“You’re June?” Trina blinked at me, and I could only guess at what was going through her mind. She was probably wondering what, exactly, Devon saw in me. I was right there with her.
“I am June,” I confirmed, though I wished, especially in this moment, that I could be someone else. Anyone else.
“Well.” She sighed and laughed at the same time. “Isn’t this fucking awkward?”
That was something else we could agree on, I supposed, nodding.
“Chaz told me Devon would be here, that he wanted to discuss an idea for a movie,” Trina said. “I’m guessing that Devon isn’t here.”
I shook my head. “Chaz is with Devon. At a late night show taping.”
“Ah. Good old Chaz. That bastard hasn’t changed a bit. That’s comforting — almost.”
My face must’ve shown just how confused I’d become. I wasn’t following Trina’s train of thought.
“You don’t know Chaz very well, do you?” she said, eyeing me critically. “He’s not to be trusted, that one. That’s lesson number one if you’re going to be with Devon, and the one I never learned to accept. If you’re with Devon, Chaz comes together with him as a package deal. There’s no Devon without Chaz. And Chaz is a snake.”
“I don’t understand.”
She shook her head at me. “And if you’re going to be with Devon, you’ve got to get over getting all google-eyed over famous people. We’re everywhere. We run in the same circle. You have to get used to it.”
Of all the things I expected out of this day, being lectured about proper behavior in Hollywood by my boyfriend’s ex wasn’t one of them. I wondered if I could crawl back into bed and screw my eyes shut and wake up in a different life. Or maybe I’d woken up today in an alternate reality. So many strange things had happened.
“June.” Trina took me by the shoulders and gave me a small shake. “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop it. Exist in this moment with me and understand something. I’m not here to antagonize you. Come on.”
I followed her into the kitchen because I didn’t know what else to do. She rooted around in the refrigerator until she produced a couple of bottles of beer and opened them against the edge of the countertop.
“You look like maybe you need a drink,” she said, handing me one.
“I don’t really drink,” I said. It had been forever since I’d had a beer. I couldn’t even remember the exact time I’d imbibed.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t need one,” Trina reasoned, clinking her bottle against mine. “Cheers to rolling through fucked up situations. It’s all we can do.”
“Cheers.” I slurped down a swig of my beer, the bubbles tickling my lips, and the muscles in my shoulders and neck relaxed immediately. Trina was at least right about this — I’d been in dire need of a drink.
“If I’d known it was just you here, I never would’ve come,” Trina said. “Fucking Chaz. I’m really sorry about barging in like this. Someone told the paparazzi I was coming here. It’s a feeding frenzy out there. I can practically write the headlines myself. ‘Trina show’s up at Devon’s to beg for him to take her back; is rebuffed by his new love.’”
I swallowed another gulp of beer. “That’s a pretty long headline.”
She smiled. “It’ll just be the entire cover of the tabloid. No picture necessary. All the better to imagine the horrific scene.”
“Let the record show that I let you in the house,” I said.
“And thank God for that.” Trina shuddered. “If I’d had to creep back to my car with all those assholes snapping my photo, I probably would’ve never forgiven you.”
I contemplated a Trina Henry who loathed me, and decided that letting her in had absolutely been the right decision.
“So Chaz told you to come here?” I asked.
“That’s right. To go over some movie idea Devon had. About a girl and her grandma, or something.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I was on the phone with Chaz when you got here.”
“So Chaz lied. Wasn’t the first time, won’t be the last.”
“I don’t think he lied about the movie,” I said. “Just the circumstances. I found a movie script. It is about a girl and her grandma, but it’s my story. About Nana — my grandmother. And how Devon and I met.”
Trina narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think I’m following. The movie’s about you?”
I nodded. “Devon used me. He only got close to me because he saw something he could use. Something he could exploit. I never wanted any of this, but he was the one who insisted on getting close to me.”
“That doesn’t sound like something Devon would do,” Trina said. “Sure, Devon’s kind of an idiot sometimes, but he’s not an asshole like Chaz is. This is pure Chaz. Let me help you get to the bottom of this.”
She whipped out her cellphone and dialed, putting it on speakerphone to my uncomfortable surprise. I expected Chaz to pick up, like he had when I’d called Devon earlier, but I was mistaken.
“What’s going on, Trina?” Devon said, his voice warm. “How are you?” His friendliness made everything that much worse, even if I knew Trina was on my side with everything.
“I’m fine, Devon, just a little confused,” she said. “Chaz said you’d be at home right now to go over some movie about a girl and her grandma.”
“Shit, no. I’m in L.A. I won’t be at the house for another hour. Chaz must’ve gotten the time screwed up.”
“That’s not the first thing Chaz has gotten screwed up,” Trina said sourly.
“I really hope you didn’t just call me to bitch about Chaz,” Devon said. “I’d really like you to be in on the movie, Trina. Can’t you get over your hatred of him?”
“That’s another conversation for another time,” Trina said. “Tell me about the movie.”
I didn’t understand what I hoped would happen at that point. I wanted Devon to talk about some other project. I wanted him to prove me wrong. I wanted what I saw to just be some awful misunderstanding. I wanted to forget what I’d seen.
