Chapter 6
My publicist,Capri, was suddenly standing at the front door of my LA home.
“You’re going to have to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Didn’t you just get married?”
I couldn’t attend her wedding since I was due on set.
“Yeah,” she breathed out. “I did. That’s how much I care about you that I’m here right now.”
I was genuinely shocked. “Did you at least go on your honeymoon?”
“Bailey,” she exclaimed, “I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here for you, and I don’t have a lot of time. I have a very needy husband waiting for me back home.”
“This couldn’t have been a phone call conversation?”
She gestured. “Are you going to invite me inside?”
I opened the door wider, waving her to come in.
“I need you to start from the beginning,” she demanded, turning to face me once we reached my living room.
“I can if you tell me what you’re referring to?”
One word was able to stop me dead in my tracks.
“Aires.”
My eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” Her eyebrows pinched together. “Bailey, tell me what’s going on?”
“Alright.” I cautiously sat down. “We worked together on The?—”
“I don’t need the interview response. I need the truth, and I don’t want to hear it from my husband. I want to hear it from you.”
“What does your husband have to do with this?”
“Well.” She sat in front of me. “My husband owes him a favor, and that favor is you.”
“Excuse me?” I questioned, utterly confused.
“You remember the script for Say You Love Me you read last week?”
“Yeah! I loved that script, but you guys said it’d be career suicide because of the actor playing my love interest.”
“The actor is Aires.”
“Oh…” I rasped, catching onto what she was saying. “I didn’t know he was playing that role. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why would we? I need to know why he’s so adamant for you to play opposite him?”
I played it off. “Maybe because I’m the highest-paid actress?”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Bailey. There’s more to it than that. Now tell me the truth.”
“Ummm…” I inhaled a deep breath.
“Bailey.” She grabbed my hand. “I’m going to need you to trust me.”
“I… well…” I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. “He took… the fall for me.”
“The fall for what?”
I bowed my head. “The Molly he was arrested for.”
She gasped loudly.
“Yeah…” I looked at her again. “I feel so bad. I haven’t been able to talk to him or thank him or anything.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because… we sort of… you know… have this history…”
With a stern expression, she questioned, “More than just The Kids Club?”
“Way more than just that.”
“What are you insinuating?”
I abruptly stood and started to pace. “We were young and thrown to the wolves. What do you think happened?”
She stood, grabbing my shoulders to stop my mindless pacing. “Are you telling me you two had a thing?”
“I guess that’s what you could call it.” I shrugged. “We didn’t really have a label for us. We just… hung out, and sometimes that included making out and…” I murmured under my breath, “Taking off our clothes.”
She gasped again, making me feel hesitant about what I was confessing.
“What?!” she shouted. “You’re telling me you had sex with Nicholas Aires?”
“The III.”
“Wow.” She sat back down. “I did not see that coming. I know that opposites attract, but this is on a whole other level, Bailey. Does your family know?”
“You think they would have allowed me to continue on set if they knew something was going on between us? Of course not. They thought what everyone did. We were just colleagues on a hit TV show.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Nothing is going on now. We hadn’t seen each other since the show was canceled and coincidentally ran into one another at the party that was raided and he got arrested at.”
“Oh my God.” She put her head between her legs. “If you had gotten arrested with drugs?—”
“I know! That’s why he took the fall for me.”
She glanced over at me. “That’s quite the way to profess his love for you.”
I shook my head. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
“We were friends. Close friends.”
“Friends don’t go to jail for you on five felony charges.”
She was right, but I couldn’t begin to fathom what that meant. I didn’t have his number, and it wasn’t like I could ask my team for it. Alexis was trying to find it for me, but she wasn’t having any luck. Aires was a private person. It didn’t surprise me that it wasn’t easy to find his number.
In a firm tone, I asserted, “I want to do the movie with him. Had I known he was the actor you guys were referring to, I would have fought for the part.”
“Bailey, you are asking the impossible from me. I can’t with certainty say this won’t hurt your career.”
“Why? He’s an amazing actor.”
“Who’s been blacklisted.”
I rolled my eyes, waving her off. “He’s not the first and won’t be the last actor found with drugs. It’s like a stepping stone at this point.”
“Yes, for him. Not for you. Your fans will?—”
“My fans loved us together. To this day, I’m always asked about The Kids Club, and isn’t Netflix thinking about buying the rights? Us being in a movie together is only going to sweeten that deal, which, in turn, will make us all a lot more money. It’s a win, win.”
“Bailey—”
“Come on, I’ve never fought you guys on anything. I’ve always marched in line with whatever the team decided whether I wanted to or not, but I’m begging you for a chance to do this. I have a great feeling about it, and I’m usually right.”
“And what if you’re wrong?”
“Then I’m wrong.”
“You’re willing to risk that for a guy? After all the hard work you’ve put in all these years?”
“He’s not just a guy.”
“Really? Because you just told me he was only a close friend, and from the way your eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when I mentioned his name, you’re right, he wasn’t.”
“Does that mean you’re going to let me do this? If you give the approval, you know the team will back you up.”
“Bailey.” She stood, grabbing my shoulders again. “My job is to look out for you, and you’re asking me to do the opposite of what you’ve hired me to do.”
“Then don’t do it as my publicist. Do it as my friend. I need a friend.”
With a pointed stare, she indicated, “You’re laying it on pretty thick.”
I smiled. “Is it working?”
Neither one of us said anything for a minute, and the silence was deafening between us. However, it was the turmoil I felt knowing she may not agree with me that was wreaking havoc in my mind.
Whatever was happening between Aires and me was almost too much to understand. All I could do was base my decisions on the way he still made me feel. Not to mention, he was a phenomenal actor and he’d kill in the role of Samuel. This movie had Oscar written all over it, especially since it was being directed by the B. Night. He was a genius in his own right.
To play opposite Aires, we’d light up that screen. From our very first kiss at fourteen years old, I didn’t just see stars. He made me see the whole-ass galaxy.
It was bright.
Bold.
Earth-shattering.
Words couldn’t describe how much what he did for me meant to me. It seemed like the world stopped spinning for a second, and it was only us. Right there on that roof deck with him on top of me, I felt absolutely everything I’d been missing all these years.
My eyes tightly shut, and I tried like hell not to let my emotions get the best of me, which threw me right back into that night when his lips were rough but smooth against mine.
My heart beat so fast, I could feel it pounding in my skull, in my bones, in my soul. My thoughts never stopped racing as I desperately tried to gather the memory of him.
He seemed so honest, so real, especially when he let his guard down with me.
The way he looked at me.
Spoke to me.
Listened.
Every smile.
Every laugh.
Every word that fell from his lips felt like it meant something.
It didn’t matter how big or small.
I felt like I mattered to him.
Besides, I owed him.
I opened my eyes and saw familiarity staring right back at me. It was as if she knew what I was thinking, what I was feeling, like she had been in the same complicated spot I was currently in. It was the first time I felt like we were on the same playing field.
“Please,” I pleaded, aware I was getting through to her. “Do this for me.”
I held my breath until she finally replied with…
“Okay.”