Chapter Thirty-Six
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
NOW
“OKAY, I’M JUST GOING to ask,” Elijah says, both hands lifting his coffee cup to his lips. “What’s the story with you and Lola?”
When I woke up this morning, I had left Elizabeth in bed to try and get a quick run in before the chaos of packing to leave erupted. As I pulled a sweater over my head, I met her hooded gaze from under the covers. A lazy, sleepy smile graced her lips in the morning light, and a wave of emotion flooded through me. The same one I felt years ago, watching her sing along to her favorite Christmas song as she decorated for her favorite holiday. Then, the overwhelming dread of returning to a life without her hit me. Being away from her. Our actions last night made the pit in my stomach even deeper, like a black fucking hole ready to swallow me whole. I deserve what I want , she said. But I still had no idea what it all meant and what would happen when we went back home. Was it even possible to go back to normal? What was normal? I don’t think either of us truly knew. Her voice broke through the million questions swimming around my brain. “You alright, baby?”
“Oh, y-yeah. Still just a little tired, I guess,” I lied.
“You can always come back to bed.”
I shook my head and mustered up a smile, leaning down to kiss her forehead.
As I walked out of the bedroom, the house was quiet until I reached the kitchen. Lola sat at the island trying to get some work done, but Elijah and Jeremy were too busy discussing the latest fantasy football picks to notice. She looked like she was about to murder both of them and her annoyance only grew when she saw me. Without a second thought, I invited the guys to breakfast down at Teddy’s, and Lola’s blue eyes lit up. I shot her a wink as I followed them out of the kitchen and she waved over her cup of coffee, returning to her work without a second glance.
“I should’ve seen this coming,” Jeremy chuckles, digging his fork through the leftover potatoes on his plate.
“We don’t mean to pry,” I say.
Elijah doesn’t waste time adding, “But can you blame us?”
Jeremy sighs. “No, I guess not. Honestly, I thought Elizabeth and Selena would’ve just told you.”
I knew Elizabeth knew more than she let on.
Jeremy chews on the thought for a moment. I can only imagine the thoughts running through his mind, but I can’t imagine it’s easy to relive it either. “Did either of you know Jenna?”
“Was she at New Year’s at your house last year?”
“Unfortunately. Tall, skinny thing, with short blond hair.”
“So, everyone there,” I joke.
Jeremy laughs, nodding. “Nothing that would make her stand out in a crowd, so you probably saw her and didn’t even notice.” Slowly, his smile begins to fall, and he sips his water. “Jenna was…obsessed. That’s the only word I can use to describe it. She met Lola on a set where she was an extra before Lo decided to take a break, and because Lo was nice to her—”
“She took it a little too far.”
Jeremy nods. “Even though she took a step back from producing and show running, Lola was still involved with some projects on the creative front. She needed help, needed someone who could handle the mundane things while she took care of the big stuff…Enter Jenna.”
Jenna had sold herself well enough in the interview that Lola hired her almost immediately, but from the beginning, Jeremy was skeptical. She almost seemed too perfect. And he wasn’t the only one. Lola’s best friend, Stephanie, voiced her concern after meeting Jenna for the first time. But Lola brushed them off. Jenna was nice and had been able to help Lola get back on track, so maybe she had gotten a little attached. Lola didn’t mind having someone else to talk to.
Slowly, Jeremy noticed Lola growing more and more distant. First, Lola became emotionally distant—fewer hugs, kisses, and physical closeness overall. Then they stopped talking as much, even though they lived in the same house. Jeremy tried to put more effort into fixing the distance that had grown between them, but she didn’t put in the same effort. All of her effort and attention was being put into work. And the more time she spent at work, the more time she spent with Jenna. Lola and Jeremy had multiple fights over the four months that Jenna had been working for her, but the final one happened two days before Lola’s birthday in mid-January. Lola packed a bag and left without any indication as to where she was going or whether she was coming back home. A week later, he and his daughter came home and found Lola packing more of her things in the house. Gabby tried to ask questions, but Jeremy put a stop to it. He didn’t want Gabby to to worry about what was going on between him and Lola. When the time was right, he’d explain it to her…
A month later, Jeremy found out Lola had fired Jenna that same day. She decided to leave Hollywood for good and Jenna’s services were no longer required. She could handle the rest of her business on her own.
