Years of growing up in one of the most fake and dishonest cities in the world had taught her one thing: actions never lied but explanations did.
Lita walked over to the closet and opened it wide to grab her suitcase to start packing. She had to do something to occupy the hours until she could leave tomorrow morning. The problem was she’d forgotten that a good number of her things were in Rocky’s room. She had enough to get by and get her back to L.A., but she’d have to bribe someone to go to his room and send her stuff to her.
Maybe Sydney. She was sweet, and her face during the whole nightmare downstairs had been both horrorstruck and full of sympathy. Good people, that one. Too bad she wasn’t going to enjoy a long friendship with her.
And speaking of friendship, Lita realized she hadn’t just lost the man she loved today but her best friend as well. Lori would never choose her over Callie, and she had no doubt that a choice would be required. Callie and Jake would have to draw a line in the sand with her from now on, and Lori would be on the other side of that very deep chasm.
It was all too much, the loss she’d suffered today, and suddenly, the weight of it barreled past her well-honed defenses and burst forth in a torrent of tears and curses that she attempted to stifle with a hand across her mouth.
It was a losing battle from the first slide of wet fury and hurt that traced a path down her cheek, scalding her skin, cutting through her flesh and down to the place where her heart ached with each sluggish beat. Lita gave up fighting it, sliding under the covers and giving in to the grief at what she’d lost.
A good cry, a plane flight out of Montana, and back to L.A., and then figuring out how to live in a world that was suddenly large and cold and lonely.
…
“You want company?” Dash asked.
Rocky looked up from his seat on the couch on the outdoor patio overlooking Echo Lake. No one was in the living room tonight, no reason to celebrate or sing shitty karaoke. Shortly after the nightmare of the video reveal, Jake had taken a shaken Callie to their room to do whatever you did when you looked like a psycho homewrecker to millions on the internet.
A glutton for punishment, he’d watched it again, and all it did was increase his desire to fly to L.A. and wrap his hands around the neck of Lita’s boss. It sure as fuck didn’t get any better the more times you watched it.
Lita.
He had no clue what to do about her. He’d messed up. The kind of screw up he knew would wake him up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat years from now if he didn’t make it right. He’d just found her again, and he didn’t want to lose her.
“You want company?” Dash asked again, moving out of the doorway and plopping down on the couch next him.
“No, I don’t.”
“Prepare for disappointment,” he answered and handed over a beer, the bottle slick form condensation and ice cold. “I thought you might need this.”
“You didn’t bring anything stronger?”
“No. You don’t need to get drunk. Just mellow.”
True enough. He still didn’t have any idea how he was going to fix this with Lita.
“How is Lori doing?” He broke the silence, suddenly needing a break from all the clamoring in his head. What he really needed was his drum kit, an empty room, and about two hours to work it out. He did his best thinking when his body was pounding it out, the movement freeing his mind to wander. But there was no drum kit in Montana.
“She’s a mess. Upset about her sister and devastated over Lita, who is like a sister to her.” He shook his head and took a drink from his bottle. “I have no idea if there will even be a wedding. This is just a no-fucking-win situation.”
Leave it to Dash to boil down the collapse of his life to a seven-word sentence.
Dash continued. “I left her in our room a crying mess with the suggestion that she try to get some sleep, but I doubt that’s going to happen. She’s probably in Lita’s room right now.”
“I hope so.” Rocky didn’t want Lita to be alone. He would give anything to be the one she was with, but that was impossible. She’d made it clear that they were finished, but he wouldn’t accept it. “Lita broke up with me.”
“I figured.”
“I fucked up. Backed away from her and spouted off about how I knew this was going to happen.”
“Not the best time to point that fact out,” Dash said.
Rocky shot him a glare for being a dick. “I didn’t mean it the way she took it. I was railing at the situation as a whole. I was striking out at the stupid paparazzi who take everything and make it ugly to sell magazines and get the most hits on a website. I never meant that it was Lita’s fault or that she had anything to do with it. Never.”
“Then go up to her room and tell her.”
“I did. She didn’t believe me.” He tore at the label on the beer bottle, ripping it off and not feeling any better when it shredded. “With our past. My position on the press for so long…why should she?”
“Okay. So words won’t work. That rules out a song.”
It was the first thing that popped into his mind, and he ruled it out almost immediately.
“Cheesy won’t work. I think the only way she’ll believe me is if I find a way to get to the heart of our problems.”
“Which is?”
“Trust.”
Dash let out a low whistle. “That takes time, especially when it’s been broken.”
“I don’t think I’ve got time. I have this feeling…” He touched the spot over his heart that was tender, as if losing Lita was a physical blow. Over the years, his bulk had invited many men to challenge him if for no other reason than to bring down the giant in their midst. Most of the time, he won, but a few got their licks in, and even fewer had hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. This was worse. “I have this feeling that if I don’t fix this soon, then I will never get the chance. I’ll lose her behind that mask of Hollywood fake she wears so well. She won’t give me another chance to give her a body blow like I did today.”
