I want to grab the sleeve of the girl sitting next to me and tell her not to give up her seat, but before I can, Anna slips her some money and she’s gone, leaving me stuck between my stepmother and my boss.
“How are you?” Anna asks, looking straight past me like I’m not even here.
Nina beams. “I’m wonderful, thanks. You know there’s nothing I love more than spending time with my family.”
She hugs my dad and pats me on the head for emphasis. “How’s work? Found anything juicy out here?”
Anna shakes her head, and a little vein twitches in her forehead. “Not yet. The celebrities saw us coming and holed up in their rooms. Some of them even threw blankets over the windows.”
My heart skips a couple beats as I stare straight ahead, watching the bikers.
“But I’m not worried. Someone’s going to slip up eventually, and when they do…we’ll be there.”
Nina laughs. “I don’t doubt it. That’s why I’m going to be on my best behavior this weekend.”
“You’d better be. But I do encourage both of you to come to the afterparty at Royal Shores tonight.”
Nina looks intrigued. “Tell me more.”
Anna shrugs. “Well, you know, sometimes when there’s no story, you have to make a story. That’s why we asked Royal Shores if they wanted to host an afterparty for VIPs down on the beach with all the bikers. Naturally, they said yes, so we invited a bunch of actresses, models, and dancers, and bought the most alcoholic rum we could find for the drinks. In other words, we’re going to have material for weeks.”
Nina looks impressed. “That sounds amazing. Can we start now?”
They both laugh. I’ve been trying to look like I’m just having a good time over here, but it’s not easy, especially now that I know about this afterparty. It’s going to looks suspicious if Travis and I don’t go, and if we do go, we’re going to have to pretend we’re not together. Either way, it’s going to be awkward, uncomfortable, and incredibly dangerous.
The crowd breaks into a loud roar as Travis rides out of the tunnel, ready to start his second round. Immediately, Anna goes quiet, watching Travis with the eyes of a trained predator. Then, for the first time since she sat down, she speaks to me. “Is there anything you want to tell me about Travis, honey?”
The tone of her voice sets me on edge. “Nope, sorry.”
Anna looks over at me, nods, and then fixes her eyes back on Travis. “Didn’t think so.”
And as the crowd goes wild for Travis, the three of us sit there, dead silent. This might be Travis’ second round, but I have a feeling that the real competition hasn’t even started yet.
Chapter 22: Laney
I fiddle with the glass in my hands and watch the tide come in, counting the seconds until I can leave the party without making anybody suspicious. Some things never change, I guess. In a way, there’s something weirdly nice about knowing that no matter how crazy my life gets, I’m always going to wind up right back at a cocktail party I don’t want to be at.
Of course, the crowd is a little bit younger this time, filled with bikers, models, and their entourages, but it’s still basically the same thing: a gathering of people who want things from each other. Besides, it’s not like it’s all bikers: Nina’s here, so is Anna, and so are a bunch of the older rich guys that always come to these things.
After going to way too many of these parties over the years, I’ve learned how to blend in, keep my head down, and wait it out. But for some reason, out here, I feel totally exposed. And why wouldn’t I? I was just starting to feel safe walking around Royal Shores, and now my normal life has totally invaded it again. Nobody was supposed to see me here, and now it feels like I’m the center of attention.
My eyes dart over to Travis, who’s surrounded by a huge group of reporters and fans, before darting back down into my rum and coke when I see that he’s looking at me. One more hour of this, then I’m going up to my room and never coming out.
“Hey, honey, how are you doing?” I look back up and see my dad, face a little flushed from the rum. Weird. He never talks to me at these things: he’s usually too busy trying to land his next production job.
But hey, I’m not complaining: it’s pretty much perfect timing. “I’m alright.”
He furrows his brow. “Are you sure? You look like you’re thinking about something. Is there anything you want to talk about?”
Sure, let’s talk about how I’ve spent the last week falling head over heels for my stepbrother, and now I’m wondering if we’re going to have to pretend like it never happened and go back to our normal lives.
I shake my head. “I think I’m just a little bummed that Travis didn’t win.”
Dad laughs. “Hey, he tied for first! Now, all he has to do is finish ahead of that Brazilian guy at the race tomorrow, and he’ll win the whole thing!”
I sigh, taking a long sip of my rum and coke and feeling the alcohol burn in my throat. “You’re right. He can still win. I’m just nervous, I guess.”
Dad’s eyes twinkle behind his glasses. “That’s not it, though. I can tell. You’re thinking about something else.”
I can’t help but smile a little. These are the kinds of talks we used to have, back when it was just the two of us. Warm, honest, and real. It’s not that that guy went away after marrying Nina, he was just been so busy making connections and trying to get ahead that we never really found the time to sit down and talk.
So even though I don’t tell him exactly what I was thinking about, I decide to speak my mind a little. “I don’t like this life.”
“What do you mean?”
A cool, gentle wind comes in from the sea, and I take another sip of rum to warm me up.
Then, I gesture to the party. “This. Parties. Celebrities. High society. It all feels so fake to me. Nina says that this is how you get ahead in the world, but what good is it if you’re not really connecting with anybody? If you’re pretending to be somebody you’re not?”
