Here Without You (Between the Lines #4) Paperback

by Tammara Webber

  He eyes us for a moment before hugging the scrapbook to his chest and leading the way down a short, dim hallway, and into a cramped bedroom that contains a set of bunk beds, one separate twin bed, a dresser and a bookcase. There is no room for anything else. While we stand in the doorway, he walks to the single bed and slides the book beneath his pillow. The pillowcase is covered with cartoon depictions of cars and trucks in primary colours, and it occurs to me that here is a boy who would have loved my yellow Lotus.

  Going to his knees on the tiny wedge of open carpet, he pulls a box from beneath his bed. I tug Brooke into the room by her elbow and urge her to sit down on the floor beside me. ‘What have you got there? Ah, Legos – they were my favourite thing in the world when I was your age. I wanted every set that came out.’ What I don’t say: I got every set that came out. All stored somewhere in my parents’ house, no doubt.

  The three of us are sitting on his bedroom floor building things when Wendy appears in the doorway and announces that it’s time to wash up for lunch. I check my thick-banded watch and am dazed to find we’ve spent nearly two hours here. My eyes meet Brooke’s and she nods, subtly. Time to go.

  I clear my throat. ‘We should go and get lunch too.’ River finishes snapping a plastic brick on to what appears to be a spider the size of my hand that he’s fashioned out of the black and grey rectangles. He’s used two red squares for eyes – at least I think they’re eyes – on a creature that only exists in nightmares for most little kids.

  With an intense blue gaze, full of his hesitation and all the reasons for it, he examines me and then Brooke, alternating between us. Brooke seems as guarded as River, and almost equally quiet. I have no idea what she’s thinking; I can’t read her. It’s not like we’re all that familiar with each other now, as weird as that is, considering the fact that we’re attempting to adopt a child together.

  ‘Thanks for letting us come and play, bud.’ Still sitting cross-legged, I hold a fist towards him – something I might do with John or any other guy under twenty-five. He considers my knuckles, his pale brows drawing together, and for a moment I’m sure I’ve made a careless miscalculation, but after a quick glance at my face, he raises a very small fist and bumps mine lightly with it.

  And then he smiles. It’s fleeting and subdued, but it’s definitely a smile.

  ‘It was so nice to meet you, River,’ Brooke says then, her voice soft. After a glance at me, he offers his knuckles to her, and she bites her lip and bumps them gently, her eyes glassy. At which point I figure I’d better get her out of here.

  Brooke and I walk to the truck in reflective silence. At the kerb, I turn and look back at the house. River is standing with Wendy in the doorway, his expression disturbingly stoic. I wave, and Wendy waves. River stands like a toy soldier, straight and unblinking, but the fingers of his right hand wiggle.

  Neither of us speaks a word during the twenty-minute drive to my hotel. The enormity of what we’re doing is too staggering. We need time to select the words and formulate their order. When we arrive, Brooke parks the truck and automatically follows me inside, and I’m vaguely aware of fellow guests identifying us between the door and the elevator.

  Brooke and I both released box office hits almost three weeks ago, and I’m the lead in the in-production film version of one of the decade’s most popular novels. Our STARmeter ranks are glowing green, and our days of occasionally roaming around in public sans bodyguards are all but over – especially when we’re together. It’s clear we’re about to be together a lot.

  Following me from the elevator to my room, she collapses on the small sofa next to my open suitcase and stares out of the lake-view window at the cloudless sky.

  I got a late checkout approved, but it’s already noon.

  ‘Lunch?’ I suggest, and she nods.

  Grabbing the room service menu, I ask what she wants, and she waves a hand, mumbling, ‘I don’t care.’

  After calling in sandwiches and fries, I grab a couple of bottled waters from the mini fridge and slump into the armchair next to her. While she sips silently, I swallow half my bottle.

  ‘So what now?’

  Her eyes shift to mine and I blink, hard. She looks wrecked. ‘I want him, Reid. I’ve never wanted anything so much. Is it wrong? That I want him?’

