Chapter 20
Harvey tells us all about his Happily Ever After!
“I’m the best speller in the class,” Sunny says. “That’s why Mrs. Saunders gave me the gold star.”
“She did?” I pull into the driveway and set the parking brake.
“Uh-huh. See?” Sunny shows me the paper pulled from her backpack with a little gold star at the top.
“Maybe we can go for ice cream later to celebrate, Sunny Side Up.”
We get out of the car, and I see Sunny stop on her way to the door, looking at something.
“Are you a robber?” she asks.
When I go over to see who she’s looking at, I freeze.
“Hi,” Austin says, taking a tentative step toward me. I hadn’t even noticed his car parked across the street. “Can we talk?”
I shake my head, looking around. “You shouldn’t be here.” I usher Sunny toward the door.
“Yes, I should. Because I know. I know all about it.”
I freeze again.
“If you’re a robber, you’re not very good,” Sunny says. “You don’t even have a mask.”
“Sunny, go inside.”
“Why?”
“Just go. Tell Lois I’ll be in in a minute.”
Sunny sighs with annoyance, but she listens to me. As soon as the door is shut, Austin comes over to me, putting his arms around me.
“If you know,” I say, “then you know somebody’s probably watching.”
“No, they’re not.” He puts his hands around my face. “I left. I quit.”
My stomach sinks. “What?”
“Brad too. We walked off the set. Clarence told me all about it, I confronted Phil, and that’s it.”
“No, that’s not it! Are you crazy?”
“I don’t want any part of it if I can’t have you. I’d give it all up if I could be with you.”
I try to turn away from him because he’s talking crazy, but he doesn’t let me.
“I know why you did it. I understand.”
“And you’re just going to quit now?” I say. “You can’t. This is your life. You’ll hate me for this one day.”
“Never.”
“You hated me yesterday,” I try to back away from him again. “The day before.”
“I told you it wasn’t over.”
“You won’t be happy.”
“I won’t be happy without you.”
“Please don’t destroy everything over me. I’m not anything.”
“You’re everything.”
He’s dead fucking serious. And I’m shaking because I’ve wanted him so bad, and now he’s here, but I can’t let him fuck up his life over me. “Please don’t burn all your bridges. I love you too much.”
“And I love you too much to give you up. For anyone. Anything.”
“Austin…” I try to back away again, but he puts my hand on his heart and his hand on mine.
“You’re mine,” he says. “And I’m yours. We belong together. You know I’m right. Don’t you feel this?”
I do. I do feel it. I’ve always felt it. I’m feeling it so much right now it’s spilling out of my eyes and down my cheeks.
“Damn, Hollywood,” I say, wiping my eyes. “Why do you gotta do this to me?”
He kisses me, and it feels like the first time. The first time, the last time, and every time in between.
Except there won’t actually be a last time.
This is it.
This is forever.
I pace around my living room, waiting.
I’m not sure how long the meeting was going to be, but it would have to be over by now.
It’s been over three hours. Austin and Brad set up a meeting with some executives at the network.
They also brought along their agents and an attorney.
As soon as Brad and Austin left, halting production, the network wanted to know why.
So, Brad and Austin arranged this meeting.
Austin said he and Brad were pretty confident the network would be on their side and remove Phil Baxter as producer.
They’ve got plenty of ammo, including their contract.
As for the bribery part, I still have the check.
I never cashed it. I went to Judd and took him up on his offer.
Since the songs I wrote are bringing in money now, I’ve been able to pay him back.
He said he’s not in a hurry, but I don’t want this debt hanging over my head. He’s done a lot for me.
But I have proof of the bribery right here. I’d ripped the check in half at first, tossed it in the garbage, but then I went digging around to get it back and tape it together. Not to deposit it. For evidence. Just in case something like this happened one day.
I don’t know exactly how that part of it is going to go either.
When I hear a car in the driveway, I run to the front door and see Austin and Brad getting out of his car. I invite them inside, and Austin’s expression is hard to read.
“So?” I ask. “What happened?”
He looks stern for a moment like he does on TV, exchanging glances with Brad, but then he grins his Boy-Next-Door grin. “They’re removing him as producer. It’s just going to be Arnold. He said he’ll amend our contracts.”
