by CD Reiss
He never approved of what I did, because that was the only thing he knew of family. He was especially hard on the few guys I’d dated. They weren’t safe or mature enough. I mean, if I wanted a guy who would take me to the farmer’s market, pick up some organic kale, and eat it lightly sautéed before making afternoon love in a squeaky little bed, then sure, he’d approve of that guy. But I wanted a man who’d climb fences with me. Trespass. Steal from the rich and give to the poor. I had a fantasy of a man who got arrested with me, pleaded innocent, and kissed me on the precinct steps when we made bail.
I was too much of a hustler for most men. I ran too fast, broke too many rules, and stayed on the right side of the law by too thin a margin. My ambition was scary, even to my friends, but I didn’t feel safe unless I had something to work for.
I walked up to the velvet rope, ignoring the line, putting my long boots in front of me as if they were the sum total of who I was. Tom schlubbed along beside me, handsome but morose, a study in monochrome, and looking away from me as if I embarrassed him. The bouncer didn’t break my stride or the rhythm of his conversation as he opened the rope and let us in at exactly the right moment. He didn’t clip it shut until Tom was past the rope with me. We were in.
Now we just had to find the girl with the sparkly shoes. Then I got the twisting feeling in my gut that things were going to change. I ignored the desire to run back to the car. I put my chin up, added swagger to my step, and decided I owned Club NV.
Chapter 2
Laine
I’d been to every club in Los Angeles. I’d paid off waiters, bartenders, and cleaning staff. I’d seen the rooms lit in fluorescent in the afternoon, filled with the blare of vacuum cleaners and Spanish music coming from a boom box. But I worked at night, so though I did my share of socializing, I rarely saw a club functioning as it was meant to.
Even so, one could count on a few things in any LA club west of La Cienega. Industry douchebags, tall girls with perfect skin, and surgically modified bodies and faces were just a few items on the smorgasbord. Club NV had an outdoor courtyard open to the sky, potted palms, a few trees growing from the floor, white couches, and an all-male staff that flirted as if their jobs depended on it. It had been very different five years ago. Now? Yawn.
“What are you having?” I yelled over the throbbing techno.
“A beer,” Tom said. “Do they have beer? In a bottle? That’s all I want.”
I leaned on the bar and snapped my credit card onto the granite, where it could be seen. “Listen to me.” I put my finger in his face. “When you see this girl, do not go negative. Do you hear me? I know you’re out of your element, but if you’re tense and snappy, you’re only going to make it worse. Take a breath.”
He pressed his fingertips together and said, “Ohm, Mom.”
I flipped my pointer finger down and put my middle finger up. He didn’t even see it. He was looking past me and upward. A necklace of wrought-iron railings circled the courtyard on the second floor. I followed his gaze to Sparkly Shoes and her friend, frou-frou drinks in hand, leaning over the railing and looking down on the courtyard.
“Crap,” I said. The indoor part of the club was accessible on the first floor, but the second floor, where she was? That was the Emerald Room.
“Can we go home?” Tom asked.
“One drink, then we go.”
The bartender leaned over. “What can I get you?” He winked at me. He looked as if he was wearing mascara.
“Leo?” I said, recognizing a particular twang in his voice. “Are you Leo?”
“Sure am.”
“We met once. You’re one of my tips.” I showed him my business card. I’d given it to him already, many months ago, and he’d tipped me off to the comings and goings of a few marks. I paid him through PayPal when I sold the picture. It was clean and discreet, and I always paid very well.
“Oh, yeah. Hey, Laine. How’s it going?”
“Good. I’ll have a glass of something white and dry. And, uhm, who do I have to blow to get upstairs?”
“That’s a rhetorical question,” Tom growled.
Leo smiled a half moon of caps. “I know.” He poured chardonnay into a huge stemmed glass. “Look, guys, no cameras upstairs. I’d get blackballed out of every club on the west side.”
“Strictly personal. I don’t have my rig. My brother here is clean too. I know the rules.”
“I can’t.”
