Better than the Book: A Romantic Comedy (Charitable Endeavors Book 4)

by M. E. Carter

  I put that in the “you learn something new every day” category in my brain. “That’s… strange. Did you get to pet a kangaroo? Please say you did.”

  She nods vigorously and smiles. “Sure did. They were so fun.” She claps her hands together and squeals excitedly. “There’s this one zoo where you can go into the kangaroo enclosure and hang out with them. I even took a selfie with one. Look.”

  She holds up her phone and sure enough, she and a kangaroo are just hanging out like besties. It’s kind of cool, to be honest.

  “You need to make that your blog profile picture.”

  “I know, right?” She looks down at her phone, scrolling through her memories. “Did you know kangaroos are considered pests by Aussies? Most people just hate them.”

  “And yet, you think they’re amazing. Color me surprised.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I appreciate my friend and her love of animals. A love I don’t share. They’re… fine. But too much maintenance for me.

  Giggling, I remind her. “Most people in the States think squirrels are pests and yet you have one living in your house.”

  As if he’s been summoned, her varmint jumps on her shoulder, scaring the crap out of me.

  “Dammit!” I exclaim, hand to my chest. “Why does he always do that?”

  Carrie begins to coo at him and hands him a nut. I find it really weird that she has random squirrel snacks just sitting on her desk, but her house, her rules.

  “Uh, Carrie?”

  “Uh huh?” She’s not really listening to me.

  “Can you maybe take him so somewhere else, so he doesn’t jump on your keyboard like last time? We received way too many complains about that post he accidentally made go live.”

  She tsks. “People have too much time on their hands.”

  “It read, ‘blah, blah, blah, I’ll figure out how to spin this eventually.’ Your friend there didn’t exactly paint us in a good light.”

  Carrie sighs and pats his head. “He didn’t mean it, but you’re right. Hey, Sprite!” she yells over her non-squirrel covered shoulder. “Can you come help me for a second?”

  Instead of her hilarious step-daughter, Matthew comes sauntering in the room, wiping his hands on a towel.

  “Need something, babe? Hey, Celeste.”

  I wave as Carrie says, “Not unless you want to take Luke from me.”

  That stops him dead in his tracks, just as he notices the rodent sitting on her shoulder. Luke seems to notice Matthew too, turning around to face him and flipping his tail around aggressively. I think he does it on purpose because he knows Matthew is not a fan of his, as would be indicated by the giant step back he just took.

  “Don’t even think about it, Luke.” Matthew wags his finger at him because that’s intimidating to a squirrel, I’m sure. “You stay right there. Do not come over here.”

  Fortunately, the little blonde cutie shows up to save the day.

  “Did you call me, Carrie? Hi, Luke.” Unlike her father, the child has zero fear of their weird pet and immediately begins petting him. Matthew, on the other hand, looks like he could pass out at any moment. Truly, watching the entire scene play out on my monitor is pretty damn entertaining.

  “Sprite, since your daddy is a scaredy-cat, do you mind taking Luke with you so I can have my meeting?” I know the smirk on her face is at Matthew, who rolls his eyes in response.

  Without hesitation, Calypso picks up the animal and cradles him to her. “Come on, Lukey Dukey. You wanna take a nap in my baby stroller again? I’ll put your favorite hat on you.”

  And that’s when I lose it, head dropping to the desk as I laugh. Calypso has a hat for the squirrel. If I didn’t know these people personally, I’d think they were absolutely nuts.

  “You find this funny, don’t you, Celeste?” Matthew snarks, albeit playfully.

  My head pops up and I wipe a stray tear from my eye. “You have the strangest family.”

  “Uh, excuse me,” Carrie starts, and I have a feeling I’m about to get a tongue-lashing. “I don’t want to hear how strange my life is when you just spent the last however long playing house with an A-list celebrity.”

  “He’s not an A-lister,” I grumble, knowing full well that’s not the important part of this conversation but still feeling a little raw from his departure. “And how did you find out anyway? He was incognito and you were out of the country.”

