Power

by Jillian Dodd

  “So we need to start over. Sort of.”

  “I think so. I also need to tell you something else. Something I should have told you long before now. On graduation day, when we ran into each other outside the auditorium and I told you, I was going to put a note on your car. I wasn't going to tell you in person. But there you were.”

  She reaches in her pocket and pulls out a worn looking folded up piece of paper. She lays it in my hand just as there's a knock on the door.

  “I think our time is up.” I hand the note back to her.

  “You keep it, Riley. Maybe read it sometime. It says everything I wanted you to know that day but couldn’t say.”

  I give her a sad smile and shove the note in my pocket as the door opens and about thirty former Stockton’s members stroll in.

  Keatyn and Dallas are the last ones to enter.

  “We held them off as long as we could.” She looks at me tentatively.

  I wrap one arm around Ariela and the other around her and, just like I used to, say, “It’s time to party.”

  Dallas joins our group hug. “You girls getting up on the bar to dance, for old times sake?”

  “Hell yes,” both Keatyn and Ariela say then go running up to the bar.

  As Dallas and I watch them dance with some other girls they’ve coaxed up with them, he says, “Why did she come? Did she know you were here?”

  “She came for the same reason I did. To put the past behind her.”

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12TH

  Hotel Suite - Connecticut

  GRACIE

  “You made Homecoming amazing,” Baylor tells me as he drops me off at the hotel suite. “I’m so glad you surprised me.”

  “Even though it caused you some girl trouble?” I tease. My back is against the door, my chin raised. I’ve been hoping all night that he’d kiss me already.

  He touches my cheek. “You have a little bruise.”

  “I have a magazine cover shoot tomorrow.”

  “What will you tell them?”

  “That I got in a wicked cat fight over an adorable boy.”

  “You think I’m adorable?” he asks, his lips moving closer. “Girls don’t usually say that about me.”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think that. What do they usually say?”

  He shrugs, looks shy. “I don’t know.”

  “I know what they say, Baylor. They say you’re hot. You’re a Hawthorne. You’re an amazing quarterback. You drive an expensive car. I hear the same things. She’s hot. She’s Tommy Steven’s and Abby Johnston’s daughter. She’s rich. She was nominated for an Academy Award. She blah blah blah. They say things that aren’t so nice too. I think you’re adorable because you were a gentleman who offered me his seat. Because you send me texts that actually have substance and not just ask me what’s up. Because you opened the car door for me. Because you asked my sister what my favorite color was and then went out and bought me flowers. And because I loved the way you held me when we danced.”

  He grabs my face and kisses me. Unexpectedly hard. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back just as hard. So hard I don’t have time to breathe. Or maybe it’s that the kiss took my breath away.

  “Wow,” I say, when he ends the kiss and looks into my eyes.

  “The perfect ending to the perfect night,” he says. “Goodbye, Gracie.”

  “Goodbye,” I say sadly, not wanting him to leave.

  “You look sad,” he says. “You come to Eastbrooke and there will be a lot more of those.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  “I may decide to go to school in California,” he says with a grin then he pushes my chin up with his finger and gives me one more kiss before he leaves.

  I walk into the suite and flop on the bed next to Keatyn in a happy daze.

  “How was your night?” she asks.

  “Amazing. I really see why you loved it here.”

  “So, do you like Eastbrooke or do you like Baylor?”

  “Both.”

  “If you decide to give up acting and go to school, don’t do it for a boy, Gracie. Do it for yourself.”

  “When I visited, Keatyn, I did it because I wanted to. Not because of a boy. I didn’t know at the time that Brady would sleep with Kylie and I didn’t know I would meet Baylor. You’re the reason I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “I am?”

  “Not just you, but all of you. Maggie, Riley, Dallas. You have amazing friends. Even before Kylie hooked up with Brady, I knew she wasn’t the same kind of friend. I don’t have any friends.”

  “You don’t? What about Dylan and Tabitha? You grew up together on The Gracie Experiment.”

  “We were best friends on set, but then as soon as I quit and went on to do movies, they sort of stopped being my friends.”

  “They haven’t really gone on to do anything else, have they?”

  “Dylan does some commercials, but that’s about it. Do you think that’s why? It’s like they decided they don’t like me anymore.”

  “Sometimes that happens in this business.”

  “I heard them talking behind my back one time. About how I only got to switch to movies because of who I am. That I’m not even that good of an actress.”

  “Well, obviously you are. You were nominated for an Academy Award already. That’s pretty unusual and not something they give out just because you’re related to someone famous. Your dad’s never been nominated.”

  “I know. He told me that. It’s a hard choice. I love acting. It’s always been something I felt compelled to do.”

  “You used to do shows for us when you were little,” she says. “You would make Pooh dance. And you wanted to rename him Mr. Bear because he didn’t want to be named after poop.”

  “I’ve seen the videos. Pretty funny, huh?”

  “Well, it just shows that you’ve been working on your craft for a long time. Not to mention the acting lessons you take too.”

