by Madrid, Liz
“I can’t make those children pay for something that they didn’t do,” Riley said. “I’ve always been with them for every holiday, every birthday, every monthly dinner. I’d really love to see them again, though I don’t plan on seeing them at their house, at least not yet. But for now maybe I’ll see them at the park. They go to preschool close to the cafe and I can see them then.”
“You can always have them come to my condo,” Ashe said. “You can see them there. I don’t think you’d want to be standing around at the park during winter. Besides, next year I’ll be having my niece over for a month, and I’m certain she’ll need a few playmates.”
Their conversation shifted back to Clint, though this time, Ashe wanted to know how Collette had been involved. She was, after all, his manager, too, and the last thing he wanted was for a similar thing to happen.
“I’m certainly not pleased to hear that Collette was involved,” Ashe said. “She didn’t seem to recognize you in the limo that night.”
“That’s because I never met her,” Riley said. “Clint said that she was supposed to escort me to LA but she dropped the ball. She had me moved out of my apartment with the help of other people, then she left me $20,000 and considered her job done, but not before taking $80,000 of Clint’s money for herself. As far as she’s concerned, I’m just that crazed fan she met at that party.”
Ashe was thoughtful for a few minutes. “That certainly does not sound good at all. It’s quite disturbing news actually.”
“Well, it’s done, and I just want to move on. I’ll see my nephews before Christmas, but for now, I need time to think things over regarding Paige, move money around so Clint isn’t involved anymore and start doing things I’ve always wanted to do. But enough about me,” Riley said as she turned to look at him, lightly resting her chin on his chest. “What was that phone call about? The one you got just before I left to see Clint? You said it was urgent.”
“It was urgent,” Ashe said. “Gareth walked off the set last night and they haven’t heard from him since. He checked out of his hotel and just left. Collette’s going crazy and Isobel’s mad at hell. I don’t know if they had a fight or not, but since they haven’t officially started filming yet, they want to offer me the role of Brennan again.”
“What if you say no?”
“Then the project is shelved,” Ashe replied. “Indefinitely, though it doesn’t mean another studio can’t take a stab at it.”
“Do you think Gareth’s okay?” Riley asked, as Ashe reached for his phone and scrolled through his messages. Whatever happened to the Conley Brennan biopic was really not her concern, not unless Ashe decided to take the role.
Ashe shrugged. “I don’t know. But I texted him and told him to call me if ever he needs to talk to someone. I don’t intend to convince him to return to the set if he doesn’t want to, but neither am I taking over the role. I just want to make sure he’s alright.”
“For you to worry about Gareth means that you must know him well enough to worry about him,” Riley said. “You’ve never really talked about how close you guys are or not.”
“We worked together for months, Riley. Of course, we’re friends, just not as close like I am with Ben and Lance. But he’s actually a nice lad — from another lad’s point of view, of course. And I owe him, too,” Ashe set his phone down on the bedside table and pulled her closer to him.
“What do you mean?”
He sighed. “Gareth and I were in the middle of a reshoot for Sentience when Hazel caught a cold — which turned into pneumonia. It was one of those last minute things that Faraday, the director, came up with. Put both actors on the top of some rock so he could have a camera do a 360-degree shot before moving in for a close-up. It wasn’t an important shot, but Faraday wanted it anyway. By the time I returned to Base Camp, Collette told me my mum had been calling me for the last six hours but because we were where at an area where there was no reception, she couldn’t reach me.”
He frowned then. “Now I’m wondering if she even tried. By the time I rushed back to London, courtesy of a private jet Abe provided, Hazel had been dead two hours. They left her body undisturbed on the bed so I could hold her one last time,” Ashe took a deep breath, as if he were fighting back tears. “Do you know that the shot Faraday insisted on shooting lasted barely five seconds onscreen? Six fucking hours of setting up and getting there, and Gareth and I standing in the freezing cold for a shot that could have been accomplished in front of a green screen. Six hours I would have traded for anything just to hold Hazel one last time, and let her know I was there for her.”
