She nodded slowly, trying not to let the sweetness of the gesture weaken her resolve. “That was very considerate of you.”
“Yeah, well.” Cobie smiled. “Also, I’m kind of a big chicken, and I worried you might have some regrets this morning, and I didn’t know how to deal with that.”
Lila laughed at the unexpected bout of honesty. “Do you have regrets?”
“I probably should,” Cobie said, “but I don’t. Concerns, yes, so many of those. But regrets, not so much.”
“I concur,” Lila said, grateful for the opening. “I don’t regret anything we did last night, but I also don’t think it’s a good idea to repeat it.”
Cobie exhaled and sat down across from her. “I’m really glad to hear you say so.”
“I enjoyed myself. I also enjoyed you quite a bit.” She blushed at a slew of memories before pushing on. “But we’ve got a job to do together, and getting too emotional isn’t wise.”
“I agree,” Cobie said earnestly.
“We’re both at important crossroads careerwise. We really can’t lose track of who we are right now, either as individuals or as public figures. That doesn’t mean what we had wasn’t amazing, because it was.”
“Absolutely.”
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings or act like last night didn’t mean anything, but it has to be a one-time thing.”
“I’m totally with you.”
Lila’s eyes narrowed. “You are?”
“Yeah,” Cobie said, relief evident in her voice. “Clearly I’m attracted to you. You’re beautiful and smart and talented and passionate, but you’re also a colleague. We’re co-stars on our little publicity tour, and I don’t sleep with co-stars.”
Lila blinked a few times, trying to piece the picture back together. She’d been so certain she had to convince Cobie they couldn’t be a real couple, she hadn’t taken any time to consider Cobie might not want to be one. The realization stung more than it should have. Every logical part of her should have been relieved things wouldn’t get messy or heartbreaking, but a little voice whispered maybe Cobie didn’t want her as badly as it had seemed. What if she hadn’t enjoyed last night as much as Lila, or what if she’d gotten what she’d wanted and lost interest?
“Lila, I’m sorry if I overstepped my bounds or pressured you in any way.”
She waved off that concern quickly. “You didn’t. I wanted everything that happened. I enjoyed everything immensely. It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: I am every bit as attracted to you as you are to me.”
“That’s pretty attracted,” Cobie said with a smile that made Lila’s heart kick-start again. “But we’re also professionals, right?”
“Yes. We can admit to these feelings without acting on them. We have work to do, and we have to put our careers first.”
“Good.” Cobie placed a hand on each knee and pushed herself to standing. “Because I got offered a movie part today, and I think I have you to thank for that. Apparently, my new image overhaul is working. I want to stay focused.”
“Of course,” Lila said, noticing the shift away from personal to business. It’s what she wanted, what she could depend on. Nothing else was meant to last. “Eyes on the prize. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
She forced a smile and nodded. “You’re welcome.”
“You coming down for breakfast?”
“Actually, will you have Felipe send mine to the studio? I’ve got a lot of work to do today.”
“Sure,” Cobie said, “busy day of songwriting ahead.”
She took a second to process the comment. The work she’d alluded to wasn’t so much musical as emotional. “Right, gotta get back to what I know.”
Chapter Seven
“Am I really going to meet her tonight?” Emma squealed as Malik pulled off the expressway toward Toronto’s entertainment district.
“No, sorry. I forgot to mention that you have to stay in the hotel by yourself while I go to the show, ’cause I’m super famous and you’re not.”
“Shut up,” Emma said with laugher in her voice. “Malik, can you put my sister in the trunk and move my luggage up front? My luggage is nicer.”
Malik smiled but didn’t reply.
“Really, when do I get to meet Lila?”
“She had a meet-and-greet this afternoon.” Cobie glanced at her watch. “Then she has a radio thing, but she might come back to the hotel room for a few minutes in between to say hi, but if you’re super nice to me, I think I might score us two tickets to the after-party.”
“The after-party,” Emma said dreamily. “It sounds so glamorous. When did you get so glamorous?”
“What? I was born glamorous. I used up the whole glamour part of the gene pool before you came along. “
“Yeah right. Everyone knows Lila raised your stock like a million points. She’s rubbing off on you.”
Cobie laughed again but didn’t argue. Lila had rubbed off on her in a myriad of ways. Some she liked, some she didn’t, but the results couldn’t be ignored. She’d signed the contract to play supervillain sidekick last week, and as word of the deal had leaked, more offers had come pouring in. Stan fielded calls about her playing an unwed teenage mother, a crime scene investigator, and a cop. None of them were high-profile lead roles, but the shift was on now, and she had to make sure she kept moving in the right direction. “I like to think I’m rubbing off on Lila. Just wait until tonight. I bet she puts on a great show, and I don’t want to say I taught her everything she knows, but yeah, most of it.”
“Stop with your lies.” Emma laughed. “I want to know the real story. You’ve been dodging me on the phone for months. I’m going to meet her in, like, ten minutes. Give me a warning. What’s she really like?”
Cobie shrugged. “She’s just Lila. You read the news. You know.”
“I only know what she’s like on TV and Twitter.”
“So there you go.”
