All We Were

by Grace, Elisabeth

  “You’re everything to me.” He grinds his hips and my eyes roll to the back of my head. “That will never change. No matter what happens, believe that. My past.” He kisses my forehead. “My present.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “And my future.” Jimmy steals my mouth in a rapturous kiss that hits me all the way down to my soul.

  He lets his head drop so that our foreheads touch. My eyes drift closed, and I concentrate on the sensation of him rocking into me, the feeling of him loving me. Sweat makes our chests cling together, and soon it’s all too much.

  Too much physical sensation.

  Too much emotion.

  Too much of everything.

  When my climax peaks, I cascade over the waterfall like a rush of water, tumbling down and not wanting to find the bottom. To live in this state of euphoria forever. The high I’m always chasing.

  Moments later, he bucks against me in an unsteady rhythm and comes inside me on a groan. My nails drag up and down his back while he catches his breath and my legs drop to the side.

  I can’t find the energy to get up and clean myself. I’m too content and tired. Jimmy rolls off me to the side, and I slip under the covers. He instantly joins me, spooning me from behind.

  No words are needed. This is what he needs, and so do I.

  I lie there, drifting off, listening to the gentle inhale and exhale of our breaths until Jimmy’s voice pulls me from sleep.

  “My mom’s been trying to reach me,” he mumbles.

  Every muscle in my body tenses, waiting for more information, but when I roll over to look at him, he’s passed out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lilah

  I toss the empty Red Bull can on the passenger side floorboard of my car. I popped an oxy before I left the beach house for downtown Los Angeles and need something to give me a boost before I go into the meeting with my agent and the House of Carlisle representatives.

  The four of us are lunching at a trendy LA celebrity hot spot named Vice. Nerves have my stomach rolling over—there’s no chance I’ll be able to eat anything while I’m here. But I raise my head high and strut into the restaurant like I am Lilah Robbie, the hottest model in LA.

  Landing this campaign will be huge for me. A giant stepping stone in my career. I can’t afford to squander the opportunity.

  The hostess is the typical LA wannabe model/actress—high cheek bones, plump lips that have seen a filler or two, and a botoxed forehead that barely moves when she smiles.

  “Hi, I’m here to meet some people. The reservation is under Mina.”

  She glances at her list, and when she raises her head again, she gives me a quick once-over before turning on her heel. “Follow me. Someone from your party is already at your table.”

  I hope it’s Mina. We planned to meet here a little early so that the two of us can go over our game plan before the House of Carlisle representatives arrive.

  When the hostess bypasses the main dining room, I realize that Mina must have booked us the private room in the back. The girl, who is probably only a few years younger than me, leads me to a room with glass on three sides. The other wall features a floor-to-ceiling wine rack.

  Mina sits at the table, her bright red—and most certainly from a box—bob covering the majority of her face since she’s looking at her phone.

  The hostess doesn’t enter but stops at the glass door and waves me in.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  When Mina hears my voice, she raises her head and smiles. “You look fabulous.”

  “Thanks. I figured wearing one of their pieces for this meeting made sense.” I glance down at the blue patterned dress I’m wearing before hanging my purse on the back of the chair beside her.

  “Good choice.” She sets her phone aside and shifts in her chair so she’s facing me. “They should be here soon, so let’s go over how we’re going to approach this. Whatever they offer you in this meeting, if they do make an offer, don’t give them any reaction. Leave the negotiation to me. If they’ve reached out to you, you can bet that they want you.”

  I nod.

  “Next, we need to figure out how we’re going to respond to some of the bad press you’ve gotten.” She stares at me meaningfully until I feel the need to defend myself.

  “Can’t we just tell them that’s all behind me?”

  “Is it?” she asks with raised brows.

  I shift in my seat. “I’m here, aren’t I? Do I seem like anything is wrong with me?”

  She studies me, and I do my best to look relaxed and not paranoid.

  “Look”—she leans in as if we’re sharing a secret—“you and I both know half the models in this town are using one thing or another. I don’t care. Hell, the clients don’t care. As long as it doesn’t interfere with your work and stays out of the press. Can you manage that much?”

  I think back to Jimmy’s words last night and what that could mean. He was out of the house already when I woke up this morning and hasn’t returned my calls.

  Not sure if I believe it myself, I nod anyway. “That won’t be a problem. I can keep it on the straight and narrow.”

  “Excellent,” she says with smile.

  We chat for a bit before the director of marketing and the CEO of the House of Carlisle arrive. All in all, the meeting goes well, and I sell them on the fact that my troubled past is behind me. I leave the meeting feeling as if I stand a genuine chance against whoever else they’re considering.

  When I reach my car, I text Jimmy again, but he still doesn’t respond.

  My anxiety level rises and all I want is to blow off some steam, so I track down Trina and Courtney and head over to their place.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jimmy

  We don’t wrap on set until almost ten o’clock at night, and after a shower in my trailer, I can no longer put off thinking about what I’ve been avoiding all day—my mother.

