by MV Ellis
“Wow, it’s hot out here. I need water.”
I took the cup from him and started to head into the kitchen. However, Luke was still leaning against the doorframe, one arm stretched above his head, totally blocking my way.
“Umm… sorry, excuse me. I need to get past. For… water.”
“Yeah. Sorry. Okay.” Now it was his turn to blush.
I partly liked that I wasn’t the only one feeling as awkward as all hell at that point in time, though I also hated the fact that the situation with us was so confusing. Why couldn’t things just be simple in my life? I had definitely inherited my parents’ talent for fucking things all the way to hell and back.
I squeezed past him, attempting to put as much distance between us as possible. Not highly effective when his six-foot-four-inch frame was taking up most of the doorway. Not that I was small either. At five foot ten, I definitely held my own in the height department when standing next to him, even in bare feet.
I grabbed some water from the fridge and turned to find that Luke was now facing into the room and was watching me like a hawk, his eyes hooded, eyelids at half-mast. The look of hunger was unmistakable.
“What is it?” I didn’t know why I even asked the question. I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.
“What is what?”
It seemed I wasn’t the only one stalling.
“Don’t play games with me, Luke. You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I don’t. Why don’t you explain yourself properly?” Again, there was a telltale look in his eye that matched the need in his voice.
His intention was also clear when he stalked toward me, staring unblinkingly into my eyes. I’d always had a thing for his eyes. The same startling green as his brother’s of course, but unlike with Arlo, when Luke looked at me, I’d always felt seen, just like he said, even when we were kids. From that very first day when he was assigned as my buddy, he was one of few people, along with Mia and Milla, who I felt were genuinely interested in me for who I was.
Right then the intent and desire radiating through his body scared the shit out of me. This was different to the other times and absolutely not what I had signed up for. I could tell by his eyes what he was feeling, and what he wanted to make me feel, and I wasn’t down for either. Not at all. As he approached, I retreated, backing myself up against the refrigerator, but after that, I had nowhere else to go.
“Luke, I—”
He shook his head, silencing me with just a look. Holy shit. He reached me, and as his body pressed mine against the refrigerator, I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to read the truth in his and knowing that he could see the truth in mine. He reached up above my head, caging me as he pressed both palms against the surface of the door. I braced myself, but just as he lowered his lips to mine, for the kiss I knew was coming, Mia’s doorbell sounded repeatedly. Saved by the bell.
I wondered idly who would be ringing at the door with such urgency. It was still early in the day, so that ruled out our friendly neighbors swinging past to say hey.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming.” I wrenched the door open impatiently. “Where’s the freaking fi—”
A suited stranger stood on the doorstep looking at me sternly. What the hell?
“Ms. Harloe?” His voice was as gruff as his manner.
“Yes, that’s me. What can I do for you?”
“Marnie Rae Harloe?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
The man said nothing, mutely handing me an envelope instead. Before I could ask him any questions, or say anything at all, he’d turned on his heel and was stalking away. I stood open-mouthed as he climbed into his BMW and sped away as though being chased by the devil. I looked at the packet he had handed me, my hand shaking as I tore open the envelope.
Reading the documentation inside, I saw that it was a letter of termination from Studio Cinq. Even though there was still eighteen months of a three-year contract left to run, in light of recent events, they were pulling the plug early. They were well within their rights to do so, based on the impropriety clause that was written into all ambassador agreements of this nature. This clause meant that anything that the endorsee did that could be seen to bring the brand into disrepute by association gave the company the right to pull out of the agreement without recourse. It was a way of protecting brands if their celebrity ambassadors got were embroiled in any number of possible scandals—DUI arrests, affairs, or were stupid enough to be the star of a leaked sex tape of their own creation, for example.
They stated that all monies already paid were mine to keep, but that they would not be honoring the remainder of the contract, neither financially nor with future shoots. Stupidly, I had been hanging on to the idea that retaining this contract was the key to maintaining some semblance of a viable career when the dust settled on the video fiasco. Now I had to admit that had been a pipe dream. My career was dead in the water, and I didn’t have a plan B. Fuck. My. Life.
Thirty
Luke
Marnie took the news of losing the Studio Cinq contract harder than I could have anticipated she would. She returned from answering the front door as white as a sheet and shaking uncontrollably, tears cascading down her face like Niagara Falls. It was minutes before I could get any kind of sense out of her to find out what had happened, and even then, all she managed was to thrust the papers in her hands at me and croak, “Read this.”
I guess for her, the notification of termination was the nail in the coffin for her career. I didn’t disagree with her. Having been dropped from her agency, embroiled in a sex scandal, then prematurely ditched from her endorsement deal, she wasn’t a hot prospect for other potential brands to want to partner with.
The stupid fact was that all of this would probably blow over soon enough, when some other celebrity fucked up enough to hog the news limelight, but given her age and not-quite-top-model status, she didn’t have that time to ride out the storm. By the time she was no longer considered untouchable, she’d definitely be considered too old. The sad fact was that unless they were literally one of the biggest names in the world, a model’s career had an expiration date on it from the moment she signed on the dotted line. It sucked balls, especially coming from a position where, as a musician, my career could run as long as I could play and sing—even after that point in some cases. With any luck, I’d be doing it till the day I croaked.
