by Max Monroe
I cross my arms over my chest, amused that she thinks she’s going to have any better luck than I am, when another cab comes rushing by and hits the puddle in front of us with perfect precision.
Like a tidal wave, the water splashes up and over Rocky’s tiny body, coating her in much more than a simple bath of rain.
She squeaks hysterically, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from laughing.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I say, looking at her poor, pitiful face as the muddy street water runs down her clothes and soaks into the fabric everywhere. “My apartment is within ten blocks, and you don’t even know where you’re going. Let’s just run, and you can worry about getting back where you’re going later.”
She finally agrees with a nod, and we take off in a flash.
Resolute in our new plan, I don’t hold back as I pull her along behind me. She’s keeping up for the most part, even if she is weighed down by an additional ten pounds of water.
“What…are…you…a…marathon…runner?” she says when we make it to block five, a slow pant making her pause between each word.
“Tommy John’s Kickboxing,” I say simply. “It’s how I maintain my dad bod.”
She laughs through a wheeze, so I slow to a stop and pause as we approach an awning for a diner that we can hide under.
She wipes her face with the backs of her hands and sighs at the respite. “My God, I thought I was in shape.”
“Only five more blocks.”
“Five?” Her eyebrows practically hit her hairline. “Dear God, how do you live in a place like this?”
I laugh. “Well, normally, I take a cab.”
“Why do the cabs hate me?” she whines dramatically.
“It’s the rain. It throws shit off. Do you want me to carry you?” I offer.
“Carry me? For five blocks?”
“Yeah,” I say with a little shrug. “Or, at least as far as I can manage.”
“God,” she sighs, hanging her head. “This is embarrassing. I’m lost, I’m wet, I’m cold, and you don’t even know if you’re going to be able to carry me all the way.”
I smile. “At least one of those things is usually a good thing.”
“Not that kind of wet!” she yells, slapping her soaked sweatshirt sleeve at my chest.
“Hey!” I say innocently. “How do I know?”
“Lord Almighty, I suddenly feel like I’m in a scene from a frat movie.”
“Is it dry?” I tease. “Or is it wet?”
She gives me the finger and grabs my hand, pulling me back into the rain and back in the direction of my apartment. She doesn’t know where she’s going, but I’m impressed by her initiative.
It’s amusing, to say the least.
“Okay, okay, I get it. You can’t wait to get me back to my apartment, but at least let me lead the way. It’ll take us longer to get there if you keep going the wrong way.”
“I’m going the wrong way?” she yells, frustrated, and I smirk.
“No.” I jerk her hand and start to jog again. “I just wanted to lead.”
Her laughter trails behind us as we run in the rain for five more blocks and into the lobby of my building.
I can’t help but shake like a dog as we step into the dry building and are immediately hit with a blast of air conditioning.
“Come on,” I direct, grabbing her hand and guiding us into the elevator. She raises her eyebrows as I hit the button for the top floor.
“Fancy.”
I chuckle. “Only the best.”
“Right.”
We ride in silence all the way up to the top floor and step off into the hallway in front of my apartment.
Now that the sound of the rain is gone, the silence between us is deafening. Everything suddenly seems a lot more real.
I pull out my keys and unlock the door, holding it open for her to walk inside in front of me.
“Okay, holy shit,” she says softly. “I was joking when I said fancy before, but I can see Reba wrote that song about you. Your mama moved you uptown, huh?”
I chuckle. “My mama moved me to New York. I moved myself uptown.”
She bites her lip and raises an eyebrow.
“And to be fair, I guess I should say my dad moved us to New York. He was ambitious, to say the least.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s not. There’s just more to life, in my opinion.”
“Wow. All this from his spot in the middle of a multimillion-dollar living room.”
I shrug. “I guess I’m a complicated guy.”
“You always were,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. You were always brawling with Luca, which, for him, I understood. He was a broody kid. But you…you always had a big fat smile on your face. Seems like you still do. So, I’m not quite sure why you were always putting your fists to his face.”
“Simple. He was always putting his fists to mine.”
“Somehow, I have a feeling it’s more complicated than that.”
I jerk one shoulder. “Maybe.”
She looks around the room curiously, the water from the street running down her arms and dragging her clothes so hard they hang off of her body.
“Why don’t you go take a shower?” I suggest. “I know you’re wet in a way that you probably just want to feel dry, but the warm water will feel good. I’ve got some clothes you can change into.”
“Something from one of the twenty?” she questions cheekily.
I shake my head. “Just something of mine. I don’t make a habit of keeping women’s clothes around.”
“Well…” She pauses and flashes a playful grin. “Good to know you’re not into wearing them, I guess.”
“Never became one of my hobbies.”
She laughs. “Okay. I guess I’ll shower. Point me in the right direction?”
“Just down that hall,” I say, pointing to my right. You’ll come to the master bedroom at the end, and the bathroom’s easy to find from there.”
“You don’t have a guest shower you’d rather I use?” she asks.
