Sweet Cheeks(99)

I pick up the beer by the neck and down it. Exhaustion hits me, yet I can’t sleep. I glance at my phone, my thumb instantly swiping to check my messages just in case I missed a text back from her.

But there’s nothing.

Welcome to Hollywood, son, where dreams come true, and the one you want more than any of them won’t fucking text you back because she’s scared of what those dreams entail.

Fuck me.

It’ll blow over. Of course it will. Question is if it’ll be a hurricane or a breeze when it does.




This is on you, fucker. Figure out how to fix it. All of it. You break her heart again, I’m going to throw more than just a punch the next time I see you. Ryder’s voice rings loud and clear through my voicemail. His threat real . . . I wouldn’t expect any less from him. And yet it brings a smile to my lips because it’s the only message today that I fucking deserve.

The table read sucked. And not because I didn’t know my lines or couldn’t step into character, but because of that goddamn scene. The one I rehearsed with Saylor that had gotten me all hot and bothered and had rang too fucking true for the two of us. To our history.

The I’d beg, borrow, and lie again right now to get the chance to see her again. Just like the damn script reads.

So yeah, it was a fucked table read. In my own head anyway.

To everyone else participating in the read, I nailed it. The emotion. The feeling. Everything about it . . . because I wasn’t acting.

Landing the part meant nothing though because I didn’t have her to call and share the good news with.

And of course from there my day went to shit. Like catching the latest picture of Saylor on the scattered newspapers on the table in Starbucks while I waited in line. The one with her eyes wide and purse dangling from her hand as she got out of a taxi in front of Sweet Cheeks. To say the look of utter shock and fear on her face felt like a knife in the heart is an understatement.

But my texts remain unanswered. My messages unreturned. My frustration at an all-time high with my goddamn heart in a vise that squeezes tighter with each fricking hour I don’t hear from her.

Next came the call from Tessa. Her tongue-lashing as to why I didn’t take her somewhere and stage pictures to be taken so she could receive the attention Saylor was. Because no press is bad press, right, Hayes? And she could really use some more press and pictures taken with me to help her keep her visibility up. Talk about a fucked-up moral compass. She’s dying for the attention—heartless, conceited bitch—and Say doesn’t want any of it.

But I gotta admire her. Hollywood takes all kinds.

Then after that, yet another call from Benji and one from my publicist, Kathy. The promises that the interviews were being set up. That a location to hold them was being discussed. Followed by a gentle reminder of what was riding on this.

Yeah. Saylor’s riding on this. The reason. The why. The fucking end game. Nothing else matters.

And of course Jenna’s nowhere to be found. MIA. That little gem of information kills me. The irony that she can cause this tornado of bullshit by dropping malicious hints about Saylor and yet when I want to contact her, her phone goes unanswered. Her whereabouts unknown.

I’ll find her and convince her to tell the press as much of the truth about us as she can. That we ended our relationship by mutual agreement, not because I cheated. And that Saylor wasn’t even in the damn picture when it happened.

Or else I’ll tell them. And with a dramatic flair, I’ll throw in all the little extras that make stories like this juicy to the public. Like drug use and suicide attempts.

Simple.

If only.

What would be even better is if Saylor would pick up the goddamn phone when I call. But she hasn’t and now I need to find another way to reach her. Break through to her.

Convince her that this world of mine isn’t so bad when we face it together.

I just fucking miss her.

Need to be with her.

Hold her when she hurts.

And it’s killing me that I’m not.





I’m lost in batter.

Sounds ridiculous but I am. It’s in my hair, on my apron, and smeared on my cheek. My kitchen counter is a clutter of tins and ingredients and utensils. My apartment smells like the bakery should. The timer is beeping. My cell keeps vibrating on the table behind me with alerts I ignore.

And in this chaos, I can finally think. I can figure out which of the two ovens in the brochures on my couch I need and how I can make the monthly payments. I can avoid the looks by my brother downstairs who keeps shaking his head, asking me how I let this happen even though he knows I had no part in it. I can fight the humiliation over the newest round of insults printed. The ones about how I supposedly squirrelled away Mitch’s money—without him knowing—and opened the bakery of my dreams before dumping him at the altar.