Chapter 14

Roxanne

“How long has it been since I’ve been inside you?”

My eyes turn over the notched wooden chairs littering the wide structure of Fancy’s. Warm yellow lamplight glazes every round tabletop. The walls are packed with framed celebrity relics, from the high heels of sultry jazz singers to the nine iron of 1967’s PGA winner. It’s kitschy and amusing. I like it, though the smell of liquor was overwhelming at first. Now it’s oddly comforting.

Fancy’s has become my new home. Two hours before my first shift will begin, I’m still wearing pajamas and flip flops. I sit at a lone table and tuck my hands around my knees.

I miss The Lofts.

Iggy and Pepper didn’t want to kick me out, and I didn’t want to go, but the paparazzi thronging outside of our windows was making everyone’s life hell. They would camp. They would sleep in shifts. All believing that one of them might snap the moment that an enraged and/or lustful Sir Blake Berringer might storm up the walk and take me in his arms, or throw me up against a wall. There might be a loud argument about whether or not to get an abortion, right? There might be sex. There might be tears. So they camped.

Vultures.

There was also a slight chance that so much exposure would incidentally reveal my address to Jared, if he searched hard enough. It just wasn’t worth the risk. So I disappeared again.

Backlit liquor bottles line the shelves behind the bar, where Rudy, a first-generation Russian immigrant, polishes glasses and waits.

I watch Rudy and smile.

I was terrified when I first met him, just like I was with Candace.

I just met Rudy last month, but still. I was terrified again.

I swallow and tell myself that I’m back on my feet now. Jared has no dominion over me here. His threats will remain empty.

Rudy is bald and pink, with a faded ring of golden hair around his head. He’s a thick man, with beefy arms, a barrel chest, a strong nose, and a mustache in the shape of a damn sausage link. He’s intense. As you get closer, you find that his chestnut eyes have unexpected moments of kindness, just like Candace’s blue ones.

And, like Candace, he offered me a place to stay. There’s a room in the back of the house not being used for anything but the occasional nap. He said that I could take it. I don’t own many possessions anymore, so it was as easily said as done.

Rudy catches my eyes on him, hesitating in his polishing. “Something on my face?” he wonders.

I grin. “No,” I say. “I’m just waiting for my shift to start.”

A warm smile breaks across Rudy’s face. “You can play now, if you want to.”

I nod. “Okay,” I say, standing. “It won’t bother you?”

“Nah.” The side of Rudy’s mouth quirks. “I like it.”

I beam. “Okay.” I wind through the chairs to return to my room, excited to be up on that stage, if only for a moment longer.

My guitar is in my room, which I think used to be a really big closet. But now it’s a cramped–I mean, cozy–bedroom with tartan blankets spilling off a twin-sized bed. The size of this room makes me feel like I have entirely too many shoes, even though I only have a few, but it’s a safe place.

There’s no way Jared would ever find me here, and the paparazzi know nothing about it. The hidden gem mostly services patrons who are in their fifties and older, less interested in the twists and turns of an English alpha-hole’s love life. But still, I perform with a wig of frothy blonde curls and dramatic makeup to disguise my features. Instead of playing up my cheekbones and eyes, I focus on my nose and my chin. It almost changes the shape of my face.

But it’s early, so I don’t bother with all the accoutrements of Sheila. (That’s my stage name. Roxanne seemed like too much for this place.) I just snatch up my guitar and head onto the stage.

I sit bow-legged across the stool and hitch the guitar up into my arms, plucking the opening chords to “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns ‘n Roses. I smile meekly over at Rudy and continue to strum, my eyes turning over the full floor. No one really filters in here until later in the evening. I have started thinking that Rudy is running some kind of illegal business out of the back, but at the same time, he’s so nice, huge, and steady, like a papa bear. It’s hard to be scared or judge him…although I’m pretty sure it’s guns. There’s a room in the back which is always locked. Men come and go, but they don’t order dinner or anything.

And I can’t figure out how a bar of this size operates right outside of Los Angeles with such low traffic. But he’s had it for a few years now.

A dart board hangs on the wall, and pool tables in the back complete the feel of a down-and-out, bluesy, low-maintenance place. The only thing missing is the juke box, but instead, Fancy’s got a stage. And me.

Can’t say I’m complaining.

Two hours later, the regulars of Fancy’s have all filtered in and ordered their usual. I don’t know any of these people personally, but they all have a similar look. Everyone here is going through something all by themselves. The women, no matter how old they look, are dressed in a kind of over-sexed despair. The depression is palpable. The men are shaggy and make bitter faces as they drink.

I like to think that my music is a little beam of sunshine into their night.

