“What? I was in prison, remember?” reminded Reilly. She was offended. She didn’t know where the sudden anger came from, but it was there, and she moved away a little, pounding her own chest. “I would get it, Drew, me of all people.”
Drew gave her a bitter smile and wiped away a tear.
“You can’t even forgive yourself for the time you spent in there,” she said quietly.
“Why would that matter?” asked Reilly.
“I can just imagine what you think of other people who have been inside. People like me.”
Reilly’s anger shifted to empathy when she realized that Drew was just as afraid of not being good enough as she was.
“God, Drew. No. Prison isn’t what I’m ashamed of. It’s what I did to get sent there. I killed someone. That’s what I have a problem with.”
Reilly wanted to tell Drew that, if anything, she thought more of her, knowing that she had come out the other side as a stronger, better person. But no words would ever say it the way she wanted Drew to hear it.
“I’m ashamed of that, too.”
“But, you were set up.”
“I let myself get set up. I was an idiot,” said Drew. “I’m smarter than that. There were signs all around me and I ignored them.”
“Well, you can’t fault yourself for loving someone, and you can’t fault yourself for trusting someone. It’s those who abuse the trust that should feel the shame. Prison breaks the strongest women. You’re not broken. You’re far from broken,” said Reilly.
Drew rested her head again on Drew’s chest. Drew kissed the top of her head. Reilly sighed while Drew held her closely, seeming to need the closeness that Reilly craved, too. Most of the tension that had ebbed and flowed during the course of their conversation was gone.
“We have a few scars between the two of us,” said Reilly. She fingered the faint mark that she still had on her forehead from the stiches she had received when Twist had head-butted her in the kitchen fight. The one behind her ear had all but disappeared. The scars that she spoke of were not physical, though.
“True,” agreed Drew.
“Are you okay?” asked Reilly, looking up at Drew. “Are we okay?”
Drew returned Reilly’s stare, searching her eyes. Reilly reached up to stroke the soft skin of Drew’s strong chin.
“I’m okay,” said Drew. “I hope we’re okay. I do have one more thing to confess, though.”
“Should I be nervous?”
“Not nervous. But I honestly don’t know how you’ll take it.”
“Then just tell me. Nothing you’ve told me has changed my opinion of you.”
“That’s a relief,” said Drew. “Okay—”
Reilly waited for Drew to continue. When she didn’t, Reilly bounced a leg against her.
Drew blew her breath out.
“I asked Fergie to watch out for you when you went to prison.”
Things began to fall into place in Reilly’s mind. The way Fergie had always seemed to be there, watching; the library job that had gotten Reilly out of communal showers—and away from Twist’s predatory ways; the way Twist and her goons had been moved to the other wing, just when things seemed to be coming to a stand-off. She wondered if the guard had even been the one to suggest to the warden that Cray was visiting her under an assumed name.
“Did she report back to you?” asked Reilly.
“No! Nothing like that,” said Drew, sitting up to face Reilly. “Once in a while, I would ask her if you were okay, and she would always say that you were doing as well as could be expected. Nothing more than that. I wanted to know more, but she wouldn’t have said anything if I had asked, and I didn’t. I understand how it is. When you’re in, everyone knows what everyone else is doing, right down to the schedule of bodily functions. I wouldn’t spy. I wouldn’t want you to think—”
Drew was crying, and Reilly couldn’t stand to see her so upset. Their emotions, raw from the discussion, were pulled so tight. Reilly felt a wave of something more powerful than she’d ever felt wash over her.
Reilly sat up and shifted to face Drew. She reached over and held Drew’s face between her palms. She waited until Drew’s eyes found hers.
“I love you,” she said.
“You probably don’t believe me,” said Drew. “Why would you believe me? I know it sounds—”
Reilly pulled Drew toward her and held her tight. She smoothed the hair on the back of Drew’s head and felt an unbearable rush of emotion for having uttered the words that had been stuck in her throat for days without her even knowing.
