12
Noah
Paige had been furious when she’d stalked out of Chase’s house and toward my bike. She’d wordlessly grabbed her helmet and shoved it on her head, so I followed suit, helping her get on the bike behind me. We left his house in such a hurry that I barely had time to register the shouts of the paparazzi as we sped through the gate.
We pulled up to a red light and came to a stop, and I angled my head back toward her. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Her tone suggested she didn’t want to talk about it, not that we had the best situation for a heart-to-heart while riding a motorcycle. But still. Maybe we could go sit down to eat, and I’d let her lead the conversation. If she wanted to tell me about her discussion with Chase, she would. And if she didn’t, that was fine, too.
“You hungry?” I asked.
She adjusted her grip around my middle and pressed her cheek into my back. “Yeah. Head to the Strip.”
“The strip?”
“Sunset Strip. Chateau Marmont. It’s the big castle, you can’t miss it.”
We took off toward the Strip with Paige giving me turn-by-turn directions as we went. I’d never been to LA before, so I took it in as we cruised through the city streets. The sky turned pink as the sun went down, not that you could see as much of it here as you could in Arizona.
It had been a long day of adventuring. We’d taken an early morning motorcycle ride, a hike, a helicopter ride back to LA, and then Paige had what was probably an emotionally exhausting conversation with her ex. Despite the long days I’d worked as a Marine and the eighteen-hour filming days she said she sometimes had, I was sure we were both at the end of our energy stores.
We pulled up to the Chateau Marmont and gave the bike to the valet. From there, we headed to the restaurant patio. As we meandered through the grounds of the historic hotel, I couldn’t help but notice that we made it to our table without a single photo being taken of us.
“What’s the deal with this place?” I asked as the server left us with our menus.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we went to a pretty fancy mall earlier so there weren’t as many people freaking out about you as usual, but this is like … next level. You’re almost a normal person here.”
She chuckled. “I am a normal person.”
“I mean, you’re not, though. But for some reason, here, you’re not attracting your usual attention. Well, from everyone else anyway. You still have my attention.”
She blushed and rolled her eyes, and I flashed my cheesiest grin. She could pretend she didn’t all she wanted, but I knew she loved my dumb pickup lines.
“You’re not allowed to gawk at celebrities at the Marmont,” she explained after a minute. “It’s why we’re here. This place has a scandalous history, but I love coming here because I feel so, well, like you said—normal.”
I looked around the patio. It kind of felt like a movie set. Wicker tables and chairs were tucked into curtain-draped cabanas and between small trees. There were twinkle lights above our heads that gave it a romantic glow in the twilight. It was airy, and during the day I was sure it was bright enough to need sunglasses, being that it was outside. Despite that, it still somehow felt private and secure.
And the best part was, even though the menu in my hand had a couple of strange offerings, it was largely made up of classic American fare.
I breathed deeply. “This is nice. Good choice. I am curious about the scandalous history of the hotel, though.”
“Well,” she said, putting down her menu, “For one thing, Led Zeppelin’s drummer drove a motorcycle through the lobby once, and another time the whole band got kicked out of the main building and moved to the bungalows to contain their wild partying.”
“Rock star life.”
“And then there was the fact that the movie Rebel Without a Cause was basically written and rehearsed here when the director was a guest.”
“That’s a cool, not-so-scandalous fact,” I said.
“True, but the parties he threw here with James Dean and eighteen-year-old Dennis Hopper got kind of scandalous. Oh, and James Dean allegedly jumped through a glass window to impress the director so he’d get the role. And Natalie Wood was labeled as a Goody Two-shoes so she went out and partied, got busted, then called up the director and told him she got called a juvenile delinquent. She said, ‘Now can I have the part?’”
I laughed, enjoying the look of admiration in her eyes as she talked about the famous starlet. “You’re like a modern-day Natalie Wood, hating to be pigeonholed and doing crazy stuff to impress a director.”
“Hey, I’ll take it. But it is crazy to me that actresses have been getting put in our place or pigeonholed into certain roles for the entire history of this industry. You’d think the times would have changed by now. I guess it has a little bit, but not all the way. And I’m proof of that.”
“Well, you’re doing the right thing fighting for what you want.”
“Thanks,” she said, her eyes saying so much more than just that one word.
The server came and took our order, and I was irrationally happy that Paige felt comfortable enough to order the Chateau burger and fries. I ordered the same and asked for two sides of barbeque sauce. I oddly remembered that she always forgot to order it with her food and then had to ask for it when the server came back later to see if we needed anything else. It was a simple, little thing, but it made her smile. And I loved her smile.
“What else?” I asked.
“What?”
“The scandals at the Marmont. I’m digging the history lesson.”
“Let’s see, well, Jim Morrison said staying at the hotel used up eight of his nine lives. Legend has it, he fell two stories after trying to swing between his terrace and the next on a vine.”
We passed the time waiting for our meal talking about the lascivious history of the hotel. Paige told me that even though they were pretty PG anyway, the most scandalous stories about her were exaggerations. Having your dad for a manager kept your nose pretty clean. Unless you had a personality like Lindsay Lohan, which Paige didn’t, thankfully.
