by Maggie Marr
“I know what it’s like to be deep into the bottle, and I know he’s clean now, but Doll, it hasn’t been that long.” Daddy squeezed my hand. “Even me, who never really worked my program, knows he needs more time before he can get involved.”
“We’re not …” I didn’t discuss my personal life with Daddy. “We’re not involved,” I said.
“Right, good to know,” Daddy said. “Because right now isn’t a good time for him, or for you. Both of you have too many things to accomplish and figure out.”
Daddy was right, both Ryan and I had a lot of things we needed to do.
Ryan
“What the hell am I going to do?” I paced the back of the AA meeting like a caged cat. Russell sipped his coffee and eyed me over the top of his cup. Russell was hard-core AA. He had a decade of sobriety behind him. My pissing and moaning and whining and crying didn’t have much of an impact on him.
“You’re going to work your program. Feel that fuckin’ heartbreak like a fuckin’ man. And stay fuckin’ sober. That’s what you’re going to do.”
Russell had no sympathy. Why should he? I’d broken an AA rule, and now I had to deal with it.
“Don’t even give me those pretty-boy sad eyes,” Russell said. “Might work in the movies and with all those girls but, man, that shit will not work with me. This is why there are no relationships the first year. Relationships kick you onto your ass.”
“I think I love her,” I said. I settled my hands onto my hips.
“So the fuck what? You might. You probably do. What the hell does that matter? Feel that shit in your chest? That pain that makes you want to take a hit or drink a shot? That shit only goes away with time. You take a drink, and then once you come out of your drunken stupor you got the guilt on top of the pain. Man, just feel it. Go run through it. Go to the gym, beat the hell out of one of them big bags. Do something. Do anything except take the first drink.”
“Yeah,” I said. The itch ground into my soul. The itch that I couldn’t talk away, I couldn’t run from. The itch that crawled up my legs and over my skin. The itch was need. A need to get high, to get drunk, to simply just get the fuck away from these feelings.
“You have to feel them, man,” Russell said, as though he’d climbed into my brain. “That’s part of recovery, the part that sucks. We’ve medicated those feelings away for years with the booze and the drugs, and now you’re feeling them. Feeling them stone-cold sober and they fucking hurt, man. They fucking hurt. But I promise you, each day it hurts less and you can get through this. The flip side is eventually you get to feel all the good stuff too, without any guilt.” Russell clamped his hand to my shoulder. “I’m here, man, the program is here.”
I could lean on Russell and I had the program as well, but the thing I wanted, the person I needed the most, the person I loved? She didn’t want anything to do with me at all.
Amanda
“Dad told you about Kiley?”
I carried Sterling’s duffel bag over my shoulder. He sported a cast on his left arm and his beautiful face had a bandage covering his left cheekbone. The scar would make him look rugged. Ryan’s had. The nurse pushed Sterling through the doors to Cedars-Sinai and then he got up from the wheelchair. The driver that Daddy had hired for Sterling pulled to a stop in front of us. Once we were belted in the back seat, I turned to my brother.
“Daddy told me that he talked to the lawyers and that he and Kiley are through.”
“Of course he didn’t give you the sordid details. So typical. You know, not only was she seeing that Italian model, but she was banging Buddy, too,” Sterling said.
I exhaled and closed my eyes. “They’re like brothers,” I said. Buddy was my father’s oldest friend. They’d moved to Los Angeles together in the seventies to become actors. Daddy ended up a huge star and Buddy ended up as Daddy’s agent.
“Does she have an old guy fetish?” I asked.
“Not just old guys. There’ve been some young ones thrown into the mix, as well.”
“The mix?” My stomach churned. “How many men has she been sleeping with while Daddy was on location?”
“How many days have we been gone?” Sterling asked, but was only half joking. “Which would be fine,” Sterling said. “What’s good for the goose and all that, but she’s married.”
“Oh my God,” I said. We wove through the L.A. traffic. The driver pulled into the driveway of Sterling’s house and pressed the garage door button.