“Nah. That one’s got better water pressure, and the shampoo and soap are already in it. I’ll get my extra stuff out of the linen closet and use the other one.”
She nods. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Rocky.” I flash a wink her direction. “In fact, you’re welcome here anytime.”
Raquel
When life gives you lemons, buy some ballet slippers and dance across those fucking lemons until they’re lemonade. But maybe don’t drink the lemonade. Because, feet.
Speaking of my feet, these dogs still ache from last night’s SAG Awards. I would love nothing better than to stay in bed for the rest of the day, but it’s pretty damn hard to stay in bed when your manager shows up at your apartment with a chip on her shoulder.
I really wish she’d take a fucking day off.
“What a shitshow last night was,” Heidi says loudly as I hunker down on the couch with my laptop, searching for some pointe shoes on Amazon. Yes, I’m not a ballerina. Yes, I’ve never even played one in a movie. And, yes, I’m growing more pregnant by the day. But I do not care. These ballet slippers are the last thing I need, I’m more than aware of that, but the more time I spend trapped in my apartment, the more I search for useless items to buy.
Last week, I found one hell of a deal on gardening gloves.
And a few days after that, I managed to find the cutest watering can.
I do not have a yard. I own exactly zero plants. But one day, if I ever do take up the chosen hobby of green-thumbers around the world, I’ll be ready.
All of this online shopping is completely unnecessary, but it gives me something to do. Something to find joy in. Something to kill the time while Harrison is off somewhere else and I sit here and have to deal with my manager’s stank face.
I pick up my phone at the thought, wondering why I’m
having to go through this alone. Harrison doesn’t normally leave me to the wolves anymore. If anything, he plays defense for me, blocking a lot of the heat and taking it on himself, but I haven’t heard from him since last night.
Me: What are you up to?
I groan to myself even as I hit send for my lame attempt at being casual. The good news is that he answers anyway.
Harrison: Just at the office, finishing up some stuff for work. Have to be ready for next week in New York.
Somehow, even with the abrupt move to LA and all the metaphorical hand-holding he does for me, Harrison has managed to settle into some kind of work routine. Hell, two weeks after he officially moved here, he already had a temporary HawCom workspace, hired two assistants and several California-based employees, and found the perfect spot just outside of LA to break ground for his company’s new West Coast headquarters.
Truly, it boggles my mind and makes me wonder if he’s a secret vampire who doesn’t need to sleep.
I reread his text message, hoping maybe I missed something, but nope, I didn’t. Vague and brush-off-esque was his answer, and I purse my lips as I start to type out another text and try again. This time, though, I allow myself to be a little vulnerable. This is not a guy I’ve known to play any sort of games. Maybe it’s time I stopped believing I have to. I’m already dreading having to spend next week without him; I don’t need to dance around myself so much now that I don’t get to see him beforehand.
Me: Am I going to see you today? I’d really like to. ☺
His response is instant, but still, not exactly what I’m hoping it will be.
Harrison: I will definitely try. Just have a lot to get done before next week.
“Are you even listening to me?” Heidi asks loudly, and I jerk my head up from my phone. Obviously, I haven’t been, but I don’t tell her that. She’ll make Daenerys’s fiery dragons look like puppies if I open up her Pandora’s box.
“Of course.” The problem with my plan comes into stark clarity as she stares at me, quite obviously waiting for a response to a question of which I have no knowledge. “Just…repeat that last part maybe.” Or, you know, the last hour or so since you’ve been here…
“Jesus, Raquel.”
My phone goes off with another message, the vibration ringing just enough into the silence that Heidi notices it.
She rips the phone from my hands like I’m a freaking child, and I jump to my feet as fast as I can to try to steal it right back. Given the size of my now almost six-months’ preggo stomach, that is to say, not all that quickly.
“Give me that back!” I yell when my physical efforts prove futile.
“Do you even know how to be professional anymore?” she asks venomously instead. “It’s like the instant that guy’s dick broke through your virginal barrier, all your brains started leaking out.”
“Hey!” I snap, angry beyond what I ever have been before. There’s a line Heidi’s managed not to cross until this moment, but there isn’t any doubt her feet have landed on the other side now.
Whether she’s in large control of my schedule and activities or not, I deserve to be treated like an adult human being with thoughts and feelings of my own. To insinuate I’m no more than a brainless woman with dick-sickness is the height of slut shaming. And she’s my employee, a fact that she’s clearly forgotten at some point along the way.
“That’s enough!” I shout at the top of my lungs, and hell’s bells, it feels so good. “I put up with a lot of shit, but I refuse to put up with you speaking to me that way.” I point one stern index finger toward her shocked face. “Like it or not, Harrison is a part of my life now—a huge fucking part—and you better get on board quick, or you’re the one who’s going to get left behind.”
Heidi opens her mouth to strike back, but I hold up a defiant hand to suggest she shouldn’t.