I took a hundred-dollar bill out of my bag and laid it on top of my credit card. “You have my word. We’re only customers tonight, not paps.”
“Laine,” grumbled Tom.
“You’re a good tip, Leo. I’m not about to ruin our friendship. And by friendship, I mean our ability to make money together.”
He slid my wine across the bar. “If it wasn’t for your reputation, I wouldn’t even consider it. But everyone knows you’re the most honest pap in the business, so let me see what I can do.” He turned to Tom. “What can I get you?”
Tom tapped his fingers, looked at Leo, then Sparkly Shoes, then back at Leo. “Three shots of tequila. One, two, three. Line them up right here with a beer at the end.”
“There’s a man who knows how to party!” Leo shouted.
I sighed into my glass, disappointed. I had the feeling that despite my best intentions for Tom, I’d be driving the Exploder home.
The Emerald Room wasn’t a lick special. Same shit but indoors and looking down at the goings-on in the courtyard. I bailed on Tom as soon as I could. As long as I was with him, he wouldn’t get near Razzledazzle Girl. So I went to the bathroom and took a different route back.
I picked a spot at the bar, and after three minutes, I had a perfect view of him on the patio, pivoting his beer bottle between two fingers. The tequila had done its job. Now he just had to keep it from coming up his esophagus.
A man came up next to me, leaned an elbow on the bar, and spoke as if we were in a spy movie. “Has anyone mentioned to you the length of your skirt?”
“Too long?” I kept my eyes on the patio. I knew who he was.
“Magically, it shows everything and nothing.”
“You’re not getting under it, Mister Sinclair. I’m not one of your screaming fans.”
I looked around, and he was indeed Brad Sinclair. Twenty-eight. Six one. Two Oscar nods but no wins. His last film took in twenty million opening weekend, landing the skiing movie in a solid second for three weeks running. He wore a jacket, corduroy shorts, and sunglasses. A douchebag’s douchebag. I sighed into my second glass of wine.
“Want to play a game?” he asked.
I didn’t know what kind of face I made—probably something that looked as if I’d eaten a lemon—but I didn’t have anything better to do. I got the distinct impression he didn’t know who I was, and that was its own flavor of amusing. “What kind of game?”
“Guess what I’m drinking.” He finished the last of what was in his glass and put it on the bar. “And I’ll buy your next one.”
“There won’t be a next, but I’ll play.”
He smirked. People paid good money for that smirk, and my hand itched for my rig.
I placed my phone on the bar and cracked my knuckles. “Do I get to ask a couple questions?”
He put his pinkie and thumb together. “Three.” He was enjoying himself. It was all over his posture.
I admitted to myself that I was enjoying this as well. I glanced toward the balcony, where Tom had initiated a conversation with Randee. I peeked into Brad’s empty glass. A quarter-inch of clear, condensing fluid draped over the low rolling hills of ice.
“Carbonated?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I leaned in, sniffing. A maraschino cherry was wedged between two chunks of ice, and I caught the distinct scent of almonds. “You on any kind of diet? Like super restrictive or to lose weight or anything?”
“No.”
That ruled out diet mixers and meant allergens weren’t a problem.
&nb
sp; “How much was it?”
“Free.”
That had been a filler question. Those guys never paid for their drinks. I put my glass down and leaned back, elbows on the bar. “Amaretto and Coke.”
He slapped his hands together. “Nice!”
In that moment, he didn’t look like a manly-man superstar who could take down an evil overlord but a seventh-grade dork moving up a level in Mario Bros. He poked the bridge of his sunglasses, pushing them up his nose a quarter of an inch.
I wasn’t impressed by celebrities, since I worked with them every day. Well, I didn’t work “with” them. I more worked “at” them. But they were a way for me to put food on my table and pay my mortgage. Like fish in a pond, I might admire their grace or color, but in the end, I ate them.
