Lucky Star: A Hollywood Love Story

by Rebecca Norinne Caudill

  “What do you mean?” I asked, just as quietly.

  He hesitated, and then seeming to decide something, dropped back on his heels and rested his palms on my knees. “She told me I had to give you up and I told her that was non-negotiable. Two weeks later Mike showed me a picture of her sucking off some guy.”

  “We all thought …”

  “I know what you guys thought.”

  “If you didn’t love her, why’d you disappear?”

  “Mostly because I was embarrassed,” he shrugged, “but also because I’d failed and I had to figure some things out.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like how I was going to move past my feelings for you.”

  “At any point …” I started to ask him if at any point he thought about telling me, but then I stopped because I had been in the same position, and not wanting to jeopardize our friendship, I’d also held my secret close to my chest.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, rising. “We’re here now.”

  He pulled me from the bed and kissed me, a deep, passionate claiming. He was right. Our pasts didn’t matter; we were together now and had our whole lives ahead of us.

  Thirty minutes later we stood in the doorway of Gather, the restaurant where Drea and Alex’s friends hung out in the evenings. Cameron scanned the crowd for her and then taking my hand, tugged me in the direction of a massive fireplace made of river rock that took up the whole back wall of the post-and-beam building. In front of a roaring fire sat a group of about 15 people distributed across leather club chairs and a green velvet couch that made up a lounge area within the otherwise formal dining space. Glasses and beer bottles covered every available inch of the planed logs that served as cocktail tables, while the group joked and laughed with one another in between bites of seared tuna nachos.

  “Cameron! Sarah!” Alex jumped up from her perch on one of the chairs and ran over to give us each a big, welcoming hug. “So glad you guys could make it.” She squeezed my arm and turned to face her friends.

  “Everyone, this is Cameron and Sarah, the couple I was telling you about.”

  I took in the group nervously, but didn’t feel any outwardly malicious intent from any of them. I liked both Drea and Alex a whole lot, could even see maintaining a friendship with them long after we left Eagle Harbour, but after our experience with the gossiping Sue and Dolly, I was leery about meeting anyone new. Even though, as Cameron reminded me on the drive over, there was no need for me to be on guard any longer, I was still leery of strangers’ intent where he was concerned.

  “Cameron and Sarah, this is everyone.” She swept her arm in a wide arc to encompass the group. Some of the men waved lazily while others did that half stand, half lean thing guys often did when in lieu of a regular handshake. The women who were sitting paired off with each of the guys smiled and raised their hands in hello.

  Living in L.A. I was used to being surrounded by good looking people. It was unreal how pretty some of the people I’d met were. And yet, this group of people was beautiful in a completely different way. Each man had a sort of scruffy lumberjack-meets-surfer-meets-hipster thing going on that I could objectively admit was pretty damn hot. But, and I thought this without pride or guile, there was no way in hell any of them held a candle to Cameron in the looks department. No one could argue with me that he was a superior specimen of manhood few could match.

  “What’re you having?” one of the guys asked as he lifted his hand to hail a waitress. I scanned the drinks on the tables. From the Yelp reviews I’d read, I knew the restaurant had a local IPA on tap, and since I loved hops, I asked for one of those.

  “They serve scotch?” Cameron queried, surprising me in his choice of drink. When we’d first met, he’d just started dabbling in drinking bourbon and then it was only as part of a cocktail. Once or twice over the past couple of months I’d noticed my bottles emptying faster than I was drinking them myself. Then there was the night he’d come to bed tasting of peat and brine. There’d been a number of nights in the not-too-distant past I knew I’d turned to booze to numb my pain. I wondered if he’d done the same.

  “A couple of whiskies, but nothing special,” a guy in red-checked flannel responded. “But if you’re okay drinking beer, you should really follow your girl’s lead and get the IPA. It’s brewed locally.”

