Chapter 41 Are you wearing anything under that towel?
Are you wearing anything under that towel?
Josie
I SLAM THE door in their faces.
What is Miguel doing here? What is Lupe doing here? What are they doing here together?
They were holding hands. How could he not tell me they were dating? What kind of a friend…? Shit. Never mind.
Did Lupe recognize me? I closed the door pretty fast. Maybe she didn’t.
At that very moment, Rhett enters the house from the patio, and I seize his arm. “Can you get the door? Someone’s there, and I… I need to go have a nervous breakdown.” I dart for Emmy and Jason’s room.
Amanda catches me on the way there. “I sent you all the photos and video footage I took.” She laughs her signature laugh, which turns into a kind of adorable snort at the end. “It’s some good stuff.” Then she gets a look at my face. “Are you okay?”
“Can you get Sean, please?” My voice is shaking.
“Sure thing, hon.” Amanda touches my shoulder in a one-off pat of comfort before disappearing back out to the patio.
Meanwhile, I perch on the bed on the verge of not being able to breathe. Lupe’s here! She saw me!
Sean arrives, shirtless, hair damp, one of the pool towels around his waist. When he sees me sitting on the bed, he closes the door behind him and crouches in front of me, taking my hands in his cold, damp ones. “What’s wrong?”
“Miguel’s here,” I croak. “Did you invite him?” My gaze drops to his bare, dripping legs. “And are you wearing anything under that towel?”
“Barely anything. And no, I didn’t invite him. But so what if he’s here?”
“He brought Lupe with him!”
“Jason probably invited them.” He squeezes my hands and smiles at me like a little boy. “Snack was so happy. We did good.”
I yank my hands out of his. “Did you not hear me? My life is about to end!”
His towel falls to the floor. He does have something on under it—a pair of wet (this time red) men’s bikini underwear.
“Oops.” He stands up and tucks the towel back around his waist before heading for the exit. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”
“What are you gonna do?” I jolt to my feet.
“I’ll figure something out.” He closes the door behind him.
I curse under my breath. I don’t even know what that means.
Maybe I can sneak back to my trailer. My work here is done—the gender of the Connor baby is officially revealed—but there’s no way out of this room without potentially being seen.
I’d have to go through either the house or the patio.
But there’s a fireplace in this room. I consider Ninja Warrior-ing my way up the chimney for the briefest of fever dreams. But no. I’ll just have to wait for Sean.
I tug my phone out of my pocket and look at the photos and video Amanda sent me.
She did a great job, and Sean’s right; it’s just what Jason and Emmy would have wanted.
I forward the best ones to Emmy so she can be the first to post them.
As I do, I notice my social media notifications have blown up more than usual. Curious, I click on one of them.
Sean and I are tagged in a news post. The stolen George Washington hat was identified at Hamilton on the Roof, and the police have pinpointed the patron who was wearing it: Sean.
Oh, crap!
My heart starts to race. Sean needs to know what’s going on.
The gossip columnists have been talking about the Connor baby gender reveal this week, and that means the cops know he’s here.
They could arrive any minute. I can’t just sit here.
I don’t know if Lupe saw me, but I need a disguise just in case.
With some trepidation, I begin to rifle through the drawers of Emmy and Jason’s dresser.
“Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look!” I mutter when I find myself elbow-deep in lingerie and novelty boxer briefs.
The drawer next to it is crammed with adult toys.
I slam that one shut immediately—I do not need to know my friends that intimately.
Finally, I find an oversize Lost Star hoodie with a big picture of Orbit on the front.
On any other day, I would rather stroll naked down the Pacific Coast Highway than wear this shameless piece of puppet porn, but over my head it goes.
Nowhere in this room does a pair of sunglasses exist. How do these people even call themselves celebrities?
I’m forced to tie a bandanna across my face.
I tell myself that it’s not regularly used in some kinky bondage scenario.
Please, universe, let it just be an innocent bandanna. It’s such a small ask.
I slink out on tiptoe and check every room in the house. No sign of Sean. Or Miguel and Lupe. I practically bump into one of the first ADs refilling her glass in the kitchen. She stares at the bandanna across my face.
“I have a cold sore,” I tell her. “I’m very sensitive about it.” Then I push my way through the French doors out to the patio. Sean’s not here either.
What did he do? Teleport himself out?
A blue flickering light catches my eye. Emmy is casting from her phone to the patio flat-screen, the guests all turning to watch.