In that same way, though I wasn’t impressed with Brad, I was. Because I knew not just anybody got to do his job. It was tough in its own way. For some, it was a hard job to get, and for some, it was a hard job to do. It required talent (for some), hard work (for others), and enough genetic entitlement to qualify for nepotistic pushes, like a daddy with a gold statue on the mantel (for the rest). I believed a person needed two out of the three to make it, and even one was difficult to the point of impossibility.
So I respected Brad for having talent and for working hard to overcome the fact that he’d grown up in a small town in Arkansas. What he’d achieved was no small feat, but what he did with his success wasn’t too impressive. As he looked at me through his sunglasses, lips tightened in a flirty smile, I had to remind myself of that, because he was a beautiful man, and I was single to a fault.
“Who’s the guy?” he asked, tipping his chin toward Tom. “He ditching you for the skinny girl?”
I thought about saying yes and feigning a broken heart. I was chronically lonely, even if I didn’t admit it, and a night with Brad had its appeal. It might even feel good, but all I could see was the dampening effect on my career if word got out that I’d spent a minute alone with Brad Sinclair. A pap depended on tips, and if I started playing for the other side, the tips would stop. Known fact. Ask Lorenzo Balsamo. The guy had spent a weekend in Diane Falston’s bed and wound up taking wedding pictures for a living.
So I decided not to play with lies, because as famous as he was, I was famous in my world. I’d forgotten that for a moment. “Oh, come on, Brad. Take the sunglasses off. You might recognize me.”
He made a little grunting sound, as if I’d suggested I was on his level, but he didn’t take off the glasses. I wondered if he thought he’d keep them on when he took me to bed, or if he was just playing with me. I leaned in, hooking my fingers over the top of his sunglasses. I smelled the soak of amaretto and stale dance-floor sweat, and I felt sorry for him. Even with his entourage and all his fame, was he as lonely as I was?
“Hey, hey. The shades stay on,” he protested, smiling and moving my hand off him. He picked my phone up off the bar. “Want a selfie with me?”
I put my hand over his. “No.”
“Why not?”
I didn’t want anything like that committed to digital. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t identified me. Was it the vision-killing sunglasses or general obliviousness? Or did they never see us with our big lenses and tendency to hang in packs? He pulled the phone away, and my hand went with him.
“Are we about to start wrestling for my phone?” I asked.
“Let’s wrestle, gorgeous,” he said with a smile, yanking the phone away.
I got closer so I could reach it. “You’re pissing me off, Sinclair.”
He smiled and bit his lower lip. I pressed into him, and he loosened his hold on the phone. I snatched it away.
“You want me to take your damn picture?” I said, holding up the phone.
“You got it.”
I saw better through a two-dimensional square, and once my vision was limited to what would be in frame, I saw that Brad was wobbly, stoned or drunk or something. He didn’t look ready to be photographed. He’d most certainly regret it in the morning. I was still looking through the glowing screen when a hand popped up in front of Brad’s face, getting bigger in the frame before the phone was snatched away.
“Back up,” said a voice.
Without the phone limiting my view, I saw the man standing in front of me. Michael Greydon, arms taut between us, was half-turned toward his friend. Oh, I remembered that jaw. Someone would dig it up in fifty thousand years and call it a perfect specimen. The shape of his hand on Brad’s bicep, the way it articulated as if every finger had purpose. And cinnamon. The sharp, spicy scent went from my nose to the base of my spine.
“We need to talk,” he said to Brad. Michael was taller than I remembered, and he had an even stronger presence.
“Give me my phone,” I said.
He turned, and well, I gasped. I’d seen him a hundred times from ten feet away or blown up on a screen to a hundred times his normal size. But I hadn’t seen him that close in a long, long time. Even in the half light, he was terrifyingly perfect, the result of a few generations of movie-star couplings. He was precision folding in on itself, without adornment, simple brown hair just long enough to be accurately untidy, eyes the color of jade and so clear they looked right through me.
“My phone,” I repeated, holding out my hand.
“You,” he said.
I think my heart shrank as if it was a night animal exposed to bright light. Which was bullshit. I didn’t shrink from anything. I sucked my cheeks in and stood up taller. “Me.”