Even so, talking about the bad behavior of celebrities of the past illustrated how different our worlds were. Marines—or shoot, even unfamous civilians—couldn’t get away with half the things celebrities could. If Paige wanted to live life on the edge, she’d be able to get away with a heck of a lot more than I could. I shook my head, not wanting to go down the road of doubt. She wasn’t like that, so it didn’t matter that she could get away with stuff if she wanted to.
After hearing about the history of the Chateau Marmont, I now understood why Paige’s security team had stayed behind to wait in the car. At first, I’d thought it was strange. But this place was a regular celebrity hangout and had its own ways to keep them feeling secure. As long as we kept finding places to hang out like this, where you’d get kicked out for invading a celebrity’s privacy, I figured we could probably have somewhat of a normal life together.
“So, what are your plans for Thanksgiving?” she asked, finishing a bite of her burger.
And just like that, the word “normal” seemed foreign to me again. Paige might be a celebrity, but at least she had a mom and dad and other family members to celebrate holidays with. They don’t allow turkey dinners with all the fixings where my parents were.
“I usually do some kind of Friendsgiving thing with my co-workers. Marines don’t always live near family, so we do holidays together instead.”
She smiled. “That’s great. So, the friends I met at the ball, then?”
“Yep. I’m sure one of the married couples will host. My place is a good spot for a fantasy football draft party, but there’s definitely not enough seating for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“That’s really cool that you have friends you can call a family like that. And you’ve only been in California for a year.”
I shrugged. “That’s the thing about Marines. Ins
tant family because we just get it.”
“The only problem is how often you guys seem to move around. I heard your friends talking about how much they missed their friends who moved to the East Coast.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty much a three-year thing every time. So I’ve got about two years left in California.”
My words hung in the air between us for a minute. This was something we hadn’t talked about yet. Sure, it was great that I’d moved to California and was able to reach out to her, despite her dad’s warnings, of course. But what did that mean for the long term?
“Where will you go after this?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. I’ve already been to Japan, so that’s not very likely. And I’ve been on the East Coast for a while, so I could go back there. Or, there’s always the possibility I could stay in California for another three years.”
She shook her head and picked up a fry, poking at the rest of them with it. “Wow. I don’t know how you do it. The uncertainty of it all, I mean. Like, how do you plan for the long-term if you can’t see more than three years ahead?”
“I guess I just don’t.” Again, we fell silent. After a moment, I leaned forward in my chair and took her hand in mine. “Just because I can’t see the future doesn’t mean it’s not secure, you know. I don’t mind that I don’t know where I’ll be living in three years. What I do know is that I’ll still have my job, and I’ll still have my community. You know stability has always been the most important thing for me.”
She nodded and squeezed my hand. “How much longer will your parents be in?”
“It should be another two years.” I let go of her hand and sat back. I hated to put distance between us, however small, but I couldn’t help the need for space while on this topic.
My parents had been scheming and hustling for our next meal for my entire life. Where Paige’s parents wanted to help her make her dreams come true in order to elevate the whole family, my parents’ only dream was to strike it rich. I was an inconvenient accident who often prevented them from living their best life.
When we were teenagers, we bonded over both of our parents being kind of money-hungry, but my parents had hers beat by a mile. Her dad’s biggest fault was being a little too focused on the bottom line when making career decisions for her. My dad’s biggest fault was getting in so deep with financial crimes that he and my mom wound up getting sentenced to ten years in federal prison when I was a senior in high school.
Their arrest was the event that sent my entire future in a different direction, especially where it concerned my relationship with Paige and her dad’s willingness to support us.
He didn’t even lump me in with my criminal parents when he started considering me not good enough for his daughter. Oh, no. That wasn’t the reason. The real reason he didn’t want me anywhere near Paige was that when they’d gotten busted in the mother of all get-rich-quick schemes, I’d decided to turn my back on my baseball career and join the military. Since he’d wanted to be my manager, this offended him to no end. It wasn’t my dream, it was his. And when it didn’t happen, he felt betrayed enough to cut me loose completely. In one fell swoop, I lost my actual family as well as Paige’s, and I couldn’t get out of Arizona fast enough.
The first time Paige’s dad offered me a disgusting amount of money to stay away from her was the morning we broke up. I was planning to do it anyway because I knew I needed to find myself just as much as she needed to follow her dreams. But I didn’t want his money, and the fact that he’d try to bribe me after everything I’d just gone through had made me want to throw up right then and there.
Later that day, at the top of the mountain, I told Paige I’d look her up if I ever got stationed in California. I’d meant it, and I didn’t want his money eight years later, either.
“I’m really sorry, Noah. I know it probably hasn’t been easy on you for the last eight years without your parents and everything,” she said.
“Yeah, well, the first eighteen years weren’t any easier with them. I like it better this way.”
“You seem to have really made a good life for yourself. I’m happy for you.”
