by Mells, J. C.
It took a full twenty minutes before I could calm myself down. My head and heart were filled with thoughts of Bellamy, more than just my sponsor here in Vegas, he was a father-figure and dear friend. I thought about the Solanos and how they’d taken me in as family from the very first day I met them. Leaving them all was going to be hard.
But, it wasn’t until I thought about Thaddeus that I really broke down again. Seeing him before I left was not an option and it broke my heart. Leaving Thatch was equally as painful. Some of what I said to him earlier to get him to leave was true. I probably had developed some sort of unhealthy obsession with him due to using him as a motivation in rehab. But why did it hurt so much to leave?
Fuck, I wasn’t just in lust with him. I was in love with him. This realization kicked me straight in the chest and knocked the air out of my lungs. I’d admitted to an obsession, but love was something else entirely. If I really thought about it, coming to Vegas, my heart on my sleeve, I’d always known it had to be love. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it. I had to be in love with him or why else would I be about to do what I was about to do.
{19}
Thatch
I’d gone over to California’s house to apologize for this afternoon, and to tell her why we could never have a relationship. It hadn’t exactly gone as planned, but the outcome had fallen into line with my original and intended goal.
So why was I still sitting in my car outside her house thirty minutes after she gave me the way out I wanted? At least my head had wanted the way out. My heart, on the other hand, told a different story. Even when she’d flat out agreed with all my reasons to not get involved, once she voiced them, I still couldn’t convince myself we were one hundred percent right.
I expected her to fight for us – to talk me out of my decision. Maybe that’s what I wanted her to do. Instead, she did a complete about-face right after that phone call. What the fuck had happened? She might think she had the acting thing down pat, but her performance tonight wasn’t going to win any awards any time soon.
I heard the sound of her garage door opening, and I instinctively ducked down in my seat. She didn’t even look my way as she backed out of the drive and headed off down the road.
Where the hell was she going at this time of night?
Why did I care?
I couldn’t help myself. I turned on my engine and took off after her.
I followed her for twenty minutes before she made the turn into the parking garage of the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. Sliding my car into a spot several rows away from hers, I kept about a hundred feet of distance between her and me as she made the long walk through the casino and over towards the elevators to the rooms.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I reached down to answer it, never taking my eyes off California.
“Thatch, it’s me,” my dad’s voice said once I answered.
“Thaddeus okay?” I asked, my heart jumping into my throat for a second.
“He’s fine, son, that’s not why I’m calling. And where the hell are you? You sound like you’re in a casino.”
“I am.”
“Well, there’s something you, and Heavy, need to know. That douchebag Steve from the across the street posted all over Twitter that she’s working at Reston’s. The media is going crazy. We already have some local stations camped out in front of the shop.”
“Shit.” I then remembered that was exactly what California had said on the phone earlier. She knew already. She was leaving in the hopes the media attention would follow her – and away from us.
“Exactly. Now tell me why you’re in a casino – and is she with you?”
“She knows about Twitter, Pops. She didn’t tell me she knew; she just kicked me out of the house and told me she was leaving. Don’t ask me how it happened, but I ended up following her to the MGM. She just got here.”
“Look Thatch, don’t you let our girl out of your sight, you hear. She’s going to do something noble, and selfless, and stupid to try, and attract the media away from us. You stop her. You don’t let her fall off the wagon for us, understand?”
“My thoughts exactly, Pops. I’ll keep you posted.”
I hung up the phone just as California stopped in front of a burly-looking security guard standing in front of the elevator to the private suites.
“I’m going to the penthouse – Lake Rivers’ suite. I’m California Huntington.”
“Go right on up, Miss Huntington,” the guard nodded to her.
As soon as the doors closed behind her I walked up to him.
“I’m here to see Lake Rivers in the penthouse suite.”
“And you are…?” The guard asked, giving me the stink-eye.
“Thatch Reston. I came with California Huntington.”
“Oh, you did, did you? Let me just call up to Miss Rivers to confirm.”
The guard put in a call to the room and asked for Lake. She apparently came right to the phone and after he told her why he was calling, there was a brief pause before the guard finally hung up the phone.
“Go right on up, Mr. Reston,” he said with undisguised annoyance. I think he was bored and itching for some sort of confrontation. He was disappointed I wasn’t the gatecrasher he expected me to be.
Only I was, but he just didn’t know it.
I wondered why Lake had invited me up. It didn’t matter. Lake was one of California’s triggers and I needed to get her the hell away from that bitch.
Cali
The elevator let me out into Lake’s suite and I headed towards the living room area.
“There she is!” Lake announced in a loud voice to the two other occupants in the room. “I knew you’d come as soon as you heard I was in town, sister darling.”
She gave me a smug smile and I glanced between her and the two businessmen either side of her.
The one on her left was young, dark haired, shirtless and completely tanked. The other, older, still wearing his shirt opened to his abs and the tie undone but still hanging around his neck, was on his knees in front of the coffee table and doing a long line of coke.