“Home sweet home,” Sterling said. “Guess you’ll be coming back here? Until you leave for New York?”
“I still have a job to finish,” I said. “Dillon is helping while I get you and Dad settled, but I expect to finish my job with Ryan, and then go to New York in the next couple of weeks.”
“That’s admirable,” Sterling said. He walked into the house. “But unnecessary. Have him find a replacement. I know a hundred sober companions that would jump at that gig. How’s it going with him?”
My well-practiced Legend expression clung to my features. There was no reason for Sterling to suspect what had gone on between Ryan and me. That was finished. I didn’t have room for Ryan in my life, nor did he have room for me in his. I just … I couldn’t get past the fact of who Ryan had been before he went to rehab. The girls—the sheer number of them—the magnitude of what he did with them could not be erased. “Amanda?”
“Hm? Sorry. Ryan? He’s doing really well. Working his program, peeing into his cup, going to set. He seems good.”
Sterling studied me for a moment and then turned to go down the hall toward his room. “That’s good to hear,” Sterling said. “Because I think Dad has a project he wants him for.”
“Daddy?” I asked. There was shock in my voice.
“He saw some dailies of Ryan’s latest film. He’s doing a great job. That picture looks good.”
“Right, but I didn’t think that Daddy would have Ryan in a film because—”
“Because of Kiley?” Sterling rolled his eyes upward and shook his head. “Please, if Dad refused to work with all the guys that Kiley’s slept with in the last six months then he wouldn’t have anyone to work with at all. Dillon and I are the only two left and she tried both of us, remember?”
I set Sterling’s overnight bag inside the door to his room. “You want anything?”
“I’m good,” Sterling said. “Will you be back tonight?” He settled onto his giant bed, grabbed the remote, and flipped on the flat screen on the far wall.
“I need to get things settled with Ryan. Figure out if he needs me and if he might be able to find a new sober companion. He’s only got two more weeks with me,” I said. Ache clutched my heart with the words. In fourteen days I would be finished driving Ryan, and making certain he went to NA and AA, and to his therapy appointments, and to the lab to take a pee test. Daddy seemed to have forgiven him for his indiscretion with Kiley, so why was I unable to do the same?
“Dad wanted to be back in production by tomorrow, but the doctors said the earliest he should consider going back to set was next Monday. So, that’s when we start.”
“You’re not going back to the Amazon are you?”
“Hell, no,” Sterling said flipping through channels on the TV. “The helicopter scene was our last one and we even got that shot. We were on our way back to camp when we went down.”
A shiver chased up my spine. I loved Sterling and I loved Daddy. They were my world. An existence without them was unimaginable. For close to a week I’d been forced to think about what a future without them might look like. Me, Amanda Legend, without my brother and my famous father. Me, alone in this world. When I tried to imagine what that looked like, the vision hadn’t included Ryan at all.
Chapter 24
Ryan
“We had a deal, Amanda.” Heat raced through my chest. I was pissed. I was beyond pissed; I was hurt, and heartbroken. Amanda sat on her bed. The bed where I’d held her for a night. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t meet my gaze.
“You promised you’d work through the film. There are only two weeks left.”
“I know,” Amanda said. “But Daddy and Sterling are back and they need me.”
“Your father has round-the-clock nursing care and Sterling is already home.” I jammed my hands onto my hips. “I need you.” My pointer finger thudded against my chest. Why did Amanda refuse to understand that it was me who needed her? I needed her the way I needed sunshine and air. Without her I couldn’t breathe and my world was dark. I ran my hand through my hair and dropped my chin to my chest. This was pain. Pure pain from which I wanted to escape. But I wouldn’t let her see it; I would shred this pain and bury it deep inside me.
“There’s an intern slot open in New York,” Amanda said. Her voice was soft. Her eyes didn’t meet mine.
I cocked my head to the side. Really? She decided that she loathed me so much that now she had to leave L.A. immediately?
