Chapter 9
9
Sydney
I looked up from my phone when Beatrice stepped through the side door, bags in hand.
“We have a situation,” she announced.
“Yes, I know.” I would have had to be blind and deaf to miss it. Chaos was happening outside my house. My neighbors were going to be pissed. Again.
I’d closed the drapes over the sliding glass doors to give us some privacy and the room was cozy and muted. Like a cocoon.
“Please be quiet though, Wyatt is still sleeping.”
Beatrice’s gaze followed the rumbling snore to the man who was laid out on my couch. I sat on the opposite side of the couch, my notebook in hand. I’d been sitting here, listening to Wyatt snore and working on a song.
It had been the nicest morning I’d had in…years?
“What’s he doing on the couch?” Beatrice asked.
“Protecting me,” I said, and could not contain my smile. Honestly, he was too much. But it was strange how after a life with so little, too much felt wonderful.
“My goodness, you were right. That man needs a robe,” Beatrice said as she stared at his exposed chest. My favorite pink and yellow paisley throw had been kicked to the floor at some point, and he was just lying there in his boxer briefs for all the world to see.
Thick and defined, covered in dark brown hair, Wyatt’s chest was no joke. Only it was hard to know where to look when there was a massive bicep and bulging right thigh on display as well.
I was trying very hard not to stare at his junk, but I swear I could see the outline of his dick pressed against the grey cloth of his boxers. It was also…impressive.
“He is something, isn’t he?” Beatrice said, setting her bags down by the island.
“Right? He’s a little intimidating up close.”
“Has Mr. Intimidating been behaving himself?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at me so I knew to what she was referring.
“He’s been a total gentleman.”
“And that’s what you want?” Beatrice asked. Swear to god, that woman had a direct line right into my head.
“Yes,” I said.
No, I thought.
Beatrice brought one bag with her over to the couch.
She leaned over and I reached down and threw the blanket back over his body.
“No looking at his junk!”
“As. If,” she said, clearly offended. “I’m simply trying to determine if he is in fact a man or a bear. My goodness, the snoring!”
“I kind of like the sound of it. It almost rumbles the whole house.”
“He should wake up. We need to devise a plan of attack.”
I understood I needed to have a new story ready, but it was just going to mean more lies. More lies upon more lies. I was exhausted already.
“Mr. Locke,” Beatrice said. She clapped her hands once. Twice. “Mr. Locke!”
Like a ball shot from a cannon, Wyatt sat up. “What?!”
Beatrice was so startled she tripped back a few steps.
“Sorry to wake you, but you’re needed for an emergency,” she explained.
“Why are you here so early?” he grumbled.
“I’m here when I’m needed.” She pulled out a white robe from the bag she’d brought to the couch. “Put this on, please.”
“A robe?” Wyatt looked over at me.
“You’ll see,” I told him. “It’s very comfortable.”
“Or you could get used to seeing me half dressed,” he said, but he took the robe.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure that’s not something I would ever get used to.”
“Stop flattering him,” Beatrice scolded me. “It will go to his head.”
“My wife can flatter me if she wants,” Wyatt snapped. He shoved his arms through the sleeves of the robe and tied it around his waist. “Okay, this is actually really soft.”
“Told you. I have the same one. We can be twinsies,” I told him.
“I wouldn’t hold on to that hope,” he said. “What’s that noise?”
Beatrice walked over to the sliding glass doors and nudged one of the curtains open. There was an explosion of flashes. Through the glass we could hear them yelling. They were positioned down on the sand on the other side of the closed gate that led to her deck.
“What the fuck?!” Wyatt said.
“It’s the new situation,” Bea said, and let the curtains fall shut again.
“There are like…twenty people out there. With cameras!”
“It was Tricia’s interview,” I explained. “She basically called us out as fakes and now it’s an even bigger story than the shotgun wedding itself. P&P’s started showing up this morning.”
“P&P’s?” he asked.
“Press and Paps.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he said. He stepped forward and opened the curtain again. More yelling. More flashing.
“You’re going to want to stop doing that,” Bea said.
“After everything that happened last night, I wanted you to rest. There’s nothing to do but wait them out,” I said.