“I think it’s going to be great,” Devon gushed instead, making my face fall. “I’ve experienced so many incredible things in the past few weeks. I know there’s a movie in there. I just know it, and it’s going to be amazing.”
Trina and I sat there and listened as he briefly outlined us meeting, the trip to Hawaii, Nana’s death, everything that I’d read in the script in the study.
“But don’t you think June might be upset that her privacy is being compromised?” Trina asked, abruptly cutting off Devon in the middle of a sentence. “I mean, it’s her life, Dev.”
“I think she’ll be fine with the script,” he said after a long pause.
“Devon, have you even told her about it?”
“Not yet,” he said. “She’s going through a lot of adjustments right now, and I don’t want to spring it on her. Plus, there are some other things I want to add in there. Did you see the interview with Kelly Kane the other night? That has to go in there.”
I choked on my beer, and Trina swiftly took the call off of speakerphone.
“I think you’re making a mistake with this movie, Devon,” she said, maintaining eye contact with me. “A big mistake. Yes, I really do. Well, I’m not going to be here when you do. We’ll have to talk about it later. No, I’m not going to stick around. Some asshole clued the paparazzi in on it. Yeah, that’s a cluster fuck. Bye.”
Trina took a long pull of her beer after she locked her phone’s display before saying anything.
“You know, I broke up with Devon because of Chaz,” she said. “Chaz was all the time coming between us, trying to orchestrate fights, all to get attention from gossip sites and shit. It was the worst.”
“That sounds terrible,” I agreed, glum, shattered. The Devon I’d heard on the phone, the one that had been talking excitedly to his ex-girlfriend, sounded like a stranger to me. When he’d spoken cautiously about me to her, it was as if he knew what he was doing really
was wrong. I had to hand it to Trina, though. She didn’t let him off the hook.
“I really thought this was a Chaz thing,” she said. “All of it smells like Chaz.”
“Only Devon really wants to make this movie,” I said. “Everything Chaz told me about it was true.”
“It doesn’t make sense, June.”
It didn’t. That was yet another point I could agree with Trina on. None of this made sense. Devon and Chaz had more or less forced me to do the disastrous interview with Kelly Kane. How could Devon possibly think that I wanted even more attention and scrutiny on my life? The movie was too personal. It was too private. I would never think of sharing Nana with the world in that way. And now Devon wanted to add elements from the interview. I bet I could guess just which parts he’d be interested in featuring — the parts where Kelly had tried to force me to reunite with my parents in front of a massive live viewership.
“June, I’m sorry for all of this,” Trina said, jolting me out of my lop of despair. “This situation sucks. It isn’t fair to you. When I see Devon, I’m going to tell him just exactly what I think of his movie. And his little lackey, Chaz.”
I shook my head. “You don’t have to do that. I think I’m done.”
“Done? Done with what?”
I gestured uselessly around the kitchen with all its gleaming gizmos and gadgets. “This. Everything. Devon. I don’t understand why he was shopping that movie, why he thought it was a good idea. He was there, when I found Nana. He knew how badly I took it. I thought … I thought it bonded us together, made us closer, but all he thought about was a movie deal.”
Trina swept her now-empty beer bottle into the trash can with a crash. “I’m so angry. And sad. This shouldn’t be happening to you.”
I didn’t understand why, but as I guzzled the last of my beer, I was happy that Trina was validating my own raging feelings. It just felt good to have someone in my corner.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, leveling a look at me. “Because you’re going to have to do something, June. You just can’t roll over and take this. You know that, right?”
“I know.” I picked at the label of my beer bottle. “Earlier, when you were outside, standing at the door, you said that you’d give me anything I wanted if I just let you inside.”
Trina bit her lip. “That’s right. I did say that.”
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Could you give me a ride to the nearest bus station?”
Chapter 13
The wet highway hissed beneath the bus tires, condensation spitting up against the window I leaned my head against. It was cold on the bus — so much so that other passengers had come prepared, cocooned in blankets and sweaters and hats. I should’ve been shivering, should’ve cringed away from the window, but I didn’t feel anything but anger. Betrayal. Heartbreak.
How had I been so stupid as to trust Devon Ray, a man I apparently understood very little about? He’d used me. Even worse, he’d used Nana, exploited her.
The discovery that he’d cooked up a script detailing Nana’s life — and her tragic demise — and inserted himself into it as some kind of romantic savior for me was only compounded by the debacle of an interview I’d had on national television. It had made all the covers of the tabloids, video stills of my face crumpled with fury, superimposed on an image of my parents — if they were really my parents — looking like their hearts were breaking.
None of the headlines were kind.
I’d had to wear a baseball cap and sunglasses just to try to escape Los Angeles without being recognized — a trick I’d learned from Devon.
I couldn’t stay here any longer. Not after that interview, and certainly not after that script. I’d been an idiot for thinking that someone like Devon, who could literally have anything or anyone he wanted, was genuinely interested in me. He’d only wanted to use me, to turn me into a laughingstock, to see how much he could get away with until I figured it out.
