by M. S. Parker
But not now.
It was all over now.
“This isn’t about you being sorry,” my father replied, voice calm. He’d moved past the anger. James Cruz was a passionate man—my mother loved to make sure I knew that—but he was also a man in control of his emotions, especially ones like anger.
She also liked to tell me that I was so much like him…except for the control part.
Right now, I felt like I was flying out of control, and I wished I had even a tenth of his reserve. A hundredth.
“What else do you want me to do, then?!” I asked, dashing at the tears. I felt guilty and angry and scared. The cops wanted to arrest me. “The drugs weren’t mine, Dad!”
“They were in your purse.”
I wanted to scream. Caitlyn. She’d told me she didn’t want to carry anything into the party that wouldn’t fit into the tiny little pockets of her skinny jeans, and I’d let her put her wallet and other things in my purse. It had been locked in the trunk. There was no way I could prove the cocaine wasn’t mine.
“Daddy…”
“I’m going to handle this.” He held up a hand, his handsome face looking haggard and tired.
The guilt stabbed at me even more, and I curled my arms around my middle. I went to nod and say thank you.
They always took care of me.
“But you won’t see Caitlyn again.”
I jerked up my head.
“That’s not fair.”
“A boy is in the hospital. His entire future is in shatters. Caitlyn is innocently claiming she knows nothing about the cocaine you say she put in your purse. You and Maverick are looking at drug charges. There are a lot of things in life that aren’t fair,” James Cruz said, staring down his sharp, straight nose at me. “Wake up and accept that fact.”
I flinched. It was like he’d reached across and slapped me.
It pissed me off so I threw my hair back—and immediately, I wished I hadn’t. I hurt all over from the wreck. The seatbelt had kept me safe, but it was still sore, and my neck was killing me. Still, after I’d sucked back the gasp of pain, I glared at my dad. “I’m nineteen, not nine. You can’t tell me whom I can and cannot see.”
“True.” He gave me a thin smile. “But here’s one thing I can do: I can take your car. I’ll contact the school and let them know you’ll have to find another way to pay for the upcoming school year, because I’m not financing you—and it’s a little late to apply for scholarships.”
“You can’t do that! Mom!” I turned to her, but she was staring out the window, not looking at me. I sincerely doubted there was anything out in the hospital parking lot at four a.m. that kept her so fascinated.
That meant…she was okay with this.
They’d already discussed this.
“Daddy…”
“No.” He shook his head. “You have no idea what it did to us, baby, getting that phone call. It could be you lying in a bed while the doctors try to figure out if they can save your leg or not. It could have been you who was scraped up into a body bag.”
The other driver had been drunk. And he was dead, his little toy car folding around him like so much plastic.
“You’re lucky you weren’t driving. You’re lucky you were able to give a clear statement to the cops. My friends at the DA tell me it’s possible that Maverick will only get sentenced to rehab and parole, since he wasn’t the one on the wrong side of the road. But one life ended tonight. Another is in ruins—and I’m not talking about yours.” He took a few steps closer and said, “And if you hadn’t been high, you wouldn’t have been in that car. Maybe he wouldn’t have decided to leave and go look for another party. Maybe none of this would have happened.”
“So you’re saying it’s my fault.” I blinked back the burn of tears.
“Some of it? Yes.” He gave a decisive nod. “You let Caitlyn have too much control over you, baby. And it’s going to stop. If you decide to continue your relationship with her, then you’ll be…” He hesitated, taking a deep breath. “Completely on your own. You’ll have to move out. Find a new place to live, a way to pay for it. Your mother and I can’t do this.”
I laughed brokenly. “Wow. Talk about tough love.”
“If we didn’t love you, we wouldn’t be here,” Mom said gently. She turned and looked at me. “After all…Caitlyn isn’t here. The cops had to question her at home. Even when they told her you were in the hospital.”
I sucked in a breath.
“Caitlyn…” Now I really felt lost.
Lost and cut adrift.
“No. She’s not here. And neither are Maverick’s parents. They said they’d be in once the decision was made about surgery.” My mother offered a thin smile. “I shouldn’t know any of this, of course. But…”
She lifted a shoulder and looked away. My mom had her ways. She always found things out.
I couldn’t imagine Mom and Dad not being here.
Tears burning my eyes, I pulled my knees to my chest and stared at the blanket. “What do you want me to do, Daddy?”
The bed gave way under him and for the longest time, he didn’t speak.
Finally, I looked up at him.
“I want you to be the woman I know you can be. But you have to stay away from people who are just looking to drag you down…from people who don’t really care.” He brushed my hair back. “If it was Caitlyn who’d been in the wreck, where would you be?”
That, more than anything else, hurt.
Two
Glenn
Las Vegas, 1962
“Top that, you loser.” Cain Bristow, my best friend—and one lousy card player—sat across from me and smirked. There was a girl on his lap, and she pursed her lips as she studied the cards.
It wasn’t bad.
A pair of queens. With a dramatic sigh, she slapped down the cards she’d unsuccessfully tried to keep Glenn and me from seeing. She didn’t have anything better than a pair of tens. “I fold.”
