Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
“They’re postponing filming for a week,” Angelica said out loud to Lyric as she read from her phone.
She’d anticipated something like that would happen, but she hadn’t wanted to be the cause.
She’d tried to convince everyone around her that she could still work, but they’d all flat out told her no. Including Josef.
“It’ll make for an intense rest of the season filming,” Lyric commented as she piddled away on her phone.
Angelica frowned. Lyric moved around her room at the hotel like she owned it.
Which she did at that point. Angelica could barely get up on her own, and Lyric had taken the responsibility of moving all of her personal items from Harbour Inn to the new hotel they’d stay at for the week until she could reasonably travel.
She’d already sent messages to the owners of her hotels, letting them know she was being forced to take time off.
All in all, it was a good test for her managers to attempt to run the show without her.
But the amount she’d been sleeping the last two days irked her.
She just wanted to be upright and working, but the thought of even moving to get her iPad when Lyric put it on the other side of the room was too much.
“What are you doing?” Angelica asked, needing something else to entertain her since Lyric refused to let her work. This was the worst kind of invalid she could be.
“I don’t suppose Josef or anyone else has sent you the headlines?” Lyric flicked her gaze up to meet Angelica’s. “They’re not great.”
“Headlines? From what?”
“From the accident.” Lyric sighed heavily and came closer, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Angelica had to hold her breath as the mattress shifted which made the aches in her body fire up with protest and pain. But she wouldn’t let Lyric see that, not if it was the last thing that she did. Lyric held her phone out for Angelica to take it.
Squinting to focus her eyes, Angelica stared at the screen. She mumbled a thanks when Lyric handed her reading glasses over.
Reality star Angelica Shields hospitalized after car accident resulting in a DWI arrest.
“But I wasn’t arrested. I wasn’t even driving.” Angelica tapped the phone to try and pull open the article before she realized it was a screen shot image posted on Instagram. She scoffed and handed the phone back to Lyric.
“No, you weren’t.” Lyric scrolled through her screen again. “But that doesn’t stop people from talking. If they read the article, they’d know that you weren’t driving, and you most definitely weren’t arrested. But that’s not what the click bait is interested in.”
Angelica sighed heavily. This was going to cause a massive headache for Josef and Logan—and probably her, though she doubted they’d let her in on fixing that problem. She’d never felt more left out of the conversation than she had the last three days.
“We should probably make some sort of social media post to counter it, so let me know what you want me to say.”
The knock on the door was unexpected. Angelica frowned as Lyric stood up to answer it. Hope’s voice reached Angelica’s ears in an instant. They hadn’t spoken since Angelica had been discharged from the hospital, since Lyric had brought her here and Hope had gone back to Harbour Inn.
Lyric popped her head around the corner of the small hallway. “Hope’s here.”
“She’s fine.” Angelica pulled herself to sit up a little better, adjusting the pillows behind her back and pushing her hair behind her ears.
She looked like shit, she knew that, but she didn’t exactly have another option either.
She could barely move, and she hadn’t had a chance to shower to clean off the grime and blood—though Lyric had tried to be helpful with that, there were some things Angelica wasn’t willing to do with her employee.
Hope stepped inside, a smile plastered on her face, but it looked strained. The instant her eyes landed on Angelica, though, that look softened into something else entirely, something akin to relief. She stood awkwardly next to the bed, her hands wrapped together tightly.
“How are you?” Hope asked, sounding more timid than a kid in front of a school principal for a scolding.
Angelica flicked her gaze to Lyric and nodded. “Will you give us some time?”
“Yeah. You got your phone?” Lyric held hers up.
Angelica nodded. “Yeah.”
“Call if you need.” Lyric disappeared again, and when the door clicked shut, Angelica focused back on Hope.
“Sit down on the bed if you want.” Angelica shifted slightly, preparing for Hope’s weight on the mattress.
Hope tentatively sat, pressing her fingers into the blanket before she sat back slightly. “You’re still in pain.”
