Rise

by Karina Bliss

  He gave her a stern look. “Do not try and out-manipulate the manipulator.”

  Elizabeth dropped her gaze. “I wouldn’t dream of it, only…” She sighed.

  Zander tried to remain silent and couldn’t. “Only?”

  “I’ve already said yes on your behalf.” Her warm, brown eyes lifted, a kindly blowtorch to his conscience. “I’ll have to find a way to break the news of a driver and car without hurting her feelings.”

  “Remember how in Back to the Future Marty McFly is warned not to get involved in people’s lives, in case it interferes with the space-time continuum?” Zander spoke through gritted teeth. “You’re in my life solely as an observer,” he stressed. “A chronicler.”

  Solemnly, she nodded. “I think Stormy may need closure.”

  He stared at her. “You’ve been in California, what…ten days? And already you’ve got the psychobabble down pat. I’m driving her home and that’s it!”

  “I’ll go and hire myself a rental car.” The damn woman all but skipped to the door.

  “No need,” Zander said darkly. “Your body will fit in the trunk.”

  * * *

  Stormy always knew when Zander was pissed. His bluntness gave way to excruciating politeness.

  “Thanks for this,” she said awkwardly as he waved the valet aside and opened the passenger door for her.

  “My pleasure.”

  “Elizabeth?”

  “Is taken care of.” His tone suggested a brick, a sack and the East River were involved.

  Clunk. Her door shut. She waited until he’d got into the driver’s side and fastened his seatbelt.

  “I didn’t mean to get her into trouble.”

  “You didn’t. Is the air-con a comfortable temperature for you?”

  They’d fucked each other five ways to Sunday in the not-so-distant past. “It’s fine.”

  One hand on the wheel, he selected music—Foo Fighters—turning it up too loud for conversation, and swung onto the highway. Taking the hint, Stormy slouched in her seat, shut her eyes and tried to sleep. But the bass beat aggravated her lingering headache, and closing her eyes only made her nauseous. Twenty minutes later, temples throbbing, she sat up. “Can you please turn off the music?” she called. “I have a headache.”

  “No problem.”

  She wound down her window, but the fresh air came too late.

  “Pull over!”

  The vehicle scrunched over gravel, she flung open the door and heaved miserably into the rangy roadside weeds. But there was nothing left.

  Zander’s hand landed tentatively on her shoulder. “Okay?”

  She shrugged him off. “Do I look okay?”

  Getting out of the car she stumbled away a few meters until the urge to cry passed and her stomach settled. The desert wind brushed against her face, hot and dry and aging. When she returned to the Viper, Zander silently held out his flask.

  “Trust you to think the hair of the dog is a hangover cure.” Still she needed the taste out of her mouth.

  “It’s water,” he said.

  “Thank God.” She rinsed, spat, drank, and felt better. Returning his flask, she shut her door and refastened her seatbelt.

  But Zander didn’t start the engine. “When did I become the sober driver and you the party animal?” Reluctance laced his concern, familiar and hurtful. Yeah, I care about you, but I don’t want to.

  Staring straight ahead, Stormy said sharply, “I’m accepting a ride, not a lecture.” She’d given up too much for him and the fact that he’d never asked her to, only made her more bitter. Was there anything worse than having no one to blame but yourself?

  “I’m the last person qualified to lecture.” Zander started the engine and pulled onto the highway. “I’m asking because I’m worried. What the hell is going on with you?”

  Incredulous, she turned her head to glare. “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe I’m still traumatized by being dumped by my boyfriend two seconds after I said I loved him.”

  It was his turn to keep eyes on the road. “I ended it badly and I’m sorry, but self-destructive binges with a closet psycho aren’t going to help you any.”

  Stormy tossed her head and then wished she hadn’t. “You only care because it’s Travis.”

  Impatiently, he changed up a gear. “Jealousy wasn’t our style.”

