She Would Have Hated It
Sam couldn’t take her eyes off Bex.
She’d spent more time than she should have getting ready for this morning’s appointment.
When Fergus had noticed, and commented, Sam asked him how he would dress to meet an iconic cult-favorite actor for the first time while trying to cover the rash your leather gauntlets had given you when you were dragged in for secret, contractually nonnegotiable Theomina reshoots because your former costar on a fantasy blockbuster was a bail-denied murderer, and also, you were going to see the woman you hoped would let you lesbian U-haul yourself into her life for the first time in over a week, not counting a single exhausted hug in the hallway of the police station where you’d both spent endless hours—separately, always separately—answering the same questions again and again.
Fergus had no answer. Well, he did, but the answer was that he’d wear his favorite jeans and a pink T-shirt that said Aloha!, so it was a useless answer.
They’d driven to West Hollywood separately. Bex’s SUV was already parked in Ramona’s driveway when Sam got there. With a little wave, she hopped out and walked to the front door alongside Sam.
Bex was wearing fashion. It wasn’t her way.
Bex famously didn’t wear fashion even on the red carpet.
But what Sam knew, and the media didn’t, was that Bex did wear fashion when she was trying to feel erotically powerful.
When Bex put on this lace poet’s blouse and leather short-shorts with hot-pink wedge sandals that were not comfortable sneakers, she had been thinking of Sam.
“You look amazing,” Sam said. “Why haven’t I seen you for a week?”
Bex rang the doorbell. “Because I’ve been giving the same statement to seven different officers from four different agencies?
” she asked. “I promise, that is the only thing I’ve been doing in between conversations with my agent, my manager, my publicist, my assistant, and my housekeeper. I think she’s going to quit.”
“Olive? But she’s been with you forever.”
“Yeah, and I’ve never had this many people in and out of my house before.
Vic and Frankie are enough by themselves, but now there’s Haris, and Piper, too, and yesterday Logan Widi and his wife came over with their baby.
It’s mayhem.” Bex pulled on the hem of her shorts with prim anger.
“I’m leaving out the fact I have to wade through photographers and unsolicited press gauntlets because of the leaks about us being involved in the investigation.
” She crossed her arms, which shifted her silky blouse into the territory of wardrobe malfunction, so she quickly dropped them and, Sam was certain, repressed the urge to swear.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you,” Bex returned. “I particularly love that you didn’t go to Telluride, because it means that after we do this I get to have you to myself.”
The first thing Sam had done when she was finally released from the clutches of the LAPD was loop her agent and manager into a phone call to let them know she wanted to “step aside” from the Theomina series with Bradley Wilhite. As she’d predicted, they did not like this decision.
However, they didn’t try as hard to change her mind as she’d expected.
Maybe that was because Chad’s arrest threw a bit of a pall over the future of the Theomina IP, but Sam liked to think it was actually a sign that all the time they’d been telling her what to do, her people had secretly been waiting for her to figure out what she wanted.
People did what they knew how to do until it stopped working. Then they learned a new way to get through the emotional tangle of making a life.
She placed her palm at the middle of Bex’s back and slid it slowly down to the swell of her backside.
Macie opened the door.
“Hi.” Macie stepped out and closed the door behind them, standing with Sam and Bex on the bungalow’s porch.
“It’s really good to see you both. Especially now that it’s—I don’t want to say it’s all over, but there is something that’s shifted, at least in the universe I occupy, and it’s easier to stand up straight, you know? ”
“We know,” Sam said. She and Bex weren’t privy to the details of the investigation, but they’d been told Sloan was cooperating and had provided statements to the police about the assault on Ramona.
Both men had been charged with a long list of offenses ranging from attempted murder to the unlicensed carrying of a firearm.
No doubt the charges would be pled down, but no one expected Chad or Sloan to escape prison.
There were rumblings that Juliette’s case might be reopened.
“I’m glad we got to here,” Bex said. “You’re sure Ramona wants visitors? We were flattered she invited us over, but she only got out of the hospital yesterday. She must be exhausted.”
