Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)

by C. D. Reiss

  They exchanged glances. “He didn’t tell you?” his mother asked, incredulous.

  I didn’t have a moment to answer. Brad walked in wearing a T-shirt stretched over his perfect chest and jeans that made me want to get him naked. My brain spun off its axis for a second.

  If I’d been thinking straight, I would have said something about the books right away. Told him it didn’t matter. Or hid them. But all I could do was stand there holding Phonetics for Dyslexics staring at him because he was beautiful and that was the book I had in my hand at the moment.

  He saw me, the books all over the counter, his parents looking meek, and walked out.

  CHAPTER 61

  BRAD

  Five minutes after Paula hung up, six minutes after she told me what was in the letter I signed, I was back at it. Trying to work, because that was all that kept me sane, but my concentration was shot. I’d just figured out how to tell Cara I was dyslexic only to find out that was a teeny tiny little fib in the face of the incident on the plane Paula had just reminded me about.

  Shit, I was just walking to the kitchen for a Coke, trying to decide whether to hide it from Cara or just spit it out. Wondering if Paula could be bought off with money or compliments. I didn’t have the testicular fortitude for bribery or flattery, but I didn’t have any other options.

  I never got that Coke.

  When I got to the kitchen, my dad had this shrug on. My mother was kind of shaking her head, and the one who mattered? The one who hated lies? She was just staring at me, holding up a book. I didn’t know what to make of her expression.

  Ken, my personal PR pith-maker? He had an expression for information that got out.

  The toothpaste was out of the tube.

  Was I supposed to apologize?

  What did someone do right out of the gate?

  Was I supposed to defend myself? Tell her I hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it?

  I didn’t care what anyone thought of me, but I cared what she thought.

  If you don’t care what people think, why didn’t you tell them you were dyslexic?

  Flooded. I was flooded with my own contradictions and needs. Cara put the book down, and I knew whatever was going to happen was going to happen now. I was going to have to answer for my ambition. I was going to have to tell Cara everything my drive had done to her, to me, to us, to Nicole, and I wasn’t ready.

  Nope.

  Because Paula had just told me the one lie I’d forgotten I’d told. The big one. I hadn’t even had to hide it because I’d zipped it, locked it, and tossed it out the window, never to be recalled. Now what? Now that I loved Cara and I wanted to find a way to make her part of my life? Now that I’d figured out how to tell her the first big lie, a second presented itself just as she figured out what a liar I was.

  This party boy needed a drink.

  CHAPTER 62

  CARA

  Nicole licked her ice cream bowl and handed it to her grandmother.

  “It’s clean now. You don’t need to put it in the dishwasher.”

  She had chocolate streaks across her cheeks, on the bridge of her nose, and under her chin. She was as funny and cute as ever, but two hours after Brad left the room, I was uncharmed. I wiped her face as she tried to wiggle away.

  “Ow! Hey! I don’t like that!”

  “No five-year-old likes getting their face wiped.” I put the paper towel down, and Nicole gave me the stubborn-child-look-of-death.

  “I. Do. Not. Like. It.”

  “Well,” Grandma said, “why don’t you show Miss Cara how to do it.” She handed the paper towel back to Nicole.

  “Come here,” she demanded, waving me to her level.

  I resigned, leaning down. Nicole gently wiped my face, patting so lightly she wouldn’t have gotten a speck of ice cream off me if I’d decided to lick the bowl.

  “You’re upset,” Erma said.

  She was right. I was distracted and unhappy. I must have broadcast it with every gesture and word. I felt as if I was dangling. I didn’t have a phone so I couldn’t call him, and calls from his parents had gone unanswered. I just wanted to talk to him. Nothing more.

  “I don’t know why he thinks it would matter to me.”

  She put Nicole’s ice cream bowl in the dishwasher while she wasn’t looking.