  For the space of a breath, I wonder why she’d think that wanting River could be wrong. And then it hits me. ‘You don’t trust your own intentions.’

  She shakes her head, her eyes welling up.

  I lean up and take her hand for the third or fourth time today. It’s still so cold that it feels bloodless. ‘Brooke, I’ve never seen you be less sure of yourself, and yet more on a mission. I knew when you said you were going to give up Paper Oceans to get him that you’d rocketed past my preconceived notions about Brooke Cameron.’ The image of River thumping his small knuckles against mine knocks the breath out of me. And that brief, barely-there smile. ‘But I guess I’m drinking the Kool-Aid, because I want him too. I can see that he’s good there with Wendy, but she’s a short-term solution and always was. My dad was right. If we don’t do this, we’ll live to regret it – sooner rather than later, I imagine.’

  She frowns in confusion. ‘Your dad said that?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I chuckle. ‘Shocked the shit out of me.’

  ‘So he’s really … okay with you doing this?’

  I shrug, thinking about the fact that my parents’ house is in an uproar of make-ready for a four-year-old they didn’t even know existed a couple of weeks ago. Dad wore his courtroom face this morning at her attorney’s office, though Brooke’s counsel was genial, and by the time we’d left, the two of them were strategizing together as if they’d always done so. Evidently, there’s a potential issue with the fact that I’ll only be twenty, and the minimum age to adopt is twenty-one. They plan to carefully approach the judge with the contention that I was fifteen and had no legal counsel when I effectively gave up my parental rights.

  ‘He’s more than okay, and so is Mom. It’s bizarre. In their defence, I think I set their expectations of me quite low in the past few years.’

  She laughs softly, one tear escaping and trailing down her cheek. I reach to wipe it away, but that simple touch erases her smile. She swallows and sits back abruptly. ‘Thanks for upending your schedule on such short notice to come with me today.’

  My elbows on my knees and my hands clasped, I sigh. ‘You don’t need to thank me any more. We’re in this together. I’m not doing you a favour. I’m doing what I should have done in the first place – taking some fucking responsibility.’

  I finish packing while we eat, and she agrees to drop me at the airport so I don’t have to bother with calling a car. When we exit the hotel, there’s a single photographer waiting outside. Snapping up from leaning against his van, he hollers our names, but neither of us takes the bait. Nice try, dickwad. Luckily, the truck is parked in the opposite direction, and since there’s only one of him, he doesn’t get too close – though I’m sure his zoom lens does.

  DORI

  My cell recorded a missed call from Reid, though I never heard it ring or felt it buzz. It figures that when I fully intended to answer it, my phone goes on hiatus. When I try him back, his phone is off – the call goes straight to voicemail – and I presume he’s somewhere between Texas and Utah. I leave him a message telling him I’ll be studying in my room tonight.

  ‘Call me when you’re back to your – trailer, I guess? Talk to you later. Bye.’

  I try to imagine Reid in a production trailer, but having never been inside one, all I can picture is the interior of a motorhome purchased years ago by a pair of retired neighbours, after they sold the home they’d owned for forty years. They were very proud of the cramped, nomadic house and the miniature everything – from the fridge to the shower to the ‘bedroom’ that was little more than a wall-to-wall bed at the back of the vehicle.

  During the ‘tour’, Deb leaned to me and murmured, ‘What happens
when Oscar slams on the breaks to take a sharp corner and Ethel is in bed … or in the shower? Naked, wet, pissed-off old lady tumbleweeding up to the cockpit, that’s what.’

  I nearly choked to death trying to contain my giggles. When Mom turned and bestowed a narrowed look on the two of us, Deb blinked and appeared angelic, angling her head towards me. ‘She swallowed her gum.’ She slammed a hand on my back several times. ‘Cough it up, Dori, cough it up.’

  In between devising a citations page for my Intro to Psychology paper and studying for a test in Intro to Sociology, I text Aimee, who is incensed that she and Kayla won’t get a normal spring break because UCLA does quarters instead of semesters.

