by Anna Bloom
With sure movements, because she needs someone to be in control, I step forward and check in the open oven. A roasting dish is full of dried marijuana, but not the type ready to roll—this has been picked and dried, still bound at the stems into bunches. Bunch after bunch after bunch singeing with a slow burn as you’d smoke a piece of fish or a duck leg, something culinary. Instead, pride of place on the roasting tray surrounded by smoking grass is the biography of Sophia released the year after I stopped working for her. Her young face on the cover has been defaced, the eyes cut out and her lips scored with a sharp blade.
"Shit." I mutter a multitude of swear words under my breath, my reactions kicking in. Catching her in my arms I wheel her around for the front door, forcibly removing her from the building into the fresh air.
Outside, I smooth my hands through her hair, down her face, under her chin. "Sophia, are you okay? Just focus on me" It is a twatty question. She’s shaking from her head to her feet, hard tremors vibrate my hands. Her skin has paled to a deathly pallor. When her bewildered gaze lifts to my face, she begins to cry. In that very moment, that split second, with my hands on her skin, her body shivering next to mine I know I will never be able to walk away from her again.
It’s a dangerous decision to make. But there it is. Done.
The condo’s lit by blue lights, the rotating colours throwing the front yard and the street into ominously shaded shadows. My eyes flicker over at Sophia huddled on the front seat of the jeep. I can’t drag my eyes away from checking on her every thirty seconds. A female officer, her uniform impeccably tucked into her dark trousers rubs a blanket slung across her shoulders. I wish it was me touching her, soothing her.
I’ve crossed a line—back into my obsession. It’s simmering under my skin, a desperate desire, pulling me into dark places.
I know one thing. My need to protect her is fundamentally linked with my desire for her. The two things are tied together in a twisted knot. It’s in the make-up of my soul.
Make-up of my soul? Fuck Blake. What is she turning you into?.
I run my fingers through my hair and try to focus on the detective. He’s asking who had access, who knew this was Sophia’s place, and the truth is I don’t know. She thought it was private, but this is Hollywood, nothing is private.
Ten seconds later my eyes are back on her. I can’t fight it. She’s on her phone, hands shaking. Then I’m at her side, waiting, watching. The female officer moves away, clearly my Neanderthal protective vibe is rolling off me in waves.
Sophia hangs up, her expression guarded. "Erica is coming to get me." Her tone is flat, and it echoes in my ears as loud as the clash of an out of time marching band.
"Erica? What’s she going to do?" Apart from ring the razzers and get it snapped for the papers tomorrow? I don’t say this though. Sophia is giving off major ‘Don’t fuck with me’ signals. My hand reaches for her shoulder, but she dodges my approach. "Soph, what’s the matter?"
She meets my gaze with a furious anger burning in the depths of her judgemental stare. "You’ve been lying to me, Blake. Lying since you came back, and I trusted you."
A shudder runs through her body and I can see she’s struggling to even stand as tremors overtake her. I sigh, dragging my hand through my hair, pulling at the ends and inflicting some satisfying pain. "It’s not like that, Soph. I’ve just been trying to protect you."
She shakes her head. Her hair, still twisted into frizzy knots from yoga, swings in the night time air. "I can’t trust anyone, can I?"
I clutch her arm, my fingers desperate. "That’s not true, you can trust me."
"No. Blake, I can’t." Her expression closes. The shutters come down and when she looks at me it’s with the same dead eyes with which she looks at all the other people around her. "Go away, please."
Fuck, that hurts. A solid punch in the gut would have hurt less. I hesitate, my feet scuffing on the ground. A fiery determination flares and I step into her space, filling the atmosphere between us. "I’m going to sort this and then I’m coming to talk to you." The words fly into the air like bullets and she flinches under my hardened resolve.
"Is that clear, Sophia?" my voice lowers until it holds a steely note of determination. "I will explain everything."
