by Lila Monroe
“I do.”
“Just leave it unlatched so she can breathe a little,” I instruct Brooke fifteen minutes later.
The two of us are standing in Selena’s bedroom surveying my brilliant plan in action. “We’ll just have to make sure we don’t accidentally tip her out and dump her down the stairs by mistake.” I tap my fingers on the top of Selena’s enormous Louis Vuitton wardrobe trunk, which is big enough to hold my entire closet three times over—or, as it turns out, one ninety-five-pound runaway bride. “Selena, you OK in there?”
“Mm-hmm!” She lifts the lid enough to poke a hand out, offering us a gel-manicured thumbs up. “I’m good!”
“Perfect,” I say, hefting one end of the trunk while Brooke lifts the other. “Let’s go. Remember: if anyone asks, those are her clothes for the honeymoon in Bali that she’s sending on ahead.”
Both of us are puffing by the time we’ve made it downstairs, and it’ll be a miracle if Selena doesn’t have a traumatic brain injury, but somehow we manage to wrestle the trunk out through the house, past dozens of arriving guests, and finally into the back of Brooke’s waiting van, parked at the service entrance in back. “I guess we’re lucky she’s been on a diet for the last eight years,” Brooke murmurs, and I smile.
“You sure it’s OK to hide her at your place for a couple of days until everything dies down?”
“Of course,” Brooke promises. “We’ll watch trashy rom-coms, eat the entire wedding cake ourselves . . . it’ll be a party.”
“Just what the Breakup Artist ordered,” I say, then I give her a big hug goodbye.
Brooke hops into the driver’s seat, offering me a wave before pulling the van out of the driveway. I stand on the lawn for a moment, watching them go. Part of me wishes I could hop right in with them. A weekend of rom-coms and wallowing sounds pretty good to me right now.
Because Selena isn’t the only one nursing a broken heart.
“Katie.”
I hear Wes’s voice behind me, and I freeze.
Dammit. My stomach lurches. I really don’t want to have to do this, but it feels inevitable. Just rip the band-aid off, I order myself. The same way you would advise a client.
But it’s different when it’s my own heart aching. My own mind full of questions.
So, bracing myself, I turn.
He’s standing there on the pathway, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his dress pants, achingly handsome in his jacket and tie. I think of how much I was looking forward to slow-dancing under the stars tonight at the reception, and I have to swallow back tears.
That was just a fantasy. A dream of a guy who never existed at all.
“Well?” I manage to keep my tone even, lifting my chin to look at him. “Is this where you pretend you had no idea Ryder was fucking around?”
“No,” he says grimly, looking down.
“The truth, huh? It took you long enough.” I want to run—back to my guesthouse, back to New York—but it feels like I’m frozen in place.
“Is Selena in that van right now?” he asks, nodding in the direction of Brooke’s receding taillights.
“Why?” I snap. “Are you worried about how it’s going to affect the studio’s bottom line?”
“No, actually,” he says, and his voice is so quiet. “I just wanted to make sure she was OK.”
I laugh out loud, the sound of it harsh even to my own ears. “Oh, now you care about whether she’s OK? After covering up for her cheating boyfriend and helping to break her damn heart?”
Wes sags. “Katie—”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand to stop him. “Whatever you’re going to say—”
“I only found out a couple of days ago!” he protests. “I walked in on Ryder and Suzie in the bathroom at that dinner, and the first thing I told him was that he had to come clean.”
“Sure.” I snort. “And then when he didn’t miraculously grow a conscience right there in front of your eyes, you were just like, ‘Welp, nothing else to be done, I guess’? ‘Glad my hands are clean’?”
“That’s not—”
“I don’t want to hear it!” I burst out, furious. “That girl was just completely humiliated on her wedding day, and you could have stopped it. Not to mention the fact that her being humiliated was actually, like, the best-case scenario! What if she hadn’t walked in on them—what if she’d let you keep her out of that pool house—and she’d actually gone ahead and married the guy? What the hell would have you done then? A big fat nothing, I’m guessing.”