He indicated the phone. “What do you have on here?” He was worried about me taking pictures. He couldn’t have recognized me. Same as any other day.
“Shouldn’t you be home nursing your aching balls?”
“It was a stage kick.”
“Yeah, Mike,” Brad said. “Go see Britt and make her apologize.”
“She went to Christian’s place.” He turned to me, fingering my phone with a rueful look, and passed it over. “I’m sure this’ll ring in a minute with the same information.”
I took the phone, and he walked out to the patio, where Tom and Randee were talking. I looked back. Brad already had a new drink in his hand.
“Messed up,” Brad mumbled. His glasses dropped all the way down his nose, and he looked at me without them. “Hey, you’re Shuttergirl.”
“So?”
Brad pushed off the bar, wobbled a little, and leaned back, holding his hand up for the bartender. Michael stood with his elbows on the railing. I wondered if the folks in the courtyard had noticed him yet and if he wanted to be seen, yet distant. His posture said he was trying to get away from his friend’s drunkenness.
“Hey, asshole!” It was Gene Testarossa, the agent from WDE who managed Britt, Brad, and Michael; he was a card-carrying entourage member.
Gene slapped Brad’s back and shook his hand. As they spoke, I brushed past them to the balcony. The music blasted from the courtyard, painting a thick coat of noise over conversations. The occasional shot of laughter drifted upward.
I should have left Michael Greydon alone. Shoulda just gone to the dance floor and given my booty a few good shakes and flirted with a boy or two before going home by myself, or waited in the Exploder for Tom to show up with his schlubby scowl. But I had a perverse compulsion to remind him of me. Maybe it was because he thought of me as a dirty pap, even when he’d seen me up close and without the rig. That bothered me.
“You really looked like you were hurt out there,” I said from a few feet behind him.
He looked over his shoulder at me. “Shuttergirl.”
I stepped forward, putting my hands on the railing. “Is that the only name you know me by?”
“It’s the name I can repeat in company.”
“I deserve that.” I’d come with my wine glass, but it was empty. A poor prop to hide behind and a loaded gun of bad judgment. I put it on the railing. “Here.” I handed him my phone. “There’s nothing on there. You can check yourself. I promised
I wouldn’t take any pictures up here. I just came for a drink and to get my brother laid.”
He took the phone. “I see you got the drink. How’s it working out for your brother?”
“He’s behind me.”
Michael looked over my shoulder and leaned an inch closer. His neck was made of sinew and stubble, and he still smelled like the Christmas mornings I never had. “He’s face-locked with an Asian girl.”
I spun around. Tom was indeed attached at the mouth to Randee from Razzledazzle so tightly I could barely see his face. I fist-pumped.
Michael was looking at my glowing screen, bathed in its blue light, and he smiled at my fist-pump. “Mission accomplished?”
“Yes.”
“I wish I had a sister like you.” He smiled that million-dollar smile, the slight one with only a few teeth showing, and I noticed that spot in his short beard where hair didn’t grow. It was the size of a small pumpkin seed, and it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen in my life.
I didn’t melt. Not a bit. I never felt insecure or overwhelmed. I was the master of my realm. I owned the space around me, the city, the—
Jesus Christ. If he smiled like that again, I would have a coronary.
“I’ve had about twenty brothers and sisters. Tom is the only one who stuck,” I said.
“That’s a pretty crappy average.”
“You never met my foster sibs.”
Before he could say whatever he was about to say next, my phone lit up with a notification from YOU magazine. I knew it by the buzz. Probably a buy, and if I knew the notifications at all, they’d include the subject line of the email. The first words would be Michael’s or Britt’s name in all caps.
I put my hand over the phone. My fingertips touched his wrist, and his touched mine. I was tempted to keep them there. I guessed I did keep them there too long, because he looked into my face, and I realized how close he was. I curled my fingers over the phone. His fingers tightened around my wrist. Skin on skin, for the second time in so many years, sent the same electricity, the same current from my hand to the neglected space between my legs.