Dad’s quiet for a couple seconds, and then he nods, looking out over the water. “You know…I’ve been asking myself that same question lately. When I was young, I dreamed about this…being famous. Having a famous wife. And that’s been my life the past couple of years. But the funny thing is…I flew over here first class, got a private limo to the hotel, and checked into a massive VIP suite. And when I put my suitcase down and walked into the bathroom, I noticed that the soap dispenser was shaped like an elephant.”
“Like the one in our old house!”
“Exactly. I mean, this one was made of silver and not plastic, but still, like the one in our old house. And when I saw it…I don’t know, I just missed Pasadena. I missed coming home from work and cooking dinner myself. I missed watching movies with you on the couch. And I thought…am I happier now? Did any of this make me happier? I thought it did, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like my real dream came true 22 years ago…the day I first met you.”
I take a couple steps across the sand and give Dad a huge hug. “Who are you and what have you done with my rich, successful Dad?”
Dad laughs like I haven’t heard him laugh in years. “Blame it on the rum, I guess. But I do mean it, Laney. I think I’ve had the wrong priorities recently……and I’d like to start making up for that.”
I nod. “I’d like that.”
Great, now I miss Pasadena. Hey, maybe I can convince Dad to leave the party with me, and we can both get out of here without anybody getting suspicious. I open my mouth to suggest it, but before I can get the words out, I hear a voice that instantly shuts down any hope I had of leaving this party anytime soon.
“Roy, what are you doing all the way out here?”
Dad and I share a look as we turn to face Nina. “I was just getting some fresh air, talking to Laney a little bit.”
Nina does not look amused. In the low, flickering light of the tiki torches set up along the beach, her features look sharp and menacing. “But we’re outside
, dear. There’s plenty of fresh air over at the party.”
Dad looks at Nina in a way I’ve never seen him look at her before. “I’m sure there is, honey, but I saw Laney standing over here and I wanted to come talk to her.”
“Well, that’s nice, Roy, but Laney’s not a television executive, and she’s not going to help us get me that reality show, so every second that you’re over here talking to her is a second you could be negotiating with the investors back there.”
Dad’s brow furrows. “Nina, have you ever considered that there might be more important things than your reality show?”
Uh oh. While I have to do an inner fist pump watching Dad finally stand up to Nina, this isn’t exactly the best time or place for it. My eyes dart back and forth between the two of them, getting more and more nervous as they stare each other down. Nina’s staring daggers at Dad, and Dad looks like he’s had just about enough of Nina’s spoiled movie star routine. If this keeps escalating, Anna’s going to get her big story after all. And while I’d love for something to take attention away from Travis and I, it can’t be this. And that means I need to intervene.
“Dad…it’s okay. We can talk later.”
Dad takes a deep breath and looks over at me.
“About everything,” I say, urging him to head back to the party before this gets any worse.
Closing his eyes, he nods. “Okay. We’ll talk later. I’ll head back to the party. But Nina, we’re going to have to talk, too.”
“Alright,” says Nina, unfazed now that she’s getting what she wants again, “Sell the rights to my show, and we’ll talk about anything.”
But Dad doesn’t hear her. Or, if he does, he doesn’t react. Instead, he slowly walks back to the party, leaving me alone with Nina on the shore.
“Now, if I were you, dear, I’d be asking Anna what you can do to make up for not getting a scoop. From what I can tell, she’s not happy with your reporting out here, so the more you do today, the better you’ll have it when you get back home.”
When I get back home. Suddenly, I see my tiny little intern desk in my mind’s eye. I see myself standing at the coffee machine, waiting for it to finish. I see myself driving through terrible LA traffic to work for somebody who would humiliate me in a heartbeat if she thought it would get her clicks.
That’s what my life was like before Travis and I got hitched. Before the honeymoon. Before I gave into my feelings, let Travis take me like a newlywed, and discovered that there was much, much more between us that I ever could have imagined.
And now I’m being told I have to go back to traffic and coffee.
Nina takes my hand and leads me back into the party. The two of us weave through bikers, models, older people that Nina keeps directing my attention to, and journalists, until finally, we’re at the very back of the party, where Anna’s sitting at a table covered in little plates of tropical fruit, looking at her phone.
“Anna,” Nina says, “I just had a talk with Laney, and she told me that she was very sorry she couldn’t break the Jason Hayward story, and that she wanted to personally apologize to you for missing the scoop and ask if there was anything she could do to make it up to you.”
My stomach starts to tighten as I feel a very familiar angry feeling bubbling up inside me. All of a sudden, I’m getting a strong urge to tell Nina what I really think about her, Anna, and OMG, but I do the best I can to bottle it up so I don’t get myself in trouble.
“That’s right. I want to make it up to you. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Anna looks up from her phone, looking at me with those same predatory eyes she had back at the Coconut Classic. “Thank you so much for asking! As a matter of fact, there is.”
She points across the beach, and I turn my head and see Travis leaning up against the fence, talking to Monica.
“That right there is your backup story. The biker and the model, hooking up right in the middle of the Coconut Classic.”