“So, that’s who you are? Who you want to be? The type of person who runs out on their responsibilities? The type of person who doesn’t finish what she starts?”
“Fine,” Amanda said. Her voice was hard and contained an edge. “I’ll stay for the last two weeks. Will that make you happy? You have me. I’m yours.”
The words bit me. "I’m yours" had been said with such anger and contempt. I didn’t have her and she wasn’t mine. At least not the way I wanted her to be. The way I needed her to be.
“Tell me, what exactly happened between the club and getting back here last week?”Red crept up her neck and into her cheeks. The Legend Look was now off-kilter and beginning to slide from her face.
“Because as far as I remember, we were pretty hot and heavy and then, all of a sudden”—my hand sliced through the air— “nothing.”
Her gaze flickered to meet mine.
“Was it that easy for you to turn off those feelings, Amanda? Is that part of the Legend facade too?”
Her eyes widened and a sharp gasp of air came over her lips. She remembered who I’d been, and had forgotten who I was trying to become.
“The new me not solid enough? The future me not real enough? It’s the past me who you are judging right now. The one you found with Kiley? That seems damned unfair.”
“I just … I can’t,” Amanda started to speak and stopped. “I can’t get past it. Ryan, I’m trying. But, let’s be honest, we both know us being together is not healthy for you.” Her eyes held pain, a pain that she reflected back to me. “I’m leaving L.A.”
I closed my eyes tight and shook my head. I couldn’t survive this—being with her, the ache, the want, knowing that she was leaving me.
“No,” I said. “Forget it. I’ll call Webber. I’ll find a replacement. You’re a quitter and that’s not what I need in my life right now.” More angry words burst from me and I couldn’t stop them. A raw edge, like an open wound, ached within me. I wanted her. I wanted Amanda. I wanted her to want to stay in L.A. I wanted her to act like I fucking mattered, that what we had, and what we started mattered. My phone rang and “restricted number” popped onto the screen.
“Hello?”
“Ryan?” A sweet sultry voice purred into the phone. A voice I vaguely remembered, a voice … was it a voice from when I was drunk, or when I was sober? “It’s Carly,” she said. “From Clarity.”
“Carly!” My gaze swept over Amanda. Yeah, I was being a dick now, but she’d been the one to end what was starting between us because of a past I couldn’t change. I was trying my damnedest to make amends and to make certain the bad stuff in my past would never happen again, but I couldn’t make Amanda see what she didn’t want to see.
“How are you? Baby, it’s good to hear your voice.” Amanda hunched forward and stared at the bracelet on her wrist. She flinched when I said the word "baby."
“You, too. So, listen, I’m having this thing at El Royo in Silver Lake. To try out some of the new stuff I’ve written. I wondered if you might want to come.”
“Come and see you? Of course.”
“Tonight. Around eleven?”
“We’ll be there.”
“We?” Carly asked.
“My sober companion. She’s part of the contract for the film I’m working on now. No biggie. It’s just she has to go wherever I go. Another two weeks and I’m free.” I let my eyes land on Amanda. We locked gazes. She wore that fucking Legend hard cold stare. The one that said, I don’t care and I never did. The one I hated. The one that I knew now was an utter lie. I’d felt the heat behind those eyes, the passion, the desire. I’d heard the dry wit and the astute commentary. I knew that nothing got by Amanda. She saw everything and she heard everything and all of it impacted her, she just was really good at pretending. She was a true Hollywood kid.
I slid my phone into my jeans pocket. I crossed my arms. My eyes bored into her, letting her know that I truly saw her. She didn’t flinch, she didn’t move.
“You know this isn’t fair,” I said. My voice was low and soft. I wanted to walk to her and pull her to standing and wrap my arms around her. Press her against my body. Hold her and kiss her and force her to understand who I was now. “You knew everything about me before we got involved. You knew my past. Where I’d been. What I’d done. What I’m trying to do now.”
