by Paris Hansen
Not only had he accepted it, he seemed to relish in it. Much to her surprise, he didn’t simply convince her that she was interested in getting to know him better, but he made her realize that she was fully ready to let somebody into her life. She had no doubt that it was Liam her body and mind were connecting with and not that he just happened to find her at the right time. If it weren’t for him, she was certain she’d still be the same anti-relationship curmudgeon she’d been before Elijah’s wedding. Liam spoke to a part of her that she had thought long dead and buried, but it had only been sleeping, waiting for the right man to show up.
“What could he possibly see in her?”
Pulling another glass out of the dishwasher, she dried it with the hand towel while trying to figure out who was talking loud enough she could hear them over the music. She was helping behind the main bar on the dance club side of Heat and had heard nearly the same thing multiple times throughout the evening. It was weird for her to make out conversations at the club, especially when she was down at one of the busier bars.
Shaking her head, she went back to focusing on getting the glasses dried and stocked before they ran out. Heat’s busiest nights were typically Friday and Saturday, but this particular Sunday night there was a steady stream of people coming through the door. When she’d checked the door count, they were near capacity which was usually unheard of on a Sunday night, unless Monday was a national holiday.
For the rest of the night, she worked her ass off, catching up on what she’d missed while Liam was in town and keeping up with the steady throng of people. She had to keep busy so she wouldn’t think about him too much and she had, in fact, missed a bunch while he’d distracted her. By quarter after one, the club was still pretty packed. She started the evening clean up while her bartenders started to close out tabs. She hoped by two they’d be able to have everyone out of the club without the bouncers going through a sweep, but she had a feeling there would be stragglers like there were on the busier nights.
“I guess she’s sort of pretty, but she doesn’t seem like his type…she’s too rough. He’s so polished and refined and that accent.”
“I know girl, I don’t get it. Maybe he just wanted a taste of the wild side or something. It won’t last.”
Finley stopped wiping down the table in front of her and turned around trying to figure out who was talking. The music was still incredibly loud despite the late hour, but there were a few tables nearby that had women sitting at them. Now that she was trying to, she couldn’t tell what any of them were talking about.
She had no idea what the hell was going on. She couldn’t be sure she was actually hearing things or if it was all in her mind. She wouldn’t put it past herself to self-sabotage and the snippets of conversations she was hearing were things she’d been thinking off and on all weekend where her relationship with Liam was concerned. There were moments while she was with Liam that she wondered why he’d picked her. Out of all the women in Hollywood that he could date and the millions of women around the world that would gladly throw themselves at him, why was he insisting on being with her.
Finley wasn’t blind. She knew she was good looking, but she was unpolished and completely unsophisticated. She wasn’t the type of woman that men took home to meet their parents. Hell, she wasn’t even the type of woman that most men would introduce to his friends unless he wanted to brag. She was covered in tattoos and had more than her ears pierced. She cussed like a sailor and spoke her mind, even if what she had to say wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear. Finley normally didn’t care if people liked her, but for some reason with Liam, she worried that the people he cared about would see her as vulgar and crude and a little too rough around the edges for him.
Liam had a reputation to uphold and Finley was not the best thing out there for a pristine reputation. And that was before anything about her past and her mother was revealed. Miranda Lane had been a piece of work, but Finley hadn’t been an angel either. Over the weekend, they’d barely scratched the surface of who they were. Liam still didn’t know the deepest secrets she held, he barely knew about the surface ones. There was still a lot about Liam she didn’t know, although he promised he would tell her anything she wanted to know, all she had to do was ask.
“I think that table’s clean boss; do you want me to take over for you?”
Shaken from her thoughts, Finley looked up to see Bridget, one of her bartenders standing next to her. Looking around, she noticed that the club had cleared out quite a bit, which made her wonder how long she’d been standing there thinking about Liam. The man was going to make her look crazy.
“Thanks Bridget,” Finley said as she handed the blonde woman her towel. Pulling her phone out of her back pocket, she checked the time. There was fifteen minutes left until they locked the doors. She looked around again and noticed that more people were trickling out as they paid their tabs or finished their drinks. As she watched she thought more than one person turned to look at her as they walked out the door. Or maybe they’d been looking back into the bar and not necessarily at her.
Great now I’m imagining things. I’m officially losing my mind, she thought before putting her phone back in her pocket and heading toward the main bar. Maybe running through the closing checklist would help get her mind right. Or maybe she needed a stiff drink and a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow she’d be back to normal, whatever that was.
* * * * *
“Why are you working right now? Isn’t Heat closed on Mondays? I know you have something better to do today and that’s telling your best friend everything that happened with Hottie McHollywood this weekend.”
“Holy fuck Savannah,” Finley yelled, her hand clutching her chest. Her heart thudded against her rib cage as she wondered how in the hell she hadn’t heard her friend until she was inside her office.
“Oh sorry, did I scare you? Maybe if you’d answered your freaking phone one of the twenty times I’ve called you this morning or maybe replied to one of the fifty texts I’ve sent, I wouldn’t have had to break in to make sure you were okay.”
