by Mimi Strong
“Sure, I’ll join you,” he said. “Should I bring anything? Are you hungry or thirsty?”
I stared at the interior side of the old, wooden door. It had been orange and blue when we moved in, and we’d repainted everything inside, but skimped on a final coat. You could see the blue through the cream color. It really needed another coat.
I put my face in my hands. What the hell was I doing? Distracting myself from this scary situation by thinking about paint. That wasn’t good. Eyes wide open.
“Peaches?”
“Just give me five minutes. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen.” I looked at my blotchy face in the mirror, my eyes looking wide and frightened. “And bring me up a beer.”
“Will do.”
After he walked away, I splashed some cold water on my face and tried to pull myself together. I used the toilet and checked. Yes, my pee was still yellow, and not at all like the other fluid. My butt was tingling and happy, but not juicy, thanks to the condom. So, that squirting thing had really happened.
Huh.
I got the shower running, and a few minutes later, Dalton joined me, two unopened cans of cold beer in his hands. He pressed them against my buttocks to make me shriek, of course.
“You’re so bad,” I said.
“You make me want to be bad. Now kiss me like I’m dangerous.”
I complied, enjoying his lips on mine, in the shower, our intimacy so casual and right.
He cracked open one of the cans and passed it to me. We took turns standing under the hot water, doing the two-person shower dance.
Some of the shower water was splashing into my beer, so I drank deeply before it got watered down.
“Gotta replenish your fluids,” he said, grinning.
What was that supposed to mean? Guardedly, I stared up at him.
“Do you have to work in the morning?” he asked.
The morning. Work. My morning mocha at Java Jones.
“I ran into that girl, Alexis, this morning,” I said.
He looked annoyed. “That’s too bad. I would have thought she’d take her money and get lost.”
“How do you know her, exactly?”
His head nodded under weight I couldn’t see. “For a while, she was like my sister. Remember I told you I ran away from my parents with a woman?”
“She was someone in the porn business, right? I mean adult film business.”
“Don’t be politically correct on my account, but, yes. Her name was Katherine. Everyone called her Kiki. She had more charisma than common sense, and like an idiot, I went straight from trying to date two high school girls at once to losing my virginity to a porn star.”
I ran my free hand over his wet chest as he took his turn under the shower. “I hate that she took advantage of you when you were young.”
“We all take advantage. It’s what people do.”
A lump caught in my throat. I never liked it when someone said bad things about human nature. It was as if they were paving a future bad road with excuses.
He continued, “Kiki was Alexis’s mother.”
“Was?”
“Kiki hung herself.”
I put my empty beer can on the edge of the tub, then turned back to hug him. I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
He looked genuinely sad. “Kiki hung herself the week after I moved out and broke up with her for good. I said I was done with the adult film industry, and I honestly wished her the best. I thought she was going to be okay, but she wasn’t right in the head.”
I gazed up at him. Now we both had our arms wrapped around each other, and I couldn’t tell you who was supporting whom. I worried that if I let go, we’d both fall away.
“I thought of Alexis as a sister,” he said. “We were practically the same age, so I couldn’t see myself as a father figure.”
“She seemed so angry at you.”
“People misplace their anger. Her mother’s dead, so all that pain had nowhere to go. Grief is like a heat-seeking missile, and it burrows into the nearest heart.”
“It’s been a few years, though. She needs to move on and leave you alone.”
“When you’re famous, people refuse to disappear. Even when you give them money and they promise to be quiet, they keep coming back.”
I thought of the NDA I’d signed that day and pulled back.
Was I just a future problem for Dalton Deangelo?
Was that how he saw me?
Dalton had been staring down at our feet in the tub, and now he looked up at me. Water from the shower streamed down his face, and his eyes were red, but I couldn’t tell if he was crying.
Despite my fears, I felt my eyes water with sympathy tears at his pain.
“What about your parents?” I asked.
“My mother died of a drug overdose two years ago,” he said.
I mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” though my voice was cut off by emotion.
“Not as sorry as I am,” he said. “It was my hush money that fueled her utter collapse.”
The water cooled down, the hot water tank in the basement reaching its limits.
“And your father?” I asked, hating myself for my insensitive curiosity.
“The checks keep clearing, but we’ve not spoken directly since the fight we had the day I left with Kiki.”
I stood shivering as the water turned from cool to cold. I reached around Dalton to turn off the tap, since he hadn’t seemed to notice.
He chuckled, his voice hollow in the echoing bathroom now that the running water was stopped. “I told him I was going to be a big star one day, and I’d buy a big mansion and they’d beg me to live in the guest house.”
I pulled two towels from the cupboard and handed one to him. He seemed confused, then after a few blinks, started to slowly pat himself dry.
“I’m sorry about everything with your family,” I said.
“Your parents seem so perfect. I was watching them at the wedding, and during the speeches, they kept looking at each other with so much tenderness.”
I laughed, thinking of their current argument over my father’s ratty old recliner, and now the buckets being tossed down on the bushes.