I tried so hard to encourage and support Marnie, but she seemed to fall into a kind of depression at the news. Not long before the doorbell rang, I’d enjoyed watching her garden, and not just because seeing her bend over in her barely-there denim cut-offs had me so hard I thought my dick was going to snap. I loved that she’d seemed content and carefree among the dirt and weeds, humming or whistling optimistically, though tunelessly, to herself, lost in thought. The sight of her happy had made my heart soar. I’d watched her for a long time before retreating to the kitchen to make coffee, at the risk of feeling kind of stalkerish.
She was like a different person after the news, and nothing I did seemed to lift her spirits. It was almost as though she was a turtle retreating into her shell. As the days passed, she would barely speak beyond one-word answers, would hardly touch her food despite me going into overdrive cooking or ordering up a storm, trying to entice her with this food or that. She wouldn’t come with me to the grocery store, or even go into the garden to finish clearing the mess.
Hell, most days I couldn’t even interest her in leaving her bed, taking a shower, or brushing her hair, let alone leaving the bedroom. She seemed content to sprawl among the tangled mess of not-so-fresh bedsheets, watching crap on Netflix on her laptop.
Although I barely knew what I was doing, I did my best to at least clear the weeds and remove the worst of the unwanted debris in the backyard. I figured that when she was feeling herself again, she’d appreciate someone else having done the grunt work. When she was feeling herself. The way things were, that day seemed a long way off. The sexy, flirty
Marnie who had made coy eyes at me that day in the kitchen seemed to be long gone. The version left in her place was sullen and uncommunicative, and made it clear that she didn’t want me anywhere near her. In fact, she told me repeatedly to leave her to her own devices. Her pleas fell on deaf ears.
No matter what she said, I knew she needed me, now more than ever, and there was no way I was going to leave her under those circumstances. I slept in the spare room, and every moment I wasn’t at the studio, I spent holed up with Marnie, even if in reality that meant we were watching Netflix on separate floors of the house. As usual, Arlo was too wrapped up in his own shit to notice what was going on in the world around him. I didn’t think he even realized I’d more or less moved out of his place and was commuting to and from Long Island to the studio every day to work on the album.
The other guys were far more observant though, especially Ryan. After a few days, he approached me during a break at the studio.
“So, you’ve been moping around looking like somebody stole your last dime. You’ve also been like a ghost—blowing in at the last minute and out again almost before we’ve definitely finished what we were working on. What gives?”
I was hoping to be able to avoid speaking about this to anyone, but I’d also known that it was just a matter of time before one of the other guys picked up on what was going on.
Despite our years of smashing our eardrums playing in front of speakers the size of small apartment blocks, Jake seemed to have the ability to hear something someone said under their breath with their back to him while standing on the other side of the room, if it was something he really wanted or needed to hear. It must have been a fatherhood thing—maybe the pressure of keeping two small humans alive gave a person superhuman powers. I had no idea, but in any case, his ears pricked up when Ryan and I started talking. He inserted himself into the conversation in the way that only guys who’d known each other for as long as we had, and had pretty much lived together as family, could do without pissing the other parties off.
“Yeah, dude. Something’s been eating you for a while now. I was holding off on asking because I know your MO is that you keep shit close to your chest until you’ve analyzed it every which way but sideways, and then you drop it on the rest of us. I was trying not to mess with your process.”
“Fuck his process. I see a man who needs a shoulder. I’m going to offer it, process or no process.” Ryan looked at Jake as though he was stupid.
“Whatever, man. Instead of trying to prove that you’re the next Gandhi, why don’t we listen to what he has to say? What’s eating you, douchey?” I hated being called that, and he knew it. I think he was just doing it to try to lift my spirits.
“It’s complicated, but in a nutshell, I’ve been hanging out with Marnie a bit since this whole… video happened, and honestly, I’m worried about her.”
“Why, what’s the deal?”
“She’s taking the whole situation really hard. The backstory is that she lost her modeling contract a few months ago—well, lost isn’t quite right. It’s more accurate to say that the agency didn’t renew this time when it expired. That in itself was a big blow, as she’s been with that same agency since she started in the industry. I think after as many years as it’s been, she thought the contract would just always be there until she didn’t want it to be. I think she took it extra hard because before that, she’d thought of Sandra Wilde as like a surrogate aunt or big sister to her. So that was the first blow—not that I would have known. She didn’t tell me. I only found out because I called the agency, worried about her, trying to see if they knew where she was after the video leaked. Even then, I had to lie and pretend to be a prospective client to get any kind of information out of them.”
The boys nodded sympathetically.
“Cut to now, the world is looking at her for all the wrong reasons, and she’s public enemy number one on Arlo’s shit list. Not a great spot to be in, but she seemed kind of okay with that, initially at least. That was until she got served papers telling her that she’d lost her lucrative contract with Studio Cinq. You know the deal with those endorsement things—you fuck up, all bets are off.”
