Chapter 13
“When was the last time you slept with the same woman twice in less than a week?” Sienna asked as she presented Justine with a cup of coffee from her fancy machine.
“You ask a lot of questions early in the morning.” Justine sniffed her mug, as though she didn’t quite trust what Sienna’s coffeemaker had produced.
“It’s ten a.m.” Sienna held out her hand. “Come. Let’s drink our coffee outside.”
Justine took her hand, and they went onto one of the patios that wrapped around Sienna’s apartment.
“Jesus. I didn’t even notice this last night.” Justine shook her head. “It’s obscene how some people live.”
Sienna chuckled in response. Admittedly, she got a small kick out of doing this, not because she enjoyed showing off her home, but because of Justine’s blunt reaction to it. In a city of fake smiles and all too blatant phoniness, Justine was refreshingly real.
“Because you only had eyes for me?” Sienna sat in one of the lounge chairs by the glass railing.
“It quickly became obvious you invited me here for one purpose only.” Justine sat opposite her and smiled at Sienna. “Despite your preposterous claim of only wanting to talk.”
“We did talk.” They’d talked so much, in fact, that Sienna had only grown to like Justine more. Not just the slope of her cheekbones and how, when she looked into your eyes, she made you feel as though everyone else in the world ceased to exist, but the delicious contradiction of how she could be so self-deprecatingly honest about herself, yet at the same time could play coy like the best of them. Despite her direct manner, Justine didn’t strike Sienna as an easy woman to get to know—there was a thick shield around the most vulnerable parts of her—and, despite painful past experiences, Sienna found that wholly irresistible.
“Do we now have to talk about our talk?” Justine sipped from her coffee, then moaned low in her throat like she’d done a few times in bed last night. “Yum.”
Sienna shook her head. “We don’t have to talk, although it would be nice if you could answer my question from before.”
“What question?” Justine was not very good at playing dumb.
Sienna just tilted her head and waited.
“That hasn’t happened in a while.” Justine wrapped her hands around her mug. “Probably when I was with Marcy.”
“Were you together long?” Sienna couldn’t help herself. She might as well probe a little now that Justine was still here. It was Sunday and surely even someone as committed as Justine took a Sunday off once in a while.
“I wouldn’t say we were together per se.” Justine was surprisingly forthcoming, but Sienna guessed that last night’s intimacy had something to do with that. Making Justine come had been special—wonderful, even. “We went on a few dates and slept together a couple of times. That’s it. The whole thing didn’t last much longer than… I don’t know. Two months or so, not even that.”
“Did it hurt you when it didn’t work out?”
“Didn’t we cover this last night?” Justine’s foot found Sienna’s and she tapped against it. “I hope you remember what happened after your last interrogation.”
“How could I ever forget?” Sienna caught Justine’s rogue foot between her feet. She meant it. She wasn’t about to forget their exceptional night together.
“Are you trying to make it happen again?”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t expect that from a woman your age.” Sienna tried to keep a straight face.
Justine rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. “I won’t even dignify that with a reply.”
“Would you like it to happen again?” Sienna surely would.
Justine exhaled slowly. “Sitting across from you, looking at your beautiful face, and the memory of last night still thrillingly fresh, I can hardly say no. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good idea.”
“Because of the movie?” Sienna was aware that her behavior as a cast member wasn’t very professional—and she vividly remembered Rochelle’s speech from the other day. She’d also heard plenty of outrageous tales from her father about how on-set affairs gone awry could derail production schedules, but times were different now. It might not be professional to sleep with the subject of the movie they were making, but Sienna considered herself professional enough to separate the two. No one on set even needed to know. She certainly wasn’t planning on telling Alexis, let alone the director, Mimi St James.
Justine nodded.
“I get it. I really do.” Sienna smiled. “It can be our secret.” The prospect of that was also rather exciting—perhaps a bit too much. In the end, they were making a movie, not performing high-risk surgery on someone whose life depended on it. It wasn’t even a big-budget movie—movies like this never were.
“Also.” Justine tipped her body toward Sienna. “Sleeping with someone twice in less than a week doesn’t change who I am or my priorities in life.”
Ouch. That was Sienna told. But maybe it was what she needed to hear. At the same time, it made Justine even harder to resist, because of course Sienna relished the challenge of being the one woman Justine did want to be with. The one woman she would change her stubborn ways for. Although Sienna was hardly that naive. She might be a lot younger than Justine, but that didn’t make her a lot more stupid.
“Let’s play it by ear then, like last time,” Sienna said.
