by Beth Rinyu
Ten
Gia
Today couldn’t have possibly gone any better. I had an awesome rehearsal, an awesome time at Cam’s photo shoot and I was fairly certain that tonight would be equally as awesome, hanging with Carrie, Jason and Cam…..just like old times. I’d forgotten all about yesterday and Jasper’s evil spawn, the fact that he didn’t do or say anything to defend me, or that I hadn’t heard from him at all today. I battled with myself, wondering if I should ask him to come along tonight, but since I was pretty sure of the answer, I figured I would save myself the rejection. If he wanted to snub me, that was fine…I would have a damn good time without him. I hopped out of the shower and quickly ran the blow-dryer through my hair before dressing in my favorite jeans and oversized sweater. I loved that I didn’t have to obsess about what to wear or worry about my hair and make-up being perfect like I did when I went out with Jasper. Tonight, I was able to be me…plain and simple. I slipped on my boots just as Cam’s message came through, letting me know he was outside. I sprinted down the steps shouting a quick hello to Mr. Sanchez as I passed him in the stairwell. When I stepped outside, I scanned the area for a taxi, gasping with excitement when I saw Cam standing outside a limo instead. I wasn’t sure what had taken me by surprise more, the limo or Cam, standing against it with his hands in his pockets and his sexy five o’clock shadow, looking hot as hell.
“What is this?” I squealed.
“Nothing but first-class for you girl.”
“Now Cameron James, you know you don’t need to do this to impress little old me,” I joked.
“Yeah, but it beats taking the train.”
I let out a loud laugh. “Okay, you got me there!”
The forty-five-minute limo ride seemed to go by in the blink of an eye and thankfully, I was never short on words when it came to Cam. We were just about there when suddenly it dawned on me to try one last-ditch effort. “So have you changed your mind about not coming home for Thanksgiving?”
“Ha! That’s the million dollar question! Are you conspiring with my mother?”
“No….but I could be!” I laughed.
“Actually, I’m going to Cabos with a few friends.”
I creased my forehead at him. “Cam, its Thanksgiving, the only other holiday that’s more American than that is the Fourth of July! How the hell could you be spending it in another country?”
“I just need to get away from life for a few days.”
“Yeah, I hear ya. I can’t say I blame you.”
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, probably working at the bar. I haven’t broken that news to my mother yet. That should go over well!” I didn’t want to admit that I was secretly waiting to see what Jasper’s plans were going to be and if I’d be included in them.
“Why the hell are you working?”
“Do you know how many people go to bars and get drunk on Thanksgiving….either before they have to deal with their families at Thanksgiving dinner or after, and drunken customers mean big tips!” I giggled.
He shook his head and looked at me in confusion. “Why are you still working so hard, Gia. Your rent is paid –” He stopped himself mid-sentence.
“My rent is what, Cam?”
“Nothing.”
“Cam!! It was you?! I am gonna kill you!”
“Gia, relax. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me. I don’t want anyone paying my way through life!”
“Well, I’m not just anyone…so there.”
“Cam…please let me pay you –”
“No! Damn, why did I just have to slip? You didn’t need to know.”
“Yeah? Well, I did! And I just assumed it was Jasper and was feeling all indebted to him….hence, why I picked up his kids yesterday.”
He threw his head back on the seat and let out a loud laugh before taking my hand in his. “Gia, I did it because I wanted to. You’re the closest thing that I will ever have to a sister.”
“But Cam –”
He put his finger up to my lips to stop me from talking. “Gia, please. I’ll be really offended if you keep giving me a hard time about this. I wanted to do this…it makes me happy. Will you please just let it go?” He looked at me with pleading eyes.
I let out a disgruntled sigh. Why the hell did he have to be so damn adorable and more importantly, why the hell did this sexy specimen of perfection have to be like a brother to me?
We pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant where we were meeting Carrie and Jason, my mom and Ben, and I waited for the driver to get out and open the door. I slid out and Cam was right behind me. “Is he coming back to pick us up?” I asked Cam as we headed inside.
“No, he’ll just wait.”
I nodded, noticing some of the other patrons who were walking out do a double take at Cam and hoping that we could just enjoy the night like old times, instead of having a swarm of people hovering over us for his autograph. But it was inevitable, especially in the small town that we grew up in where Cam was basically a legend. No one even halfway famous had ever come out of this town, so to have someone of Cam’s stature was huge.
We walked in and I didn’t even have to look, I could hear. The loudest, rowdiest table in the restaurant – compliments of Aunt Jodi – was where we were headed.
“Oh….umm…I kind of told my mom you were coming and she must’ve mentioned it to your mom.” I turned around to Cam, hoping he wasn’t pissed. I knew he loved his mom more than anything, but every now and then he would vent to me about how she was always on his case. I totally got where he was coming from because there were times that I felt the same way about my mother.
“It’s fine,” he whispered.
“Hey, hey, hey!” I shouted, giving my mom and Carrie a kiss right away.
“Wow, Cam! Twice in less than a week, this is why you should be playing for a real team like New York.” Jason joked.
“If there was a real team in New York, I’d consider it!” Cam joked back.
