Starlight (Peaches Monroe) (Volume 2) Paperback – September 2, 2013

by Mimi Strong

He sat down beside me on the bed, all talked out. He put his arm around my shoulders. “You’re a good listener.”

  I tucked my phone away quickly. “Just trying to be a good whatever-we-are.”

  He lay back on the bed, his hands over his eyes. “Peaches, sometimes I don’t even know if I want to date someone. I question if people really want to have relationships. Maybe what we truly desire is half an hour a day to complain about everything, while someone else pretends to care.”

  He patted the bed next to him, so I rolled onto my back and cuddled up next to him. “I’d love to have half an hour a day to complain. But it wouldn’t be about anything important, like human rights or politics or global climate change. Just personal things, like when you eat a whole bag of chips thinking it’s only three hundred calories, then you realize that was the suggested serving size, and the whole bag was ten servings. Who the fuck eats one tenth of a bag of chips?”

  Keith chuckled. “Keep going. You have another twenty-nine minutes.”

  “I feel better already.” I nuzzled my face against his chest. “I heard this talk, once, by one of the happiness scientists. If you list off three things you feel grateful for, every day, the gratitude changes your mood.”

  “I’m grateful for the beautiful dinner you made me. That was a nice surprise to come home to.”

  “I’m grateful for the surprise you gave me, when you bent me over the kitchen counter and stuck your hand in me like you’d lost your keys in there.”

  He laughed. “Wait, are you being sarcastic?”

  “No, it was really…” I rolled one leg over his leg and nudged my pelvis against his hip. “Good.”

  He said, “Number two, I’m grateful for good health.”

  “Same.”

  “No copying.”

  “Fine. I’m grateful that I got embarrassing photos taken of me in my bra, because it led to me coming here to LA and having this adventure.”

  He kissed my cheek. “I saw those photos the day they came out. You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about. That was the first day of my crush on you.”

  I squirmed, giggling. “You’re so full of crap.”

  He continued, “Number three, I’m grateful for how comfortable you are in your skin, because you’re teaching me how to relax and be more playful. I think of my body as this tool, that either gets me modeling jobs or lets me down when I don’t. When I’m with you, though, in bed, or floating around in the pool, I can see that arms aren’t just for flexing biceps and selling shampoo. Our arms are made for wrapping around each other.”

  I stretched my top arm over him and squeezed. “You’re absolutely right. They’re the perfect size for hugging.”

  “What’s your number three?”

  “I miss my family. I’m grateful that I’ll get to see them again in less than a week.” I squeezed him tighter. “No offense. I really like being here with you, but I miss them. Kyle’s going to be an inch taller. He’s only seven, but you know how it is.”

  “That’s your little brother?”

  The air in the room held its breath in the golden light.

  “He’s my son.” My voice was soft and distant, like it was coming from somewhere else. “I had him when I was very young, and as far as everyone knows, he’s my little brother.”

  Keith was silent for a while.

  I started crying.

  He heard me sniff, and pulled me against his chest, tighter. “Don’t be sad. Why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know. It’s this secret I have, and sometimes it feels like a balloon inside my heart. Everything aches, and I don’t know if it’s because of the secret, or if that’s how everyone feels about their child.” I sniffed and wiped my eyes on the corner of the bed sheet. “Why were you so quiet? Were you worried that I was a single mom? That I had a whole bunch of baggage and baby daddy drama?”

  “Peaches, I was quiet because I’m not very good at math. How old were you? Fifteen?”

  “Barely.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  Laughing, he said, “Are you going to get out your phone and show me some pictures of the little guy, or do I have to beg?”

  I pulled out my phone, realizing my hands were shaking. I’d never told anyone except my closest family members, my therapist, and Shayla. Even when I told people about Kyle, I said his name, and didn’t specify he was my brother, because I didn’t like lying.

  I pulled up a photo of Kyle, shirtless and grinning with no front teeth. “This is my son,” I said.

  A chill went up and down my spine. It was a truth I felt in every cell of my body, but rarely got to say.

  “He has your eyes,” Keith said.

