by Anna Bloom
Blake’s body spasms into a rigid mass. Springing forward I grab the photo shoving it in my pocket. It’s a futile act. He’s seen it. The horror is written all over his face, knowing what I do when high and seeing the evidence are two different things.
Slowly as if he’s stuck in quicksand, he reaches past me for the bed and snatches a sheet of paper. "Miss Jennings? What would your fans say if they knew the truth? If they knew you sold yourself for a high? Yours endlessly, your faithful fan." It sounds odd coming from his lips, his soft Welsh accent belaying the severity of the threat.
I crumple, the weight of my body bringing me down like a stack of cards. Blake hooks a hand under my armpits, lifting me clean off the floor. "What do these people want from me?" A strangling hold pinches my throat until I can no longer breathe or swallow.
He shrugs, wordlessly, but his arms don’t let me go. Heat pools between us and my heart hammers in my chest so loud it near on deafens me.
"Do you want anything from this place?" His voice is a tight note, plucking through the air.
I shake my head, but then I’m shaking all over: part fear, part disgust, part desire. "No."
"Good."
He turns and marches us back out the front door. I don’t give my condo a backwards glance. It’s yet another place no longer mine.
Chapter Eighteen
Blake
"I’m just going to put this out there." We shoulder our way into a blast of freezing air and she visibly shrinks at the chilly front. I laugh. It’s probably been a while since she’s experienced a real winter.
"Put what out here, a frickin blanket?" She shivers and I reach an arm around her waist, tucking her into my side.
The bricks in my wall are tumbling at a great rate of knots. Sophia has taken a bulldozer to them and is smashing the whole thing to the ground.
We held hands on the plane.
It’s been ten years since I did that. Laughable really. Blake Henderson holding hands.
I want more than that. A dark desire morphed throughout the flight as she slept with her head on my chest and I watched the rise and fall of her breath. I want everything from her.
And now I’m about to take one of the most famous women in world home with me?
Am I crazy?
I’m definitely crazy?
This could go terribly wrong—I mean she’s Sophia Jennings, Oscar Winner, face of just about everything over the years and a star who can command millions per movie—well could, before. And I'm about to take her to a little farmhouse in Wales...? Definitely crazy.
She looks at me expectantly.
"Oh, so, well I’ve been living with you for a long time," I start.
She scrunches her face, and it’s the damn cutest thing I’ve ever seen. "Uh, no you haven’t. You left, remember for five years?"
Hell, am I blushing now too? What is this girl doing to me?
"Well, yeah. So before I came to live with you the first time, I was still at my mam’s… we had some family problems." This is an enormous understatement, but she doesn’t need to know everything five minutes after arriving on Welsh soil. She chews on her lip, her cheeks puffing with air so I hurry on. "And well, I was in a bit of a mood when I came back the last few years so my mam made me sleep in one of the outhouses." I frown up at the grey sky which reminds me very much of my general mood over the last few years. "Truth is, she may still send me out there. She can hold a grudge."
Sophia snorts loudly, and a bloom of fog lifts from her mouth.
"What’s so funny?" I search for the spare set of car keys in my hand luggage. If Shayne’s done the right thing, the truck should be over in the short stay car park.
"Mammy, your mammy?" She roars with laughter, clutching her sides. I’m mesmerised as I watch her face split into a giant grin and she bends double, wracks of laughter winding her chest until she holds herself together with her arms.
"Well, I’m sorry I’m not as posh as you. I’m Welsh, it’s what we call our mothers." I afflict a posh English accent like hers, well how hers used to be before it got blurred by living in the States too long.
"Mammy." She laughs even harder. I frown as her giggling outburst gains an audience. Sophia—it echoes around us. It’s time to move.
"Come on, laugh-a-lot." I tow her by the elbow to the far corner of the car park and there as I guessed, is the battered old family spare truck. Popping the trunk, I fling our few bags in the back and give it a good slam closed.
Sophie stops laughing and stares at the truck wide eyed. "What is this?"
"It’s a truck."
"It’s… It’s…" she peers through the window at the foam popped seats.