  “No, Zander, it wasn’t yours. I pretended I was cool about your hook ups on tour. And when I couldn’t pretend anymore, when I said, ‘let’s get serious,’ it was ‘bye-bye, baby.’”

  “I run a mile from commitment. You knew that.”

  “This wasn’t a run, it was a sprint.”

  “Because you made me think about it, and that scared the crap out of me. Right from the start I said, ‘I’m shallow, babe, don’t get attached.’” His hand thumped on the steering wheel. “Dammit, I couldn’t have been clearer.”

  “Like you never accept a challenge,” she scoffed.

  Understanding glimmered. “You saw changing my mind as a challenge?”

  “No, I’m not that calculating.” She massaged her pounding temples. “It just happened.” His expression reverted to confusion and she wanted to slap him for being so ignorant of the emotion she felt for him. “Falling in love isn’t something you have control over.”

  “None at all?” he said, skeptical.

  “There’s a point I guess where you can pull back,” she conceded, “but you choose not to.”

  “That’s just—” Zander stopped.

  “Dumb,” she supplied. Swamped by a sense of defeat, Stormy slumped into the seat. “Hell, I am dumb. I come from a long line of dumb.” She thought she’d escaped the family curse of choosing the wrong guy. Her grandma had done it, her mom, Stormy’s two sisters.

  “Quit putting yourself down,” he said sharply. “You’re gorgeous and giving and—”

  “And yet dumped,” she finished. “Go figure.”

  They drove in silence for the rest of the trip. “I wasn’t good for you,” he said, turning into her street. “I trample over tender feelings without even noticing and you’re so sweet you let me.”

  This was where Zander always got her, with moments of insight. But he was right—day to day he’d pretty much forgotten she was there. Stormy needed to be needed and Zander didn’t allow anybody too close. “I’m a pushover you mean,” she said lightly. “That comes from the other side of the family. Maybe I shouldn’t have kids, help the line die out.” She hated being a whiner, but couldn’t seem to stop.

  He pulled to a stop outside her home, one of a U-shaped block of condos with a communal patch of dry grass in the middle. “I mean you’re sweet and deserve better and I’m constitutionally incapable of being better.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it? If I’d been a decent guy I would have broken up with you as soon as I suspected your feelings ran deep. But I ignored the signs because I liked hanging out with you—cooking a meal together, fighting over the remote when you wanted to watch Days, lazing by the pool.”

  Stormy listened, amazed. She thought of all the energy she’d spent perfecting her sex-kitten persona, all her bubbling enthusiasm for fine dining and late-night clubbing.

  Turning herself into someone exciting when the person underneath—the homebody—was the woman he liked spending time with? Oh yeah. Dumb as a box of rocks.

  “Are you still modeling?” he asked abruptly.

  She hedged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “At the band’s relaunch party, you said you were hoping to work in early childhood education.”

  Her confidence stoked by coke, she’d wanted him to believe she’d graduated to bigger things.

  Stormy unfastened her seatbelt. “Turns out you need a high-school diploma to do a childcare course.”

  “Enroll in adult education, study for a GED.”

  “I’ve been a centerfold. Do you see a childcare center taking me on?”

  “If you have clothes on, sure.”
<
br />   “Besides, I haven’t been around kids in three years.”

  “It’s not like getting back into the tech industry,” he said impatiently. “Kids stay basically the same.”

  Zander was stimulated by obstacles, not discouraged by them. But when your starting point was a mother saying you’d never amount to a hill of beans, it was tough to be your own cheerleader.

  “And how do I support myself while I’m studying?”

  “Modeling, same as now.”

  The lucrative jobs had dried up since their breakup and the physical obstruction charge and resulting negative publicity hadn’t impressed Stormy’s agency. Being Zander’s girlfriend had lent her an X factor. Without him, she was simply another beautiful girl in a city full of them. And she’d always worked around Zander’s schedules, which had given her a reputation as a celebrity hobbyist instead of a career model.

  She’d hesitated too long. “Stormy, if you need cash, I’ll help out.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I feel guilty about how I ended it.”

