Chapter 23

Jarryd

I woke up on my back. Light teased the crack in the curtains, and a sliver of it pressed past the fabric and cut across the carpet and sliced across the sheets. The exact same sliver of light which’d fallen across my face and damn well forced me out of sleep.

I sat up in bed in the motel room, and the sheets fell to my waist. Aurora lay next to me, breathing deeply in sleep, her eyes fluttering behind their lids.

Christ, she was so beautiful: her hair caught beneath her, the gentle curve of her waist beneath the sheet, and that cute, slightly upturned nose. I didn’t want to break the spell and wake her, and the alarm clock on the bedside table said it was past seven o’clock.

I’d order us some of that room service, get them to bring us fresh squeezed orange juice or whatever she preferred. Strong coffee.

I got out of bed and walked to the table, where the room phone and my cell left there last night waited. The notification light on my phone blinked, and I hesitated, fingers grasping for the hotel’s receiver.

Notifications from who? Rod hadn’t scheduled another meeting. Luke surely wouldn’t have called. From Felicity? God fucking forbid.

My curiosity got the better of me. I picked up my cell instead and unlocked the screen.

Twenty missed calls. Jesus H. Christ. What the fuck happened? It has to be nuclear.

My pulse raced, and sweat beaded on my brow. This wasn’t normal. Only a select few people had my number. My investors, my friends, and that was about it. That was how I liked it.

I swiped my thumb across the screen, dragged down the top bar and inhaled. “Fuck,” I muttered. They were all from Rod. I would’ve almost preferred them to be from Felicity—that way I’d have known it was a fit of jealousy.

But this was Rod. Rod didn’t make calls unless they were absolutely necessary. And twenty of them? That’s a lot of necessity. My finger hovered over the button to dial but his name popped up on the screen before I could hit it.

Incoming call. Yeah, this was nuclear.

I swiped my thumb across the screen. “Rod,” I said, in a low tone, and looked back at Aurora’s sleeping form. She stirred but didn’t open her eyes. “You tried to get hold of me?”

“Yes, I tried to fucking get hold of you, you dipshit!” he erupted. Whoa, Rod could be a little rough around the edges at times, but nothing like this. Nuclear. “Where have you been, on top of the fucking mountain?”

“No, I’ve been busy, uh, working,” I said, softly.

“That’s not what I heard. Christ, you managed to screw the pooch on this one, Tombs. How you did it is beyond me. I didn’t peg you as the type of guy who does this type of—”

“Rod,” I grunted, gaze darting to Aurora’s form, tucked beneath the covers. “Cut to the chase. What’s going on?”

“You want to know what’s going on? How about you turn on the TV and take a look for yourself, Jarryd.” Rod’s voice was gruff from years of sucking on cigarettes but it positively grated now.

“I don’t—tell me what’s going on.” If I switched on the TV now, it might wake up Aurora, and after all the shit she’d been through the day before, she needed her sleep.

“All right, you wanna know? Christ, I’ll tell you, but I don’t like saying it.” Rod sniffed. “Everyone hates you, Tombs. Everyone in LA. The papers. Everyone.”

“Huh?”

“Well, I don’t s’pose they hate you. They’re more relishing the fact that Felicity has brought about your downfall. Think apocalyptic, fuck up the ass, downfall. Like two million zombies with raging hard-ons and you’re the target.”

The image filled me with a mixture of dread and mirth. I swallowed a chuckle. “What?”

“I’m not good at explaining crap like this. It’s why I told you to turn on the damn TV. E! Entertainment is doing a special on you, right now,” he replied. “Apparently, Felicity, the crazy bitch!” He screamed the last word, and I jerked the cell from my ear. “Bitch!” he repeated. “That crazy bitch went to E! with an exclusive about you two.”

“How is that possible? We’ve been broken up for two weeks!”

“Well, she’s told them that you broke up after a disagreement about scouting movie locations in a small town called Moondance in Wyoming,” Rod said. “She didn’t want to go, and you did.”

“That’s—the exact opposite of the truth.” Had she lost it? No, this didn’t make sense. “Why the hell would they care why we split up?”

“Because she’s sold them the story that you wanted to go to Moondance because you were having an affair.”

“That’s insane. And bullshit.”

“An affair with a fortune-teller,” Rod finished.

Every alarm bell in the world, no in the existence of humanity, went off inside my brain. What was Felicity thinking? She’d been so focused on never jeopardizing the film. Had she lost her mind? “That’s impossible, and she knows it. We came to Moondance on her insistence,” I said, and my rising voice brought a groan from the bed. I quieted it again. “And I didn’t even meet a fortune-teller until I came here. The timeline’s all wrong. Nobody will buy that.”

“Except they have,” Rod said. “She’s got pictures of it. Of you two together. And she says they were captured days after your breakup. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, kid. After a drought of information from your camp, this gossip is so damn juicy that the paps are swallowing it whole, coming back and asking, please, sir, may I have some more?”

“Fuck,” I muttered. “Fuck, fuck, shit.”

Rod inhaled a cigarette on the other end of the line. “My sentiments exactly. This is a storm of bullshit we didn’t need. The movie didn’t need this. I warned you, Jarryd. I warned you that you needed to pull yourself toward yourself or you’re fucked, and you didn’t listen.”

“This isn’t about the movie. This is Felicity. She’s lost her damn mind.” I reached for the TV remote on the desk without thinking. I had to witness this for myself. I held it flush against my palm. What was I supposed to do about this?

