Typecast

by Kim Carmichael

  With a new goal clearly in mind, she spun around to her father. “In turn I doubted him, broke a law, and blindsided him with what I had done. I took something sacred and ruined it.”

  “He left you at a movie studio in tears. He promised you he wouldn’t leave, yet he did.” Her mother put her hands on her hips.

  “I left him no choice.” She swiped her computer back from her father. “I’m done being a slave to wanting something I wasn’t meant to have, and I’m not using anything Logan taught me to get ahead without him.”

  She plopped down on the chair opposite them and gave a quick scan to her e-mail account. The e-mails from Craig piled up. One thing was certain, she wouldn’t want anyone looking through her messages, least of all Erin, and her e-mails weren’t nearly as interesting.

  Without opening any of the e-mails, she composed one of her own.

  “What are you doing?” Her father came over and peered over her shoulder.

  “The only thing I can do. I have decided ruining an important story for the website and breaking into someone’s e-mail is an offense worthy of losing one’s job.” She doled out her own brand of justice and began typing.

  Dear Craig,

  I know this is not the most professional way to act, and I promise when I am in a better state of mind I will talk to you in person, but as of today, I am officially resigning from my job at Chargge.com. As you know, I was in a very personal and romantic relationship with Logan Alexander, which unfortunately ended two days ago. I find myself unable to cover the Hollywood Stardust story any longer, and I have decided I must pursue another career track. I apologize for the abrupt notice, but at the moment my life is not at the point where I could do the story any justice. In the end, I was unable to uncover any earth shattering news, but the opportunity to spend time with the stars from the movie will be something I will always remember.

  Thank you for everything,

  Ivy R. Vermont

  Before second-guessing her next action, she sent the message. “My quest to make it cost me everything. It’s not even my quest anymore.”

  “You just quit.” Her father raised his voice.

  “Are you scared of having to cover the gala on your own?” Her mother rushed over.

  “You know, fear is a warning sign.” She looked between her parents. “It tells you when something isn’t right. I’m going to stop fighting the fear. I’m terrified of the camera, and I shouldn’t be in front of it, and if I was terrified of being in love with Logan and having him leave me, well then, I shouldn’t have him.” With the words out, the truth out, the tears started afresh. Just because someone shouldn’t have something, couldn’t have something or someone, didn’t mean they didn’t want them.

  HOLLYWOOD STARDUST

  CUT TO:

  EXT. STREET – NEEDLES, CA – DAY

  WILLIAM and STEVEN search for ROXY.

  WILLIAM

  Did you sleep with her?

  STEVEN glances at him.

  WILLIAM

  I was her first.

  STEVEN

  Well, I was her last.

  They face each other.

  WILLIAM

  You’re still my best friend.

  STEVEN

  We still need to find her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “I’m going to say this one more time, and since I know you’re speaking on a landline, don’t give me any of your bullshit about you not being able to hear me.” Logan paced the length of Isaac’s kitchen, walked to the stove to check his sauce, and leaned back on the counter. “I am not going to the anniversary gala.”

  “And what is your reasoning?” As if he was put out, Brian exhaled into the phone.

  “I have something in the oven.” He bent down and peered through the window into Isaac’s double oven. “Really, I have something in two ovens. I didn’t want to lie to you.”

  “You know as well as I do you have to go.”

  “I just washed my hair, and I can’t do a thing with it.” He ran his hand through his hair and winced. Fine, he lied. He didn’t just wash his hair. He didn’t remember when he had washed it. In fact, he didn’t do much of anything but cook and think about Ivy. For the first time in his life, he was ready to take a razor blade to his head and just throw in the towel on all counts.

  “Logan.” Brian lowered his voice.

  “I’m no longer dealing with the minions. I don’t want their money or their baggage. There’s no more ‘all for one and one for all.’ I want out. They know this. They don’t have to talk if they don’t want to. They can just be eccentric, and I can be left alone.”

  “So after all these years, you just want to walk away, say thank you very much, and they have no repercussions?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” He walked to the refrigerator and stopped. Refrigerators reminded him of Ivy and their first kiss. He pressed his forehead against the cold, unforgiving stainless steel that mocked him.

  “Well, since we have no formal agreement and they are on their way to the gala, you, my friend, are still under contract and you need to get there.”

  “We are not friends.” Before his life had imploded, he had gone with Ivy to pick out her dress for tonight, a gorgeous 1920s floor-length, form-fitted beaded dress in shimmering copper. Once it was on her, she looked like a gorgeous flame. Her new ring would have set the whole look off to perfection. While they had shopped, she had also told him she’d started dressing in vintage clothes because maybe she had been searching for her time and place, but now she had it with him.

  Of course, before he’d lost everything that mattered, he was finally going to show up to something important with someone who mattered. Now everything seemed pointless. Though he thought about staying in his contract and letting his life continue as before, for him and for Ivy, he needed to end it. Even if she didn’t know, he had to be a good guy.

  “Well, maybe you’ll like me better once I tell you to go look in today’s National Reporter.” Brian punctuated his sentence with an evil chuckle.

