by Claire Adams
“Maddie!” He smiled widely and patted my shoulder. “How have you been?”
“Fine,” I said. “Keeping up on my accounts and promotions.”
“Good, good.” He nodded and took a seat. His thick framed glasses covered dark brown eyes, and they sat on a nose slightly too small for his head. “How many new followers?”
“Since two weeks ago?” I counted in my head. “About 1,500.”
I recognized the look of disappointment that crossed his face, but he was quick to disguise it. “That’s a number we can work with. Do you have any ideas on how to double it, though? Any upcoming promotions, or maybe cross-promotions?”
“Tomorrow is my weekly cross-promo with Nancie,” I said. “And there’s a new flavor of energy drink coming out at the end of the week. I’m on the list for one of the first ones.”
“Energy drink,” he said as he copied my words onto his laptop. “That should get you at least another thousand. Good.”
“I was hoping there might be some auditions,” I said. “I haven’t auditioned for anything in over a month.” Which was unusual for me. Normally I would have had at least one audition a week.
“Nothing’s popped up for your profile,” he said after a few clicks. “Of course, you’re always free to audition un-agented. I’m sure there are a few commercials needing brunettes around here.”
I grimaced. Auditioning for anything un-agented was a sure-fire way to be passed by before being given a chance.
“So nothing then?” I leaned back in my seat. Why was I surprised?
“Well, there is something,” he said and showed me his laptop screen. It was an offer for a contract. “There’s a small photoshoot in the area for umbrellas. Pricey ones, actually. It’s on Friday at seven am.”
“That’s something,” I said, hope fluttering in my stomach. “What does it pay?”
“That’s the thing.” He sighed. “It only pays $200, so you’ll take home $180.”
My agent received 20 percent of everything I made, which usually wasn’t so bad when the jobs paid more than $500, but it definitely hurt on anything less.
I had no choice though; it was a job, and it paid.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “Send me the contract, and I’ll forward my signature.”
“Perfect,” Martin nodded and closed his laptop. “Anything else new?”
I considered it for a moment. There was nothing I could tell him, nothing that he would be useful for anyways. I shook my head and stood.
“Thanks, Martin. I’ll let you know how the shoot goes. And please, if you hear anything about any commercial auditions, think of me.” I turned to leave.
“Some people are just better standing still in front of a camera than walking around,” he said. “Keep that in mind.”
I rolled my eyes and left his office. He believed that modeling was a more promising gig that acting, which plenty agreed with. Nancie herself had given up acting a while ago, but that was only because she was getting modeling contracts at a steady rate. It wasn’t that I didn’t love modeling, it had its perks, but I would have done anything for another acting gig. Even the shortest commercial, with a single line or glance at the camera, could get my heart racing like nothing else.
I leaned against my car and unlocked my phone to tell Nancie about the photoshoot when it rang. An unknown number appeared, and I hesitated for a moment before answering it.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Maddie?” Gavin’s voice replied. I gasped inaudibly and covered my mouth with a hand. Gavin was reaching out to me! But for what?
“Yeah,” I said after a moment. “It’s me. Is this Gavin?”
“Yes,” he said curtly. He didn’t sound happy, but of course, he almost never sounded happy. “Can you meet me for dinner tomorrow night?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Yeah, of course,” I said. I thought I heard him laugh, but when he spoke, he was stoic as ever.
“Six o clock at the Jazz Bistro,” he said.
“I’ll be there,” I said. “Thank—” He had hung up before I could even thank him.
I got into the car with my jaw wide open. He wanted to meet me. Was he accepting the offer?
My face paled. That meant he was offering to pay me. How much would he pay? How much would I ask?
I remembered all the kind things my parents said about him, and how much he loved his mother. Maybe I shouldn’t ask him for the money. Maybe this is something I could do for free, to help out a son with a wish from a dying mother?
My phone chimed, and I opened it to find an email from Martin. The contract for the photo shoot, I realized. In the contract, it listed the amount, and I electronically signed my name beneath the $200 amount.