She pressed her lips tight and she tilted her head and looked at me. “I didn’t really consider everything the way I should have.” Her blue-eyed gaze never left me, didn’t slip from my face. “And when I finally did think about it …” Her gaze flickered and she looked at the ground. She pulled on the bracelet again and her teeth grazed her bottom lip. Her gaze flicked back to mine. “When I did think about it, I just, I can’t …” She shook her head. “I can’t be who you want me to be.”
Pain cracked through my ribs. A pain that thrashed my heart and that I wanted to escape. Fuck, it sucked to be sober and sad.
“I want you to be you,” I said.
“I am being me. I know that I can’t be the girl who walks into a restaurant, or a premiere, or anywhere and constantly wonder which girls there you’ve slept with. It’s going to take a long time, Ryan, for you to make all your amends and work through everything, and I just can’t be the girl to do it with you.”
“More like you don’t want to do it with me.”
“Right,” Amanda said. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to take care of Daddy and my brother. And you’re right, I don’t want to. And I shouldn’t have to. What I want is to go to New York. I want to get away from entertainment. I want to start my life, on my own, for me, without having to take care of anyone else. And I don’t want to be faced with the ghosts of your past.”
Her voice didn’t waver. Her face contained a solemn clarity. She held my gaze. She wasn’t mine anymore; perhaps she’d never been mine.
“We’ll leave at ten-thirty,” I said.
Amanda nodded, “I’ll be ready.”
I turned to leave, to walk out of the room when all I really wanted to do was scoop up Amanda and take her to my room. Even now when I was hurt and angry and confused I still wanted to take her with me and make her mine.
Amanda
Ryan left and I threw myself onto my bed. Bernie lay beside me. My heart wanted to explode from my chest and I quashed a loud wail that threatened.
I did want Ryan. I wanted to hold him, to touch him, to be with him, to make him mine and to be his. But I wanted my own life even more. I wanted Ryan to find his way and I knew I needed to find mine.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Bernie’s wet nose nudged my palm. His fur was warm and soft. The stroke of my hand was soothing not only to Bernie, but to me, too. Ryan said he didn’t want me to finish my two weeks but I knew it was a lie. I owed it to Ryan to finish, didn’t I? He gave me a job when no one else in town would. I wanted to beg Ryan to come to New York with me once his film finished. I wanted him to share my New York adventure. But I knew. I knew deep inside that Ryan coming to New York and us playing house wouldn’t be healthy. I’d spent
high school and college hiding behind what Sterling and Daddy needed. Hiding behind them so I didn’t have to live. I maneuvered their lives and silently tried to make everything better and easier for them whenever they needed me, but I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I wasn’t going to sacrifice my adventure to take care of Ryan. I needed to do what I wanted and what was right for me.
“Amanda?”
“Come in.” My fingertips scrubbed under my eyes and I filled my lungs with a long cleansing breath of air. Lane walked in and closed the door behind her.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I nodded and tried to smile, but my lips wouldn’t move.
“Oh, Amanda,” she said. She walked to the bed and sat beside me. Her arms wrapped around my shoulder. “Sweetie.” She pulled me in close and I rested my head on her shoulder. “Is this about your dad?”
I shook my head no.
“Sterling?”
“No,” I said. My voice wobbled.
“Ryan?” she asked. Her voice was softer and more tentative.
I nodded.
“I thought so,” Lane said. “He blew out of here in a huff.”
A giant lump in my throat expanded into a knot. She pulled me closer and I let the sobs move through my body.
“Oh, Honey,” Lane said.
“I have to go to New York,” I said. Lane pulled a tissue from the nightstand and handed it to me. I dried my tears and blew my nose.
“I know you do,” Lane said. “And he knows you have to go, too.”
“He doesn’t understand.”
“Probably not,” Lane said. “You’ve been under so much stress. First you’re homeless and penniless, then you’re stuck driving around the guy who is part of what wrecked your relationship with your dad, then you’ve got Kiley dragging your name through the mud, then Sterling and your Dad are in an accident. Sweetie. You have a right to cry. I’d cry if just one of those things had happened to me, let alone all of them.”