  “At least you did something.” While he wanted to enjoy the moment, it would have been made all the sweeter with his love there to wrinkle her nose in disapproval but secretly love it.

  “Get to the gala and do your job. You are still a kept man.” Brian ended the call.

  In the last twenty years, he had been called every name in the book, he had been blamed for the cancellation of the sequel for a beloved movie, and he had even been vandalized. And he would go through it all again if only he didn’t have to walk in without Ivy. The questions would begin immediately and he wasn’t prepared to answer them. Hell, he wasn’t prepared for anything except answering questions about Ivy’s ring.

  “All right, I found an old tuxedo, but you and I are not the same size.” Isaac came bounding down the stairs.

  His stomach churned at the sight of the outfit. “We are not even in the same decade.”

  “Well, you can go with the sweats.” Isaac tilted his head. “You’ve had them on so long they could go as your plus one.”

  He stomped over and grabbed the tuxedo. “I’ll need some underwear. I threw mine out the day after I moved in with you.”

  Isaac’s focus landed on the front of Logan’s loose pants. “You can keep both outfits.”

  “I’m a disaster.” He returned to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. At the sight of the raspberries, he insisted Isaac pick up at the store, his knees almost gave out.

  “Also, I think flies are starting to swarm around you.” Isaac snuck a look in one of the pots. “Oh, you made chicken and dumplings. Yes!”

  “Don’t eat that.” He rushed over, slammed the lid down, and put his hand over his eyes. “Never mind, go ahead and eat it.”

  “I would not dare eat Ivy’s chicken and dumplings, or Ivy’s vanilla cake, or Ivy’s meat loaf, but do you think we could get Ivy back before all the food goes to waste?” Isaac leaned back on the counter and crossed his arms. “She read some e-
mails. You would’ve done the same thing if given the opportunity.”

  “I told her to come to me. The trust is gone. If you don’t have that, what do you have?” The two of them were beginning to sound like one of those shows they played over and over on cable television where everyone sat around and argued. “She even said she wanted the world to know.”

  “But she didn’t tell the world. She came to you.” Isaac pointed at him. “Obviously, she didn’t do a press release or you would have heard about it.”

  “Has she done any updates on the show?” He turned away.

  “You banned looking at Chargge.com.”

  “At least someone listens.” All he wanted to do was pound his fist through something.

  “No, I only said you banned looking, but I looked anyway.”

  “Et tu, Drew?” He snarled.

  “I deserved that.” Isaac laughed.

  “Well, are you going to tell me?”

  Before Isaac could answer, someone pounded at the door. Beaker barked and ran to the front of the house.

  “I’m going to get the door.” On his way, Isaac flicked him on the head. “You should really take a shower.”

  “Hey, asshole!” Wilson screamed through the house. “When the going gets tough, my brother takes off.”

  “Why are you here?” He didn’t bother to turn around.

  “I had some things to deliver to you, and once again, I had to make sure you didn’t screw your life up.” Wilson came up behind him, grabbed his shoulder, and pulled him around.

  He tensed and lifted his chin.

  Wilson twisted his fist in his sweatshirt and held him fast. “I thought you would emerge once you realized what an idiot you are, but since it’s the day of the gala and you didn’t show up for clothes, I figured I’d come to the mountain.”

  “I’m fine.” He attempted to jerk away from his monstrous brother.

  “You look like crap and you have a shindig to get to.” With a garment bag and backpack slung over one arm, Wilson kept hold of him and yanked him toward the stairs. “Is he in the guest bedroom?”

  “Yep, the towels in there are clean.” Isaac laughed.

  “Let go of me.” He tried to push his brother away, but Wilson was always gargantuan, and he managed to literally drag him up the stairs and into Drew’s guest room.

  “You go take a shower and don’t make me get in with you.” Wilson thrust him toward the bathroom door.

  He tripped and caught himself on the doorknob. “You are just like everyone else. You just want to make sure the money keeps rolling in.”

  Wilson tossed his items on the bed. “After the last four days, and after what I’ve seen, I’m telling you that after I finish what I have to say, we’re off each other’s payrolls. I made some mistakes. I made you feel indebted to me because I was there for you. Well, I was wrong. You held up your end of the deal and now we need to be brothers.”

  Unsure of how to deal with Wilson’s admission, he stared his big brother down.

  “I came with your clothes, not for the money. I came because you are not a quitter, and you need to see your commitments through to the end, because you’re different than all of them.” His brother got up in his face. “Get cleaned up, now.”

  “What did you see the last four days?” His mind went to instantly to Ivy.

  Wilson lifted his chin.

  Knowing he would get nothing more, he entered the bathroom and slammed the door. He had watched enough movies to know he could climb out the bathroom window and escape, but it would do no good. They would find him. With or without Ivy, he would have to go to the gala and do the job he, himself, had put into place.

  He turned on the water and tore off his pity ensemble. Not caring if the water was hot or cold, he went through the motions of getting cleaned up and tried not to think of anything.

  As if on automatic, he finished washing and rinsing his hair, stepped out, and dried off, returning to the bedroom buck-naked.

