by Frankie Love
“It’s true. You are too pretty for this town, all the girls were jealous and all the guys were intimidated.”
I shake my head. “It’s not the same here. Everyone in this town is gorgeous.”
“Well, then you should fit right in, sweetie.”
“Daddy, you’re too sweet to me.”
“Just saying the truth.”
A smile breaks through my tears, and I’m glad I called the person who has known me forever.
“Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you more. Now go do something that will make you feel better. You’ve worked hard. Treat yourself with a part of this paycheck you just got.”
I hang up, thinking he’s right. I’ve been working hard every day. This is my first day off since I got here. And I should do something just for me, especially knowing my roommates are hunkering down in the apartment recounting their time in the spotlight.
My thumbs hover over the keys on my phone knowing how I want to treat myself but wondering if it’s too forward.
Screw it.
“Cal,” I text. “Wanna meet for a late lunch?”
He replies right away.
With a yes.
14
I’ve been a wreck since the video was leaked last night.
And of course, it had to come on the heels of the best sex of my goddamn life.
Sawyer still hasn’t returned my calls, and honestly, it’s worrying me. I know he usually visits his parents on the weekend, and I’m just hoping that is what’s going on now. But deep down, I know it isn’t like him to go AWOL for so long. He’s never coped well with stress, and the last few months his frustration over being a product for his studio has increasingly bothered him. I can only imagine how those photos have tipped him over the edge.
After this meal, I’m gonna stop at his apartment and find out what’s going on. I know he’d do the same thing for me.
I head to Langer’s, a classic LA delicatessen that I grew up eating at with my dad. He’d always get us the Rubens and now it’s only right I introduce Jules to the iconic sandwich.
She’s already here when I arrive, looking as sweet as the pie they serve at Langer’s. But she’s more than a single slice, she is whipped-cream-on-top perfection. Just looking at her standing, waiting for a table, reading the menu, her long legs in denim cut-offs, gets my cock hard. How could it not? The memory of those legs wrapped around me last night, her tits bouncing, her eyes closed in ecstasy... it’s enough for me to lose my load right here.
Damn, she’s a gift I didn’t see coming.
But I intend on unwrapping her over and over again.
“Hey,” I say, coming up behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist. I kiss her ear, unable to resist, and her laugh leaves a flutter of sparkles in its wake. She sounds light. Breezy.
The gust of fresh air I need today.
“Someone is in a good mood,” I tell her.
“I didn’t realize we were on kissing-in-public terms.” She spins to face me, a smirk on her face.
“Want me to take it back?”
She shakes her head, patting my chest, leaving her hand there. “You’re bad, you know that?”
“So bad it’s good, right?”
She gives me a small laugh. “Something like that.”
A waitress leads us to a table and I order for both of us, not needing to look at a menu. Jules grins, teasing me for being such a man.
“It’s nice to hear you laugh. I need something to lighten the goddamn mood of my life right now.”
“What’s wrong?” she asks, not realizing that when shit goes down at the club it fucking kills me.
“The shit that went down last night—with that video being leaked on the gossip sites… Just a headache, you know?”
Her eyes fall, her lip twists. “I know. Colette was upset. I mean at first it was novel when it happened to Gretch. Like, kinda exciting. But that video…” Jules shakes her head. “You can’t exactly spin it in a good way.” She sighs, looking back at the reader board menu. “I’m just glad it didn’t affect either of us. Do you think it’s going to mess with business, for the club? Like, your job?”
I run my hand over my jaw. “I don’t know what it means yet. Jordan, the manager, called a staff meeting for later today. The employees who dance at the club are pretty stressed. People sign non-disclosure agreements when they enter the club. Breaking that is idiotic, for anyone.”
“What would happen?” Jules asks as the waitress brings us Cokes and our sandwiches. She picks up a fry and looks down, not meeting my eyes.
I try not read into it. But why is she interested in the NDA?
“The person who broke the agreement would be sued.” I pick up my sandwich and start eating. Damn it’s as good as I remembered.
Her eyes raise to meet mine. “People are crazy. Eventually, the person who is doing this is going to be found out. I don’t understand how people can act like they are invincible. When you play with fire, eventually you’re going to go up in flames.”
Her words give me the confidence in her character I already believed.
“It’s crazy though, I haven’t heard from my buddy Sawyer since the stuff with his photos went down.”
She scrunches up her face. “You’re friends with him?”
I nod. “Yeah. We’ve been friends forever. He’s helped me through the hardest times in my life.”
“Really? How did you meet? No offense, but it seems like you’d be in different circles growing up. Aren’t his parents famous too?”
I never date women that start asking personal questions. I went to boarding school and my parents died before I graduated. I became a man without people connecting me to my family name.
After their death, I started going by Callahan—my middle name. With that easy change, the old me disappeared. The sad truth is, no one has come looking. Just another reason I think of this city as a television set. Nothing here is real. And if Sawyer weren’t still here, I wouldn’t be either. But he’s the only person who knew me before, who still knows me now. His parents invite me to family functions, and I go, so long as no one in the industry will be there. They respect my boundaries. Hell, they understand them.