Trina had helped me stuff a few changes of clothes into a backpack, then showed me a secret tunnel to the multi-car garage, located across the broad driveway.
“When we were together, the paparazzi loved to camp out to try to get long-range shots of me at the pool,” she remarked as we slid into one of the many cars stabled there. “I hated tan lines, you know, so that was a mess. They weren’t allowed to come onto the grounds, but they’d do anything to try and get photos of us together here. We used the tunnel many a time to make a quick getaway. Sometimes, Devon would get Chaz to drive another car, so as we left, the paparazzi would have to make a choice on who to follow.”
I was glad that Trina was fondly remembering the tumult of two famous people dating each other, but it wasn’t a helpful anecdote to me. I just wanted to get out of here, to escape to anywhere. I didn’t care where I ended up as long as it was as far away from Devon as I could get.
She’d wheeled us out of the driveway, the tires spinning and smoking, scattering photographers before she floored us in the direction of the city.
“I wish you wouldn’t run away,” she said on the way to the bus station.
“I’m not running away,” I said, feeling sheepish. I’d requested a ride from my boyfriend’s ex, to a bus station, for that sole purpose. “It’s self-preservation, Trina. I obviously didn’t know what I was getting myself into.”
“Here’s a free bit of advice you didn’t ask for,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road. “Devon’s not a bad person. But he is a huge idiot for thinking this movie is a good idea.”
“Thanks,” I said weakly.
“The thing is, June, that none of us was really prepared for this.” Trina risked a glance at me. “I don’t know how much you know about Devon’s background, but no one taught him how to deal with being famous. His parents weren’t famous. He didn’t know anyone in the business before Chaz, and he clings to Chaz like a life preserver.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I felt even shittier that I wasn’t as familiar with Devon’s past as I should be. I hadn’t even known he’d been dating Trina Henry until he’d mentioned it himself. I needed to do my research so I could be as prepared for Devon as Kelly Kane had been for me, during my interview. This lack of knowledge was killing me.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that you seem like a good person, and Devon seems happy with you, too,” Trina sighed. “Hell, I don’t know what I’m saying. I wish Devon and I had ended things on better terms. It was ugly. But I care about him. That might be weird, but we were together for more than a hot minute. And I care about your situation. You shouldn’t allow anyone to take advantage of you. I just … I wish there was something else I could do for you. Something better than spiriting you away to a bus station.”
“This is more than enough, really,” I assured her. “You’ve been very kind, and you didn’t have to be. I just need some time apart to think things over.”
That sounded like something I should say, but I truthfully didn’t understand anything I was doing. I was still reeling from what felt like a melee of bullshit — Nana dying, moving in with Devon, the attacks from the tabloids, the interview, the script, and, on top of it all, Trina Henry trying her best to help me through everything. It was like a warped universe, one that I couldn’t escape no matter what lengths I went to.
“Here we are.” Trina pulled into the bus station, and I reached for my backpack in the backseat. She took the moment to hug me awkwardly.
“Thanks, um, for everything,” I said, patting her shoulder. “I don’t think I would’ve been able to get out of there without your help.”
“Will you let me know if you need anything else?” she asked, her blue eyes bright and anxious. It blew my mind that her face could make any emotion look beautiful. No wonder Devon wanted her on his movie. My life was so full of sadness that it would be painful for an audience to gaze on someone else being sad for two hours.
“I’ll … do that,” I said
, fully intending to never speak to her or Devon again. I just wanted out, away, to be gone. But she held me by my arm just long enough to fish around inside of my purse, find my phone, and punch her number in.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Anything.” I pulled my hat down over my face as I nodded and left her car, intent on my escape.
Dallas was my destination. I didn’t care that it wasn’t home anymore — that it’d never be home without Nana. But as the wheels of the bus carried me closer and closer to the city, through the night, over hills and down mountains, I realized that there wasn’t anywhere else I could go.
I was a person without a home. Devon’s compound certainly wasn’t it. I just wasn’t sure where to find it, yet.
I rented a room in the same hotel where Devon and I had met. That much felt right — though it equally felt like punishment. Life had punished me enough for whatever failings or stupidities I might’ve had, but I was all too willing to continue to punish myself. I shouldn’t have trusted Devon. I shouldn’t have left everything I had in Dallas to be with him in Malibu. It had been an idiotic decision, a poor choice made by someone with stars in her eyes. It hadn’t been a choice that Nana would’ve thought was a good one. I knew that much. Nana had raised me to be pragmatic, to think things through. But the moment Devon had crashed into our lives, all of that had gone out the window.
I didn’t know how long I’d be in Dallas. I didn’t know what I was even going to do here. I left my backpack and all its contents on one of the two beds of my slightly threadbare room, and rented a car. I was flush with cash because of what remained of Nana’s savings and a life insurance payout. Devon hadn’t let me pay for a single thing, starting with the trip to Hawaii, extending to Nana’s funeral arrangements, and ending with staying in his Malibu palace.
KYLE: A Mafia Romance (The Callahans Book 4) Page 47
