Queen of the Universe (In Love in the Limelight Book 2)

by Geralyn Corcillo

  The rewrites I had to do all centered around Sam's lines. Following the cardinal rule of TV production, episode two is essentially a reboot of the pilot. But I miscalculated. In the pilot, Sam can tell Celeste is interested, at least on a physical level, yet she rejects him in no uncertain terms. So by episode two, Sam's already been shut down once, and that matters. But I'd written episode two as though that initial rejection was no big deal. And it just didn't track at the table read. Because rejection changes the landscape. So, I had to make that adjustment.

  I get out of my car and stride across Arlen's yard, taking the porch steps two at a time. Just as my knuckles connect with the front door, I realize I should have just emailed the changes. But I've never done that to Arlen before. From the very beginning, I promised him I would take special care to make sure he always knew what was going on. And that was all I was doing now. Honoring our deal.

  The door swings open and there he is. Jeans, T-shirt, bare feet. If he's surprised to see me, he doesn't show it.

  Damn, this guy is good with the stoic Sam-like non-reactions.

  He looks me up and down, from my Starsky and Hutch T-shirt to my scuffed Keds. “Come on in,” he says, turning around and disappearing into the house, giving me no choice but to follow.

  I stop in the living room, even though he's gone through to the kitchen.

  “I brought over some rewrites,” I call to him.

  “Great,” he says, flicking off the kitchen light as he comes back into the living room. He takes the script out of my hands and tosses it onto the coffee table. Then he turns to me. And just the way he looks right at me makes me catch my breath.

  I turn for the door. “I—”

  “Don't go.”

  I turn back to face him. I shrug. “Why not?”

  “I like having you here.”

  “But the girls—”

  “Are at a concert.”

  “Oh.” My heart starts skipping double-time and it's like I forget how to breathe. “I can't. It's too hard.”

  “I'll make it easy.”

  He steps right up to me and puts a hand at my waist, gliding it around me, pulling me closer.

  Oh, God. What is he doing to me? He's not careening into me, marauding my senses. He's giving me plenty of room to run.

  And I don't want to.

  He brushes a thumb past my hair, along my ear, and down my neck, sending unbearable shivers down my spine. When he leans in to start kissing my neck, I gasp. “Arlen,” I say. “Arlen.” But I'm having a hell of a time finding enough air to speak. “This is no good. This isn't all you want.”

  “No kidding.” He moves in for the kill and kisses me on the lips, hard and deep and hungry.

  And I kiss him back, desperate to have as much of him as I can get. I want to plaster myself along every inch of him. No, I want to crawl inside his skin.

  I can't hold back. I don't want to, not tonight.

  Next thing I know, I'm wrapped around him, legs clamped about his hips as he whisks me back to his room. He falls on top of me as we crash onto the bed.

  Chapter 66

  LOLA

  I'm not sure how much later I peel my sweaty face from the pillow. Oh, no. I can't be here. I can't be in Arlen's bed. In Arlen's house. In Arlen's life. I don't belong here.

  Christ. I must have been naked by the time I hit the mattress because I can't see even a scrap of my clothes as I look around.

  I practically vault out of bed trying to find something to put on.

  “Where are you going?” Arlen asks, trying to untangle himself from the sheets.

  I straighten up from where I'm ferreting through the covers looking for even a sock. “I've got to get out of here,” I say. “The girls could walk in any minute.”

  I scurry out into the hall, picking up my sports bra and my panties, putting them on as I hobble toward the living room. I'm getting into my T-shirt when Arlen catches up to me.

  “The girls are not going to walk in.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I'm not an idiot,” he says, yanking his jeans out of my hands as I'm about to step into them. “Do you think I would have gotten naked with you in the living room if they might have come crashing through the front door?”

  I lower my eyes. And notice another pair of jeans on the carpet, so I pick them up and put them on.

  “Lola,” Arlen says. “Please don't leave.”

  “I have to,” I say, whipping off my tee and turning it right-side out.