“I know what you’ve done for me,” I say, lowering my voice just slightly, though it definitely has a shake it didn’t before. “I’m not dumb, and I realize you’ve played a major role in getting me to the place I am in Hollywood today. I appreciate it and I recognize it. But that doesn’t mean I have to subject myself to just accepting whatever you throw my way because of it. You are my employee and I am your boss. At the end of the day, I am the one who is ultimately in charge here. Not you.”
Heidi’s sigh is heavy as she raises an eyebrow, clearly mocking the fact that I think I’m in charge of when she speaks now. I don’t let it bother me, instead continuing with my speech. There’s so much to air, I’m better off getting it out of the way now that the ice has been broken.
“So, instead of vilifying me for being on my phone while you’re speaking, why don’t you try asking me what’s on my mind. What it is that I need in order to find my focus and be the best professional, as you put it, I can be. Because I can tell you now that’s going to get you a hell of a lot further than berating me like a child. All that’s going to get you in the end is fired.”
“Fine,” she concedes, only a touch of condemnation in her voice. “What is it that you need in order to be able to focus?”
“I need your acceptance of Harrison being around. I need some normalcy given to my pregnancy and recognition of the changes both my mind and body are going through. And I need…”
I take a deep breath as I think hard about where my real stresses are coming from, and I’m surprised at how easily the answer comes. With everything going on—all the mess and stress and changes—I haven’t given any real weight of thought to what actually happens at the end of it all. The actual birth.
I have to push out a baby, and all in all, I’m woefully unprepared. More than anything, I think it would bring me the most amount of peace to change that.
“I need to do a Lamaze class.”
“Excuse me?” Heidi says through a near laugh. “Maybe a private instructor—”
“No,” I say with a shake of my head, cutting her off. “I need the experience of other people. I need some normalcy. I need the parameters, to know if what I’m going through is something I’m going through alone.”
“You don’t get to have a normal life, Raquel. You signed on for this. You can’t just go to the monthly Lamaze class with every Jody off the street. I’m sorry, but you really are losing your mind if you think—”
“Stop! I don’t think I can just go to the class at the YWCA, okay? I know I can’t. But there’s got to be a celebrity, high-end, A-list type of class happening somewhere, right? I can’t be the only famous person who wants this feeling.”
Heidi frowns as she looks down at her phone and then looks back up at me. “This is what you need? This will help you find your focus again?”
I nod, but I’m not done until I make one more specification. “Yes. But I need Harrison to come with me. He needs to be there, and I need him there. It won’t be the same without him. Which means it needs to happen today.”
Heidi sighs heavily again, but instead of bitching or trying to strong-arm her way through the situation, she simply holds my phone out toward me as she scrolls through her own phone with the other hand. “I can make some calls. But I swear to God, if you or he do anything—”
My voice melts into a smile immediately as I snatch my phone back from her. “We’ll be on our very best behavior,” I say as I cross my heart.
She scowls but gets on the phone with someone, and I turn away immediately, ducking my head down and directing my attention right back to my phone.
Me: I know you’re busy getting stuff done…but how about taking on the role of coach?
Harrison: Coach?
I grin as I type out a response.
Me: Suit up, cowboy. It’s time to Lamaze.
Raquel
Lamaze class is whole lot more erotic than I anticipated…
Harrison’s legs wrap around from behind me, and his chest presses into the heat of my back.
In some other world—the movie world—this would be the start to a really erotic scene with a
twelve-inch penis, magic hips, and a wild night in the immaculately clean hot tub of a five-star resort overlooking the ocean in Bora Bora.
But this isn’t show business. This is Beverly Hills Obstetrics’ most private, NDA-requiring Lamaze class, and Harrison sliding in behind me is a precursor to what happens nine months after the hot sex.
The penis, however, I have to admit, isn’t far off. It’s not twelve inches, but good God almighty, what woman really wants to split themselves in half with a baseball bat?
Not me.
I nearly faint at the idea of what I would have done if I’d taken Harrison’s pants down to his ankles on the night of my deflowering and found a bazooka barrel in my face. I mean, from my not-very-much experience, he’s big. Well-endowed, even. But thankfully for my vagina, he doesn’t have a ginormous sausage limb inside his pants that could give the trunks of fifty-year-old oak trees a run for their money.
“You all right?” Harrison whispers into the shell of my ear from behind me.
I jump, but not before a shiver takes over my whole body.
“Yeah,” I croak out as evenly as possible—not like I was picturing his penis and comparing it to the barrel of heavy artillery and breakfast meats and tree trunks.
“What are you giggling about, then?”
Was I giggling?
I do a quick self-assessment, and I’m horrified to find that, yes, I was. And not only that—I still am.
“Oh, uh. Nothing,” I say and swallow the crazy giggles down. “Nothing at all. Just thinking of thoughts and considering them and their meaning and such.”
“Oh-kay.”
Oh my God, I’m an idiot.
My cheeks heat into a deep crimson blush, but thankfully, the instructor takes her place at the front of the room to welcome the class. She’s svelte and blond—not something that’s necessarily a strike against anyone—but with the weight of my stomach making me feel tired even while sitting, I can’t say that I’m immediately in love with her.