  “I want to keep getting better, but I also wish I could just be normal.”

  “Just because you’re famous doesn’t mean you can’t be normal. You act in public. You’re yourself in private.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. In public, I am myself.”

  “It’s up to you to decide what you want the world to see. For example, there are no photos of you and Baylor on your Instagram.”

  “And there won’t be.”

  “Why?”

  I touch my lips. “Because I want to keep him to myself.”

  “Did you kiss him?”

  “He kissed me goodnight.”

  “And?”

  “It was an amazing kiss. I didn’t think he was going to kiss me. He held my hand all night. We danced and had so much fun. And I like his friends. They’re fun too. We had a lot of fun at the after party. Danced our asses off.”

  “I bet you’re tired,” she says, pulling a throw over me.

  “I wasn’t until I laid down.”

  “Are you flying back home with us?”

  “No, I have a cover shoot in New York tomorrow.”

  “Who are you staying with? How are you getting there?”

  “You know Mom and Dad won’t let me travel without my bodyguard, Cooper Junior.”

  “Yet, you ditched him and came here by yourself,” she scolds.

  “He told me Tommy yelled at him. He’s meeting me here at noon then a car is driving us into the city. Dad’s going to be in town shooting a commercial, so we’re staying with him.”

  “Will you get into trouble?”

  “They maybe kinda think you invited me. Does Mom know you didn’t?”

  “I didn’t tell her, no,” she says with a smile.

  I give her a hug. “You’re my favorite sister.”

  “Get some sleep, Gracie.”

  “Or I could tell you about the kiss.”

  She perks up. “You could.”

  I sit up and face her. I can’t help it. I’m so freaking excited, so I tell her ever
y single detail of my amazing night.

  Hotel Suite - Connecticut

  RILEY

  “We’ve got to go!” Dallas yells, waking me out of a deep sleep.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “RiAnne is in labor,” he says, his phone up to his ear. “For real this time. We’ve got to get that pretty little jet of yours in the air.” He says into his phone, “Okay, baby. Hang on.” Then he turns to me. “She wants to talk to you.”

  I shake my head no, but he puts the phone to my ear anyway.

  “Hey, RiAnne,” I mumble, my voice not working this early.

  “If I have this baby alone, Riley, there will be hell to pay. Please—Oh, shit, that hurts—hurry!”

  I hop out of bed and start throwing clothes in my bag. “Did you get Keatyn and Gracie up?”

  “Gracie’s getting picked up at noon. And Keatyn’s up,” he says. I run in the bathroom to grab the rest of my things and can hear him still talking.

  “Baby, it’s okay. Calm down. Worse case, I’ll video conference.”

  I can’t hear what she says but I can hear her yelling. I don’t think she wants to video conference the birth with him.

  “Just tell the baby he needs to wait until Daddy gets there,” Dallas says calmly. I really don’t know how the hell he’s so calm. I’m a nervous wreck. It’s my fault that he’s here in the first place. I’ll be damned if he’s going to miss his baby being born because of me.

  “I’m ready,” I say, rolling my bag out of the room with Dallas in tow.

  “Are you ready, Keatyn? We’ve got to go now!”

  “Have you called the pilot?” Keatyn asks me.

  “Shit! No!”

  Dallas covers his phone. “He’s the first person I called.”

  “How are you so damn calm?” I ask him.

  “Baby number five, I suppose.”

  He grabs Keatyn’s tote, gives Gracie a kiss goodbye, and we head out.

  The elevator feels like it takes forever. Come on.

  Keatyn leans her head on my shoulder. “I think I’m still asleep.”

  I wrap my arm around her, imagining Aiden will not be as calm as Dallas when it comes time to have their baby. “You can sleep on the plane.”

  Dallas is still talking to RiAnne. “We’ll be wheels up in twenty minutes. Six hours I’ll be there, if not sooner. I know. I know.” He turns to me. “Ri says that she hates you right now.”

  Keatyn grabs the phone from Dallas. “Hey, Ri. How you doing? Just think. This is the last time that you’ll ever be in labor. Your last baby. Slow down and enjoy it if you can.”

  I hear more yelling.

  “Uh, okay. Um, does it help to know that Dallas bought you something spectacular for this one? Since it’s the last.”

  She hands the phone back to Dallas.

  “Yes, of course I did. It’s our last baby. You’ve been an amazing mother and are my beautiful Pookiebear. Spectacular is an understatement.”

  Vanessa’s Estate - Holmby Hills

  DAWSON

  I wake up to find sunlight streaming through the windows and Vanessa gone from her bed.

  I look at the clock, shocked it’s almost nine and immediately worried about the girls.

  I quickly get dressed and follow the chatter out to the kitchen.

  Vanessa and the girls are making pancakes together. Their conversation is loud and animated. They are chatting happily about their grandma and grandpa’s beach house. How Daddy's toe got bit by a crab.