Travis doesn’t look especially interested in what Monica has to say, but it still makes my blood boil to see them together. “They’re not hooking up, though……they’re just talking.”
Anna smirks. “No one has to know that. Get a couple pictures from the right angles, and they look like a couple of lovebirds about to sneak up and have very marketable sex. Do you have a problem with that?”
A little bit of cruelty starts to creep into Anna’s face. I’m starting to get a sinking feeling that she suspects what’s really going on. “Well, yes, actually, I do have an issue with reporting on a false story. It’s bad enough for my career that I work for OMG, and it’s going to be even worse if I get caught making up bullshit rumors.”
Well, so much for bottling it up. My heart starts beating faster as I stand up to Anna, but at the same time, if feels like a huge weight just lifted off my chest.
“Make it happen, or make it up,” Anna snaps. I don’t care which. And then, you’re flying back to LA first thing tomorrow, and you’re going to clean out the coffee machine, and you’re never going to say anything like that to me again. Otherwise, you’re going to find out how much power I have with all those ‘real journalists’ you like so much. Is that clear?”
Crystal clear. And you know what? I think I’m done.
“Go fuck yourself.”
Anna looks at me with a mixture of shock and complete outrage. You’d think a gossip blogger would be used to getting told to fuck off, but Anna doesn’t seem very used to it.
The look on her face is beyond satisfying, but I’m also pretty sure that I just burned every bridge I possibly could with three short words.
But I don’t care about that anymore. I’m done letting these awful, shallow people control my life. And right now, I just want to be as far away from them as possible.
So I turn around and start walking away. Nina grabs my arm as I pass, but I pull myself out of her grip, storming through the party until I’m out past the tiki torches, walking into the darkness of the empty beach.
And when I’ve gone so far out that the party’s just a speck of light behind me? That’s when the tears start to fall. I can’t believe that somehow, in the back of my mind, I thought it wouldn’t end this way. I thought we wouldn’t have to go home.
But I guess every honeymoon has to end sometime.
Chapter 23: Laney
Hot, angry tears run down my cheeks as I walk further and further away from the party. It’s been half an hour since I left the party, and I don’t feel like stopping anytime soon. Images of Travis play in my head as I go, from our awkward, sexually charged early days, to the blissful, even more sexually charged days we spent honeymooning around the hotel. In my mind’s eye, I see his massive naked body and hear his stupid jokes, and I can practically feel the way his eyes devour me and the way he holds me at night. And the thought of that all going away, maybe forever?
I guess that’s why I’m still walking.
Up ahead of me, a huge red firecracker streaks up into the sky, arcs over my head, and explodes into a hundred shimmering embers. It’s beautiful, but it’s also another reminder of what I’m going to be leaving behind: lying in bed with Travis, watching these fireworks from the window of the suite.
I walk for a few more minutes under the firework-lit sky, and then I start to slow down. The rum is starting to soak into my blood, and I’m starting to realize just how far away I am from civilization at this point. So after a couple more angry steps, I stop, let out a deep breath, and look up at the fireworks in the sky.
“Shit, Laney, I thought you were going to walk all the way to the guy’s house.”
I spin around in the sand and practically slam right into Travis, who’s watching the fireworks right behind me. “Travis! What are you doing?”
“Watching fireworks with my sexy-ass stepsister, what are you doing?”
I run past Travis, squinting into the darkness behind us and expecting to see an army of paparazzi coming for us. But if they’re out there, I can’t
see them. “You have to get back to the party before people realize you’re gone!”
Travis has that lost in thought look on his face again. I grab his arm and try to snap him out of it. “Seriously, go! I’m pretty sure Anna knows something’s going on. If they find us together out here, then— ”
Travis looks at me. “Then what?”
A firework explodes directly over us, bathing Travis in warm red light. It reminds me of the dream I had on the first night of the honeymoon. The one where we were alone on the beach at night…the one where I gave myself to him completely.
“Then…it’s all over. We’ll be on the front of every tabloid in the country. Nina will kill you for making her look bad. You’ll probably lose all your sponsors, your endorsements, your fans…everything.”
Travis shrugs. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean, that’s it? If we get caught, it’s going to be the worst thing ever.”
The thought gets to me so much that I almost want to turn around and start walking again. But before I can, Travis pulls me into his arms and holds me tight, and it feels so good that for a second, I don’t even care who might be watching.
“The worst thing ever? That was walking around that fucking party pretending like we didn’t even know each other. That was having to pretend to be interested in every single girl the tabloids paid to flirt with me while I watched you deal with my mom’s bullshit. And that was watching you leave, with tears in your fucking eyes, because you thought it was over.”
Travis takes a step back and unzips his bike jacket, pulling it off his shoulders and throwing it down onto the sand.
“That’s what I think about my fucking sponsors. I’d rather lose every last sponsorship I have than see that look on your face again.”
Without his jacket, Travis is shirtless, the ink on his body blazing in the dark. And for a second, I don’t know what to do. All my inhibitions scream in my head for me to run away as fast as I possibly can. But I don’t. I stay there, watching him in the dark.
Hitched: A Stepbrother Honeymoon Romance Page 14