  “You forget, my new husband is a C-lister. D-lister? What would you say? E, maybe?”

  Matthew holds his hands out, clearly offended. “I can hear you.”

  Carrie swivels to look at him. “Well what would you say you are on the celebrity scale? If you’re anywhere close to B I wanna know when the paps are showing up to take my picture.”

  He shrugs in concession. “Maybe closer to P or Q.”

  Carrie turns back to me. “P it is. And as a P-list celebrity, Matthew knows celebrity gossip.”

  I quirk an eyebrow because it hits me. “Eddie called when he was panicked about Hunter holing up here, didn’t he?”

  Carrie waves me off dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you found yourself a beau!” Her hands clap again. What is going on with her and this new giddy bouncing thing she has going?

  “I would hardly call him a beau. He was here for a few days after”—I pause to choose my words because Carrie didn’t mention it, so I assume the Ambien issue hasn’t made its way down the celebrity alphabet, and I should probably keep it that way—“we got back from the wedding. He made dinner, I picked up a job—it was all very low-key. No big deal.”

  “No big deal, huh?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then why have we been on this call for a solid five minutes or so and you haven’t started bitching at me about missing my blog deadlines yet?”

  She’s got me there. I’m normally chomping at the bit to stay on task. Today, my thoughts easily stray. But what she neglects to realize is she just changed the topic for me.

  “Oh. My. Gosh,” she says slowly. “You fell for him!”

  “What?” I sit back in full denial mode. “He wasn’t here long enough to fall for him. That requires months of actual dating, not a couple of weeks of hot sex.”

  Right? Maybe? Suddenly I don’t know. Maybe that’s why I feel so lost without him. Maybe I started to fall in love with him.

  “I hate to tell ya, but that’s not the way love works, sweetie.” Carrie looks at me sympathetically, like she can read exactly how hard this is on me through the screen. I have to get us back on track. It’s not that I mind her knowing how I feel. I just know me. If I dwell on it, I’ll fall apart. With a new job, I don’t have time to curl up in a ball on my bed and cry.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I say with more vigor than I feel. “But right now we have limited time so let’s get back to work. I was meaning to tell you, Anna’s idea of audio sample worked so well we’ve seen a spike in activity on the music page.”

  “Oh that’s great!”

  Good. It worked. She’s been distracted and I can try to concentrate on business instead of the Ding Dongs I found in the cabinet this morning.

  “It gets better,” I add. “She accidentally secured an ad for us with one of the small record labels she’s been chatting with. They want to run a two-week promotion for an album they’re trying to get buzz about.”

  Carrie looks delighted by this news. Or maybe she’s still sated from the honeymoon. Regardless, this is fantastic all the way around. “It was such a good idea to add Anna to the mix.”

  “She’s turning into a bigger asset than I anticipated.” I jot down a note to find out when Anna wants to run her own ad. For a couple blog posts on the music scene every month, she bartered for some promo of her own music. I don’t want to forget that. “That’s all I have on advertisers. Everything else is the same. How’s it going on your end? Get some books read and reviewed on your trip?”

  “Not many,” she says with a
waggle of her eyebrows as I groan. I swear, when that girl finally cut off her chastity belt, Matthew didn’t stand a chance. “Don’t worry. I have what we need. But I also have an exclusive interview.”

  This grabs my attention. “Meaning?”

  “Okay, you know how I’m friends with Donna Moreno?”

  “Super erotica romance writing author who suddenly broke out into sweet romance? I’ve heard you mention her a time or two.”

  Ignoring my sarcasm she doesn’t even pause before continuing. “Well, she’s very good friends with Adeline Snow.”

  “The best-selling author of extreme sports romance.”

  “And also married to skateboarding legend Spencer Garrison.”

  My heart begins to beat faster. She’s building up to something amazing and I can hardly take it. Spencer Garrison isn’t only a famous athlete, but in the last few years he’s really made a name for himself with his charities, especially in Texas. He’s like some sort of philanthropic royalty.

