As Long As You Hate Me

by Carrie Aarons

  Hannah’s lawyer stands. “Objection! Where is the question?”

  The judge addresses Jason. “Rephrase please, Mr. Sheer.”

  Jason holds up his hands to apologize. “Did you offer Mr. Jacobs sexual favors in exchange for fifteen minutes of fame?”

  It is a harsh, no-bullshit question, and I want to pump my fist.

  “Well … I …” Hannah stumbles, unable to think quickly on her feet.

  “And were you not spotted that night at the nightclub in question, seen coming out of the bathroom?”

  “Yes, but …” Hannah basically confirms that she blew me in the bathroom, which she did.

  “And that week, did you not attend the premiere of the action movie, Kill Again, with Mr. Jacobs?”

  Hannah’s face is full of anger now, and a deep scarlet shade. “I did, but …”

  “No further questions.”

  Jason turns and walks back to our table, winking at me discreetly before he takes his seat.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Dean

  “I can’t wait to get out of here. This whole place is making me anxious.” I itch at myself, wanting to sprint from the building into the tinted car and just hold Kara until I can breathe normally again.

  After Jason’s annihilation of Hannah on the stand, there were no more witnesses and the judge gave the jury their instructions. All that was left was their deliberation. And our waiting. It would be nerve-wracking, but at least the trial was over. I wasn’t a betting man, but a certain niggle in my chest told me that everything was going to work out in my favor.

  “We’re going, baby.” She rubs my arm as we walk briskly. “Let’s just get home, I’ll make you some tea and we’ll sit on the beach.”

  That sounded like heaven. Or burying myself inside her for hours. I’d take either to forget about this horrible day.

  I was glad she didn’t mention anything about the text messages that were read. I had a lot of making up to do, and I was reminded of it every day. I hadn’t been a good man in the time we were apart; I’d been selfish and gross and caught up in the fame machine that was Hollywood. While I’d made many strides in the last year, when I’d finally woken the fuck up and gotten my head out of my ass, I still had a lot to prove to Kara, even if she didn’t say it.

  Except as we turn the corner toward the front of the courthouse, I forget that there is only one way out. And in front of that is an obstacle, waiting for us.

  Hannah is positioned in a convenient location; just out of earshot of the reporters, and out of sight from both of our lawyers. Kara and I try to walk past, our hands connecting us in strength. But she steps in front of us, looking for an altercation.

  “Smooth move, having your lawyer shoot holes in my story. You’re pathetic, Dean, not even taking the stand. What? I don’t mean enough to you?” Her words drip like venom.

  She confirms my suspicions, this was just about getting attention from me. How insane was this chick? She wanted me to pay her some mind, so she accuses me of rape? People were fucking crazy, and I often forgot that.

  “I shouldn’t talk to you.” I try to walk past her, but she swerves and positions herself in front of Kara and I yet again.

  Kara squeezes my hand, and I’m so thankful to have her here in this moment that I want to grab her face and lay a soft kiss on her lips.

  “Why? Because you were able to nab a fiancée and use her hospital job to sing to burned little shits? You’re such a poser, Dean,” Hannah spits, her green eyes, which I once thought were beautiful, now just filling with evil malice.

  Hurt and anger roil in my gut, because she doesn’t know me. We barely spoke when we were together, if that’s what you could call it, and she knew nothing about my past or Kara. I wasn’t even mad if she threw those accusations at me, but the way she insinuated something about the graceful woman next to me … I could lay into her right here in this hallway.

  But I can’t. I shouldn’t even be in contact with her, even look at her.

  Suddenly, Kara clears her throat next to me.

