by Lizzie Shane
“Just because we aren’t public doesn’t mean I’m willing to share.”
“Does he know that?” Tori asked archly.
Sidney glared at her partner. “Why do you have to be the voice of doom? Can’t you be happy for me?”
“I’m not the voice of doom; I’m the voice of reason. And I’ll be happy for you when you’re with someone who is good enough for you.”
“Who’s better than Josh Pendleton?” she asked, more seriously than she might have meant to, because at the moment she couldn’t picture such a man existing.
“A man who loves you.”
Sidney flinched. “Ouch.”
“And on that note, I think I should get back to Common Grounds.” Parvati stood, hugging Sidney and whispering, “Don’t listen to her. You’re allowed to cut loose and let your hair down. Especially with Josh Pendleton.”
Then she was gone, leaving Sidney alone with her partner.
“Now that we have a venue, I’m on schedule with the MMP Wedding, if you’d like me to take any of your appointments this morning,” she offered as an olive branch
Tori had been standing with her back to the room, fussing with one of the displays, but now she turned back. “I know you think I’m being the wicked witch, but I’ve been swept away by my emotions with a guy who wasn’t in it for the long run and I wound up pregnant and alone when he decided he cared more about his career than he did about me and our baby. I don’t want that for you.”
“That isn’t what this is,” she insisted, but there was less certainty in the words. Tori did only want her to be happy—but she was biased by her own issues. There was no reason to suspect Josh was anything like He Who Must Not Be Named. She would not get paranoid.
“Just use protection,” Victoria intoned direly.
“Don’t worry, Mom. We are.”
“You joke, but I’ll be the one buying the ice cream and wine when you’re heartbroken.”
“I won’t be heartbroken because my heart isn’t going to get involved,” she promised. “It’s just chemistry. It’ll run its course.”
At least that’s what she kept telling herself.
If only she didn’t already feel like she was lying.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“You can’t actually be thinking of living here.”
Josh couldn’t help but grin at the undisguised horror in Sidney’s voice. Inviting her to come house hunting with him had been an impulse. He’d told her he needed a second opinion, but the truth was he’d wanted an excuse to see her again.
Things with the wedding were rolling along smoothly. Releases were being signed and filming dates scheduled. The production team was happy, but he had no professional reason to seek her out and they hadn’t exactly left things on any certain terms as far as their non-professional interactions went.
It hadn’t seemed appropriate to call her for a booty call, but dragging her around southern California looking at condos and bedraggled shacks was another thing entirely.
“There are cracks in all the walls,” she pointed out. “The foundation’s probably shot. One good earthquake and you’ll be crushed when your house collapses around you. And that’s assuming you don’t contract some rare flesh-eating disease from the bacteria growing in the bathroom.”
She had a point. The bungalow was small, old, dingy and depressing. However… “I asked for a beach view within a reasonable drive of LA for when I need to get down there for filming. Apparently this is what exists in my budget.”
“That’s terrifying. I feel like I need a tetanus shot just standing in this kitchen.”
He shrugged, nodding toward the grimy window over the sink. “It has a view.”
“It should be condemned. Maybe you can tear it down and put something decent on the land.”
“Tear-downs cost money.” He propped a hip against the counter and it lurched beneath him. Jumping clear before it could collapse entirely, he ignored her dubious look.
“Are your finances really this tight? I thought you were supposed to be rich and famous.”
“One out of two isn’t bad, eh?” When she didn’t return his grin, he explained, “I don’t like loans.”
“You don’t like loans?”