They know what I lost, how I lost it. Who is to blame.
I hate the fucking paparazzi. Their crazed hunger for a story is why my parents crashed. Why I lost my family.
Sawyer’s parents get it and after that event, they stepped away from the limelight too.
All of us are watching Sawyer closely, wanting to make sure he doesn’t get so caught up in the trap that he loses himself.
Anyway, no one who comes to the club is looking to make eyes with the bartender. They come to fuck a celebrity. So, even though I’ve recognized people from my childhood, no one has put two and two together.
But Jules is different.
She did make eyes with the bartender.
In fact, she made a hell of a lot more with him.
“Sawyer and I were neighbors as kids is all.”
She rests her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand. “Huh, I’m trying to mesh that with my idea of you. So, besides being a bartender who rides a bike you also grew up somewhere super ritzy?”
“Does that bother you?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean, sorta.”
My brow furrows. “How so?”
She shakes her head. “I’m not trying to be weird. Sorry if I am.”
“No,” I tell her. “Be honest with me. That is one of the things I like about you, Jules. You say it like it is. Even last night when we were in that room, you said what you meant. Asked for things you wanted, how you wanted them. You aren’t hiding behind anything. You are real. And in a city like this, that means a hell of a lot.”
She watches me as if considering my words. “It’s pretty simple really. I just don’t really like the LA scene and I assumed you didn’t either. That is what appealed to me about you when we first met.”
&nb
sp; “You mean it wasn’t my charm and good looks?” I grin.
“Shut up,” she says, throwing a fry at me. “Yes, your looks, sure, but throwing punches at those thugs really won you a lot of points.”
“There is a point system?” I laugh.
She tries to hide a smile. “Mmhmm. Really complicated one.”
“And hating LA is part of your rubric?”
“Exactly.” She taps her fingers on her chin. “But maybe I was miscalculating. Maybe this place is your jam.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You think if I were into the LA scene I’d take you to the oldest deli in the city and make you eat pastrami? Because I’m telling you, sweetie, most of the douchebags in this city who took you out for lunch would force feed you micro greens and order you low-cal white wine. Your public image would be as important to them as their own.”
She scrunches up her eyes. “I don’t know, Cal. Maybe you’re just playing me. Everyone in this town has an angle. What’s yours?”
My jaw tightens, we’re covering territory that is not first-date worthy. And much too intense for Langer’s.
“Look,” she says, reaching for the dessert card on the table. “I don’t hold back or keep my cards close, or whatever. I’m an open book.”
“Then what is your angle, Jules?”
She drops the dessert card. “I’m pretty simple. I’m here to make enough money to pay off my dad’s farm and then go back home.”
“That’s it?”
She sighs as if I said the wrong thing. “Isn’t that everything?”
Her words are simple, but they are also exactly right.
“Touché.”
“So,” she says slowly, “I’m going to order some apple pie and you are going to tell me something real. If your parents are Sawyer-Bennett-rich, why are you a bartender at the Fuck Club? Why aren’t you a guest?”
15
Her question is hard to answer. I may love fucking her, laughing with her, and just being around her, but I’ve known her for two days. Nowhere near long enough to trust her with the truth of who I am.
So, I tiptoe around it.
“I never liked school, didn’t go to college, didn’t take up the family business.” I shrug as the waitress delivers us our pie. “And I like the schedule of being a bartender. I’m good at it, and that should count for something. So I stuck with it. And bartending at the Fuck Club is the best bartending gig in this city.”
“I figured, considering your loft.”
So, she noticed my place wasn’t exactly the kind of place you’d live at if you were living paycheck to paycheck.
“Your parents don’t mind you doing a blue collar job or whatever?” she asks.
“My parents just want me to be happy.”
“And are you?” she asks.
“Damn, you really don’t hold back do you?” I run a hand through my hair.
“Should I?”
“No. I like this... talking.”
“As opposed to?”
“Well, we’ve been spending our time fucking, so…”
That gets a laugh out of her. “Now it’s my turn to say touché.” She pulls her long hair into a messy bun on the top of her head. As she moves I can’t help but notice the lovely curve of her neck, the way her collarbone leads the eye to take in how beautiful she is.
“Anyway,” she says. “I like that you are a bartender. Back home I was a waitress at a place kinda like this.”
“So, we’re both in the service industry. See, common ground, even if my parents were rich as fuck.”
“Were?” she asks, not missing a single thing.
I nod tightly. “They died when I was eighteen.”
She reaches across the table. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up a hard topic.”
“My parents were everything good about the world. I don’t mind talking about them, they were the best people I ever knew.”
“And Sawyer was there for you when you went through all that?”
My eyes meet hers. “Exactly.”
“You should call him again. Be there for him the way he was there for you. I mean, not that he experienced anything as tragic—but...”
I nod, picking up my phone, texting again, then dialing his number. Nothing.