  “Why? The girls are at a concert. They won't be back for—”

  “Arlen, I have to quit the show.”

  “What?”

  I step back from him, trying to get enough distance between us so that I can make some sense. “This is agony, our working together and not … not … not ...”

  “Not what, Lola? And why can't we?” Arlen moves in closer. “It can't just be the show and your career. It can't. Now that I've watched you work—and what you did with Jon—Lola, you can handle anything. You can handle the fallout from being with me. I know you could.”

  My heart speeds up. Oh, God. How can I tell him? How can I break his heart, after it's already been broken so many times?

  “I have to go,” I say, turning toward the door.

  Arlen catches me and wraps his arms around me from behind. “Lola, please.”

  I twine my arms across the arms he has banded around me. “I have to quit,” I say softly. “You can't. They'll crucify you. I have to be the one to go.”

  “No,” he says, his voice raspy, almost desperate. “You can't leave me alone in the middle of your dream come true without you. You can't.”

  “Arlen, you'll be fine without me.”

  Arlen turns me around and looks right into me. “Lola, I will be lost without you in my life. I love you so damn much.”

  I feel the tears spring to my eyes. I open my mouth but say nothing.

  “Marry me, Lola.”

  I jerk back from him and bang into the front door. “What did you say? You want me to … to … to...”

  “To marry me. Lola, I know I changed my entire life for you. But I'm not asking you to change. You still be you, do your thing. Work like a maniac and keep the world spinning. But I'll be there, to hand you your coffee before I take off at no-o'clock in the morning for hair and make-up. I'll be there when you stumble home at night, muttering about rewrites and trying to remember everything you need to tell Ray. I just want to be with you. Every work day. Every weekend and day off when I know you're still going to be working. Every damn day.”

  I stare at him. My God. He's thought about this. He's considered how much earlier he'd leave for the show than me. He realizes how late I get home. He knows I'll be working all the time. He's serious. This is real.

  My heart skitters into a furious panic and I need to get away.

  I paw at the door. “I have to go. I can't do this now. The girls … they'll be home—”

  “Lola.”

  I can't look at him, but I let my hands drop to my sides.

  Arlen opens the door for me. “Please don't go. I'm not going to keep you here, but please don't run away from me.”

  I shake my head.

  He takes out his cell phone. “Look, I'll show you exactly where the girls are right now.”

  “Arlen!” I watch him unlock his phone. “Are you spying on them? Do you have a tracker on Katie's phone?”

  “And on the car.”

  My mouth gapes.

  “Two sixteen year-old girls driving around L.A.? By themselves? I don't think so. And it's not like I'm listening in to conversations or reading her diary or anything. I just want to know where she is. And tonight, to prove to you that she's not going to—” Arlen stops talking and hones in on the screen. “Oh, no.”

  “What?” Chills race down my spine.

  “They're not at Staples Center.” His face goes pale and his eyes widen with fear. “Where the hell is this? Fuck, this is not a good part
of town.”

  I rush to his computer on the living room desk and slide into the seat. “Address?”

  I type it into google and start searching.

  “I'm calling 911.” Arlen heads toward the land-line on the end-table by the couch.

  “Wait!” I swivel the chair toward him. “They're at a rave, I'm betting. There's one at a warehouse complex at the end of the block their car is on.”

  Arlen picks up the phone. “I'm still calling.”

  “Arlen! There'll be drugs at the rave for sure. Do you really want to send in people with guns? And what if anyone at the rave is packing?”

  Arlen hangs up the phone. “I'm calling her.”

  He let's out a guttural cry.

  “No answer?”

  “Voicemail. I'm trying Mary Lou.” Another cry. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”

  I get up from the desk chair and face Arlen. “Listen to me. Go get a black T-shirt, leather jacket, boots. Give me five seconds.”

  I run into the girls' room and return a minute later holding a black leather corset, red high heels, and a make-up bag. “Let's go,” I say to Arlen, who runs back into the living room at the same time. “We're going to get them.”

  “Lola, we are not going to be able to disguise ourselves as teenagers!”