“How did you find out?” Elijah asks, interrupting Jeremy’s story.
Jeremy scoffs, shaking his head. “I found the letter from Lola in Jenna’s apartment.”
Elijah and I share a confused glance before I ask what we’re both thinking. “Why were you in Jenna’s apartment?”
“I hired an investigator to look into Jenna,” Jeremy says, taking the final sip of his coffee. “I was that boyfriend.” He traces the rim of his now-empty coffee mug, his gaze narrowing in on the table. “And I thought maybe if I went there, I’d find something that could lead me to Lo. I got way more than I bargained for.”
What does that mean?
“I got inside and there was this room…” He bites down on his bottom lip. “The walls were covered, covered, in photos of Lola. Press events Premieres. Pap photos. Airport photos. Selfies. Social media posts. Any photo ever taken hung on those walls. There was one that stuck out to me, it was a picture she had taken on our first date, except I was no longer in the photo. Jenna had cut me out of the photo, out of every photo. I found the cutouts on her desk with big red Xs through my face.”
“This sounds like a movie,” Elijah says.
“I wish it was,” Jeremy retorts. “I’ve never seen anything like it in real life. But, neither of them was there. So, I called Steph and eventually, she told me where I could find Lola.”
Stephanie told him that Lola had been hiding out at a family home in Australia. After alerting the authorities about Jenna’s shrine he jumped on the first flight. But what he found was truly like something out of a horror movie.
“The door was wide open, it looked like someone had taken a battering to it. Lights were on throughout the whole house. Shit was in disarray—furniture turned over, drawers emptied, broken glass everywhere, pictures off the walls.” Jeremy closes his eyes and his jaw flexes involuntarily as he recounts the image from memory. “Blood, everywhere.” He takes a deep breath before opening his eyes. “I heard someone walking down the hallway and I prayed it was Lola, but I prepared for it to be Jenna…That’s when I saw her, Lola. She was pale and covered in blood. She had this gash on her cheek—”
“I haven’t seen a scar,” Elijah interrupts with the same thought I had.
“She covers it, but if you look hard enough you’d probably see it. She’s still pretty self-conscious about the whole thing.” Jeremy gnaws on the inside of his cheek. “Jenna got her good on the leg. Just barely missed the artery.”
“Fuck,” I breathe.
“It was…” Jeremy sighs. “It was bad. Jenna had followed her and when Lola told her to fuck off, Jenna lost it.”
Silence follows for at least two whole minutes as Elijah and I try to let it all sink in. When Elijah told me about this when we first arrived in Palm Valley, I never imagined it would be something like this. This was truly like something you see in a movie…Except it wasn’t. It was real life.
Learning the truth about Lola made it seem like all the problems Elizabeth and I had faced were so trivial compared to this. If Lola and Jeremy could make it past a crazy, stalker, killer assistant…Why couldn’t Elizabeth and I make it past a few misunderstandings?
No amount of coffee or even the cool morning breeze could wake me up enough to prepare for the warzone I just walked into. Opening the front door was like lifting a veil and breaking the sound barrier. Shouting echoes from deeper inside the house, mixed with crying. What in the hell happened while we were gone that turned a peaceful morning into utter chaos? Elijah and Jeremy had gone in ahead of me when I got a work call, and I figured it had to be pretty important since it was a Sunday. It wasn’t, in case you were wondering. It was a fire that couldn’t be put out until tomorrow when the rest of the world was open for regular business hours.
Walking into the kitchen, I find Elijah pouring a fresh cup of coffee. A loud bang echoes from down the hall, but I don’t see anyone, only hear the muffled sounds of an argument coming from the direction of Georgie and Noah’s room.
Shit. I get the feeling this is all my fault.
“What the fuck is going on?” I ask, following Elijah out of the kitchen into the dining room.
“Noah wants a divorce.” Elijah sips his coffee, and my stomach drops.
Jeremy stands in the far corner, huddled over something. Not something, someone . Lola. He cradles her face in his hands, speaking to her in soft words, and she takes slow, calming breaths.