  She could take his money and let him off the hook or let him suffer a little more and keep her pride.

  “Thanks for the ride.” A smile plastered on her face, she climbed out of the car.

  “Stormy,” Zander leaned over and braced the passenger door to stop her closing it. “Is there anything I can do that would make up for what I did?”

  She found some courage. “You can say, ‘I made a mistake.’”

  A moment passed, then another, each a leaden weight on her hopes. Zander cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

  Stormy smiled, brilliantly. “Then I’ll just have to get over you, won’t I?”

  * * *

  Elizabeth was mistaken. Zander accelerated away from the block of condos. If Stormy was broke she’d have accepted his offer of money.

  But guilt crippled relief.

  The person he’d dated had been sweet-tempered, easygoing and quick to forgive—nothing like the resentful woman he’d just driven home. He knew she missed him, but on the rare occasions their paths crossed she’d put on a brave face, enabling Zander to sustain the comfortable fiction that he hadn’t hurt her too much. Today he knew different.

  On Brentwood, he stopped for traffic lights. A jogger loped across with a sports rucksack bouncing off his bony shoulder blades.

  Stormy’s bag is still in the trunk.

  Screw it, one of his staff could return it. Except adding a two-hour round trip to someone else’s day to avoid ten minutes of further awkwardness smacked of cowardice. “Dammit!”

  The lights turned green. Glancing for oncoming traffic, Zander made an illegal U-turn and retraced his route.

  It had taken him too long in their relationship to register that Stormy wasn’t putting on her own oxygen mask first because it made no sense. What kind of person gave more than they received? Except when she had, eventually, asked for more—

  Okay, he wasn’t proud of his response.

  Parking outside the condo, Zander left the engine running and grabbed Stormy’s suitcase. The front door was open. As he approached, he heard two raised female voices, but the hall was empty except for two large suitcases and three cardboard boxes.

  “Stormy,” he called. “You there?”

  One voice stopped abruptly, the other rang clear. “I’ve been telling you for months I can’t afford penalty interest on my mortgage payments. No, I won’t shush! It’s my credit rating that’s affected, not yours.”

  Stormy emerged from a room at the end of the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. Gripping the handle, she said belligerently, “What do you want?” Her mascara was smudged. Tear stains had scoured a trail through her foundation.

  Zander raised her bag. “You forgot this.”

  She gestured to the stack in the hall. “Add it to the others.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” The handle rattled and Stormy braced it with two hands. “Good-bye, Zander.”

  He turned on his heel, walked to the Viper, switched off the engine and locked the car, silently cursing Elizabeth for getting him into this mess. When he returned, Stormy was sitting on one of the boxes, face buried in her hands with a grim-faced brunette standing over her.

  “Don’t you dare make me feel guilty for doing this,” the brunette said shrilly. “Find a friend who’ll let you sleep on their couch.”

  “I have no other friends.”

  “Yeah you do,” Zander said. Stormy glanced up but he focused on her roommate. “What rent does she owe?”

  The brunette’s mouth dropped open. “Ohmygod,” she squealed. One hand steadying herself on Stormy’s shoulder, she smoothed her hair with the other. “I’m Jill, and I’m a huge fan.”

  “How much?” he repeated.

  “Twenty-six hundred,” Jill breathed.

  “Write down your bank account details and I’ll have someone pay it.”

  He glanced at Stormy and saw utter humiliation.

  “And the next three months in advance,” he added desperately.

  Jill looked sheepish. “She can’t stay, someone else has moved in.”

  “So kick ’em out, since you’re so good at it.”

  The woman reddened. “That’s unfair, I’ve been really patient.”

  “She has,” Stormy croaked. “Which is why I appreciate you settling my debt.”

  They waited in silence as Jill wrote her details on a piece of notepaper, then gave it to Zander along with a second blank piece and her pen. “Can I have your autograph?”

