“The recognition?” Whitney asked knowingly, raising an eyebrow.
“Maybe,” Harmony shrugged. “But I was sitting there tonight, and those girls that came out and fought – not the first two, but the ones in that later match – I could do that, Whit. At least, I think I could.”
“I think you could, too. And that’s why I, when I talked to him, I asked Xander about how you might, ahem –“ Catching Harmony’s wide-eyed stare, Whitney froze, clearing her throat before continuing. “How you might maybe – if you want to – get hired with AWG.”
“You what?!” Harmony exclaimed.
“I, um, I might have also –“
“Oh, dear God,” Harmony muttered, hiding a smile as she slammed her door closed and set about putting her seatbelt on. Finally giving in, she turned to Whitney, excitement growing in the pit of her stomach as she asked, “You might have also what?”
“Um, found out that Xander’s P.R. people have been thinking that he … um … needs a … female?”
“You’re kidding. Please, please tell me that you’re kidding.”
Whitney laughed as she inserted the key into the ignition and started the car. “I can’t tell you that,” she said, still laughing, “Because you don’t lie to your friends, and that would be lying.”
“Whitney, I don’t know how to do what they do,” Harmony groaned, ignoring the little place inside of her heart that was giddy with the thrill of possibility. “I’m not a wrestler.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t have to be, not yet anyway,” Whitney said, immediately regaining her typical cheer. “They want someone who can travel with him after some very basic training, so you’d basically just be arm candy until they figure out how fast you pick it up.”
“Arm candy? Are you joking?”
“That’s temporary. That’s how they work you in sometimes. You train here for a really short time, then the guy they want you to work with sort of picks you up when he’s here. Eventually you start traveling with him, maybe end up in some kind of feud, and then you have a match. And then you start kicking ass.”
“Right. I’m five foot four and about a hundred pounds. The only asses that I’m big enough to kick are still in diapers,” Harmony retorted dryly.
“Come on, Harmony, think about it. You’ve been looking for something new to do with your life. Something exciting, right? And you had fun tonight, I saw you. You can’t tell me you don’t think it’d be fun.”
Rolling her eyes, Harmony laughed, watching through the window as the remnants of the crowd filtered through the parking garage. “Alright, it would maybe, possibly, be a total blast.”
“Exactly,” Whitney said triumphantly, finally putting the car in reverse and beginning to back out of the parking space. “So, by the way, the open audition is in three days. And I told Xander to put your name down. You’ll need to be here at eight.”
Chapter Eleven
“I seriously still don’t know what to think,” Harmony said, dropping her forehead into her hands. “I am a total wreck, you guys, I swear. The thing is, it wasn’t until I got home and really thought about it, that I realized just how cool of an opportunity this is, and how huge it could be for me. They pay for your training and everything. This could be my second chance at something big.”
“It really would be a huge opportunity for you,” Cameron answered, her voice muffled by the pillow she’d been holding over her eyes. “This isn’t working guys, the headache is totally still there.”
“Oh, I’ve got something,” Cassaundra said, twisting to reach for her purse. Holding it up with one hand, she reached into the depths of the bag, digging until her manicured fingers were closed around a small white bottle, which she tossed to Cameron. “Take two of those, they always work for me.”
Rolling her eyes at the drugstore label, Cameron shook three pills out of the bottle, popping them into her mouth and swallowing them with a sip of Harmony’s soda before falling back onto the floor and holding the pillow to her face again.
Laughing, Eva reached over the table to lift the bottle of pills, tossing them back to Cass before settling back in her seat again. “It would be a lot of traveling, honey,” she said, watching Harmony.
Eyes glowing, Harmony turned to her mother, her lips spreading into a slow smile. “I know, and I’ve really missed that,” she said, causing the other women in the room to laugh.
“You always did have a lust for travel,” Cameron’s best friend Tabitha said. “You know, I really think it’s a great idea, Harmony. I mean, I’ve known your family all my life, and all you’ve ever wanted was to be a star and live the glamorous life. I know the Olympic thing is behind you now, but you can still use what you’ve worked for, and you can definitely use your athletic skills to help you get where you’re going in a career like that.”
“Thanks, Tab,” Harmony said softly. Looking around the room, she went on, “I don’t know if I’ll make it past the audition stage, and it’s definitely something I’d never have thought of on my own. It’s all thanks to sneaky Whitney’s –“
“Hey, I’m no sneak,” Whitney protested, lifting a foot to nudge Harmony’s knee from the other end of the couch.
“But,” Harmony went on, grinning as she poked Whitney’s foot with the corner of her cell phone. “It’s a great idea, and I really appreciate all the support from you guys. It’s a long shot, though, and I’ll probably be up against a billion other girls who know the industry better than I do, so I’ll admit I’m a little worried.”
“Well, let’s just see what happens,” Eva said gently. “You didn’t think you’d be a good gymnast when you first started either, remember?”
“I remember,” Cameron laughed. Raising the tone of her voice, she squeaked in imitation of a young girl, saying, “Please mom, I can’t do that turning thing, I’m going to fall down and break my butt!”