I heave a sigh of relief. “Oh, fuck. Now I can breathe.”
Brad nods. “But…”
“Oh no.”
“Phil cowrote the show. He won’t be involved in any decisions anymore, but they have to keep his name in the credits and pay him whatever he’s owed. Arnold will be making all the decisions, though.”
“So, Phil gets to stay there? Keep his office and everything?”
“That’s the other thing,” Austin says. “He can still be a producer for other shows. Just not this one and not with this network.” He sighs.
“That’s the way it works. The network told us it’s not likely we’ll get a bribery charge against him.
Phil’s got lawyers too. So…” He shrugs. “I don’t know what we’ll do yet. It might not be worth all the trouble.”
“I still have the check. And that geeky guy was there.”
“Clarence is long gone,” Austin says, taking a seat on the sofa. “He’s probably out of the country by now. I guess we could try to find him, but he signed an NDA.”
“Sure,” Brad says. “But he told you all that stuff anyway, so maybe he’d do it again.”
“Maybe.” Austin shrugs. “But really what we wanted was for him to be off the show. And he is. He can’t interfere with our lives anymore. He can’t interfere with you and me.”
“I hope not. He kind of hinted that he broke his brother-in-law’s back.”
Austin makes a face. “What?”
“He could have been lying. Trying to intimidate me. I don’t know. I don’t like that he’s still going to be there in the same building as you.”
“Arnold’s getting his office,” Brad says. “He’s being moved off the lot.”
“That’s good. You won’t have to worry about running into him.”
Austin nods slowly. He steps closer to me. “So, now there’s nothing in between us.”
“I don’t know about that. We’ve both still got our families to deal with.”
He smiles. “Bonnie and Floyd want to meet you.”
I blink at him. “You told them about me?”
“I told them the truth about me. They said they’d love to meet whoever I’m seeing.”
Now it’s my turn to smile. “But they don’t know it’s me?”
“Not yet.”
“You should probably prepare them.”
He takes both of my hands. “They’re going to love you. Just as much as I do.”
“I should probably get going.” We both look over at Brad, inching toward the door. “Good to see you, though.”
I go over to him and hold out my hand. “You’re an okay guy, Brad.”
He shakes my hand and laughs. “Thanks, but don’t you mean Chad?”
I laugh too. “If you want me to call you that, I will.”
Brad shrugs. “You can call me whatever you want.”
“Don’t tell him that,” Austin warns.
“Hey,” I say. “I can be nice.”
He smirks. “We’ll see.”
Once Brad is gone, I take him over to the windows overlooking the garden. It’s been flourishing. Who knew I’d have such a green thumb?
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” I say.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something too,” he says.
“Oh yeah?”
“I was thinking…” His face flushes. “I was thinking we could move in together. Was that what you were going to ask?”
I pull him close to me. “Would you like it here? It’s not Hollywood Hills but there’s plenty of room. And my garden.”
He laughs, glancing out the window. “It’s impressive.” He pauses. “What about Sunny?”
“She knows who you are now. She likes you.”
“What about her parents? Your stepmom?”
I heave a big sigh. “Judd is working on getting me set up with an attorney so I can become Sunny’s official legal guardian.
Somebody called here a few days ago and hung up.
I thought maybe it was Tamar. I don’t know.
I don’t want to call the cops on them and get them arrested.
Jail won’t help either of them get clean.
I want them to go somewhere like I did. Somewhere close by.
I’ll even fucking pay for it. I think when Tamar comes to her senses she’ll do it, but I don’t know about Pete. Until then, I’m keeping Sunny with me.”
“I probably shouldn’t move in, then,” he says quietly. “I don’t think a judge is going to let a little girl live with two gay men.”
“We’ll figure something out. Lois will be here. I just needed to know you wanted to and you’d be okay with everything.”
He nods and smiles. “Yeah.”
“I wish I didn’t have to bring you into his mess.”
He puts his arms around me. “I’d get into lots of messes with you, Bad Angel.”
I laugh. “That’s good to know. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
So that’s it then. Here it is. The Bad Boy and The Boy Next Door, the Good Angel and the Bad Angel, together at last, and never to be apart again.