“His girlfriend Sondra was at the club last night saying she couldn’t get a hold of him either.”
“You spoke with Sondra?” I ask, looking up from my phone.
Jules nods. “Yeah, she was confronting Gretchen. But also mentioned she hasn’t heard from him either.”
“It’s been over twenty-four hours,” I say, stating the obvious. “I should go to his place.”
Jules nods again, reaching for her wallet.
I shake my head, reaching for the check totaling thirty-four bucks. “I’m not letting you pay.”
“Like hell, you’re not. It’s my first fancy-pants paycheck. This meal is on me.”
I let her take the check, watching as she sets down two twenties. Then reaches back in her wallet and grabs two more, leaving a tip larger than the entire bill.
We leave the deli, my hand on the small of her back, my heart, fucking falling hard for this woman who came into my life with a force stronger than an ocean wave.
“Come with me,” I tell her. “To look for Sawyer.”
She doesn’t hesitate.
“Of course.”
As we walk to my bike, I call Sawyer’s parents. They haven’t heard from him since earlier today.
“But you spoke to him?” I ask them while they are both on speakerphone.
“Well, he left a voicemail, a really long, rambling one, but it wasn’t from his number,” his mom says. “Apologizing for the photos, asking for our forgiveness, saying he never meant for his life to become so fake, and telling us he was sorting things out but that he was sorry for how that might hurt us.”
“And did you call him back?” I ask.
“We tried several times, but there was no answer.”
A sinking feeling fills my stomach. Something is wrong. “How long ago was this?” I ask.
“Maybe two or three hours? Have you heard from him?” they ask.
“Not a word. I’m heading to his house now. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
His cars are here, but the front door is unlocked, no staff is around. Jules’s eyes go wide at the massive complex. Infinity pools and marble walkways. A view of the Pacific Ocean a land-locked farm girl would only dream about. She doesn’t let the grandeur compete for her attention though. Together we enter the premises and try to find my oldest friend.
“Sawyer?” I call. Nothing.
We move from room to room, but there are no signs of Sawyer anywhere.
“Cal,” Jules whispers, pointing to the dining room table.
Laid out on it is his driver’s license. His house keys. His cell phone.
I pick it up, seeing every one of my missed calls.
My jaw tightens, fear coursing through me.
Jules hands me a document.
SAWYER BENNET’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
My blood goes cold.
I cover my mouth, this isn’t happening.
The last thing on the table is an envelope addressed to me.
Reaching inside, I pull out a letter.
My eyes run over the letter, tears pooling in my eyes as I read the last words my best friend ever wrote.
Cal,
You warned me about this business since day one. Said it could steal, kill, and destroy.
It has.
Death is never easy—but you know that better than anyone.
Whatever sort of man I used to be no longer exists.
And that’s why I’m ending my life, taking control of the only thing I have left.
Everything else has been stolen from me.
My face isn’t even my own anymore. I can’t fucking shave my head without clearing it through a sponsor who pays for a life I never wanted.
I take
that back—I did want the fame—but I let it fucking get to my head.
And now all I want is peace.
So, I’m finding it the only way I know how.
This isn’t easy—but it’s the only way out.
You know that better than anyone else too. And I’m sorry to put you through this again.
If I said this to you face-to-face you’d talk me out of it, that’s why I both love you and hate you. You are a better man than I’ll ever be. In life or in death.
Jumping from the Colorado Street Bridge may seem like a cliché—but you know how I feel about fucking guns.
I love you, brother.
-Sawyer
The letter falls from my hands, I can’t fucking breathe. The shock weaves through my gut and I reach for the table to keep me from falling over.
Jules already has her phone out, calling 911. “I need to report a suicide. What? I don’t know. On the Colorado Street Bridge. Yes, yes. Sawyer Bennett. Correct, yes, him. I know,” she says, her own face streaked with tears, her eyes on mine. “Yes, the Sawyer Bennett. It doesn’t matter—just. Yes. He said he was going to jump.”
She stays on the line as she grabs Sawyer's keys. To me, she says, “You can’t drive the bike right now. But I can drive one of these cars. We have to go, Cal. Right now. I need you to stand up, focus, Cal. Okay?” She takes my hand, opening the door of an SUV.
I follow her, but I can’t fucking see a thing.
“He may be okay,” she says. “Just hold on to hope, Cal, okay?”
I hear her but all I can see is the line in the note: This isn’t easy—but it’s the only way out.
GET READY…PART 3 RELEASES 5/18!
16
When my mom died, I remember my daddy pulling me to him as we sat in the hospice room. Our tears streaked our cheeks, even though we knew the moment was coming. Even though we knew she was finally free of the pain that had wracked her body for so long.
I hated that we were there in that sterile room, and not at the farm. The place where she got married, where she gave birth to me, where she planted her flower garden every spring. My mother always smelled like honeysuckle—but there, in that room, the fragrance that will forever remind me of her was missing. There was nothing about my mother in that place.