  “When he first moved out there he had a lot of people telling him what to do. People who wanted to help him. And things happened so fast for him, he couldn’t get his feet under him, so he listened to them.” She wiped the counter pensively. “One of the things they told him was that if people knew it took him so long to read, they wouldn’t hire him. He didn’t go all the way out there to not get work.” She pointed to my face and said to Nicole, “You missed a spot, sweetheart.”

  “Thank you, Grandma.” Nicole wiped a spot on my forehead and put the towel down. “See? That’s how you’re supposed to do it.”

  “I want to tell him it’s all right.”

  “He’s probably down at Buddy’s,” Milton grumbled, walking in from the living room. With his phone to his ear, he shouted a second later. “Yeah! Buddy! It’s . . . Yes! I’m fine! Is my son in there! . . . When?! . . . All right! Thank you!”

  He clicked off. “Left an hour ago.”

  What followed was a good half hour of calls, shouts, a few segues into gossip as Erma and Milton Sinclair tried to track down their son. Calls came in. Calls went out. Susan came in with suggestions and made more calls. Brad had been to Buddy’s, peeled off with a couple of high school friends, bought dinner for everyone at Jack’s Chicken and Fries, hung out in the parking lot of the Chevron convenience store drinking beer with his friends before Deputy Froman had gotten his autograph and told them to move on. Apparently, he went back to Buddy’s and put Theresa Crump on the Harley because she was too drunk to make it out of the lot, much less three miles to Hensley.

  And that was the last we heard from him. Theresa Crump didn’t answer her phone. Brad didn’t answer his.

  I wasn’t worried about Theresa Crump, though I felt sympathy for her hangover. I wasn’t worried Brad’s dick was going to find its way into her. I should have been, but I wasn’t. I was worried that he was running around town because he thought I was angry at him. I was worried he was partying to cover up some grand hurt I’d exposed.

  “He’s there?” Susan shouted into the phone. “Tell him not to move. Keep him. Tie him down.”

  She put the phone away from her face and mouthed “Em-and-Pee” to her mother.

  “Find out who he’s with,” Milton said.

  “Sherri—hang on.” She put her hand over the bottom of the phone. “No one. He’s getting a bottle of water. Talking to Winch Welton.”

  “So he’s on his way back.” Erma threw her hands up as if it was decided. “He can sure make us crazy, and we love him.” She pointed to me. “But he owes you an apology.”

  “If he was coming back, he’d get water here,” I said to myself but loud enough for everyone to hear. “Theresa Crump’s home. She can get her own water. He’s going somewhere without a sink and he’s staying there.”

  Where had we been in these few days? More importantly, where had we not been? Who had he avoided?

  “Can she get him to stay there?” I asked Susan.

  She rolled her eyes and took her hand off the mic. “Sherri. Is he still there?” She nodded to me. “All right . . . tell Winch to keep talking . . . it’s his field of expertise . . . I know, honey . . . see you . . .”

  Milton tossed me the keys to the Buick.

  “You know how to get to the M&P? Left out the driveway. Two lights. Right on Wolfe. Can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you.”

  CHAPTER 63

  CARA

  I didn’t think I’d make it to the M&P supermarket in time to catch him, but I went anyway. A flyer was stuck between the doors. When they whooshed open for me, they released the paper. I grabbed it.

  REDFIELD LUMBER’S GOT WHAT YOU NEED!
r />   It was a sign from the heavens.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss.” Sherri rushed out of the manager booth in a blue, zip-front pantsuit. “Winch and Barn tried to chat him up, but he said he had to go.” She tripped on a neat stack of just-delivered newspapers. When they fell they fanned out in a multicolored spray of rectangles.

  “It’s fine.” I put the flyer to the side and kneeled with her to pick them up. “He was on the bike?”

  “Buddy’s Harley. Yeah.”

  The papers were slick with wax and full-color ink. They’d fallen front down so all I saw were weight-reduction ads and classifieds. Sherri took a stack and slapped them down to make the edges even.

  “We see him all the time in these papers.” Sherri smiled ruefully. “Perks up the whole town.”