She’s uploading the photos and video from today, making their big announcement to the world over social media.
I guess she couldn’t wait until the party was over. Typical Emmy.
We all watch the page load. But my heart stops when I see what’s on Emmy’s feed. Someone’s tagged her with a news story, asking, Have you seen this? And the preview picture being projected on the shameless eighty-five-inch TV is Sean in Revolutionary War garb, singing his heart out.
I hold my breath. It’s just social media noise. Maybe she won’t notice it.
But she does notice it. I watch her brow crinkle as she clicks on the link, launching a news article about the recovery of the stolen George Washington hat, complete with footage of the police raid on Hamilton on the Roof.
“What is this—?” Emmy android-scans the patio. I can almost hear the whirring of her eyepiece as she homes in on where I’m plastered against the wall next to the French doors, wearing Jason’s Orbit sweatshirt, their sex bandanna around my neck.
Meanwhile, the story continues to play. Video clips from Hamilton on the Roof show Sean dancing and singing. Sean jumping up on the bar. The red and blue police lights flashing as the crowd scatters.
“Stop! Stop!”
Sean comes tearing across the patio deck, his face a mask of horror. One hand clutches the towel around his totally ripped waist while the other flaps in Emmy’s direction. It’s like watching the Sistine Chapel come to life and have a panic attack.
And then the Sistine Chapel drops its towel.
“Where did you get this? What did you—? Take it down!” he cries.
“I can’t take it down. It’s a news story,” Emmy says.
“That’s not—What the—? How?”
I’ve never seen Sean like this. He’s sputtering and stammering and pattering around in his underwear like this is a comedy sketch. But he’s not acting. The captain is a train wreck, and the way everyone is looking at him—it’s not right. I’m embarrassed for him, and I can tell everyone else is, too.
I know exactly how this feels, and I can’t let him go through it alone.
Striding over to the crowd, I hook Sean’s arm in mine. “I don’t know what all this drama is about a hat, but Hamilton on the Roof was the best date I’ve ever been on.” Actually, that part’s not even a lie.
Jason’s voice is gentle. “It does look like fun.”
“It looks like a lot of fun.” Emmy chuckles, letting the rest of the video play. “And look at you, Josie! You’re in the news clip, too.”
Wait. Why am I in the news clip? I didn’t steal any hats.
But I guess that doesn’t matter because suddenly all 4000 x 2000 pixels of me are onscreen, tearing up the stage like a tap dancing mofo.
Emmy’s lips part in amazement right before her face falls. “How come I never knew you could dance like that?” We stare each other down like two statues, her waiting for my explanation and me trying to come up with one, until…
“Oh my God,” a woman’s voice booms from a chair at the corner of the patio. “That’s where I know you from!”
Margarita stands in her black sleeveless dress, pointing my way with a fingertip as red as a drop of blood. A wave of Shalimar comes off her like radiation.
“Club Bilingüe! You’re the Yeehaw girl who tap danced and taught kids how to say things in English. You’re Savannah Bateman!”
Every cell in my body seizes up. Then, as if I’d just pointed to my chest and shouted Look at this! the cartoon Orbit on my hoodie captures Margarita’s attention. I watch the realization dawn on her like a sunrise on a mountain face. Her eyes widen. She opens her mouth, and…
“You’re the puppet assassin!” she cries. “You’re the girl who killed Chuy!”
“Margarita, don’t be ridiculous!” Emmy jumps in. “This is Josie. You know her!” Her confused expression begs me to confirm it.
I apologize to her with my eyes and shift my attention to Margarita. “It was an accident.”
“I knew it!” Margarita bursts into surprised laughter.
“Wait! What?” Emmy cries. “What’s going on here?”
Panic surges through my veins. I stumble into the chair behind me and almost fall over it. “I’ve got to get out of here,” I mutter.
“I’ll take you to my place,” Sean says as I fumble with the stupid effing chair that has become my personal nemesis. The authority in his voice is clear even though he’s standing in a crowd wearing nothing but a pair of underwear that is smaller than mine.
“No.” I shove the chair out of the way and bolt for the screen door that leads to the side yard and my trailer. Sean misunderstood me. I didn’t mean I needed to get out of here as in the patio. I need to get out of here, as in LA.
Behind me, Emmy is still demanding, “What the hell is happening here?” and Margarita is shouting, “Where is Chuy? You have him, don’t you?”