"Older than you," I warn, "so be polite." I catch a glance of our reflection in the truck window. We look like any normal couple, bar the fact I look like an older relative as opposed to potential boyfriend material.
"How did you get it here?" She’s still staring in wonder. But then I guess when you grow up in the land of limos and sports cars a beat up nineteen seventies Ford truck is going to resemble a spaceship.
"Magic." I grin, sliding the key into the lock with a wiggle. It’s a tricky bugger you have to go in and up… a bit like… okay let's not go there.
Pulling on the chrome handle I yank the door wide. "My lady."
My lady? Dear God. Maybe it’s me who’s on drugs. Her eyes flash, the blue depths brimming with amusement.
"What would be perfect right now would be if you were to kiss me," she says, a wide grin spreading across her pink tinged cheeks.
I shush her with my hand. "Shh, someone might see."
It’s a dodge. Hell, I want to kiss her. Shit, I want to do more than that. But I can wait. I can wait as long as it takes for it to be right.
"Come on then, let's go and meet your mammy." She jumps into the passenger seat, grinning like a killer cat on the prowl for small birds.
I don’t want to tell her that I haven’t introduced a girl to my mam in a very long time, and I especially have never introduced her to an Oscar winning actress who I once used to protect as a child.
The Mamster is going to have something to say about this. A whole lot to say.
Sophia’s eyes are transfixed out of the window, her head turned as the truck roars a loud vibrating rumble along the quiet roads. Once we leave the airport parking and the roads give way to rolling green hills and swathes of heather, her attention shifts to the world outside.
I tighten the steering wheel in my grasp, desperate to know what thoughts are swirling through that head of hers. "Have you been home in recent years, Sophia?" I ask. I’ve got to speak, the unsettling silence in the truck is unbearable. Of course I know she hasn’t been home to England. What sort of perverted obsessive stalker come bodyguard would I be if didn’t know a fact as simple as that?
Her clear gaze flits across the cab of the truck. "Do you know I’ve never kissed in a car before?"
This is not the question I asked. A tingling burn creeps up the back of my neck.
I need to not be thinking of kissing her and she really isn’t helping. "No, I don’t know that." It’s a coughed bark of a response and I twitch uncomfortably on the old leather seat.
"Have you?" she asks.
Shit this car’s hot. I crank the window allowing the cool air to rush in and I cough again. "Not in a long time, no."
Those blue eyes settle on my face, even with my own gaze steeled on the road I can sense them settle on my mouth.
It’s my time to blast an unexpected question. "Do you think Fairweather drugged you?" I stare out the windscreen. "I mean gave you something extra to make you pliable." I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I found her motionless under his body.
She flinches at the mention of his name and I curse under my breath. "Maybe." It’s a tight response. No room for emotion.
"Why? What does he have to gain? You went to him, he didn’t need you unconscious."
The Welsh hills continue to roll past as she thinks of an answer,
their unwitting beauty providing a lush backdrop for our awkward conversation. "Johnny likes oblivion." It’s all she says but under the words are a current of truths she isn’t telling me. I want to own every single one of them. Every single truth that she won’t allow out. I’m going to search until I find them deep within her.
"Is that what you’ve been doing? Searching for oblivion?"
"Yes."
"Why?" I slow the car, not wanting to reach the house until this conversation has reached its final conclusion.
"Because I wanted to forget you."
And there it is. The truth. My suspicions since my conversation with Erica are confirmed. I’m the downfall of Sophia Jennings.
The drive settles into a steady silence as Sophia watches the scenery and thinks. I’m flagellating myself for walking away from her and ruining her life.
I twiddle the old stereo but it’s still broken. "It’s beautiful here." It’s been so quiet she makes me jump.
"Yeah, I guess. Lots of sheep though."
I glance at her reflection in the passenger window, and a smile chases across her face. "What did you do here when you were younger?"
My fingers grip the steering wheel. "Our house was never quiet." Another classic understatement.
"No? Why was that?"