“Sounds like a plan.” Justine finished her coffee, then regarded Sienna over the rim of her cup.
“What?” Sienna slid off her sandal and ran her toes over Justine’s shin. Pity she was wearing jeans.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.” Sienna painted on her best smile again—the one Justine had not been able to resist twice now. “Please.”
“I’m just glad you’re not inviting me to do something today, which I then would have to decline. You know, that whole song and dance.”
Ouch again. It wasn’t as though Sienna hadn’t considered it. She wouldn’t mind spending some more time with Justine, getting to know her a little better—at least the parts of her she freely offered up to others.
“I’m seeing my family today,” Sienna said, although she’d only be going over to her mother and Eddy’s house for dinner much later.
“Good.” As though Sienna had just asked her to leave, Justine rose from her chair. “I want to go by the shelter on my way home to check on Ashleigh.” She hadn’t mentioned the shelter in the hour or so since they woke. “She’s in a bad way.” Just like that, the vibe changed. Justine’s thoughts had drifted back to the one thing that mattered to her most.
“Okay.” Perhaps Sienna’s sigh was a bit too obnoxious. “Don’t let me keep you then.”
“Hey.” Justine reached for her hand and tugged at it. “As I said before, you’re really something, Sienna Bright. Really, really something.”
“I guess I’ll see you on set when we start shooting.” They had a week of rehearsals first. Sienna intertwined her fingers with Justine’s despite the shift in mood.
“Alexis might volunteer at the shelter next week to prepare for the role. Is that something you’d be interested in?” Justine asked.
“To do what exactly?” Sienna looked into Justine’s bright-blue gaze, already knowing she’d say yes, regardless of what she’d have to do.
“Basically to just hang out with the residents for a bit. I think it would make a lot of people’s day. So you wouldn’t have to do all that much. Just be there, really.”
“Will you be there?” Sienna grinned.
“I’m pretty much always there.”
“Then I’ll see you at the Rainbow Shelter.” Sienna kissed Justine goodbye—for now.
“Cover your ears, sweetie.” Sienna put her hands over her niece’s ears. “I have to tell your mom something.”
The girl shook herself free. “Why can’t I hear what you have to say to Mom?”
Granted, Sienna hadn’t been very smart about this.
“Do you hear that, pumpkin?” Taissa pointed a finger at her ear. “That’s Grandpa calling you. He needs your help in the kitchen.”
“Okay.” Zara was only six and Sienna didn’t know if that meant she believed the fiction her mother had just invented, but it did mean she sped off to supposedly help Eddy, who loved nothing more than having his grandkids in the kitchen with him—just as he’d enjoyed Sienna and Taissa’s company when they were kids.
“What’s up?” Sienna’s sister asked, a smile already playing on her lips.
“You know that movie I’m about to start shooting?” They were sitting in the backyard of their mother and stepdad’s house, the pool shimmering in front of them.
“ Gimme Shelter , about Justine Blackburn, directed by Nora Levine’s girlfriend Mimi St James.”
Of course, Taissa knew—there wasn’t much she didn’t know about her sister’s life.
“I might have, um, slept with the movie’s subject.” Sienna scratched an imaginary itch on her nose.
“No way.” Taissa narrowed her eyes. “You? You slept with Justine Blackburn?” She made it sound as though Sienna had just told her she’d slept with some mediocre cishet man.
“Twice. One of those times last night, in fact.” Sienna drank from the wine her mother poured generously whenever the family was together.
“Isn’t she, like, in her sixties or something?” That was what Taissa was focusing on? Although Sienna could hardly hold it against her sister.
“She’s fifty-four, Tai.”
“Oh, well, excuse me, then.”
“The first time was okay. I mean, it was hot and unexpected and great, but last night was… it was different. It was still hella hot, but it was more than that. For me, at least.” Sienna knew it was best not to kid herself about last night meaning something more than just sex to Justine. “It had a tenderness to it that surprised me. It was intimacy more than sex, I guess.”
“You felt something?” Taissa asked.
“Yeah,” Sienna admitted, also to herself.
“Are you seeing her again? Not just for the movie, but as a thing between you?” Taissa tapped a finger against her chin, as though pondering the ramifications.
“I’m volunteering at the shelter next week, but she made it pretty clear that I shouldn’t get any romantic ideas in my head.”
“Oh. And is that what you’re doing?”
“No.” Sienna shook her head. “But I would like to see her again. I invited her to dinner last night and we really clicked. We had a real connection, you know?”
