by K. Bromberg
“It’s not going to matter. You know that. It’s already in print therefore it’s already believed.”
“But it’s better than doing nothing. I’ll do however many interviews it takes to make them believe. We just need to figure out how to handle right now first.”
I look at him through tear-filled eyes and try to sound certain in my words. “There is no handling to be done. What will happen is I’ll go home to sort out the bakery, and you’ll go to New York because you have a table read tomorrow. I wouldn’t want you to lose the part because you missed it. I don’t need to be coddled, Hayes. I’ve lived my adult life without you, so I don’t need you holding my hand now.” I hate the flash of fury in his eyes from my comment, but it’s the truth. The sound of me closing the zipper on my suitcase in the quiet of the room reinforces my words. “I’m going to head to the airport now. Try and get an earlier flight back so I can get Sweet Cheeks back on track.”
“I’m going with you.”
“No.” I laugh but there is no amusement in the sound. “I want to go by myself. If you rush back with me, they’re going to think we’re upset and trying to cover something up. Someone will comment that you missed your reading. Assumptions will be made as to why. The last thing we need right now is to give them more fodder for their lies.”
“I don’t give a fuck about their lies.” His voice thunders into the room and echoes back to me. His rage is so raw, his emotion so real.
“I know you don’t, Hayes. But please . . . you may be used to this . . . but I’m not. Not any of this. Just let me go on my own. Let me be a nobody in the shadows a little longer. I need time to process. To sort through it all. To get home and be in my own space and—”
“Why are you making this sound like a goodbye, Saylor?” His hands on my cheeks don’t allow me to avert my gaze from his like I want to.
“It’s not. But I don’t know if I can survive in your world, Hayes.”
He presses a kiss to my lips. It’s tender and simple and yet loaded with so much feeling behind it that a single tear slips down my cheek. My heart aches. My mind is so confused. Every part of me is scared about walking away and never seeing Hayes again. Of never getting the feeling back that we had this weekend.
The love he feels for me is clear in his eyes. He rests his forehead against mine, our breaths mingling, our eyes closed, our hearts understanding they are about to break apart. “Please don’t do this, Say.”
A second tear slides down my cheek. I love you, Ships. My heart needs to hear him say the words. Give me something permanent to hold on to when I do what I need to do.
Walk away.
But he doesn’t say them.
“I need some time to decide if I can. Goodbye, Hayes.”
The plane ride home was an exercise in how to cry silently without anyone else on the plane knowing. The pictures and headlines of the tabloids littering the airport newsstands were horrible. The hurtful things they’d said replayed on a loop.
Image after image. Headline after headline. Lie after lie.
It was like the comments from the wedding reception on a loud speaker. On repeat. Each one worse than the last one.
And as much as I’d wanted to buy every single tabloid there—take them all so I could prevent others from seeing them, and read every single line to know what I’m up against, I didn’t. I resorted to sitting in a quiet corner obscured by a trashcan with my face shadowed beneath a baseball cap so I could read them all via the shoddy airport Wi-Fi on my phone.
It was lovely (insert sarcasm here) to see Mrs. Layton weigh in with her opinions about me in one of the articles. The jilted ex-fiancé Mitch as well, because who knew the timing of Hayes’s and my previous relationships and issues had both followed a similar timeline? So when Mitch said he suspected I was screwing around behind his back, he’s not surprised it turned out to be true.
Therefore, I’m not someone who broke up only Hayes and Jenna’s relationship, but my cheating ruined mine as well. And of course there was nothing about Hayes in their articles. The pitchforks previously aimed at him are now directed at me.
Fucking. Me.
And the stories, the headlines, just kept getting more creative, more slanderous from there. Painting me as a horrible person for breaking up the couple who the public had unceremoniously crowned Hollywood’s It Couple.
Sitting in the airport I felt so incredibly alone and vulnerable. I would have given anything to call my mom and hear her soothing voice tell me everything would be all right in the end. To have her order me to throw the tabloids into the trashcan I was sitting beside and reassure me that no one in the airport was staring at me. To wrap her arms around me, murmur that everything happens for a reason, and that sometimes it takes time to know what that reason might be. And then to have Dad take the phone from her and tell me one of his god-awful Dad jokes to cheer me up. Remind me that all men are idiots and that’s why God created women.
God, I missed them.
Instead I called Ryder. I listened to him fume over what they were printing when all I wanted to do was cover my ears and shut the noise out.
But nothing—not the tabloids, not feeling like I disappointed Ryder, not my fear of losing Sweet Cheeks because customers will boycott the store—compared to the look on Hayes’s face when he walked me out to the waiting car to take me to the airport. Naturally, it was in the service bay due to the many photographers at the resort’s entrance.
Not the images they printed of the clandestine lovers or the horrible, vile lies they printed without truth could compare to the wrenching of my heart when we shared the last bittersweet kiss. The kiss where my tears were constant and nothing could abate the empty feeling of saying goodbye.
I can still hear Hayes’s whispered promise that he’d make this right. How he told me I was making a mistake walking away from him instead of weathering through it together. How I should just go to New York with him for a few days, do an interview together to show people what is really between us.