He gave them all the finger. Bea groaned. I laughed, because the number of times I’d wished I could do that was in the millions.
Why didn’t I? I wondered. Why didn’t I just give all those assholes the finger and tell them to fuck themselves?
Because someone once told me it would be bad and the last thing I wanted to be was bad. Funny how it seemed to happen anyway.
“They like a reaction,” Bea told him. “It only spurs them on.”
“Yeah, well, fuck them.” He frowned and let the curtain close. Returning the room to its hushed and glowing coziness. Maybe the solution was we kept the curtains closed and just holed up here. It wouldn’t be the worst thing.
Though, the professional athlete might get bored.
I poured him a cup of coffee from the pot I’d made and thought about what he’d had in his coffee back in Vegas. “Cream and sugar?”
“Yes, please,” he said.
“We need a plan of attack,” Beatrice said.
“I thought we had a plan of attack yesterday,” he grumbled. He took a deep sip once I handed him his coffee. “That one didn’t work out so well for us.”
“We should have been more thoughtful,” Beatrice explained. “We rushed to get a story out and it was quite evident it was fabricated. Which means there is only one thing left to do.”
“Tell the truth?” Wyatt asked.
Beatrice scowled at him. “No, of course not. We double down on our story. I’ve spoken with Tyler and he agrees.”
“I bet he does,” Wyatt mumbled.
“Do you want me to make you some breakfast?” I asked Wyatt, remembering what Beatrice said about needing to feed this man often. “I can do eggs.”
“Eggs.” he grunted, as he sipped his coffee. Then almost as an afterthought, “Please.”
I started cracking and whisking them together. I poured them into a hot pan with some melted butter and a few minutes later he was forking them into his mouth.
“Hot sauce?”
“Hot sauce!” his eyes lit up. I don’t know why that gave me a secret little thrill.
My husband liked hot sauce on his eggs.
“Focus. I think the two of you should spend some time today in the ocean, frolicking.”
“Frolicking?” Wyatt asked. “Are you from the 1950’s?”
“Hardly. Here, I’ve brought you a swim suit, Mr. Locke. It should fit you perfectly.”
Beatrice pulled out a pair of men’s swim trunks from another bag.
“We swam in the ocean yesterday,” I pointed out.
“Did we frolic?” Wyatt smirked.
“We did! You threw me over your shoulder.”
He shook his head. “Because you squirted water into my face with that weird palm trick.”
I laughed. I did do that. Got him right in the eye too.
“I didn’t buy you swim trunks until just this morning,” Beatrice said, like she was confused.
“I just swam in my underwear.”
“His boxer briefs are very versatile,” I noted.
“Yes, well, there will be no throwing or squirting today.” Wyatt choked on his eggs. “You have an audience this time. I want you to watch this.” Beatrice took out her phone, tapped it a few times and then set it on the kitchen island for us to watch.
“Another video of us?” I asked.
“No, this will give you inspiration.”
“Is it a movie? In black and white?” Wyatt’s face scrunched up as he bent down closer. Did my husband need glasses?
On the screen, a woman, wearing a black bathing suit that covered a whole lot more skin than my bikini, stumbled along the sand while a man in trunks chased her down and tackled her.
“What is happening right now? Is he attacking her?” I asked, my neck bent to get the right angle.
They were kissing on the sand.
“Is that consensual?” Wyatt asked.
“I can’t tell.”
“This is from the film, From Here to Eternity, one of the most seductive movie scenes of all time. This is the feeling you want to evoke for anyone watching the two of you. The white hot heat of new love.”
Wyatt and I looked at each other.
White hot heat? I mouthed.
“Something has happened to your witch,” Wyatt muttered, as Beatrice tapped her screen and replayed the scene.
He might be right. I watched Beatrice watch the scene again like she herself was falling in love.
“So let me get this straight, you want us to make out on the beach in front of the paps like we’re putting on a damn play?” Wyatt asked.
“No, of course not,” Beatrice told Wyatt. “I simply want you to show everyone how very real your attachment is. Physically and otherwise.”
“Got it,” I nodded. “We go swimming. I come out of the ocean panting a little, he tackles me to the sand and we make out while the water rushes over us. I think we’ll get too much salt water in our mouths if we do that though. Don’t you?”