“When they cancelled Brainiac, we didn’t have any warning. One day we’re filming as usual and the next I arrived at the studio and was told to go home because I was unemployed. Just like that.” He flicked on a faucet, relieved that there was actually water pressure, though the pipes groaned ominously. “I was terrified I was going to have to declare bankruptcy. We’d just bought the beach house and a pair of fancy cars based on what I had expected to be making for the next five years. Then suddenly I was making nothing. We’d tapped out what savings we had on the wedding and honeymoon and now we had a house we couldn’t afford and Marissa was still spending like I was made of money—and I felt like I couldn’t tell her the money was going to run out because I was supposed to be the bread-winner. That was the deal. So when I got the MMP offer, I jumped at it so fast I probably lost several grand in negotiations, but I was so desperate for a steady paycheck I probably would have worked for less.”
Marissa had been happy for him, happy that he was working again, but she never seemed to realize how tight it had been for a while there.
“I paid off the house and the cars and the loan I’d had to ask my parents for when some of the wedding checks bounced—Marissa’s mom couldn’t afford the kind of wedding she wanted—” Sidney winced and he slammed on the brakes—how did he always end up telling her these things? “What?”
Sidney cleared her expression, but her eyes were dark with sympathy and understanding. “I’m not surprised you started lying to your wife about your financial stability. You know how you’re always asking me if I really believe every couple is going to make it? And I say I always hope they will but there are signs? Wedding loans can be a big red flag. The one thing almost every couple fights about is money and if you’re putting yourself in debt before you even say I Do, it doesn’t always bode well.”
“You tell me that now. Where were you seven years ago?”
“College.”
He grinned. “Long story short, this is my budget because this is how much cash I have on hand right now, the maximum amount I can spend and still feed myself for a couple years if MMP is cancelled tomorrow and I never get another residuals check.”
“I thought celebrities never worried about money.”
“Everyone worries about money. Especially when you have an image to maintain if you want to be able to keep working. Project an image of success, be seen in the right places, date the right people—”
“Do you like all of that? The trappings of fame?”
“I don’t get off on it like I did when it was new, but I know how to manage it. It doesn’t bother me. I’m never going to be one of those celebrities who fought to get famous and now bitches about how everyone wants a piece of them. That’s the job.”
“And you still want the job?”
He shrugged, wishing he hadn’t confessed his misgivings about MMP to her. “It’s pretty much the only thing I’m good at. I’d starve if I wasn’t the host of MMP.”
“I don’t believe that for a second. I bet you’re one of those guys who could do anything he set his mind to.”
“I should hang out with you more often. I like the way you think of me.”
“Are we exclusive?”
The sudden question startled him to silence but he rallied quickly with the oh-so-eloquent, “What?”
“I mean I know we can’t be seen together in public,” she rushed out. “I just want to know where we stand. We haven’t talked about whether we would, you know, again and… Obviously we aren’t a normal couple or even a couple, but sleeping around is a safety issue and if you’re sleeping with a bunch of other women, I feel like I have a right to at least know that.”
“I’m not,” he said bluntly. “And I don’t plan to.”
&nbs
p; “Good.” She nodded, blushing fiercely. “Neither do I.”
“So we’re agreed. We’ll tell one another if anyone else enters our lives in that way.”
“Yes. Good. That’s good.” She met his eyes, her cheeks still blazing with a rosy flush. “So we’re still…”
“If you’d like to be. I would.”
“Right.” She swayed back, putting one hand on the counter to catch herself before she seemed to realize exactly what she was touching and snatched her hand back, snapping to attention. “Do you think we can get out of this kitchen now?”
“Trying to lure me back to your place?” he teased.
“Can you be seen there? The other night your car… Won’t someone notice?”
“We’re working together on the wedding. Who’s to say we aren’t working late? I’ll just be careful not to leave it parked there overnight.” He realized he was getting ahead of himself and pulled back. “That is, if that’s okay with you.”
“Definitely okay,” she said, the breathless edge to her words sending his blood rushing south.
“Okay.” He grinned, barely stopping himself from touching her as he waved toward the front of the house where his realtor waited. “Shall we?”
*
Sidney was officially having a tawdry affair—and loving every second of it.