If she thinks I will let her run away, she’s got another thing coming. I’m going to kill the bastard threatening her, taunting her, when I get my hands on him.
Her face lifts to mine, the sliver of air between us the depth of a feather. "Promise?"
With my next words, I undo every principle I ever held dear. "I promise."
It’s simple really, the fear of having her push me away outweighs my fear of being in the ‘wrong’. What is wrong? What is right? I no longer know.
This is Sophia Jennings and me. It's impossible for us to stay within the professional boundaries expected, we know each other too well.
A car rolls up and Jacobs stretches his bulk out from within the leather interior. "The house has been cleared," he tells me. I give him a firm nod. If I’d known Sophia was going to the main house, I would have cleared it myself. It would need a full sweep. I hadn’t even been there since my return to LA; instead I’d slipped into a comfortable existence at the condo with Sophia. I’d softened my own edge.
It’s too late now.
I move towards him, grabbing his arm tight. "I’ll be there as soon as this is cleared up, and then I’ll make decisions. She can’t stay there, it’s too exposed."
Jacobs straightens his back, his eyebrows pulling up. "There’s a full security team. You don’t need to worry." His eyes skitter to the pool of police surrounding the condo and the crime scene investigators walking with bags of evidence—evidence that’s largely bunches of slow smoked weed.
He wears his thoughts on his face. I haven’t done a bang-up job at the out of the way condo. He isn’t wrong, and it burns me up. I want to rip things apart with my bare hands
"Okay." There isn’t much else for me to say apart from sky write the fact I’ve fucked up. Somehow, I’d fucked up and someone had found a way in.
Jacobs holds the rear door open for Sophia and she slides in without a backwards glance in my direction. Once the car has pulled away, I turn back to the police. This nightmare needs to be over soon.
Then what will you do Blake? Leave her again?
What will I do? When she no longer needs me to guard her? Then what will my role be?
Chapter Thirteen
Sophia
"Why didn’t you tell me? You are all such lying bastards." A dark rage burns through my veins faster than any drug I’ve ever taken. "That’s why you got Blake back." This hurts so much. For some ridiculous reason I convinced myself he came back because I was in rehab and needed help. Because he cared.
He is just the hired help after all.
And I’m the same childish fool I’ve always been.
"Forget Blake, Sophia." Erica pours a gin into a large balloon glass, oblivious to the shakes and sweat transforming me into a pile of pathetic skin and bone. "It’s just a fanatic, trying to goad you."
"Why did you ask him to come back?" I refuse to allow her to evade my questioning. I step up, one wobbling foot in front of the other. My trainers land on the plush carpet of the living room. Nothing about this place is like a home—it hasn’t been for a long time.
"You were a mess. I knew he would keep you straight, especially if you were under threat."
"Why? How did you know that?" Something is being held back, a truth that’s still being kept from me. "How did you know he would come back if I was under threat?" I repeat myself, a steely edge hardening my question.
Erica snorts and swigs at her straight gin, gulping it down. The heady scent of juniper berries hits me from across the room, bitter and cloying with a hint of sweet under the surface. It’s a miracle I could smell anything other than weed. My palms slick at the thought of all that weed and the way it hit the back of my throat, making me crave a hit. Need a hit. I swa
llow, refusing to allow the craving to rise to the surface. "Don’t be naïve, Sophia. Everyone knew he had immoral feelings for you."
I stare at her. Her words hit my ears but I can’t process them. "Immoral feelings? What do you mean?"
Erica sneers, her top lip curling. "He was in love with you and he knew he shouldn’t have been."
"No, he wasn’t."
Her mouth falls open, "Oh my goodness, you didn’t even know?"
I want to tell her to shut her damn face. But then I also want to know what she thought was happening all those years ago.
"Didn’t you notice him being overprotective?" She’s warming up now, her face animated, hands flying as they gesticulate. "And what he did to poor Johnny, beating him like that, he was lucky he wasn’t sued." She pauses. "We were lucky we weren’t sued."