  We scrolled through a few pictures. Kyle eating pizza. Kyle having a bath while wearing a cowboy hat. Kyle hammering things with his play set, in my dad’s workshop, next to my father working with real tools.

  “He was a nightmare when he was two. Terrible Twos. Always getting into my makeup, the little brat.”

  “Typical brother behavior, I think. I’m the same age as Katy, and I used to do terrible things to her dolls and stuff. There’s something about making a girl cry that’s just so appealing.”

  I laughed, snuggling against Keith’s warm body. “I hope you outgrew that, because crying sucks. Fuck crying.”

  He reached over and touched my cheeks. “Crying happens. I learned that from having a sister. You should always date guys who have sisters. We’re more sensitive.” He rolled over, on top of me. “Why are we both wearing clothes?”

  “I don’t know. You started it.”

  He kissed me, rolling his weight up and pressing against my chest. I love that feeling, where you’re already breathless with lust, and then the guy shifts his weight on top of you and you can hardly breathe at all. I sucked on his lips and tongue, hungry for him.

  Soon the hem of my dress was riding up, and he was between my legs, grinding against me with his jeans still on. Panting, I wrapped my legs around his hips and kissed his lips, his chin, his neck.

  He shifted to the side, reached his hand down between my legs, and stopped.

  His head lifted up. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  Footsteps.

  Someone was in the apartment. A burglar?

  Something moved near the bedroom’s doorway. I shrieked.

  “Hello,” came a girl’s voice, sounding forlorn.

  Not a burglar.

  Honestly, I would have preferred a burglar to Keith’s ex-girlfriend, but it was her, Tabitha.

  CHAPTER 16

  Tabitha stood in the doorway, interrupting our intimate moment. At least she didn’t have Keith’s nasty-mouthed sister Katy with her this time.

  Keith rolled off me and started straightening his clothes.

  I jumped up and went to the door. Pointing feebly past her, I said, “I clean bathroom now. I clean real good.”

  Tabitha staggered back, then forward, both of her slender hands landing on my shoulders. Her hands were cool on my skin, my shoulders bare except for the straps of my sundress. She smelled like a variety of boozes.

  “I know you,” she said, slurring her words. “You’re-the-fat-ssssssupermodel.”

  “Yes, I was on that show with Tyra Banks. I’m America’s Next Top Fat Supermodel. Very good. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  The girl had a strong grip for a big-lipped girl under one hundred pounds.

  “You’re all woman,” she said.

  I glanced over at Keith, who was not making this any easier by sitting on the edge of the bed looking mortified.

  Tabitha stared down at my breasts like a hungry baby who smells milk.

  “So pretty,” she said, smiling a goofy smile.

  I looked over at Keith again. “Dude, I am so not down with having a threesome. Please tell her that.”

  Tabitha started to laugh, one of those slow-motion, drunk-girl laughs, then did a full-stop into Serious Mode. “You are so funny a
nd pretty. I see why Keith likes you, because I like you. I like you a lot!”

  I squirmed away finally, because she looked like she was about to kiss me. I love my ladies, but not like that. Maybe a tiny crush back in high school, but that was on Chantalle Hart and you’d have to be a robot to not feel something for her.

  “The chairs are right over there,” I said, pointing to the romantic set-up. “You’re not driving, are you?”

  “Oh, Keith,” she said, transitioning into sobbing mode.

  Drunk. Crying. At her ex-boyfriend’s place. Classic. I rolled my eyes pretty hard, but just to keep me from cringing up into a ball of cringe.

  “I’ll just leave you guys to talk,” I said, walking over to the other room.

  She staggered into Keith’s bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

  My eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling. Oh, no. She did NOT just go into the bedroom with Keith and shut the door. No, she did not, because that’s how you get your hair extensions yanked out.

  I paced back and forth, then a calm broke over me. Whatever happened, it was out of my hands. I stomped back to the kitchen, being really loud to remind them I was still there, got the strawberries and Cool Whip I’d picked up for dessert, and took them into the spare bedroom.