  Meg Birch was on the cover of Hollywood Magazine with her soon-to-be ex, looking as if she’d been under the knife ten too many times.

  “You should go catch him,” Sherri said, blonde hair escaping from her clips. “I got this.”

  “Thank you.”

  I got up and walked toward the automatic sliding doors. They slid open and as I went to step through, I saw the stack that was under the one Sherri had knocked over.

  I was on the front page with him.

  I stopped.

  His face was huge, midsentence, eyes half down, unprepared. He looked drunk or angry. Not gorgeous. The picture from the middle of the roll a friend would have discarded was the front page of the paper. And I was cut and pasted right behind him. They’d reddened my lips and made it look as though I was about to kiss him.

  DADDY SINCLAIR TAPS THE NANNY

  Right in Front of Sweet Nicole!

  Behind that, in a separate rectangle, was a picture of us on the teacups. The camera angle made it look as though we were in the middle of a lip-locked embrace.

  I’d imagined a moment like this a few hundred times and recoiled, blocking out the horror of it with other thoughts, other visualizations.

  Anything but that.

  Anything but what happened to Blakely.

  “Can I grab one of these?” I asked Sherri.

  She stepped over to me, slipping on the papers, righting herself, and looking at what I pointed at.

  “You’re prettier in real life,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “I guess he dropped Paula Blount.” She shrugged. “Maybe she’ll stop harping on it now.”

  “I think she dumped him.”

  Sherri let out a pfft as if I was talking crazy, then handed me a paper. “Go ahead. Take it.”

  I reached into my purse to pay for it, but she waved away the idea.

  “Just take it for helping me clean up.”

  I thanked her again and tucked the paper under my arm, then I picked up the lumber flyer.

  The parking lot was dark and empty. There wasn’t a soul around, but I felt eyes on me. People were going to see me. They’d know where I was and when. I’d never felt so exposed. Not since I was caught in the backseat of a car with a boy from school and everyone knew. Not since the thoughts of my classmates were written all over their faces.

  I was angry at Brad, but not really. I was angry at the world. I was angry at myself for dancing on the edges of celebrity. What else did I expect?

  I hurried into the car, slammed the door, and locked it quickly.

  Nothing could protect me, and it was my own fault.

  This is just a feeling. You’re safe. No one is here.

  Would I ever believe this again?

  I was of two minds. I wanted Brad. I’d feel safe with him, yet he was the cause of my feelings of vulnerability.

  My mouth had gone dry and my breath had gotten hard and shallow. I breathed in through my nose and out my mouth five times. It didn’t help. I put the light on so I could find the bottle of water in my purse and saw my reflection in the glass.

  Blakely talked about changing her face. Would I have to?

  I took a deep breath and looked at the paper in the car’s dome light.

  There I was, far from home, staring at my worst nightmare. They didn’t know what was between me and Brad. They didn’t know about the late nights talking with Nicole between us, or how we shared love for one little girl.

  They didn’t know I loved him. Not the shell of a man they’d photographed, but the real man. Where was he in the picture? Nowhere. He wasn’t on the page at all. Neither was I.

  My armor was all the things the camera couldn’t see.

  CHAPTER 64

  CARA

  Redfield Lumber squatted on the main road behind a huge parking lot. Beige with green doors and letters, daylight-bright under floods. And closed. Dark inside, without a sign of life.

  But he was here. I knew it. This building was the storage space for his greatest fears.

  The traffic light flicked to green, as if anyone wanted to leave the lot at that hour. I got back in the car and went down the side road. I turned left onto a narrow road I could barely see in the dark. The car bumped on the scrappy asphalt. Trees and bushes encroached on each side.

  The road opened into a small, well-lit lot behind the lumberyard. Brad was stretched across the concrete floor in front of the loading dock’s roll-up door. The Harley was parked by the dumpster and when he turned his head to see who was coming, he was still the most beautiful man in a ten-galaxy radius.

  I grabbed the tabloid off the dash and got out.