“I’m so sorry,” Riley said, regretting that she’d even asked the question. She realized then that in deference to her past with Gareth, Ashe had somehow kept his friendship with her ex-boyfriend away from her. Or at least not talk about it.
“I swore I wasn’t coming back to work, not for anything,” Ashe continued. “When Sentience was first screened at Cannes, I was a no-show. Everyone was livid, but nothing would have made me come back. Unless they could bring Hazel back alive, I wasn’t about to return.”
“What made you come back?” Riley asked.
“Gareth,” Ashe replied. “He flew all the way to Yorkshire. Rented a car and somehow found out where I lived by bribing a barmaid with a date if she told him where I lived. So he did, and found me shoveling manure at the farm.”
“Why would you be shoveling manure?”
“Because that’s what I do when I’m home, Riley, and you will, too, when I take you there for Christmas,” Ashe chuckled. “It is a farm still and my dad makes no exceptions. When I’m home, I have to do the same things I used to do before I became — what he says — world-famous. Threatens me every time that he’s going to charge people to watch world famous Ashe Hunter shear sheep or shovel manure. Not that I complained about it then. I needed something to do to get my mind off Hazel’s death. We all did.”
“So Gareth talked me into coming back, even if it was just for the publicity since it was in my contract anyway. He was right, of course, for if I didn’t come back, it would have been a huge breach of contract, and then I’d not only have my agent livid at me, there was my lawyer, too, who’d managed to negotiate a back-end deal for me for the first time. Ten percent of gross. Reign Studios would have sued me for everything I had,” Ashe said, pushing a lock of hair from Riley’s face, his gaze softening. “But then who was to know that I’d meet this girl who has the power to make my day brighter just by being herself?”
“If I ever end up with a swollen ego, I’ll just have you to blame,” Riley giggled.
“Stop it,” Ashe said, nudging her playfully before his expression turned serious, “which means, Riley-I-am, if it weren’t for Gareth Roman, I would have never met you.”
34
Baggage Claim
By the following morning, entertainment networks were abuzz with news of Gareth’s disappearance. Reporters kept themselves busy with speculations about drugs being involved, or whether he and Isobel had had another of their explosive arguments.
If eyewitness accounts were to be believed, Gareth and Isobel had been seen arguing just outside his trailer that evening, shortly after shooting had wrapped for the day. Someone said that it had involved another woman. Another report said it had more to do with creative differences, that Isobel wanted a scene to go one way and Gareth had other ideas. Yet another person claimed he’d overheard them arguing over some online review for a coffee shop about a rat.
“Didn’t you tell me that the cafe had a rat problem?” Ashe asked as he slipped a dark blue beanie over his head, a look that Riley loved.
“The cafe has no rat problem,” Riley replied. “Someone made a false review claiming they’d seen a rat in the premises and after intensive cleaning, we didn’t see a single rat or mouse dropping anywhere. You can eat off the floor if you want.”
“No, thanks,” Ashe grinned. “Well, thank goodness not everyone believes those reviews. Though I have
to admit that if Isobel did leave such a review, well, it just shows her immaturity.”
He slipped on his dark wool coat before checking for cat hair. Unless Miss Bailey had learned how to recline on coats hanging behind doors, Ashe was simply doing it out of habit.
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t date her for over a year,” Riley said, arching an eyebrow.
Ashe didn’t say anything. He simply rolled his eyes and brushed traces of cat hair from his sleeve. He was dressed in his outfit from the night before, a plain white shirt layered beneath a denim shirt and his favorite jeans.
Riley was always in awe of his ability to mix and match clothes so effortlessly and had concluded that it must be the result of the years he’d spent modeling, just like Paige’s talent for mixing and matching anything on hand and making it work. As for Riley, she was lucky if she didn’t look like she was doing the walk of shame from her own apartment, dressed in what she thought was comfortable. That was how one gossip site had captioned their picture of herself and Ashe leaving her building in search of coffee two blocks away.