“Wait…you broke in?”
“No dumbass, I used the key you gave me in case of emergencies. And the fact that I was not getting any responses to my “I need details” requests registered as an emergency to me. Hell for all I knew he murdered you in your apartment and no one was going to realize it until your body started to stink up the place.”
“You watch too much Criminal Minds.”
“No I don’t, but that’s beside the point. He left yesterday afternoon. It is now Monday afternoon and I haven’t heard a peep from you. I actually knew he left you alive and well and that’s only because I happened to see the goodbye kiss online.”
Finley’s head snapped up, her eyes meeting Savannah’s to see if her friend was still joking around. There was no mistaking the fact that her friend was dead serious. There were pictures of her and Liam online. Well at least one picture. What the fuck? They had been so sure that no one recognized him, that no one had seen them together.
Then the pieces started to slide together and the weirdness at Heat the night before started to make sense. Holy shit. It had been about her; the conversations, the weird glances, the outright staring and the nearly packed club on a work night. Her heart started beating rapidly in her chest as she struggled to take a deep breath.
“Hey Fin, you’re going to hyperventilate. What the heck’s going on? Oh shit, you didn’t know. Oh damn. I’m sorry. I thought you knew that your weekend was all over the internet. Didn’t you realize that the paparazzi were following you?”
Finley shook her head as she tried to calm down. “How could they have possibly even known he was here? I mean, it’s not like they followed him from L.A., right?”
“Probably not. He’s not A-List like Orlando and from what I could see online, it’s not like he makes a habit out of being worthy of the paparazzi stalking him like that weird kid from Canada. Someone had to have tipped them off.”
<
br /> Leaning back in her chair, Finley sighed. This was exactly what she’d been afraid would happen if she got involved with Liam.
“Move over, let me pull up the website I saw them on and we can see if we can figure out a timeline. Then maybe you guys can figure out who might have given you up.”
“I don’t want to look at this crap Sav. I’m sure the pictures are unflattering and the comments are even worse.”
Savannah pushed her aside, then maneuvered her office laptop so it was angled toward her. Before Finley could protest further, Savannah had a gossip site pulled up with a few clicks and very little typing. At the top of the page was a headline that she realized had Liam’s name in it. She fought against reading it; she didn’t want to know what it said about her. Although she had to admit she was a bit surprised that they were top story news with all of the other crap that happened in Hollywood on a daily basis.
“Here we go. ‘Liam Crawford’s hot new arm candy. Is it love?’” Savannah read out loud. “I have to admit it’s a bit catchy. Although it they knew you, they’d realize arm candy is not quite right. Damn it, that hurt.”
Finley laughed as Savannah rubbed her arm. She couldn’t resist smacking her friend since she seemed to be enjoying all of this at Finley’s expense.
“Look at the pictures. I promise you they are not unflattering in the least. But I will say don’t read the comments. It’s not worth it. A lot of them are very nice, but of course there are some haters out there bagging on you because you’re holding hands with the man they wish they had an iota of a chance with. And there are some really disgusting dudes who let’s just say, wish they were Liam and leave it at that. I might be scarred for life by some of the stuff they wrote. I don’t want you to suffer too.”
“I don’t need to see these,” Finley argued.
“Yes you do. Plus, there’s a really cute blurb about how gorgeous you are and how happy Liam looks. They mention your name and Heat, so I bet you get a bump in clubgoers for a bit. Just stay away from the comments and you’ll be fine,” Savannah said as she repositioned the computer in front of Finley. “Now I’ll leave you to go through these, we’ll do lunch tomorrow and you can fill me in on what happened while Liam was in town.”
Before Finley could say anything, Savannah was out of her office and down the hall. Finley heard the door close behind her friend, letting her know she was once again alone. Before she left, Savannah had opened up the article photo gallery. There staring back at her was a picture of her and Liam walking through Pike Place Market hand in hand with huge smiles on their faces. She was blown away by how happy she looked in that one picture.
Even though she didn’t want to do it, before she knew it, she was flipping through the rest of the gallery. All of the pictures were from Friday and Saturday in various places around the city. She’d taken him through the market to the gum wall. They’d taken the monorail to the Seattle Center where they went up into the Space Needle then walked through EMP.
While they were together, Finley had felt like she was so wrapped up in Liam that she couldn’t focus on anything else and she’d been right. That was the only explanation for not noticing that someone else was practically on their date with them. Hell, they had pictures of the two of them in one of the Space Needle elevators which was not an easy space to discreetly take pictures in, especially not with a high powered camera. She felt like a fucking idiot for spending two days giving them exactly what they wanted.
There were pictures of them kissing, hugging and nearly constantly touching each other. Even when they were out to eat they sat on the same side of the booth like those disgusting couples she’d always made fun of, just so they could always be in contact with each other. The paparazzi had caught their make out sessions which had occurred each night when he dropped her off. She was thankful they hadn’t gotten as hot and heavy as when he’d dropped her off on Thursday night. Flipping back to the beginning of the gallery, Finley realized there wasn’t any evidence of their first night together. The paparazzi hadn’t followed him from L.A. since none of them were present until Friday.