  Vanessa’s hair is pulled back off her face, and she’s wearing my shirt with a pair of jean shorts.

  Her long legs are tan and her feet are bare.

  For a few precious moments, I just observe.

  Scenes like this never happened at our home. Whitney didn’t like to eat breakfast and was rarely up in time. The medication that she took made her sleep hard through the night.

  But since we moved in with my parents, making breakfast together has become a happy new ritual for me and the girls.

  I want to rush to Vanessa and hug her for starting without me.

  She has no idea how much this means to me.

  I suppose, eventually, I’m going to have to get naked too. Tell Vanessa the whole truth about what happened with Whitney. But I’m afraid if I do . . .

  “Daddy!” Harlow yells.

  She runs and jumps into my arms, so I pick her up and carry her back to the island.

  “We're making pancakes,” Ava says, looking up from the batter she’s stirring.

  “The girls and I have made a decision,” Vanessa says.

  “What's that?”

  “We decided that this house is too stuffy. There are too many things that are breakable and I'm getting rid of it. Selling it. Starting over.”

  I set Harlow on the counter, kiss the top of Ava’s head, and then pull Vanessa into my arms.

  “It's a gorgeous house. The architecture, the location, the grounds. Maybe what it needs is a new look. A little remodeling to turn it into something that's more you.”

  “More me?”

  “Yeah, like the you today. Who even knew Vanessa Flanning owned a pair of cutoffs.”

  She looks down at herself and smiles. Then she looks around the room and at my daughters.

  “You’re doing a great job, Ava,” Vanessa says. “Go ahead and pour them onto the griddle.”

  “No! Daddy has to do that part,” Harlow objects. “The griddle is hot!”

  “I think Ava is old enough to be careful. What do you think, Ave? Can you handle it?”

  She beams. “Oh course I can! I’ve been telling you for years that I’m old enough.”

  “What can I do?” Harlow pouts.

  “Why don’t you help me heat up the syrup?” Vanessa says to her.

  While they work on the syrup, Ava says, “Will you teach me how to flip them, Dad? I know I need to watch for the bubbles, but I’m afraid that I’ll ruin them.”

  “You can’t ruin pancakes, sweetie. But why don’t I hold your hand while you do the first one?”

  She nods and I hold her hand on top of the turner. We gently slide it under the pancake then carefully flip it.

  “We did it!” she says, excitedly.

  “Now, you do the rest.”

  “Oh, shoot. I messed that one up a little, but look!”

  “You are officially the new pancake maker. Now I can sleep in late.”

  “No way. Pancake making is fun because we’re all together.”

  After we’ve demolished the pancakes, the girls head up to the playroom.

  “Thank you,” Vanessa says to me, as she’s clearing dishes.

  “For what?”

  “For this morning. Sharing your girls with me. This is what I always dreamed of, a house full of kids.”

  “Have you ever thought of adopting?”

  “I’ve thought of a lot of things. I just kept thinking—never mind, it’s silly.”

  I pull her into my arms. “Tell me.”

  “I was hoping there’d be a father in the picture. Would you want more kids?”

  “Yes. But not yet.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not until—”

  “Until what?”

  “Until I get married again.”

  “Oh,” she says, a grin creeping across her face.

  “Come here,” I say, guiding her lips toward mine.

  Cedars-Sinai Medical Center - Los Angeles

  KEATYN

  We make it to the hospital just in time. Dallas runs to get scrubbed in and Riley and I collapse in the private waiting room.

  I reach out and grab his hand. “You’re a good friend and pretty freaking brilliant. What made you think of the helicopter?”

  “It was my pilot’s idea. I just agreed to pay for it.”

  “Well, it was smart. If we would’ve had to go through traffic, we wouldn’t have made it.”

  “How was Homecoming?” Aiden asks, joining us and greeting me with a kiss.


  “It was good,” Riley says. “Thanks for letting her come with me.”

  He laughs and squeezes my hand. “Somehow I don’t think I had a say in it.”

  “She is pretty stubborn,” Riley teases. “But it was good. Ariela was there. We talked. Partied together. And decided to think about things this week. We’re deciding at the wedding if we want to try again or not.”

  “At my wedding!? Oh, no, you’re not!” I say.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s supposed to be a happy occasion! Don’t make her leave the wedding, Riley.”

  “I’m not going to make her leave. We just don’t know if we should try again. We aren’t the same people we were back in high school.”

  “I think that’s a good thing,” Aiden states.

  “Why do you think that?” Riley asks him.

  “Because you’ve grown up a lot. You’ve lived a lot. You’ve had a lot of life experiences. If things do work out for the two of you this time, you will appreciate it more. You’ll cherish it.”

  Dallas steps into the room. “Ready to meet the newest McMahon?”

  I’m the first to react, jumping up before the guys.

  Aiden takes my hand and we follow Dallas into their room.

  RiAnne is sitting up in bed, holding a little pink bundle.

  “It’s a girl!?” I screech. “You were so sure it was a boy!”