The Right Wish

by Mankin, Michelle

  “You can’t put yourself between him and them.”

  Her chin lifted. “I’m not a passive bystander when it comes to my friends.”

  Frowning like she was, I moved in front of her. “Did you not hear what I said earlier?”

  “I heard you.” Her forward momentum interrupted, she planted her hands on her hips.

  I tried—and failed—not to be distracted by the way that maneuver stretched her top tighter across her perfect tits.

  “But in one stubborn ear and out the other.” I exhaled in frustration. “Fuck me.”

  This was another problem to solve before the tour left early in the morning. A serious high-priority one. I put it at the top of my to-do list.

  “There you are!” Jewel shouted.

  I glanced over to see Camaro’s best friend rushing down the porch steps. She must have been waiting outside the condo for us. Camaro had distracted me so much, I hadn’t noted our surroundings.

  “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.” Jewel slipped into the slender gap between her friend and me, widening it.

  “I’m sorry.” Camaro’s apology was muffled as the auburn-haired beauty engulfed her in a hug.

  “Forgiven.” Jewel leaned back and searched her friend’s features.

  “Thank you.” Camaro’s expression relaxed, her relief evident. The friendship between the two seemed as solid as mine with Rush. Did Camaro really fear she could lose Jewel’s affection so easily?

  “I was upset. Worried.” Jewel placed her arm around Camaro and turned to me. “I’ve been waiting for you to return so I could warn you.” Her brows drew together. “Bree’s inside.”

  I immediately froze solid.

  “Thought you might want to know.” Jewel huffed out a sigh. “She’s upset.”

  “Appreciate it.” I nodded once to Jewel, avoiding Camaro’s gaze. I couldn’t afford the distraction, which was a problem for me with her.

  As I moved ahead of the women up the stairs, tension tightened my muscles and stiffened my gait. While with Camaro, I’d completely forgotten the unpleasant task on my agenda for later this evening.

  Crossing the patio, I could hear the women’s softer footsteps behind me and feel the speculative gaze of at least one of them boring into my back. Before I could glance over my shoulder, Rush stepped out of the condo and intercepted me.

  “Whoa, man. Hold up.” He grimaced. “Bree’s in there.”

  “Yeah.” I glanced past him, spotting my soon-to-be former girlfriend pacing the living room. I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “Your fiancée already gave me a heads-up.”

  “Jewel probably didn’t clue you in that Bree’s not sober. And she’s definitely not here to reconcile with you.”

  “Got it.” I took a determined step forward, and Rush put his hand on my shoulder.

  “You advised me once to reconsider before breaking up with Brenda.”

  “I remember.” I turned my head to look at him.

  “I’m not going to give you the same counsel.” His brow furrowed. “Cut that one loose. I wouldn’t waste another moment on her.”

  “Not planning to.”

  “Good, glad to hear that,” he said and released me.

  When I stepped through the doorway, Bree whirled around. Tossing her artificially highlighted brown hair back from her puckered face, she glared at me, shaking with agitation from head to toe.

  “How dare you!”

  “Are you referring to the investigator I hired?” I asked flatly, lifting one brow.

  “You had no right.” Her lips pursed as if she’d taken a big bite into a lemon.

  My stomach had certainly burned as if I’d swallowed a whole basket full of them when I saw all the evidence the investigator had been able to provide on short notice.

  “I had every right.” My brows drew together. “We were in a committed relationship, and you had sex with other men.”

  “You aren’t in a relationship.” She clucked her tongue. “You never were, not at any point. The only thing you’re committed to is your work.”

  “It’s over, Bree. Let’s not play the blame game. You won’t like the things I have to say.”

  I warned her, intending to spare her, but she had no intention of doing the same.

  “You think you’re all that, Bradley Marshall, with your big bank account and your famous friends.” Bree narrowed her eyes, probably noting as I did that we had an audience. She loved performing more than anything. “You make all the rules, all the decisions. You say it, and that’s the way it has to be. Everything proceeds according to your plans. You never once asked me what I wanted, what I need. We were just two people who fucked under the same roof occasionally.”