I turn my lips upwards into a grimace just in time for her to twist in her seat and catch me pulling faces. A slow grin spreads across her face. Her breathless beauty captivates my attention until I swerve the truck to avoid missing the ditch alongside the road "You’ll see, believe me you’ll see."
"Sound interesting." Shivering a little, she wraps her coat tight around her chest. "I hope it’s warmer there."
Another grimace. "Maybe not."
"So, I’m just turning up as a friend, right?" Her fingers wind themselves into the edge of the coat.
Trying to keep one eye on the road and one on her, I swallow. "If you want to be friends?"
She nods but doesn’t reply.
I pull the car up outside the low farmhouse and cut the engine, my fingers gripping the steering wheel tight as I glance through the windscreen at The Mamster’s Home Roost. The Home Roost I’m about to tip over like an apple cart. Sophia’s eyes tear away from the study she’s been conducting of my face and take in her surroundings. With gentle hands I turn her to me, brushing the hair from off her forehead. "How do you feel?" My fingertips linger on her skin, simmering a scorching touch which twists my insides.
"Okay. The shakes have stopped now." She offers me a faint smile. I can only imagine how intense her cravings have been. I’d been desperate to ask as I clutched her hand on the plane but I didn’t want to make it worse.
She hasn’t had a cigarette all day—I don’t know if that’s part of the process.
My fingers linger by her jaw and I lean towards her, rules and boundaries be damned, but the twitch of a curtain catches my attention. Sighing, I grimace and shift away. I don’t miss the flash of disappointment across her features. "Okay," I try to turn my lips into a supporting smile—I feel like a clown, "I have no idea how this is going to go." And I really, really don’t. Homecomings are inconsistent to say the least.
She slides her hand in mine, her fingers squeezing hard. "I don’t really care, I’m just thankful for the out."
I chuck her under the chin, it smacks of overfamiliar uncle and I cringe. The curtain twitcher can think of that what they will.
"Out? Let’s see how you feel about that after a few days of living here. You might be booking the next flight to Tinseltown."
She shakes her head and emits a nervous giggle.
If she’s nervous, then what the hell am I? I don’t think I’ve been this uncomfortable since I took Darcy Webster to the Prom and I’m pretty sure I got drunk before we went.
The curtain twitches again as I get out of the car to get our bags. Right then. Here we go.
Chapter Nineteen
Sophia
The inside of the farmhouse isn’t much warmer than the Welsh, crisp, fresh air. The hallway is dark, no lights flicker within the shadows and it’s deathly quiet.
There’s a stillness to this whole place, or maybe the still calm is growing within me. It’s like breathing is possible here, breathing is encouraged. I’d dragged greedily at the air, filling my lungs with startling freshness after the cloying suffocation of my previous life—I want to slob about in my baggy tracksuit and not care who sees, I want to never be told what to do again, or what to wear. I wonder if this place of freezing cold greenness that Blake has brought me to can provide that… more than anything I want to continue to breathe.
The freedom of breathing almost counterbalanced the uncomfortable conversation. Almost. I’ve still been squirming in my seat on the ride here like I’ve got creepy crawlies in my pants, so the new-found freedom of breathing isn’t a plaster to slap on and fix all. As hard as they are though, Blake and I need to say these awkward things, need to tell one another the truth, otherwise where will be? Right now, he is all I have.
He might be all I have but it doesn’t stop me wanting to shrivel up and die with awkwardness as I take in the unknown hallway and clutch onto his hand until my palm sweats.
Blake groans as he comes to a stop within the gloom of the hallway and mutters something about bastards beneath his breath.
Maybe everyone is out. Maybe they heard I was coming and decided to give us some space. I mean, I’m not an expert on this but I’m thinking bodyguards don’t always fly their clients thousands of miles and take them to their mammy’s house.
I have a bad feeling he might be heading for the outhouse again.
The thought of him being sent to an outhouse for being in a foul temper is one I need to lock away and ponder over when I have a few minutes to myself. Not that I want five minutes to myself because that would be five minutes away from him.
Friends.