“Yes,” Angelica answered. She’d never been good at lying to Hope or even twisting the truth to her benefit. “They said for a week or two and then it’d ease up.”
Hope nodded and then looked out the window. “We finished filming today. It was so odd not having you there. Rex said that we’ll film the closing segment when you’re feeling up to it and then splice everything together—or something like that.”
Angelica pulled her lips tight. She hadn’t known any of that.
No one had really been willing to talk to her, and they’d purposely kept her out of decisions.
She just couldn’t decide if that was so she could heal or if this was the way to push her out entirely.
Josef had already made overtures about replacing her for season four if they were renewed, and Angelica hadn’t committed herself to returning anyway.
“We’ll do the same when we get to Boston for the opening,” Hope mumbled, staring down at her hand which rested very close to Angelica’s.
On impulse, Angelica reached for Hope’s fingers and squeezed them. “I’m fine, Hope.”
“You know that’s all you kept saying that night.” Hope frowned. “And we all know it’s a big fat lie.”
“Then perhaps I should say that I will be fine.” Angelica sighed and pulled her hand free from Hope’s.
“I…” Hope’s face fell, her shoulders dropping. “Can we talk about that night?”
“We are talking about that night.” Angelica tensed, her chest tightening to the point that it was painful, although that wasn’t hard to do lately. Everything just hurt.
“No. I mean about…” Hope blew out a breath and bit her lower lip. Her gaze roved around the room, but she wouldn’t make eye contact with Angelica.
The tension hit Angelica hard. She flicked through her memories of that night, trying to figure out what the hell had happened, but between drinking and being smashed by a car, it was all a bit hazy. She’d gone out to the car to wait for Lyric, and Hope had texted or called. Or…
Angelica paused.
Right, they’d talked on the phone.
Brushing her fingers through her tangled hair, Angelica pushed her shoulders into the pillow and cringed when that move hurt. She hated not being able to just be comfortable physically. And talking about that phone call was the last thing that Angelica wanted to do.
“I was drunk, Hope.”
“Yeah? So?” Hope raised her gaze, meeting Angelica’s eyes.
Those crystalline orbs were filled with unshed tears. Angelica was about to reject what Hope had said, but she saw the fear there, the pain and worry. And it hit her like a brick wall, and she couldn’t formulate the words. She couldn’t say anything.
“You don’t ever lie to me,” Hope whispered. She reached for Angelica’s hand and curled her fingers around it. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I…” Angelica halted. She didn’t have an answer for that right now.
Or perhaps it was that she had too many answers.
She stared down at their joined hands, remembering the feel of Hope’s fingers against hers, the way Hope had laid her head down on the edge of the bed at the hospital and fell asleep for twenty minutes before the nurses had come back in to check on her.
“It would have changed everything.”
“It would have changed nothing,” Angelica countered.
Hope tensed, her entire body going rigid.
She stared at Angelica like the words she’d just said were only meant to hurt, but they weren’t.
They were the truth. Nothing Angelica had said then or now would have made a difference in how their relationship ended.
It would have ended. Hope just would have been all the more devastated for it.
“Ange, you don’t believe that.” Hope shook her head slowly. Who was she trying to convince? Angelica or herself?
“I do.” Angelica sighed. “I do believe that because I know it. I know for a fact it’s true.”
“No.” Hope bit her lip. She sat back slightly, looking around the room, but then she surged forward.
Their lips connected. Hope grasped onto the side of Angelica’s face, holding her in place.
Angelica grunted in surprise, her eyes clenched shut as Hope pushed against her, wet lips sliding over Angelica’s.
Instinctually, Angelica opened her mouth.
She reached up, sliding her fingers against the back of Hope’s scalp, through the short hairs that she had longed to touch and tease.
Hope slid her tongue into Angelica’s mouth, teasing her even more.
Angelica breathed deeply, pain surging up in her chest from the move, from Hope’s weight.
She clenched her hand tightly against the back of Hope’s head and held her.