  I chuckled, which just infuriated her more. “I know exactly who you are and what you want.”

  Actually, I did now. I hadn’t at the beginning, or maybe I had but I’d just chosen not to acknowledge it. I wanted something meaningful, but being superficial with her had worked for me at the time.

  “You’re an opportunist,” I said evenly, tamping down my anger. “You’ve been using my connections behind my back, throwing my name around to try to get your name on the short list for callbacks. I know beneath that artificial layer of attractiveness that you’re unkind. I know you’re enjoying putting me down right now in front of my friends. I overlooked that and so many things, because I know it’s not easy making a relationship work, given my schedule. But it was me in a relationship all on my own from the very beginning.”

  Her lips parted and her light brown eyes rounded to the size of those bright spotlights she loved above all.

  “We’re done,” I said firmly. “We were done a long while back. I should have cut you loose then, but I’m rectifying my mistake right now. Hand over your house key.” I held out my palm, and her jaw dropped. “Email me an address when you have one. I’ll have a service return any extraneous things.”

  Her cheeks red, she snapped her mouth shut and dug in her bag. “How do you plan to compensate me for all the time I wasted on you?” she asked, finding and slapping her key into my palm.

  My fingers wrapped around the key as revulsion curdled the acidic stew in my stomach. She was more of an opportunist than I’d realized.

  “I could ask you the same question. In fact, I’ll have my lawyer contact you tomorrow.”

  The color drained from her cheeks, leaving them pale. “That won’t be necessary.”

  I’d shocked her, but not for long. She blinked rapidly as her mind worked, and her lips twisted. I braced, knowing a nasty remark was coming.

  “At least I gave you orgasms,” she spat out.

  “You didn’t give me a damn thing.” I shook my head. “What a bunch of bullshit. You begged for sex, even this morning.”

  “I’m an actress. I pretended I wanted you, Bradley, and I faked my orgasms. Every. Single. Time.” She turned and stomped away, her heels clomping on the hardwoods.

  Nearly an entire year wasted with her, yet as I watched her disappear, I felt no regrets.

  Just immense and utter relief.

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  Camaro

  “She got her dramatic exit,” Brad said as the front door to the condo slammed behind Bree. “I’m so sor—”

  Rush shook his head and held up a hand. “Don’t apologize for her. She wanted to make a scene, and she did. But it’s the last thing she got from you.”

  “I know that.” Brad nodded, acknowledging the remark, but there were lines bracketing his mouth and eyes that hadn’t been there before. Losses, even the ones that were supposed to be good for you, left their mark on you.

  “Think of it this way.” Rush moved closer and elbowed his friend. “You’re unattached now, and leaving on a rock tour in the morning. You’ll have your pick of groupies who won’t think your business-manager routine is boring.”

  “Yeah, there’s that.” Brad didn’t look or sound enthusiastic, or maybe it was only me projecting
disinterest on him.

  Bree was gone. I could barely believe it. I’d mostly tried to avoid thinking about him with her, which had been pretty easy to do since she didn’t come around much.

  But just the idea of him considering having sex with groupies made my stomach churn. Sure, I got why guys took pleasure without strings when it was offered. In my experience, they didn’t form emotional attachments the way women did. Jewel had found an exception with Rush, and my mom did with my father. But it had never worked that way with any man and me.

  “That nasty swelling on your jaw might give them pause.” Rush grinned. “Or maybe it’ll spice up your image. You look almost dangerous.”

  “What swelling?” Jewel asked.

  When she moved closer, so did I. My eyes widened when I saw the evidence of Pete’s handiwork beneath the overhead lights.

  “You didn’t have that earlier.” Rush glanced between Brad and me. “What the fuck happened out there?”