  He scrawled, You’re still a meanie. Zander Freedman, adding flourishes to make it indecipherable.

  Jill peered at it. “What does it say?”

  “Your support is appreciated.”

  Stormy shouldered her handbag and pulled out the handle on the wheeled suitcase Zander had just delivered. She looked helplessly at the other luggage and boxes.

  “Your roommate can forward it later when you have an address.” He said to Jill who was still ogling him. “I’ll pay.”

  “Sure!”

  He followed Stormy out, lifting the bag over the front steps, and looking around as he deposited it on the sidewalk.

  “Where’s your car?”

  She hesitated. “I’m catching a bus.”

  “You sold your car?”

  “Thanks for the loan. I’ll repay it when I can.” Wheeling the suitcase behind her, she started down the driveway.

  He fell in step beside her. “Where will you go?”

  “I’ll find a motel.”

  “And pay with what?”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “I’ll find a motel with a pawnshop nearby.”

  “Here.” He emptied his wallet.

  “Why are you pretending to care,” she asked bewildered.

  Did she truly consider him that much of a bastard? “Why would I be pretending? We dated for over a year.”

  “And most of the time you forgot I was there. You probably don’t even remember my real name.”

  Shit. She’d told him? Zander hesitated, then looked deeply into her eyes. “All that matters is who you want to be.”

  “It’s Irene, you jerk.”

  “Jeez, I can see why you changed it… Stormy, wait up.” Whatever she believed, she meant something to him. He couldn’t leave her on the street, upset, with no money and no roof over her head. “You know what I did when I got home after breaking up with you?”

  She walked faster. “Fucked some model or starlet?”

  “Watched four episodes of Days in a row.”

  “You hate my soaps.”

  “Yeah.” He watched her process the implications.

  She stopped and folded her arms. “Name two characters.”

  “Marlena and Stefano.”

  “Okay,” she said, trying not to cry. “I’ll let you help me.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Dimity intercepted Elizabeth as she left th
e house for the outdoor pavilion where Zander was hosting an informal barbecue for the band.

  “I hear you’re responsible for that suckerfish being in the house.”

  Surprised, Elizabeth turned from closing the French doors. “I left the Mohave tui chub where it was.” She’d detoured on the drive home, but Zander was right. It was a very ordinary fish.

  “What?” said Dimity.

  She started to explain but the PA interrupted. “I’m talking about pouty-pants, sucker-lips, bleach baby.” When Elizabeth returned a blank look she added impatiently, “Zander’s ex. Stormy’s been evicted from her condo and we’re stuck with her.”

  “I’m so glad Zander helped her out,” Elizabeth said warmly.

  “I hate to burst your do-good bubble, but he’s only marginally less pissed than I am.”

  Dimity’s expression so mimicked a kid telling a sibling, “Boy are you in trouble,” that Elizabeth laughed. Zander’s flares of temper burned out quickly and his anger was safer than his charm. Their relationship had crossed a threshold over the past two days, but only Zander knew how many doors were still locked before she reached the inner sanctum.

  Still, she must be making progress or he wouldn’t be trying to zap her with occasional flirting. Unfortunately, even knowing his goal she’d found herself basking a little in the heat of his sun. Stormy was shade.

  Dimity put her hands on slender hips. “Didn’t you hear me? Zander’s mad at you.”

  “He’ll get over it.” She’d learned something about him today. He might vehemently deny having altruistic tendencies, but once a need was brought to his attention, he wouldn’t ignore it. “Why do you dislike Stormy so much?” she asked as they walked between border hedges of lavender where bees worked frantically in the last blaze of sun.

  “She’s a drone.” Dimity snapped off a lavender stem and crushed it between her fingers, releasing the pungent scent. “Floating through life on a pair of balloon boobs and baby-doll neediness. I’m surprised she doesn’t walk around permanently sucking her finger like a pornographic version of Dr. Evil.”

  Elizabeth said carefully, “She’s going through a difficult time. You won’t make it worse, will you?”