All I can think about is that kiss. Okay, I’d been on a comedown of considerable force, but that kiss… it’s eating away inside my brain until all I want to do is kiss everything in reach just to practice it some more. I’m not going to make the night before I steal another one from him.
"Everything okay?" I bite down on my lip to stop from smiling at his fidgeting discomfort.
"Yep." He flashes me another one of those blinding grins. I’ve counted five of them since we arrived at LAX airport. The press had gathered like hound dogs, but he’d blocked them with his back, the whole time grinning at me, a secret conversation flowing between us.
I watch him through hooded lids. He’s different here. Maybe it's the lack of uniformed suit, maybe it’s the silent barrier between us slowly deteriorating. Maybe it’s because away from LA I’m no longer under threat. But he’s smiled more in the last twenty-four hours than he has since he returned.
I can take smiling. Smiling is good.
"They are in the kitchen." He nods his head towards a closed door at the end of the hallway. It’s one of those battered dark wooden doors with a wrought iron latch instead of a handle.
I don’t know if I can enter. A room filled with journalists and Hollywood stars sure, why not? A room full of Blake’s relatives, his real life, the one he’s never shared with me…? Well forgive me if I puke.
My expression must say it all because he laughs as he wheels me around. "They won’t bite, I promise. The worst that will happen is that you won’t understand their thick accents." He yanks at the woollen Beanie on my head and pulls at the ends of my braids. I always travel as incognito as possible. Hat, pigtails and sunglasses, paired with a tracksuit normally makes me look like any other woman dying through a long-haul flight out there. I was careful on the flights, just staying in my seat by the window. I’m sure I survived the transatlantic trip without being noticed once I was through LAX. The chances of being tracked down to a Welsh village have surely got to be remote?
I hesitate. His eyes darken, his hands still on my arms, and I think he’s going to kiss me. He doesn’t,
instead he pokes me on the end of my nose with his index finger and chuckles.
"I’m home," he calls with a wry fleeting smile. Catching the latch, he gives it a heavy push and the door creaks open with an ominous squeak. It’s like being on the set of a terrible B movie.
A whirlwind of fur smacks us in the face. I try to breathe through the plumes of hair but I end up swallowing mouthfuls of the stuff, coughing as it tickles the back of my throat.
"Matilda! Down," Blake commands. To be honest if he spoke to me that way I’d sit on the spot too.
A giant dog pants, a pink tongue lolls out the side of its mouth as its tail cleans the floor with arcing powerful swipes. It can’t be a dog—surely dogs don’t come this big? But then ponies don’t slaver quite like this. Blake gives it a quick scratch before straightening. The dog’s not happy with the lack of attention and keeps barging at Blake’s legs, but he ignores it as he looks at the two-legged inhabitants of the room.
My knees knock together. Get a grip, Sophia. But how can I get a grip when I’ve never done this before?
Five pairs of expectant eyes stare at me, stalking on sticks as a unison of, "Oooh’s" meet my ears.
I blush hotter than I ever have before. The faces are all a blur as I fall into a flat out panic.
Blake rolls his eyes and I clutch for his hand. His fingers give a reassuring squeeze and I bitch slap myself with a mental right hook. "Guys, pack it in," he says, "Sophia, don’t worry, they will remember their manners in a minute and stop gawping."
A woman, probably around my age with ebony hair the same as Blake’s squeals a high-pitched wail, fanning herself with her hand. "MAAMMY!" she hollers. "Blake’s brought a girl home." I’m a shining beacon of humiliation as she stares at me with an ecstatic grin of excitement. "It’s not just any girl, it’s SOPHIA JENNINGS." She screeches and I wince, wishing my hair was down so I could hide behind a curtain.
A woman with a knot of grey hair has her back to the room as she stirs a pot on a stove. She turns, her dark blue eyes sweeping the length of me. This woman shouts 'No Shit' without even speaking a word and the crimp of her lips tells me she’s not thrilled at what she sees. Shit. Blake’s mother… she hates me and I haven’t even spoken yet. "Blake." She nods at her son. "Nice to see you."