But I chose to walk away even though my chest hurts with every breath I take. I already miss him so much.
But missing him does nothing to ease how completely shaken I am by all of this.
I flew to the island a harmless ex-high school flame and, within a four-day span, fly home an adulterous whore hated by what feels like the whole world.
So I need this distance. Need my own bed. My own space. My own thoughts. Thoughts filled of him no less, but still my own. Without him crowding me and telling me you get used to the lies and the attention over the lies and you learn to not let them affect you. Because I don’t want to live like that. I don’t want to hear and see lies and be so cold to the world that I have to shut them out to live my day-to-day.
I know it’s not Hayes’s fault and yet I still need some distance so I don’t lash out at him. Because knowing it’s not his fault doesn’t fix the humiliation over the horrendous things being printed and posted and tweeted and Snapchatted about me. It doesn’t stop the cruel responses about how ugly I am compared to the flawless Jenna Dixon. It doesn’t shut out the comments about how in the hell can Hayes Whitley ever pick me, a very ordinary baker, over the glamorous starlet. How I must be pregnant because that’s the only justification as to why he’d stay with me when he could have her.
And it definitely doesn’t ease the fear niggling in the back of my mind that keeps creeping in at random intervals. If image is everything in Hollywood, if studios have the pull to make actors appear to be with or not with other actors for precious images’ sake, if the masses never accept me as Hayes’s girlfriend because I’ve been branded as a homewrecker, then how will our relationship last?
Relationships are hard enough as it is. New ones especially. And to have all of this outside pressure on us from the get-go? To constantly worry about anything I do or say and how it will be misconstrued and posted in the press makes me panic. I don’t want to be a liability for Hayes.
I don’t want that a
dded stress in my life.
Pressure can cause even the strongest person to crack, so I know it can break relationships too.
Let him be the judge of that, Saylor.
I know it’s not fair to think all this without talking to Hayes about it, getting his input, and yet I can’t bear to talk to him just yet. Reading his continuous texts is hard enough. I miss him. I love him. I just need to know I can walk into this relationship with open eyes and enough strength that when the shit hits the fan, I’m secure enough to be the person Hayes needs me to be in his crazy world.
I squeeze my eyes shut and pinch my nose as the taxicab exits the freeway. I’m overthinking all of this. In fact, it’s all I’ve thought about between the bouts of tears and the constant doubt when all I want is the strength to believe in us.
When we turn down State Street, the usually quaint road is lined with cars. The parking lot of the strip mall just to the right of Sweet Cheeks is completely full.
There must be another high school event or craft show. Shrugging it off, I sigh with relief when I see the welcomed sight of the pink and white striped awning of Sweet Cheeks in front of us. Of DeeDee’s red Ford Escape parked in the lot, and knowing my bed is upstairs.
Empty.
Without Hayes in it.
And I hate the thought immediately.
A new No Trespassing sign catches my eye as we pull into the parking lot but I’m so preoccupied swiping my credit card to pay for the ride that I’m completely oblivious to what’s going on outside the cab. But when I open the taxi door I’m startled by the sight of a group of camera wielding men and their tidal wave of sound as they call my name.
I’m momentarily stunned. And I think I stand there blinking for several seconds as my emotionally spent mind tries to catch up with what’s actually happening. But seconds feel like minutes in this alternate reality I’ve stepped into where the click of the shutter is a constant sound.
Click, click, click.
Saylor, this way. Is it true?
How does it feel stealing Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor away from Jenna Dixon?
Click, click, click.
Are you moving the bakery to Hollywood now?
Is it true he’s only with you because you’re pregnant?
Click, click, click.
Why would you do that to Jenna?
Is he as good in the sack as rumors state?
Click, click, click.
Before I can blink, DeeDee is there in front of me grabbing my hand in hers. She takes control, gets my luggage from the driver, and steers me into the bakery—my bakery—and closes the door behind me.
I expect the noise to end. The shouts and clicks and the flashes so bright they feel like they are screaming at me to stop too. But they don’t. They’re muted now. Still a chorus of chaos outside, but not as loud.
When I look up, people are at the tables inside. With cups of coffee and empty cupcake wrappers and notepads. Customers.
“They may be paying for food, but don’t trust them. They’re one of them,” Dee says with a lift of her chin to the photographers outside who are now directing their lenses toward the plate-glass storefront window where I stand. “Ryder says they may be assholes but we sure as hell will take their money.”
I look at her. Shell-shocked. Overwhelmed. Wondering how they knew I’d be here when my original flight wasn’t slated to land for another two hours.
And then it hits me.
It doesn’t matter.
They’ve been waiting.
Wanting a piece of me.
Needing a new shot to sell so someone can create more lies about me.
Shit.
Welcome home to me.
“I don’t care. Issue the statement. Set up the exclusive. Do whatever the fuck it takes to fix this or I’ll break the NDA and take my chances . . . if I don’t get paid, then you don’t get paid.” I look out the window to the city below, and chew the inside of my cheek as my comment hits my agent, Benji, where I want it to: right in the hefty mortgage he just acquired when he bought that house off Laurel Canyon.
