Chapter 7
Sebastian
The weekend rolls around again. The day is only half over, but I prowl my mansion, wandering through empty rooms with echoing walls and soaring ceilings.
The estate was built for another era, a time of uniformed servants and grand parties.
I’ve held on to it all this time because selling it feels like severing my last tie to my grandparents, but it’s too big for one person.
The cavernous halls make being home alone feel even more isolating. And today I have nothing scheduled.
Allegra’s in London, and Chase and Ryder are probably with their women, but I could meet up with my other so-called friends to hang out. My famous last name means I can get in anywhere, no RSVP or reservation needed.
Except, visiting the land of excess and lost souls has waned in its appeal since leaving drugs behind. I’m sick of the same people and conversations. The LA social scene is far less fun when I’m not smashed out of my mind.
Old habit has me standing next to my bar and reaching for a bottle of a rare fifty-year-old whisky recently gifted to me by a producer.
My other hand settles on my grandfather’s favorite cut-crystal tumbler, which is now mine.
The weight of the glass feels familiar, comforting.
I think about that first sip. And then I think of where that’s led me in the past.
Drugs were always my problem, not alcohol.
So I still have the occasional drink. But recently, I’ve become stricter because it’s a slippery slope.
A few years ago, I found myself going down the road of one drink turning to two, which led to wanting things that weren’t good for me.
So now I avoid hard liquor. And I never drink alone.
“Fuck,” I swear and force myself to walk away from the bar.
My phone rings. At first, I think the distraction is welcome. Until I see that it’s my mother. She doesn’t call unless she has an agenda.
“Darling,” she purrs when I answer.
“Mother. What can I do for you?” I ask as politely as I can.
“Sebastian, can’t a mother want to talk to her son?
” She giggles. It’s subtle, but I hear a slurring in her words.
She’s abused prescription medicine as long as I can remember.
Something to help her wake, something to help her sleep, and something to smooth out her mood.
I’ve tried to convince her to get help many times over the years. It’s never worked.
I wait.
It’s her turn to sigh, an aggrieved sound from across the world.
I’m tempted to ask her where she is now.
Monaco? Somewhere in the South of France?
I’d guess Bali, but the whole bohemian thing she was doing last year died with her relationship to the twenty-five-year-old boyfriend who liked living in glamorous tree houses and partying it up at beach clubs.
“Fine. I do want you to do something. I want you to try harder with your father. He’s in LA now. He’s going to the Actors’ International Critics event today. You know, the drinks thing they throw at Chateau Marmont every year.”
“If he wanted to see me, he would call,” I say lightly, rolling my shoulders from the tension there.
“Oh, you know your dad.”
“I do. Which is why I know he’s not interested in having father-son time.”
“I understand how he can be. But that’s why I’d love for you to see him. We’ve—we’ve started talking. Discussing maybe trying our relationship again. But now he’s being difficult.”
“Mom. No. That always ends in disaster. Mostly for you,” I say with a sinking feeling.
My parents do this toxic thing with each other where they get back together for a few months every few years, until one of them breaks it off in a spectacularly dramatic fashion.
It’s usually my dad doing the breaking it off.
“I’m not sure if I’m the best person for the job of buttering him up.”
“You could at least try, dear,” she admonishes. “Remind him of the good times.”
I don’t ask her what good times. Though it’s tempting.
She’s silent, waiting. And I know she won’t relent until I agree. Finally, I sigh. “Fine,” I say, knowing it’s useless.
I never seem to be able to say no to her, despite everything.
“Wonderful! I knew you’d come through for me. You always do,” she trills. “Oh. And I don’t suppose you could send me some money? I’m a little short this month. Life can get quite expensive.”
“What happened to the bank transfer I made a few months ago?” I ask. “The money you wanted me to invest in your fashion line.”
“That didn’t work out,” she admits quietly. “There were some problems. The company went in another direction. And the money…” She trails off, sounding embarrassed for once.
I warned her the deal sounded too good to be true and tried to get my lawyers involved.
“It’s fine, though.” She forges on more cheerfully. “If your father and I get back together—”
“I’ll send more,” I say, cutting her off. Disquiet swirls in my gut. The last thing she needs is my dad around.
I decide I’m going to talk to my father today. But not to remind him of family bliss like my mother wants.