“Son of a bitch,” she growled.
Someone had sold them out. Someone from her club had likely called that one shitty gossip site that always seemed to break Hollywood news and told them that Liam was in town. Only a few people knew he’d stopped by the club that night, so her list of potential people to fire wasn’t long. Shit was definitely going to hit the fan on Wednesday when everyone came to work, but she couldn’t think about that now. It only made her angry and that wasn’t what she wanted to feel at the moment.
She continued to click through the pictures surprised at how much of their time together was now a part of the internet forever. She shouldn’t have been that surprised though. She knew what the paparazzi were capable of back when she was a kid and that was long before the digital age. Now that there wasn’t film to be processed, developed and scanned, invading people’s privacy was a hell of a lot easier. She wanted to be pissed…and she was, but most of all she was embarrassed.
They even had a picture of their kiss goodbye, which had been slow, passionate and very intimate. It had been perfect and now seeing evidence of it on the internet, she wanted to say it was tainted, but she couldn’t. The pictures were pretty fucking hot, which she hated to admit.
Ignoring Savannah’s warning, she started reading some of the comments. Most of them weren’t bad, people seemed genuinely happy for Liam even if they weren’t sure about her. There were definitely some that made her feel like she needed a scalding hot shower to get rid of the ick factor. Despite how gross and imaginative some of those people were, they still made her laugh.
Overall, the comments weren’t as bad as she was expecting. Even the haters weren’t that bad. Most of them said she was ugly or not right for Liam. The kind of thing she remembered saying when she was young and one of her celebrity crushes started dating someone new. It was the same old stuff, just now about her. It wasn’t until she slipped deeper into the never-ending comment abyss, that she found what Savannah had really not wanted her to read.
One after another, there were comments that were downright mean. If she hadn’t grown up around the kind of hatred that was being spewed forth by someone hiding behind a keyboard, she might have broken down a little. She’d seen this kind of vitriol spewed toward her and her mother when she was just a teenager, back when the internet and that kind of open forum was still fairly new. It was more hurtful back then, but it didn’t mean it didn’t sting now.
She knew she should stop reading, but she couldn’t. It was like a train wreck that she couldn’t stop rubbernecking for. Only the train wreck was her life and the relationship she was trying to forge with Liam was the casualty. One weekend and this was what happened. They hadn’t even stood a chance. Not against the bullshit that his career brought with it. She should have known it was over before it began, but she was too busy with her head in the clouds to notice.
On her desk, her cell phone rang. The disruption allowed her to break away from the shitty comments. Quickly she closed the website down, then turned off the laptop. She couldn’t trust herself to get any work done at that point. Her mind would continue to wander and if she was on the computer, she knew she’d end up doing something stupid like Googling herself or Liam. She didn’t need to see what they were saying about her on the rest of the world-wide web. She wasn’t a masochist.
She stared at the doorframe in front of her, her mind reeling from everything she’d seen in the last hour. Her phone started to ring again, making her realize she’d never answered it the first time. Looking over at it, she recognized the photo that took over her screen. It was one of a few selfies that she and Liam had taken over the weekend. Again, they both looked ridiculously happy. If she’d known then that it was going to be such a fleeting feeling she would have enjoyed it more. She would have tried to hold on to it.
Her phone continued to ring, the sound making her cringe. She didn’t w
ant to talk to him. She had nothing to say. Not at the moment anyway, not while she was upset and confused. She swiped across her screen, sending his call to voicemail before she powered it down. The club was closed for the next two days so she had time to disconnect from the world. She had a lot to think about and she didn’t want to give Liam a chance to influence her decision.
As she got up to leave, the landline for the club started to ring. She hesitated, wondering if she should let the machine get it. There was a chance it was club business and she refused to let this thing with Liam affect her business, so she reluctantly answered the phone.
“Thank you for calling Heat, this is Finley,” she said as soon as she had the phone to her ear.
“Finley Blake? This is Antonio from the Hollywood Star. I was hoping to get a quick interview with you about you and Liam Crawford.”
“Son of a bitch,” she growled as she slammed the phone back onto its receiver. She hadn’t even bothered with a response to the reporter on the other line. There was no way she was giving an interview to him or anyone else.
The phone started to ring again, but this time she wasn’t going to be stupid and answer it. They could leave a message on the office machine if they wanted to, but she was done with it all for the day; done with it all for the next two days. With any luck, by Wednesday somebody else would be the top news story and she’d be able to move on with her life. Sadly, she wouldn’t hold her breath that would actually happen.
* * * * *
Much to her dismay, two days later, things had not blown over. Reporters and paparazzi were camped out in the Heat parking lot and Finley was sleeping in Savannah’s guest room. Her life had been turned upside down after one weekend with a man. One really great weekend sure, but still one single weekend nonetheless.
She still hadn’t talked to Liam, although he continued to call, she let all of his calls go to voicemail. After the first night, she had been tempted to leave her phone off, but knew that there were people in her life that would have panicked had she stayed disconnected. But just because her phone was on didn’t mean she had to talk to the one person she probably should talk to.