Wyatt was looking at the video again. “Fuck, I don’t even know how they’re breathing through all that water.”
Beatrice snatched up her phone as if offended by our lack of reverence for the most seductive movie scene of all time.
“Sydney, you’ll wear a bikini. Mr. Locke, you’ll wear the swim trunks I bought you please. No more underwear. Nothing too revealing.”
“You know you can call me Wyatt,” he told her, and went back to eating his eggs with hot sauce.
“I won’t know you long enough for us to become informal with each other,” Beatrice said, and picked up her now empty shopping bags. “Don’t answer any questions. That’s the key. Just look like two people in love. But keep your mouths shut.”
“I’ll try,” Wyatt said.
“You ready?” Wyatt asked as I closed the sliding glass door behind me. The camera flashes went wild and the questions were a wall of noise. It was enough to make a person want to go back inside. Hide from the world.
It didn’t make me want to pretend to frolic in the waves.
“We’re going to be okay,” Wyatt said.
“Just saying it doesn’t make it so,” I told him and he laughed.
“My brother says that to me all the time. But I’ve got a pretty good track record of speaking things into existence.” He held out his hand, and for the first time in all my many fake relationships, I didn’t feel quite so alone.
I slipped my hand into his. It was big and warm and rough and I loved it.
He bent to whisper in my ear and it probably looked terribly romantic to the people taking pictures below us, but all he said was, “Sorry about the calluses. Occupational hazard.”
I didn’t mind. I liked them.
“That’s not your white bikini.” he said.
“My white bikini would not survive this scene we’re about to perform.”
“I loved that white bikini,” he said.
“Well, this is what you get, today.” It was a black two piece, but it covered more of my body and would withstand frolicking, tackling and making out in waves. “Is it okay?” Maybe I should have picked something sexier?
“Babe, anything you choose to wear is fine with me. I would find you attractive in a muumuu. All right, let’s get this side show on the road. We’re happy and in love. Does my face say that?”
“Your face says you like to eat people for dinner.”
He shook his head. “I can never really shake that mean giant look, you know?”
“Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell fooooood,” I teased him.
He pulled on my hand and we started down the steps and the questions got louder.
“Don’t respond to the questions,” I whispered. “No matter what.”
“No promises,” he said and grinned, before opening the lock on the gate.
“Is it true this marriage is a publicity stunt to save Sydney’s career?” the guy closest to us shouted.
Wyatt growled at the man.
“Celebrity Truth is reporting this relationship is a lie. Why are you lying to your fans, Sydney?”
I ducked my head, while Wyatt pulled me through the crowd of twenty or so bodies that were closing in.
“Sydney? What does John Bernard think about this relationship? Did you cheat on him with Wyatt?”
“Wyatt, if you know Sydney so well, what’s her favorite fruit?”
Breaking the rules, he said, “Strawberries. Next.”
“Favorite movie?” someone else called out.
“ Predator .”
I still kept my head ducked low, but now I was laughing.
“Sydney, what’s Wyatt’s favorite movie?”
“ Titanic !” I shouted, and we burst through the crowd and we were running for the ocean. I spun around for one last comment: “And my husband loves hot sauce on his eggs.”
Wyatt scooped me up around my waist and lifted me over his shoulder. I plugged my nose because I knew what was coming in one, two, three…
He plunged us into the ocean.
I came up spitting and laughing as he pulled me close to his body. It didn’t feel like a show when I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his very solid middle.
“I’m allergic to strawberries,” I told him, since we were out of ear shot. The P&P’s stood on the shore and we were out in the waves.
“I think Titanic is the stupidest movie I’ve ever had to sit through. I mean, why didn’t he just figure out how to get on the door with her, or maybe find something else to float on?”
“Well, I don’t know how you knew it, but Predator is in fact my favorite movie.”
“Nailed it.”
We laughed and floated and I thought maybe I was having too much fun for a fake relationship. I kept telling myself this was complicated, but it kept feeling simple.
“I saw your notebook was out again this morning,” he said. “And your guitar. Are you still constipated?”
“Oh my god,” I laughed. “You’re going to have to stop calling it that.”
“Are you working on some new music?”