  Carrie leans in as if she’s about to spill a huge secret. “It appears the happy couple is pregnant.”

  “No way!” I yell because that is, in fact, huge news. Not just in our little book community, but that’s going to make national news.

  “Yes way. And after much discussion, they’ve decided to give us the exclusive interview and announcement.” Carrie looks quite pleased with herself when my jaw drops. “They’re going to be in the area tomorrow so we’re going to meet up and do a quick interview. I’ll find out when they want this to go live.”

  I’m stunned. Well and truly astonished that the semi-super famous couple has chosen us to break the news to the world. It makes sense since they’re pretty private and probably don’t want this splashed all over whatever the newest gossip site is first. But for us, this is an opportunity to capitalize on new subscribers and new potential clients. A break like this doesn’t happen every day.

  We continue to discuss logistics and our vision for the final post when it goes live. It requires a bit of online searching for some pictures we might be able to use since there’s no way we can afford a photoshoot. And of course during that search I run across a picture of Hunter on the red carpet last night. My heart plummets.

  He’s with his co-star, Penelope Warner, who looks amazing in her single-shoulder black Prada dress that only comes mid-thigh. His arm is wrapped around her waist as they smile for the camera. Gone is the lumberjack look and in its place is the version of Hunter Stone the world is used to. Hair perfectly styled, bright green eyes, and a perfectly tailored suit, he screams movie star.

  Logically, I know they’re probably just friends. I mean, he called me yesterday, and told me about the event. Knowing about it doesn’t lessen the sting of seeing him with her. It just drives home how vastly different our lives are. Something that leaves me feeling sad and disappointed.

  It’s probably better we never defined our relationship. Or friendship. Whatever it was. It never would have worked out between us in the end. If it stings this much after only having him for a few days before he left, I don’t want to imagine what having my heart broken by Hunter Stone would have felt like.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Hunter

  Normally I’m not a fan of running on a treadmill. I hate feeling like a hamster on a wheel, never getting anywhere. I prefer getting my cardio outdoors in the fresh air. I would have done just that this morning watching the sunrise while I managed to get in a solid five miles. But I overslept after too many restless nights and very little sleep.

  Thankfully, my condominium complex has a state-of-the-art gym, and at this time of the day most of the residents are off at their high-powered jobs and not using the gym. At least I’m by myself and don’t have to ward off anyone trying to make small talk. The music in my earbuds should distract me from my thoughts; I should lose myself in the beat as my feet hit the rubber belt. I don’t. My thoughts are on the number of days since Celeste and I have spoken. Something feels off with her. With us.

  I know better than anyone how busy she is with the play. Her job is not only time-consuming but can be emotionally draining. My obligations have kept me busy too. Adding in the time difference and we have hardly spoken on the phone more than a handful of times since I returned to L.A.

  As late night turned to early morning, I thought about staying up a few more hours and calling her. Catching her before she could get to rehearsal. Instead, I must have fallen asleep because when I woke my phone was in my hands and covered in drool.

  Glancing at the clock on the wall, I realize I’ve been at this longer than planned and start decreasing my speed to cool down. Lifting my water bottle to my mouth, I take a long pull as the treadmill ticks down before coming to a stop. Disconnecting my earbuds from my phone, I gather my things and place them on the counter before cleaning the machine and exiting the gym.

  Today I’m meeting Matthew for lunch since he’s in town for a seminar. I still have trouble reconciling that the guy I met on a photo shoot is a financial advisor by day. Actually, I never gave much thought that there was a day job. I really do live in some sort of Hollywood bubble.

  Entering my condo, I toss my things on the breakfast bar and move to the master bathroom for a shower. Completely on auto pilot, I go through the motions before I towel off and wipe the mirror of steam. With two days off from shooting, I’ve allowed myself to not shave. It isn’t quite the lumberjack look I have going but I’m still pretty scruffy.