“You’re in love with her,” Dash said with something that resembled reverence. “I’d say something shitty like ‘the harder they fall,’ but you look too wrecked for me to even joke.”
“Four fucking years.”
“What?”
“Four years I’ve loved her, and now when I wake up and finally get her back, I screw it up.” He looked at Dash and didn’t even try to hide his pain. If he couldn’t share it with his brother, then he was more screwed up than he thought.
Dash watched him closely, his mind turning over whatever he wanted to ask next. His friend was the thoughtful one, and Rocky braced for a question that would challenge him, test his conviction, and hopefully, lead him to a solution.
“Rocky, are you sure? Lita’s life…” He struggled with how to voice his concern, the strain in his voice, and his features. “Her life is what you don’t want: the spotlight, the scrutiny. Are you sure about her?”
Not a wrong question. Rocky was becoming a different man before his eyes, and it was normal to question it. Many a man had temporarily morphed into someone else for long legs wrapped around them in the night.
“Why did you leave ‘the Shire’ for Lori?”
“What do you mean?”
“You lived like a Hobbit for years, hiding out from everyone except those two crazy dogs you have.” He bit back a chuckle at Dash’s eye roll. “So what forced you out into the land of the living?”
“I wasn’t forced. I wanted to be with Lori, and that’s where she was. If I wanted her, then I had to.”
He nodded, taking a quick drink before answering. “Right. I’m doing the same thing. Lita lives in the bright lights and sunshine. If she’s there, then I’m there. Never a question for me— it just felt like the most natural thing in the world to follow her. She does her best to give me shelter when I need—” And then he knew what he had to do. The plan formed in his mind like a miracle. Words were never going to prove anything to Lita. His plan
required action, very public action.
“Dash.” He placed his bottle on the coffee table and stood, fishing his phone out of his back pocket and thumbing through his contacts. “Is Jules still around? She didn’t head back to L.A., did she?”
His friend stood with him, confusion on his face. “No, she’s still here. But what do you want with Jules?”
Rocky outlined his plan quickly, waiting patiently for Dash to process and offer feedback. If he had a better idea, he’d take it. “So what do you think?”
“I like it. Lita will love it, but it’s going to cost you.”
“Nothing I wouldn’t pay a thousand times over.”
“You sure?” Dash smiled, his grin telling Rocky he thought this was the best plan ever. “The light’s pretty bright out here with the rest of us.”
“Bring it on,” he said with an answering smile. “I’ve got sunscreen.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The knock on her door woke her from her heavy dream-filled sleep.
Lita blinked into the gloom of her room. Night had fallen while she’d slept, and she could barely make out the furniture that filled the room. She glanced at the clock and winced at the digital numbers telling her it was ten o’clock. It felt so much later.
The knock sounded again, louder and more insistent this time. She threw back the covers and hauled her butt out of bed. Stumbling to the door, she considered the possibility that it was Rocky, the one person she could not deal with talking to right now. She stopped and eyeballed the big slab of wood, willing her X-ray vision superpower to finally kick in.
Nothing.
“Rocky, I don’t want to talk to you right now,” she shouted at the door.
“It’s not Rocky.”
Lori. Lita paused, her heart surging up in her throat at the sound of her best friend’s voice. Well, her ex-best friend. She didn’t want to have this conversation. Did not want to have “the talk” that would officially end their friendship.
“Lita, let me in.”
“No.” Nobody said she had to answer the door.
“What do you mean no?” Lori jiggled the handle, testing the door to see if she could get in. “Why not?”
“I don’t want you to break up with me.”
Silence fell on the other side of the door.
“Lita, you big loser dork. Open the damn door.” Lori punctuated her demand with a hand laid down hard on the door. “Don’t make me find some big Montana man to break it down.”
Her feet were moving before her brain gave the command. Lita opened the big wooden door and pulled Lori inside and into a tight hug. They cried like babies, soaking each other’s shirts and not caring. It had been a long day. They pulled apart, watery smiles and hands wiping away the remnants of very expensive, and supposedly, waterproof mascara. Yeah, right.
“Break up with you?” Lori asked, her eye roll punctuating her question.
“Shut up. I’ve had a shitty day.”
“The shittiest. Come on.”
Lori pulled Lita over to the bed and flopped onto it, both burrowing under the covers. They got settled, heads on the pillows, so they could talk. She wasn’t sure how to tackle the four ton purple elephant in the room, except to take a big bite.
“How are Callie and Jake?”
“They’re okay. Callie is a mess and Jake is furious, ” She turned and squeezed Lita’s hand. “But not with you. They know you got played.”
Lita closed her eyes in relief, some peace settling in her bones. It wasn’t everything, but it made a huge difference.
“What about the wedding? Is it off?”
Lori groaned. “I have no idea. All I know is that Sydney is freaking out about four million pounds of lobster tails that have been flown in from Maine and something called Wagyu.”
“This just sucks.”
“No kidding. The wedding of the year might be a bust, and I can almost hear Calliope Shoes losing sales.”