“Hayes . . .”
I grit my teeth at his placating intonation and his this will blow over attitude. He didn’t see her face or watch her hand fly up to cover her mouth as she stood in front of the damn magazine rack in the airport and read the bullshit headlines he had already warned me about. He didn’t hide in the shadows and watch the woman he loves wipe the tears from her eyes as she touched the tabloids as if to see if they were actually real before skimming the fronts to read what they had printed about her.
Because, fuck yeah, I followed her to the airport. I would have followed her all the way home if I could have but her plane was full. Not even bribery or my celebrity status was able to buy me a seat on the flight. My fight was subdued in comparison to how I felt inside. My need to not draw more attention to her by any lurking paparazzi readjusted my focus. No way in hell was I going to let her head to the airport and face a possible slew of photographers on her own without being there to step in if need be.
But it killed me to watch her hiding beside the trashcan, presumably reading the stories on her phone. Enraged me to know she gave an ounce of her attention to the lies.
Shit, while I watched her from behind my dark sunglasses and beanie, I had half a mind to walk right up to her and not give her a fucking choice in the matter whether I was going with her or not. Charter a damn plane myself if need be to get us out of there together because I’d lost her once and I wasn’t taking the damn risk of losing her again.
Last time it had been right to walk away. I had justifiable reasons. This time? Not a chance in hell.
That look in her eyes. She was spooked. Freaked out by the fucked-up confines we Hollywood A-Listers live by. There’s a helluva lot of privilege but also a ton of bullshit. And the only thing worse than watching her walk away—letting her go face this beast on her own—is losing her.
So I hung back on the other side of the tiny terminal. Wanting to be sitting beside her, talking her stubborn-ass through this, but instead I did the hardest thing for a man to do: I sat and watched the woman I love, knowing she was hurting and all I could do was sit there and fume.
Because fuck yes, I love her.
No doubt about it.
It was hard enough putting her in a car and kissing her goodbye. Biting back the words I feel but knew wouldn’t mean a damn thing to her considering the circumstances. Saying I love you for a second-first time should be special, not because I’m afraid I’m going to lose her.
But I fucked up. Big time.
It was only after her plane took off that I realized my fuck-up. She heard me say the words to Jenna. But not to her. And there’s no way to fix it except to earn the chance to tell her face to face.
But now I’m here.
In New York, my home away from Los Angeles, and way too damn far from her. So I’m depending on Benji to deliver because he’s the goddamn reason I agreed to sign the damn NDA in the first place. His quiet urging. His commentary on how Jenna wouldn’t dare fuck up again because she didn’t manage her finances well and needed this big influx of cash the movie would bring. Trip after trip to a secluded, confidential rehab in Arizona, full of Zen gardens and yoga something or others with the best counselors money could buy, cost a pretty penny.
“Look, man. I’ve always respected your opinions. And I take full responsibility for the bullshit with Jenna, but I think you’re missing the bigger picture. I. Don’t. Fucking. Care.” Each word sounds like another string to my control snapping. “About my image. About the film. About shit. This needs to get fixed and it needs to get fixed fucking yesterday.”
There’s silence on the line. My point has been made. He gets I’m not fucking around.
“I hear you, loud and clear, but no one’s going to listen to you. You’re too good of an actor, Whitley. You’ve had everyone believing you were with Jenna. And then with your silence, you had everyone falling for the b
roody, bastard boyfriend routine where the guys questioned how you could find better pussy then Jenna Dixon’s. And the women, while hating that you might have cheated, were also pulling back their sheets and patting their Tempur-Pedics in invitation. You never broke character once. You didn’t talk about it. You didn’t—”
“Because I signed the fucking NDA on your advice,” I grate through gritted teeth.
“Your balls were in a vice, man, with the studio acting as the henchman like I’ve never seen before. You had no choice. But you know as well as I do that painting the town red with interviews isn’t going to do shit to change the public tide on Saylor.”
And I fucking hate that. With a vengeance.
My hands fist in reflex. My teeth grind together. I feel the same fucking helplessness I had when she boarded the plane the other day and walked out of my sight.
“Get with Kathy. Figure out how to coordinate face time with Givens, Seacrest, and Cooper. The studio wants me to be their puppet boy? I’ll do their dance, pimp the movie, and while I’m at it, I’ll set the record straight about Jenna and me and where Saylor fits in the fucked-up equation. The studio wants a buzz leading into release day? I’ll give them a buzz like they never expected.”
“Watch it, Hayes. You’ve walked the line this far, make sure you don’t step over it now.” I can sense his frustration. Hear his sigh across the connection. Expect the heeded warning one more time. “I get you’re frustrated. Know you want to shout on the rooftops the truth about Saylor, but I’m telling you your best plan of action is to sit and wait. This will blow over.”
“You’re right. It might. But it will blow over means a completely different thing to me than it does for Saylor. You know what it feels like the first time you open your car door and have a camera thrust in your face? Or hear the click of the shutter from somewhere in the bushes but don’t know where until you catch the glare of the lens? It’s fucking terrifying if you’re not an attention junkie like we actors are. And she’s the furthest thing from that.”