But it probably isn’t.

They probably wish I’d shut up.

“All right, thank you,” I say into the mic as the first song wraps up. No one applauds. No one ever applauds. I want to tell them that I’ve had gigs that paid better than this before–which is also weird (how is he paying me so much on, what, eight regulars and a handful of variables?)–but I don’t. Everyone here is just going through something alone. “Does anyone here enjoy Radiohead?”

Nothing.

Behind Rudy, mounted above the bar, are two televisions, one that is always playing sports and one that is always playing the news. I never really watch either one, but my eyes flash over to the screen when I recognize Blake’s face. There is a scrolling band of text with the report, but I can’t make out what it says from this distance.

“Rudy,” I call against the mic. “Could you turn that up for me?”

“It’s acoustic,” he reminds me helpfully.

I would laugh, but I don’t have the time right now. “No, the TV!”

Rudy makes an “ah!” face and turns, toggling a button on the television set. I pick up my guitar and swing my leg over the stool, coming into a stand.

“...is Blake Berringer, who most people now recognize as the English aristocrat who seriously wounded a young paparazzo by the name of Desmond Delago earlier this year.” A picture of the smiling nineteen-year-old boy, face and shoulder thoroughly bandaged, comes up on the screen. I wonder if that paparazzo, after this event, actually became a hunted celebrity like Blake for a while. Like myself...for a while, anyway. I know my fame is very temporary.

The screen flashes inexplicably to nighttime traffic, some road all lit up with glowing red break lights, no longer a picture. It’s a moving shot. It’s live. What’s going on?

“Likely in an effort to rehabilitate that classic bad boy, party boy image, Berringer accepted a starring role in the popular reality television show My Billionaire Bachelor, the fun-loving dating show featuring a new exotic location and gorgeous billionaire every season.”

My own face flashes across the screen at me, though I look wildly different than I do now. The picture they show is a candid, colorful image of me sitting outside of the women’s trailer, holding the very same guitar dangling from my hand now. In spite of the guitar, though, I do look different. I’m just a shade thicker in that picture, and my hair is thick and shoulder-length, black.

Even though I’m wearing the protective halo of a blonde wig right now, I still press my lips together and feel blood rush in my cheeks. I wish this topsy-turvy public life would be over, but I guess it never will, now that Blake and I will be together soon. This is his entire world. This is his life from front to back, cameras and questions outside his window, outside his car, outside his lunches and dates, and even outside of the hospital.

No wonder he snapped.

“Roxanne Meriweather, the My Billionaire Bachelor chief makeup artist, reportedly filled in for a contestant with salmonella in an episode called ‘Waterfalls,’ which created just a storm of curiosity about this couple.” Another image scrolls onto the screen: the background shot of us, showing just my legs and him on his hands and knees in front of me. “Followed by allegations of pregnancy. This is actually livestreaming video from a fan who is following the would-be suitor after he said, quote, ‘I’m about to introduce you to the winner of season six, everybody,’ end quote.”

Footage of My Billionaire Bachelor airs on the screen. It’s Blake with a girl, and even though I’m carrying his unborn child and I know he’s contracted to go on these dates, my gut still boils at the sight. She says something to him about being alone and being pregnant.

“They appear to be caught in gridlock traffic,” the anchor announces, and the camera flips back to her. Ugh. It’s Ellie K.K. I hate this bitch. She tweeted that I lied about being pregnant—which is how it looks, I guess. But I still don’t want people tweeting about my business. I’m lying about not-lying because of them to begin with. “This might be a significant development, considering the total disappearance of aforementioned Meriweather.”

A clip of Candace and Blake standing together pops up on the screen. I’ve already seen this clip a few times. Blake basically denies my pregnancy, and Candace tells them that I’ve been moved to another studio because the show isn’t about me.

The feed switches to the livestreaming video and some fan desperately chasing after Blake. It looks like he climbed out of the backseat of his taxi and is bolting down the bottlenecked street now. A cameraman runs behind him as fast as he can. The camera jostles so hard that it’s unbearable to watch. Cars flash around at odd angles, and the feed changes to huffing and puffing and pavement swishing in and out of view.

“The possibility that this is a total meltdown has been overlooked,” Ellie shrills excitedly, the camera changing back to her. “After all, Blake Berringer has always seemed, for lack of a better word, “tender” in front of the camera. Overly sensitive.” She smirks. “Maybe it’s finally time that Britain’s bad boy broke down. Before attacking Delago outside of an Essex hospital in early 2017, he was reportedly in the treatment center for opioid withdrawal.”

Several pictures of Blake in his party phase—eighteen through thirty-two, respectively—cross over the screen.