“Oh man, that just hurt!” Ben shouted. The three of them began their usual baseball banter while I took a seat between my mom and Carrie.
“Where’s Herman?” I asked Aunt Jodi.
“Oh, he got called in for a delivery. The nerve of some people deciding to have a baby just as we’re getting ready to go out to dinner.” She laughed.
“So how was your dinner last night?” Carrie asked with my mother and Jodi paying close attention.
“Oh, yeah. How was that place?” Aunt Jodi asked. “I hear it’s pretty swanky.”
My mother looked straight ahead, seemingly unimpressed by Jasper’s poor attempt at a fancy birthday dinner for me. “Oh…umm….we didn’t end up going.”
“Why not?” Carrie asked, seeming more disappointed than I was over the whole thing.
“Well, he had a last minute emergency so we had to postpone.” There. I hoped that would suffice and get them off my case.
“Well, did he at least get you something for your birthday?” Aunt Jodi asked.
I hadn’t even thought about it until now, but he hadn’t gotten me anything. Not even a card. In fact, he had never even told me happy birthday, I guess he figured the text he’d sent me early that day would be good enough.
“Well, he sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers.” I lied, not wanting to appear as a total loser for being okay with his total disregard and thereby give my mom further reason to dislike him.
My mother mumbled something under her breath. I didn’t bother to ask her to repeat it because I was fairly certain it would just piss me off anyway. She had a real problem with the still married status of Jasper, and even though I tried explaining to her that it was only a matter of time now before the divorce was final, she didn’t want to hear it. I was happy when her eyes focused on the ballerina hanging around my neck, knowing we’d be getting off the subject of Jasper. “Oh, this is pretty,” she said, lifting up the ballerina charm and examining it closer. “Did your father get you this?”<
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I cleared my throat and looked over at Cam still deep in conversation with Ben and Jason. “Oh, umm no….this was from Cam.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet.” My mother smiled.
“Let me see.” Aunt Jodi leaned across the table to get a better look. “Oh that’s perfect for you! See, I did raise a good boy.”
“He’s the best,” I replied looking over at Cam once again and then back at Aunt Jodi. Her smile now shadowed with concern. As I looked back down at the beautiful ballerina dangling from my neck, I realized Aunt Jodi was right – it was perfect for me. Cam just got me on so many levels. He never questioned my chaotic lifestyle and I never had to pretend to be something I wasn’t in front of him. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve known someone your entire life.
As expected, the night was filled with lots of fun and lots of laughs. I had pregnancy sympathy for Carrie and didn’t drink right along with her while everyone else put them away, and by the end of the night, I was finding that I didn’t want it to end. Why couldn’t it always be this way? Why couldn’t Cam live here and be here all the time so nights like this could happen more often? I got up and excused myself to use the ladies room, feeling my stomach drop when I pulled my phone from my purse to find a text from Jasper:
Hey beautiful. Since I screwed up your birthday plans, will you allow me to cook you dinner at my place tomorrow night?
That was it? No ‘I’m sorry’? No ‘where have you been all day’? No ‘I miss you’?
Of course that was all I was going to get from Jasper. He rarely apologized, never wanting to admit that he was wrong. That text message was as good as I was going to get from him, as far as a peace offering goes.
I quickly went over tomorrow’s schedule in my head. Dance rehearsal in the morning. Dance class in the afternoon. Laundry squeezed in somewhere in-between. I wasn’t working at the bar so that left me free and clear for dinner. I knew what my answer was going to be, but the question was: do I let him stew for a little longer wondering where I was or how I was going to reply or do I do the mature grown-up thing and just respond with a yes right now. I typed out the three letter word and hit the send button before I even had time to overthink it. Sometimes, it really sucked being a grown up.
Eleven
Cam
I had such a great time in New York and wished I didn’t have to leave so early in the morning, but I had to be back in L.A. by tomorrow. One of the guys on my team was getting married and the reception was tomorrow night. Today and last night brought me right back to my younger days when I was around more often to be able to hang out with friends and family. Of course, my mother had to pull me aside and question me about Gia. I don’t know why she refused to believe that there was absolutely nothing going on. Maybe it was because she’d never been able to be friends with someone of the opposite sex without sleeping with them that led her to believe that everyone else was the same way. I finally had to break down and tell her a little bit about Jessica just to get her off my back. Jessica. The poor girl had been texting me like crazy since I had gotten to New York and my only reply was telling her I was really busy and would talk to her when I got home. Clearly, she didn’t get that I didn’t want a relationship, so the only honorable thing to do when I got back was to be straight up with her.
The limo stopped in front of Gia’s place and she stuck her bottom lip out, pretending to pout. “I had the greatest time today and last night. Thank you so much, Cam, for everything.”
“Well, so did I. So thanks to you too.”
“So when will you be back?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know, maybe Christmas. You know, you can always come out to Cali, too?”
She threw her head back against the seat and grinned from ear to ear. “How awesome would that be?”
“So, do it then.”
“Hmm…maybe after the show is over. I really can’t before then with rehearsals and everything else that is going on.”
“Then January it is.”