  “He may not be able to clap back at you, but I can, bitch. It isn’t bad enough that you’ve accused an innocent man of a heinous crime? Now you need to, what? Be so desperate that you corner him in a courthouse hallway because you don’t feel you’ve gotten enough attention today? You’re the pathetic one, sweetheart. And honestly, I feel sorry for you. Because you’ll never know what it’s like to truly have the love of this man. It’s something that can’t even be described, and you were too power and fame hungry to care about genuine feelings. In fact, as long as you keep going down the path you’re going, you won’t feel that from anyone. There is nothing more to say to you. We’re leaving, get out of our way.”

  Hannah’s eyes go from vicious to vulnerable in two seconds flat. Kara has completely called her on every insecurity buried deep inside her, and she isn’t sure what to do.

  But we don’t wait around for another comeback. My woman tugs my arm, pulling me around my accuser and out the front doors.

  I don’t even mind the reporters and paparazzi shouting at us, I’m just thinking about getting in that car with her and showing her just how proud I am that she just laid the smackdown.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Kara

  After the actual day of trial is over, it’s as though the weight that had settled over the roof of our Malibu home has lifted.

  Sure, the jury is still in deliberation, even after four days, but I think Dean is just thankful that the horse and pony show of the trial is done. It was excruciating sitting in that room, behind the wooden barrier, unable to touch him or just sit beside him for comfort as his character was assassinated. I hadn’t understood what he’d meant all those years ago, when he’d first moved out to LA and I couldn’t follow him, when he said that this world was different from any other.

  It was never more evident than when I watched Hannah on that stand just how right he was. Some of these people were willing to do or say anything for mere seconds of the spotlight. I couldn’t wrap my mind around how they were programmed this way, why anyone would pimp their soul out for fame. Perhaps that was why I wasn’t really a part of this world.

  Once we’d gotten home, I had tried everything possible to keep Dean’s mind, and hands, occupied. I hadn’t realized just how much he’d been stressing about the trail until after it was over. He seemed lighter now, his mood almost playful as we spent the two days after the trial almost never leaving the bed. We’d eaten takeout on that huge California king mattress, binge-watched Lost even though we’d watched it when it had aired on TV originally, and explored each other so thoroughly that I now knew his body better than my own again.

  But I had to return to work, and my day had been insane.

  “The patient in room ten is requesting to be looked at one more time before she leaves.” The office manager, Lina, at the private practice I’m doing my residency at rolls her eyes at me.

  I love everything that I’m learning at the private practice, but some of these Hollywood patients are so high maintenance. At least twice a day, I have to convince someone that no, that isn’t a wrinkle, it’s simply their skin. I’ve never met more insecure women than I have out here, but the technologies and techniques I’m being taught are absolutely priceless.

  After dealing with the “crisis” in room ten—the woman wanted me to actually reach up her vagina and tell her if it was tight enough after rejuvenation—one of the girls I am friendlier with, Yasmine, tells me that our boss, Dr. Ottoman, wants to have an emergency meeting in the staff room.

  I huff, just wanting to go lay down in my car or drink a smoothie in the alley behind the building for a few minutes. It’s been exhausting, and I still have five more hours here after my lunch break. Which was supposed to be right now.

  But when your boss, your famous, insane genius doctor boss, calls a meeting … you have no choice but to go.

  I walk into the staff room, rolling my shoulders and prep
aring myself for the ridiculousness about to go on. I love most of my coworkers, but they’re all from here. They’re California girls through and through, and well … I’m a Jersey gal. I don’t do bullshit or natural lifestyle or organic or holistic medicine. I can’t stand some of the suggestions that get thrown around in these meetings.

  “SURPRISE!”

  The shouts hit me square in the chest when I walk in, and I blink in a double take.

  “Holy shit.” The words fall from my mouth before I can stop them.

  The room erupts into laughter, and Yasmine takes me by the arm and moves me from where my feet have frozen in the doorway. The entire staff of about thirty women, and one male Dr. Ottoman, are piled into one side of the room. The room that is decorated like a Hollywood event planner threw up in it.