“Groovy.”
Cain let her go and watched as she stood up to slowly strip away the bra, one of the few pieces of clothing she wore.
I couldn’t decide if she was that bad of a player, or if she just wanted to be naked with us.
It didn’t matter. She had one fine ass on her, and I enjoyed the view as she bent over Cain and kissed him.
“Is it my turn?”
The question came from the cute redhead at my side. I couldn’t remember her name. I was sure she’d told me, but it had left my mind within seconds. I gave her a nod, eying the blouse she still had buttoned up to her neck.
She wasn’t wearing her skirt anymore though, and she had great legs.
She licked her lips, then put her cards down.
I pretended to groan then grinned. She gaped as I revealed the two pairs I’d been holding.
“The shirt comes off, Jilly,” the woman on my left said. She wore next to nothing, too. Panties and socks. And her shoes. Couldn’t forget the shoes. It was kind of cute, really.
Jilly—so, that’s what her name was—huffed out a breath and reached for the buttons on her shirt, slowly undoing one after the other. I would have thought she was nervous, except for the faint gleam in her eyes. She was enjoying the shit out of this.
Good for her.
I was trying not to let on to how bored I was.
We played another hand, and I ended up with a naked Jill grinding against me while Cain kissed one of the others. I didn’t know her name. I probably wouldn’t have remembered Jill’s if it hadn’t been for the little game she’d been playing.
She pressed her lips to my neck and giggled. “I can’t believe I’m here with you. You’re just so…so…dreamy.”
“You too, babe.” It was an easy lie, and she giggled again, pressing her breasts to my chest as she slid her hands through my hair.
“How can you be so pretty, Glenn?”
She bit my ear, and I tried to find some interest inside me.
“Hey, Glenn…you wa
nna try out some of this?” Cain said.
“Oooohhhh…I want some,” I heard a girl say.
“I got plenty, sweetheart.
I glanced past Cain at first, eying the bottles glittering on the bar, and thinking that if I got drunk enough, it wouldn’t matter that Jilly had an annoying giggle. She was sexy and naked and rubbing against me. My body would get into it—already was.
Jilly turned around and wiggled her ass against my crotch, and I eyed one of the girls as she tossed back the pill Cain had been offering me. She washed it down with a bottle of Jack Daniels and then locked on me. Her eyes were wide and big. The sort of sexy bedroom eyes that moaned fuck me.
I curled my fingers toward her, and she slid away from Cain.
“Hey…I had you first,” Jilly said with a pout.
“There’s more than plenty to go around.” I caught the hair of the other girl and tugged her to me, simultaneously nudging Jilly to the floor between my thighs. “Why don’t you come down here and see?”
She gasped, then another giggle escaped her lips.
I kissed her friend, focusing on the whiskey and smoky taste of her, instead of that annoying giggle.
Over it all, I heard Cain’s good-natured laugh. “Fuck you, man.”
A hot mouth closed around my cock, and Jilly hummed in clear appreciation. Finally, no more giggles.
“I can’t believe I’m here with you,” the other woman said against my lips. “I’ve seen sooo many of your movies. You’re the sexiest fucking thing ever.”
“You too, babe.”
It was like a movie script, one I’d rehearsed a thousand times, but at least she wasn’t giggling.
I slid my hand up her thigh, found her naked and wet.
I made her come hard on my fingers, and when she went limp, I eased her down to the floor, then reached for Jilly. She scraped my cock with her teeth, but came to me.
She straddled me and started to ride, giggles gone and replaced by moans.
I cupped her ass, moved her harder and faster.
From the corner of my eye, I saw something.
The other girl.
She was dancing in the middle of the room.
That was…kind of weird.
Jilly squealed, tightened around me. Then she came, hard.
I did too, but I was staring at the girl.
She wasn’t dancing now. She was backing away from us, staring at the whole room, almost…scared.
My alcohol-fogged brain was a little slow to react, but I finally realized something was wrong.
She started to scream, long and loud.
I lurched upright.
Jilly laughed. She was giggling. Again. I dumped her on the chair where I’d been sitting and fumbled my dick back into my jeans as I started for the screaming girl.
“Hey…hey…”
Other people were laughing.
Cain was, too. “Easy, man. She’s just on a trip. It’s all good.”
I’d been on trips before—acid wasn’t supposed to make you freak the fuck out. At least, that’s what I thought.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I said, my feet awkward and slow. I felt like I was moving through tar as I crossed the room to get closer.
She backed away, right through the balcony doors.
Fear was hot and greasy in my gut now.
“Come on, sweetheart. Come here. It’s okay.”
“No, no, no…” she screamed, but it wasn’t at me. She wasn’t even looking at me now. She scratched her nails down her arms, and blood followed.
I moved a little faster, tripped over the chair in front of me. While I was trying to untangle my clumsy ass, she spun around and grabbed the railing.
The wind tore at her hair.
She was a bleach-blonde, but she wore it well. Her skin was pale, almost eerily so. Light flickered over her as she clung to the railing.
“Come here, sweetheart.”
She shook her head, but I didn’t think she even really heard me.