  Aimee: We only get TWO DAYS of your spring break before we start another quarter! What about the college experience??? This is false advertising.

  Me: Didn’t you look at the academic calendar before applying? Or registering?

  Aimee: Obviously, no.

  Me: I’m sorry. I’ll be home all week, though, and you go to school in LA.

  Aimee: But you’ll be making time for REID, I’m sure (not that I blame you). And … Nick?

  Me: Nick’s spring recess is a week before mine, so we’ll only overlap the first weekend. And Reid, if he’s in town, yes. He’s filming, though. So I’m not sure of his schedule yet.

  Aimee: DUH. He’ll be filming at Universal, so he’ll be in town. I have it on Perez authority.

  Me: I’m rolling my eyes at you so hard right now.

  Ten minutes later, I get a text from Kayla.

  Kayla: Hey, check out the link I just messaged you. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but there are some things you have to KNOW!

  Me: Ok.

  The link goes to one of those websites I wish didn’t exist, where the lives of people like Reid are dissected and displayed. It’s there that I find a somewhat indistinct photo with the caption: ‘Reid Alexander and Brooke Cameron! Together again?’ They’re entering a hotel elevator. And if that isn’t conclusive enough – there’s an incontestable photo of the two of them a couple of hours later, exiting the same hotel and climbing into a pick-up truck.

  Brooke Cameron is beautiful. This isn’t an envious or unrealistic statement – it’s just the incontestable truth. She’s one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen. Who had Reid’s baby. And was with him in Austin on Saturday. Entering and leaving a hotel.

  Suddenly, I’m so tired.

  I’m tired of feeling jealous – an emotion I’ve never truly experienced before Reid, which has somehow become all-consuming. And relentless. And just so exhausting.

  Closing out of the website, I barely register the tears streaming down my face, but I can’t let them blind me to reality. If I talk to Reid, my tongue will burn with the need to ask him what’s going on between them, if anything is. And even if nothing is – yet – I can’t believe that it won’t. Or even that it shouldn’t.

  I didn’t see this coming – not this soon. Not this way. But that doesn’t matter, because I always knew he would return to his Hollywood lifestyle and his peers. I can’t blame him and I don’t. Because in pursuing the adoption of his son, he’s choosing the difficult thing. He’s choosing the right thing. And I admire him for it.

  He believes that I helped him become a better man, that I’m a good influence, and it’s true. Because that’s what I was meant to be, for him. I see that now. I was never meant to be the girl he wanted forever. It doesn’t matter if I fell so, so hard – if I’m crazy in love with him. When you love someone, you want what’s best for that person, not what’s best for you.

  I didn’t change Reid Alexander. I just helped him uncover who he always was, at his core. Now, it’s time for me to let him go and be that man.

  Reid: Missed Calls (3)

  Messages (2)

  Reid: Okay, you said you’d be in tonight. I’ve called, and I’ve left messages. I wanted to talk to you about today.

  Reid: Are you angry with me? Did I do something I’m not aware of doing? I don’t understand.

  Reid: missed calls (2)

  Reid: If I wasn’t stuck in the middle of the damned desert, under contract, I would be banging on your dorm-room door and to hell with who heard or saw me. I’m worried.

  Reid: I’m going to have to call your parents. (And I can’t BELIEVE I just wrote that.)

  Reid: Dori, not again. Please, goddammit, not again.

  25

  REID

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mrs Cantrell – this is Reid. Alexander.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Alexander?’ Her tone is somehow accusatory – and what’s with the Mister Alexander crap?

  Ten seconds in and I’m already pacing the length of this fucking trailer, wondering what sway her parents have with her, still. Wondering if I can fault them for her withdrawal. Knowing, after that meeting two months ago, how elated they would be to see this relationship collapse, which makes me furious.

  One. Two. Three. Deep breath. Four. Five. Six.

  ‘I haven’t heard from Dori in several days. I just want to make sure she’s all right.’

  She pauses before answering. ‘Dori is fine. I appreciate your concern – but she’s fine.’ Without you – that’s what I hear. She’s fine without you.