  Every surface is covered in white lace, pink frills, or gold decor. Beautiful flower arrangements of pink peonies spring up everywhere, with an entire flower wall/photo booth on one wall of the staff room. A table of what I can only assume are presents, big and small boxes wrapped in white bows, sits to my left. And in the middle of the long table sits a huge tray of donuts, all different kinds, but with script on them. I move closer, and see that it reads “#jacobspartyof2.”

  “Guys … I don’t know what to say …” I really don’t as the air has been stolen from my lungs. “This is so nice.”

  Madison, one of the clinical assistants, smiles at me. “We wanted to throw a shower for you, especially since you and Dean have been having such a rough time this month. Believe me, it was as much fun for us throwing it as it will be for you enjoying it.”

  “You’re all so sneaky! I had no idea!” I laugh, wiping a tear from my eye.

  Since I’ve been in LA, I’ve felt more at home, but this just solidifies that I have people here who care about me.

  “That was the point, duh. Now come, have a donut. And tell us all about the planning, you’ve been so secretive.” Yasmine gives me a side hug, and we all sit down around the table.

  I haven’t been secretive … but they don’t know that. We just genuinely have made no plans, because this engagement was supposed to be fake.

  A sign over the stainless steel and glass-paneled fridges containing free organic yogurts, smoothies and fruit catches my eye. It reads: Future Mrs. Jacobs.

  I suck in a breath as the girls twitter about beside me, talking about the best dress designers and where to look at venues. I’ve never seen those words before, of what my future last name could look like. Sure, I’d scribbled them in notebooks for years when Dean and I had been young and in love, but it had been such a long time. And now that his very real diamond ring was on my finger, I couldn’t help but run away right now with ideas of what our wedding would look like.

  I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it before, but I could see it. Sometime in fall, the leaves all orange and red behind us outside as we said our vows on a hill in front of a small group of our close loved ones. Of what Dean would look like in a tux, his hair slicked back and those sea-blue eyes gazing into mine with nothing but love and sureness that we would be together forever. Dreams of a honeymoon for just the two of us, starting our life together by exploring foreign countries that I had only ever dreamed of visiting.

  “Positano, don’t you think?” Madison interrupts my thoughts.

  “I’m sorry?” I shake my head, clearing it.

  “You should get married at one of those swanky resorts on the Italian Riviera. In a long sleeve wedding dress, like Grace Kelly.” She tilts her head to the side, and I know she’s imagining herself in that fantasy and not me.

  “Oh! You have to use Max Whitmore as your planner! He did one of my patient’s wedding, and she had sixty white doves released when she and her husband kissed.” Reba, one of the other doctors, clapped her hands together.

  Fiona, one of the women who works the front desk, chimes in. “And I have a jeweler who will make you the most badass ring for Dean. He makes them out of bullet casings, and will infuse anything you want in there. A lock of hair, or something crazy like that.”

  I laugh, holding my hands up. “Ladies … you do realize who you’re talking to, right? This is the girl who thought that Givenchy was a type of chocolate, or toothpaste. While I love the suggestions, our wedding is probably going to be small and intimate. Maybe a destination, or maybe in my hometown. As long as it’s just Dean and I, I don’t really care.”

  The response forms and speaks for itself before I realize that my mouth is moving. I don’t know where the last sentence comes from, but my heart melts as soon as I say it. A resounding “awwww” moves through the room, but my mind is once again occupied with what a wedding between Dean and I would look like.

  And as we eat donuts, open presents and play the classic shower games, although I’m not sure if you can call “Guess Dean’s Penis Size” a classic shower game, my heart joins my mind in the clouds.

  When I’d reunited with Dean after all these years, I’d loathed him. But now, I couldn’t help wondering if fate had been tracking us for years, just waiting for the exact moment to make us collide again.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Kara

  Living in Los Angeles is like going through every day in a magical, alternate world where everyone is beautiful and the sun never stops shining. It becomes second nature not to notice these things after you’re moving through it for a while, but having my parents here brings me back down to earth.