  “Lord, have some dignity.” Wilson threw him a pair of underwear.

  “I lost my dignity when I used a bar of soap to wash my hair.” He got into the tuxedo. In truth, he lost it way before that, but now wasn’t the time for details.

  “You put it in a ponytail. It’s not like you need to style it.” His brother pointed to the door.

  At this point all he could do was continue to go through the motions. Make his appearance at the gala, deal with Erin and Ryder, and be alone. He went downstairs.

  “Don’t lose your glass slipper.” Drew opened the door for him. “Actually, maybe you should go find your princess.”

  “I’ll be back before midnight, and fairy tales don’t exist.” He shook his head. “Take the food out in twenty minutes.”

  Wilson pushed him outside. “We’ll take my car.”

  Though he wanted to get in the backseat and have Wilson chauffeur him, his brother’s late model SUV didn’t lend itself to a grand entrance. Logan got in the passenger seat and stared out the window as once again he drove away.

  “Are you going to speak?” Wilson got on the freeway in the dead of rush hour.

  “Are you going to tell me what you saw the last four days?” He took a pair of dusty sunglasses off his brother’s dashboard.

  “First, I have something for you.” With the car going no faster than a crawl, Wilson reached into the backseat and handed him a brown grocery bag.

  He reached inside and pulled out Ivy’s ring and the Hollywood Starburst script. A weight settled right in the center of his chest.

  “Those were returned to me the night I took your sobbing, almost fiancée to her apartment. I was the one who sat with her. I was the one who let her cry until my shirt was soaking wet. I was the one who tucked her in when she fell asleep from exhaustion.” Wilson squeezed the steering wheel.

  At the image his brother described, he exhaled and broke out in a sweat.

  “She wanted me to tell you she didn’t read any of it, not one word.”

  He knew if Ivy had said she didn’t read it then she didn’t, and he also knew what it meant. “How is she?” The question just happened—he couldn’t stop it.

  “How do you think she is?” Wilson gave him a quick look.

  “Tell me.” He closed his hand around the ring.

  “I don’t know. She was engaged to the man of her dreams for all of five minutes before he went postal on her for telling the truth. Her whole life is in shambles because the so-called man who loved her ditched her.” His brother hit the steering wheel, and the car lurched forward the few inches they managed to move in the gridlock.

  He sat up in the seat. “She broke our trust. I told her not to go looking. She didn’t come to me.”

  “Maybe because she knew what would happen.” Wilson took a breath. “In case it means anything to you, while Ivy freely admitted to doing things she shouldn’t, she never told Giselle what she found out.”

  He ground his teeth together. Of course she wouldn’t tell Giselle. She wouldn’t tell anyone. The woman practically threw herself in front of a crazy fan to protect him, and she came to him on the night of her engagement to tell him what she discovered. She never said she was going to tell the world. She only wanted to discuss it with him, which was what he told her to do. “What else?”

  “She quit her job two days ago. Right before your engagement piece should have aired. And just so that you can sleep at night knowing your stupid precious little secret is kept safe, Giselle looked at the e-mail after Ivy went to sleep. She point-blank told her boss there was no story beyond what the media already knew, and she failed at her assignment.” Wilson reached into his pocket and tossed a folded piece of paper to him. “Here, she printed it.”

  “After tonight, I am changing every password on every account. Nothing is sacred.” He opened the paper and scanned the words. Her loyalty to him dripped off the page. What had he done?

  “Now you just committed the same offense Ivy did. Are you going to tell her or hi
de it?” Wilson spat the words at him. “Better yet, why don’t you just stay gone? She’s better off without you if she has to live in fear that anytime she tells you something you’ll disappear.”

  He froze. “I drove away.”

  Wilson stared out the windshield.

  “I promised her I wouldn’t drive away, and I drove away.” He looked down at the script.

  “You suck,” Wilson hissed.

  “Will you get to this shindig already?” He pointed ahead.

  “What are you going to do?” Once more Wilson glanced at him.

  “I have to get to that party and deal with my minions.”

  “Then what are you going to do?” Wilson pulled into the emergency lane and sped down the freeway.

  “Right now I just need to not be the villain.” He pushed the sunglasses up on his nose and sat back. “I’m not walking the red carpet.”

  Alone.

  For the first time since she had watched Logan’s taillights take off, Ivy found herself alone in her apartment. It was a strange kind of alone, one she hadn’t felt for a long time. Lately, and most especially since Logan, any alone time was met with a sense of urgency of something she needed to do or anxiety over Logan’s whereabouts. However, this solitude came with nothing, no anticipation, no sense she wouldn’t be alone again sometime soon. Simply nothing.

  In a world where she didn’t break into a movie star’s e-mail and was still gainfully employed, she would have been ready to go to the gala and waiting for Logan to do whatever it was he did when he made himself look like a dream.

  After admitting she lived in the real world, she took a deep breath and put her dress away on the far side of her closet along with Logan’s clothes, which she promised she would give to Giselle to give to Wilson tomorrow.