Wes looks seriously shamefaced, as if that will save him now. “You’re right,” he says. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a colossal screw-up. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Sorry won’t help Selena now,” I shoot back. “Do you realize the kind of headlines she’ll be getting now? Bad enough the girl has a broken heart, but she’s going to wind up on all the front pages after this.” I shake my head. “I should have known I couldn’t trust you. I should have known it was only a matter of time before history repeated itself.”
Wes’s expression flickers from surprise to anger. “Wait a second,” he says. “Don’t mix up what this is really about, OK? I’m not the one who cheated here. I’m not Ryder.”
“You might as well be,” I shoot back. “No wonder the two of you have been acting so chummy lately.”
“What?” Wes frowns. “We haven’t been acting—”
“I gave you a second chance,” I continue, swallowing hard when my voice catches in my throat. I really, really don’t want to cry, but now that Selena is safe, all my own emotions come rushing to the surface.
It’s not just about them anymore. It’s about us. Or rather, me realizing that the “us” I believed in doesn’t exist anymore.
Maybe it never did.
“I put my heart on the line for you,” I tell him, my voice choking with emotion. “I was honest about who I was and what I wanted, and for what? I was right all along. I didn’t listen to my instincts, I thought you could change, and look what’s happened . . .”
Wes’s expression turns tense. “That’s not fair.”
“You’re right, it’s not,” I agree bitterly. “None of this is fair. But don’t worry. I don’t blame you. The only person I blame is myself. I should have known better than to give you a second chance. But you can bet there won’t be a third one.”
Wes looks like I’ve slapped him. “Katie—” he tries, but from the tone in his voice it’s clear he knows he’s already lost me. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” I tell him sadly. I’m tired now, and suddenly homesick; all I want is to get back to New York as soon as humanly possible and forget any of this ever happened.
Forget about the nights I spent in his arms. The future I’d begun planning.
The fact I was a fool to believe in him again.
But now that I know the truth, there’s only one thing left to say to him.
“Goodbye, Wes,” I say, and then I turn and walk away.
21
Wes
I spend the week after the wedding-that-wasn’t licking my wounds, hunkered down at my apartment until the place starts to look like the first fifteen minutes of an episode of Hoarders. I could care less. I stay firmly rooted to the couch, armed with a bottle of bourbon and a steady diet of In-N-Out, staring blankly at whatever movie appears on TNT in an effort to numb myself to every emotion—other than relief that I never got around to canceling cable.
I’m halfway through Something’s Gotta Give—maybe it’s generational, but why Diane Keaton picks Jack Nicholson over Keanu Reeves in that movie is frankly beyond me—when the doorbell rings.
“It’s open,” I yell. Maybe not the best course of action in a city, but a couple of days ago, I got tired of getting up and shuffling to the door for various delivery people and just started leaving it unlocked. This time, it’s Jackson who appears in the doorway of the living room, a takeout bag in one hand and a stack of magazines in the other.
&n
bsp; “Oh, this is dark,” he says, taking in the grim tableau before him. “Do you have a freezer full of bonbons, too?”
“Girl Scout Cookies, actually,” I tell him, not bothering to take my eyes off the screen. “I’m really getting into the part.”
“So I see,” Jackson says, the barely concealed smirk audible in his voice. “Some real method acting happening in here.”
“Thank you. Please remember me when awards season comes around, et cetera.”
“I . . . will be sure to do that.” He crosses the living room, sidestepping a pair of dirty socks that have been lying on the area rug for the better part of three days and setting the food on the table. Then he pointedly opens a window to let some fresh air into the apartment. “Brought you a little reading material,” he says.
“Didn’t take you for an Us Weekly subscriber,” I say, glancing at the headlines.
“Well, that just shows how little you know me,” Jackson says with a laugh. “My entire guest bathroom is wallpapered with pictures of celebrities pumping gas.”
