Chapter Fifteen
“Why are there bruises on your wrists?” Billy asked as I looked over the lunch menu.
I had arrived back in Vegas around noon local time. Billy had picked me up at the airport and invited me to the hotel restaurant.
“Long story,” I replied.
“I have time to listen; I’ve got nothing else to do today.”
“I don’t feel like talking about it right now.”
“If this is a sex thing with Cal, I don’t want to hear about it.” He had a disgusted look on his face.
I didn’t want to tell him about it. I was worried he would take out Cal; of course, that might not have been a bad thing.
I put my menu down and gazed out the restaurant windows. It was a clear, sunny day in Las Vegas and I realized how much happier I was sitting with Billy than I had been the entire weekend with Cal.
“So?” Billy asked. “Was it a sex thing? Did you get your freak on this weekend with restraints?” He laughed. I’m sure he thought he was being funny.
“I was restrained for sure.” I was feeling a bit ashamed about what had happened, but mostly I was pissed off. “But it certainly wasn’t consensual.”
Billy put his menu down and the smile immediately left his face.
“What do you mean?”
I put my worries aside and relayed the story of what had transpired that morning, even Cal’s proposal in the car.
“Did he—”
“No.” I cut him off, knowing the question.
“I’m still going to kill him.”
“No, you are not going to send your cronies after him.”
“Who said anything like that?” Billy cracked his knuckles. “I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”
“I head butted him, that’s enough for now.”
“Are you okay?” Billy changed gears and focused on me.
“I was pretty shaken up when I was on the plane, but now I’m just angry.” I held his gaze. “Thank you for asking.”
“You’re welcome.” He smiled, and the excited butterflies returned to my stomach. I realized then that Billy may have his issues but he was so much more of a gentleman than Cal had ever dreamt of being.
“You know you have to dump him,” Billy stated after the waiter had taken our orders.
“I know, I just need to find the right time.”
“I’m thinking now might be a good time.”
“I don’t want to fly all the way back there now.”
“Why would you go back?” Billy had a confused expression.
“To dump him face to face. It’s wrong to end a two-year relationship by phone. It’s not respectful.”
“What he did this morning was?”
“Touché,” I said, looking away.
“Listen, after lunch I have to go to the set for a meeting with the camera crew. Why don’t you come with me? Then we can sit down and figure out what you should do,” Billy suggested, he was leaned across the table gently stroking my fingers.
“Yeah, okay, I forgot a few things in my trailer when I stormed off the set. I’ll just wait for you in there.”
“I shouldn’t be too long.”
“Maybe I’ll call Cal. Perhaps it was a just a misunderstanding.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Billy sounded as convinced as I was by that.
***
After lunch, we went to the film set.
I went to my trailer while Billy went to his meeting. Waiting for Billy, I sat on the couch and began to think about Cal and what to do. After a few minutes of deliberation, I decided that maybe it was just a big misunderstanding and felt the need to talk to him.
“Babe, what do you want? I’m busy,” Cal answered.
“That’s nice.” All my anger came rushing back. He infuriated me. “Is that how you answer the phone when I call?”
Cal took a big sigh, like he was aggravated.
“Listen,” I pressed on. “I think we should talk about what happened this morning.”
“Talk about what?” he bitterly asked. “The blue bruise on my forehead or the blue balls you left me with.”
God, he was such a jerk, it was always about him.
“You know, Cal, you left me with some pretty bad bruises on my wrists too.”
“Yeah, well, that’s how I like it and you should’ve just gone along with it.”
I’d had enough and my anger got the better of me. Out of frustration, I picked up a book lying on the table and threw it across the trailer.
“Do you know me at all?” I yelled into the phone. “When have you ever known me to allow you to control me in any way? I may have tolerated your stupidity in the past but not anymore.”
“My stupidity? That’s rich coming from you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I started pacing around the trailer too outraged to sit down.
“You do stupid things all the time with that Billy friend of yours.” The volume of his voice matched mine.
“Like what?”
“Too many things to list.”
“Try,” I challenged him.
As he started listing off nothing in particular, I noticed a shadow hanging around outside the trailer door. I pushed the door open violently to tell the person to mind their own damn business when I found Billy eavesdropping. I waved for him to come inside.
“Is that Cal?” he whispered as he sat on the couch. I nodded in response and then turned my back on him.
“Okay, enough, nothing in that list made any sense.” I cut Cal off and I took a deep breath. “Cal, it’s over,” I calmly announced.
“Over? What do you mean over?” Cal angrily asked.
“Us. We are over, our relationship is done. It has been for weeks now, you must’ve known.” I was relieved to finally have it out in the open with him.
Cal was silent on the other end of the phone.
“You can’t tell me you haven’t known.” I softly said, filling the silence.
“You’re dumping me?” he quietly asked. “You can’t dump me, no one dumps me.” He began to yell, angrily.
He was so arrogant it infuriated me even more and I knew I had made the right decision.
“Yes, well, I am.”
“Oh yeah, princess,” Cal began. I was really starting to hate when people called me that. “I should probably tell you then that I’ve been fucking Brianna Thompson for the past six months.” He began to laugh manically.
I whipped around and made eye contact with Billy who gave me a confused look.