“Here I am, Lake. In the flesh. Didn’t expect to see you this soon. I thought you were ‘over’ Vegas.” I couldn’t keep the snark out of my tone.
“My, my, my. Looks like someone went and grew a pair since she’s been in hiding,” Lake laughed. “I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to for the last few weeks. Ronald here,” she said pointing to the older guy on his knees, “was particularly interested in meeting you. He generously flew us out in his private jet just so he could,” she added with a sly look on her face.
Bitch!
“You show him a good time, Cali,” she continued, “and we can all fly back to L.A. first thing in the morning.”
In other words, if I didn’t, her and her media entourage were heading straight over to Reston’s Tattoos instead. I knew exactly what she meant. The look she gave me was explicitly clear.
“Now, come sit down and have a drink with us, sister dear,” Lake cooed. “We’re drinking cognac in your honor, my love,” she smiled.
I shrugged my shoulders in defeat and took a seat across the table from Ronald. What other choice did I have? I needed her as far away from Vegas as possible.
“Here,” the shirtless guy on the right said with a wink as he threw me a vial of cocaine, which landed on my lap. “You have some catching up to do.”
“I don’t think California is going to be catching up with any of you tonight,” a low voice came from behind me.
“Thatch!” I exclaimed in surprise.
“Right on cue,” Lake giggled. “I was so anxious to meet the reason why Cali has been hiding out in Vegas all this time.” She then turned to me. “A tattoo guy, Cali? Really? Did rehab cure you of all your standards too?”
“Wait a minute,” Ronald said, stumbling to his feet. “I thought you said she was a sure thing, Lake. What’s going on here?”
Thatch stepped into the room and walked righ
t up to Ronald, his stance intimidating and with a heated gaze boring into the man like it could cut through metal.
“What’s going on is that California is not a sure thing. She will never be a sure thing. And the next time you speak of her, it will be with respect.”
“Now listen here, asshole—”
But before Ronald could finish his verbal attack, Thatch’s fist connected with his face and Ronald fell back onto the couch, blood gushing from his nose.
“What the fuck, man! You fucking broke my nose!”
“Oh, now I see the appeal,” Lake said insidiously, moving away from Ronald so he couldn’t get any blood on her, her eyes running up and down Thatch’s body salaciously. “Is he as aggressive in the bedroom too, Cali?”
Ignoring Lake, Thatch turned back to me.
“Get up, California, we’re leaving.”
Placing the vial on the coffee table with shaking hands, I stood up to face him.
“I can’t go, Thatch. If I don’t stay she’s going to try and poison your life any way she can.”
“Oh, you flatter me too much, Cali,” Lake laughed from her seat behind Thatch.
We both ignored her and I’m sure she wasn’t going to like that.
“Be honest with me, California,” Thatch said, his eyes burning straight into mine, unwavering, unblinking, and deadly serious. “Do you want to do a line, get drunk, and fuck the old rich guy here?”
“Hey, I’m not that old,” Ronald quipped up between groans of pain.
“Shut the fuck up!” Thatch snapped over his shoulder before turning back to me.
“You know I don’t,” I whispered to him.
“Then let’s get the hell out of here then,” he said, pulling me by the arm towards the elevator.
“I can’t go with you, Thatch,” I repeated, my eyes brimming with unshed tears.
“Yes, you can. You’re not going to fuck up your life again for me, California. The press is already outside the shop now. The damage has already been done.”
“Wha—”
“I know you think you’re doing the honorable thing for me, for my dad, and for Thaddeus, but we won’t let you do this just to protect us.” His voice went soft and he pulled me in closer to his chest to whisper in my ear. “Please come with me, Cali. If you stay here she’ll win. We can handle everything else together, okay?”
I nodded at him, scrubbing the back of my hand over my eyes to clear my watery vision.
“Okay.”
Thatch took my hand and we walked from the room without a backward glance.
“See you real soon, sister dear,” Lake called out after us as we stepped into the elevator.
“You should have taken the way out, Thatch,” I said softly to him as the door closed behind us.
“And face the wrath of my dad?” he asked with a small smile. “I don’t think so.”
Thatch
“I’m going to fucking kill that asshole, Steve,” I said once we were in my car. I didn’t want to let her out of my sight so we left hers back at the MGM. I had this feeling she was still ready to run at a moment’s notice. I refused to think about why I cared.
“It would’ve got out eventually, Thatch,” California said as she stared blankly out the passenger side window. “I was naïve to think it wouldn’t.”
She suddenly turned in her seat to face me. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve just done, do you? This is going to be huge and the media is going to hound us – you, me, Thaddeus, Bellamy – everyone. They’re going to hash up everything about your past – including New York. Thaddeus’ accident, Bellamy’s alcoholism, your court case. They’ll be cruel and relentless. I’ve been through all of this before. It’ll be the ‘Girl Who Cried Wolf’ all over again. If you just let me leave, I might be able to lead them all back to L.A. with me.”