“Didn’t you know? They’re just like us.” I pick up an issue of In Touch, flipping through the glossy pages in spite of myself. Even a shut-in like me knows that Selena and Ryder have been everywhere the last few days, their dewy faces emblazoned on every cover and plastered across every homepage. Runaway Bride! shrieks one headline; Selena’s Heartbreak, another proclaims. Ryder has been on a booze-soaked bender, getting kicked out of clubs up and down Sunset, while #TeamSelena T-shirts are popping up on celebrities all over social media, with everyone from Britney Spears to Bill Murray wearing them around LA.
My eyes flick over a breathless three-page article about Selena’s post-breakup wellness regimen—Selena: Single and Ready to Thrive!—complete with an inset about her work with The Breakup Artist and Katie’s upcoming book launch in New York.
Katie.
I swallow hard, tossing the magazine onto the coffee table and leaning my head back against the sofa. “I owe you an apology, dude,” I tell Jackson ruefully. “I totally fucked up your movie.”
“What?” Jackson shakes his head. “No way, man. You’re not the one who fucked it up. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.” He shrugs. “Besides, I’m getting a ton of material for a Hollywood satire right now.”
I laugh at that, I can’t help it. “Let me know how it goes.”
“Already done with the first draft,” he says cheerfully, reaching into the takeout bag and handing me a bowl of something green.
“Salad?” I raise an eyebrow.
“C’mon. You’ll get scurvy if you keep this up.”
I grudgingly take the bowl.
“So, what’s the deal?” Jackson asks. “What’s your next move?”
“You’re looking at it,” I reply. “I haven’t been into the office this week, but I’m guessing from the roughly seventy-five irate messages on my phone right now that I’m out of a job.” I shrug. “Maybe I can become one of those personal injury lawyers who advertise on benches at bus stops. I hear there’s pretty good money in it.”
“Sounds inspiring,” Jackson deadpans. “But I’m not talking about that. I meant, what about Katie?”
“What about her?” I ask, trying not to physically wince at the sound of her name. All week long I’ve been replaying our argument over and over in my head; I can’t stop thinking about the way her shoulders fell in the moment before she turned and walked away from me, like I was the most disappointing person she’d ever met and she was furious at herself for not knowing better.
Jackson eyes me, sighing. “Well,” he says patiently, “did you apologize?”
“Of course I apologized!” I protest. “I’m not a total ass. But she didn’t even give me a chance to explain.” I break off, frustrated. “I tried to be honest. I tried to show her that I’m not the same guy I was five years ago. It felt like we were seeing each other—like, really seeing each other—for the first time. And still, the second she got the chance to believe the worst about me, she left me in the dust.”
I’m expecting sympathy, but Jackson makes a face. “I mean dude, can you blame her? It definitely looked like you were in cahoots with Ryder, covering his lying ass. I wouldn’t have trusted you either.”
That stings.
“It wasn’t like that,” I protest, but I can’t deny the sense of what he’s saying. “I tried to get him to come clean with Selena. But so much was riding on this movie . . . I just didn’t know what to do . . .” I trail off.
“You did,” Jackson argues. “You just had your head stuck up your own ass.”
I sigh. “Yup.”
“Yup,” Jackson echoes. “Did you explain that to Katie?”
I busy myself stabbing a piece of lettuce with a plastic fork, not quite looking at him. “I mean, I tried.”
“Uh-huh. How hard?”
I think about that for a moment. Yes, she told me it was over and walked away, but what about after that? Did I blow up her phone with begging messages? Did I make a last-minute, movie-style dash to the airport to tell her how I feel?
“Not very hard,” I mumble, feeling even shittier.
“Well, there you go.” Jackson shrugs. “You were happy enough to let her go the first time around, man. But if things are really different now—if you’re really different, like you say you are—then you owe it to her to show her that.” Then, before I can answer: “You seriously have Girl Scout Cookies in here?” he asks.
“Like six boxes of Tagalongs in the freezer,” I tell him, nodding my head towards the kitchen. “Go knock yourself out.”