  “Quit being modest Hal,” Drea said, then turned to us. “What he so humbly failed to mention is that he’s the brewer and his IPA is fucking badass, award winning concoction.” She winked and blew him a kiss. “So are the smoked porter and the blonde.” Her smile could have lit up the room. No doubt, she was desperately in love with Hal. That he seemed to look back at her just as dreamily made me happy for her. In all the time we’d hung out, she hadn’t mentioned him so I wondered what their deal was.

  “Two IPAs it is then,” Cameron said.

  “Here, take my seat,” yet another flannel-clad man said, standing up to vacate a leather club chair. “I have an early day tomorrow. ‘Night all,” he raised his hand in farewell and weaved his way through the crowd and out the door.

  “That was Pat,” Alex informed us as Cameron sat down in the empty chair and I perched on the arm next to him. “He runs a sport fishing company and has a charter tomorrow for some guys up from Seattle. It’s late in the season but if he takes them down the coast a way, they’ll probably be able to pull in some Chinooks.”

  “So …” I said, taking stock of everyone we’d met so far. “Brewer, sport fisherman, coffee shop owner. It’s like you guys run the town.”

  “Just you wait. You haven’t met everyone else. That’s Shea,” Hal said, pointing to a lovely pixie across from us who was deep in conversation with the bearded surfer to her right. “She’s the owner-slash-chef of a farm-to-table restaurant Pat supplies most of the seafood for. And the guy she’s talking to? That’s Stewart, the mayor.”

  Hal saw my double take and laughed out loud. “Yeah, least likely mayor, right? He’s fourth or fifth generation and his dad was the mayor before him. He’s lived in Eagle Harbour his whole life except when he went away to university. When he got a degree in political science instead of seeking his fame and fortune in Victoria or Quebec, he came home. You wouldn’t know it from looking at him, but he’s actually a pretty big deal. I mean, as big a deal a mayor in a Canadian province can be.”

  “Shea, Stewart.” When they turned to Hal’s voice, he deftly introduced us as if he’d known us for more than ten minutes. “This is Cameron and Sarah. Sarah’s an associate producer and Cameron? Well, you already know about him.” He smirked, confirming they’d all the gossip.

  When I jokingly scowled at him, he shrugged apologetically. “What can I say? News travels fast.”

  “No thanks to Dolly,” I intoned.

  “If it makes you feel any better I didn’t hear it from Dolly,” he responded on a laugh.

  “No?” Cameron asked.

  “Nope,” Drea said, plopping down in Hal’s lap and smooching him on the lips. “That little bit of information came from me.”

  “Oh, okay.” Since I told Cameron everything I heard about anything, I wasn’t surprised Drea had told the man she loved about the movie star she’d met and befriended a few days earlier.

  “Speaking of Dolly,” Alex interrupted, leaning forward so I could better hear over the din of

  “Nothing yet,” Cameron replied, lifting his hands to take our beers from the waitress. “But it’s only a matter of time.”

  He took a sip and nodded Hal’s way. “Dude, this is awesome.”

  “Spruce tips,” Hal responded, acknowledging the secret ingredient that gave it an extra oomph above and beyond the Pacific Northwest hops.

  Drea smiled proudly and informed us it won the gold medal at the Canadian Brewing Awards.

  “I had to start shipping it to the mainland as fast as I could brew it once that happened,” he added. “It was the first truly experimental beer I ever made back when I was still brewing ou
t of my garage. When we started Eagle Harbour Brewing, I knew it had to be a mainstay seasonal.”

  “It’s really excellent,” I agreed, taking another sip. “We’re going to need a few growlers for the house while we’re here.”

  “Sure, stop by tomorrow and I’ll give you a tour and you can try everything.”

  I rubbed my hands together excitedly. “Be careful or you might not be able to get rid of me.”

  “You ain’t kidding,” Cameron laughed. “I’ve never met a girl who loves beer as much as this one.” He planted a kiss on my neck sending shivers down my spine.

  “No wonder Drea liked her from the start,” Hal commented, then planting a kiss to his own woman, said, “We fell in love over hops and barley.” His eyes caressed Drea’s face with warmth and relaxed affection. It was clear watching the two of them together they were deeply, openly in love.