“I love you,” she said again, trying out the feel of the words on her tongue again, and feeling them even more.
“I know that it wasn’t my place, and that I didn’t have the right, but I knew that Twist was still there, and there was a fifty-fifty chance that you would be assigned to her wing.”
“Shut up already, Drew. I don’t care. I love you,” said Reilly again, reaching up and turning Drew’s face toward her.
Drew’s silver eyes shimmered.
“What?”
“I love you,” said Reilly, loving how much loving Drew felt. It was a feeling that she had never experienced, and it made her feel strong and almost whole again. “Not just because you asked Fergie to take care of me, but because of the person that you are. The woman that I know,” said Reilly, stroking Drew’s face.
“I love you, too,” said Drew. Reilly watched her face and could tell she had more to say, but all she felt was a surge of bliss and a great relief that Drew felt the same way. The next words from Drew surprised her. “I’ve known since the night on the hotel terrace. I almost told you then.”
“What stopped you?”
“Knowing that I didn’t deserve you. That you’d leave when you found out about my past.”
“I’m sorry for not making you feel safe. I thought that you understood—”
“You never talked about it.”
“I didn’t want anyone to forgive me.”
“I’m sorry for not trusting you enough to tell you. Are you mad that I spied on you?” asked Drew, touching the fingers Reilly rested on her cheek.
“Come here and let me love you,” said Reilly, lying back as she kissed Drew, pulling her down on top of her.
Randy Candy’s Website Survey
DREW STEPPED OUT OF THE BATHROOM and leaned against the doorframe, drying her hair. Reilly sat against the pillowed headboard on the bed that they had barely left in the last 24 hours and let her eyes wander over the nude woman standing across the room. She pushed her laptop to the side and opened her arms, inviting Drew to lie down. Drew came to her immediately, and Reilly’s chest filled with excitement when she saw the unguarded look of loving desire that darkened Drew’s eyes. The difficult discussion from the day before seemed like it had taken place an eternity ago. Reilly felt closer and more at ease about their relationship—and her life—than she ever thought she would. It was a good feeling.
“Mmmm… you smell so good,” purred Reilly, as she wrapped her arms around Drew’s waist and pulled her down on top of her. She buried her face in the clean smell of Drew’s neck and kissed it. Drew groaned, her hips pressing against Reilly’s thigh.
“You’re such a bad influence on me. You make me not want to go teach my class. I just want to stay here in this bed and make love to you all day.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” murmured Reilly, nuzzling Drew’s neck. “Let’s put a sign up. Tell them you have the kissing disease. Because I do. A bad, bad case,” she said, biting down on the sensitive skin below Drew’s ear. The shiver she felt in the woman above her inspired her to give Drew another gentle bite. And another. “And it’s highly contagious. The best cure is to stay in bed all day. ”
“I wish it were that simple,” sighed Drew, but she made no move to get up. Instead, she let Reilly nibble her neck a little longer and then began kissing her way down Reilly’s chest.
“Oh, but it is that simple. I promise
,” coerced Reilly, lifting her tee shirt to expose her breasts to Drew’s attentions.
“It wouldn’t be fair to my students,” said Drew, licking Reilly’s nipple and then taking it between her teeth, eliciting a hiss from Reilly. Drew made a trail to the other nipple, talking between kisses. “Besides, it’s easy for you, Miss I-can-stay-in-bed-with-my-laptop-and-look-at-fuzzy-kitties-all-day. Some of us have to work for a living.”
“Hey, I work,” said Reilly, groaning as Drew took the other nipple into her mouth. Her center clenched as she watched Drew’s beautiful lips wrap around her tender breast.
“Yes, you do,” agreed Drew, pulling Reilly’s tee shirt back down and snuggling into the circle of Reilly’s arms. Her hand cupped the rigid peak that her mouth had just left, and Reilly wished that she’d move it lower to take care of the ache that she’d caused. “And when you’re doing a movie, you work longer hours than most. You deserve to take a break today.”