“Berringer himself declined to comment.”

He looks exhausted and too pale in many of the pictures, and an almost maternal instinct to cuddle with the former Blake comes yawning out of me.

Not that the old Blake would have cuddled with me.

Reformed Blake got me in bed so fast, I shudder to think of how quickly old Blake would have moved.

But I feel a funny little wiggle in my chest, and I think I might know where he’s headed.

I think I might know who is going to win season six.

For a moment, a chill hand clutches at my heart, and I think about the repercussions of this broadcast. I hope that the livestreaming fan can’t keep up with Blake; they sounded like they were really struggling. I pray that they lose the feed so the location of Fancy’s won’t be revealed, in case he actually is coming here.

I wouldn’t be able to stand having one more home infiltrated by some alien force.

I need to have somewhere I can call my own, after all.

My own home.

The fingers on my free hand move by sheer habit to my sternum, where Blake’s brass key has been resting for the past five years, give or take a few weeks.

I swallow as my fingertips brush bare skin. I still haven’t put it back on.

I guess a part of me is scared to believe in him.

“And it does appear that our loyal fangirl, right on Blake Berringer’s heels, has lost him in the traffic. Aw!” Ellie K.K. snaps her fingers without a trace of remorse and grins at the camera with dead eyes. “I guess we’ll have to tune in to tomorrow’s episode of My Billionaire Bachelor to figure out if Blake Berringer is really in love with anyone at all… or just high as balls!”

I gaze over at Rudy, and he shrugs, lifting bushy golden-reddish eyebrows at me. “You think he’s coming here?”

“Uh…” Every time I want to believe in something now, there’s this little voice inside me just begging me to hold back and not believe. “Um—I don’t know,” I say.

The front door crashes open, and I whirl with a gasp. The disinterested regulars watch the scene play out like it’s a television show they’re entering halfway through, if they watch at all. One of them mumbles that it’s Blake Berringer.

Blake shambles through the bar’s entry hall, gasping for breath and sweating profusely. He’s wearing a deep, royal blue suit and a black tie, of course. He reaches up and wrenches the tie loose around his neck, then kicks off his ruined Italian leather loafers.

He pulls in a deep, cleansing breath and draws himself tall again, proud in spite of what a mess he is. His hair is everywhere. He smells pungently of man. His muscles pull and tug on that poor silk shirt, threatening its life with every gesture.

“Blake,” comes soaring out of my mouth.

His eyes find mine across the room, and we’re moving toward each other like two magnetized particles. I pick my way between chairs while he shoves through them like this is a brawl, overcoming my delicate progress easily and sweeping me up into his arms.

His scent and his textures all swim over me immediately, immersing me like a forest, a night sky, a waterfall. I love him so much. He smells strongly of sweat and intoxicating botanical cologne. Wisps of his golden hair fall over my face as he embraces me, and I exhale into his hair, then smell his shampoo when I inhale. I can’t identify anything about it except that it’s his. That’s all I need for it to make my body ache.

He bends me backward, and his strong hands run down my back and hold me pressed to him. His fingers travel up and the weight of my wig disappears, the annoying, fake feeling hair sliding down my back and tumbling to the ground. I don’t even notice. I don’t even care right now. I haven’t seen him in weeks. My heart feels like it’s breaking, I’m so full of gratitude for his presence.

“Blake,” I breathe, peering up at him wonderingly. “What are you doing here?”

Blake steadies himself and pulls upright, as if he’s been drinking. It doesn’t even seriously occur to me, though, that Ellie K.K. might have been right about him being inebriated.

“I was just on a date,” Blake says.

“Always a turn-on,” I inform him smilingly.

“Shut up. I was with a girl named Roz, and we were heading toward this jazzy little coffeehouse where poets perform.”

“Trademark Americana,” I quip, unable to stop because I’m nervous.

Blake’s azure eyes crinkle. “Not really,” he tells me with a doting smile, “but it’s all right. A pregnant girl got up there, and I was watching her. I saw how small she was, how precious and vulnerable. And I thought about you.” His palm comes down and smooths over my lower abdomen, giving me butterflies. “With this new life inside you.”

I loosen under his touch, and everything slows down long enough for us to kiss. We luxuriate in it like this isn’t public, my hands sliding up into his thick hair and then down over the beastly muscles of his back. His tongue parts my lips, and then he lets me go, and we break for air, but do not break the embrace.

My whole body tingles. I know he feels it. I’m starting to think he has a psychic awareness of all seven of my erogenous zones.

“I can’t let the cameras control my life anymore,” Blake breathes against my ear.