  “Pete. Pete happened.” Brad’s gaze met mine as he carefully worked his jaw. He winced, apparently noting stiffness.

  “The tattoo owner with the kids?”

  Brad nodded.

  “Jewel told me about him,” Rush said. “Sounds like a bad dude. Looks like he has a mean right hook. You should put some ice on that swelling.”

  “I’ll make up an ice pack.” Jewel shook her head at me before exiting the room.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, tears filling my eyes as I made eye contact with Rush and Brad. “It’s all my fault Brad got hurt.”

  “You saying Pete intended to hit you as hard as he hit Brad?”

  I nodded, suddenly feeling queasy.

  Rush whistled low through his teeth. “Lucky Brad was there to intervene. Though he’s been in enough bar fights, he should’ve seen it coming and dodged it easy enough.”

  “He might have, only he dove right into it to protect me.”

  The warm feeling from earlier returned, along with a question. Why?

  What was Brad’s motivation? Had he really done it for a friendship he’d only just tonight acknowledged? That didn’t make sense. At least, not in the world Jewel and I had left behind. On the bad side of LA, no one risked personal injury for anyone else unless there was an obvious benefit for doing so.

  “You mentioned a disagreement, Cam,” Jewel said. Returning, she handed Brad a Ziploc bag filled with ice, then refocused on me. “You didn’t say anything about violence.”

  Shit. Discomfort crawled beneath my skin as the spotlight of attention shifted from Brad to me.

  “I . . . um . . .” I flailed a little, searching for a defense, but before I could come up with one, Brad spoke for me.

  “She was using her own body to shield Pete’s children.”

  I glared at him. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

  “Just trying to help,” he said with a shrug, and I glared at him.

  “Help me get into trouble, you mean.”

  “You don’t need help with that. You find trouble all on your own.”

  “Yeah? Well, thanks for the help. Not,” I said sarcastically.

  Grimly, he shook his head. “How much help were you going to be to those kids, Cam, if you went to the hospital? Did you stop to consider that?”

  “What was I supposed to do?” I could take a punch. Maybe not as hard as Pete’s, but still. “I was redirecting him from Gerald.”

  Brad’s brows rose high. “Redirecting him to kill you.”

  “You can’t save everyone, honey,” Jewel said softly, and I lifted my chin.

  “I know that.”

  “I don’t think you really do. I can’t count the number of times you did things like this, back when it was just you and me and we didn’t have any safety net. The night you were—”

  “No, Jewel.” My throat gripped with sudden fear, I shook my head. “Please don’t.”

  But she kept on going. “You went off with two men. We had a rule against that. But we were running low on food, so you broke that rule, even though you were out on the street all alone.”

  “I didn’t willingly go with them. They . . . I . . .” I pulled in a breath, my throat raw and burning, like it was that night from crying and screaming. “It’s not my fault,” I whispered, my chin dropping to my chest. “What happened.”

  “Of course it’s not your fault.” Jewel pulled me into her arms and stroked my back. “It’s mine. If I’d been pulling my weight instead of feeling sorry for myself, you wouldn’t have gone out alone.”

  “No. It’s not on you.” I lifted my head and gave her a firm look. “Not at all.”

  “I love you, Camaro. So much, but I’m afraid for you too. Every time you go out alone, I want to stop you, but I’m afraid to shake your confidence. It took you so long to work up the nerve to leave the condo. But every time you go, I’m here on pins and needles, worrying. I’m scared I’m going to get a call from a hospital, telling me you’ve been hurt again, or worse.”

  The sheen of emotion in her eyes made mine burn with unshed tears.

  “Then tonight. You left your phone on the ground because it was an inconvenience.” Her voice rose, and her eyes flashed. “How could you do that when you know it’s the only way for me to keep in touch with you?”

  When she said it like that, it sounded really bad.

  “Cam has little regard for her safety,” Brad said, staring hard at me. “She needs supervision.”