My head shakes in denial faster than it ever has before. My brain reeling until it’s scrambled. "He was just protecting me from making a mistake I’d regret."
Erica laughs. "Or he was pathetically jealous."
My entire perception of the last ten years twists on the head of a pin.
"But you rehired him?"
Erica laughs, a bitter chuckle that resonates in the crystal glass held to her lips. "Because I was bloody desperate. You were off the edge and I didn’t know why." The way she finishes the sentence jangles in my ears, ringing a bell making me think faster, harder, until finally it makes sense and my eyes shutter closed.
Everything slots into place. In one bolting moment of clarity it all makes sense. She’s lying. She knew exactly why I was off the edge so she’d played her trump card and brought back the person who’d sent me off it in the first place. The only person I’ve ever cared about. The only person I ever listened too.
"The letters, the threat that brought Blake back. Are they real or did you make them up, so he’d come back and fill my pathetic little existence with happiness again?"
Nothing would surprise me about this woman. Nothing.
The rigid expression of her face softens as much as the botox will allow and she shakes her head. "No, they are real. They started after the press broke the first story about your," she coughs, "problems."
Problems? That’s all my desperate addiction and cry for help is to her. A problem.
"Do you even love me at all?" It’s a simple question when I state it like that. I should have asked it years before.
"Don’t be so dramatic. If you’d put that much effort into your acting today, that shoot wouldn’t have taken so long."
Is this woman for real? What part of our dysfunctional situation is the truth? Does she even know the truth anymore?
I spin, turning away. My head can’t deal this. The show-home glares back at me, a mocking mirror of all the things Erica has made me work for. My own home, my secluded haven has been violated while she stayed here—safe.
My brain reels, words spinning. He was in love with me? He couldn’t have been. I’d offered myself to him, shown him how much I needed him and he’d forcibly declined. It was my lowest moment; the moment Blake Henderson had lifted me off his lap and said in plain words he didn’t want me.
Had he lied? Or is Erica lying now?
"I can’t carry on." It’s a low whisper but I shout it from my heart.
Erica steps up, her face a furious mask beneath the stiffness of surgery. "You will carry on." Her lips fold into a sneer. "Because if you don’t, this," her hand waves at the house. "This will all be over."
"I just need a little time, it’s all too much. I’m not ready." A wobble underlines my words and I hate it.
"No, Sophia, there is no time. If you don’t film this movie, then they will let you go, there will be a fine, and that next movie, the one that keeps you at the top, will go to someone else, someone like bloody Charlotte, who doesn’t have half the talent you do."
I reel back. "Is this about talent or about fame?"
"Who cares, Sophia? You don’t get the luxury of being on a moral high ground."
A simmering volcano threatens to erupt within my chest. "Do you even know anything about morals?" I nearly scream, my face floods with heat. "You are so twisted, you can’t see anything true anymore. This town has ruined us, Mum, look at us." I hold my shaking hands towards her. If she noticed I just called her mum for the first time in years, she doesn’t let it show.
"Grow up, Sophia." She turns away, our conversation over.
I watch her shoulders, waiting to see evidence of remorse settle in the stoop of her posture, but nothing happens. "What’s more important, Erica? Your daughter, or fame?"
She turns, her expression a smooth mask. "They both go together."
My throat tightens and I run. Where I’m running to I don’t know, just away from the liars, the people who want to keep me a puppet on a string, the people who can’t be honest.
All I want is release, freedom, and I know the only way I’m going to get it.
I grab my phone, the one Blake unlocked, and dial a number I know from memory.
"Johnny, it’s me."
A chuckle filters down the line. "Sunshine, I knew you’d call, eventually."
Twenty minutes later his silver car pulls up at the steps of the mansion and I run for the open passenger door.
I thought maybe Blake would arrive to stop me, but he hasn’t. He lied too and I don’t know if I can trust him again. He lied back then, all those years ago, and he’s lied now.
