Never to Love

by Aimie Grey

  With a sideways glance toward the booth in the corner, I caught Tate’s eye for a split second, which served as both my signal to him to begin and his acknowledgment. Trusting my clients to do their job, I wouldn’t deliberately look at them again.

  Slipping off my shoe, I ran my toes up Brady’s calf, knowing the cameras had a full view of what was happening both above and beneath the table. When he leaned over the short centerpiece to whisper in my ear, just as we’d discussed, the frequency of the flashes coming from the sidewalk increased exponentially.

  From years of experience, I had a good idea of what the final images would look like based on distance, lighting, and angles. Taking into account the movement of the swarm, I made a series of subtle adjustments in my posture and the angle of my chair to ensure the actual show would end up on film without diverting attention from the bait.

  Even though Brady was technically doing me a favor, he got more out of our ruse than I did. All he wanted was the publicity boost of hanging out with Tate and Marina outside of work, but I needed to control the evening. No way would I let Brady’s team have too much creative freedom with the orchestrated situation.

  My involvement with Brady wouldn’t seem outlandish since I’d met him before. He’d been in a movie with my friends, and he was a client of the agency. The same time, same place “coincidence” could be explained away, but I doubt anyone would ask, and if they did, it wouldn’t matter much after the deed was done. I’d much rather the press speculate about a friendship between former co-stars than the status of my clients’ relationship.

  Brady turned out to be a nice guy who was as easy to talk to as he was to look at, but all I could think was that his hair was too dark and he was way too humble.

  It was about an hour later when I finally let my guard down. If everything went according to schedule, Marina and Tate had left when the server came to take my dessert order. Sam, their lead body man, had a car around the back of the restaurant and had been waiting for them to sneak out through the kitchen door. A quick peek to the corner booth confirmed everything was on schedule.

  When Brady and I got up to leave, I had a message from Sam confirming the mission had been a success. I didn’t want to imagine what Tate and Marina were doing if they hadn’t wanted to take the time to message me themselves.

  Thankfully, when we climbed into separate cars in front of the restaurant, the paps followed Brady, giving me an easy escape.

  By the time I got home, it was after eleven, and I was physically exhausted.

  My brain, however, was not on the same page.

  My intention had been to let the media churn overnight and see what it had settled on in the morning. The notifications on my cell had been disabled since right before I got out of the car for my “date.” Tremont had someone watching for major catastrophes around the clock, and even when I had most of the world silenced, their call would always go through.

  After lying in bed for an hour, cursing both getting so old I couldn’t convince my body to stay up late, because twenty-eight suddenly felt ancient, and not being able to shut off my thoughts, I decided to compromise.

  Grabbing the pile of portable electronics from my bedside table, I powered on my laptop to check Twitter for signs of success. The photos Brady and I posted earlier had already been retweeted and liked thousands of times. I’d also received dozens of direct messages, which I scrolled through without reading until I got to the bottom of the list.

  What the hell?

  Immediately, I messaged back.

  Me: Why aren’t you asleep?

  Colton: Wanted to wait up for you but you didn’t come.

  Me: I’m sorry. I didn’t get home until way after bedtime.

  Colton: Will you come tomorrow instead?

  Me: Only if you go to sleep NOW.

  Colton: On it.

  Me: Ask your dad and have him text me.

  Colton: Night, Juli.

  Me: Night, kid.

  *

  “How nice of you to grace us with your presence.” The sarcasm in Thomas’s voice made me want to take a second shower. “Thought you’d be too tired after your busy night.”

  “I’m here because I promised Colton, and you invited me. If you don’t want me here, I’ll go.”

  “Not like I had much of a choice.”

  “Why are you being such an asshole? I told you I had to work and that it might be too late by the time I finished.”

  “How many times did you finish?”

  “Fuck you. Do you want to tell Colton you don’t want me to stay or should I? Either way, I’m not leaving until he sees me so he knows I tried to keep my promise.”

  “Have plans with your boyfriend?”

  “Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Colton!” Thomas called down the hall. “Juli’s here!”

  “Juli!” Colton came bounding into the living room, nearly knocking me over.

  “Hey, kid. I said I’d come see you, but I don’t think I’ll be able to stay,” I said, glaring at Thomas.

  “Do you have to work again?”

  “No, but I think your dad wants to have family time today.”

  “Oh.” His quiet voice radiated disappointment. It didn’t bother me, though. Not even a little. I don’t like kids, I told myself as I looked into his genuinely sad eyes. How could his bastard of a father not care? “What are you going to do if you don’t have to work and you aren’t going to stay for family time?”

  “I’m not sure. Visit my friends, maybe.”

  “Are you going to see Stryker again?” he asked at the same time his father snorted. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  Why did I keep getting asked that question? “No, sweetie, that was for work.”

  “Huh? I don’t get it.”

  “Have you ever seen magazines in the grocery store when you’re waiting to check out?” He nodded, so I continued. “Have you ever seen any that said negative things about celebrities? Like they’re fat or they’ve had plastic surgery or they’re cheating on their boyfriend?”

  “I see that stuff all the time on Twitter.”