  We spent the rest of the evening by the fire consuming several excellent beers, ate our respective weights in tacos, and talked about what it was like to live and work in a small town versus in the thick of Hollywood. While the group was naturally fascinated by Cameron’s career, they never seemed overly interested in the idea of him as a celebrity which I appreciated since he was about to be thrust into the spotlight in a major way. Once that happened, the chance of him meeting new people who didn’t think of him as a movie star was going to be incredibly unlikely.

  “Looks like we closed the place down,” I remarked, taking in the empty space that had been full to bursting when we’d arrived. It was beautiful as most every other commercial property in town we’d visited had been and I noticed a sort of running theme to most of them – organic materials paired with industrial chic design that featured a lot of wood, stone, iron, and glass. The large windows overlooking the dark, silent water beyond reminded me of the house we were renting, if it had been build on an industrial scale.

  Alex watched me eyeing the room, admiring its lines and curves, and her face split into a proud, happy grin. “My boyfriend’s the architect,” she announced, tuning in to the fact I wondered who had built it. “The place you’re staying too. In fact, that’s his house.”

  “Wait, what? I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend.” I watched as the sparkle in her eyes dimmed just a fraction, while to her left Drea hunkered down in her seat and closed her eyes.

  Oops.

  Alex didn’t seem to notice her friend’s reaction, or chose not to, her eyes brightening once again. “Yeah, he’s an architect in Vancouver. I met him a couple of years ago when he was here for a bachelor party. He couldn’t resist my scones.” She smiled saucily and I laughed since she was freaking gorgeous and any guy who met her would be stupid not to want her. My guess was her scones weren’t the only thing drew that the architect in.

  “First,” she said, “Thad fell in love with Eagle Harbour, then he fell in love with me. When he realized he could have a life here, he built his house. When it won an award, he drew up plans for this place with a chef he was friends with. A year later it was open for business.”

  “So your boyfriend co-owns this place too?”

  “Yeah,” she said proudly. “Why do you think they haven’t kicked us out yet?”

  “I was beginning to wonder. I just assumed it had something to do with Hal’s beer supply.”

  “Well, there’s that too,” Drea said sleepily as she laid her head in her boyfriend’s lap before.

  “I know I said it jokingly earlier, but it really does seem like your little group runs this town, or at least owns most of its businesses.”

  “It’s a great place for young, creative entrepreneurs to set up shop,” responded Stewart, easily switching from his laidback surfer persona into his role as the town’s mayor. “Canada has excellent tax incentives for businesses, as I’m sure you know with your movie being filmed up her, and full time residents of Eagle Harbour are really proud to support locally-owned companies. When you factor in the dollars from tourists, running a small business in town is a really sound financial investment.”

  While Stewart and I continued talking about what it was like to grow up here with your father as mayor and his plans to inject even more money into the local economy, Cameron, Hal, and Drea were deep in conversation as well. Every so often I caught his warm laugh breaking through the quiet of the empty restaurant and my heart contracted with contentedness. It’d been so long since we’d hung out together among a group of friends, and doing so now made me realize how much I’d missed not only him, but these sort of moments as well. Because Cameron and I had been friends before anything else, we had an innate ability to be in the same room without needing to be in each other’s pockets, and yet since we’d both harbored a secret love for each other for so long, we’d also developed a keen awareness of where the other was at all times and were able to gauge each others’ moods.

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying,” Stewart said, breaking into my quiet contemplation. I flushed pink, realizing I hadn’t been listening as closely as I should have to what he’d been saying. “But you aren’t what I expected.”

  “Me, or us?”

  He laughed because we both knew he wasn’t talking just about me. I was nobody.

  “Well, you guys … as a couple. Obviously there was gossip and in a place this small you don’t miss it. To hear Dolly tell it – and trust me, she told me as quickly as she could – you were this brazen hussy and Cameron was a no good philandering cheat. Arrogant too.” He glanced Cameron’s way and shook his head. “Obviously she was completely wrong.”

