is that how I come off? A somewhat humorous, sarcastic, devil-may-care princess to hide my bitterness. If that’s true, I’ve sunk so low. My hands rise and hover over the keys.
Rapidly I type: I’ve been told that my comments are witty and funny.
I hit send and wait.
Ding: A non-denial denial. Why won’t you answer the question? Or can you only dish out and not be helpful?
I really shouldn’t respond. I’ve had too much to drink but, fuck, there is something in his first question really hitting home right now. How does this stranger in cyber land know exactly what I’m feeling today? Maybe, it is obvious.
Click, click, two words: You don’t.
Crap. What made me say that? An honest answer. Exactly what I had just been thinking.
For some reason, I am suddenly fully alert, plugged in and engaged in this random moment with a virtual stranger. I stare at the screen. Waiting. Waiting.
Ding: Is that why you’re bitter? You lost the perfect guy?
I rapidly respond: Nope. I lost the perfect imperfect guy.
Love-struck Trainer: You are witty and funny.
I bite my lip, feeling a smile trying to take shape, and then the chat box announces he’s left. That’s it? Gone. Love-struck is usually good for at least an hour of diversion.
I log off my blog, switch off the light, and go to sleep.
I’m late. Sunday hangover always equals Monday late. I really need to stop that Saturday night drinking and blogging shit. It’s no way for a twenty-five-year-old girl to live. Isn’t that what everyone keeps telling me?
I hit the button for the garage door to open and wait impatiently for it to lift. Why does everything near the ocean move at a snail’s pace, even the garage door? I put the car into reverse, back into the driveway, hit the button and wait for the door to fully close in case Muffin the cat is lurking and decides to slip in. If the garage sensor pops the door open again, there is no telling what I’ll find within, leaving a house open all day in Malibu.
OK, you can close anytime.
While I wait, I study the stunning beachfront concrete and glass structure. It really makes me feel like a fraud to live here. Struggling independent filmmakers should live struggling lives if they want their art to be good. But then, the house was vacant since Dad finally married Mom shortly after my eighteenth birthday, and finding livable conditions for manageable rent in Southern California is just a bitch.
The house may cost me nothing, but there is rent. It may not cost US dollars to live here, but I do have to live with the memories, the memorabilia, and history contained within the walls of the Malibu house. I’m not talking about the photos of my parents, but the legacy of lovers that is always present within the rooms. Dad loved Mom here. Mom left Dad from here. And I live alone without Bobby here.
The door closes and I start to ease carefully from the driveway. Second battle of the day: getting onto Pacific Coast Highway during the commuter rush without getting hit. I merge into traffic and again everything is moving at a snail’s pace.
I pull into the drive-thru Starbucks to grab a morning tray of coffee for my creative team. I hit the notes icon on my iPhone, where I artfully conceal the list of everyone’s preferred drink. It’s a nice touch to always get it right, and it’s the little things that seem to keep the team humming happily. It sure isn’t the money I pay them since, according to my business checking account balance, I really am a struggling independent filmmaker.
If not for capital injections from Dad, my start-up film company would have folded long ago. I pull up to the window to pay.
“Thirty-seven dollars, twenty-eight cents,” the barista announces.
“Really? I only ordered six drinks. I’m not buying Starbucks.”
The girl doesn’t laugh. OK, so this isn’t one of my wittier and funnier moments but, heck, I’m in a rush and I’ve got a headache today. I rummage through my purse for a credit card.
I smile as I hand it to her. “Thank you.”
No response. Monday, Monday, Monday: they seem to bring out the worst in everyone. I wonder if the barista would notice if I started to secretly film her. There’s got to be a story in this and that’s what I do, film little bits of this and that all through the day until the next great documentary inspiration strikes. I peek at her out of the corner of my eye. Nope, better not try it. This girl looks pissed.
My credit card is shoved back at me and I have only a moment to drop it on my dash before I have to grab the tray closing in on me.
“Thank you,” I say.
Nothing. Not even a smile. Maybe I should start another blog: How to Train Your Barista. I put my car into gear and pull out of the drive-thru lane. That’s one of the things I miss about Bobby; he’s the only person I’ve ever known who always thought my quirky sense of humor was funny. I admit, I’m an acquired taste.
Thirty minutes later, I pull into the parking lot in front of the shabby industrial space that houses my fledgling company, KKK Productions. Another mistake of my quirky sense of humor, the KKK thing that started back in high school when I started to sell my hand-painted Vans on the Internet: Kaley’s Kustom Kicks. I thought it was memorable—KKK—but I guess it wasn’t one of my smarter branding moves because sometimes I get the most interesting mail from viewers who’ve seen one of our documentaries. And the KKK thing is definitely misinterpreted.
I pull my cross-body purse over my neck and scoop up the drink tray. Note to self: learn to contain quirky sense of humor when making business decisions.
I push with
my hip through the double glass doors and pause at the reception desk.
“Morning, Veronica. Is everyone here?” I ask, setting the tray down and searching for the soy latte.
“They’re in the conference room,” she informs, smiling as I hand her the coffee. “You’re late. Rough weekend?”
I force my expression into something I hope looks saucy. “The roughest kind.”
Veronica laughs. “I’m free for lunch if you want to tell me about it. Mine was totally dull.”
“I never kiss and tell,” I counter with heavy meaning.
I grab the tray and continue down the short hallway to the back office we’ve converted into a conference/screening room. Struggling to balance the tray in one arm, I open the door and the room quiets.
“Sorry to keep everyone waiting,” I say in a rush, moving quickly toward my seat. “Traffic,” I add lamely, wondering why I felt it necessary.
Maybe it’s because I’m the youngest person in the room and it still feels kind of strange to sign paychecks. Or maybe because someday they are going to figure out that I haven’t a clue what I’m doing and haven’t since the first moment I took over this defunct production company and inherited this team.
The business acquisition was a mistake, it was too burdened with debt and I should have listened to my dad about that, but I was excited about starting my career after graduation and the team is definitely a winner. I may not like each and every one of them, but I respect them, they are enormously talented and I’m getting great on-the-job CEO/documentary-filmmaker training here.
I smile and start to hand out the coffee drinks. I pull out a notepad from my bag and it gets a few funny stares. All around the table are laptops and tablets. I like paper, so shoot me. I grab a pen and start to tap it on the scarred wood table.
A sheet of paper is shoved across the table at me. “Should we start at the top of the agenda?” Justin asks.
I quickly scan the list. Jeez, there are a dozen bullet points here. Who has time for that much meeting? Too much discussion with every gathering of the creative team. No wonder this company released too few projects and went bankrupt.