  Why is she calling after all these years? Where has she been?

  My dad used his fists to settle any disagreements and that included ones with my mother, so I shouldn’t have been surprised she took off when I was fourteen. What surprised me was that she hadn’t taken me with her.

  I expected her to return home for days that turned into weeks. Finally, after a few months, I realized she was never coming back and that I had been left to deal with my dad on my own.

  My dad didn’t take kindly to her leaving and took it out on me more than a few times. The teachers saw the bruises. They had to have—one time he gave me a black eye and a swollen jaw—but they never asked me about it. I probably would’ve lied anyway, knowing that social services would take me out of my house. That would have left Lilah to fend for herself and we were inseparable, even then.

  I plop down on the leather couch in the trailer, palming my phone. Keane sent me the number to reach her. I haven’t seen or spoken to Darla in fifteen years—I can’t imagine what she has to say.

  With my elbow on my knee and my head in my hand, I stare at her name on my phone, feeling… I don’t even know what. A mixture of trepidation, anxiety, and anger.

  Before I can stew any longer, I press the number and hit the button to call her. As I put the phone to my ear, my knee bounces over and over.

  A woman answers with a cigarette-rippled voice I’d recognize anywhere. “Hello?”

  “It’s me.” I don’t want to call her mom. She doesn’t deserve the title anymore, as far as I’m concerned.

  “Jimmy?”

  I cringe. Everyone called me Jimmy when I was younger. These days, only Lilah refers to me as Jimmy and that’s how I like it. It’s something special between the two of us. Hearing Darla say the word tarnishes that somehow.

  “It’s James now,” I say with spite in my voice.

  A chuckle rings through the line. “That’s right. I forgot you’re a big Hollywood hotshot now. Congrats, my boy.”

  “What do you want?” Being on the phone with her, even for this short amount of time, isn’t good
for me. I feel as though the past has swallowed me whole.

  Is this what Lilah feels like all the time? I’m able to push away everything that happened on that mountainside most days, but she never can.

  “Can’t a mom call to catch up with her boy?”

  The phone makes a sound under the tight grip of my fingers. “Not when she abandoned him as a teenager and left him alone with an abusive asshole for a dad.”

  Her response is silence.

  Silence I’m not filling. She’s the one who reached out to me. She had to know this wouldn’t be a happy reunion.

  “I want to apologize for that.” Darla sounds sincere, I’ll give her that.

  “What did you think was going to happen after you left? Who do you think he took it out on?” I seethe.

  “Jimmy, I—”

  “James.”

  “James, right. You know what he was like. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out of there, and I had nothing. Nothing to provide for you with. I had no idea where I was going or how I’d survive. I just knew that if I didn’t leave, I was going to end up dead.”

  Standing from the couch, I pace. Whether she’s right or not, you don’t leave your child alone with someone like that.

  When I don’t respond, she continues, “You only had a few years left before you were an adult, and you were getting bigger every day. I knew that soon your dad wouldn’t be able to push you around anymore.”

  Pain settles into my palm and I stop pacing, looking down to see that I’d been clutching my hand so hard, my fingernails had dug into my skin.

  “None of this shit matters anyway. As nice as this stroll down memory lane has been, you must’ve called for a reason. What is it?” I resume my pacing through the small trailer.

  She releases a long-suffering sigh. “I need money.”

  Any chance of reestablishing a relationship with my mom dies with those three words.

  “Get a job,” I bite out.

  “I had one, but I got laid off. Things have been hard lately.”

  “Sorry to hear that. My life was hard after you abandoned me.”

  “Jim—James, I’m sorry for the past, but I can’t change it. I really am proud of you, you know. I had no idea my boy was a big movie star until I saw a poster at the mall last year and you were on it. It took me a few minutes before I really believed it was you. I hadn’t seen you in so long, but your eyes haven’t changed, and your hair still curls at the end if you let it grow too long. When you were a baby, I’d—”

  “I’m not doing this with you, Darla.”

  She sucks in a big breath when I use her name.

  “You’re right about the fact that we can’t change the past and what’s done is done. I’ve moved on with my life and you’re not a part of it. Go find some other schmuck to give you money, because it’s not going to be me.”

  She’s quiet for so long that I think she hung up.

  “You know, I didn’t stay away from the mountain… I went back about five years ago…” She lets her words hang in the air.

  “Glutton for punishment?”

  “Nah. I caught wind that your father had died, so I went back when I was traveling through Virginia. I don’t know why. There were some good times too.”

  Her words knock the wind out of me.

  My dad is dead?

  It’s not as though I care about the son of a bitch. I’ve tried really hard not to think of him since I left. But I always assumed he was still out there, just as miserable as ever. I’m not sure how to feel now that I know he’s dead.

  “I take it you didn’t know your daddy was dead?” Darla asks.

  “No, I… I didn’t keep tabs on him after I left.” I sink into one of the chairs at the small kitchen table.

  “Well, he’s dead. Didn’t leave much behind. The old place was still standing when I got there, but just barely.”