Eventually, I peel myself off the couch, take a shower, then head into work to face the music. I make the drive over full of dread, fully expecting to be fired on the spot. I wonder where you get those file boxes to pack up your stuff that you always see people using in the movies: are they company-provided? Or do you have to bring your own? Should I stop by Staples on the way?
In the end, I settle on a couple of reusable grocery totes I find in my trunk. I’m clutching them like a pair of life preservers when I walk in, raising a sheepish hand to wave hello to my assistant. I’m just about to slink into my office when a rumbling voice hollers my name.
“There he is!” Tripp bellows, striding down the hallway and slapping me on the back so hard I nearly cough. “Where you been, buddy?”
Buddy?
I blink. He’s never once called me buddy in the five years I’ve worked for the studio. “Just taking a little personal time,” I tell him. “I, ah, had some days saved up.”
“Good for you, good for you,” Tripp says, nodding vigorously. “A little R and R? You’ve earned it, my friend. Next time you need a vacation, just let me know. You can go ahead and use my place in Palm Springs.”
Seriously?
“Umm, thanks?” I say. I glance over to Alana, who’s watching us from her desk with barely contained amusement.
What the hell is going on?
“How have . . . things been around here?” I ask cautiously.
“This guy!” Tripp chuckles, jabbing me in the ribs. “Like you don’t know.” Then, when I stare at him blankly: “Selena is the most beloved movie star in America right now, thanks to Ryder’s inability to control his twig and berries. So, we’re striking while the iron is hot. The studio offered her the pick of scripts, and the contract for her next movie is signed, sealed, delivered—on the condition that you come aboard as her personal liaison.”
“Wait.” I shake my head. “She wants me?”
I would have thought Katie would have been the first in line to tell her about my covering up for Ryder, but clearly, she didn’t say a word, because Tripp is grinning at me.
“You heard it here first, pal,” he says. “You’re our man.”
“And what about Ryder?” I venture.
“Ryder who?” Tripp snorts. “He’s old news. Selena is the one to watch here. You were smart to figure that out. And if she wants you, she can have you—all the
better for us to keep her in line, am I right? I’ve been thinking we ought to find her a new guy,” he adds. “Engineer a little romance on the next movie. Is Chris available, you think? Or the other Chris?”
“Wait a minute,” I say, interrupting his matchmaking plans. “Selena’s not a puppet, Tripp. She’s a person.”
Tripp’s expression flickers, but barely. “Of course she is,” he says. “And we respect her. She’s a great girl—excuse me, a great woman. And she deserves a great guy to appreciate her. A guy to costar in her next movie, generate some buzz—”
“No,” I stop him. “Seriously! This is what got us into this mess! You can’t just go around manipulating her like this,” I exclaim, getting angrier. “I’m lucky she’s even speaking to me after what I put her through.” I think of what Katie said back at the ranch. What if I’d done what I was supposed to and kept Ryder’s dirty little secret? What if she’d actually married him?
Suddenly, I’m the one feeling dirty. Like one of the scummy Hollywood suits I always swore I’d never become.
Well, look at me now, about as scummy as they come.
“Look,” I tell Tripp, determined, “I took this job because I love movies, and I wanted to be a part of making them. Not because I want to mess with people’s hearts just to protect the bottom line.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Tripp says, sneering at me. “That bottom line is what pays your salary, kid.”
“Not anymore,” I tell him, before I even realize what I’m doing. “I quit.”
It doesn’t take me long to clear out my stuff and pack up the Jeep. I drive away, feeling better for the first time all week. Sure, it was a crazy, impulsive move, but I know I’m doing the right thing. No job is worth manipulating people like that.
No job is worth losing the one person I care about the most.
I hit the freeway and find myself driving down towards the coast. I should be thinking about my future now: how the hell I’m going to find another job and pay rent and all my student loans. But the truth is, all I can think about is Katie. She’s the one I want to tell about what happened today.