  I shut the door most of the way and turned on the TV to mask the murmuring of their voices. Keith had returned the set to the spare room because he didn’t like the negative ions electronics gave off in the bedroom.

  The two of them were still murmuring. At least they were talking, which meant nobody had their burrito in anyone’s drunk mouth. As I watched some trash on the little TV set, I hit the mute button periodically, just to be sure.

  The third time I hit the mute button, the apartment was silent, and I had to ask myself a question: if they weren’t still talking, was I prepared to go busting in there like some not-very-hip parent, flipping on lights and whipping back covers?

  False alarm. They were talking… and… laughing? What was so funny? The fact that Keith’s rebound girl was in the next room? Yeah, really funny, guys.

  I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Mitchell, my only other friend in LA

  Me: I think maybe you were right to warn me off male models.

  I got a message back almost instantly.

  Mitchell: What did he do? I’m telling you, they’re barely house-trained. If only they weren’t so fucking hot, my life would be simple.

  Me: In a parallel universe somewhere, models aren’t hot.

  Mitchell: What’s bugging you? Does he wear a sleep mask? Does he have a satin pillowcase so he doesn’t get sleep wrinkles on his face?

  Me: Neither of those things. He has an ex-girlfriend. And they’re both in the bedroom talking right now. She showed up drunk. Stupid cow.

  Mitchell: Fuck them. Come dancing with me.

  Me: I can’t leave the apartment! They’ll have self-loathing sex for sure. I think she’s in heat. She had that look of a horny alley cat.

  Mitchell: How would you know that look?

  Me: Takes one to know one! I’ll let you get back to your life. I just have to wait this one out. I can always pull the fire alarm, right?

  Mitchell: LOL! Let me know if you change your mind about going out. I could use some adventure for a change.

  I put the phone away and tried to focus on the TV show. Competitors were making puff pastries and acting like they were getting their big break. I snickered at them, with their silly dreams, then realized I was no different from them, and probably looked just as foolish.

  I’d nodded off, face down on a pillow with the remote control still in my hand. I was woken up by someone gently shaking me.

  “I’m going to drive Tabitha home,” Keith said.

  “That’s where she should be.”

  “Do you want to come along for the ride?”

  “You only have two seats in that van. Is she going to sit on my lap?”

  “Oh, right. Never mind.” He stared down at me, his face in shadows. He looked like he wanted to say something.

  Go ahead and say it, I thought. Tell me you’re getting back together with Tabitha, and you feel just awful about the whole thing. Say it.

  “I should pick up some ice cream on the way back,” he said.

  I smiled up at him. Keith was a good one.

  “Anything but chocolate,” I said. “Chocolate ice cream always tastes burnt to me.”

  Nodding, he said, “I’ll get a variety.”

  He went back out, and they whispered to each other as they went out the door. The whispering made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I told myself not to overreact, and I sat up to await his return, clicking around looking for a better channel.

  I flicked past a familiar face, and stopped. It was Dalton Deangelo. I turned up the volume and shifted down the bed, so my face was practically against the set.

  I’d been carefully avoiding news about him, or gossip about me, mainly by staying off the internet. But now, here it was—the exact thing I’d been avoiding.

  I froze, too curious to change the channel.

  A voice-over ran as commentary, while a series of photos of Dalton ran like a slideshow.

  An excited-sounding woman said, “Dalton Deangelo, best known for his role as Drake Cheshire on his hit TV soap, One Vamp to Love, was spotted this morning in a Marina Del Ray Pilates studio, working on that body millions of women love.”

  The TV showed a grainy clip of Dalton inside the Pilates studio, talking to another man with a blurred-out face, and then a clip of him standing outside, drinking bottled water.

  The woman continued, breathlessly: “While his lips might be smiling that trademark Drake Cheshire smile, the sunglasses conceal the true windows to his soul, and the secret he carries. Millions of women love Drake, but Dalton is unlucky in love, heartbroken after his recent fling with up-and-coming sassy underwear designer, Peaches Monroe.”

