Chapter 30 #2
The look on Lucy’s face says she knows something about the relationship between Dane and his father.
Later, when we’re swimming, Cole brings up his sister. Dane and I share a look, but Lucy doesn’t realize how unusual that is.
It seems we all want to share with her, because when she and I are the first into bed later—Dane and Cole still getting ready—she says, “So, you grew up in L.A., right?”
Instantly, my stomach sours. I quirk an eyebrow, trying not to let it show how much I don’t want to talk about this. “I did.”
“Did you meet a lot of movie stars?”
The sour feeling intensifies. “My mom was a bit of a starlet, actually.”
Lucy’s eyes pop, “That explains the looks.”
I grin, unable to resist the urge to flirt. “You think I’m good-looking?”
She giggles and punches me lightly on the arm. “So, did you, like, grow up on movie sets? With your mom?”
The moment stretches. I watch her, lying on her side, face cradled against her cheek, breathing deeply, her eyes on me.
“No,” I say, finally, and the story comes out.
Normally, I don’t like to talk about this with anyone, but there’s something about Lucy. She makes me want to share parts of myself I don’t usually share.
Dane and Cole know this story, pieced together from bits and pieces over the years. Details shared over a few too many glasses of whiskey. The obvious conclusion when I’m a wreck on my mother’s birthday every year.
Susan Hawthorne was a starlet. As a teenager, she was in a handful of up-and-coming films. She played the first girl killed in a summer slasher movie, then the scheming daughter of a small-town cop in a murder mystery.
Her biggest role, and the one people usually recognize her from, was as the lead in a coming-of-age romcom.
She played opposite Brad Pitt, for fuck’s sake.
But she wanted to be more serious than slashers and romcoms. My mother wanted to be a real actress, which is why she started talking to my father.
My father. A—married—director and producer who took a liking to her, and promised she would get a role in his next WWII piece, a way for her to pivot into a more serious career.
He wanted her. And she gave in, because she wanted a successful career more than anything. Then she was pregnant, and getting hush money from him, and that’s how I came into the world—a paid-for secret.
My early memories are mostly good. Back then, my mother was optimistic that she just had to get me old enough to go to school, not to need her all the time, and she would be able to return to Hollywood. She thought she might pick up the mantle of stardom right where she left it.
But the pregnancy and mothering took their toll, and her talent suddenly didn’t matter. There were new starlets. Besides that, my father had done a fantastic job of slandering her name in the industry.
After that, my mother was a whirlwind of depression.
Pills and booze and pajamas all day long.
I came of age learning to predict the rise and fall of her moods.
On a Monday, she could clean the entire house, make a steaming dinner, and ask to go for a walk along the beach.
Then, by Wednesday, she’d be back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, garbage piling around her.
I managed her swings. Took her to the doctor, the psychiatrist. Filled her prescriptions and poured vodka down the sink.
In my free time, I cruised the streets of L.A. top-down, gathering girls and attending parties. I never thought the money would run out.
Then my father passed away, and the checks stopped. Maybe his wife knew about us and did it maliciously, or maybe she had no idea, and it went unnoticed amid the deluge of post-death tasks.
Either way, the money stopped.
“I was in college at that point,” I murmur, eyes heavy. Lucy trails her hand up and down my side, the touch soothing, practically putting me to sleep.
It feels nice to be in bed with another person. To be in bed with her.
“That’s when you met Cole,” she whispers, recognition in her eyes telling me she’s connecting this story to another.
I nod against the pillow. “Needed money. Saw that Dane and Cole… I saw that we could work together well. Made it happen.”
“You’re like the glue,” Lucy whispers, leaning forward and nudging her nose against mine. Something aches in my chest, a sense of vulnerability, the feeling that I shouldn’t have told her about all this.
I have more than my fair share of bullshit relationships. People who aren’t really my friends, but think they know me well.
And I don’t want it to be like that with Lucy. In fact, I’m not sure I could lie to her if I wanted to.
I’m just about to drift off under the gentle sweep of Lucy’s touch, the exhaustion of having shared all this, when Dane and Cole appear.
They’re freshly showered, and they tuck themselves into bed around us.
This time, Lucy’s pressed against me, the guys on either side of us.
Dane plays with her hair. Cole fluffs his pillow.
There’s an unspoken question in the air about sex, like there has been since the first day it happened between us. It’s a question always answered by Lucy, and right now, she’s cuddling into my chest, yawning.
The three of us arrange ourselves around her, each touching her in some way. And, together, we drift off.