“It’s a date!” she smiled once again and moved in closer, hugging me tight. “Really Cam, you have no clue how much it’s meant to me just having you here these past two days,” she whispered in my ear, still holding on to me.
“It was a lot of fun.” My voice faltered. I swallowed hard, catching the faint familiar scent of her perfume and feeling the warmth coming off her baby soft skin. I didn’t like whatever it was that I was beginning to feel whenever she was so close. It was wrong on so many levels. Gia was like a sister, but sitting there in the back of that limo embraced in her arms, it sure as hell didn’t feel that way anymore. And let’s not even mention that a certain body part of mine was reacting to Gia’s closeness in a decidedly non-fraternal way.
She looked up at me and caressed my face with the side of her hand. “Have a safe flight back, my bestest buddy.” She giggled, taking my cheeks between her fingers and giving them a pinch. And just like that, Gia transformed from a girl that I could imagine myself having sex with back to my little sister.
I watched her get out of the limo and walk into her building, shaking my head in amazement at her. She was every guy’s dream: beautiful, funny and always taking everything in stride. Yup, Gia was the perfect girl, too bad she couldn’t be the perfect girl for me.
***
After a two-hour delay and seven hours in the air, I was finally home with just enough time to shower and dress for the wedding.
“Well, hello Cam.” Lucy, my cleaning lady, greeted me when I walked through the front door. Lucy was the best cleaning lady around. She was almost seventy years old and got around like she was twenty. I had gotten to know her very well over the past two years since she’d been cleaning for me and I trusted her one hundred percent. I made sure that I paid her well for her loyalty, knowing that it was hard to find someone that I found trustworthy enough to allow the key to my house and know that they wouldn’t go selling items that they found in the trash to members of the press. At first, I had laughed at that thought, but when it happened to one of the guys that used to be on my team, I realized just how desperate these people were for a story. “How was your trip?” she asked, wiping down the countertops.
“It was hectic…but good.”
“Well, at least you have family you can visit while you’re there. So that’s got to be nice.”
“Yeah, it is. It was a good friend of mine’s birthday.”
She shook her head and smiled as she rinsed out the dishrag she was using. “Oh boy, is there going to be a story in a magazine about that? I can see it now: Cam Hamilton and friend hit the town getting drunk and picking up the ladies.”
Lucy knew my life all too well. “Nah, the friend is a female.”
Her eyes widened, “Even better for a story!” she smiled.
“Yeah, well, they can print what they want. Gia can handle it.”
“Oh, Gia?” Lucy said in a singsong tone. She had never met Gia before but I had certainly told her enough about her. Not to mention every time she would dust my picture frames, she would stare at the photo of Gia and I that was taken a few years ago and tell me what a cute couple we made. “Did I ever tell you –”
“Yeah, you did about a hundred times.” I smirked. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“I just put the clean towels in the linen closet,” she shouted as I ran up the stairs and into my bedroom. I tossed my overnight bag on the bed and walked out on the terrace that overlooked the beach with a million thoughts rolling through my mind. Being with Gia these past few days stirred up old memories in me as well as new feelings that I never knew I had. The hustle and bustle of Manhattan was far away, and all that surrounded me now were epic ocean views and the Santa Monica Pier. It was a landscape that most people could only dream of waking to each morning. And at one time, not so long ago, I was one of those dreamers. I shook my head and let out a deep sigh, realizing that money really could get you just about anything you wanted in life…but sometimes the things
that you wanted most didn’t have a price tag. This was the place that I called home for the past three years of my life. Away from the cold harsh winters on the east coast, away from the honking of horns and sounds of sirens twenty-four hours a day and away from the girl who would always own the biggest piece of my heart.
Twelve
Gia
I took one last drag of my cigarette before putting it out and throwing it on the ground in front of Jasper’s apartment building.
“That’s no good for you Miss Maynard,” scolded Carl, one of the doormen at Jasper’s Upper West Side high-rise building.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, so are a lot of other things,” I retorted as he opened the door for me.
I took a deep breath as I stepped into the elevator and it began to ascend to the sixteenth floor. I always felt so inadequate when I would spend time at Jasper’s plush three-bedroom apartment, from its expensive furnishings to the views of Central Park, everything about it screamed rich and powerful businessman. My tiny midtown apartment was just about the size of his master bath. When I stepped off the elevator, I began to ponder: do I act pissed off at first or do I pretend that I’m not bothered by his lack of regard for me? Damn it. Why didn’t I have a plan of action in place prior to this? Oh, who was I kidding? I knew exactly how this night was going to turn out or at least I hoped it would. I was wearing his favorite pair of lacy black panties and matching bra in anticipation. I was a few inches from his door when I made the final decision, I would be bitchy at first and make him work for my forgiveness. I tapped on the door, getting on my best bitch face. My plan backfired when he opened the door, wearing his faded out pair of jeans that made his ass look oh so fine with a fresh haircut and that sexy unshaven look that he sometimes sported on the weekends. I forgot all about the other night. I forgot that I was supposed to be making him squirm a little. I forgot about everything except throwing my arms around him, devouring every delicious part of him and showing him the panties and bra I was wearing under my clothes. God, I was such a sucker for this man.