“You too.”
“Anyway,” she said, clearing her throat, “my parents chose Bora Bora as the Thanksgiving destination this year. We like to travel for the holidays.”
“That sounds cool.”
“Oh, it definitely is. Bora Bora is one of our favorite vacation spots. They’ll have fun.”
“You’re not going with them?”
“Well, I would have, if we hadn’t connected again. Now I want to spend it with you.”
“You want to come to Friendsgiving?” I asked, my brows raised.
“Can I? Is it weird to invite myself?”
I shook my head. “Not weird at all. We’d love to have you. Oh man, too bad Brooks and Cat aren’t still here. Cat is obsessed with Young, MD. She’d probably love to meet you.”
Paige tilted her head. “Are they the ones who moved to the East Coast?”
“Yep.”
“Can I make a crazy suggestion?”
I leaned forward and folded my hands in front of me. “I’m ready.”
“I really loved listening to your friends talk about the whole big friend group. It sounded so awesome, and I know with Mills and Olivia about to leave, it’s going to get even more broken up.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, curious as to where she was going with this.
“What if … what if we could get everyone together for one huge Friendsgiving? Like, maybe, in Aspen?”
I blinked at her. “You want us to have Friendsgiving in Aspen? I’m really not sure everyone will go for that.”
“Do you think they’d go for it at my expense? I’m the one inviting them, after all. Think of me as the host.”
“The host. Of Friendsgiving. In Aspen.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Too much?”
“No, no. I think it would be amazing. Let’s do it.”
“Yay!” She clapped her hands together. “I love this kind of stuff. I’ll wait to book anything until you talk to them, just in case. But let them know that I’ll take care of everything from the flight to the hotel to the food, and if you get Molly their e-mail addresses, I’ll have her send itineraries ASAP. I know we don’t have much time.”
I pursed my lips, fighting the urge to laugh. Yeah, fine, maybe I had some issues with money considering my own past. My parents’ arrest made me want to chase financial security rather than fortunes that could be easily lost. But now that I’m sitting in front of my celebrity girlfriend and she wanted to treat my friends to a Friendsgiving vacation, I had to admit it was a little fun to roll with the rich and famous.
13
Paige
“Is he gone?” Molly asked when I came back inside.
“Yeah, just left.” After spending four straight days—the entirety of his ninety-six—with Noah, I had to admit that there was an empty spot inside of me as I’d watched him drive away on his motorcycle. Dating a Marine meant he’d never play hooky from work for a beach day with his girlfriend. Not unless he wanted to get thrown in the brig, apparently.
Molly and I crossed to the living room and sat on the sofa. I had to admit, it was nice having room and board as part of her salary. She didn’t live in the house itself, but in the quaint bungalow by the pool. It meant having a live-in assistant just in case something came up at odd hours, but also something of a roomie to keep me from being alone all the time.
“So, how was your talk with Chase?” Molly asked. “We never got to talk about it with Noah here.”
I sighed. “It was rough. He basically said I should just keep saying I didn’t do it and he’d keep saying I did and then we’d let our fans decide who they wanted to believe. The point of this whole scheme is to give the show a good enough reason for ending so that he winds up getting pity roles afterward.”
“I’m sorry, Paige. If you want, we can go through with pursuing the violation of
the NDA.”
“He said he would fight it,” I told her, and just the mention of that awful part of the conversation made me mad again. “It’s probably not worth the stress and embarrassment of a legal drama, to be honest.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I think I might just go to Sandra and explain what’s really going on. That I rekindled my relationship with Noah and that my ex is trying to make me look bad because he doesn’t want me to leave the show and start doing films.”
“I think you should also do an open letter to your fans or maybe go live on your social media account. Just be candid and honest with them. And I bet if you opened up about Noah you’d turn it all around. There have been a lot of positive responses to you guys and your adventures this past weekend.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I mean, he’s right that not everyone believes you’d do that. So you and Noah do have supporters. And let me just tell you, the general opinion of Noah is that he’s a smoking hot, knight in shining armor.”
I couldn’t help the wide grin that spread over my face. “I can get behind that. And I like your idea about addressing my fans directly. Just being honest with them about where my heart is and why. If I’m careful, I might even be able to hint at wanting to expand my horizons with acting a little bit.”
“It’s so dumb that you can’t do both the show and movies like Chase can,” Molly said.
“I guess. But at the same time, I’m so sick of everyone making me stay in this role because of how it will affect their paycheck. I mean, I get it to a certain extent—there is no show if I’m not there, but that’s a lot of pressure.”
Molly bit her lip. “So, I do have one question. And I swear it’s not because of how the answer affects my own paycheck.”
“Oh, man. Can’t wait,” I said with a chuckle.
“Do you ever think about just walking away from the industry altogether? I mean, I know you and Noah just got together this weekend, so I’m not saying that you’d walk away for him. But in general, do you think you could quit acting and be happy?”
Adored by You: A Sweet, Celebrity, Military Romance (San Diego Marines Book 7) Page 10