by Kelly Oram
Val nodded and let the PA drag her off to find a chair without saying another word.
“Definitely getting dumped,” Cara muttered.
Before I could fire a comeback, the DP gave Cara and me the okay to get up. I practically pushed Cara off of me and had Val in my arms before she’d even managed to sit down. “Hey,” I said, pulling her to me for a kiss. “I’m glad you made it.”
The kiss she gave me back was polite and her smile was a little forced. Concern tinged my brow and I squeezed her tighter to me. “I’m really sorry I forgot to warn you about today. I didn’t even think about it. I was just so excited to have you come. You okay?”
“Yeah, of course,” she said.
I wasn’t sure I believed her, but she was trying to be brave. I hadn’t meant for this to happen, but after a moment I figured it was a good thing. Unfortunately, this was part of the job. It didn’t happen for me as often as it did for Cara, but it did happen from time to time. The sooner Val was exposed to it, the less it would bother her. Shane never liked it much either, but he dealt.
“You sure you’re good?”
She nodded. “I’m fine. It was just a surprise.”
“Well, let me show you something then, so there won’t be any more surprises.”
I threaded her hand through mine and started dragging her across the room to a large corkboard where the storyboard artist had tacked up the sketches for each shot of the video. Each sketch had the corresponding song lyrics pinned above them. They were crud drawings, but they were enough to help you visualize the entire project so you’d know how it would come together.
“Cara’s playing the role of my fantasy girl today,” I explained. “The story is that I’m dreaming because I have to wait, so we can’t really be together and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t touch her in real life, so she’s haunting my dreams. See how I wake up alone at the end?”
I pointed to the last few sketches and waited for some kind of reaction from Val. She’d been so quiet while looking at the drawings, and I was dying to know what she thought. I loved it, but this was her song. I wanted her to love it, too. She’d hated “Cryin’ Shame” so much and had dreaded seeing the video. I’d wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. I’d worked hard to find something I thought she would appreciate when I’d sat down with my team and discussed concepts.
“I’m actually really excited about it,” I said when she continued to examine the boards. “It’s a very low-key shoot. Not flashy at all. I was really happy that they agreed to go with a more haunting—almost mysterious—feeling, and not just over-sex everything to the point of tackiness like a lot of music videos. The song is about so much more than just wanting to get her in bed. It’s deeper, you know. He’s trying to do what she wants, but he’s struggling. This video’s going to focus on the struggle. It’s going to showcase the emotion in the song.”
Val finally pulled her eyes away from the storyboards to meet my gaze, but she still didn’t say anything. It was as if she were at a loss for words. Her brow was creased and she chewed on her bottom lip as if she was worried about something.
“Carlos is a great director,” I assured her, guessing at her worry. “I’ve worked with him before. We talked a lot about this song and what it means to me. He really gets it, and that’s going to come through in the final product. It’s going to look fantastic. Nothing trashy, I promise. It’ll stay PG-13.”
Val swallowed and then forced another smile.
“You don’t like it?” I tried not to let that disappoint me.
She shook her head quickly and forced more pep into her face. “I do like it,” she said. “I’m sure it’s going to be a great video.”
“Then what is it? Something’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong. I promise. I was just expecting…something different. I thought there’d be a band and lights and smoke machines. I expected to watch you sing the song so many times in a row that I’d be dreaming about it for a month.”
I chuckled and pulled her into my arms, relieved she was only disappointed that she wouldn’t hear me sing. “That was yesterday, but if you’re that desperate to hear the song, I’ll call the guys and make them come play it for you when we’re done.”
She finally gave me a genuine smile and leaned against me, letting me hold her for a minute. She dropped her cheek onto my shoulder and her hands slid around my waist. The moment she realized I wasn’t wearing a shirt and that she was touching my bare skin, she froze. A heartbeat passed and then, slowly, she let her fingers glide over my back. The delicate touch set me on fire, igniting me from the inside out.