They stared at the ceiling for a while, the quiet strange after the tumultuous events of the day.
“I got fired.”
“What?” Lori twisted to look at her, eyes flashing with anger on her behalf. “Asshole.”
“I’m not surprised. I knew when I buried Rocky’s story that it was a possibility.”
“And your show?”
Lita just stared, letting her what do you think look say it all.
“Like I said.” Lori nodded, her fist punching in the air like she was connecting with Russ’s fugly face. “Asshole.”
“I’m back at ground zero, starting over with getting an anchor position or my own show.” She rubbed a hand over her eyes, the headache still simmering behind them. “Russ is going to tell everyone in the industry what I did, and I will never get another chance. My career might be over.” She sighed, hating every syllable she was going to speak. “Unless I ask my parents for help.”
“Oh no,” Lori said, her hand resting on Lita’s shoulder. “Not that.”
Lita shrugged and peeked out at her friend. “Dad is always trying to help. Maybe I’ll let him.”
“And hate it.”
“Every damn second.”
They both laughed, weak laughs, but it felt good to find the humor in something. It didn’t last long, the next question Lori asked bringing them both back down to the worst reality.
“What about Rocky?”
“That’s…” Lita completely covered her face at that one, not even trying to hold back the tears that trickled out of the corner of her eyes. She wasn’t a crier, but if there was anything worth crying about, this was it. Having your heart broken was a good reason. “We’re over. He doesn’t trust me, and I can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing for the last four years.”
“No. No. You guys can work it out. I’m sure he was just overwhelmed. The whole thing was pretty friggin’ nuts. Even I was mad at you for a spilt second.” Lori rolled over to look her in the eye. “It was sudden and crazy, and nobody reacted the way we should have.”
“He said he wasn’t mad at me; his comment wasn’t aimed at me but at all the media.”
“So believe him.”
“I want to believe him, but I can’t. We’ve got too much history that neither of us can let go.”
“Sounds like you’re the one who can’t let it go.”
Ouch. “Tell me what you really think.”
“I just did.”
Lita pushed back the covers, needing to walk if they were going to have the tough love conversation.
“So, am I Gail or Oprah this time?”
“You’re just you, waiting for the people in your life to let you down, to only love you conditionally. To ditch you at the first sign of anything rough.”
“I think I might need to lie down again if you’re psychoanalyzing me.”
“I hear you speaking in bitch, but I don’t understand you.” Lori stuck her tongue out when Lita flipped her the bird. “But I don’t hear you saying I’m wrong.”
She wasn’t. They both knew it. Lita had very low expectations of people who professed their love, and while it was killing her to see her relationship with Rocky go down the tubes, she wasn’t surprised.
Lori kept talking. “He told you he didn’t mean it. Why don’t you try believing him?”
“Because I can’t.” Lita sucked in a breath and plowed on. “Because people talk all the time, and it doesn’t mean anything. They make the sweetest promises, and they don’t follow through.”
Like the promises Rocky had made with his words and his body at the lake house. She’d believed him, let the wonder of it sink into her marrow, and change her from the inside. Now she was never going to be the same again. She would always be the woman who loved Rocky Cardano more than anyone she ever met or would meet.
“Give him the chance to follow through. One more chance for you two to get your happily ever after.”
Lita smiled at her friend, truly happy that she’d found that in her life. “Not everyone gets wha
t you and Dash have, what Syd and Laz and Callie and Jake have. That’s not real life. That’s one of my dad’s movies.”
“Fine. I’m not going to argue with you anymore. I know I’ll lose.” Lori climbed out of the bed, searching for her flats buried under the discarded covers on the floor. Slipping them on, she stood and walked over to Lita and gave her a fierce hug. “Just think about it. Don’t throw it away over one slip.”
“Wait. Take something to Callie and Jake for me?” Lita walked over to her bag and dug around inside until she found the thumb drive. She turned and handed it over to Lori. “It’s my version of the video. I want them to see how I was going to do it. I’m not sure if it will help.”
“They’ll love it.” Lori gave her another quick hug and headed toward the door. “And call Rocky. Don’t give up on your happily ever after so easily. All the best ones are worth fighting for.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Where are you going?”
Rocky stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to find Dash, Sydney, and Laz all looking at him. They were headed in the direction of the living room, the exact opposite direction of his destination.
“I’m going to see Lita. Catch you guys later.” One night had been too long even with all the plans he’d made with Jules to win Lita back, to prove to her that he did trust her. It was morning, and hopefully, she was in a better place to listen to him. He’d partially turned to continue his mission when Laz stopped him again.
“Rocky, man. Lori went to get her. We’ve all been summoned to the living room by Callie and Jake.”
“Now?”
Laz shrugged. “You know how Jake is when he gets his mind set on something. You either get on board or get the hell out of the way.”
He knew. Sweet Baby Jesus, he knew. Jake would physically come find them both if they didn’t show up. He sighed, following them down the hallway, hoping that maybe whatever the bride and groom had to say would soften Lita’s stubborn streak and buy him some time to do what he planned to do.
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