  “We're disguising ourselves as drug dealers. Now let's go. You drive.”

  As we race to the Tesla I call Ray on speed dial.

  I'm slamming myself into the car when he picks up and I put him on speaker. “Ray,” I say. “Katie and Mary Lou are at a rave at an abandoned warehouse complex and loading bays just south of the 10 freeway.”

  “What?” Ray shouts through the phone. “Lola, kids die at raves!”

  “Ray, I can hear you!” Arlen shouts from the driver's seat.

  I reach out and put my hand on Arlen's knee as I give the south-of-downtown address to Ray.

  “I'll meet you there.”

  As soon as I hang up, I whip off my shirt. “Just so you know,” I tell Arlen as I shimmy around trying to make room for my gyrations. “I'm taking off my shirt and bra to put on this corset so my boobs are going to be swinging all over the place. So don't get distracted or anything.”

  Arlen nods but doesn't look my way.

  I get to work. “Oh, man.”

  “What?” Arlen's voice is taut as a garroting wire.

  “Nothing,” I say, pulling on the front-facing corset strings with Mammy-like force. “The corset's just a little small. But it's fine.”

  Truth is, I can't quite cinch it closed across my cleavage. Oh, well. At least my nipples aren't showing, so I'm pretty sure this amount of exposure is A-OK in just about any L.A. venue. I can only take shallow breaths, but it'll work. I unzip the make-up bag and start on my face.

  When we get to the street of the rave, Arlen double parks my car next to his car—his Camry—the car Katie and Mary Lou must have arrived in.

  “Okay,” I say turning to him, “Tie your—”

  “Whoa.” Arlen almost jumps back into the driver's side window when he sees me.

  “Do I look all Goth and sexy?” I dab at the corners of my mouth to feel if my lipstick's smeared. “That's what I'm going for. Bad-ass lady of the evening.” I pull down the sun visor and check myself out in the little mirror. Smoky eye shadow, tar-like mascara, black eyeliner that's as dark and messy as coal sketching. Deep red lips and some color high on my cheeks. “Perfect,” I say and look back at Arlen, who's still staring at me. “Put your hair into a low ponytail,” I tell him. “And do your best to look stony and bad-to-the-bone.”

  As I get out of the car, I step into sexy red heels that are way too small but I just jam my feet in. As I stand, Ray's car pulls past us and double parks in front of us. He hops out and I barely recognize him. Slicked back hair, black leather pants, and a silvery suit vest with nothing on underneath.

  “Okay,” Ray says, and I've never heard him sound so serious. “Let's go get them.”

  Ray takes the lead and Wonder-boy looks in his element. He spins to face us. “Wait. How did you find them? What do we tell them as we haul them out?”

  “Arlen's got trackers on Katie's phone and car. But we say you heard them talking on set today and just put it together an hour ago. Once you realized what they were talking about, you called Arlen.”

  “Wait—that's great that you have a tracker on her phone! We can find her really fast.”

  “It's not that precise,” Arlen said. “Each of you take one of the big warehouses, and I'll do the perimeter to see if the signal changes. If it does, I can hone in.”

  “Got it,” Ray and I say in unison.

  The reverberating space of the first warehouse is licked by constant strobes and the sensations make me want to run screaming to Earth's other hemisphere. But I can't. So I just start swaying my hips to the beat as I work through the crowd. Arlen heads off to the right, all quiet and downright scary looking, like a freaking ex-con. Ray bops and gyrates off to my left, toward the other big warehouse on the lot. We're all clutching cell phones, constantly checking them to keep in touch.

  The entire back of the warehouse opens onto a huge parking space outside, set up with different areas where people can listen to different deejays and probably get different kinds of drugs. My heart thumps faster than the bass pounding of the techno-pop as I head out to search the boozing throngs. I sway and slide through the crowds, trying to forget about all the devastating articles in the Times and that episode of Inspector Morse about his niece.