  “I see that thing in your hand,” he said, looking back up at the roof of the dock. His fingers dangled a bottle of iced tea off the side of the loading dock. “You were already mad before you found it.”

  “I wasn’t mad.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  I hoisted myself onto the dock, sitting by his head.

  “Bullshit,” I said. “You saw Paula’s box and flipped out. You didn’t give me a chance to say or feel anything.”

  I put my face directly over his. Was he drunk? His eyes were clear. He wasn’t slurring or spitting. Maybe the iced tea bottle just had iced tea in it.

  I put the tabloid on his chest.

  “I cannot believe how fast they got this to press,” he said, looking at it quickly before sitting up to open it. “It’s going to take me fifteen minutes to read it. Give me the log line.”

  “You’re fucking me because you’re confused. I’m a whore. Nicole is rotten and spoiled already.”

  He didn’t react right away. Just let the floodlight wash the color out of his eyes. Like a shot, he straightened himself and let the velocity push him to the ground. He spread the paper over the hood of his dad’s car. The pictures were crystal clear in the floodlight. I hopped onto the ground with him.

  He pointed to my photo so hard the hood under the picture made a hollow sound.

  “You look beautiful in this one.”

  “Brad.” I crossed my arms. I hated seeing myself in print. Hated him looking at this flattened version of me. I felt out of control.

  “And this one too? A little blurry, but—”

  I snapped the papers aside. I couldn’t bear it.

  “Stop.”

  “I can’t read what they’re saying about you!” he shouted. “I don’t know what they said about my daughter. I want to choke someone, and I have to calm down to read this fucking shit. And now you know I’m stunted. Developmentally delayed. Re-fucking-tarded. Yes. I was called retarded. Now you know. And it fucking kills me that on this day, when this happens,” he indicated the paper, “this is the day you find out Paula’s been reading to me like a kindergarten teacher my whole career. I can’t even be mad about what they said because I’m too upset to read it.”

  He grabbed the pages, ripping and pulling them apart. I took his hands in mine to calm him down.

  “Let them go. Please,” I said, but he held them firm and I held his hands just as tightly.

  “I’m not stupid,” he said. “He said . . . my father’s boss said he’d do me a favor. He’d take me on full time after j
unior year. It was his way of giving back. Paying it forward. Hiring the retard.”

  “You know you’re not,” I said, avoiding the word that had hurt him. “You finished high school. Went to college for acting.”

  “With a special dispensation for talented idiots.”

  “You know you’ve proven them all wrong.”

  “But what did I prove to you?”

  He loosened his grip on the paper, and I took it.

  “You’ve proven you’re a little crazy,” I said, opening the dumpster. I threw the crumpled tabloid in it and slammed it down. A page escaped. I snapped it up. “You’re a passionate guy, and you care what people think.”

  I went to put the loose page in the garbage, but he took it from me.

  “This isn’t what you wanted.”

  “It’s not. I hate it. It makes me uncomfortable in my own skin. My parents taught me to protect my security clearance, can you believe that? They drilled it from the minute I could speak. Protect yourself. So this? This hurts me in places I forgot about because they don’t matter anymore.”

  “You can’t be with me and have security clearance.”

  I laughed. My clearance hadn’t mattered for so long, and here I was talking about it.

  “We’re always children,” I said. “Everything we do, everything we love, hate, fear, it’s all the child in us reacting to our adult problems. No, it doesn’t make a difference if people see me in the paper. Not really. But it scares me because it made my parents mad. It scares me because I’m afraid I’ll lose someone close to me the way I lost them. When do we get to decide what matters to us? Not our parents?”

  “When you find out, let me know.”

  “As long as I have you, it’s all right.” I put my hand on his chest. “Do I have you?”

  He took my wrist and brought it to his lips, kissing the tender inside. “How could you want such a fuckup?”

  “I don’t,” I said. He looked at me with surprise, and I let it hang there. “I don’t want a fuckup. I want you.”

  He snapped open the tabloid and held it up.

  “This is what you want?”

  “What is that, even? I don’t know those people.”