For three weeks now she’d been seeing Josh in secret, and even though she’d never seen herself as the kind of girl who would be any man’s dirty little secret, she had no complaints. If he had to sneak away in the middle of the night, he never left her unsatisfied. And when he dropped in for an afternoon visit… well, it was a good thing planning was going so smoothly for the MMP Wedding and all the others she was working at the moment, because she wasn’t spending nearly as many of her afternoons working as she normally did.
He was the best kind of bad influence.
But tonight was Girls’ Night In—and no matter how much she might wish she could cancel and call up Josh for their own night in, Girls’ Night was sacred.
She just hoped she wasn’t going to take any shit for sneaking around with Josh. At least she could use Lorelei as a human shield until her bedtime at nine.
Sidney tromped down the stairs. She was braced for Tori’s scorn and Parvati’s gossip-hungry glee. What she wasn’t prepared for was the sight that greeted her when she opened the door to the apartment.
But then she was never prepared for the sight of her favorite ten-year-old in tears.
Lorelei sat on the couch, sandwiched between Parvati and Victoria, who each had an arm curled around her slim shoulders. They looked helpless and miserable as Lore sobbed with heartbroken wretchedness.
Sidney froze in the doorway, caught between wanting to ask what was wrong and not wanting to make the situation worse if talking about it would only stir it up again. Tori saved her by catching her eye and giving a soft shake of her head before hugging Lore and saying, “Aunt Sidney’s here now. Why don’t we pick out a suitably male bashing movie for tonight while she and Aunt Parv make us ice cream sundaes rich enough to make us all sick to our stomachs?”
Lore sniffled and wailed something that sounded almost like, “With cookie dough ice cream?” and let herself be led to the cabinet that housed the Jackson family DVD collection as Parv rose and met Sidney en route to the kitchen for sundae duty.
“What happened?” Sidney whispered under her breath as they pillaged the freezer for frozen dairy salvation.
Parvati grimaced. “One of Lore’s friends sent around a little note, polling the girls in her class about which boys they thought were the cutest—”
“Oh God, tell me the teacher didn’t find it and read it aloud.”
“Worse. Her friend’s brother took it out of her bag, took a picture of it and shared it on one of those photo-sharing websites where people can like and comment on it. Their parents found out pretty quickly and it’s been taken down now, but not before all the boys in Lorelei’s class saw it—including Hunter, the one she admitted she has a huge crush on.”
Sidney winced in sympathy. “Ouch.”
“It gets worse. Apparently he commented.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Probably not,” Parv admitted as she scooped diabetes-inducing quantities of ice cream into the bowls Sidney had laid out. When Sidney arched her brows in silent question, needing to know exactly what they were dealing with so she didn’t imagine things even worse than they were, Parv whispered, “He just said, ‘As if.’”
“Oh God.” She squirted a liberal layer of chocolate syrup onto the mounds of ice cream.
“Yeah. He’s ten and he’s an idiot male trying to save face—apparently he’s been seen on the swings with Lore and some of the other comments were teasing him about marrying her and having lots of babies, so he was probably reacting to that, but it still sucks for the kiddo. She was at swimming practice when it all went down, so the shit only hit the fan about a half hour ago.”
“Poor baby.” Sidney sprayed an extra layer of whipped cream on top of Lorelei’s already towering sundae.
“Tori’s keeping it together, but you can tell she wants to murder anyone who made her baby cry—even if the kid is only ten himself.”
“I’d want to go after the brat who posted it.”
“I already offered to help hide the body, if it comes to that.” Parv held up a banana. “Splits?”
“Definitely.”
“Apparently he’s already being punished. Tori talked to the parents and they are not taking it lightly. And the school’s already heard about it—he might get suspended or even expelled because the new anti-bullying policy is so strict, but either way he’s not going to get to go to his basketball camp—or maybe it was hockey? All I know is body burying is probably not going to be necessary to make sure he never does something like this again. But that isn’t making Lore feel any better. I think she’s partially upset that everyone saw she likes Hunter, but even more crushed that he rejected her so publicly when she thought he was almost her boyfriend. Which he probably was, even though he’s scared to admit it. Typical boy.”
