CHAPTER 16
River
“And that’s why we need your help,” Cameron said into the camera.
River was beside Lacey, with her hand on Lacey’s lower back as she’d been instructed to do, while Cameron and Kennedy did some kind of social media post thing into the cameras, talking about the charity they were supporting and the kids they were helping.
Jessie had told them earlier that she would use this one with some video Kennedy and Cameron had taken when they’d been at the hospital, visiting the kids in the cancer unit, and all River and Lacey had to do was stand there a little off to the side and smile.
“Thanks, ladies. I think we’re good here. I appreciate you two putting up with all of this. We want you to have your prize, but we also want to make sure we make as much as we can in donations.”
“We understand,” Lacey said before she reached for the water bottle on the coffee table, and as she was taking a long drink, River dropped her hand from her back.
Things had been, yet again, weird between the two of them.
Breakfast had been fine, she supposed, but Lacey had spent more time laughing at how Cameron had bit into her bacon like she’d never had it before in her life and was now madly in love with it, rather than talking to her.
River wanted to be annoyed, but Cameron was famous and beautiful, so she couldn’t really blame her girlfriend for being a little nervous and giddy around her.
And River wasn’t blameless, either. She had spent a lot of time looking at another beautiful celebrity since they’d arrived.
“Hey, want to go swimming?” Cameron asked once the cameras were all angled toward the floor, maybe to recalibrate or whatever it was cameras needed to do when they finished with something.
“In the ocean?” River asked.
“Yeah. Why not?” Cameron said. “I can throw my suit on real quick. Ken?”
“No, thanks. I’d prefer to relax. Maybe I’ll lie out later, but not right now.”
Kennedy squeezed Cameron’s forearm and walked over to the sofa, where she sat back down.
“Okay. Well, Lace?” Cameron asked, causing River to glare at her, because Cameron was now calling her girlfriend by her nickname, and Lacey was calling her Cam.
Lacey didn’t even like anyone calling her Lace. She accepted it when people did, but the only person she said she liked calling her that was River.
“Um… Sure,” Lacey said. “I already have my suit on.”
“Yeah? Cool.” Cameron looked over at River. “Are you joining us?”
“I’m good. Not a big fan of the ocean. Lace knows why.”
“It’s the seaweed,” Lacey shared. “It freaks her out.”
“I don’t blame you,” Cameron replied. “I don’t like it, either. I got used to it, I guess.”
“Have the ocean out your window, too?” River asked.
“No, we don’t,” Cameron replied and appeared a little defensive.
“We have a pool and a hot tub, but we didn’t want to live by the ocean,” Kennedy offered, and when River smiled at her, Kennedy lifted that damn sexy eyebrow at her again and shook her head.
“Why don’t you two get out of here already?
I’m sure Jessie would love to get a shot of you swimming or something. ”
“It would be better if you all went. Double date and all that,” Jessie said.
“I’d rather not,” Kennedy replied.
Jessie sighed and sat on the sofa.
River chuckled and asked Kennedy, “Do you want to hang out with me?”
“What will we do?”
“I don’t know. I can see what ingredients they have in the kitchen and maybe make something dessert-like for us.”
“Dessert before lunch?” Cameron asked.
“We could eat it later,” River suggested.
Cameron nodded and said, “I’m going to change. Lacey, can you maybe track down towels or something?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
When Cameron walked out of the room with Lacey in tow, River felt a small tinge of jealousy, but then she realized that it wasn’t really jealousy.
It was more territorial. Cameron was walking right into hers, it felt like.
As her eyes landed on Kennedy, though, River bit her bottom lip because she was doing the same damn thing to Cameron.
“Kitchen?” Kennedy asked.
“Only if you really want to.”
“I do. Could be fun,” Kennedy said before she looked at Jessie. “And give us a wide berth, please. I beg of you. You have enough footage for a hundred YouTube videos and all the social posts you need.”