“I’m working right now. Well, I was, until a temptress wandered into view and captured my attention,” said Reilly playing with Drew’s long damp hair. She watched the black strands snake through her fingers and thought about how lucky she was to have Drew in her bed. In her life.
“Surfing the net is not working,” laughed Drew, batting away Reilly’s other hand, which was tickling its way up Drew’s inner thigh.
With one hand Reilly turned the laptop that sat beside her on the bed so Drew could see the screen. She moved the cursor between tabs that she had open on her browser to show her what she was doing.
“I have to keep my social media sites current. I have to answer my email. I have to keep up on the gossip about me.”
“So, you post and chat and watch gossip about yourself?”
Reilly nodded and showed Drew the number of unread emails she had to go through. She had fan club managers who dealt with most of it, but there was still much to address outside of that. As much as her mother had vexed her, Reilly really missed the way that she had taken most of the administrative work out of her day-to-day.
“When my mom managed me, all of that was her job. Now I have to do it. I think I’m going to have to get another assistant. I don’t know how she did it. I hate it.”
“What’s that one?” Drew asked, as Reilly navigated with one hand to a garish webpage that blasted a techno riff before the page even finished loading. Reilly pushed the mute button.
“Randy Candy’s column.”
“You seriously read his crap?”
“There is nothing serious about him, but the stuff he talks about is actually pretty spot on. Although he can be a bit dramatic,” said Reilly, laughing as Drew rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I know. But he knows everybody, and everybody knows him. He doesn’t care if people don’t like him, either. He still gets invited to all the events because he keeps people in the news. My mother adores him. They exchange holiday gifts.”
“Ugh! Maybe you’d change your mind if you read some of the stuff he wrote about you after your accident,” said Drew.
“Ha! Busted!” said Reilly, tickling Drew and laughing when she squirmed. “That means that you read his blog! None of that means I like the guy. And my mom shielded me from all of that back then. She didn’t even try to show me. I can imagine, though. He’d sell out his best friend for a story.”
“What does he have to say today? I have a few minutes to kill before I have to go,” said Drew, moving back into her position with her head on Reilly’s chest so she could see the screen. Reilly could feel Drew’s hot breath on her breast through the tee shirt, and she had a hard time concentrating. She’d rather spend these few minutes doing something else.
“I don’t know,” replied Reilly, forcing herself to focus on the screen. She followed links on the page to get to that day’s blog. “I just pulled it up. It’s about me, though. His blog came up when I Googled myself.”
“Narcissist much?” laughed Drew, as she hooked a finger into the V-neck of Reilly’s tee shirt, inched it down, and kissed the valley between Reilly’s breasts.
“Hmmm?” asked Reilly, the laptop now forgotten and her concentration shattered, as she peered down at her naked lover, loving the sensation of Drew’s mouth on her skin.
“I asked whether you often Googled yourself.”
“Oh… I know… self-absorbed,” said Reilly. She had a hard time focusing on the conversation, but Drew helped when she pulled the shirt back into place and smiled at her. “It’s an unfortunate side effect of being an actor.”
“I was just kidding. About the narcissist thing.”
“I know,” said Reilly, but she wanted to explain. “I need to stay informed. To stay on top of things.”
“What does Mr. Rancid Candy have to say about you?”
“Rancid. I like that.”
Reilly dragged the computer back into her lap, and navigated to Randy Candy’s blog. The post started off about a television star that had driven his Porsche into the side of a house after leaving a club the night before. The accident had put an eight-year-old boy, who was in the house when the car rammed into it, into the hospital with some serious, but not critical, injuries. The actor had been taken into custody after blowing four times the legal limit on a Breathalyzer. The real kicker was that the actor was known as the face of a well-known anti-drunk driving campaign.