It was too early to tell anyone. Tyler would want to get me in a studio. My label would want to have a meeting. They would chase this fragile new song right out of my life. But Wyatt wasn’t like that. At all.
“I am. But…it’s different. Like so different from anything I’ve ever done.”
“Thrash metal?”
I laughed.
“Punk?”
“Country,” I confessed.
He wiped water off his face. “That’s so different?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Everything about it feels different. The chords. The melody. The feel of it. Every album is different, but this one is just pulling something brand new out of me.”
“Do you like country music?”
“I like all kinds of music. I love the way it can make a person feel a thousand things in one two and a half minute piece of art. It can make them cry. It can make them dance. Some people love the song. Some people hate it.” I laughed with the old joy I used to feel about music. It hadn’t been around for a long time. “When I was a kid, all we listened to was country music. I grew up on Lady A and The Chicks and Tim and Faith. So, it makes sense maybe that I’d end up back here.”
“And you grew up in a trailer park. Walked away with just the clothes on your back and a guitar case. Declared independence from your mama. Made a life on your own terms. You’re right. You’re a living country song.”
I ran my hand through his hair and down over his beard. I couldn’t get enough of touching him. Between my legs his body was warm and smooth and I was trying to keep things PG under the water, but the waves kept pushing me into him, and well, it was hard to fight the waves. And him. And this sweet thrumming heat building up between us.
“How did you know about the trailer park? Did I tell you about that in Vegas?”
He shook his head. “I told you. I’m a fan. There are some things I know about you.”
His hand squeezed my butt, just a friendly little squeeze, but it went through me like tequila. It made me giddy and light-headed. I wanted more.
On the beach, the crowd was dissipating. Since all we were doing was standing in the waves hugging each other, they’d lost interest in us.
“Who is this John Bernard guy?”
“An asshole,” I said, with all the emotion I felt for him. “My last boyfriend.” I didn’t put air quotes around boyfriend, but my tone implied them.
“Now you have mean-giant face,” Wyatt told me.
“I didn’t like him very much.”
“Because he cheated?”
How did I explain any of this to Wyatt, who seemed to live his life completely on his terms?
There was no way I was having the conversation with Wyatt that Beatrice wanted me to have. It was too humiliating. All these years, and all these relationships, and none of it, apart from that first heady crush on Axil, was real. I was the definition of a fraud and I didn’t want Wyatt to know any of that.
But John was going to come up again. It was inevitable.
“John and I weren’t really dating,” I admitted.
“Like you hadn’t agreed to be exclusive at that point?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s worse. John had a reputation as a party boy. He was going for this serious role in a movie with a director who did not like party boys. He needed his reputation cleaned and Tyler thought-”
“Stop,” Wyatt interrupted. “Any sentence that includes Tyler thought is already problematic in my opinion.”
“Tyler builds reputations. It’s his job.”
“It’s a dumb job,” Wyatt grumbled, and I liked when he was annoyed about something, his lips disappeared behind his beard. I reached up and teased them back out.
“Anyway, I was trying to keep my name relevant after my album flopped and John was trying to look like he was settling down. So his people and my people put us together. We weren’t even friends. John was…well, there is no other way to say it, he’s a giant asshole. But he’s a decent actor, because for a while he looked like he was into me whenever the cameras were rolling. The second we were alone though…”
I didn’t like to think about it. How small he made me feel all the time.
“Did he hurt you?” Wyatt’s arm got tighter around my back. I was fully pushed up against him now. Not even the waves could pull us apart.
“No, nothing like that. It was just crazy the way he could look at me one second, then dismiss me the next. Like I wasn’t even there. I would try and make polite conversation but that bored him. Everything bored him. He’s a total Nepo Baby so everything has been handed to him. His money, his fame, even his looks, and he couldn’t be less grateful for all of it. Plus, he was a snob. He was constantly throwing my childhood in my face. Asking me questions about being poor like he was researching a role for a film. What could you buy with food stamps? What was it like living in a trailer park? How did you get around without a car? Like stupid privileged shit.”
“If we ever see this guy, point him out and I’ll beat him up for you.”
I laughed and rested my head on his shoulder. “You can’t just beat up all my ex-boyfriends.”
