"You ready?" he asked as he came up to her and Carl.
He couldn't wait to see her reaction, the party was going to blow her mind. Carl looked at Kelly quizzically and when Kelly nodded, took off.
They walked into the party hand in hand and then Holly stopped abruptly. Kelly watched her, amused as the astonishment took over her face.
The ice sculptures were immense, each over ten feet high.
"Wow, it really looks like you," Holly said, staring at it, "I mean, look at the face."
Then she pulled him along to check out the other ones, chattering about the detail and the process and about how long each one must have taken. The one thing she didn't mention, though Kelly heard more than a couple of people in the room, talking about it, was what they must have cost. Maybe that was because she was an artist herself, he surmised.
"What's that?" she said.
There was a stage on the far side of the room and a bunch of acrobats were climbing onto each other, forming an asymmetrical human pyramid. Kelly and Holly made their way over to the stage and joined the crowd watching. As they got closer they watched a man climbing the tower of people. When the man was almost at the top he wobbled and steadied himself.
"Oh my god!" said Holly.
Kelly looked at her.
"It's okay, he's fine," he said, trying to reassure her, "Besides, I almost think they do that on purpose for a dramatic effect."
Holly didn't look at him, she just kept her eyes on the performers.
"Look how high they are, if he falls he could get hurt, really hurt."
Kelly started to tell her they didn't have to watch it but then changed his mind.
"Look, let's get a drink, okay, find some of my friends," he said, gently pulling her back away from the stage.
At the bar Holly asked what they had for white wine and the bartender replied, "All of them."
Obviously flustered, she asked for a Riesling. Kelly ordered his favorite scotch. As the man stepped back to get their drinks she apologized.
"They don't usually have everything, where I'm from," she said, "You know, just a couple of choices."
"It's fine, you worry too much," Kelly said. "Oh look, there's Bill and Tracy again, remember?"
"Oh yes," Holly said, brightening considerably.
During their brief meeting at the theater Tracy had told Holly that her oldest child was a junior in high school. Kelly watched Holly, smiling, as she and Tracy began talking about college selection and applications in earnest, as if there hadn't been a nearly three hour break in the conversation.
Two hours later the party was still in full swing but Kelly was more than ready to leave. As he glanced out the window he noticed the full, bright moon and that gave him an idea. He found Holly and pulled her away from Tracy and the other wives and girlfriends.
"I have a crazy idea," he said, "Do you like tacos?"
"What?"
"Tacos?"
She looked at him like he was nuts, which, considering the sizable buffet at the other end of the room, which was loaded with just about every extravagant food imaginable, wasn't an unreasonable assumption. Kelly watched her think about what to say next and decided not to wait for her answer. He knew what he wanted and, for starters, that was to get out of the party.
"Come on," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her across the room, "Just trust me, okay, this is my town, I know what I'm doing."
She said okay and went along but stopped as they exited the building.
"What?" Kelly said.
"It's just, what about Carl, how's he's going to get home?"
Kelly laughed and he wanted to kiss her right then but you never knew when there was a photographer lurking in the bushes so he told himself to wait for the limo.
"Carl will be fine, I promise," he said, "Now come on."
Chapter 22
Holly looked up and down the moonlit beach. The crashing of the waves intermittently drowned out the voices of the surfers. She turned back to Kelly.
"What do you want?" he asked her, motioning to the menu.
She looked at the counter first but the man running the stand was back in the kitchen area. She started scanning the huge menu posted to the side, but had barely started reading it when the man came back up to the window with a tray of food, yelled a name out the window, peeled off the food service gloves and stepped in front of the register.
"Kelly, hi," the guy said and Kelly said hi back. Then, "What do you want?"
"Go ahead," Kelly told Holly.
She looked up at him and caught a glimpse of the people standing behind them waiting to order out of her peripheral vision. The man was waiting at the register patiently, but how long would that last?
"You order," she told Kelly, "Your...taco stand, you know what's good."
"Okay," he said and as he started rattling off food Holly stepped aside, out of the bright light of the stand.
In a minute he was done ordering and paying. He pulled Holly over to one of the picnic tables in front of the stand.
"Hey Ernie, how is it?" he said to the guy sitting at the table shoveling food in.
"Awesome, what's up Kel, you gonna surf in your tux tonight?"
"No I don't even have my board," Kelly said. "This is Holly."
Ernie held out his hand, then looked at it, realized it was covered with food, and retracted it.
"Sorry, just trying to eat as fast as possible and get back out there." With that he stuffed the last of his taco in his mouth and jumped up from the table. Ernie chewed as he ran over to the garbage can to throw out his paper basket.
"Okay, well, nice to meet you, see you Kelly," he said as he ran back down to the water.
The stand owner yelled for Kelly and Kelly told Holly to stay put while he got the food.
"Wow this is really good," she said, after the first bite.
"Yeah, even better when you're starving from riding for a couple of hours," Kelly paused to take another bite, "Do you want to try it tomorrow?"
"Me? Surfing?"