“Thank you, darling,” she says, sounding much warmer now. And relieved. “Oh, I have to go. We’ve arrived at the yacht!”
I hang up and slip my phone into my pocket, wishing I could call Emma to talk. Except, boundaries.
She’s always made things lighter. Better.
I miss those few short months when Emma lived with me.
We didn’t do anything special. We hung out.
Had movie nights. She’d get her snacks, and I’d get my plain popcorn.
She’d eat mint chocolate chip ice cream.
We’d watch classic films and argue about which to choose.
I’d smirk when she invariably chose a rom-com, and she’d give me shit whenever I’d pick some dark, obscure cult classic.
That’s one of the many things I like about her. I always know where I stand. She doesn’t kiss my ass. She tells me the unvarnished—sometimes uncomfortable—truth. And when you’ve lived your entire life in Hollywood, that trait is deeply attractive.
But after months of living together, things changed. She suddenly got distant, saying she needed her own life.
Which made me wonder if maybe movie nights felt like work to her. And wonder if, maybe, despite what I thought, I don’t truly know where she stands. Especially lately, when she’s been talking about boundaries again.
And dating.
Still deep in thought, I wander outside, past my patio and pool, padding across the dew-tinged grass barefoot until I reach the cliff. I watch the sun play on the crashing waves, feeling the familiar early afternoon air wrapping me in its warm, salt-tinged hug.
I don’t want to go out. But I don’t want to stay in.
I have the world at my feet. I can command most anything at the snap of a finger. At the push of a button. At a look. So why isn’t that enough?
I turn back to the imposing mansion. The expansive pool is still. The chairs surrounding it empty. And I know the cool tile in the house will echo the sound of my footsteps as I walk through the rooms.
A desperate restlessness takes hold.
I type out a message and then call my driver.
Maybe going out doesn’t sound so bad after all, even if it means seeing my father.
I start at the first party, which is just a bunch of guys lounging around a pool, with women in swimsuits taking selfies.
That leads to another party. I only stay for an hour.
Which leads to the Chateau Marmont event at happy hour. This is my third event and it’s not even dark out.
A girl hands me a shot. I don’t remember her name. She’s a friend of a friend of an acquaintance.
She leans close. “Drink up, handsome.” She does her shot without a wince. Without expression. She’s wasted. I can tell it’s not just alcohol she’s had.
I recognize it. Because I spent years doing the exact same.
Instead of tossing back the shot, I take a sip of the beer I’ve been nursing. She gets even closer and blatantly rubs me through my jeans. “Or we could go somewhere else more private,” she suggests.
“Thanks, but no.” I step away from her. Even if I weren’t dating Allegra, I wouldn’t take this woman up on her offer. I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years, but I’ve tried to learn from them.
I turn away from Sammy? Sandi?
And that’s when I see my dad. He’s standing by the bar, still with his famous tan and golden hair, nursing what I already know is a whisky. It’s the family drink of choice.
I force myself to take one step after another until I’m standing before him.
“Sebastian! This is a surprise.” His face is set in the same expression it always is when he sees me.
I’ve analyzed that look a thousand times, hoping to find a glimmer of warmth, a flicker of love there.
But today, as usual, it’s closed, guarded, a familiar, strange sort of resentment somewhere beneath the surface.
“Not really. I live in LA,” I remind him lightly.
“It’s you at a critic’s event that’s surprising.” He laughs as if what he said was a joke.
Which it’s not. My father has always been derisive about my acting career.
He earned his first Academy Award at the old age of twenty-four.
My grandparents were also critics’ darlings, also earning their Oscars early.
An Academy Award is a rite of passage in my family, and my father has never let me forget it.
For him, Rebels Academy was low-brow plebeian entertainment, and my status as a teen heartthrob was beneath the Blakes.
He feels the same about The Wanderers franchise.
But then again, he resents most everything about me. It only got worse after I inherited my grandparents’ estate.
And why might that be? His resentment would make sense if… I cut off that thought before it fully forms.
“I was invited for the movie I did with Herzan,” I say, trying to sound blasé about working with the prestigious director. Trying not to sound like I want to impress my father.
“Oh. That little film. You weren’t the lead, were you?”
I really should study the many and myriad ways he has to make me feel small. It’s impressive.