Hope didn’t let up. She leaned down even more although she didn’t press the full weight of her body into Angelica’s.
Angelica moaned, every physical sensation in her body warring with itself—from the pain to the pleasure, not knowing what to do or what decisions she needed to make. Hope pulled back and nipped her lip lightly and sighed.
“We need to stop, Hope.” Angelica hated saying those words because this felt good and right and perfect, but there was so much weight to the kiss that it’d never be that way. They’d never be without that hurt, and Angelica could never be what Hope wanted. She refused to be second choice.
“I know,” Hope murmured, her mouth still only millimeters away from Angelica’s. “I know. I just…” She breathed slowly, the air moving from between her lips and brushing against Angelica’s cheeks and face, warming her. “You never told me before.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Angelica repeated the words. It was getting harder to say each time, but she was determined to make Hope understand the devastation that she felt. “It’ll never matter.”
“It does.”
“No.” Angelica brushed her fingers against Hope’s cheek and shook her head.
“No, it doesn’t, because we made our choices.
You made your decision. And we can’t take those back.
I won’t let you.” Because there was more hurt, more damage that Hope had done, and Angelica would never allow herself to feel that way again.
She’d never put herself in a situation where Hope could have that power over her. “You should leave.”
“Ange…” Hope backed away, tears in her eyes again. “I don’t want to.”
“I’m not giving you a choice.” Angelica rested heavily into the pillows and hardened her stare in Hope’s direction.
“This is how it has to be. Sometimes love isn’t enough, sometimes I…
” Angelica trailed off. She was getting far too close to the pain that still sat in the center of her chest, the one that seemed to flare up any time Hope was in the room with her, the hurt that was certainly plaguing her now. “I need you to leave.”
Hope drew in a shuddering breath. “My feelings haven’t changed.”
“I know they haven’t,” Angelica fired back, her shoulders tensing.
Why couldn’t this just be easy? She wanted it to be smooth for one damn season, as if they knew how to work together, as if there wasn’t drama coming between them.
“I know they haven’t,” Angelica said softer this time.
“And that’s why nothing like this will ever happen again.
Maybe it’s because you got your proper breakup with Rex and you didn’t with me, but I’m not going back to last year and reliving it.
I’ve moved on, and it’s time that you do too. ”
“Moved on?” Hope furrowed her brow. “With who?”
“With no one.” Angelica sighed heavily. “I’m not here to replace you or anyone else in my life. I’ve come to terms with our relationship and what it was, that’s all I’m saying. And I’m not looking to bring up the past to hash it out again and again.”
Hope seemed to understand then. At least she nodded like she did. Angelica crossed her arms, instantly regretted the move, and put her hands back down at her sides.
“Thank you for staying with me in the hospital. I deeply appreciate it.” Why did that sound so transactional when it was anything but? Angelica clenched her jaw tightly. “I really should rest now. And you should get back to your family.”
Angelica waited in silence as her words registered in Hope’s brain.
“I’ll see you in Boston.”
Hope’s lips parted, and she looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. Finally, she stood up and nodded, walking out of the hotel room.
Finally ensconced in the quiet, Angelica just breathed.
Why couldn’t they just leave the past in the past?
Angelica lifted her fingers to her cheeks, surprised to find them damp from tears of her own. She was better than this. She’d worked through this. Hadn’t she? But facing Hope every single day again was more than she’d anticipated. It hurt. In so many ways.
Feelings be damned.
Angelica loved her, she’d never denied that to herself, even if she had kept it from Hope. But love wasn’t enough. Love didn’t mean that the relationship they had was healthy for either one of them. Love didn’t mean that they could find a way to make it work.
And they hadn’t.
Hope had chosen.
And Angelica had been left in the dark to clean up the mess she’d fully anticipated would be the outcome of their little tryst. But she was done cleaning up after Hope. And she wasn’t going to put her heart on the line just to let everything fall apart again.
Second chances were for fairy tales.
And she’d been right all along not to believe in them.