Macie had told them Ramona suffered a gunshot wound to her left chest wall, thankfully far enough to the outside of her body that her heart, esophagus, and major nerve centers weren’t affected.
The bullet had collapsed her lung and caused significant bleeding, however, and a fall down into a rocky ravine had broken an ankle and wrist.
What no one but Ramona had known was that she’d hired a backcountry guide only a couple of years previously to spend a two-week vacation hiking part of the Pacific Crest Trail.
During this time, she’d learned good trail first aid and a bit about navigation off-trail and what to do if she was injured and alone.
It was while Ramona was on this trip and out of contact, incidentally, that Chad and Sloan had leaked to People magazine she was “experimenting with the psychedelic ayahuasca and younger men in Baja.”
On Mount Baldy, Ramona had tried to call for help and get attention right away, but the noise of striking the location set, as well as the trucks, had disguised both the gunshot and her calls for help, which Macie said were affected by her collapsed lung.
But she’d sailed through two surgeries already, and her overall good health meant she did well in recovery.
She’d been discharged with orders for a daily nurse visit and a lot of physical therapy.
Ramona had wanted to talk to Sam and Bex right away, but LAPD had insisted on getting everyone’s statements first, and then Sam had been tied up with the meetings about Theomina made necessary by Chad’s ejection from the project.
“Oh, Ramona definitely wants you here,” Macie said.
“I’m so fucking happy she asked me to stay with her and help out.
She’s never asked me for something like that before, but she’s been on me every day to get you two out to see her as soon as she was home.
She bossed Colin into setting up food and drink in the garden, so we can walk around to the back. ”
Sam followed Bex, mainly so she could get a look at her ass in the shorts and the way her curls bounced over her bare spine. It was an excellent view.
The garden seemed completely transformed.
In the wake of the record-setting rain, they’d had endless sun erasing all memory of the bad weather.
In the light, the colors and birdsong were almost overwhelming, and the plantings looked bigger.
The previously empty patio set was dressed with a tablecloth and food.
There were cushions on the chairs and even rugs laid about. It looked like a bohemian fever dream.
And on the comfiest looking chair sat Ramona Watts, her big dark eyes just exactly like they were in the movies.
She had pillows and cushions propped around her to keep her comfortable, but there was something about her that gave off an incredibly lively feeling, as if she’d run over to embrace them.
“Oh, God, hi!” Ramona pointed at one of the rugs.
“Be careful there. Miette chose that spot, and she’s not moving.
Colin, for fuck’s sake, pull the chairs out.
Do you two want coffee? Or tea? I have Coke, too, not diet, I don’t trust it even though everyone says it’s fine.
I would get up and ask for a hug, but some motherfucker shot me. ”
“Hi!” Bex stepped carefully around the cat and leaned over to kiss Ramona’s cheek. “It’s a complete honor to meet you.”
Sam reached across Colin’s chair and squeezed Ramona’s offered hand. “It’s perfect to meet you. I feel like we’ve been getting pieces of a portrait of who you are. Every new piece has been fascinating, but this is so much better.”
Ramona beamed as they found seats. Colin patted them both on the back while pouring them the drinks they requested. Macie came to whisper in Ramona’s ear, then disappeared through the doors that led to the four-seasons room where they had talked to Colin last time they were at the house.
“Macie is going to take a well-deserved break and check in with this realtor they’ve been talking to.
They’re selling the Velvet Chair, thank God.
It’s almost worth getting shot to know someone’s going to gut that place.
But the sale has Macie freaked, not to mention that I’m a terrible patient.
I haven’t taken a single one of the opiates they prescribed for me, which means Macie has to make me up a glass of filtered water with ten different healing tinctures in it four times a day, and they’re completely over it. ”
“They told us they’re happy to be here,” Bex said.
Ramona adjusted her position, only wincing a little. “That just makes me feel worse I’ve boxed them out so much over the years.” Ramona picked up a tea mug with the hand that wasn’t wrapped into a cast. Birdsong took over the silence as she took a sip and set the mug back down.
“We’re so glad you’re here, dear,” Colin ventured. “It will take all of us some time to resettle.”