  “Yeah, well … it’s hard, you know? Only months ago he was a working actor, struggling to make it big. The only people who might have recognized him were fans of the Hallmark Channel or Lifetime made-for-TV movies. Suddenly he’s cast in one of the most highly anticipated films of the decade and now his face is everywhere.” I shrugged because for me this was business as usual. Well, not the part where it was my fiancé’s mug in Times Square, but I’d seen my fair share of overnight success stories.

  “He starts doing interviews, the paparazzi start following him, and now people think they know him, know what his life is like. When you factor in a pretty aggressive PR campaign that has him hooking up with his co-star, people start to create their own narratives.”

  “That must be hard,” Stewart replied sympathetically.

  “You don’t know the half of it.” My words held just a touch of anger. “Would you believe there are whole online communities devoted to him and Jillian? That’s his co-star, by the way. A lovely woman who has her own boyfriend, mind you. Personally, I’ve never seen anything like it. They’ve created this fantasy world that has them living together. Or, she’s secretly pregnant with his baby. One group even has them already married and meanwhile, he has a real-life fiancé,” I jerked my thumb toward my chest, “that he can’t talk about, that no one can know about because it’s not good for business. Hard is an understatement.”

  “But thanks to Dolly, the word is out, right?”

  “Well, something’s out, that’s for sure. I don’t know exactly how bad it is though because I’ve been too chicken to check in with my boss or go on any of the gossip sites to see what’s being said. The fact that my mom hasn’t been blowing up my phone has me wondering if things have died down of if they’re so bad she can’t even bring herself to repeat what’s being said.”

  “I can’t imagine what it would be like if I had to deny Shea.” Stewart turned to stare at the lovely sprite sitting in the chair opposite him. She was talking animatedly with Drea, waving her hands to and fro, giving her story more life than mere words could convey. “I don’t think I could do it.”

  He turned his deep brown eyes back to me and while I knew he wasn’t judging me I still felt that horrible sinking feeling I got every time I remembered convincing Cameron to go along with the studio’s plan.

  “Yeah, well, clearly we couldn’t either. I mean, we kind of blew our cover immediately.”

  He r
aised his right eyebrow at me, questioningly, and waited. The seconds ticked by and he didn’t speak.

  “Yeah, okay. I did it on purpose.” The admission flew from my lips and I gasped. I’d just admitted – out loud – to someone I didn’t know all that well that I’d sabotaged a very expensive PR campaign for an even more expensive film.

  Fuck me.

  Before I could stammer out a retraction to cover up my blunder, Stewart’s face broke out into a wide grin and he leaned over to squeeze my knee. “Thatta girl.”

  “You’re not going to say anything, are you?”

  “Hell no.” He glanced over at Shea and then, dragging his eyes to Cameron who was still deep in conversation with Hal, added, “I’d have done the exact same thing.”

  After hanging out well past the restaurant’s closing time, we all made our way over to Hal’s for more beer and conversation. As the designated driver, Cameron had stuck to sparkling water after his first beer but didn’t let his lack of inebriation keep him from fully enjoying the small party. By the time we drove home around 3 a.m., I was completely exhausted but my mind was running on overdrive, going over all of the new and wonderful people we’d met, the conversations we’d had, and the warm, open way Drea and Alex’s friends had welcomed us.

  Walking in the front door of our rented house, we discarded our clothes carelessly behind us and made our way upstairs and into the large, luxurious four-poster bed. Climbing between crisp white cotton sheets, I let out a sigh as my body relaxed into the mattress. I stretched my hands as far above my head as they could go, closed my eyes, and felt the long hours of the day fall away.

  When I opened them, Cameron was staring at me, his eyes hooded and his gaze heated. “Have I told you today how much I love you?” He lowered his body to kiss me.

  “Hmm, I don’t know. If you have I’ve forgotten. You should probably tell me again. Just to be safe.” As I spoke he nuzzled my neck and it sent shivers through my body.

  “I love you.” He kissed my lips.

  “I love you.” He kissed my chin.

  “I love you.” He kissed my neck.