I shook my head. My career wasn’t going anywhere. It would never go anywhere if I remained here. My life was waiting for me in Hollywood, and with the money from Gavin, I would be able to pick up my life and restart it in the hills of Hollywood.
I knew what I had to do, but would I be able to do it?
Chapter Eleven
Gavin
I left my house in a hurry before realizing I wasn’t wearing a tie. If I were going straight to the dinner, I wouldn’t have cared, but I was having a drink with mom beforehand, and I knew she would make a fuss out of it. I returned to my dressing room, picked out the same gray tie that she loved, and walked to her house.
Karen met me at the door, and shortly afterward I was beside mom’s bed, listening as she discussed how upset she was with Karen’s cooking.
“She doesn’t cook anything from scratch,” I said. “She heats up precooked meals. You can’t blame her for those. If you want, I can order your meals from a different restaurant.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I don’t eat any of them anyways. And I can blame her for whatever I want. I’m the one that’s dying. Not her,” mom argued. But she seemed to be in a better mood than the day before, and it wasn’t long before I found out why. “You look nice, Gavin. I’m sure Maddie is just going to faint when she sees you.”
I winced at the mention of Maddie and finished my beer. Mom always made sure there was some sort of alcohol at her house for me, even if she couldn’t enjoy it herself. “I hope so,” I lied.
She was still watching the superhero show and paused it as she turned toward me.
“How is it?” I asked and gestured at the TV.
“Pretty good,” she admitted. “Thankfully the entire season is out at once. I don’t know what I would have done if I had to wait every week for an episode.”
I held my tongue. All that waiting would have wasted a good chunk of her time.
“I’ll have to watch it sometime,” I said. “Think you could set aside an entire day to binge it with me?”
Mom laughed. “Like I have anything better to do,” she said. “Just show up when you want, I’m always here.”
I frowned. Mom was spending the rest of her life stuck in her house. I considered adding onto it, maybe a pool or a bird sanctuary or anything that would excite her, but I realized they all would take several months to complete.
Months that we didn’t have.
“Where are you taking Maddie?” she asked after a moment.
“Jazz Bistro,” I said. “I didn’t want to take her anywhere too fancy.”
Mom laughed. “The bistro? I took you there for your 10th birthday, Gavin. Surely you could have gone somewhere at least a little romantic?”
I shrugged. I couldn’t tell her that our date was far from romantic.
“It’ll be fine. I don’t expect her to make a fuss about a three-star restaurant. And if she did, then she’s definitely not the one,” I said.
“Any woman willing to put up with you deserves the best,” mom said. “Promise me you’ll take her somewhere a little nicer on your third date?”
“I promise,” I said. “If we get to a third date.”
“Things are going well, aren’t they?” she
asked. Her thin glasses were falling down the bridge of her nose, and she slid them back toward her eyes. “Why wouldn’t you get a third? Unless you’ve messed up somehow and you’re worried she’s not as interested in you as you thought.”
“I didn’t mess up,” I promised. “Everything’s fine, Mom. She likes me, I like her, and we’re happy on our dates.”
Mom rested against the headboard and closed her eyes, a pleased smile on her face.
“And you’re happy with her, right?” she asked and shook her head. “Of course you are, why would I even ask. She’s wonderful. A woman any mother would be proud to have as a daughter-in-law.”
I gritted my teeth and finished my beer as I agreed. “She really is beautiful.” I knew that objectively Maddie was gorgeous and sexy, with a crazy attractive body that made it difficult to ignore her, but every time I thought of her I had nothing but awful thoughts. Thoughts that I definitely couldn’t tell mom.
“I hope she isn’t worried about me,” mom said. “I mean to say that I hope I haven’t put a damper on any conversations.”
I knew the last thing mom would want was to get in the way of my love life. I shook my head.