Harmony’s cheeks flamed, and she threw a pillow at her sister. “Shut up,” she laughed. “I wasn’t afraid of breaking my butt.”
“Yeah, just keep telling yourself that,” Cameron giggled, catching the pillow easily.
With a sigh, Harmony reached for her soda and tilted the glass, her throat working as she swallowed. “Anyway. Enough about me and my butt. What’s new with all of you guys?”
“Nothing with me,” Tabitha said wryly, holding a fat, round wine glass up in a mock toast. “Every day looks the same. I wake up, I make fairy tales come true at the marriage altar, then I go home by myself, I eat dinner by myself, and I go to bed by myself.”
“Hey, I eat dinner with you sometimes!” Cameron protested, laughing.
“And, there’s a plus side to that, anyway,” Whitney laughed. The eyes of the happily married Kingsley women turned toward her, smiles fading, eyebrows raised. Whitney stiffened, shrugging her shoulders.
“A plus side?” Cass asked, rearranging the throw pillows in the chair behind her back.
“Yep,” Whitney said, winking. “You get to keep the whole bed to yourself, and there’re no dirty socks. ‘Cause we women pick up after ourselves.”
“I don’t know,” Eva giggled softly. “I’ll take the dirty socks, if it means I get to have the other dirty stuff.”
Harmony rolled her eyes and laughed. “Mom!”
“Well, I happen to like –“ Eva started to say.
Cameron took the pillow from her face in one hand and the pillow Harmony had thrown in the other, sandwiching her head between them to cover her ears as the room erupted in laughter. “Mom, please!” Cameron shouted. “Please, please tell me that you mean dirty dishes, or dirty laundry, or something besides –“
“Dirty sex?” Eva asked, fanning her face with her hand as if the room had suddenly grown too warm.
“Mom!” Cameron and Harmony shouted together. Cass’s face was flaming, while Whitney and Tabitha hid their faces behind their hands, muffling their helpless laughter.
Looking on with a bored expression, Eva waved a hand at her daughters and said, “We
ll, girls, how else do you think you got here? Not a one of my children is adopted, which has to mean that your father and I –“
“Mom!” Cameron shouted again, glaring at Harmony’s back as she leapt from her chair and darted into the kitchen.
“I need more to drink!” Harmony called, giggling as she disappeared from the room.
“As I was saying,” Eva went on, “It means that your father and I were not exactly sitting here chatting quietly all these years.”
“Yeah, we know, Mom, you’re a sex goddess. And no modesty about it, either, hmm?” Harmony laughed, reappearing in the doorway to the living room. “Hey, Cameron,” she continued, “Your timer’s going off in the kitchen. I think the lasagna wants your attention.”
“So we’ve established that there’s nothing new with me, and that Miss Eva here is a wild and crazy fox in the bedroom,” Tabitha giggled, causing Cameron to glare back at her as she headed for the kitchen. “So let’s move on, shall we? How about you Cass? How are things in the Drew Kingsley house?”
Cass laughed quietly as she looked around at the women in the room, her husband’s family, who had taken her in as their own. “Things are good,” she said, her open expression and easy demeanor making the other women in the room marvel at how far Cass’s confidence had come in the time that they’d known her. “Things are very good. Actually, I think we’re trying seriously now.”
“Oh my gosh, really?” Whitney asked. “For a baby?”
Cass nodded, her face flushing lightly as she lowered her eyes. “We think it’s time,” she said.
“Oh, Cass, that’s wonderful,” Eva said, sweeping her fingertips under flooded blue eyes. She wiped her tear-damp hands on her pants, smiling widely. “Oh, the tears come easy these days ... but it will be so nice to have a baby around here again. I can’t tell you how much I’ve looked forward to little chubby cheeks and fat little fingers!”
“And stinky diapers,” Whitney added, wrinkling her nose. She shook her head, hiding a smile behind the curtain of dark hair that fell over her face. “And little cute baby clothes.”
“And pacifiers and little baby bottles,” Harmony gushed, grinning cheerfully. Pulling her hair over her shoulder, she braided the dark strands loosely and tied the end of the braid with an elastic she pulled from her pocket.
“Harmony, can you help me?” Cameron called from the kitchen. “Everything’s ready, just come help me plate the food.”
With a grin to the other women in the room, Harmony took her drink from the table and moved to the kitchen. Settling her glass on the counter, she opened the cabinet and lifted down a stack of plates. “You’re doing a good job faking out there,” Cameron said quietly.
“What?” Harmony asked, barely missing the edge of the counter as she spun around. “Faking what?”
“Faking like you aren’t horrified about the casting call with AWG.” Cameron smiled. “And terrified of not making it.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been moping around for months now. I’m tired of being miserable, you know? So I’m just gonna do it, scared or not, and see where it goes,” Harmony said quietly.
“Yeah, but if I can see it, I bet they can too, most of them at least. You don’t have to hide anything here, you know that, Harmony. This is home, remember?”