“He wasn’t a boyfriend. He was a jerk you had to spend time with because Tyler said so. You’re right. Next time I see Tyler, I’m going to beat him up.”
I wrapped my arms around Wyatt and squeezed him. I was getting a little chilled in the water, but I didn’t want to let go of this. Just the two of us bobbing in the waves, pressed up against each other.
“We’re only for show,” Wyatt said, leaning back so he could look into my eyes. “Does this feel like what you were doing with that jackass?”
I shook my head. “No. Not at all.”
He leaned forward and sipped a drop of water off my neck, and, I like to think I’m not a giggler, but I am ticklish and I curled away from him, laughing.
His beard against my neck felt exactly the way I thought it would.
“We’ve got to have our big movie moment,” he said into my ear.
“Where we kiss in all that water? Can we skip that part? You can just tackle me to the sand and we’ll roll around.”
“I’m not tackling you. I come down on you like that I would flatten you, you’re so tiny.”
“I’m tiny, but tough.”
He smiled at me. The sweetest smile. The kindest smile. Like he saw me. All my flaws All my stupid mistakes. And he liked me anyway.
“You are, aren’t you? Talking stalkers down from the ledge, putting up with assholes in your life. Besides a sixty-year-old highly competent witch, it doesn’t look like you have a lot of weapons in your life.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“I’m going to kiss you now, okay? Some of them have left, but there are still a few who are filming us.”
“Okay,” I said, but it felt like it came out as a whisper.
“Last time, I surprised you. I don’t want to do that again. It wasn’t right. So I’m asking for your permission.”
“To fake kiss?”
“Yes,” he said, except he sounded very serious when he said it. “To fake kiss.”
“You have my permission,” I said, just as seriously.
He came to me in pieces. Sensations. The now familiar tickle of his beard as it brushed against my mouth. His lips, full and warm. He smelled like the ocean and sunshine and it was the best smell ever. At first he was content to just brush against my lips, tugging my top lip between his. Then my bottom. Exploration at its sweetest.
Wyatt was right. Beatrice was right. We were attracted to each other. Had been practically from the moment we met. So when I tilted my head to the right and opened my mouth for him, he took the invitation and deepened the kiss. His tongue swept into my mouth and I did the same to him. He tasted like hot honey and sea salt. I’d never thought of a man as delicious, but Wyatt was. He was delicious to me.
I wanted more. I squeezed him between my legs.
“Fuck, babe,” he said. “Yeah, like that.”
Every kiss was deeper. Hotter. I could feel his hand on the back of my head holding me still, his other hand firmly planted over my butt cheek. My suit had ridden up under the water, so his hand was directly on my naked ass and the way he squeezed me made me wonder if he might leave marks.
I wanted there to be marks. I wanted Wyatt Locke to mark me.
I arched against him, grinding myself into the impossibly hard length of his cock in his trunks. It was weird to even think that word. Cock. It sent a thrill through me. Illicit and hot.
Wouldn’t it be something if I could just crawl inside him? Bury myself deep in all that was Wyatt. His strength, his humor.
Or maybe he could bury himself in me.
Yes. That.
This is wanting. No, this is need.
I needed him. I was achy and empty and I desperately wanted him in a way I had never understood before.
There had been messing around in the back of a truck with my high school boyfriend, before my career exploded. But that had been all about uncertainty and fear and no. My mother’s voice in my head warning what would happen to me if I got pregnant like she did at my age.
After I got famous, there were some grabby producers and leering executives. But I’d been lucky enough, thanks to Beatrice, to never be victimized by any of them. Then there was my crush on Axil, which had been entirely one sided and unfulfilling.
This was different. This made me understand why women could lose their heads over a guy. I knew we weren’t supposed to be doing this. I was the one who had made the rules, after all.
But I wanted him.
Too complicated, my brain shouted.
Please make this ache go away Wyatt, my body cried out.
Thankfully, Wyatt pulled away first. But I didn’t make it easy on him. I was brushing my sensitive breasts against his furred chest, trying to ease the ache of my hard nipples.
“Hold on baby, not so they can see.”
His words barely registered. I only knew he was turning us and taking us deeper out into the water, so we were submerged up to our shoulders.