  Gotta love social media. “My job is to make sure people only say good things about the people I work with. If they say bad things, I have to make them realize they were wrong. People don’t always believe words, so sometimes I have to show them instead.”

  “Do you work with Stryker?”

  “No, sweetie. I work with your Uncle Sawyer’s sister.”

  “You know Auntie Marina and Uncle Tate?”

  “I do. They’re my best friends, and it’s my job to make sure people don’t say untrue things about them.”

  Colton looked at me as if trying to figure out how that relates to me hanging out with “Stryker.” Thomas had also seemed to calm down a bit.

  “You have Twitter on your phone, right?” I asked Colton, and he nodded. “Go get it, and I’ll show you what I mean.”

  He was back in less than thirty seconds, and I guided him over to the couch. “Find a picture of me sitting inside the restaurant last night.”

  Colton smiled triumphantly a moment later as he held the phone up for me to see. In my periphery, I noticed Thomas tightening up when Colton held up the picture of Brady whispering in my ear. Interesting.

  “Look carefully at the entire picture and tell me what else you see.”

  With his tongue sticking out like you’d expect to see in a cartoon, he zoomed in and out on several parts of the photo, moved the phone in different directions, and varied its distance from his face.

  “I see it!” he exclaimed, beaming with pride.

  “What did you find?”

  “Auntie Marina and Uncle Tate. They’re being all mushy in the corner.”

  “Good job. That’s exactly right. Some people were saying they weren’t happy together anymore and were going to break up. I could have told them it wasn’t true, but they might have thought I was lying. This way, they could see it wasn’t true.�
�

  “Why did you have to be in the picture?”

  “Because I needed people to come take pictures of them without knowing they were taking pictures of them. If it felt like we’d planned it, they might not believe it was true. To get the photographers to come, they needed a reason, and they thought Brady going out on a date was a good reason.”

  “But why did it have to be you?” Thomas asked, speaking for the first time since I began explaining my job. “Didn’t it look staged with their publicist front and center in the photos?”

  “It wasn’t going to be me, but we ran out of options. Marina and Tate haven’t ventured out very much in the past couple of years, which is the biggest source of the breakup rumors. Most of the reporters were excited to have pictures of them in an intimate setting and didn’t really care about my presence. The ones who brought it up believed my backup story of a double date that was divided for privacy reasons.”

  “You’re saying you couldn’t find a single woman to go out with Brady Johns?”

  “My first choice was sick, the second had a last-minute family emergency, and the third was a no-show. People doing this kind of thing need to be properly vetted to make sure they won’t cause any trouble during the event or talk to the press after. We literally ran out of options to work with in the time we had available.” Why was I bothering to justify myself to him?

  “What movie do the two of you want to watch?” Thomas asked as if he hadn’t been a complete bastard since I walked through the door.

  “Crusader of the Universe.” Without waiting for any additional feedback, Colton grabbed the remote and flipped through the on-demand movies until he found it.

  Absolutely sick of that movie, but unable to leave after everything that had just happened, and also unable to voice my vomit-inducing dislike for several reasons, I excused myself to the restroom for a little quiet time to search my brain for anything that Colton might want to do more than watch the movie I’d already seen eleventy billion times.

  Since I didn’t actually have to pee, and there was no way I’d splash water on my perfectly made-up face like stressed out people do in books and movies, I paced the floor in what must have been Colton’s bathroom.

  As I passed the rack, I straightened the towels. When I stopped at the sink, I organized the bottles of soap and other toiletries on the counter. When I opened the cabinet built into the wall to put away a box of Band-Aids, I saw the three bottles containing Colton’s prescription medication. Something felt off about them, so I pulled out my phone and took pictures of the labels.

  As I closed the camera app, a notification from one of the three calendars I managed popped up. Noticing the subject was something that might solve my current dilemma, I switched to the messaging app and sent Tate a brief text and then walked back toward the living room. When he replied a few seconds later, I knew I had the perfect solution.

  “If you want,” I began, walking in as the theme music was coming to an end, “we could all go somewhere really cool instead. If it’s okay with your dad, of course,” I suggested vaguely just in case he wasn’t totally into the idea. I couldn’t imagine anyone not jumping at the opportunity, but there was too much at stake to risk it.

  “Where?”

  “It would be a surprise.” With his current mood, I had a feeling given the choice between watching Brady in his role as Stryker for an hour and a half and being anywhere else but in front of the TV, Thomas would choose the latter.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Juli

  “We’re going to Burbank?” Thomas asked as I flipped my turn indicator to take Exit 2 from the 134 onto Pass Avenue about thirty minutes after we left his house.

  “Yeah. Do you have a problem with Burbank?”

  “No, just making an observation.”

  If I wanted to start an argument in front of Colton in a confined space, I would have asked him why he phrased it as a less than enthusiastic question, but since I didn’t, I didn’t.

  “I grew up in Burbank,” I said, daring him to say anything even remotely negative about my home town.

  “Are we going to visit your mom?” Colton asked from the back seat.

  “No, sweetie.” When did I start calling him sweetie? How many times have I done it? As I pulled up to the gate at the studio, I figured it was safe to reveal the surprise. “We’re going to visit some friends of mine.”