“But it’s my own apartment I’m walking away from,” she had wailed when she’d shown the picture to Ashe. “How can that be a walk of shame? Is it what I was wearing?”
“I told you the shirt didn’t match your trousers,” had been his reply, teasing her till she’d pouted and he’d apologized, reminding her that in the long run such things were too trivial to matter.
As she watched him check his reflection in the hallway mirror, brushing his hair with his fingers, Riley remembered how their day had begun at five that morning, with his phone buzzing noisily. He’d been in the bathroom then, and when she’d taken a peek at his phone, she saw he’d received a number of text messages.
Have you heard from Gareth yet? We’re ready to file a Missing Persons Report if we don’t hear from him by noon.
Another text said, Contract signing at 11 a.m., a third, Are you available for shoot tomorrow? And yet another said, flt tx confirmed for 2 ppl 12/10.
As Riley buried herself under the covers then, she realized that this was something she had to get used to, remembering Paige’s plea to find someone normal. She wondered how she’d fare in the long run having to deal with Ashe’s crazy schedule, his constantly buzzing phone, and the glances people gave them when they were together. She wondered if she’d always be judged for the way she looked, what she wore or what she did. One gossip site even wrote that Ashe could do better than date a barista, of all things. Never mind that she owned half of the Library Cafe, although that was not common knowledge.
Riley pushed away those thoughts. The last thing she needed was new crap heaped over her old pile of crap, the one that included the disappointments of yesterday. It was going to be hard to stop believing that the sky was falling but, as she had told Ashe last night, everything was going to be all right.
“You’re thinking so hard that fumes are coming out of your ears,” Ashe teased, his voice bringing her back to the present.
“I’m just getting used to my new reality, where I’m finally on my own. It feels like it’s the first day of my life,” Riley said, walking towards him and leaning against the couch as he stood by the landing.
“Because it is the first day of your life. At least, that’s the way I see it,” Ashe said. “You’ve had a hell of a day yesterday, and it will take time to adjust. I don’t think I’d be able to handle betrayal from everyone I trusted without falling apart like I did when Hazel died. You’re much more courageous than you believe yourself to be, Riley, so it’s time you gave yourself a bit more credit.”
“It’s called ‘practice,’” she laughed. “Gareth and I-” Riley stopped herself. “I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t be talking about him.”
“No, please go on,” Ashe said, but Riley clamped her mouth shut and he continued. “Riley, while I may be jealous of him for having spent all those years with you — and angry with him for having hurt you like he did – I’m also grateful that we met because of him. Now, while I may not want him to be in every conversation we have, there are things that you shouldn’t have to hide from me. I’m a grown man, and I can take care of myself. If I feel that you’re talking about him too much, I’ll be the first to let you know that, and we’ll sit down and work it out.”
“Why doesn’t it bother you, then? It would bother me a lot if you talked about Isobel.”
“For one thing, because he’s missing and, if he hasn’t reached out to any of the usual suspects, then he’s all alone somewhere. And that worries me. We may not be the best of friends, but we got to know each other pretty well during all those months of filming and rounds of publicity. And he did talk about you, Riley – you were his girl, even though he didn’t say your name,” Ashe said. “But if you think I’m jealous, you’re wrong. You grew up with him, and he was there for you so often in your life, good and bad, the way I was there for Hazel. I know it’s not the same because Hazel was my sister, but I’m happy to know that Gareth was there for you when Paige couldn’t be, and I don’t wish to take those memories away from you just to massage my ego.”
“How do you manage it then?” Riley asked.
“I trust you, Riley-I-am. That’s how I do it,” he said, his brow furrowing. “If I can’t trust you, then we have no basis for being together at all, not even for the sex, no matter how mind-blowing it is.”
“I trust you, too, Ashe,” she said. “You do know that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here in front of you right now,” Ashe said as Riley walked over to him and linked her pinkie finger with his. “We all have baggage, Riley, and we don’t have to be ashamed of it. It may have made us the way we are up to now, but we can’t let it define who we are or who we will become.”