  “Katie and Mary Lou aren't stupid. Katie and Mary Lou aren't stupid. Katie and Mary Lou aren't stupid.” I just keep repeating this to myself as I check out everyone from under my inky lashes. Twenty minutes later, when I look to my phone for the thousandth time, I see a text from Arlen. They must be in Ray's warehouse.

  I'm undulating through the crowds and about halfway to the second warehouse when a text from Ray pops up on my screen. I've got them. Meet us out front.

  “Yes!” But my corset only lets it come out as a squeak. Not that the person who keeps moshing into my butt would even have heard me in all the racket. I spin around to head back through the warehouse when I trip over something and fall hard onto the cement, scraping my hands and practically spilling my tatas everywhere. As I try to get up without putting too much pressure on my throbbing feet, I see what I tripped over.

  A girl.

  She's propped up all crookedly against the loading dock, her eyes closed, her lashes flitting to life about every ten seconds or so. I start typing furiously into my phone.

  Arlen, out back at the central loading dock. NOW.

  I take the girl's wrist in my fingers and press my head right up against her chest. She has a pulse and she's breathing. I try to shake her into consciousness, but nothing.

  In the next second, Arlen's there beside me. Without a word, he picks up the girl and together we get the hell out of there.

  I see Ray and the girls as soon as we burst through the front entrance into the night.

  And Ray sees us. “My car,” he barks.

  We all race down the block.

  “I tripped over her,” I explain. “I have no idea what happened to her or how long she's been out.”

  Ray beeps open his car. “Lola, you get in back with her. Arlen, you take these two home.”

  As soon as Arlen settles the unconscious girl in my arms in the backseat of Ray's Prius, he hustles Katie and Mary Lou into the back of the Tesla.

  I put down the window. “Arlen! Your car. Take your car. Leave mine.”

  But Ray peels out before Arlen can respond.

  I look at the back of Ray's head. “You know where the closest hospital is?”

  “I checked first thing.”

  My phone chimes and I look down to see a text from Arlen. I'll come with Jim tomorrow morning to get what's left of my car. Katie and Mary Lou will work off any loss or damage. Heading home now. Talk to you later. Good luck.

  “Were the girl
s okay when you found them?” I ask Ray. I cradle the girl but not too tightly.

  “Seemed to be,” Ray shoots back as he drives like a car thief through the deserted streets south of downtown. “Looks so far like they hadn't gotten up the nerve to try anything before we found them.”

  The hospital looms up in front of us. Ray pulls up just outside the emergency room door, jams the car into park, and jumps out in one continuous motion. The second he wrenches open my door, I lurch out with the girl. Ray picks up her feet and we rush toward the sliding glass doors. Two men in scrubs run out with a stretcher to meet us.

  “Rave?” they ask as they rapidly transfer her.

  “Yes,” I say quickly.

  “Do you know what she took?”

  “No.”

  And then they all disappear through the doors. I lunge forward to follow but Ray catches my elbow. “I'll go,” he said. “Better for you to stay out of this.”

  I turn to face him fully, towering over him in my killer heels. “No, Ray. I am going to make sure she's all right. I am not bailing and letting you do this alone.”

  “He won't be alone.”

  Ray and I both spin around to see Tom Glenn standing there. Expensive jeans, white T, light blue V-neck sweater, artfully mussed hair. It flashes through my mind that dressed-down Tom must have cost a thousand dollars and at least an hour of prep time.

  “And I've got legal counsel on the way,” he continues. His voice is level and strong, not a hint of a game-show host about him.

  I look at Ray and he looks back, but his expression gives nothing away. When did he text Tom? And how is Tom so caught up?

  Wait. Ray must have been with Tom when I first called. And Tom has been essentially riding shotgun with Ray all night. What exactly does that mean? For Ray or for Arlen?

  I step forward. “Tom, I—”

  But suddenly I notice someone in scrubs at my side. “Are either of you three related to the girl you brought in?”

  “Oh, God!” I cry. “Is she okay?”

  “Her vitals are strong. Now, are you three relatives?” He gives me a skeptical once over.