  “I do not.” I whirled around to glare at him. “I’ve gone out plenty of times without anything bad happening. What happened tonight could’ve happened to anyone.”

  But deep down, I knew it probably wouldn’t have. Brad was right—I shouldn’t have confronted Pete alone. But once the situation unfolded, what other choice did I have?

  “It didn’t happen to anyone.” Brad was relentless. “It happened to you.”

  “I changed my mind. I don’t want to be your friend anymore, Bradley.” I moved toward him, shaking my finger in his handsome face. “I don’t think you have a firm grasp on what being a friend means.”

  “Hey. Whoa.” Jewel inserted herself between us, putting her hands on my shoulders to turn me toward her, and squeezed. “Relax, Cam. We’re not trying to gang up on you. We want to help you.”

  Rush nodded. “She’s right.”

  “We all want to help you,” Brad said firmly.

  “Because we care about you, honey.” She glanced at the men, and they nodded.

  “Okay.” I dropped my shoulders, trying to convince my clenched muscles to relax.

  “There are other ways you can help those kids. Rational ones,” Brad said in a lawyerly tone.

  “How?” I asked.

  “You could call Child Protective Services.”

  “No. Absolutely not.” Adamant, I shook my head. “CPS would put them in a group home. Maybe separate them.”

  “What about talking to their mother?”

  “She and Pete are divorced, and she doesn’t have custody. I already asked about that. The kids say she’s barely making ends meet, and she’s afraid of Pete.”

  “She should be. So should you.” Brad’s censuring gaze clashed with my determined one.

  Ding-ding-ding. A cell rang with a ringtone that sounded like the end of a boxing round.

  Brad dropped his gaze. “That’s my phone.”

  Released from his intense interrogation, I swayed. Setting the bag of ice on a nearby end table, Brad slid his hand into the pocket of his slacks. I swayed some more, but for an entirely different reason. Even irritated with him, it was impossible to ignore how well his custom slacks fit him, and how much of him there was inside them.

  “It’s my sister.” When he lifted his head, his eyes narrowed on me.

  My cheeks heated as I realized he guessed where I’d been looking and what I’d noted.

  I swallowed hard. “You have a sister?”

  “Yes. And parents too, that I care very much about. I didn’t spring into existence alo
ne.”

  “Sierra okay?” Rush asked.

  Brad looked back at his phone, and his eyes moved back and forth as he scanned what must have been a lengthy text message. When he lifted his head, his brow was creased.

  “She’s in LA. I need to take this.” He turned and flicked his finger back and forth between him and me. “We are not done with this conversation.”

  Giving me a firm look, and then the couple a chin lift, he went to the kitchen. Rush followed him, and Jewel remained with me.

  “Just so you know, I’m not going on the tour.” She squeezed my fingers. “I’m staying here with you.”

  Relief washed over me, along with a ton of guilt. “Does Rush know you’re not going?”

  “We discussed it, but that was before this thing with Pete happened. Now there’s no way I’m leaving you.”

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  Bradley

  “What’s going on, Sierra?” I asked, my gut feeling like it was in a vice. We were close, as close as any older and younger sibling could be, and her text had been a definite plea for help.

  “Hey, big brother.” She sighed, and I detected something in her voice I hadn’t heard since she became a mother in her teens. Her confident stoicism wavered.

  “Is Dylan okay?” My nephew was an exuberant five-year-old, the light of his mother’s heart, his grandparents’, and mine.

  “He’s fine.”

  “Good.” I let out a relieved breath. “I’m glad.”

  “But I got fired today.” She was a personal assistant to Veronica Martinez, Miss V to all the famous pop diva’s fans and employees.

  “V fires you at least half a dozen times every day. You have the patience of a saint to put up with her drama.”

  “No more than you with Rush and his bandmates, and the rest of your clients.”

  “The rest of my clients aren’t so bad. The worst offender is standing right beside me, and he probably heard your remark.”