“You and Cameron not being in the same room unless there’s a meal going on kind of makes it unnecessary to film everything now, doesn’t it?” Jessie replied.
Kennedy looked over at River and then to the floor.
“We’ll be in the kitchen. It’s all good, Jessie.”
She patted Jessie’s knee.
“I’m going to go make some calls,” Jessie stated before she stood and walked down the hall.
“Is she okay?” River asked. “She can hang out with us, if she wants,” she offered, not really wanting that, but spending time with Kennedy alone probably also wasn’t the best idea. “And I don’t mind the cameras,” she added. “I’m getting used to them. Weird how quickly that happens, huh?”
“I mind them today on your behalf. You won this prize. It shouldn’t have come with the strings for either of you. I’m sorry about this. It’s all…” Kennedy sighed and stood up.
“Fake?”
“Do you know that she always has calls to make? Her whole job is making calls, and I never really know who she’s calling. She just comes back with a plan or an idea for something.”
“Is that not what publicists do? Sorry, I don’t have one. No need.”
Kennedy smiled, and they walked side by side into the kitchen.
“You might need one soon. I have a feeling your candy shop is about to get some business. You sell online, right?”
“Sort of. It’s hard to keep up with everything. I have a very small staff. I have a website, obviously, and I take orders through it, but I don’t do much business through it or publicize it much because I would have to take time away from the shop, which is pretty much always busy.”
“You might need to hire someone to help out because once this is out with mine and Cameron’s face attached to it, you’ll get people ordering from you.”
“You really think so?”
“I do. It’s probably going to blow up for you in a good way, especially if we link to your website. Hey, if you want, I can even post about it. I’ve tried your stuff and loved it, so I wouldn’t be lying to people. I can do it right now, too.”
“Right now?” River asked after she moved to stand on the opposite side of the counter from Kennedy to put some space between them.
“Yeah. Why not?”
“Because my business partner, who isn’t as well-versed in this stuff as I am, is there while I’m here, and I’ve got two part-timers. That’s it. She’d freak out if she had a bunch of orders come in out of the blue.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. Makes sense. Another time, maybe.”
“Are you looking for a job?” she joked.
“You know I am.” Kennedy smirked.
“I meant in candy. You’re looking for acting jobs.”
“That I am,” Kennedy said with a sigh. “So, teach me. What are we making?”
“Whose food would I be stealing? I didn’t think to ask. This is a rental, right?”
“Oh, it’s all ours. This place is on the market. They kept the furniture and stuff to help sell it, but the food was all gone. Jessie stocked this. Besides, I’m sure the chefs have left stuff behind.”
“Well, let’s see what we’ve got in here,” she said before she pulled open the pantry door and walked in. “Oh, cool.”
She couldn’t exactly call what she saw well-stocked, but it was a decent selection.
“What?” Kennedy asked, suddenly appearing in the small space right behind her.
River took a deep breath and tried to get her heart rate under control while she grabbed a can of sweetened condensed milk.
“I know a quick and easy way to make something you’ll like. It’s not my recipe for the shop, but I’ve got to work with what I have.” She picked up a bag of chocolate chips, too. “One dark and one white; I can work with that.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Fudge,” she replied and was very happy when she saw actual real vanilla extract and not the cheap, imitation stuff on the shelf. “Yes! We’re in business. I can’t make a big batch, but this is enough for something for all of us, at least.”
She turned around with two bags of chocolate chips in one hand, vanilla under her arm pit, and a large can of sweetened condensed milk in the other hand right in front of Kennedy, who smiled at her and then took a step to the side to let her out.
“So, you don’t cook at all?” River asked her when she set her ingredients on the counter by the stove.
“You have a whole vision of our lives, don’t you?” Kennedy laughed.
“Can you make a cup of coffee for me?”
“Sure. How do you take it?”
“It’s for the fudge, not to drink.”
“You’re making me coffee fudge?”
