Between work, creating pieces for Faith’s store, and all the applications, I never had time to do much thinking.
My phone buzzed a text, causing a clattering across the table. I’d never responded to Jack’s last text, and he never sent another. Even so, my belly always gave a small lurch each time my phone made a noise. I wondered if I’d ever get over that. I grabbed it and saw the name ‘Jazz’ and a link to Access Hollywood. “Sorry,” I said to Colt. With a frown, I clicked open the link.
Jack and Audrey Split! Huge public blow up! I stopped reading.
I couldn’t believe she’d send me this after agreeing never to mention his name to me again. We hadn’t even talked about the movie when it came out. I hadn’t seen it, obviously. I immediately called her.
“I know, I know!” she said as soon as she answered.
I eyed Colt who was looking at me with confusion. “Seriously, Jazz? Them being together or not has nothing to do with me—”
“Wait, I know it doesn’t mention this in the article I sent you, but—”
“I haven’t read it,” I snapped.
Realizing the topic, Colt dropped his eyes and shifted.
“I figured you hadn’t since you’re already on the phone with me, and I just sent it–but just hear me out, ok?”
I sighed, and mouthing another sorry to Colt, went out the front door to sit on the porch swing. “Fine. Go ahead.” I steeled myself to let whatever she had to tell me slide right off.
“Never mind. I’m coming over. Hang tight.”
I ground my teeth together and breathed out in a huff.
“Oh, and happy birthday,” she added and hung up.
I put my phone down beside me and drew my legs up. I hugged them tightly to my chest and waited, a medicine ball lodged in my throat. The amount of times I had thumbed gently across the Late Night Visitor entry in my contact list made me shudder with shame. My moments of weakness were more frequent than I cared to admit.
And when I allowed myself to think of Jack, my emotions ricocheted around like a three-ring circus.
In one corner of my mind, I had this memory that, despite the brevity of our time together, Jack and I had connected on some elemental level reserved for past lives and soul mates. We were just a boy and a girl who recognized each other across the deep blue universe. That corner of my mind found it hard to remember all the reasons that would preclude us being together. Like the fact he was a movie star and I was ... not, or that he had a baby being carried by another woman.
The second corner called into question any real relationship at all. It was all based on lust and chalked me up to being blinded by Jack’s celebrity status, his attractiveness, and his role as Max. This second corner had the added barbs of calling into question my role as anything more than a shallow groupie and willing female in the dark period of his life. In this corner, I only remembered our physical attraction. I wondered whether we had any connection at all. I couldn’t believe I would have been that shallow. But the evidence was pretty convincing.
The third corner was deepest of all. The third corner simply stated that we were star-crossed lovers that should never have met. But we did. And in that game the evil jester called fate liked to play, we were attracted in an instant. The potential for love ... for eternity ... was, in a split-second, acknowledged, catalogued, realized, and set on a collision course with never. I could almost hear the snort of derision. Ain’t never gonna happen.
A ripple on the fabric of fate. A joke that might have ruined my potential for any future happiness.
Now, I wanted it all. I knew I wouldn’t settle for the sweet and steady Colton Graves’s of the world.
No corner of my mind was a comfortable place to settle into. And now Jazz was stirring it all back up.
Her yellow car arrived in my driveway with a spurt of white shells. Flinging open the door, she climbed out. “Boot up the computer, we need to look through this together.” Not pausing for breath, she marched up the stairs in her jeans and boots, her blonde hair flying all over the place in the wind.
“I don’t want to know, Jazz!”
“You do. I promise. At least you can stop thinking he’s been fine while you’ve been moping.”
“I’m not moping.”
“It’s true you’ve been better. Okay, look, if you won’t look yourself, just listen. That fight I emailed you about was confirmed on three different sites, but an ‘insider’—”
“Dammit, Jazz, you know better than that.” I turned my head away and stood up. An ‘insider’—Jack had told me once that was code for someone who wants to make up shit about you.
She grabbed my arm. “Listen! Something big went down. Even his agent’s been fired.”
“I don’t care!” I yelled.
T H I R T Y – S I X