Near the end of the post, Randy posed a question asking whether the actor would survive the scandal. He then recited a long list of actors who had never bounced back from scandal, and then a short list of those who had. At the end of the list, he cited Reilly as the poster-child for survival, and he asked his followers what they thought her secret was. Reilly scrolled down to the comments section and saw several hundred posts. The blog was only a few hours old. She scanned the most recent.
@dreamGyrl: beauty and brains, the woman isn’t a survivor, she’s a woman in charge of her own destiny! #reillyrocks
@deantoo: Who says she survived? The man she killed sure didn’t. No more RR movies for me! #boycottrr #rehabwarrior
@Redondo137: Who cares? She’s awesome!#reillyrocks
@classicFilmy: It’s like it was just a role from one of her movies. It just doesn’t seem real. Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t. She’s never said anything about it.
@sicpuppy: evrybdy nos it wuz jst uh pblcty stunt
@classicFilmy: I never thought about that
@sicpuppy: gurl nvr sed nuthin bout it she prbly jst wantd uh vcashun cant bleev the news
@deantoo: Hey @sicpuppy. Read the obituary. http://tinyurl.com/jmovnj3 A man DIED. Idiot.#boycottrr #rehabwarrior
@twelvelongsteps: No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. #easydoesit
@SalsaCaliente: I LOVE YOU REILLY RANSOME!!!!!!!<3 FOREVER!!!!!!
@dragonscale: Have seen some of her movies many times. RR is this generation’s Meryl Streep/Marilyn Monroe. Hope she does a remake of GI Jane.#reillyrocks #dragonscalegamer
Reilly stopped reading after the first few posts. She knew better than to read that stuff. She could read a thousand positive things, but she only remembered the bad things. The comment about the whole thing not being real because she never talked about it rolled like thunder through her head. Was that how people saw it? Did they really think that she could just forget all of that?
A video was embedded at the bottom of the blog post and a photo showed Randy Candy standing in front of a cardboard display of Reilly and Cray at a movie theater somewhere in L.A. promoting the soon to be released Salsa Nights II. She hesitated before she turned the volume back up and hit the play button. Randy Candy’s nasal whine blasted from the speakers.
“I’m standing here at the Galleria Cineplex asking John and Jane Q. Public their thoughts on why Reilly Ransome has overcome a scandal that would have ruined most of her peers,” Randy Candy said in an over-the-top imitation of a news anchor. “You! Sir! What’s your take? Has Reilly Ransome literally gotten away with murder?”
The ambushed man passed Randy, dodging the microphone that Randy pushed into his face. He walked away as the cameraman followed him. The view panned back and settled on another man who stopped when he noticed that he was about to walk in view of the camera. Randy rushed toward him.
“Has she, sir? Has Reilly Ransome gotten away with murder?”
“She went to jail, right? That doesn’t sound like she got away with anything to me.” The man cast a nervous glance between Randy and the camera.
“What about you two?” Randy asked a middle-aged couple passing in the opposite direction. They laughed but just kept walking. Then he turned to a man who followed behind them.
The man shook his head and smiled, but continued to walk, too.
Randy jumped up and down, acting like a child about to throw a tantrum. His trademark high-water pants with funky socks and red Converse helped complete the image.
“Come on, people, I know you have an opinion on this!” he shout-whined. “Why did Reilly Ransome literally get away with murder?”
“That’s bullshit,” said Drew, reaching over to stop the video.
Reilly grabbed her hand and held it, intent on watching people answer the question. Randy thrust his microphone at a man walking by holding a half-eaten tub of popcorn.
“She’s a good actress. We shouldn’t care about her personal life,” the soft-spoken man offered as twin splotches of red stained his cheeks.
A crowd had started to gather.
“What do you think?” asked Randy, holding the microphone toward a girl standing behind the popcorn guy.
“I don’t know. There’s something about her,” said the teenaged girl after pausing to consider the question.
Randy swiveled and shot his microphone out to another person.
“Duh. She’s hot,” said a platinum-haired surfer dude, who flashed the hang loose sign with his fingers before he continued on his way.
Life in High Def Page 32