Hollywood Nights

by Sara Celi

  In the guest bathrooms, I only found typical toiletries and other nonsensical items. The second-floor hallway did have a few personal photos hung on the walls, but most of those related back to Tanner’s current life in LA.

  The two guest rooms didn’t offer many clues about him, either. One featured a 1930s throwback bedroom-set with a variety of blues, and on the wall some signed records and music memorabilia. That only told me what he liked—alternative rock bands like Walk the Moon, Twenty-One Pilots, and Bastille. The other room looked like someone had thrown furniture in inside with no real regard for anyone who slept there.

  The master bedroom gave me a lot. In his closet, I fingered my way through his clothes, a treasure trove of casual menswear and bespoke items designers always wanted to give celebrities. His closet would have made an editorial assistant from Vogue orgasm more than once. The main room had a desk, large king-sized bed, two wrought-iron nightstands, and a large mirror across from the bed.

  It also had a black-and-white photo on the nightstand. I picked up the heavy silver frame. Lana’s hair tumbled across part of her face and she stared straight into the camera with a seductive smile; her smug expression made you want to stare at her, as if she was a rare bird on display.

  I thought back to what I knew about the two of them—their split had happened about three months before, so it must have still been a fresh wound for Tanner. One headline a few days after she’d left him said he went on a three-day bender in Las Vegas with five Playboy models. There, he gambled like a high-roller and drank enough alcohol to keep him bleary-eyed and vacant.

  Since he still had her photo on the carved nightstand, he must still love her. But of course, I knew that already. Why else would he hire me for a fake relationship? It wasn’t just to rehab his image. He wanted to make Lana jealous. Had to be it. Otherwise, why spend all of this money on someone like me?

  “Can I help you with something?”

  I jumped at the sound of the gravely female voice behind me, and dropped the photograph. It clattered against the nightstand glass. “What? Oh.” I fixed the photo. “I’m, I’m sorry. Who are you?”

  The woman had gray hair pulled into a tight bun. “I’m Roberta. The housekeeper.”

  I remembered what Tanner had said before I got out of the car. Time must have slipped away. “I was …”—I struggled—“looking for a shirt I left.”

  “You’re a guest of Mr. Vance?”

  “N—yes.”

  She cocked her head, and I knew she didn’t believe me. “Just came up here to pick up Mr. Vance’s laundry. And you must be—?”

  “Brynn. Brynn Price. Tanner’s new—er—girlfriend.”

  Was that what I was? His girlfriend? The word didn’t feel natural at all, as if each letter had hidden spikes and barbs. I shuddered. Business. Tanner and I had nothing else between us. Just business.

  “Oh, right. He mentioned I might run into you.”

  Roberta didn’t give me another glance. She walked toward the vestibule between the master bedroom and bathroom, and then retrieved dirty clothes from a large wicker hamper near the sink. She placed the pile in a blue plastic laundry basket.

  I followed her. “How long have you worked for him?”

  “About four years. Coming up on five.” She struggled with some of the clothes, which Tanner had smashed and crammed in the hamper. I stepped in and helped her pull out the mess of dirty underwear, jeans, and shirts. “Thanks. Mr. Vance is particular about his clothing. He won’t let anyone wash them but me and the dry-cleaner.”

  “Do you like working for him?”

  “He can be kind when he wants to be, and he pays well. One of the best jobs I’ve had in a while, when I think about it.” She nodded at the door. “My husband is downstairs, cleaning the kitchen. We both used to work for Washington Mutual Bank, but we lost our jobs during the 2009 collapse. Didn’t have jobs for over a year.”

  “That must have been awful.”

  “It was.” Roberta stood up and placed the heavy laundry basket on her hip. “Most people don’t want to hire older folks like us. We put out about a hundred resumes between the two of us, and then my husband found this. It doesn’t take two people to do it, but Mr. Vance said he wanted to hire us both.” A small smile tugged at her lips. “He insisted.”

  “How kind of him,” I said.