“I wish I could be like you, Ashe,” Riley said. “No baggage to worry about.”
“I have baggage, too, Riley,” he said, frowning. “More than you’d care to know right now. But they’re there. I, too have to tell myself not to let myself be defined by my baggage. It’s not easy, but it can be done.”
His phone buzzed again and this time Ashe pulled it out of his jacket pocket and checked who was calling. “I have to take this. It’s an interview for GQ Indonesia, which will go with a feature for Sentience,” he said, pressing Answer and asking the caller to hold on. “I’ll be at home today. I need to work on a few things before we take a break for the holidays together. What’s your day like?”
Riley shrugged. “I’m just going to tidy things up around here. Hang out.”
“I’ll phone you when I’m finished, then. Ring me anytime you need someone to talk to.”
“What if I want to do more than talk? What if I want to climb you like a tree right now?” she pouted. They’d only snuggled the night before, and she wished for nothing more than to strip his clothes off him and drag him back to bed.
“Then definitely call me, but not just now,” he grinned, kissing her lightly on the lips before she walked him to the door and watched him leave.
The knock on the door came two minutes later.
“I forgot my scarf,” he said. Riley picked it up from the couch and draped it around his neck. She planted a kiss on his lips, using the ends of the scarf to pull him back into her apartment.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, laughing and holding up his phone, “unless you want the reporter to hear everything you’re doing right now.”
She let go of him, horror-stricken.
“Oh, my God, what did he hear?”
“Nothing yet,” Ashe whispered. “I put it on mute so I don’t think he heard anything, though it is unfortunate. Do you think if I turn the volume back on, it will make my public image more exciting? Less stuck up?”
“Shut up! Off you go then, actor boy, and get to work,” she laughed, chasing him out of the apartment and shutting the door behind him.
When another knock came three minutes later, Riley rolled her eyes and wal
ked back to the door, scanning her apartment for anything else Ashe might have forgotten. Other than the glass containers he’d used for last night’s dinner, there was nothing. Perhaps he wanted another kiss, and if he did, this time she was going to keep him in the apartment and go back to bed.
“This had better be good, actor boy-” she said, opening the door. Her voice froze mid-sentence as she stared at the man in front of her.
The boys’ eyes looked back at her, she thought. Trevor, Trey and Thomas.
35
Knight In Shining Armor
He looked exhausted. Dark circles ringed his eyes, his hair disheveled though she wondered if it was intentional for it actually looked good. Boyish.
“Gareth, what are you doing here? Everyone’s looking for you,” she exclaimed.
“I didn’t bring my charger, so my phone’s dead,” Gareth said. “Can I come in?”
Riley stepped aside and he walked past her and into the apartment. She shut the door behind him and leaned against it. He turned around to face her, and Riley wondered what he wanted to talk about, or if he wanted something else. She became suddenly conscious that she was wearing only a thin T-shirt with matching pajama bottoms and no bra, and hugged her arms defensively to her chest.
“Did Paige tell you what happened?” she asked, hoping that the answer would be in the negative. “Is that why you’re here?”
“What about Paige?” He asked, alarmed. “Are the boys all right?”
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “The boys are fine. It’s just that … I know about them, Gareth. I know they’re yours and not Clint’s. I also know that it was Clint who had me moved out of the apartment three years ago, not you or Paige. He was the one who left me the money.”
“I know,” Gareth said, frowning. “Collette no longer works for me. I fired her as soon as I found out.”
“Did she tell you?”
“I overheard her telling Clint yesterday morning that she’d kept the rest of the money as her babysitting fee. I guess he just found out, too, and had to make sure. She said something about leaving ‘Gareth’s girlfriend $20,000,’ and I didn’t need to hear any more,” he said, sighing. “Riley, I honestly had no idea that Clint and Collette were involved in this. If I’d known — ” he took a step towards her and stopped. “Could you put on a robe or something? I see that you got yourself pierced.”