“No. Actually, I think it’s made her more eager to settle down,” I said, realizing how ironic the statement was. “You don’t have to worry about a single thing, mom.”
“You have no idea how happy that makes me,” she said and held my hand. “I want you to be happy, that’s all.”
I squeezed her hand in return. “I won’t make any promises,” I said. “But I’m happy with her. That’s all I can say.”
Mom continued praising Maddie’s good looks and charisma, and I forced myself to agree with every word. She was much happier than usual and spent time dreaming about a fake future with Maddie that she would never experience.
“We should all get together, after a few more dates, of course,” she suggested. “I would love to have her over for dinner again.”
“I’ll ask her about it,” I said and checked the time. “I should head out now; she’ll be at the restaurant in a half hour.”
“Gavin!” mom yelled. “You’re not picking her up? You’re making her drive to the date herself?”
“She’s a grown woman, mom,” I argued. “She’s more than capable of driving herself.”
“And here I thought I taught you to be a gentleman.” She shook her head. “I need to apologize to that poor girl for raising such an impolite fool.” She was joking as she spoke, but I had to bite my tongue to keep from spilling the truth about Maddie.
“I’ll apologize for you,” I said and threw the empty beer bottle in the recycling. Karen wished me luck on my date, and I left for the restaurant.
Maddie was late for dinner, and it worsened my already sour mood as I sat at our table and waited. The Jazz Bistro was a cushiony little restaurant in the middle of a fast-paced downtown scene, with a live jazz band every night and a seafood crawl on the weekends. It was spicy Cajun food, priced for the middle class with only a few sophisticated drinks for the upper class. Maddie had taken us to an expensive restaurant the first time; I wanted to knock her down a notch before agreeing to her insane terms.
I ran over my own terms in my head. If we were going to do this, we’re doing it my way. I repeated my rules over and over again in my head as the minutes passed. A waitress brought me my drink and a basket of Cajun-cheddar biscuits, and I watched the jazz band perform on the other side of the restaurant. I had requested a booth to feel more secluded, pretending it was a romantic date and not simply a business meeting. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, and as she arrived, I stayed rooted in my seat and didn’t stand to greet her.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she gushed and slid into the booth. She wore a black pantsuit that was tight on her breasts and waist, demanding my attention in not so subtle ways. Her hair was pinned up with a single long strand brushing against her outfit, and her eyes were smudged with charcoal. I tried to pay little attention to her face, but it was difficult. She was alluring and beautiful, and it had been rather long since I’ve last been with anyone. “I was doing a cross-promo with my roommate, which took way longer than normal.”
I leaned against the booth as she spoke. “It usually takes maybe an hour, but tonight we were promoting each other along with some meal bars that—”
“I don’t give a shit what you were promoting,” I interrupted. “And I don’t care that you were late.”
Maddie blinked and shut her mouth.
“We’re here because I want to accept your offer, but before I do, I have some ground rules that I want to go over first. Okay?” I asked.
“Sure?” she responded and ordered herself a drink as the waitress returned. We each ordered a small meal, neither of us truly interested in eating.
“This needs to look like a real relationship, to everyone,” I began. “So you’ll have to sleep over at my house a few nights a week. But not in my room. You’ll sleep on the couch or in one of the guest rooms. But you have to come to dinner once a week with my mother, and you have to be the perfect girlfriend, and soon fiancée.”
“I can do that,” she said. She didn’t seem taken back by my requests.
“You have to take lots of pictures of us together, and make them public so that my mom sees,” I said.
“Wait.” She leaned forward. “Your mom is active on social media, but you’re not?”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” I said. “We also have to make Ron think it’s real. He’s a fucking terrible liar, and he’ll blab the truth to my mom if he finds out the truth.”
“You’ll lie to your best friend?” she asked, almost in shock. I clenched my fists.
“I’m lying to my dying mother,” I said. “So yes, if I can lie to her, then I can lie to my best friend. And you better lie to your cousin, or else the deal is off.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “Got it, anything else?”