  ‘You’re aware, then, that she’s not returning my texts or calls. And clearly, you also know why.’ One hand at the back of my neck, I’m fighting every innate compulsion I have to keep from demanding that she tell me what the fuck she knows that I don’t. ‘Would you mind, very much, sharing that information with me? Because I don’t have a clue what’s going on.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Do you read the celebrity gossip sites, Mr Alexander?’

  I huff a breath. ‘Not if I can help it. I ignore them as much as possible, in fact, because they’re mostly lies and misconstrued half-truths, or unabashed invasions of privacy. Dori knows what’s true or what isn’t. At least, I thought she did. I thought she trusted me.’

  ‘And what is the truth? That you’ve been photographed numerous times with another young lady – one you used to … date?’

  ‘Dori knows why –’

  ‘Yes. She told me about the child you fathered, and what you and your ex-girlfriend are doing now – which, for the record, is admirable of you both. But it’s also not something my daughter needs to find herself caught up in or distracted by –’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s not something Dori should have to deal with. Maybe it’s even more than she can handle.’ Christ. Speaking that sentence makes me feel as though I just stabbed myself in the chest. I can’t accept that it’s true. ‘But why isn’t she talking to me about it? Why does she think that dropping off the face of the earth is the way to resolve this?’

  Her answer is quietly devastating. ‘I imagine she’s protecting herself from being further hurt by you.’

  When I recover my breath, I blurt, ‘Further? What do you mean further hurt by me? I love her. I don’t intend to hurt her. I don’t want to hurt her. I almost relinquished rights to my son because I don’t want to lose her – because I was afraid of this reaction.’ I can’t tell her what may actually be behind Dori’s reaction – the needless guilt she feels over a choice she made years ago – a choice that, at the time, was right for her. ‘Even so, I never imagined her doing … this. She’s not a coward, and this is the most cowardly thing I’ve ever known her to do.’

  ‘So you believe that shielding herself from certain emotional damage is cowardly?’

  ‘Certain emotional damage? You make it sound as if this outcome was inevitable. Like there wasn’t any other possible result of a relationship between us, and we were doomed from the start. But that deduction isn’t something you based on the knowledge of my son or anything to do with Brooke Cameron – it comes from your prejudice against me. Against my lifestyle, or my career, or my previous reputation –’

  ‘Isn’t that how we all assess peopl
e and predict outcomes, Mr Alexander? By their previous reputations? Let’s say you’re correct. What about your lifestyle or reputation would benefit my daughter? What about your career would ever make her feel safe? Standing aside and watching while you’re physically involved on-screen and constantly rumoured to be off-screen – whether it’s true or not – with other women? Why would I want that for her?

  ‘And then, let’s add the existence of a son with one of those rumoured other women. What will happen to her once that secret comes to light? What will people say? Of course I don’t want that for her. Why in the world would I?’

  I’m shredded by the recognition of how right she is. Even if her daughter is the only person I’ve ever met who didn’t ultimately judge me by my reputation, but by what she saw in me – and God knows how she managed that. I have only one truth to stand on.

  ‘I. Love. Her.’

  ‘If that’s true,’ she answers evenly, ‘you’ll want what’s best for her. Not for yourself.’

  Brooke’s words about Graham slam into me and I fall to my knees in the middle of the trailer. I feel like my heart is imploding. Every scrap of anger or righteous indignation evaporates. Every argument turns to ash. Because, of course, she’s right. If I love Dori, I’ll want what’s best for her. And only Dori can know what that is.

  Brooke: I saw the judge this morning. The case is being accelerated. We’re getting an overnight. First, here, tomorrow night. (If you come to Austin, Kathryn says you can stay here. A hotel would blow our cover.) If that goes well, each of us will get him in LA for a few days. His caseworker will travel with him.

  Me: DAMMIT. I can’t get away right now. I am LITERALLY in the middle of the desert. They had to set up a special tower just so we could all get cell service. If I could leave this set, I’d be in CA. Call me in a couple of hours? I’ve got a scene to shoot.