It was crazy how the simplest touch from Val affected me in ways a whole legion of Lakers girls could never accomplish. I suppressed a shudder and forced my hands to behave. I couldn’t help the way my grip tightened, though, and eventually I simply had to kiss her.
She kissed me back with more enthusiasm than I’d expected her to, and it took every ounce of self-control I had not to scoop her into my arms and throw her down on the bed across the room. Thankfully, Carlos interrupted us before that happened. “This must be the muse,” he said, holding back a laugh.
I proudly pushed Val toward him. “The one and only. I was just getting a refill on inspiration before we start shooting again.”
Carlos chuckled and pointed to a corner of the room. “That must be what Cara’s doing, too.”
Val and I followed his gaze to where Cara was attacking Shane. “Nope.” I laughed. “That’s just Cara and Shane. They’re always like that.”
Carlos’s nose wrinkled in a way that made me laugh even harder. “Well,” he said, “I’ll let you break them up. We’re ready to get started again. We’re ahead of schedule, too. General consensus seems to be push through the lunch break so we can wrap early. I think we can be out of here by three.”
“Sounds good to me.” I looked to Val. “Do you mind?”
She shook her head. “Only if you don’t mind if I invite Robin and Alan to join us for dinner. She called and said Celebrity Gossip sent her the mock-up for the article on us. She wanted to show us.”
“That’s fine,” I agreed.
“I’ll let the others know.” Carlson hurried off.
Val tried to start walking back to her chair, but I wouldn’t let her escape. “As long as we are negotiating,” I said, reeling her back into my arms, “I’ll go to dinner with everyone if you agree to let me take you out afterward, just the two of us.”
Val pretended to think about it. “I suppose I can do that. If I really must.”
My anxiety melted away at the taunt. If she was teasing me, then she would be fine. I squeezed her to me again and bent to kiss the soft spot beneath her ear. “Oh, yes,” I whispered. “You really, really must.”
When my lips touched her skin, heat coursed through me. I dragged my mouth down her neck and back up along her jawline. I was seconds away from getting inappropriate, but I couldn’t stop myself. Everything inside of me ached with desire. My chest heaved as I fought to keep air in my lungs. I pulled the neck of her shirt back and kissed along her collarbone.
“Kyle, stop,” she gasped. “We’re in public.”
She put her hands against my chest. I think she meant to push me away, but her fingers curled against my skin instead, spurring me on even more. “Sorry,” I said, barely suppressing a groan. “Sexy shoots like this one always build a lot of tension.”
Val’s hands stilled against my chest. “You’re turned on right now?”
I chuckled, low and throaty. “I’m not the only one. Did you see Cara? At least she’s had an outlet all day.” I pulled her even tighter against me. “I’ve been dying for you for hours. I’m seriously going to need you to help me get rid of some of this tension later. We’ll definitely have to implement the duct tape rule, though, because there is no way I will be able to keep my hands off you.”
I couldn’t keep them off her now. They were already roaming over everything they could rea
ch that wouldn’t get me slapped. “Come to think of it, handcuffs might be safer. Don’t worry, I have a pair you can use.”
Apparently, I’d pushed her a little too far with the handcuffs comment because she deflated in my arms. “Let’s just hurry and get this over with,” she said, shoving me toward the set.
It was a good thing she did, because I wouldn’t have had the willpower to do it myself.
I was on cloud nine that night. The shoot went better than any shoot I’d ever done, and then I got to go out with my best friends and Val afterward. As I sat down with Val in the restaurant in Pasadena where we were meeting Robin and her husband, I pulled her close against me and grinned across the table at Cara and Shane.
Ever since I’d put on my bracelet and started writing again, my relationship with Cara and Shane had steadily gone back to how it was before Reid’s death. I hadn’t realized how badly I’d missed my best friend until I had him back. It was as if the last few years of my life I’d been living in black and white, only I never knew it until Val suddenly brought everything back into Technicolor.