“Should we go outside?” I ask, catching their attention.
“N-no,” Lola stammers. “I’m okay.” She looks between me and Jeremy before removing his hold on her. “I’m okay, I promise. I should go check on Selena.”
Jeremy watches her walk down the hallway and only when she’s no longer in sight does he turn to me and Elijah. “Did you guys know Georgie had an affair and got pregnant?” Jeremy asks.
“Yeah.” I sigh, there’s no use lying about it.
“You knew?” Elijah practically shouts, and we shush him. “What the hell, dude! You didn’t tell me.”
“Noah told me yesterday, but he said he was going to wait until after this weekend to tell her.”
“Damn,” Jeremy breathes. “That’s rough.”
“How’d she find out?” I ask.
They shrug in response.
Shit, I hope Elizabeth didn’t tell Georgie.
Loud footsteps echo down the hall, and I give you one guess as to who it is. We all take a few steps forward to get a better vantage point of what’s going on and see Noah in the foyer with his bag hanging from his shoulder. Georgie follows a few seconds later, black, curly hair pulled into a messy bun on top of her tear-stained face. She’s begging him, pleading with him not to do this. They can make it work.
“No, Gi, we can’t,” Noah says, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this, and on this weekend!”
“I wanted to wait until after, but you wouldn’t let it go. You kept pushing!”
Georgie’s bottom lip wavers.
“I’m sorry, Gi, but I can’t do this.” Without looking back, Noah storms out of the house, Georgie hot on his trail. Selena follows a few steps behind, trying to pull Georgie back inside—because we wouldn’t want to cause a scene with the neighbors.
Is this my fault? Did Elizabeth tell Georgie? There can’t be any other explanation. How else would she find out the morning after I told Liz? Noah had held out the entire weekend, why drop the bomb now? That doesn’t make sense.
Lola returns to the dining room with a solemn face, she rubs her eyes and leans into Jeremy’s side.
“Where’s Elizabeth?” I ask.
“I think she’s still upstairs,” Lola says.
I don’t waste any more time, taking the steps two at a time. Elizabeth is stepping out of the room just as I’m about to open the door. Her brown eyes widen seeing me standing there. She opens her mouth to ask me what’s wrong, but I beat her to it. “Did you tell her?”
“Tell who?”
“Georgie. Did you tell her about Noah wanting a divorce?”
“No!” She looks genuinely offended. “Why would I tell her? You asked me not to.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Josh, I didn’t tell her.”
“Then how did she find out?”
“I don’t know.” Elizabeth scoffs. “Maybe Noah went ahead and told her.”
“Noah was waiting until after this weekend!”
“Well, obviously not.” She tries to keep her voice down since we’re still in the hallway, and I guarantee the others are waiting downstairs to see where this goes. “I didn’t tell her.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you. This is why I never told you about Nick and Brina. You would’ve told Nina.”
Elizabeth scoffs. “So, you did know.”
“Of course I knew! That’s why he called me in Denver.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Josh! Do you know how much heartache and pain you could’ve saved if you had just told me?”
A lot.
I could have saved everyone a lot of heartache, stress, and pain, but it wasn’t my place.
Elizabeth shakes her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you, Josh. Nick is your best friend. He was hurting and—”
“He asked me not to say anything!”
“I trusted you with so many things, Josh. My parents, my scars, my love, my virginity…And you? You kept a secret that was tearing my family apart. The only family I had left. Nick and Nina could’ve been together that whole time without all of the Brina bullshit getting in the way. You knew that and you still chose not to say anything. You could’ve prevented all of that if you had just told me!”
“Shoulda, coulda, woulda, Sugar. That’s not what this is about.”
“You’re right.” Elizabeth takes a step back, arms crossed tightly over her chest. She chews on the inside of her cheek. “This is about you not trusting me.”
“You don’t trust me, either.”
“How can I?” She all but yells, and it reopens the hole in my chest that had started to mend. “You continue to prove over and over and over again that you’re not trustworthy.”
“Five months,” I hiss. “And then you never have to worry about it again.”
Tears brim her eyes, and she tries to swallow them back, but they refuse to retreat. One breaks the surface, sliding down her cheek.