“This relationship is for the public eye only,” I said. “Nothing intimate, or romantic. I don’t even want to be alone with you if I don’t have to. Nothing physical, that’s for sure.” I wasn’t entirely sure why I added that last part.
“No sex?” she clarified. “I think I can live with that.”
“Which means nothing romantic with anyone else either,” I added. “The last thing I need is for someone to think you’re cheating on me.”
“And vice versa?” she asked. “You won’t sleep with anyone else?”
“Of course not,” I said. “As far as everyone else knows, I’ll have eyes only for you.”
Our dinner arrived, and Maddie happily dug in. She didn’t seem nearly as upset about the entire situation as I was. I barely touched my food throughout the rest of the meal. I did, however, finish my drinks.
“So, I’ll stay at your house a few nights a week. Dinner with your mom once a week. Be the perfect fiancée, and take lots of pictures. Tell everyone that we’re in love, and refrain from sleeping with anyone else, but I can’t sleep with you.” Maddie summed it all up. “Are those all the rules?”
“I reserve the right to add more if necessary,” I said. “But yes, those are the rules. Do you think you can handle that?”
Maddie took a long swig of her drink and tore off a piece of bread. She had finished her chowder, and dunked the bread into my soup. It somehow came off as an intimate moment, and I wanted to yell at her for it.
“I think I can handle that,” she said. “Actually, I know I can. I accept.”
I nodded, expecting as much.
“Now, you said you wanted to be compensated for this. How much?” I asked.
It seemed Maddie hadn’t truly considered it until then. She bit her lip and looked at the ceiling as she said, “Half a million.”
I heard her, but I asked her to repeat herself.
“Half a million,” she said. “Up front.”
I ran my hand down my jaw and stood. “Half a million,” I scoffed and shook my
head.
“Up front,” she repeated.
I left before I destroyed something and returned to my car without looking back. I punched the steering wheel as her words repeated in my head.
Half a million dollars to convince my mom that I was in love so that she would be happy in her last remaining months.
The last thing I wanted to do was give that bitch a single dollar, but as I thought about my mother and how happy she had been to hear who I was dating, I realized that I was going to have to give her exactly what she asked for.
I only prayed that I could figure out some way to make sure that Maddie was fucking miserable through the entire ordeal. She’d earn every damn dollar I threw her way.
Chapter Twelve
Maddie
I stayed to finish my drink. Gavin had run off yet again, leaving me with a guilt that would never be erased. The waitress apologized after taking our finished plates away as if she had anything to do with my date leaving early. I told her it was expected, and that I just had the worst luck when it came to dating. She glanced around us, at the several men who had been staring at me the entire night, and chuckled.
“The beautiful ones always do, I suppose,” she said and left me to my drinking. I realized I had been doing a lot of it lately, as if the alcohol would help me feel less like a shitty person. Was half a million too much? I had blurted out a number without really thinking about it. But that was practically chump change for someone with several billion dollars, right? And it’s not like the situation would have been easy for me either. I had to convince everyone in my life that I was head over heels and in love with a man who I had seen three times in the past decade. That wouldn’t be as easy as I’d hoped. And not to mention all of his ridiculous rules.
I groaned and leaned back as the last few drops of my cocktail slid down my throat. I should have gotten straight shots, but I was driving myself home, and it didn’t take more than a single shot to leave me passed out on the floor.
All of Gavin’s rules made sense, I supposed. One dinner a week with his mother was the entire reason why the situation would have existed. Convince everyone that we were in love. It would have to be a great act if we were going to be engaged shortly. But maybe the hardest one was not sleeping with anyone else. It wasn’t as if I wanted to sleep with other men. I hadn’t bothered with that in a while, too long possibly, but I at least appreciated having the choice. I hadn’t realized that pretending to be his pretend fiancée meant giving that up. And it wasn’t like we were going to be sleeping together either. It would be six months of cold showers, for the both of us apparently.