“You know, this is what I always wanted back in the day when you guys first got together,” I said, gesturing around the table. “The four of us hanging out.”
“Me too,” Cara agreed. “I tried to make it happen so many times.” She sent a tentative smile to Val. “I’m really glad you’re here. It never felt right without you.”
Val’s answering smile was timid, and it made me sad. Cara and I had always had the same vision, but Val had never wanted it. Cara and I trying to push this foursome on her is what ultimately destroyed Cara and Val’s relationship. Their new friendship was even shakier than Val’s and mine.
They were trying to come back from being completely broken. It was working to an extent, but things weren’t the same between them anymore. They weren’t as close or as comfortable with each other as they used to be. I wasn’t sure they ever really would be again.
I felt terrible about the tension between them and wished Robin and her husband weren’t meeting us for dinner so that they could have more time to patch things up properly, but I couldn’t say as much to Val. I knew she was struggling to make sense of this new life I’d asked her to live. I figured including Robin was her way of bridging the gap.
If I hadn’t been completely sure of that before, the way she jumped up and grabbed Robin into a hug when she arrived proved it. It was like watching her grab desperately to a life buoy in the midst of a raging ocean. She was so relieved when Robin and her husband showed up. The question that bothered me was, why had she been so uncomfortable that she needed the lifeline?
“When you texted me the location, I thought it was a joke. A rock star and a TV star dining at Coco’s at four o’clock in the evening?” Robin said as she plopped down into a chair. “Not that I’m complaining. I do like their pie.”
I laughed. Val had once had the same reaction. “There aren’t many places a rock star and a TV star can go without being recognized,” I explained. “The sixty-five and up crowd aren’t really our demographic. Well, they’re not mine, anyway. Miss Daytime over there is probably at risk of getting mobbed by the old ladies.”
“Jealous of my old ladies, Kyle? I didn’t realize you had a thing for false teeth and rose-scented perfume.”
Val cleared her throat, pulling Cara and me from our banter. “Guys, you’ve all met Robin, but this is her husband, Alan. Alan, this is Kyle, Cara, and Shane.”
Val was still acting weird, so I decided to put on my best manners. I stood and held out a hand to Alan. As he shook our hands and said hello to us all, his greeting was polite, but he was definitely wary of our group. I couldn’t blame him. He looked very much like the suburbia American dream. His hairline was slightly receding, he had a few extra pounds around the middle, and I’d bet money that he wore a white shirt and tie to the office every day. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it was just so completely opposite from the world that Cara, Shane, and I lived in. The difference between us was painfully obvious, and I tried to ignore the fact that Val seemed to have a lot more in common with him and Robin than with any of the rest of us.
Things were slightly awkward but at least the waitress came to take our orders fairly quickly, breaking the tension a little. When she got to Robin, I was shocked to hear the pregnant woman say, “Nothing for me, thanks.”
“Nothing for you?” I blurted. I hadn’t seen the woman without food in her hand since we met.
She laughed and said, “My stomach’s feeling a little off. I’m not that hungry, so I’ll just have a few bites of Alan’s spaghetti.”
“No, you won’t,” Alan said. He glanced up at the waitress and said, “Bring us two plates of spaghetti.”
Robin frowned. “Hon, I don’t need my own plate.”
“Yes, you do, because I would like to eat my dinner and if you don’t order your own, you will eat all of mine.”
“No, I won’t.”
“You always do.” He looked at the waitress again and held up two fingers. “Two plates of spaghetti.”
“And the chocolate crème pie.”
“No pie,” Alan said sternly, earning another frown from his wife. The sour look didn’t change his mind. “You know what the doctor said. You’re borderline gestational diabetic. No more sweets.”
“‘Borderline’ is not diabetic,” Robin grumbled.
Alan shook his head at the waitress. “No pie, thank you. Just the spaghetti.”
“Two plates,” the woman replied with a smile.