I take a breath and pray for patience. “I need to talk to you.”
“I’m leaving for Paris in the morning. So there’s no time to get together.”
I wave my hand. “This will be quick. I want to talk about Mom. She says you two are thinking about trying again. But she doesn’t need another toxic go-around with you.”
His lip tilts up into what should be a smile, but isn’t. “You will be happy, then, that your mother is quite mistaken. But you know her, she believes what she wants to believe. Anyway, why do you even care?”
It’s a good question. One that I don’t answer. I sip my beer, wishing to hell that it were stronger. I’m sick of this game that my parents play with each other and with me. Talking to my father only leads to blunt-force trauma and more questions than answers.
He leans back against the bar and eyes the scantily clad women walking by.
An event photographer interrupts our reunion, wanting to take photos of the rare father-son sighting. When the photographer is done, my dad rushes away with one last cutting remark and a cursory goodbye.
An hour later, I still feel… dirty… as if I need to jump into a fresh lake to get clean.
I’m about to leave when Brett Danners walks toward me with an uneven gait.
Brett Danners. Who wants to hire Emma.
She thinks I don’t like Brett because of the photos of Allegra making out with him on a film set recently. But I couldn’t give a shit about that. I find myself surprisingly chill at the thought of her hooking up with him.
No, I don’t trust Brett because I’ve heard the way he speaks about women, as if they’re a commodity.
And I saw the way he acted when he was at a party at my house last month, an invite from Allegra, not me.
He put his arm around Emma. And when he leaned down to talk to her, he got way too close, whispering in her ear.
She took a step back. But when she walked away, Brett eyed her ass with a creepy fucking smile and said something to the guy standing next to him.
They both laughed and leered, watching her cross the room.
And now he suddenly wants to hire her to do some side project? I don’t like it.
“Hey, Blake. How’s it going?” he slurs, holding out a hand for a bro-shake. The man is wasted.
I nod in greeting, my frown not lifting. “I hear you want Emma to work for you,” I say, getting straight to the point.
I cross my arms over my chest. His hand falls to his side, and his brow furrows. “Work? Who?” he slurs.
“Emma Reynolds. My personal assistant.”
“Ah, her.” His grin is slimy. “What? Don’t like sharing?”
I’ve never given a fuck about “sharing” anyone in the past.
But this is Emma. She’s my employee. And I protect what’s mine.
That thought almost makes me smile because I’d get another blistering lecture from her—citing macho bullshit—if she heard me say that.
“What do you want with her?” I ask, pretending a cool I don’t feel.
“Dude, it’s not a big deal. I need some help organizing my office while my assistant is away. And everyone knows Emma’s the best. She said she had the time.”
I tilt my head, trying to judge his sincerity.
Am I overreacting? It’s true that Emma’s assistant skills are legendary.
She’s helped many of my costars, and they’ve sung her praises around Hollywood.
I don’t love that she takes on these projects because she shouldn’t work so hard.
But up until now, she’s only done them for friends.
And that’s not Brett. Years in this business have given me a Spidey sense about who to avoid. And Brett triggers that intuition.
He smiles crookedly. “Plus, I like watching her in that tight skirt. The plain ones usually go the extra mile to please. She may act hard to get and say no, but I bet she’s a fucking slut once you pull her ponytail and get her skirt up around her ass.”
That’s as far as he gets. Anger, strong and sharp, crashes through me, reaching deep into every sinew and cell. There’s the visceral need to teach him fear. Show him the meaning of pain.
Brett’s smarmy grin falls away to something approaching nerves as he sees my face.
“I’ll rip your throat out if you ever say her name again,” I growl.
He lunges at me, which I sidestep.
When I finally land a punch to his jaw, it’s fierce and infinitely satisfying. Then I slam my fist into his stomach, knocking him to the ground.
There is no world in which Emma would ever be fair game.
“I’ll ruin you if you ever come near her,” I grit out while standing over him.
I look up to see a camera recording. Fuck.
And that’s when the bar’s security arrives. A beefy man with a shaved head grabs my arm. I shake him off and stride toward the exit while everyone gapes and Brett Danners moans, asking if his face is okay.
It would have been badass.
If it hadn’t been for the two cops who were in the bar. And are now walking toward me.