  A photo of me with my shirt off at the bookstore flashed onto the screen. The picture that put me in the spotlight. My eyes closed reflexively, and the static in my head overpowered all my sensory inputs for a moment. The woman was still talking, but it could have been in a foreign language.

  I fell back on the bed and rocked in a fetal position for a moment, chanting, “Shitfuckshitfuck, suckass, mothershitting-fuckshit,” the way any grown woman in this type of situation would.

  The woman kept talking, but now the topic had already shifted, to something about Lindsay Lohan. I have never been so happy to hear someone talk about Lindsay Lohan. My stomach lurched when the woman made a quip about poor ol’ misunderstood Lindsay hooking up with Dalton, but everyone in the gossip headquarters office laughed, so I knew it was a joke.

  The next segment was all about celebrity baby bumps.

  “Get a life,” I said to the TV, but I didn’t change the channel.

  Two hours later, Keith hadn’t returned from driving Tabitha home. Even if she lived on the other side of the city, it was past eleven on a Thursday night, so surely he could have gotten back, unless…

  Unless he was making her a trouser-meat sandwich with extra mayo.

  GROSS!

  I ransacked Keith’s kitchen, then got started with a vodka and soda, easy on the soda.

  Midnight.

  Four drinks drinked. Drinked? Drank? Downed.

  No sign of Keith. Obviously he was expending his coveted man-mayonnaise on Tabitha’s bologne flaps.

  FUCKINGratSHITonTOAST!

  I called his cell, but he didn’t pick up. I called it eleventy-seven times and still NO PICKY UPPIE.

  Which was probably for the best, considering how juiced up I was.

  I put in a call to the Last Good Man in Los Angeles. “Mitchell come get meeeeeeeeeee!”

  He had me go outside and get the address for him off the side of the building, since he couldn’t remember where it was, then he swore he’d come for me, with reinforcements.

  One more drink later.

  Mit
chell showed up at the door, with two tall men towering behind him.

  “Hello, boys!” I said.

  “We’re playing a game,” Mitchell said. “One of these sexy boys is straight, and it’s up to you to figure it out.”

  I pointed at the teutonic blond. “I hope it’s that one.”

  “Gunnar,” the blond man said, reaching out to shake my hand, then going in for the hand kiss.

  Hand kiss? Oh, Gunnar was the gay one, for realsies-for suresies.

  The other tall man, with sandy brown hair, said, “I’m Daniel. I’ve heard a lot about you, Peaches. Now I’m extra-sorry I didn’t get a call-back for the shoot with you.”

  “Me, too.” I grinned up at his bright, white teeth. Wow, they were really white. He looked like he just stepped off the hot-male-model factory line.

  “May I?” Daniel leaned in and kissed me, right on the lips. He lingered, the scent of his skin and after shave getting into my head.

  A mouth kiss? Daniel was over-compensating, which meant he was the gay one, not Gunnar.

  I frowned at Mitchell, who merely shrugged and looked angelic. Classic Mitchell.*

  *After six drinks, I could have sworn Mitchell and I went way back to high school. Did I say I’d had five drinks earlier? I meant six.

  Gunnar looked past me, sneaking a peek at the apartment. The table was pushed back over to the window, and the folding chairs were gone.

  He said, “Any girlfriends you want to invite along?”

  I laughed, then veered dangerously close to sobbing like a drunk, hysterical girl. Shayla should have come with me to LA. I was not equipped to handle any of this stuff alone.

  “Just me,” I said, forcing a grin. “Mitchell, how will we all fit in your Miada?”

  Daniel offered me his elbow like a gentleman. “We have a limo and driver. Come on, let’s have some fun and get our pictures taken.”

  I gasped, my hands on either side of my face like some cartoon drunk version of myself. “Photos! The paparazzi! I look like crap!”

  Mitchell helped himself to the contents of my purse. I didn’t even know how he found my purse, considering I’d been searching for it the last half hour.

  The boys deemed my green sundress to be party-appropriate. Mitchell quickly powdered my face and applied a pink lipstick to my lips. “Never go dark for a night out,” he said. “The flash makes your skin look pale and even the smallest smear of lipstick will give you a fallen-star look.”