"Yes, we'd have to go rent you some stuff, I mean, I have an old wet suit, couple of them actually, but they'd be way too big for you."
Holly looked out to the ocean. The moon was bright enough to see the surfers. It looked like they were having fun. It looked like a lot of fun, actually. It also looked like something she would never, ever be able to do. She didn't answer and they continued to eat in silence until Kelly spoke again.
"You're not leaving till Sunday, right, so we could go tomorrow, ummm, today, no tomorrow, eleven forty-five now, still Friday."
She looked at Kelly and he looked positively thrilled at the idea of teaching her to surf. She was pretty positive it would be a complete disaster.
"Maybe," she said, and then she shivered.
The breeze coming in off the ocean was cool. It was nowhere as cool as back home was getting, there the nights were approaching freezing. But on the beach in just a evening dress, Holly was cold.
"Here," Kelly said, and he whipped off his jacket and wrapped it around her.
She thought of refusing it but she didn't want to. And not just because she was cold and the jacket was warm. It was warm from his body and it smelled like him and it felt good. Then he kissed her.
This time when he kissed her Holly didn't worry about the things she usually worried about when he was kissing her. Like what would happen if it turned into more than kissing. His hands moved under the jacket onto her, touching her and she was didn't want him to stop. They kept at it until somebody walking by yelled at them to get a room.
"You have a room actually," Kelly said quietly, "A pretty nice one."
"Yes," she said.
She was saying yes to more than the fact that she had a nice room available to her, to them, and luckily, Kelly got the message.
"Let's go then," he said and they hurriedly packed up their trash and all but ran back to the limo.
In the limo his hands were all over her while he ki
ssed her, his tongue deep in her mouth. He paused when he slipped his hand up under her dress, between her legs.
"If you want me to stop, just tell me, I'll stop, promise."
"I don't want you to stop," Holly said, his hand warm on her inner thigh.
"Well if you change your mind," he said, and then he kissed her again and his fingers inched higher.
Back at the room he pulled his jacket off her and tossed it on top of the dresser. Then he kissed her again. Eventually his hands made their way to the back of the dress and found the zipper.
"God I want you," he told as he slowly inched the zipper downward.
"I want you too," she told him carefully directing her attention to undoing the buttons on his shirt. Then she stopped, "Oh, no."
"What?"
"I don't have," Holly didn't want to finish the sentence.
"I do, I thought, well I was hoping, sorry."
"Don't be sorry."
He pushed the dress off her slowly, taking her panties along with it when he reached her hips. She undid the last button on the bottom of his shirt.
"You are so beautiful," he said as he kissed her neck and moved downward.
Her breast was in his mouth and her hands were in his hair so she only barely noticed him taking off his shirt. Then he picked her up and started over to the bed, then stopped.
"Wait," he said, adjusting his grip on her.
He held her with one arm and started groping for his jacket with another. She wrapped her legs around his waist tightly.
"Don't worry I got you," he said, as he pulled a condom out of his jacket's inner pocket.
"Not worried," she said but it turned into a moan as he grabbed her tightly with both arms again and flicked her nipple with his tongue as he walked towards the bed.
He laid her down and she stretched out, pushing herself back from the edge to give them more room. She watched as he took off his pants and underwear and put the condom on. Then he climbed on top of her. Feeling his bare skin on hers, all the way down the length of her body, made her moan again. She wanted him so much and she pushed her legs out and around him.
He kissed her as he started pushing inside her, so when she cried out she thought the sound was too muffled for him to hear, but he stopped.
"Am I hurting you?"
"No," she said, "It feels good."
It did feel good, really good. She had forgotten it could feel like that. She was clinging to his shoulders, his massive shoulders, but she wanted to slide her hands all the way down his back and grab him, force him all the way into her.
She didn't. She waited and he took his time, easing into her a little bit more with each powerful but gentle thrust. It wasn't until it was his turn, after he had slipped his hand between them and driven her crazy, until she couldn't take it anymore and allowed herself to let go, that he lost control. She was still shaking and moaning from her own orgasm as he pounded into her hard and fast. He cried out her name as he came and then collapsed on top of her. She was almost out of breath when he came to his senses and lifted his weight off her.
"You okay?" he asked her.
"Yes," she said, but it wasn't the truth.
She was better than okay. So much better.
Chapter 23
Kelly stood at the foot of the bed trying to decide what to do. He had been slightly confused when he had woken up but the memories came back to him when felt Holly shift under the covers next to him. The very hot memories. He had quietly slipped out of bed to use the bathroom and had been planning on crawling back into bed when he had noticed the time.
Now he stood, looking down at Holly in bed, frozen in indecision. It was early enough that he could probably slip out of the hotel and get home and no one would have any idea he had spent the night there. That was probably the right choice, for Holly's sake. But he didn't really want to go. He stood there watching her sleep. The covers had slipped down to her waist and her breasts rose and fell gently with each deep breath. Kelly glanced back at his jacket. He knew he had several more condoms in his pocket. It would be so easy to crawl back into bed with her. Less easy to let her wake up on her own but he would wait. Dammit, he thought, as he started to get hard, and he picked his clothes up off the floor and started getting dressed.