“There’s more than meets the eyes,” I said. “I know I’m lucky, though. They’ve been more than understanding. They saved my life.”
“How?”
My throat closed up, and then I was crying, barely able to catch my breath.
Sometimes, it just hit me like that.
I moved my jaw, thinking about telling him, but then I remembered the paperwork I’d signed that day. I’d signed his NDA, but he hadn’t signed mine. So he didn’t need to know. Nobody did.
“It’s been a long day,” he said gently, pulling me into a damp hug and wrapping his big towel around both of us.
“A very long day.” I smiled, the waterworks finished.
“Sleep with me,” he said. “Join me in the darkness, walk through my dreams, and hold my hand in the morning light.”
I nodded, because what can you say after something as beautiful as that?
We spent a few minutes brushing our teeth and getting ready for bed, just like a regular couple, then I climbed into my bed next to a very sleepy-faced, droopy-eyelid-having Dalton Deangelo.
Join me in the darkness, walk through my dreams, and hold my hand in the morning light.
CHAPTER 24
I was groggy in the morning when Dalton woke me.
“Five more minutes,” I moaned, snaking my arm around him. He was fully clothed, which I did not like, but at least he was in my bed.
He kissed my cheek.
“Just a few more days, and we’ll wrap this movie. Then I’ll be able to sleep in, too.”
I opened my eyes, suddenly awake.
“A few more days?” We hadn’t talked about how much longer the movie shoot would be, but I’d hoped for more time than that before I lost him to LA.
“Yeah. Do you want me to send Vern back here to give you a ride to
work this morning?”
I rolled over and squinted at my clock. I didn’t have to be at Peachtree Books for another two hours.
“No, thanks. I always walk.”
“Every day?”
“I have a couple of umbrellas for the winter.”
He nodded. “I should have known you walk to work. But I didn’t. And I don’t know your middle name, either.”
“Luanne.”
“Favorite color?”
“My favorite color is your gorgeous eyes, Dalton Deangelo.”
He cracked up. “Have fun at work. I don’t know when I can see you again, but I’ll call you.”
“Sure,” I said, and then I watched him roll off the bed and leave.
I listened to him walk down the steps and close the front door. A thought struck me: our goodbye had felt like a final goodbye, despite the casual words spoken.
Was this the end?
Part of me was sure I’d never seen him again, and that same part of me was relieved. He’d not just kept me up late. He’d disrupted my life, inserted himself into my every thought.
He and his whole life and personality were so damn big, where did that leave me?
And if we were done now, or in a few days, how long before the internet forgot all about me and left me in peace?
And one more thing: who was that moaning?
I lay still in my bed, listening.
It sounded like someone was…
I pulled my pillow around my head, because someone was moaning, and that someone was Shayla. I could still hear her, though the pillow. And now a guy’s voice, as well.
Wow. Go, Shayla!
~
I didn’t get to meet the guy who was getting Shayla to make such musical sounds, because I threw on some clothes and left the house early. If she was nailing her boss again, that was the last thing I wanted to be a witness off. If it was someone else, I’d meet him if he made it to a second audition. (A callback, as Shayla sometimes joked. She did have a string of one-night hookups in her past, because guys rarely got a callback from her, unless they were unavailable.)
I wandered around downtown with my thoughts, and by the time I opened the bookstore, mocha in hand, I wasn’t even early.
The yellow phone on the wall was ringing when I walked in the door, and after I turned off the alarm, I answered it with a breathless, “Hello?”
“Peaches Monroe?” came a woman’s voice.
“Speaking.”
She started talking, and I know she was speaking English, but it was difficult to comprehend her words, because they were so ridiculous.
I had to keep asking her to repeat herself, and I pulled out an envelope from the drawer and scribbled on the back of it:
New underwear line
Full figured girls with personality
Team Peaches
Wednesday
Photo shoot
$$$
Fly? LA
WTF???
I jotted down the woman’s phone number, told her I’d have to talk it over with my family, and hung up the phone.
“WHAT?” I said to the empty bookstore.
The houseplants on top of the shelves peered down at me in silence.
“Me, an underwear model,” I said. “Me.”
My father walked in the door just then, a welcome sight in his plaid, short-sleeved shirt and khaki trousers. His curly red hair had been freshly trimmed, which I noticed because he had that cute summer feature of a pale margin of skin on the back of his neck, where his now-gone hair had prevented a pink sunburn the previous day.
“Dad!” I ran out from behind the counter and nearly bowled him over with a hug.
“It’s chilly in here. You don’t have the air conditioner running already, do you? Open the front door and get some airflow.”
I pulled away and gave him a good look. He was the perfect person to ask for advice, because he was always so sensible (about everything but his recliner.)
“Did you come by to check on our power consumption?” I asked.
“I’ve got some epoxy curing back at the shop. Figured I’d save some brain cells by not sniffing it.”
“Good choice,” I said, then explained about the phone call I’d just received.