He pulls away like he’s tormented, which is good, because I wouldn’t have paid attention to a damn word if he’d stayed on my ear like that. His hair is wilder now that my hands have been in it. His eyes are wild, too.

“A man is measured by his decisions,” Blake tells me, pointing.

“I didn’t say he isn’t,” I defend myself softly.

“And I’m a sovereign man. I know that Candace asked us to wait, and I almost made it.” He offers a lopsided grin. “I really almost made it, but I can’t wait one more goddamn day.” His fingers go over my body, from my stomach to my hips and up my back, remembering me. “How long has it been since I’ve been inside you?”

“Twenty-three days,” I answer solemnly.

“That ends tonight,” he promises me. “I need to be a man now more than ever. This is my calling. And I won’t allow my demons to make the decisions anymore. I got so used to handing my life over to other people… but no more. Not anymore.”

He hooks a hand lovingly around my neck and pulls me harder against him. I finger his tie and hunger for him.

“Now it’s just the two of us,” Blake says.

“The three of us,” I interject, beaming up at him.

“The three of us,” Blake corrects, gazing down at my tummy for an instant. He smiles back up at me. “Just the three of us, and no one else.”

“Unless we have more,” I add in a whisper.

“This is the way it should be,” Blake says, wrapping his arms around me and swaying. “Just you and me and our babies.”

He sweeps his arms up into the air, indicating the rest of the bar.

“And all of you fine people.”

“So, what are you saying?” I ask, giggling nervously. My heart feels too full to even comprehend what I think this is. “You’re quitting the show?”

Blake smiles wolfishly. “To be honest, I’m kind of winging it,” he confesses. “But I know that being here right now has nothing to do with that piece-of-shit show. Let’s get that one thing perfectly clear.”

He takes one of his cleansing breaths, pausing, then opens his eyes again.

“I don’t just want you to be my girlfriend,” he says. “I don’t want you to just be the mother of my child, either. Or children.”

He pauses, and we share a slow, knowing smile together.

His eyebrows jump a little. Maybe he’s realizing something. His blue eyes are back on me, and he descends to one knee.

“I want you to be my wife. I’m in love with you, Roxanne.”

My throat closes up instantly. I swallow because I’m about to start crying if I don’t swallow right now.

Someone barges into Fancy’s behind us, but I can’t be bothered to look. My eyes are fastened on Blake, even though everything is really blurry. I can feel the heat in my beet-red face. Thank god this isn’t happening in front of a camera…though, by now, maybe it is.

I wipe at my face, which feels wet and hot. Oh, I’m already crying. That’s why. Fantastic. I thought I was playing it moderately cool.

“You don’t mean that,” I blurt, subconsciously shaking my head, as if the answer is no.

“I do mean that,” Blake promises, coming up onto his feet. “You’re the only woman I want. I look at you, and the rest of the world just…” He spreads his fingers in the air. “Poof.”

I drag a gross breath through my clotted nostrils. “Come on now.”

“I want you like this,” he says, clenching his teeth and rubbing into me, like I’m being sexy right now. “Yeah. I want you with crazy hair all over the place, like it is when you first wake up.” He leans closer and growls against my lips, “The way it is when you come.” He pulls in a shuddering breath and gazes deep into my eyes. “I want you raw,” he explains. “I want you real. Because that’s what I am to you, too. That’s what we are when we’re together. I want to marry you, Roxanne.”

He gets back down on one knee and raises his eyebrows at me hopefully. “I want to fucking marry you. For real. Marry me.”

I laugh and look down at the ground. My teeth sink into my lower lip, and I can’t hide my giddiness. The answer is written all over my face.

I’m so brimming with happiness that I see the cameraman from My Billionaire Bachelor, but I don’t even think anything about it. I don’t even really see him.

I only see Blake.

I cover my hands with my mouth, like I’m still scared, yet I yell the word, “Yes!” I jump up and down. “Okay, yes!”

“Yes?” Blake repeats for confirmation, coming to a full stand and sweeping me into his arms immediately. I’m still trying to jump up and down, but now I hit against his body like it’s a warm, soft mountain. “Yes?!”

I slow to a stop and gaze up at him.

He’s looking back down at me.

“Yes,” I repeat gently. “Yes.”

He takes me in his arms again, and I still haven’t logically thought about that cameraman filming everything. Every little thing, from the marquee out in front of Fancy’s to the specials board with the name emblazoned on the front.

I love my new husband so much. Nothing could possibly stop me now.

The room around us breaks out into a light smattering of honestly half-hearted applause, but someone does offer up a “Woo, Sheila!”

“Mm. Who’s Sheila?” Blake wonders dreamily. I curl into him and inhale him, and my entire body calms, like I’m the baby now.