Chapter 15
PIPER
“Mom?” I manage, hardly the first word I expect to say after having a panty-destroying first kiss from my fake boyfriend.
But she’s already turned to Mia. “How are the photos, honey?”
“Not too X-rated,” she replies, “and the start of the kiss was really quite sweet.”
Mom and Marv crowd around her to look at the camera screen.
Meanwhile, Brody and I are still breathing like we just ran the Santa 5K at a full sprint.
“You okay?” he asks.
I stare at the rise and fall of his chest. I am so not okay right now. My mind and body are tumbling like a washing machine on a spin cycle with a hundred vibrators in the drum. I’m horny and also shocked, embarrassed, furious at the interruption, and terrified that it was all an act for Brody.
“Piper?”
“Yeah, fine,” I say breathlessly. “Nailed it.”
He raises an eyebrow in question.
“The practicing,” I continue. “They seemed to buy it.”
His expression stills.
I can’t tell what he’s thinking, so I panic. “Good job!” I blurt, like a deranged Little League coach, then give him two thumbs up.
Oh my god, just stop!
Mom bustles forward and takes my arm. “Come on now. Plenty of time for snuggles when you get home. You’ve got such lovely voices; you need to join in with the carols.”
She draws us back into the crowd.
I’m on autopilot now, singing the tunes I’ve known since childhood while most of my brain relives and dissects the kiss that just turned me inside out and upside down.
Someone nearby is singing loudly and off-key. I turn to see the agent Marv dislikes, Jack Lourd, standing next to Audrey from the Making Whoopie bakery, doing his best to murder The Twelve Days of Christmas.
The jarring of his voice mirrors what’s going on in my brain. Brody’s an actor. I’ve seen him kiss women on screen. It looked believable enough to fool me, and every other fan he’s got. Is what just happened the same thing? Another performance?
After the carols, we walk home, and Mom takes a casserole out of the crockpot where it’s been simmering all day. There hasn’t been a moment where Brody and I have been left alone, and as the minutes slowly count down toward bedtime, my trepidation increases.
Marv is in top form, regaling my folks with PG-rated stories from Hollywood, and even Cara has come a little out of her shell. Harper helps keep the conversation going, occasionally sending glances my way. She’s a smart cookie and knows something’s up.
Marv and Cara leave with Harper, who’s staying with Hudson. Brody and I help clean up, then Mom and Dad send us off to bed, like we’re kids and it’s a school night.
As my bedroom door shuts behind Brody, I scoot to the other side of the room and hide the gift bag from The Perfect Package at the bottom of my suitcase.
“You don’t want to see what you’ve got?” he asks.
My face heats. “To be fair, you were the reason we got the bag, so whatever’s inside is probably yours.”
“I’d rather share …”
His words are mild, but the message behind them certainly isn’t, and it sends a flush of desire rippling up through my body.
Metaphorically pulling up my big-girl pants, I face him. “I’m sorry about Mom and Mia. Earlier.”
“I’m sorry about Marv.”
Brody’s stance is relaxed, hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks. Meanwhile, I’m as jumpy as a cat in a dog pound. We’re finally alone, with a bed. And I don’t know how to ask him if any part of our kiss was fake for him, or if it was as real as it was for me.
Actually, scratch that. It was the most mind-and-body-blowingly unreal experience I’ve ever had.
“Can I see your art now?”
“Oh. Uh …”
I’m torn. Of course, I want him to see it and tell me I’m brilliant, but if I show him everything, then I’ll also have to admit a whole lot more.
Come on! Big girl pants!
He raises his hands. “It’s okay, I understa—”
“I’ll show you.” I fetch my tablet, sit on the bed, then pat the space next to me.
He gets onto the bed and sits beside me, his hands clasped in his lap, like he’s being a good boy, here to admire my artwork, not feel up the creator.
I open up the library and start with safe images, the ones I’ve already posted to my fantasy art account.
“Holy shit, Piper! These are incredible!”
I hand him the tablet as I preen. “These are the best ones from my early twenties.”
Brody scrolls through pictures of elves and wizards, dragons, witches, mermaids—a whole world of beings from my imagination, books I’ve read and films and TV series I’ve binge-watched.
Brody’s taking his time with every image, his eyes tracking over the lines and the composition.
“Some of these are hand drawn and the others are digital?”
“Yeah. It depends on what mood I’m in or what kind of effect I want to achieve.”
He swipes to the last one in the gallery, and an old pain resurfaces in my gut.
“This one is familiar,” he says slowly, as if he’s trying to place how he knows it.