Her hands gripped the railing behind her, and she swung a look back over her shoulder. Straight out.
What was she seeing?
I didn’t want to know.
“Honey, come on.” I took another step toward her, feeling more and more sick inside because that look in her eyes was scary.
“Come on,” I said again, gesturing to her.
Behind me, one of the girls shrieked in laughter, but the blonde flinched and cowered away.
She wasn’t seeing anything remotely fun in whatever was going on inside her head.
I took another step toward her, my gut plummeting to my knees as she swung her legs over the edge, staring out behind herself once more.
“Baby, come on.”
“Baby,” she said, her voice sad, a little sing-song lilt to it. “They call me baby…”
“What’s your name?”
She looked back at me then.
Right before she let go.
“No!”
“Pavement does ugly things to a body when you hit from a few hundred feet up.”
I didn’t want to talk to the cops.
My manager, Peter Hammond, sat next to me, his face calm and placid, but calm was so far from what he felt. It wasn’t even funny. At fifty-four, he wasn’t new to this life, and he was definitely more formidable than his appearance implied.
“Come on, Glenn. Tell us why that pretty girl jumped.”
The cop who’d asked the question leaned forward, blowing a stream of smoke in my face. I waved it away and he smirked, lifting the cigarette to his lips.
“What’s the matter? You’ll booze it up all night and toss back acid, but cigarettes bother you?”
I didn’t bother explaining I hadn’t dropped any acid.
It didn’t matter.
I’d been drunk off my ass.
Maybe if I hadn’t been…
“Officer, is there a reason why you’re hassling my client?” Peter leaned forward, drawing the cop’s eyes his way.
“Well, see…” The cop blew another stream of smoke at me. “I got a pretty dead girl. A couple more girls who are still tripping on whatever your boy there gave them—”
“I’ve already explained that the drugs weren’t mine,” I said flatly.
The cop waved a hand. He didn’t care about the LSD. I could have told him it was Cain’s easily enough. Cain had some crazy therapist who was always prescribing him weird shit, but I didn’t see the point.
He wasn’t here because of the drugs.
I think he was being honest, though.
He was pissed off about the dead girl.
So was I.
“I just want to know why she’s dead,” he said easily. “If you kids were just partying, then there wouldn’t be a dead girl. Did she tell you no?”
“Shit.” I looked away, laughing a little despite myself. Girls didn’t say no to me.
It was almost an amusing thought, and I wondered what it would be like if I had to actually work to get one to talk to me, instead of work to keep their damn hands out of my pants.
“This funny to you?”
“No.” I glared at him. “It’s not. It’s a fucking mess, but I had nothing to do with her jumping.”
My manager cut him off then, and I let him.
Because I was lying. Maybe I hadn’t made her jump, but I could have done…something.
I just didn’t know what.
“You can’t keep doing this.”
It was two days later.
I hadn’t left the hotel.
I hadn’t showered.
I hadn’t turned on the TV.
I hadn’t even had any food to eat.
Bottles littered the room, my head was killing me, and if I found just one bottle that wasn’t empty…
But no.
“Peter, would you shut up?” I muttered, face still buried in my hands.
He’d conned somebody on the hotel staff to let him in while I was asleep. I hadn’t woken up until h
e’d finished emptying out whatever booze I hadn’t drank. He’d also managed to hide my damn pants, and the phone, so I couldn’t call down for more, or go out and buy my own.
I wasn’t so far gone that I wasn’t ruling out walking out of there half-naked.
Close, but not that far gone…yet.
“They’re talking about canceling the movie, Glenn. Would you get your head out of your ass and listen to me?”
That managed to get through the fog. The one thing I’d been holding onto was the fact that in less than two weeks, I’d start filming again.
If I was working, I didn’t have to be inside my own head—and that was always a plus.
“They can’t do that,” I said carefully.
“They can. You’re a walking nightmare right now.” Peter slapped something against my chest, and I took it.
The picture of her face was a blow to my chest, one I hadn’t been prepared for.
“Her mother is friends with the governor’s wife, Glenn. She’s making a lot of noise.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked gruffly. Tracing my fingers down the grainy edge of the picture, I shook my head. “I tried to stop her, okay? I just…couldn’t.”
“Glenn, that’s the problem.” He sat down next to me. “This isn’t just about her. It’s about…you. This.” He gestured to the room.
I looked around, seeing it the way he probably saw it. It looked like a pigsty—a luxurious one, but still a pigsty—and it smelled like a distillery. I smelled even worse.
“You’re one of the most talented actors in Hollywood, kid. I can do remarkable things for you, but you…” He sighed. “This partying lifestyle is hurting people. It’s hurting you.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked again.
“Settle yourself down.” He shrugged and clapped me on the shoulder. “Hell, that cute girl you’ve been seeing back in LA…spend some more time with her. With the movie coming up, it’s a fantastic way to show the studios that you’re settling down.”
Florence.
I rubbed the back of my neck, the headache throbbing and swelling to massive proportions.
The thought of settling down and spending more time with Florence, sweet as she was, only made me feel worse.