“What did you just say?” I demanded of Cal.
“You heard me.”
“You’ve been cheating on me with Brianna for the last six months?” Billy’s eyes widened and his eyebrows flew up in shock.
“Did I also mention she’s three months pregnant, with my baby?”
I doubled over as if I had been punched in the stomach. Billy jumped up in reaction even though he didn’t know what Cal had said to me.
“When were you going to tell me that?” I stood back up, the initial shock over and hatred flaring through me.
“I just did.” Cal annunciated each word slowly.
I was going to kill him, if Billy didn’t get to him first.
“Another thing,” Cal continued. “Since we are no longer together, I want my ring back.”
“What ring? You never gave me a ring.” I spat back.
“I didn’t? I must’ve given that to Brianna.”
I was going to go through the phone and strangle him.
“What did I give you then?” he stupidly asked.
“You gave me a watch.”
“Oh, that’s right. That was an expensive watch, I want it back.”
“It was a gift, you can’t have it back.” I furiously answered.
Billy began shaking his head as if in disbelief.
“I don’t care if it was a gift, it is a fifty-three thousand dollar, limited edition, platinum, diamond encrusted Rolex and I want it back.” He couldn’t just say it was a Rolex, he was such an ass.
I looked at the watch on my wrist and said my next words clearly so he would understand.
“You want this watch back? Then come and get it. I fucking dare you.” I hung up the phone.
Billy continued to shake his head.
“Did he really just ask for the watch back?” he asked as I slipped the watch off my wrist and placed it flat on the table.
“Yup,” I absently responded as I ducked out of the trailer door.
Outside there were several people constructing new set designs.
“Excuse me,” I called to one of the guys. “Would I be able to borrow your hammer for a second?”
“What are you doing?” Billy asked anxiously.
I ignored his question as I thanked the construction worker. I went over to the table and raised it above my head.
“Don’t,” Billy yelled.
“Why not?” I stopped, hammer mid-air.
“I know Cal is an asshole, but guy code won’t allow me to let you do this. That’s a really expensive watch.”
“Yes, it is.” I mimicked Cal’s smarmy voice. “It’s a fifty-three thousand dollar, limited edition, platinum, diamond encrusted, Rolex.”
“Exactly,” Billy plead. “You shouldn’t break it.”
“Even if I told you Brianna is three months pregnant?”
He took a step backwards as if I had hit him.
“I did not know that.”
I raised the hammer again.
“Wait,” he yelled again, with his hand held up in a stop motion.
I stopped and gave him an aggravated look, but he didn’t see it as he was rummaging around in one of the cabinet drawers.
He came out with a plastic shopping bag and put it on the table, placing the watch inside.
“What are you doing?” I asked, befuddled.
“You start smashing that and we’ll be picking little pieces of diamonds out of the carpeting for months,” he explained. “This way it’s contained inside the bag.”
“Hunh, smart.” I was impressed.
I began viciously smashing the watch into a million little pieces. Every time I took another swing at it, I imagined it was both Cal and Brianna’s heads but mostly Cal’s.
Once I finished, I opened the bag to see the damage.
“You beat the shit out of that thing.” It was Billy’s turn to be impressed, he began to laugh. “Remind me not to piss you off.”
“What is going on in here?” My assistant, Mandy, asked as she came running into the trailer.
“Mandy, I didn’t know you were here today,” I said.
“I had to pick up next weeks’ scenes for you so I was coming here to drop them off for tomorrow.”
“Well I’m glad you’re here.” I rolled the bag and pieces of dead watch into a ball and put a knot at the top. “Can you do me a favor, please, and have this shipped to Cal in Miami,” I handed her the bag.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s a fifty-three thousand dollar, limited edition, diamond encrusted, platinum Rolex watch.” Billy echoed Cal’s description.
“Why is it in a million pieces?”
“Because his girlfriend of the past six months,” Billy explained, over my shoulder, “is three months pregnant.”
Mandy looked gobsmacked, mouth open, eyes wide in disbelief, but she recovered quickly.
“I’ll send this out right away,” she coolly answered, and left with the bag.
“I wish I could be there to see his face when he opens that,” Billy laughed.
“Me too,” I replied, but didn’t laugh. Instead, I began to cry. The enormity of everything and the betrayal I felt hit me at that moment.
“Come here, I got you.” Billy wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into his chest while I sobbed all over his shirt.
“Can I hurt him now?” he asked after I had cried myself out.
“Absolutely not,” I responded, wiping tears away with a tissue Billy handed to me. “If anyone is going to hurt him, I am.”
“As long as I can help.” He pushed a lock of my hair behind my ear. “In all seriousness, what do you want to do about this?”
“Nothing,” I answered, realizing that if I said anything it would give Billy the green light to speak with Sonny.
I really wanted to hurt him myself.
“Something has to be done. He can’t get away with this.”
An evil smile spread across my face, but I said nothing.
“Oh.” He understood immediately. “You mean nothing right now, but perhaps later?”
I continued to smile.
“That’s my girl.” He pulled me into a hug.
“Oh my God,” I burst out, and pulled away from him. “Someone has to tell Leah before she plans the entire wedding.”
“Not me,” Billy and I erupted at the same time.