I washed my face after my momentary lapse in keeping my shit together, and I went downstairs to see what Russell and Stephens were doing. They’d already gone. I guess they didn’t want to say goodbye.
Fine. Whatever.
Going out of the house was a mistake. The paparazzi are a pain in the ass. I can’t walk outside without someone taking a photo from the bushes or from across the street using a telephoto lens.
All day, Aunt Delores and Sadie have treated me like I might shatter into a million sharp-edged pieces, though I keep telling them I’m fine. Well, I’m fine now. And I’d never let them know if I wasn’t, anyway.
Sadie brings me a bowl of chocolate ice cream. “Here. This’ll make us feel better.”
“Us?”
She shrugs. “Ice cream and chocolate always make me feel better, even when nothing’s wrong. But my boyfriend broke up with me yesterday. So, yeah, us.”
She sits next to me on the sofa, close enough to prop her arm on my drawn up legs. “So, want me to go kick his fucking ass for ya?”
“Who? Buck?”
“Yeah. Or whoever. I’ll do it, you know.”
I smile, shaking my head. “Thanks. I appreciate that. But I like to do my own ass kicking.”
Aunt Delores pulls the remote from my hand. “Why do you torture yourself by watching this crap?”
I frown and, okay, maybe I pout—a little. “Because I’m a masochist. And the news is still talking about me like I’m some skank ho who Buck just picked up off the street—as if he’d have to do that to get laid.”
She sits next to me, pulling me into her arms. “Aw, Baby Girl, you know who you are. The people who love you understand. They’re the ones that matter. Those who don’t know you and don’t understand, they don’t matter, not one bit.”
How many times did she say this to me when I was a teenager with tender feelings and small town hatred hitting me from all sides? Too many to count.
The handful of people who love me unconditionally has shrunk by one or two, but she’s still right. It really doesn’t matter what the world thinks of me.
Now, Buck, on the other hand—he’s really in the hot seat.
I sit with a tumbler of bourbon in one hand, the remote control in the other as I surf from one cable news show to the next. All the entertainment news is the same. Pretty much saying what the paper in front of me shouts. The National Investigator headline mocks me.
SO. TRASHY. Buck Wylder goes slumming and pays for sex.
The only saving grace is that I’ve already signed the contracts with Razor Wire. Fuck. If this had come out a couple of days ago, I’d have been thoroughly screwed.
The kitchen table rocks when Trudi plants her ass on the edge of it, a foot from me. “Buck, I like you.”
After waking up to Arianne crawling into my bed in the wee hours of this morning, I’m a bit wary. “Okay. Thanks. I—I guess I like you all right too. Say, you aren’t getting ready to go all cray cray and shit on me, are you?”
She plasters on a big grin. “No crazy. I’ll save that for the really rich guys.”
“You’re fucking hilarious.”
“I’ve been thinking about your predicament.”
“My predicament? Which would that be? The Marine who wants to sue my ass for jumping into a fight between me and his buddy? The crazy stalker who says she’s pregnant with my baby, but I can’t have arrested for fear of losing my big break? Or the fact that the money I’ve given Lou is under scrutiny?”
Granted, there is some truth to the last problem, but that’s because I thought it was the only way to keep her off-stage and get her into my arms so I could change her mind about us.
Backfired doesn’t even cover it.
Trudi tilts her head this way and that, as though sizing me up. “Neither.”
“Shit. You mean there’s another fucking problem I don’t even know about?”
TWENTY-FOUR
A third Thug has taken up residence at Aunt Delores’s gate. A fourth at the end of the Buckners’ drive. Thugs One and Two alternate guarding their door and checking the perimeter.
It’s been two days since I sent Buck home after I so stupidly told him about my miscarriage. Since then, he’s been over here five times, carrying a bigger more elaborate bouquet with each visit. Every time I’ve been able to get Sadie or Aunt Delores to answer the door and send him packing.
Aunt Delores and Sadie were going stir crazy, so they went to town to buy a bucket of chicken and take a break from the drama zone. At least, that’s how Aunt Delores put it right before she went out the door.
And she left just seconds before I looked out the window to see Buck trotting across the backyard, more flowers in hand, and a case of some sort on his back.