“You’re nothing like you are in movies or on Twitter.”
It was a fair point and one she was really glad Emma could make. Being able to recognize that what happened in the media wasn’t always real would help her fight off some of the issues that often plagued teenage girls. Selfishly, she hoped it might also help her process the emotions when everything between Lila and Cobie came crashing down. And it would come crashing down, so she had to walk a fine line this weekend.
“We’re here,” Malik said as he pulled up behind the Renaissance Hotel attached to the Rogers Centre. Emma and Cobie hopped out and hustled toward a side entrance, successfully dodging the press.
“Please,” Emma pleaded as they slipped into a staff elevator. “I’ve heard so many things, good and bad, about what Lila’s really like in private. I want to know which is true so I can brace myself.”
Cobie sighed. The truth was a sticky subject when it came to Lila. She still wasn’t sure she herself understood what was real and what was for show, and she’d seen it all up close. “Everything you’ve heard is probably true. Or at least partly true.”
“How can it all be true?”
“Because Lila’s a complex woman. She’s not some flat character no matter how much the press or advertisers or even she tries to pretend otherwise. She’s smart and talented and powerful,” Cobie said, trying to measure her words carefully, for Emma and for herself. “But she’s also ambitious and controlling and has little tolerance for disagreement.”
“Is she moody?”
Cobie smiled at the understatement. “At times, but she’s also passionate and independent, and she’s never mean for the sake of being mean. She’s just sometimes driven to the point where she’s blinded to other things. And those aren’t bad qualities in a woman, no matter what some men may tell you. Those qualities made her who she is even if they don’t always make her easy to live with.”
Emma stopped and put her hand on Cobie’s arm as they exited the elevator onto their executive floor. “But
you’re happy, right?”
Cobie’s throat clogged with emotions she didn’t realize she’d held at bay. How could she answer Emma honestly when she wasn’t even sure she was being honest with herself? She wasn’t unhappy with Lila, especially over the last two weeks. They’d fallen into a comfortably distant routine. They made regular outings to Tribeca and Hell’s Kitchen to be seen as super sexy together and ultra-cool in general. At the house, they largely kept to their separate spaces, with Cobie rehearsing and Lila in her studio. Any meals or evening activities they shared also included Felipe and Malik. They were never alone together. And she was grateful for that, most of the time.
“Cobie.” Emma’s eyes started to water. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head and forced a smile.
“If you can’t say you’re happy with a woman you’re living with, there’s something wrong.”
Her heart clenched at the concern in her little sister’s voice. She was supposed to worry about Emma, not the other way around. She opened the door to their suite. “It’s fine. I’m happy. It’s just a lot to juggle, and I worry about what you see in the press.”
“I know not to read the tabloids.”
“Good.” She put a hand on her sister’s brunette hair, the same color hers used to be. “But I know you’re on Twitter and Insta, and you need to know those aren’t always real either.”
Emma shook off her hand. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t really like her?”
“No,” Cobie said quickly, partially out of preservation for the work she’d done and partially in honest defense of Lila. “I like Lila a lot, and more than that, I respect her. I want to be more like her in a lot of ways. She’s been a true partner to me, especially over the last few weeks. She’s taught me to be strong and to better advocate for what I want.”
“Plus, she’s hot,” Emma said, bumping Cobie’s shoulder with her own.
“So hot,” Cobie said, then laughed. “Off the charts hot.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“No problem,” she said quickly. “I just don’t want you to get too attached and start planning weddings or naming our unborn children, because . . . because . . . well we’re . . .”
“Friends with benefits?”
Her face flamed. “No. Why do you even know that term? God, aren’t you, like, seven?”
Emma rolled her eyes in a way that made it clear she was very much a teenager. “I know how these things work.”
“How? How could you possibly?” She didn’t even know herself.
“You guys are like a legit celebrity couple. You go out, you have fun, you get your picture taken, and— oh, my God, are we staying in a hotel room that overlooks the concert?”
Cobie laughed as she watched her sister take in the floor-to-ceiling windows that did, in fact, offer a panoramic view inside the Rogers Centre. “Yeah, see what I mean about her rubbing off on me.”
Emma turned to her again, the wonder in her eyes tempered by a sisterly softness. “I love you, Corn Cobe. You know I don’t care about all the other stuff, right? I just want you to be happy.”
Cobie pulled her into a hug. “When did you get so grown-up, Goober?”
“Like forever ago.”
Just then the main door opened and Lila strolled in several steps before halting as her eyes fell on their embrace. A shadow fell over her expression just a second before she forced a smile and exclaimed, “You must be Emma!”
Emma twirled out of her arms, eyes wide, mouth open, but she only managed to squeak out, “Hi.”
“Hi,” Lila returned, her smile melting from the practiced version to the genuine one that crinkled her blue eyes. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“And we were just talking about you,” Cobie said. “Emma wanted to know if you were everything the press made you out to be, and I told her yes, one hundred percent true.”
Lila laughed. “I’m afraid so. At least the most juicy bits.”
“That’s not exactly what we were talking about,” Emma mumbled, her cheeks pink. “Cobie teases me.”