“I’m not hiding, I’m just not wallowing anymore,” Harmony said dryly. Sliding a bread knife from the wooden block on the kitchen counter, Harmony turned and started slicing a loaf of crusty garlic bread, placing a slice neatly on the edge of each plate.
“So you’re really going to the audition?” Cameron asked.
Shrugging as she continued to arrange plates, Harmony glanced up at her sister. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I? The worst that could happen is I don’t make it, right?”
“Okay then, if you’re going to try and convince me that you aren’t worried about the audition thing for AWG, then what is it? I can tell something’s up,” Cameron said, moving over to the counter where Harmony had just finished adding bread to all of the dinner plates. Opening a drawer, she lifted a spatula from the scrambled utensils and began to add neat squares of lasagna to each plate.
“It’s stupid, Cameron, don’t worry about it.”
“It’s not stupid, you look like someone just broke your first gymnastics trophy,” Cameron laughed, watching as Harmony carried plates to the large kitchen table, setting places for the family to gather for dinner.
“The thing is, Whitney’s been talking to me a lot about dating,” Harmony said, shrugging her shoulders as she added forks to all of the place settings around the table. The evening sun filtered in through the windows, shedding light over the dark gloss of her hair and making her skin glow. “And it’s got me thinking that maybe my focus has been ... misplaced.”
“Misplaced?” Cameron echoed, confusion clouding her face. Crossing her arms over her chest, she leaned back against the counter, waiting for Harmony to explain. “How?”
“Well, I always saw you, doing well and so successful with your business – the wedding planning, you know? And you mostly seemed happy, and you did it all on your own. You didn’t need anyone, and I never saw you date anybody. You were so focused on building your business and everything. And –“
“Wait,” Cameron cut in. “Harmony, I needed a lot more than you think. Just because I didn’t have what I needed all the time doesn’t mean I didn’t need it … I mean, I had lots of support from Mom and Dad. And there was Tabitha, and I had you. And our brothers. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t lonely. I was; I was just too scared to do anything about it.”
“I’m beginning to think maybe I was, too, because it was so hard to me to watch you when you first came home.” Leaving the table, Harmony turned toward the windows, her arms wrapped around her waist. “I knew more about what happened to you back then than people thought, and I was terrified it would happen to me too, or something. And that made it easier to throw myself into gymnastics ... I told myself I didn’t want to risk getting caught up with boys or ... anything.”
“Yeah,” Cameron answered stepping over to slip her arm around Harmony’s shoulder. “But let me tell you something, little sister, that’s a lonely way to live your life. And the things that happened to me?” She sighed, lowering her eyes as the tip of her tongue swept over the curve of her lip. “It’s rare, Harmony, and I just caught a bad guy, bad night. Bad luck, you can call it whatever you want. If you learn something from what happened to me, don’t let it be that you’re better off alone, because that’s no way to live your life. It’s too lonely.”
Harmony nodded, smiling slightly as she looked over at her sister. “I think that’s part of it, too; maybe I’m lonely after holding back for so long. Especially now, living in that apartment. I like it, and I feel so much more independent, Cam, but I find myself sitting there sometimes at night and thinking that no matter what I’ve accomplished already in my life … there’s no one to call when I’m lonely. And if I get the job with AWG, there’s no one to kiss me and celebrate with me. There’s you guys, of course, but it’s –“
“Not the same,” Cameron said, nodding. Stepping away from Harmony, she glanced down at her wedding rings as she moved toward the table again, adjusting napkins and silverware beside the dinner plates. “Maybe you’re learning that it’s worth the risk, to put yourself out there a little.”
“Exactly, and I think I’ve been wishing for that, maybe, just a little. Like, I feel confident enough in myself, and I know my life is pretty good. It’s not like it’s empty or whatever. But I just look at Cass and Drew, and now you and Mac … and I want someone to kiss goodnight. Someone to wake up and have breakfast with. It’s crazy maybe, but I kind of want those dirty socks left on the floor. They’ll mean someone else is there, besides me. Is that stupid?”
Cameron laughed, carrying an armload of various spices and cheeses to the table. Arranging them in the middle of the table with the rest of the lasagna and a plate of sliced garlic bread, she stepped back t
o examine the table. “We’d better get everyone in here to eat before it’s all cold,” she said. “In the meantime? No, I don’t think it’s stupid to want someone in your life, Harmony. I’ve never known you to be a big dater, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you’re craving the companionship and if this is kind of a slow time in your life, then maybe now’s the time to open up to that. Is there someone you’re interested in?”
Pursing her lips, Harmony stepped away from the windows and moved toward the refrigerator. “Interested?” she asked, opening the door. She pulled out a pitcher of tea and a bottle of wine, bumping the door closed with her hip as she turned. “I don’t know. The guys I know don’t really stand out to me. But I guess there is one that I’ve been noticing lately. Pretty sure we’re not an exact match though – we tend to misunderstand each other and end up irritated a lot.”
Wrestling Harmony (The Kingsley Series) Page 8