  Pushing off the counter, I quickly add a little styling cream to my freshly trimmed hair and brush my teeth before slipping into a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. I may look casual, but the price of these jeans is more than I used to make in a month at my first job. It’s ridiculous how expensive the simplest things can be and how easily I slid into spending the money without a second thought. Is that what it means about how Hollywood changes a person? Spending a few days in Celeste’s shoebox apartment reminded me of how far I’ve come. I only hope I haven’t lost myself in the process.

  When I return to the kitchen, my phone vibrates on the counter.

  Matthew: Are you still cool to meet for lunch?

  Me: Yep. Heading out now.

  Matthew: NOW? We said 1.

  Laughing, I shake my head as I type out a response.

  Me: Yeah and you’re walking to the restaurant. I’m fighting traffic.

  Matthew: *face palm emoji*

  Slipping my phone in my pocket, I exit the condo and make my way down to the garage. When I signed my contract as a cast regular on Prince of Darkness, I treated my family to a vacation and my parents to a few gifts I knew they’d never buy themselves. The one purchase I made for myself was this truck.

  My dad had one like this when I was a kid. Of course, his was a basic model without a single luxury. Yet, I remember him pulling it in the driveway, proud to have driven it off the lot with less than fifty miles on it. I promised myself that one day I would have the same feeling. The only difference: my feeling was amplified by leather seats and a kick-ass stereo system. It was my one true indulgence. Minus the overpriced jeans, of course.

  I’m not overly frugal but I also know that all of this could end at any time. It’s why I prefer to invest in things like my condo and not expensive watches and a garage full of high-end sports cars. I should probably pick Matthew’s brain today about how else I can make the most of my investments.

  “Call Celeste,” I instruct my phone. The line begins to ring as I merge onto the freeway. The traffic is moving at a steady pace, slower than the maximum speed but at least we aren’t stopped.

  “Hello? Damn I need to do cardio.”

  Her breathless rambling makes me chuckle. “Hey. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “If only you were here to catch me. I’m about ready to pass out from running.”

  “Why were you running?”

  She doesn’t respond immediately, instead I can hear her taking deep breaths and exhaling a few times. There m
ay be a few swear words in there too. I don’t dare tell her I just ran a few extra miles over my morning plan.

  “I had my phone in my bag and was on the other side of the room. I didn’t want to miss your call.”

  That statement makes me smile. It seems she misses me as much as I miss her. It also makes me rub my chest because of the ache I’ve been trying to ignore for days now.

  “How’s everything going?”

  “Yes, Manuel. I’ll be right there,” she says before turning her attention back to me. “I swear that man wouldn’t know what to do without me. Everything is good. Well, it will be. You know how this part of the process is. Chaotic, exhilarating, and exhausting.”

  “I remember those days. Hey congratulations on getting the exclusive on your blog. I saw it mentioned in a few articles. I’m really proud of you.”

  “Thanks.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “It’s been a little crazy. I mean, I knew Adeline Snow and Spencer Garrison were famous in our world, but I had no idea they were to the actual world. Hold on, Hunter.”

  The timing of her distraction is actually perfect as traffic and I meet again. I slow to less than a snail’s pace as I listen to Celeste talk to someone in the background. The line is muffled so I know she’s pulled it away from her mouth to speak. When she returns to the line she’s giggling. I can envision her smile as she does and wonder if her wild hair is loose and free or piled on top of her head.

  “Sorry, crisis handled.”

  The reality of how busy she is hits me and I feel guilty for keeping her from her job. “I’m on my way to meet Matthew for lunch.”

  “Oh really? That’s cool. I’m sure he’s as blissfully happy as his wife. I swear she hasn’t stopped smiling since they got back from their honeymoon. Enjoy that sappiness in person.”

  “I’ll be sure to report back to you.”

  “I’m sorry, Hunter. I have to go. We’ll chat soon, okay?”

  “Yeah oh—”

  Before I can finish my sentence, the line goes dead. Like I said, something’s off.