I sigh. “Yeah. It was the first one to go semi-viral. A massive online store ripped it off, printing it on everything from blankets to mugs. I complained, of course, but nothing happened. It’s just the same old bullshit when you’re an individual creator.
Your stuff gets pirated, and you can’t do anything about it. ”
Brody’s gone incredibly still, like he’s a panther about to pounce.
“It’s okay,” I say brightly, even though it’s not, and it’s never going to be. “I’m over it. More or less. And there’s no point in staying mad when it won’t change the situation.”
“Am I allowed to be mad on your behalf?”
“Honestly, I don’t want you to waste another thought on it. Yes, it’s shitty, but I’d much rather you think about the pictures themselves, and that I drew them.”
He takes my hand. “I’m so proud of you. These are incredible. I love them. You were always crazy talented growing up, but these are next-level cool.”
I can’t stop a smile taking over my face. “Thank you.”
“Seriously, I want you to send them to me so I can always see them. Or do you have them online? Is this what your mom was talking about?”
I nod. “Most of these are online.”
“Do you have any others?”
My cheeks flush with heat. This is it, the moment I unleash the crazy.
“I do,” I begin. “But if I show you, you have to promise not to freak out.”
He turns to look at me properly, and suddenly, I feel stupid. The best friend’s little sister with a crush that never really went away.
“I’ll do my best,” he says gently. “And I promise you there’s nothing you could ever say or do that would change my opinion of you.”
But this will change his opinion. He’s gonna think I’m just like every other super-crazed fan who can’t tell fiction from reality.
I don’t know what to do. It’s like I’m made of tissue paper, and one word from him could tear me apart.
“You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to,” he says, his voice so patient and understanding.
Even though my mind says, “Don’t do it,” I still want to show him. It’s a secret I’ve held onto for so long, it’s practically begging to burst out. I just have to trust it won’t make him run.
Taking the tablet from him, I open my secret folder, the one nobody else has ever seen, the one filled with drawings of the man sitting beside me.
The first image is of him as a warrior elf, striding toward the viewer, a bow in one hand, the other reaching over his shoulder to fetch an arrow from his quiver.
“Is that … me?” he asks, his voice hushed like he’s in church.
“Yeah.”
“But …” His eyes find mine, and he looks genuinely confused. “Is this online? Has anyone else seen it?”
I shake my head. “You’re the first person I’ve ever shown these drawings to.”
He looks stunned.
Panic is beginning to strangle me. I’ve miscalculated.
Brody turns back to the tablet, swiping through the pictures like he needs to know how many there are. He stops when he gets to the one of him sending his pet wolf after Colin.
“Who’s that?”
“The guy who dumped me. The one who was supposed to be coming home for Christmas with me. The one I’m going to be fighting with for my job next year.”
His jaw tenses. “I wish I had a wolf to hunt him down.”
I stay silent. The elephant in the room is growing bigger by the second. I’m just waiting for Brody to notice it.
He takes a breath, like he’s about to say something, then stops. I just know he’s trying to work out how to ask, “Have you been in love with me for years?” or “Are you a mad, crazy stalker lady and I need to jump in my ride and head out of Hideaway, stat?”
“You’ve drawn me in every role I’ve ever played,” he says slowly. “And every commercial.”
“Yeah,” I reply, not sure if he thinks that’s a good or a bad thing. My palms are clammy, which tells me it’s probably extremely bad that I’ve followed his career closer than anyone else.
“I have a Google Alert set up for your name,” I say, as if that explains everything, although I’m sure I just made the situation worse.
A pause, then: “How long have you had it?”
“Twelve years.”
Brody’s silent, clearly realizing just how obsessed I am with him.
“So you know about every one of my fuck-ups,” he says quietly.
Oh, shit. I never thought he’d be thinking about that.
He gazes at me, his expression bleak. “I didn’t cheat on Marisa, but most of the other stories are half-truths.”
“A half-truth is an untruth because it’s not the whole picture. If you did hit that guy, then I bet he deserved it.”
Brody nods. “He was sexually harassing female actors in the films his studio was producing. But it got hushed up and spun like I was the bad guy, then he blacklisted me.”
“Well, there we are then,” I say firmly.
How has it not clicked that I’ve been secretly in love with him for years?
“But the drinking, that’s a fact.”
My mind flips through a carousel of online images, each one worse than the last, all of Brody looking wasted.
“I never touched drugs, but the booze …” He gazes at me. “I’ve been sober for over a year now. It makes some things harder, as there’s no cushion between me and the world, but it’s better. I don’t want to be that guy anymore.”