  “Hey, Juli,” the handsome, aspiring actor working the security gate said and then added a flirty wink. Marina and Tate filmed parts of their last three projects on this lot, and the guard made it a point to get to know me. I may or may not have gotten to know him as well, but only once. He knew I had the connections to make something happen for him, but I didn’t use them for just anyone, no matter how good of a lay they were.

  “Hey, Seth.” I looked up through the window, using my hand to block the rays of powerful California sunlight my dark glasses couldn’t completely handle at this angle. “Tate’s expecting us,” I said.

  Seth leaned closer, bracing himself on my M6 with his forearm. Maybe he was a better actor than I thought. Having been in the sun for a while, the roof of the black car had to be hot as fuck, but he didn’t flinch. “I saw him earlier. Is he starting a new project?”

  “Nah, just a small guest spot. He’s here for a couple of fittings. Is it okay if we go back?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t say no but needing to move this shit along.

  “Oh, yeah, of course.” Before Seth went back to his booth to open the gate, he angled his head so he could see farther into the car and proceeded to size up the man in my passenger seat. Interestingly enough, Thomas chose that moment to run his hand up my thigh. “You should call me some time,” Seth said, his voice oozing sex. “Do you still have my number?”

  “Sure do,” I lied as I batted Thomas’s hand away before the show in the front seat of my car went from PG-13 to R. Luckily it seemed Colton was too busy looking through the window to notice. With a big, stupid grin, Seth opened the gate, waving as I pulled through.

  “Friend of yours?” Thomas asked, his voice low and menacing.

  “Yes.” Thinking about the eight-year-old in my back seat, I chose my words carefully. “We hung out.” Thomas’s hand was back on my thigh. “Once,” I added, just to mess with him.

  I followed the path I’d driven dozens of times over the years and parked near one of the stages. “Ready for your surprise, kid?” I asked, trying to sound excited.

  His genuine excitement made mine go from half-assed to real. “Yes!”

  “Okay, listen up.” I turned around in my seat and looked at Colton to make sure he knew I was serious. “This may seem like a giant playground, but a lot of people are working in there, and they may even be filming. You need to stay right next to me, stay calm, and make sure you use your indoor voice.”

  “Promise,” he said, having turned down his volume.

  “That goes for you, too,” I said, this time looking at Thomas.

  “I know how to behave in public. I am an adult.”

  To that, I glanced to where his hand still gripped my leg and raised a brow. Releasing me, he quickly exited the car and opened Colton’s door.

  As we made our way between the primary indoor set of a popular TV show about zombies and the audience bleachers, Colton grabbed onto one of my hands and held one of Thomas’s with the other. I’d asked the kid to stay close to me, so I couldn’t very well shake him off, even though he was following my instructions a little too well.

  People I’d known for years waved when they saw me. Some gave me knowing smiles when they took in the sight of the three of us, even though what they thought they knew was wrong. Others appeared to be dumbfounded, which made way more sense.

  Pushing through a door at the end of the hallway, we entered a large, well-lit room, made brighter by the walls of mirrors refracting the beams from the dozens of lamps around the room.

  “Juli!” My good friend Chase jogged over and wrapped me in his a
rms, causing me to lose my grip on Colton’s hand. “It’s been way too long,” he said into my hair.

  “I know, it has.” Chase backed up a little to look me over and then checked out my companions.

  “Surely it hasn’t been that long,” he said, grinning at Colton.

  “Chase, this is my friend Colton and his dad, Thomas. Colton, this is my friend Chase. He’s one of the people who make the actors look like zombies.”

  Colton’s eyes widened as he surveyed the makeup studio and seemed fascinated by the actors donning half of a zombie face. I could feel the energy ready to burst from his young body, but he held it in to keep his promise to me.

  “Do you see anyone you know?” I asked as I took a look myself and found who I was looking for.

  “Uncle Taaaate…” His words began as a yell but trailed off into his indoor voice.

  Putting the kid out of his misery, I took his hand and, with Thomas in tow, headed over toward Tate.

  “Hey, kid,” he said, smiling as if he’d known Colton since birth. If I had to guess, I’d say they’d only met three or four times.

  “I didn’t know you were on this show,” Colton said, fidgeting with his hands as the woman moved around to the other side of Tate to apply another scar.

  “It’s a secret, so you can’t tell anyone,” Tate whispered in a conspiratorial tone. He was great with kids; Marina was too. It was a shame they hadn’t started a family yet. I could’ve pushed through my fear of baby-cooties for them.

  “I’m going to be in the mid-season finale. The producers asked me to come in early to figure out the makeup and clothes.”

  “That’s so cool,” Colton said in his restrained voice. “I wish I could be a zombie, too.”

  Chase came up behind me, gripped my shoulders, and looked at Thomas. “I’m finished for the day,” he said quietly while Colton was talking to Tate. “If you’re okay with it, I’d love to zombify him. We have a few child actors coming in next month, and I could use the practice.” While it was technically true, I knew Chase just wanted to have some fun and make Colton happy.