River smiled over at her and replied, “I’m making it for everyone. There are no almonds in there, so I can’t add those, but hopefully, you’ll like it.”
“It’s for everyone, but you hope I like it?” Kennedy teased.
“Shut up.” River laughed and opened the chocolate chip bags. “And no, I don’t have a whole vision of your lives in my head.”
“You thought we lived by the ocean and that I don’t or can’t cook, probably because you think we have a full staff at our house.”
Kennedy moved over to the coffee machine and got to work.
“I meant the cooking thing as a general getting-to-know you question. And I guess I thought all celebrities live by the ocean.”
“Most don’t. There are only so many truly private beachfront properties anywhere, but especially in a highly concentrated place like LA.
I don’t know that I want a house on the beach to begin with, but even if I did, it would have to be as secluded as I can get it.
For Cam, too. We have to be careful. We live in a gated community not because that’s where rich people live, but because if we didn’t, unsavory people could get to us. ”
“Like those bus tours of celebrity homes?”
“Those still manage to make it in at times, but I meant really unsavory people. Criminals, mostly. Stalkers specifically is what I’m worried about.”
River stopped what she was doing and turned to see Kennedy staring at the coffee as it streamed into a cup.
“Have you ever–”
“Yes,” Kennedy interjected. “On my show.”
“Shit, Kennedy.”
“I was fine. It was just scary.”
River walked over to her and, without thinking, placed her hand on the small of Kennedy’s back.
“You were really okay? Is he behind bars?”
“He’s out now, unfortunately. It’s a long story, and I did not mean to get us on this topic.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind. I feel shitty for not even thinking about that before.”
“Never had someone write you letters about how you’re meant to be every day for a year and then show up on your set and inside your trailer? You’re really missing out, River,” Kennedy said, but River could tell that she was deflecting.
“He was in your trailer?”
“Yes. He didn’t hurt me. He tried to plead his case that he was the one for me, and I got security there.”
“And he wasn’t arrested?”
“He was. He served a little time, but he got out. He was required to enter a program, and he did that, I guess. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“I’m sorry, Kennedy. I hate people sometimes.”
“I don’t know. You are kind of growing on me.” Kennedy smiled before she cleared her throat and moved back away from River, who only just remembered that she’d had her hand on Kennedy’s lower back. “So, fudge?”
“Do you want to learn or watch me make it?”
“Both. How do I do that?”
River laughed and said, “Come over to the stove, and I’ll talk while I add things. Maybe you can stir or something. You keep mentioning needing to work out.”
Kennedy laughed loudly and replied, “I’m happy to be your assistant.”
“We found some boogie boards downstairs,” Cameron said, walking in.
River turned to see her standing there in a bikini top and board shorts, full flat abs on display. Lacey was next to her in the T-shirt and shorts she’d been wearing. She was holding towels. Cameron was holding two small boogie boards under her arms.
“We’re going to see how long we can manage to not fall off them.”
“You know that water is freezing, right?” Kennedy said.
“Yup. Might be a short swim, but we’ll be back.”
“Have fun here,” Lacey added, and they turned to go.
“How long do you think they’ll stay out there?” Kennedy asked River when they were left alone again.
“Lacey was a lifeguard during her college summers. I’m pretty sure she can handle the cold water, so it could be hours. Cameron?”
“Oh, she’s a wuss when it comes to the cold.”
River laughed and said, “Okay. I need measuring cups for wet ingredients and dry.”
“So, you need a measuring cup, then?”
“No, they’re different. I don’t know if we’d have them here.
We only have basic dishes, huh?” She thought for a moment and added, “I’ve been doing this long enough, so we’re going to have fun and hope for the best. You can’t tell anyone online if this is bad, though.
I don’t have my equipment or my ingredients. ”
“River, I won’t tell a soul if it’s bad, but I’m sure it won’t be. So, we’ve got cups and spoons. What do you want?”
“Both,” she replied and went about making fudge with Kennedy Gannon’s help.