She was right. It was the other big reason why I hadn’t wanted to get involved with her in the first place. But now that it was already happening, I was confused at my unexpected reaction to the whole mess. I was angry at the situation itself, not her.
“Tell me about the ‘Girl Who Cried Wolf,” Cali,” I asked softly.
She sighed and looked out the window again. “I owe you that much,” she replied in a small voice.
Shifting slightly in her seat, California stayed facing away from me as she spoke. “Soon after this… lifestyle… Lake and I started up, I made the decision to try and get out of it. I just turned eighteen and felt it was time to move out on my own. Of course,” she gave a dry laugh, “by ‘on my own’ I don’t mean I went and got a job or anything. I mean I harassed my father until he agreed to buy me an apartment close to home, and I tried to separate myself from Lake and her mother. It was a small way to feel independent when really it was just like living in another wing of the main house, only down the street from it.
“I was only there a few weeks when one night three masked men accosted me in the parking lot and threw me into a van. I was tied up and blindfolded, driven out into the middle of nowhere, and then chained up in a basement.”
I gave a sharp intake of breath.
“They didn’t really hurt me physically,” California added, in response to the sound I made. “But I was held there for three days. I was terrified.”
“I’m so sorry, California.”
“On day two, I realized I recognized one of their voices. It was a kid I used to go to school with when I was twelve. Jimmy. Once the kidnappers were aware I’d recognized him, they began to panic over what to do with me. The original plan was to get a ransom of a million dollars from my father, and then let me go. I remembered that Jimmy had an older brother that was always in trouble with the police, so I assumed he’d been dragged into this scheme by him, as I was pretty sure his brother was one of the other two men.”
California paused here, searching for her next words.
“Jimmy was always a shy kid and I knew he’d only agreed to this kidnapping on the promise that no one would get hurt. Once they knew I recognized him, it changed the whole plan. The third guy, the meanest one of the bunch and the ringleader had obviously already done some time in prison and was determined to not get caught again. So, I sat downstairs for almost two more days while they decided what to do with me. The bottom line was, how could they afford to let me live? Jimmy protested against this, but he was one of three.
“You can’t even imagine what it feels like to be chained and helpless while listening to people decide your fate for you. How to kill you and where the best place was to dispose of the body.”
I felt cold and numb listening to California tell her story. I wanted to pull the car over and hug her close. I also wanted to find this Jimmy and his accomplices and beat the holy crap out of them.
“On day three, they finally came downstairs to kill me. Jimmy had fought with them about it and had been left upstairs unconscious for his trouble. His brother, Darren, placed the gun against my head, but before he could pull the trigger, Jimmy, who had woken up sooner than expected, ran down the stairs and tackled him. There was a fight, the gun went off, and the third guy, the ringleader, was shot and killed. While his brother was in shock over shooting his friend, Jimmy untied me and told me to run. I did. I’m not sure how long I ran, but I was finally found unconscious on the side of a road, and taken to the nearest hospital.”
“What about the brothers? I guess they were never caught since no one believed your story? And what about the ransom?”
“The brothers were never caught because I never told anyone about them. I said I never saw my kidnappers. Jimmy saved my life and I wasn’t going to turn him in. Tallulah, my stepmother, began to insinuate to the press that I’d made the whole thing up as a means to get some attention. They had a field day with it. I was hounded for months and months afterwards.”
“But I don’t understand, Cali,” I said as I came to a stop at some traffic lights. “Your stepmother or your father had spoken to the kidnappers, hadn’t they? When they mad
e their demands?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “Tallulah did. My dad was in Russia at the time, filming something in Moscow. Everything he was made aware of about the kidnapping was relayed to him via Tallulah. She probably told him I was just pulling a prank or something; I don’t know. Regardless, he never felt the need to leave the set and come home. The fact that really haunts me to this day though,” she added, her cheeks lined with tears tracks now, “was that it wasn’t just the fact I’d recognized Jimmy that had made the ringleader really angry and decide to kill me. It was the fact my parents refused to pay the ransom at all.”
I was completely speechless. The numbness I had felt earlier turned into a deep, all-consuming anger.
“What the fuck do you mean they refused to pay it? A million bucks is pocket change to your father. There was no way they could’ve known for sure if it was or wasn’t a prank. Your dad buys you an apartment, but won’t pay to save your life?”
California gave a small smile for the first time since she’d started her story, but the amusement didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“My dad is a rich and famous actor, Thatch. It doesn’t mean he’s particularly smart or not easy to manipulate. Tallulah is a master when it comes to manipulation, trust me.”
“And Lake inherited that trait wonderfully,” I added.
“You got it,” California chuckled.
“Even idiots should love their children unconditionally, California. Are you worried about Jimmy and his brother ever coming for you again?”
“No. They probably realize that if I haven’t talked by this point, I’m never going to. As it turned out, both brothers are in jail now anyway for a failed robbery. I saw it in the papers about four months after the kidnapping.”
We pulled up in front of her house, both of us deep in our own thoughts.
“What happens now, Thatch?” she asked, breaking the silence.