He quickly texted the car service he used. He thought about texting Holly right then and there, telling her why he was leaving and that he would send a car for her later. But as he gazed at her phone sitting on the desk he changed his mind. If it rang it would wake her up. Part of him wanted her to wake up because, if she did, he wouldn't leave. It wasn't until he slipped out of the room, carefully shutting the door softly behind him that he even thought about leaving a note. But by then the door had locked behind him and it was no longer an option.
In the elevator he inventoried in his mind what they would need to rent her from the surf shop that afternoon. She hadn't given him a definite answer about surfing but Kelly decided he was going to push her on this issue. He wanted to see her try it. Then they could eat dinner at his house, he had some grass fed tenderloin in the freezer that he had been waiting for the right time to eat. Hopefully she would be willing to spend the night at his house this time. Heck, she didn't really even have to fly home on Sunday, Lia was at school. He was scheduled to be at the studio for the first read through on "Mistakes" on Monday. It would be next to impossible for him to fly back East for the next six to eight weeks, but there really wasn't any reason Holly couldn't stay in California longer if she was willing to.
Happy in the thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to talk Holly into extending her stay, Kelly headed over to the front desk.
"I think I left my baseball hat in the lobby yesterday," he told the clerk who had greeting him with an obviously fake cheerful "Good morning sir."
"What color?" the guy asked.
"Yeah, it was a baseball hat," Kelly said and the guy rolled his eyes and went into the room just off the desk.
"These are the baseball hats," the clerk said, as he pulled them one by one off the stack he was holding, and laid them out for Kelly to pick, er, find from.
Kelly was pretty tempted to pick the pink one just to see the guy's reaction but instead he chose the one he thought was most likely to fit.
"Oh here it is, great, thank you so much," he said as he picked up the hat.
"Glad I could help sir, is there anything else I can do for you today?"
Kelly tried to figure out if the guy believed him or just didn't care, but he couldn't. Probably the second though.
"No, thank you," Kelly said and walked away, adjusting the brim of the cap as he did so.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he checked it to find his ride was waiting outside. He put the cap on and pulled it down low, then headed out to the car, looking as far down at the ground as he could as he did. He dozed in the car on the ride out to Malibu.
"Mr. Rockport, sir?"
"Yup, thanks," Kelly said and pulled forty bucks out of his wallet to tip the guy. The cab fare would be billed to him, he had an account with the company.
Once inside his house, Kelly grabbed a glass of water and dug around in the freezer for the steaks he wanted. He left them on a plate on the counter to defrost, then headed up to his bedroom to take a shower.
After his shower, he looked longingly at his bed, but his phone was still downstairs. He went back downstairs and, confident he would hear the phone if Holly called, lay down on the sofa and went back to sleep.
Chapter 24
Ring, ring, ring!
Oh god, thought Holly, and she unwillingly opened her eyes. Where was she? The hotel, right. The phone kept ringing and it seemed so loud she scrambled to get it just to make it stop. She realized as she crawled across the bed that Kelly's side was empty, but she didn't have time to process that fact, and what it meant, before she answered the phone.
"Hello?" she said.
She wasn't concerned about who it was or why they were calling. She j
ust wanted the noise to stop.
"Mom?"
It was Lia and she was upset.
"Lia? What is it, what's wrong?"
"Mom."
Holly waited but Lia didn't say anything.
"What is it honey?" Holly asked fearing the absolute worst. Actually fearing about twenty of the absolute worsts.
"Dylan,"
Dylan what, Holly thought frantically.
"What Lia, what happened to Dylan?"
"Nothing happened to him, he, he,"
"Honey?"
"He broke up with me."
At that Lia burst into tears. Holly was so relieved she let out a huge sigh of relief, then quickly hoped Lia was too distraught to notice. It would be okay. Better actually. Holly was not a fan of Dylan, she had always found him somewhat arrogant and she worried, a lot, about how he was treating her daughter when they were out of Holly's sight. Of course there probably wasn't a boy on the planet who Holly would trust enough not to worry about that.
"Honey, I'm so sorry," she said, and she meant it.
Lia would be okay and a broken heart was a small price to pay for getting away from a person who was wrong for you, but it could be years, if not decades, before Lia understood that. Lia just kept crying.
"When did he break up with you?" Holly asked, more to give Lia something to focus on so she maybe would stop crying than anything else, "This morning?"
She looked at the clock, it was eight-o-two, which meant 11AM back east.
"No, last night."
"Oh honey, you should have called me."
"I did. You didn't answer so I thought maybe your phone was busted or something. When Rachel got up she said we could try to call the hotel, so I got the number from the e-mail you sent me about your trip."
Holly looked across the room at her phone. She started to get out of bed, realized she was naked, stopped, and looked around. Kelly wasn't there. Unsure if he was in the bathroom she dashed across the room, planning on hopping back in bed her the phone. As much fun as last night had been, naked in the morning is not the same as naked after a couple of glasses of wine the night before. Especially not when you're forty-five.
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