  Roberta made her way to the hallway. “Funny thing is, it’s a better job than the one I had at the bank as a teller. You wouldn’t think so, but it’s true. Time passes faster with this job, and I get more accomplished.”

  We walked out of the room, through the hallway, and down the stairs. I asked her a few times if I could carry the basket, but she wouldn’t hear of it, and waved that suggestion away with her free hand. When we arrived in the kitchen, I met Craig, too, a man in his seventies with a kind smile. Roberta introduced us and disappeared into the laundry room.

  “So, you’re living here now?” Craig picked up a silver tray from the counter. He had a wipe covered in some kind of a solution in his other hand, and he began polishing.

  “Something like that.”

  “Interesting.” He eyed me.

  “I guess the last person to live here was Lana, right?”

  “Don’t get me started on her.” Craig shook his head. “She was good at getting her own way, I’ll give her that. She liked things on her own terms, and she didn’t budge.” He still sized me up, but he kept his expression unreadable. “Anyway, are you enjoying it here?”

  “I’m staying in the pool house. Not his room. It’s not—” I broke off, not sure of how to explain how our arrangement to someone else.

  “We know more about this than you think.” Craig nodded in the direction of hallway Roberta had disappeared down. “And he told us about the arrangement—how unconventional it is.”

  “He did?”

  Craig nodded.

  I exhaled, relieved someone other than the two of us knew the real truth. “I’d call it more than unconventional.”

  “I agree.” Craig’s voice got lower. “Be careful with him, okay? Tanner is more fragile than he appears. Don’t break him.”

  “You sound protective.”

  “We both are,” Craig said. “Tanner’s going through a rough time. A bad year. He has not handled it well at all.”

  “Worries me some,” I said.

  “It bothers us, too.”

  I excused myself a few minutes later and walked back to the pool house. It was later than I expected, almost six, and Tanner still hadn’t returned. I watched a mindless TV movie on Lifetime and found some food in the small pool house kitchen; when dusk fell, I sent Tanner a few text messages to check on him.

  I got no answer.

  When I tried to refocus on the TV, it wasn’t easy. Finally, around eleven with no word from him, I fell asleep.

  Beep. Beep Beep.

  I knew that noisy, rapid, incessant buzz. I opened my eyes and slammed my hand on my phone to shut it up. It worked for a few seconds.

  Beep. Beep. Beep. A pause. Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Bleary-eyed and groggy, I yanked the phone off the charger on the nightstand. The bright screen revealed all—nine text messages from Tanner in the last ten minutes and three phone calls.

  I dialed him back. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?”

  “Thank God you called me back.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Nowhere good, Brynn.”

  I shivered when he said my name; he sounded as if he was relieved to finally talk to me, but the words also came out coated with the remains of whatever he’d been drinking. He was intoxicated. I groaned. This was familiar.

  Too familiar.

  “Where are you?” I said as I got out of bed.

  “Beverly Hills Hotel.” He slurred the name. “Polo Lounge. I can’t drive home. I can’t—I can’t do anything right now. Brynn… I gotta… you need…”

  “Do you know what time it is?” I found my watch on the floor
by the nightstand. “It’s after one thirty. Jesus. You’ve been gone a long time.”

  “I know. Last call. Bartender says I gotta leave.”

  “Where’s James?”

  “He’s off right now. Anyway, I don’t care about him. I only care about you.”

  My heart beat faster. “What did you say?”

  He mumbled a few inaudible words.

  “Listen, you’re not making any sense,” I said, and slipped on my black flats. I’d worn yoga pants and a blue T-shirt to bed, so I needed my cardigan sweater to complete the look. Somehow, I knew what he’d say next before he took in the next breath to speak it.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” He stumbled over words, as if his tongue was too thick for his mouth. “I want to come home and be with you.”

  I didn’t know how to answer him.

  “Come get me?” he said. “Please?”

  Twenty minutes later, I arrived at the front of the Beverly Hills Hotel hunched over, white-knuckling the wheel of my Corolla, and more than a little unsure of what I’d find. Tanner was drunk, for sure, but what else had he gotten into? I had about a thousand guesses.