“Elizabeth?” Selena calls from downstairs. The silence that follows is almost eerie as we hold one another’s burning stare.
She closes her eyes, swallowing down the tears. “Yeah?” The word is still wobbly and teary when she finally speaks.
“Could use your help down here!”
“Just a second.” Elizabeth meets my stare again. Her bottom lip quivers, but she bites down, trying to hide it.
“Just go,” I interrupt her when she starts to say something. “Wouldn’t want to keep them waiting.”
She swallows back the words she had intended and wipes her eyes before pushing past me to save the day for her friends, like always. When she’s gone, the realization of what just happened rushes over me. The realization that I just fucked it all up again. There is no going back. There are no more second chances. The adrenaline courses through me, and I need to let it out. Before I can even think about it, my fist connects with the wall, cracking the drywall, and pain radiates in my knuckles.
Fuck.
The car ride back to Jupiter Beach is nice, long, and awkward. We haven’t spoken since the hallway. I’ve gone through a million different ways how to apologize, but none of them seem good enough. None of them feel right because this time it’s going to take a lot more than “I’m sorry” to fix it. No one knows how Georgie found out. My best guess is Elizabeth was right. Noah finally had enough and told her. I know I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions, but what else was I supposed to think?
Anything.
Literally anything.
Pulling into her driveway, there’s a truck parked in front of the garage, and it’s not hard to guess who it is. Elizabeth mumbles something under her breath before expelling a sigh, and I almost say something, but I swallow the words and get out of the car with a small scoff.
Elizabeth meets me at the trunk. “Josh—”
“You know, I was trying to find a way to apologize.” I refuse to look at her, pulling her bags out of the car. “To say that I’m sorry because I was wrong, and I shouldn’t have accused you. Whether you told Gigi or not, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I was going to apologize, ask you to dinner, but…” I glance toward the house, then back to her. “I see you already have plans.”
“Josh, I didn’t—”
“Lizzie!” His voice echoes around us. Every time he calls her that, it makes me cringe. Why has she not corrected him? “Finally!”
We’re still locked in a silent battle as he tromps down the steps toward us.
“I was starting to think you weren’t coming home.” Ryan laughs before turning to me. “Hey man, good to see you again. Thanks for giving her a lift.”
“Sure.” My lips curve into a tight smile before turning to Ryan. “No problem.”
“I got us a reso at Jo’s tonight,” Ryan tells her, picking up her bags and heading back up the steps. When she doesn’t follow him, he calls her, “Lizzie, you coming?”
Elizabeth stands in front of me like she’s waiting for me to say something, but what else is there to say? She’s made her choice.
“Y-yeah,” she stammers. She walks away with the man she said she wasn’t seeing anymore. The man she said she didn’t see a future with.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, I wait, like I always do, and watch to make sure she gets inside. When they make it to the front door, Ryan swings it open and steps inside, still talking, but she glances down the stairs one more time. When our eyes meet, there’s still a sense of waiting in them, and it tugs at me. The same pull on my heart from the beach, pleading with me to get out of the damn car, walk up to her, and never let her go. But the moment ends when she finally rips her gaze from mine, following his orders to come inside.
I stand there a moment longer. One part of me is screaming to march up those stairs, open the door, and remind her who she belongs with. The other part hopes that by some miracle she will walk back outside, accept my apology, and tell me she still loves me.
The doorway remains motionless.
Neither part of me wins the fight as I climb back into my car and back out of the driveway. Driving down the main drag of Jupiter Beach, I can’t help but wonder if she knew Ryan was going to be here when we arrived. Before he interrupted us, it almost sounded like she was going to say she didn’t know, but she didn’t seem all that surprised either.
I can’t say I’m that surprised. I didn’t do myself any favors with how I acted this morning. I ran her straight back into his arms when I refused to believe her or apologize for how I acted. She deserves better than that. Deserves someone who isn’t going to push her away, someone who can admit when they’re wrong and isn’t going to be afraid to tell her how they feel. Maybe Ryan doesn’t know she hates roses and maybe he calls her by the nickname she despises, but I guarantee he can offer her things like time and attention.
He can give her everything I couldn’t.