“It’s what big sisters do,” Cobie said. “Right?”
Lila’s expression tightened for the second time in one minute. Cobie had learned not to put much stock in her mood swings, but there was obviously something going on just below the surface. Emma didn’t seem to notice though.
“My sister says she really likes you because you’re smart and passionate and super hot.”
Now it was Cobie’s turn to blush, but Emma smiled innocently.
“Also all true,” Lila agreed. “What else has your sister said about me?”
“Well,” Emma took a deep breath as if preparing to unload, but Cobie covered her mouth.
“I said you were talented and important and very busy and had a show to get ready for.”
“Oh, right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m really excited about the show and going to the after-party.” Emma said after-party as if she loved to hear the words roll out of her mouth, and Cobie relaxed again.
“I do need to go get changed, but I definitely want to make sure we get back to this conversation later,” Lila said with a wink. “I also want to hear all the embarrassing stories about Cobie growing up, okay?”
Emma frowned slightly. “I’m not supposed to talk to people about family stuff. Cobie likes to keep her private life private.”
“That I already know about her,” Lila said, then with a hint more emotion added, “I think it’s awesome you honor that. You’re a good person, Emma, just like your sister.”
“Do you really care about her?” Emma asked, all teenage star-struck wonder gone from her voice.
“Emma,” Cobie whispered in gentle rebuke, but Lila waved her off.
“It’s a good question. One I’m proud of you for asking, because it means you care about your sister more than you care about your own interests.” Lila took Emma’s hand in both of her own and for a second looked as if she might cry. Then she smiled and said, “Your sister is one of the finest people I’ve met in maybe ever. She knows who she is and who she wants to be, and she doesn’t lose sight of that amid all the glitz and glitter. She respects herself, she treats other people with respect, and she commands their respect in return. She’s kind and giving and compassionate. She always tries to take care of me even when I haven’t given her credit. I don’t make her life easy, Emma.”
Emma smiled. “She mentioned that.”
“I bet she did.” Lila laughed. “And that’s okay. I know I’ve put her through a lot. She hasn’t made my life a cake-walk either at times, but she’s made me happy plenty of times too, more than anyone else I’ve ever been with. So while I can’t promise she and I will live happily ever after, I can honestly say I do care about your sister. I care about her very much, and nothing will change that, no matter what happens.”
Emma threw her arms around Lila’s neck and gushed, “I’m really happy to meet you.”
Lila wrapped her arms around Emma a little less enthusiastically and rested her chin on the girl’s shoulder, but her eyes stayed on Cobie, who stood frozen and heartsick. Either Lila had just lied to her little sister, in which case she was a much better actress than Cobie, or she’d meant every word she’d said. And while the intent mattered a great deal, it clearly didn’t change the sense of sadness hovering around both of them at the thought of what was still to come.
• • •
“This was the best night of my whole life!” Emma exclaimed as they exited the elevator and Malik did a quick walkthrough of the area before letting them into the bi-level suite.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Lila said, and she wasn’t merely being polite. She liked having Emma there. She was a like a younger, more open version of Cobie. She didn’t play her feelings as close to the vest, and she didn’t have a well-developed internal filter, but she was kind, happy, and well-adjusted for a teenage girl. Though to be fair, she also seemed to take her
cues from Cobie, who modeled good behavior. They had both been endlessly patient as Lila worked a room full of fans and radio execs all night. Even more, Cobie had managed to perfectly balance her roles as doting sister, infatuated girlfriend, and superstar on the rise, shifting easily between personas depending on who was nearby.
She shouldn’t have been surprised, and maybe she wasn’t really. Perhaps impressed was a better word. No matter what she threw at her in public, Cobie always managed to assess the situation quickly and adjust accordingly. Lila wondered if Emma would ever understand how hard her sister had to work to keep all the plates spinning this weekend. She sort of hoped she didn’t. She liked having someone around who wasn’t a cynic, or even a realist. Emma still had pyrotechnics from the show shining in her eyes as she surveyed the massive picture-windows overlooking the stadium.
“I can’t believe you were just on that stage a few hours ago.”
Lila nodded as she walked over to stand beside her. “Sometimes I can’t believe it either.”
“I do,” Cobie said, joining them as they stared down at the roadies who were already busily breaking down the elaborate set. “It was so you. I don’t know what I really expected, maybe that I’d feel disconnected from superstar you, but you were still like you are at home, even with thousands of people screaming for you.”
She turned to Emma. “She’s kidding. I don’t strut around the house in sequined skirts and five-inch heels. I don’t randomly burst into song either.”
“Sometimes you sing when you’re distracted,” Cobie said, a hint of the teasing she’d lavished on Emma still evident in her voice. “But that’s not what I meant. It’s more subtle, like your smile or your gestures or the way you purse your lips when you’re pretending to pout. I could still see you. I kept having these flashes of awareness, where I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s my girlfriend.’”
Lila eyed her over the top of Emma’s head. It was the first time Cobie had used the term, at least in her presence, and while she hadn’t expected it, she didn’t hate it either. The pride in Cobie’s voice didn’t hurt. Just because Lila didn’t need her affirmation didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy having it.
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