“What? They served papers? Shit, that’s harsh.” Ryan’s eyebrows rose in shock.
“I know, right? I think that kind of made it seem worse, like she was some kind of criminal, or some shit.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Well, it seems they tried contacting her numerous times by phone, but she hasn’t been answering calls. Even I had to track her down at her grandmother’s home on Long Island. Fuck knows how the Studio Cinq legal peeps found her there, but they did.”
“Jesus. That’s next level.” Jake looked scandalized too.
“Totally. Anyway, within the course of a couple of hours, I watched her go from upbeat and optimistic to downtrodden and broken, and nothing I do seems to help. I don’t know if she’s depressed, or she’s having a breakdown, or what the fuck.”
“And?” Jake looked at me like I was some kind of dummy.
“And what? That’s it. Marnie’s broken, and I don’t know how to help fix her.”
“And what about you?” He used his impatient dad voice.
“Me? I’m fine. Like, I’m not happy to see a friend go through this shit, and I want to help her as much as I possibly can, but other than that, I’m okay.”
“Right. You’re okay, and?”
And what? I shrugged and threw Ryan a look. “Why the fuck is he talking in riddles like some kind of Yoda wannabe?”
Ryan shrugged back, totally noncommittal.
“What the fuck is your problem?” I shot back a Jake.
“My problem? Apart from two kids who are destined to turn me prematurely gray and a wife who I love more than life, but who is surely one of the world’s biggest ball-breakers, in the nicest possible way? I don’t have a problem. You, on the other hand, do. So spill it. I’ll give you a clue—it starts with M and rhymes with Arnie.”
“You’re a dick.”
“So I have been told. Mostly by the aforementioned wife.”
“How long have you known?”
“Let’s just say that I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know.”
“Right from the start?”
“Pretty much. My kids have better poker faces than you. Just sayin’.”
“And you never said a fucking word? You giant hairy ballbag.” Despite the harsh words, I couldn’t help but smile. I loved these idiots, even while I very often wanted to end them.
“Wait a minute, if anyone’s a scrotum around here, it’s you. You’re the one who harbored a secret for two hundred years and never said a fucking word to your friends, or your brother. I fail to see how I’m in any way conceivably in the wrong here. All I did was keep your secret for as long as you quite clearly wanted to keep it. Yeah, what an awful fucking person I am. Not. Like I said, I know you well enough to know that when you were ready to spill your guts, you would. In the meantime, I was over here minding my own.”
“Man, this is a fucking clusterfuck.”
“You got that about right. Does Arlo know?”
I shake my head.
“Great. Wait. Does Marnie even know?” Jake asked as an afterthought.
I let out the breath I’d sucked in, knowing the question was coming. “Not in so many words. Well, not in any words, really. We’ve slept together a few times now, and neither of us has had the balls to talk about what that means, either in the short or long term. But there’s so much unsaid ‘stuff’ buzzing between us, I guess you could say we can both feel something brewing. Or we could, until she retreated to her room and started barring me completely.”
“Man, you’ve kept your nose clean all these years, flown under the radar and kept a low profile, but now you’ve decided to get down and dirty in the real world with the rest of us, you’re doing it in the biggest way possible. That’s one thing about you Jones brothers. Everything you do, you do it big. How the fuck are yo
u going to handle this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you need to know. Not only do you need a plan, but you need to tell both of them, and soon. The longer it takes for you to rip the Band-Aid off, the harder the whole thing is going to be. Trust me.”
I nodded and stared at the floor. He was right, of course. He almost always was. The problem was that his plan might have been the right thing, but it was all easier said than done when dealing with Marnie and Arlo. My head hurt just thinking about it all.
“Anyway, on that bombshell, I’ll leave you to it. I’m aware that I barged into your conversation, and I’m fucking exhausted on account of my darling munchkins deciding to bring home a stray puppy they found at the park yesterday. It’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen, but my God, it bitched and whined all night. It also shat and pissed multiple times, all over the fucking place. Kris and I were up and down in the small hours like we had a newborn again. I’m cranky as fuck as a result, so apologies if I’m breaking your balls more than strictly necessary.”
I shrugged. “Nah. It was nothing I didn’t need to hear. Thanks, man.”
“Don’t mention it. I’m always here with crabbiness whenever you, or anyone else, needs. You don’t even have to ask.” He laughed at his own joke, and I couldn’t help joining in. “We’ve told the kids we already have enough pets and are not taking on any more, so we need to find someone to take on this new pup. You should have seen the look of relief on Miko’s face when I said that. Beagles are smart. I’m sure she understood me. I think until that point, she thought she was about to lose her top-dog status. Anyway, I’m gonna catch a little shut-eye before we get back into it in the studio.”
He slunk across the room and threw himself into the most comfortable easy chair. Within seconds he was snoring. I’d never met someone with the capacity to fall asleep as quickly and effortlessly as Jake, especially now that he had kids.