  “I’m outside,” I told Tanner when he answered my phone call. “Do you need me to come in?”

  “No, I’m paying the bill. One hundred and sixty-eight bucks before tip. What the hell did I order?”

  He got off the phone and I waited in the car for a few minutes until a valet hustled Tanner out the door and crammed him inside the passenger seat. I drove off as fast as I could once the door slammed shut. Seconds after he got inside the car, the air reeked of sticky, sour whiskey.

  “This is becoming a thing, isn’t?” he said as I drove the car down Sunset. “You rescuing me in your crappy Corolla.”

  “It’s not crappy,” I said. “But you’re beyond trashed right now.” I turned the car onto Benedict Canyon Drive. “How much have you had? Three bottles worth? Four?”

  Thanks to my dad, I’d seen drunk plenty of times before. I could spot it when most people wouldn’t, although anyone would have seen it from one look at Tanner. He was a royal mess. And he seemed like he might throw up any second.

  “Four drinks, maybe five,” Tanner finally said. “Something like that, baby.”

  The words still came out jumbled, but I flinched when Tanner called me baby. I most certainly was not his baby, even if an admittedly growing part of me wanted to be. I chose to ignore the word.

  “How much alcohol did you have before you got to the Polo Lounge?”

  Tanner threw his head back and laughed. “You know me that well already?”

  I shrugged. “Did you take any Molly?”

  “No. Absolutely not. I want to forget what happened tonight. I want to make it all go away.”

  “You said you were going to a late lunch and maybe a couple of meetings.” I maneuvered the car up the winding road, and we passed dozens of gorgeous homes and properties hidden by the darkness. “What happened? Tell me the truth.”

  “Nothing,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Nothing happened. Nothing at all. I was just-thinking about—you know…”

  “You aren’t making any sense.”

  “You know what?” Tanner turned to me. “You look hot driving this car. Supermodel hot.”

  “I’m driving a Toyota.”

  “So? You’d look sexy driving a rusty PT Cruiser.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject.”

  “I’m not. I’m telling you exactly what I mean. You. Look. Hot.”

  I gave him a sideways glance, and then turned my attention back to the road. This wasn’t a compliment. This was the alcohol talking. Copious amounts of it.

  Right?

  “You shouldn’t drink so much,” I said when we arrived at the turnoff to Mulholland Drive. “It’s not good for you.”

  Another deep chuckle from Tanner sent chills up and down my spine. “Yeah, well, I shouldn’t do a lot of things. People tell give me the same advice all the time. I shouldn’t drink, I shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with Lana, I shouldn’t have let her define my career.”

  “You’ve got to take better care of yourself.”

  “You know, I could have gone to the Playboy mansion tonight,” he said, as I weaved the car down the road. “Couple guys called. I had an invite.”

  “You like Playboy playmates, don’t you?”

  “Pfft. You’re talking about that weekend in Vegas, aren’t you? What did I tell you about the tabloids? They always lie.”

  “But you did go to Vegas back then, didn’t you?” I glanced over at Tanner, and he nodded when my eyes caught his glassy ones. “And tonight? The mansion?”

  “For the first time in my life, it sounded boring. And besides, I’ve already got a Playboy bunny at home.”

  His hand found my knee. I pushed it away.

  “What? What’s the problem?”

  “You don’t get to fuck me, Tanner. Remember our agreement? I don’t fuck for money.”

  “Fuck. I love to hear you say that word. You make it sound naughtier than it is.” He moved closer to me. “And by the way, I don’t want to sleep with you. I want to—” Tanner burped.

  “Take it easy,” I said, “before you say something you’re going to regret.”

  I drove the rest of the way home without talking to him anymore. He was probably too drunk and sloppy to remember any conversation we had, anyway. When we arrived at the house, I glided the car into the garage and exhaled. Thank God we’d made it to the Beverly Hills Hotel and back without any major problems.

  “You probably want your damn money,” Tanner said when I turned off the ignition.

  “What?”