“You like her.” Taissa grinned. “You like a white lady in her fifties.” She pulled her lips into a judgmental pout and slowly nodded her head.
“Which white lady in her fifties?” Their mother had snuck up on them.
“We’re having a private conversation, Mom,” Taissa said.
“You should have gone somewhere more private than my backyard, then.” Maxine Brewster was not one to be brushed off by her own children. She pulled up a chair, refilled her glass of wine, and looked at Sienna. “Tell me.”
“No, Mom. We’ve talked about this. There are things a mother should not know about her children. You agreed. Remember?”
Her mom shook her head. “I don’t remember that at all.”
“Yeah right. You’re just curious.”
“Of course, I’m curious. You’re my daughter. I will never not be curious about you.” Her mother rested her gaze on Sienna. It made her think of the kids the Rainbow Shelter took in—kids whose parents lost so much more than their curiosity about them. “Either way, you can’t back out now. I heard about the white lady in her fifties. Who is she and what are you doing with her?”
Their mother had always had a bossy streak and she’d been overseeing hundreds of employees at her production company for decades, which had only made her bossier. Maxine Brewster had always refused to take no for an answer—even rock-hard ‘nos’ that caused friction, awkwardness and disappointment. It was one of the things Sienna admired about her mother the most—although perhaps not so much in this moment.
“Before I tell you anything, you need to promise you won’t freak out,” Sienna said, even though she could perfectly predict how that would go down with her mother.
“I will do no such thing.” She locked her gaze on Sienna’s. “You’ve made me even more curious, though.”
“I slept with Justine Blackburn,” Sienna blurted out. So much for it being her and Justine’s secret. But this was her family and they didn’t have many secrets between them—not on this side of her family, anyway.
“You did not.” Her mother burst out laughing. “You’re just riling up your too-nosy-for-her-own-good mother now.” She held up her hands. “Fine. I deserve it. Well-played, girls.” She gave them a thumbs-up.
“I warned you, Mom.” Sienna was a lot like her mother when it came to certain things, being tenacious was one of them. “There are things a mother shouldn’t know. Maybe that will teach you to no longer eavesdrop on us.”
“Are you saying that you’re telling the truth?” She gulped down some wine. “That you actually slept with Justine Blackburn?”
“And that she likes her,” Taissa butted in.
“God knows I have a lot of respect for that woman and what she does, but… I’m not seeing it. You’re Sienna Bright, for heaven’s sake. I know you have a thing for difficult, unattainable women.” Her mother rolled her eyes. “But Justine Blackburn?” She knitted her sculpted eyebrows together. “I can’t see it. As your sister said, what are you doing with a white lady in her fifties?”
“First of all, can we leave the fact that she’s white out of it? Dad’s white, for crying out loud.”
Her mother acquiesced with a terse nod of the head. “What is it about her then? Is it this movie? You haven’t even started shooting yet. I know a movie set can be like a pressure cooker of emotions—false and real alike—but…” Her eyes went wide. “Was she inappropriate with you?”
Sienna huffed out a desperate breath. “Mom. Stop. Just stop.”
“She’s right, Mom,” Taissa finally backed Sienna up. “You’re freaking out.”
“I didn’t promise that I wouldn’t.” Her daughters ganging up on her had never once intimidated their mom—nothing much did. Except, perhaps, her youngest daughter hooking up with a woman in her fifties.
“So.” Her mom regrouped. “You actually like her?”
“Kind of, but… I’m not sure it’s mutual.”
“Of course it’s mutual.” Her mom couldn’t help herself. “What’s not to like about you?”
“This is not helpful, Mom,” Taissa said.
“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Sienna said on a sigh. “It’s not going to be a thing, so don’t worry about it. In fact, let’s forget about it. Let’s pretend I never said anything and it never happened.” Yeah right.
“I’m visiting that set in a few weeks,” Sienna’s mom said. “And I won’t have forgotten by then.”
“Promise me.” Sienna made sure to look her mother square in the eye. “That you won’t go all embarrassingly mother hen on me. If you don’t promise, I’ll make sure you won’t be granted access to the set.”
“I’m Maxine Brewster. Who’s going to stop me?” Her mom grinned. This was her way of saying she agreed, and that she wouldn’t confront Justine about this if and when she met her.
“Thank fuck,” Sienna said. “Sometimes, I think you forget I’m thirty-six years old.”
“Language, please.” Her mother winked at Sienna. “But if you do want to talk about it, I’m always here. You know that.”