He seemed really hung up on the fact the job was underwear modeling. We got past that, by working through the concept that underwear covered the same stuff as a swimsuit, and he wouldn’t be worried about my modeling swimwear.
“Why wouldn’t they get a professional?” he asked.
“They want regular girls.”
He snorted. “No, they don’t. It’s the whole celebrity endorsement thing. You’ve got your image all over the place, in your underwear from that one time, and now they want a piece of you. If you’d sent in your pictures last week, they wouldn’t have even called you back.”
“You know about the half-naked photos?”
“How could I not? People keep telling me. I had an old college buddy call me out of the blue.”
“I’m sorry I embarrassed you and Mom and Kyle.”
“Kyle doesn’t know. And he’s not going to.” He gave me a long stare, the look in his blue eyes softening by the second. “And don’t you dare be embarrassed. You’re a beautiful girl, and you look beautiful in those photos. Plus you didn’t do anything wrong.”
His love nearly made me cry.
I looked around, double-checking that we were still alone in the store. “Dad, is this it? Is my life starting to happen?”
“Your life has been happening for a long time now.”
“You know what I mean. Life outside of Beaverdale.”
His eyes went wide, and he joked, “Take me with you?”
The garbage truck passed by outside the window, its weight making the whole building rumble.
“Mom would never let you go, and you know it.”
He grinned and said, “Let me have a look over the modeling contract, and I’ll tell you what I think.”
~
I called the woman back and asked her to fax me a contract to the bookstore.
By the time the contract came in by fax, my father was already back at his shop with all his radio-control helicopter parts, so I faxed it to him.
He strolled back in around lunch, saying, “This is not written to be in your best interests at all.”
My face got all disappointed, as did the rest of me.
“You won’t let me be a model?”
He gave me a cute Dad-knows-best look. “I know you’re excited, but you can’t jump into opportunities blindly, or they have a way of becoming disasters.”
My cell phone beeped with an incoming text from Dalton. “Speak of the devil,” I said. “Here’s a message from my current disaster. Did you know there really is a hot spring on the Weston Estate? Dalton took me to see it.”
“Hot springs sometimes disappear and reappear after earthquakes.”
“I know, Dad. You bring that up every time someone talks about a hot spring. And you know what else? That’s the same thing Dalton said.”
“Smart guy.”
“He claims he isn’t.”
“Playing dumb can work to your advantage. Not that you’d ever try it.”
“Hah! I got you to help with my contract, didn’t I?”
He frowned over the papers. “You should have an agent for this. This matters. As far as the other stuff goes, dating and whatever, you’re only twenty-two. Date whomever you want. It’s not like you’re ready to get married.”
“Really. You don’t say.” I put my hand on my hip, the attitude working its way through my suddenly-in-demand, voluptuous body. “And at what age am I ready to get married?”
“Twenty-nine. You’ll wear a big, white dress. Too expensive, of course. Your mother and I will pay for everything, and we’ll book the same hall as we had for our wedding.”
I honestly didn’t know whether to chew him out for being so bossy, or hug him and kiss him for having given it so much
thought.
“Dalton seems nice enough,” he said, nodding.
I threw myself into his arms. “You’re a good daddy.”
“All I want is the best for you.” He patted my back. “What temperature do you have the air conditioning set to? Seems a bit chilly.”
He went off to fiddle with the settings for the HVAC system.
Some customers came in, and I helped them with their shopping. My father slipped out, the contract in his hand.
Once I was alone again, I remembered the text message on my phone that I hadn’t read yet.
Dalton: This lunch the catering truck made us today is insane.
Me: You’re making me hungry!
Dalton: Haven’t had lunch?
Me: I’ll get something from the coffee shop soon.
Dalton: Don’t bother! Vern is bored out of his mind here today. He’s going to bring you over lunch.
Me: How would you feel about dating an underwear model?
There was a long delay with no response. Over half an hour. Then I got this:
Dalton: I don’t know what you mean, but I’m not seeing anyone but you.
Me: An underwear company called me this morning, about modeling their new plus-size line. Do you think I should do it?
Another delay, maybe ten minutes.
Dalton: I don’t want you to get hurt.
I typed a whole bunch of responses and deleted them all without sending. I appreciated his concern, but I wished it didn’t make me feel like he thought I was an idiot. It was bad enough I had my father working on the contract, like I was some child who didn’t understand consequences.
If Dalton had been dating someone skinny, who got asked to model non-plus-size clothes, would he say the same thing?
I guess the worst part about my father and Dalton both being apprehensive was how they introduced more doubt to my mind. Right after I’d talked to the woman, my mind had whirled with dreams coming true. I’d get pampered, take instructions for a photo shoot or two, then gather my big stack of cash and buy the brand new house that was for sale down the street from where I lived. Then it would be goodbye to the grotty old rental house with “character” and scary spiders in the basement, and hello to long, hot showers in my new house. Shayla would still be my roommate, and we’d have a formal dining room and tons of fancy dinner parties.