His hand slid up under the wet material of the top of my suit, until his fingers found my puckered nipple and began to pull on it.
“Yes, please, Wyatt. More.” I moaned in his ear. So consumed with lust, it didn’t matter if we were being watched, it didn’t matter if he was faking all of it, because I was faking none of it and it felt so damn good.
In the last few years there’d been times when I thought maybe I was just dead inside. All the want, need and desire that I sang about, had been taken from me. Or maybe it had never been there.
Only now, that’s all I was.
I had no brain. No thoughts. I was like a mermaid in the water trying to tempt Wyatt into abandoning ship and joining me under the sea.
“Babe, I need you to look at me.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want any of this to go away.
“Syd, now.”
Blinking, I opened my eyes and met his gaze. His eyes were so dark and fierce. His cheeks red over his beard. He looked like he was working hard. He looked like he was in pain.
“We need to stop.” He said it even as his hand continued to cup my bare breast under the water. As his thumb still brushed against my nipple, back and forth.
“Unh.” I didn’t even know what it meant. Stop? Was he insane? How could we stop when it felt so good? It felt like we were just on the edge of something incredible.
“I know, sweetheart, I’m hard as fuck too. There is nothing I would love to do more than make you come right now, but not in front of an audience.”
The word audience was like a cold shower.
I twisted my head to look over my shoulder. They were still there, only a handful of them, but we had given them a good show.
This was all for show.
Wyatt’s hand slid out of my suit, leaving me cold and wet. I let my legs drift away from his waist, but my hands were still on his shoulders because he’d taken us out so far I couldn’t touch bottom.
“Give me a minute to cool down, then we’ll head back to the house and talk about what happens next,” he said. He took my hands and floated me around his body so I was behind him and anyone filming right now wouldn’t see me at all.
“We’re making things complicated,” I said, pressing my head to the sun-warmed skin of his back.
“We’re making things complicated as fuck,” he agreed.
“Are you mad?”
“No, I’m fucking horny as hell. If I don’t get my head straight, I’m going to carry you back to the house, throw you on a bed and nail you from behind until you’re blind.”
“Blind?” I asked. “Does sex mess with a woman’s vision?”
“The way I fuck it does.”
“Sounds dangerous. Would my eyesight eventually come back?”
“Babe, if you’re trying to defuse the situation with humor right now…”
“It’s a serious question. I don’t think I should have to suffer permanent vision loss as the price of an orgasm.”
He barked out a laugh and I could feel the tension in his shoulders dissipate. I hugged him tight, grateful that the P&P’s on the beach gave me a reason to touch him, all too aware that this beautiful moment was coming to an end.
We stayed in the water for another few minutes. I pressed myself as close as I could to his back just so I could gather up some of his heat. My teeth started chattering. Wyatt held up my hand in front of his face. The tips of my fingers were blue and had turned into wrinkled prunes.
“You’re cold,” he said, like he was annoyed. He headed toward the shoreline in giant strides. “You should have told me.”
“I just noticed,” I said.
We pulled ourselves out of the water and Wyatt kept the weight of his heavy arm across my shoulders, holding me tight to his body. I didn’t fight him, I really was cold. I’d been so distracted I hadn’t felt the chill seep into my bones.
The P&P’s surged around us, but we scurried along the sand to the steps up to my deck.
If he was serious about tossing me on a bed and nailing me from behind, I had to break the news to him that I was not that kind of spontaneous in bed. Like far from it. Like the opposite of it.
“Wyatt, I think maybe I do have to tell you something…”
I realized he was distracted by someone on the deck.
Was Barry back? I doubted it after the way Wyatt chased him off. I tried to see over Wyatt’s shoulder, but whoever it was, was just out of my eyesight. All I could see was a long person shaped shadow.
“Fuck,” Wyatt muttered.
“Do you know who it is?
“Yes, and don’t listen to anything he says. And don’t…look at him.”
“Are you joking?”
At the sound of our voices, the person on the deck jumped up to the top of the stairs and threw his arms out wide. The guy sparkled. All over. From the diamonds in his ears to the white of his teeth. I grinned at him. It was impossible not to.
“Sydney! Come here and give your new brother a big hug!”
“Liam,” Wyatt muttered. “What the fuck are you doing here?”