It was a publicity nightmare.

“You know what this does, don’t you?” Rod asked.

“What?”

“It makes dear Miss Swan look like the saint, and you look like the dick who cheated and dumped her. If you don’t figure out a way to make this into good publicity, the movie’s done,” he said. “She’s officially ended it, and it’s all because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants.”

“I did keep it in my pants.” While we’d been together, at least. What I’d done with Aurora after was none of her damn business, except now, it seemed it was. “She’s the fucking idiot who didn’t keep it in her pants. Christ.”

The idiot I’d fallen for. Perhaps, Felicity’s sweet side had been a mask all along? Perhaps? Of course, it fucking was. Look what she’s done!

“I’m just about out, Jarryd,” Rod said.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “What?”

“This is one fuckup too many.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Rod, wait one hot fucking second. This isn’t my fault. Felicity has clearly lost the plot. She’s taken the plot and meta-fucking-morphosized it into a full fucking novel starring her as the victim. It’s all bullshit.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that she’s ruined the movie,” Rod replied. “Or the reputation of it. This will overshadow everything. And, kid, I don’t need to remind you that you’re the one who hired her for the lead.”

“Meaning what?”

“That this is one hundred percent your fault. Keep business and pleasure separate,” Rod said.

“She’s the best actress in LA!”

“So? There are others who could’ve done it, too, and sucked your dick besides without half the trouble.”

I set aside that dick-sucking comment. “Rod, bear with me. Stay with Pride’s Death for another week. Stick with me, and I swear to god, you won’t regret it. I’ll fix this fuckup.”

Rod grunted on the other end of the line. “Fuggit. OK. One more week, and if you haven’t magicked this shitstorm away by then, I’m out. And you’re on your own. Good luck, buddy.” He clicked off the line.

I balled my fist around the phone and squeezed until the plastic cracked. This wasn’t my burner phone, but I didn’t care. I pictured shaking Felicity until whatever screw had come lose fell back into the hole it’d come from then shook my head and set the phone down on the desk.

I lifted the remote instead and switched on the TV. “Shit,” I whispered and lowered the volume, right away, looking over my shoulder at Aurora—unmoving, chest rising and falling in an even rhythm.

I flicked through the channels until I landed on E! and moved closer to catch the commentary.

My image splashed across the screen, and a young, female presenter—she looked like a paler version of Giuliana Rancic—talked in the split screen frame beside it. “So, this is our breaking news of the day. Hot off the presses, sizzling, tsssss. Feel the burn, Jarryd Tombs, we’ve got our eye on you.” The valley girl whine gave me an instant sinus headache. “He’s apparently been caught in a liaison with a fortune-teller.”

“What?” a man said, high-pitched, effeminate, off screen. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious, Carter. So, it’s no secret that everybody’s favorite actor broke up with everybody’s favorite actress over two weeks ago.”

“Three now,” said Carter and clicked his tongue.

“Yeah, three weeks ago, we saw the end of Jaricity.” Christ, I’d forgotten they’d come up with that mashup of our names to describe us as a couple. At least, it wasn’t Ferryd. “And everyone was in an uproar. I had to cancel appointments to deal with the grief. Like, it shocked me.”

“You and me both, girl.”

“But now, it’s come to light that Felicity is totally distraught. She didn’t see the breakup coming and found out that Jarryd cheated on her from the start with this gal.”

A picture of Aurora, taken within the clothing store, where she stood, wide-eyed and behind me, replaced me on the screen. A chorus of fake boos ensued from the studio crowd.

“Her name is Aurora Bell, and she had to know that he was engaged, right?”

“How low can you go?” Carter asked.

The Giuliana wannabe nodded. “Like, monumentally low. Like lower than my heart dropped when I heard the news. Here’s the worst part. Felicity Swan didn’t even know if it was true or not, until one of her friends snapped a few of these pics of the cheater with his… what’s a gentle way to put it? Lover, I guess.”

Carter sniffed off screen. “That’s not what I’d call her.”

The entire screen filled with images now. Pictures, artfully blurred at the right spots, over Aurora’s breasts, at the points we connected. Images of us naked, wrapped around each other, caught in the throes of pleasure on the hotel bed she slept in now.

“Christ. Jesus Christ,” I grunted.

“What is that?” The voice spoke from my side, tremulous. Aurora pushed past me and stared at the screen. The noise had woken her, after all. She stood naked, her hair tangled at her shoulders. “Jarryd! What is this?”

“It’s us,” I replied. “Everyone knows. Felicity went to the press and said that I had an affair with you while I was still together with her.”

Aurora’s face transformed, her eyes screwed up, her bottom lip quivered. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“No, you should have. We’ll fix this, like we’ll fix what happened with your mother’s cabin. I’ll take care of everything.”

“No.” Aurora darted past me to the bedside table, where she’d left her clothes last night. She tugged on her jeans, her shirt, left the bra. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“Aurora, stop.” I rushed to her side and reached for her.

She jerked back, worked her sneakers onto her sockless feet. Slung her handbag over her shoulder. “No!” Aurora darted off the bed and raced for the door.

“Wait! I’ll fix it. I’ll fix everything.”

But it was too late. The door whacked shut behind her and left me with nothing but the whine from the TV and the blurred images of our most intimate time together, blown up for the world to see.