  “How did he…?” I don’t know why, but I need to know what finally took out the prick.

  “Not really sure. Ol’ Willy found him. Went by to get him so they could check the stills out in the forest. It was moonshine season. Found him sitting in his chair, dead as stump. You know how it is up there. They don’t call the cops or anything, just bury you on your property and put a marker on it.”

  I do know how it is. It’s as backwoods as you can get. People on that mountainside don’t typically report births or deaths, file taxes, or do anything else that involves the government. Hell, Lilah and I had been lucky to go to school in the first place. My mom’s the one to thank for that. She pushed for it because she knew it had been important to Lilah’s mom. They’d been best friends before she died in childbirth.

  “I guess he’s running around hell now then.”

  “I suppose he is,” she says. “But that wasn’t my point. You should know, the people there still keep to themselves, but they talk. Heard all about you in high school. Heard a lot about Lilah and her dad too.”

  My lungs contract and all the air leaves them in a rush.

  “So like I said, I need some money.” Her voice has a smug tone now, as though she knows she’s got me. And maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t.

  Confronting the inevitable, I ask, “How much are you looking for?”

  “Thatta boy. I knew you’d come around. I’m thinking twenty thousand should get me by for a bit.”

  I know, without her saying it, that this is only the beginning of her shake-downs. “Why don’t you tell me what it will take for you to go away forever?”

  She chuckles and the sound is grating. “Feeling generous, are you?”

  “I’m feeling like this is the last time I want to speak to you. What’s it going to take to make that happen?”

  I can almost envision her trying to figure out the best way to play this. She used to get a look on her face when I was younger, when she was trying to figure out how to deal with my dad in a way that wouldn’t set him off.

  “I don’t want to be greedy, so how about three million?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I’ve done well for myself—hell, I own a beach house in Malibu—but I can’t pull three million out of my ass. It’d put a dent in my finances that I’d feel for sure. “I’ll give you one point four. A hundred thousand for each decade you raised me.”

  “Two and a half,” she counters.

  “One and a half.”

  “Two million,” she says, and I detect the growing excitement in her voice.

  “One point seven and that’s my final offer.” I hold my breath and wait for her response.

  “Done.”

  “If I give you this money, I don’t ever want to hear from you again. I don’t want you talking to the press—nothing.”

  “Sure, sure, whatever. When can you get it to me?” she asks, showing how eager she is.

  “I mean it. I’m going to have my lawyer draft up an agreement that says that if you do any of those things, you have to pay me back in full immediately.”

  “Trust me, kiddo, you send me that money and I’m like the wind.”

  No surprise there. She was able to leave me when she had nothing. Why wouldn’t she be able to do it when she’s newly rich?

  “It’s going to take me some time to get my lawyers to draft an agreement and for me to get the money together. I’ll call you next week to get the details from you.”

  “Don’t take too long. I might get chatty.”

  I fist my hand over the steering wheel. “Don’t forget your end of the agreement. I’ll be in touch.”

  With that, I press the red circle on my phone and toss it onto the couch where it thankfully bounces across the cushions and doesn’t fall to the floor.

  “FUCK!”

  “Is everything all right?”

  I whip my head in the direction of the voice to find Adelaide standing in the entrance to the trailer, wide-eyed.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I had a conference call with my manager when we were done shooting, s
o I took it in my trailer before I left for the night. Are you okay?”

  I blow out a breath and run my hand through my hair. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m fine.”

  She gives me an unsure smile. “If you say so. Anything I can do to help?”

  “No, really, I’m fine.” I stand from the chair. “What did you think of Tripp last night?”

  We haven’t really had time to discuss last night. As soon as we arrived on set, we were both whisked off to makeup, and since then, we’ve always been around someone. This is the first time we’ve had any privacy today.

  Adelaide steps farther into the trailer. “He was nice. I’m not sure there’s a love connection there, but I appreciate you trying your best.” She chuckles.

  I shrug. “It was worth a shot. He’s a nice guy and you’re nice, so I thought maybe…”

  “Nice guys are hard to find in this town, so I appreciate you pointing one out when you see him.”

  I smile, but I don’t think it reaches my eyes. “You headed home now?”

  She adjusts the strap of her bag on her shoulder. “Yeah, I think so. It’s late, and even though we don’t have an early call time tomorrow, I’m still kinda recovering from last night.”

  I chuckle. “I hear you. Tequila is not my friend.”

  “I guess that’s why they call it To-Kill-Yah.”

  “True story.” I shove my phone in my back pocket and reach for my keys and my wallet on the counter. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate that.” She smiles at me in a way that might be more than just a general appreciation of me doing a nice thing for her, but I ignore it. She knows how messed up my personal life is.

  “About Lilah last night…” I say as we make our way out of the trailer.

  Adelaide waves me off. “Don’t worry about it. It’s obvious she has issues.” Judgment colors her tone, and I hate it.

  “She’s a good person.”

  “I just meant… I’ve heard the rumors, seen the press. I know she has some….”