"Where to?" Johnny grins at me, his fair hair flopping in his eyes. His body is encased in a blue shirt and dark navy jeans. He’s all immaculately groomed. It hides the darker side under the surface.
"I don’t care."
He laughs, throwing his head back and slamming his foot on the gas. "Let’s watch the sun come up, Sunshine."
I close my eyes and drop my head onto the headrest. I don’t care.
"Do you think he loved me?" I roll onto my belly trying to find Johnny but he’s all blurred, his outline wavering and shimmering as if I’m looking at him through smoky glass.
"Who gives a fuck, he’s the bloody bodyguard." Johnny’s lips trail up my throat. I should bash him away. I know we’ve gone there before—there is something dark and sinister at the end of the memory—but try as I might I can’t remember what it is.
It can’t be anything to worry about. It’s just Johnny. Johnny’s always fun.
Was he?
Dragging hard on the blunt, I fill my lungs. It’s so good. Every toke lifts my body, releasing it from the cares and worries tethering me to the ground. Who wants to be grounded? It’s boring on the ground, too many worries. Too many things holding me back from what I want.
What do I want?
Blake…
But Blake lied, he’s just like everyone else.
"I just want to get high." I announce, giggling with my revelation. Johnny shifts against me, his lips crushing clumsily onto my mouth. He’s always trying to kiss me, he’s like a frog. I giggle again.
A kissing frog.
Laughing, I roll away sliding across the grass. The stars are dancing, it’s a frigging disco up there. I could dance but then I’d have to find my legs and I don’t know where I put them. I lost them.
"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny?" I laugh again. "Did you even go to rehab?" That’s so Johnny, he’s such a douche. Fancy not managing ninety days sober. "I did it. They gave me a coin."
Johnny straddles me, his knees digging into my hips. "You can keep your coin, you can’t tell me this isn’t more fun."
"It’s very shiny though." I dodge his lips but he holds my face still and probes my mouth with his tongue. Kissing’s boring, but I let him do it.
"I’ll give you something shiny, look at this." Keeping his knees firmly wedged into my side, Johnny reaches into his back pocket, pulling a foil packet out. It looks like a condom, and a flash of a memory flickers to the surface but I shake it away.
"This stuff is amazing. Come on, it’ll make filming much better in… wait for it…" He
holds his index finger up and glances at his watch, "two hours." He laughs again. It is quite funny. The make-up girls hate it when we’ve been up all night.
"Why don’t you go out with Charlie?" I ask.
His mouth is back on mine again, panting and hot. "Why would I want Charlie when I have the queen at my fingertips?" His own fingers graze under my top, skimming the surface of my skin and I know I should bash them away but I can’t summon the energy.
He yanks at my top, lifting it over my head. "Johnny, don’t. I’m going to get cold."
We’re outside, I think. But when I look up there is nothing there. The disco has closed for the night—it must be really late. I blink trying to focus.
"I won’t let you get cold. Come on, Fee, you know I’m good." His fingers tug on my jeans, levering them down my hips and I reach for my wrist. I’m expecting a bracelet, there should be something there. A connection. It leads me to something… I just can’t remember what.
Chapter Fourteen
Blake
"I’ve got to find her." I’m going to rip the fucking house apart and God help anyone who stands in my way. How could Erica let her go? The woman is downright negligent. If it’s possible to be negligent of an adult offspring, then this woman is it.
"She’s mad at you." Erica sways a little and I grab the glass out of her hand, launching it at the wall where it shatters into minuscule shards of crystal. "You’re drunk, you stupid woman. Do you not know anything about recovery? This is the first challenge, the first real test, and you’ve left her alone."
She waves a hand at me and I’m close to ripping it off and smacking her with it. "She’s not alone, she’s with him, you bloody imbecile. Where she should be. They are gold together and there is nothing you can do to stop it."