  “I got a check in my pocket. But if you want it…” his lips slid into another sloppy grin, “you’ll have to come and get it.”

  “I want you to get out of the car and get inside the house.”

  “So serious.”

  “You’re not yourself right now. You’re drunk.” I jumped out of the seat, then made my way to the passenger door. “Where are your keys to the house?”

  “I didn’t leave you any?”

  “Nope.”

  He groaned. “Jesus. I’m an idiot,” he said as he fished the keys of his back pocket.

  Two good things: It was late at night, and his property had a large, manicured hedge that obscured most of the garage, driveway, and house. I knew what happened next wouldn’t be pretty, and it would be a repeat of our night in the parking lot outside my apartment. I braced for an epic struggle. Tanner had at least forty pounds of pure muscle on me, after all.

  Somehow, we made it inside the house and upstairs to his room without much more of a fight. He was drunk, for sure, but I knew he wasn’t as drunk as he was the night I rescued him from his own vomit. At least we had that going for us.

  “Thank you,” Tanner said, as he collapsed backward onto his bed. “I knew you’d be good for me, Brynn, and you’re better than I expected.”

  His hair fanned away from his head, and a loose grin played at his lips. Tanner lay spread-eagled on the mattress and his shirt had crept upward. It gave me a glimpse of his famous flat stomach. Each muscle of his designed stomach invited me to look a little bit longer. A lot longer.

  Damn.

  “Let me help you with your shoes,” I finally said, then knelt down by the bed and untied the black laces. He stirred some and mumbled a few words.

  Once the shoes came off, I walked over to the master bathroom, where I drew him a glass of water from the tap and found some aspirin in the medicine cabinet. Both went on the nightstand by his bed.

  “There,” I said. “You’ll need those.”

  I turned to leave the room, but Tanner grabbed my arm. “Wait. Don’t leave yet.”

  I struggled to stay calm, because the way he looked at me made every cell in my body spike. Tanner gripped my forearm, and I couldn’t focus on anything else. This man had an intoxicating ability to reel me in right when he wanted, wherever
he wanted. As I stared at him, I worried I might fall over. In fact, part of me wanted to—right into his arms.

  But I couldn’t. Not like this. Not when he was blitzed out of his mind.

  “I meant what I said in the car.” Tanner rose up on the bed and closed the space between us. His liver must have been working; the slur in his voice had faded. “You’re hot. No, wrong word. You’re gorgeous.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying night now.”

  “I’m serious, and not because I’ve been drinking everything in sight. I’m said it because it’s the goddamned truth.”

  I pursed my lips and considered if he meant it. When he said I was beautiful again, I decided he did.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll accept your compliment.”

  “I’m glad I met you,” he said. “Do you feel the same way about me?”

  I nodded.

  “You know, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Especially about you. You’re sad inside, aren’t you?” His fingers found some loose strands of hair that had escaped my ponytail. “The girl I met in the apartment was sad. I could sense it.”

  Tanner might be drunk, but he was right. I was sad. Defeated. Confused.

  “The last couple of years haven’t been easy for me.” I sighed. “I’ve felt like a failure. Easy to feel that way out here. Everyone is such a smashing success—or at least, they want you to think they are.”

  “Well, you’re not a failure. You’re still young. The rest hasn’t happened yet.”

  We regarded each other for another long moment. His fingers still twisted and turned through my hair. Each twist relaxed me further and further. I could have fallen asleep right there.

  “The last few months, I’ve been so lost,” Tanner whispered. “And I’ll admit it, I don’t know why you showed up in my life.” He drew a little closer. “But I’m damn glad you did.”

  I couldn’t figure out who leapt first, who crossed the line, or when we melded together, but we did. We grabbed each other and his lips found mine. He gave me a rough, shaky, overwhelming kiss, one that had hunger, fear, need, and lust behind it. I kissed him back; I couldn’t stop myself, and I didn’t want to try. The first kiss faded into another and his tongue entwined with mine. His hands grabbed my hips and then traveled up my side, heading dangerously close to my breasts.