I don’t know what she was smiling about. Observing Robin and Alan was like watching a dizzying ping-pong match. If they stayed like this all night, I’d get a headache. I couldn’t help wondering if Shane and Cara would end up like that.
“So,” Robin said cheerfully after the server retreated to the kitchen. She smiled as if the argument with her husband had never taken place. “How are you enjoying your vacation, Val?” She snickered as if she’d just made a funny joke. I didn’t understand.
Val groaned. “You know me.”
Robin laughed, but my face fell into a pout. Whatever they were joking about, I was missing the punch line. Another person who knew Val a lot better than me. That wasn’t a good feeling.
“You guys want to explain to the rest of us?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” Val leaned into my shoulder and squeezed my hand, making me relax a little. “I just get restless sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Robin laughed. “The woman can’t do vacation. She’s completely incapable. She’s been down here for four whole days, which means she’s going out of her mind already not having anything to do.”
I’m pretty sure I was frowning again. “What do you mean nothing to do?” I asked Val. “Your schedule’s been so packed I had to wait three days for you to come back and see me.”
“Visiting family and catching up with old friends is great but it still feels very…idle. Plus, I’ve finished seeing everyone, so my schedule is completely empty now. I can only sit around for so long. Without a job or school, I’ll need something to do this summer.”
“I thought I was your something to do this summer.”
When Cara and Shane both snickered and Val gave me a flat look, I had to think back on what I said. I smirked at the innuendo, unintentional as it had been. “That’s not even what I meant.”
“For once,” Cara quipped.
I glared at her and brought Val’s hand to my lips. “I thought you came down here to spend time with me.”
Val smiled at me as if she found me completely adorable. It wasn’t condescending, but it still pissed me off a little. It made me feel as though she were indulging a whiny kid.
“I did,” she promised. “We’ll have lots of time to spend together, but you’re going to be busy during the days. Your tour rehearsals are starting soon and you’ll have a ton of press appearances for your album.”
“But you can come with me to all of those thing
s. It’ll be fun. Like today.”
Val’s smile faded. “You thought today was fun?” she asked quietly.
“You didn’t?” I was so confused.
My question made the blood drain from Val’s face but, for the life of me, I didn’t know what the problem was. Today hadn’t just been fun; it’d been amazing. One of the best days I’d had in a long time.
“Kyle, today was—” She bit her lip as if she didn’t want to say what she was thinking and then changed her sentence. “I can’t just follow you around all summer sitting on the sidelines for hours while you do your thing. I’d be bored to tears.”
She wasn’t being mean, but I still felt like I’d been slapped, and I forgot all about the fact that she’d completely skirted the question I’d asked her. “You think what I do—my music—is boring?”
“Of course not,” she said quickly. She pinched up her face as if I were making her head hurt. “I just meant that I couldn’t help you with anything while I was there. I couldn’t participate. You’d be busy and I’d just be sitting there. Going to a dress rehearsal or the occasional interview is one thing, but watching your practices and workouts all summer? I couldn’t do that any more than I could sit on a beach reading and sipping margaritas all summer.”
She squeezed my hand again when I frowned. “It’s okay that you work, Kyle. I don’t need to be with you every second of the day. I’ll be fine. I just need to find something to do. I need a project or something.”
I truly didn’t understand this woman. “You think I asked you to come to my rehearsals because I’m worried about having to entertain you?”
“What other reason would there be for you to drag me to work with you?” she asked, baffled.
We clearly didn’t speak the same language. She was just as confused as I was. “Um…how about that I just like your company and want you there?”
She blinked up at me as if I were insane.
“Kyle, she’s not a groupie.”
Val and I both turned to see Cara biting back laughter. “You’ll have to forgive him,” she said to Val. “His last girlfriend actually was a groupie and was fused to his side 24/7 the entire time they were a couple. He’s not used to a girlfriend who has a life of her own that doesn’t revolve around him.”