  “I mean, Kara, I could fit half of our house in the size of your closet!” Mom’s mouth drops as I finish the tour of the house with her and Dad, and I chuckle.

  I’ve forgotten what life back in New Jersey is like, after living in a fairy tale for more than six months, but her accent and shock send a pang of homesickness through my gut. It echoes through my pores, and I realize that I’m not sure I can live out here forever.

  Forever. Wow. It’s the first time I’ve thought seriously about what will happen after this contract year is over. Will I stay here? Does Dean want me to stay here? From everything he’s said and done, he wants me to stay. But do I? Can I see myself going back to New Jersey, or moving somewhere else?

  I’m not sure, honestly. Aside from all of the us stuff to figure out, I am thriving in my career like I never have before. I only have one more year of residency, and then I can choose where I’d like to work, or open my own practice if that is a possibility. I feel more confused than I did when I moved out here initially, and I push the thoughts into the back of my brain where I don’t have to address them for now.

  “It’s nothing, Mom, look, I can barely even fill a fourth of it.” I point to the one small section of the massive walk in in my bedroom that contains clothing.

  Since paying off my school loans with the contract money, I haven’t really spent anything else. It’s the first time in my life I have a nest egg, and even though it is technically Dean’s, I want to save as much as I can to contribute to this relationship in a real way when he lets me. We haven’t talked about how we’ll work this relationship, but I don’t want to start as the one leaning on him like a financial crutch.

  “We’re going to go shopping tomorrow, right? Your father promised me I could get one special gift.” She bats her eyelashes at my father.

  As if I’m going to let either of them pay for anything on this trip. “Of course, whatever you want. I’m just happy to see you guys.”

  It was true, I’d missed them. Not enough to move back in, that was definitely not an option if I wanted to stay sane, but it had always been our little trio.

  Mom wraps her arms around me, sniffling. “We miss you too, sweetie. I feel like I haven’t seen you in years, I’m usually so in tune with what is going on in your life. Now I get my news about you from gossip magazines and celebrity news sites.”

  Dad rolls his eyes at me when Mom can’t see. Yes, she’s a little dramatic, but I missed that, too. “I know, I need to do better at keeping in touch. But believe me, you’re
not missing much. All of those events and pictures you see, it’s mostly for show. Really, I’m just the same Jersey girl with a penchant for pork roll.”

  “I was going to try to bring some out for you, but I thought that the vegan police out here would arrest me,” Dad jokes as we walk back downstairs.

  In the kitchen, Dean is standing with Skylar, helping to set plates. And when I say help, I mean Skylar is barking orders at my fiancé while Dean looks like a puppy trying to please him. It’s hilarious, because the laid-back musician has absolutely no business trying to cook, or even plate, food.

  “Can I help with anything?” Mom steps up to the counter, eager to see what Skylar is doing.

  “Not a thing. Except help yourself to another glass of wine.” Skylar smiles at Mom and pours her more red with one hand while he ladles sauce onto a plate with another.

  He’s already charmed her. “Will you fit in my suitcase? Come live with us in New Jersey.”

  “Yeah, you can keep her company while I golf. That sounds perfect.” Dad rubbed his chin.

  “I’ll come for a visit, we’ll all take Dean’s private plane.” Skylar picks up two plates and takes them into the dining room.

  “Glad to be of service.” Dean mock glares at his chef’s back. “We should have dessert on the beach after, yeah?”

  I nod. “That’s a great idea.”

  “It’s so good to see you, Dean. I mean son. I can’t believe it! We’re going to plan a wedding!” Mom claps her hands, the wine definitely already going to her head.

  Neither Dean nor I have discussed the engagement or wedding any further, and it brings an air of discomfort to the room. I’m not sure if Dad feels it, but he narrows his eyes.

  “I can’t wait. We can start looking at some magazines while you’re here,” I suggest this, because I know it will make her happy, and keep Dad’s suspicions at bay.