Sidney resisted the urge to draw a parallel to her own boy who refused to admit he was almost her boyfriend. Lore’s crisis trumped everything going on in her life. She busied her hands putting away the sundae makings.
“We’ve decided on explosions,” Tori announced, holding up a special-effects-laden action-fest with little-to-no plot and absolutely no romantic tendencies.
“Perfect,” Sidney agreed, before meeting Lore’s red eyes with a sympathetic gaze. “You coping, hon?”
“Boys are jerks,” Lore said with a sniffle.
“I enthusiastically agree,” Parvati declared, sliding a bowl across the counter toward Lore. “Have a banana split.”
Lore managed a smile—albeit a weak one—and accepted the sundae which was roughly the size of her head. Sidney collected her own bowl, meeting Tori’s gaze with another kind of sympathy as they carried their sugar rushes back to the couch and settled down to watch two hours of pyrotechnics and fight scenes.
Lore stared at the screen, only sniffling once or twice, distracted by the unchecked violence she wasn’t normally allowed to watch. When the movie ended, Lorelei headed off to bed and Tori went with her to tuck her in, both of them moving carefully, like their pain was physical.
Parvati and Sidney washed the ice cream bowls in silence, not even speaking when they returned to the couch to wait for Tori, both lost in their own thoughts.
When Tori returned, she collapsed onto the loveseat perpendicular to the couch, her gaze distant, locked on the hallway that led to Lorelei’s room. “I’m not ready for this,” she murmured softly. “She’s a baby. I’m not ready for her to get her heart broken.”
“Maybe she won’t. Maybe this is just a bump in the road,” Sidney said, striving for the optimism that usually came so easily to her.
“She never wants to go to school again and I have to make her.” Tori rubbe
d a hand across her eyes.
Parvati went to sit next to Tori, lacing their fingers together. “She’ll be stronger for it.”
“She’ll have a scar on her heart,” Tori murmured. “I wanted her to go through life blissfully untouched by any sort of pain or disappointment, but I should have guessed she’d inherit my taste in men. If there’s a man who’s going to leave you when the going gets tough, a Jackson woman will fall for him every time.”
“He’s ten,” Parvati argued.
“And so is she,” Sidney added. “You don’t know what kind of guys she’s going to fall for when she grows up.”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen to her,” Tori sniffled—not crying, Tori never let herself cry, but not far from it. “My father left. Her father left. But she was supposed to be the one to get the happily ever after.”
“She’s ten,” Sidney repeated. “Her love life isn’t over. And yours doesn’t have to be either. You could still get your happily-ever-after. You have to believe that. You plan weddings, for crying out loud.”
“I’m organized and I’m good at managing bridezillas. Not all of us got into this business because we see hearts and flowers everywhere we look.”
“You’re jaded, but deep down you’re a romantic just like me,” Sidney said with absolute faith. “And so is Lorelei. She’s going to bounce back from this. Kids are resilient.”
“Even their hearts? I don’t want hers so scarred over no one can penetrate it anymore.” Like mine remained unspoken. “Did I do this to her? Turn her into a mini-me?”
“Hey, you’re the best mom I’ve ever met.” Sidney got up and squeezed in beside Parv and Tori on the loveseat, taking Tori’s other hand.
“She’d be lucky to be a mini-you,” Parvati agreed. “You’re smart, you’re savvy, you love her to pieces, and you’ve shown her every day that you don’t need a man to be happy. That’s a lot more than most of us can hope for.”
“I just want her to have everything. Even the things I missed out on.”
“And she will. But just because we aren’t there yet doesn’t mean we missed out,” Sidney insisted. “We’re all going to get our happily-ever-afters. Whether that involves men or not. Especially Lorelei.” She squeezed Tori’s hand. “We’ll accept nothing less. Deal?”
