Chelsea had just jumped out of the shower when her cellphone rang. Seeing it was Ryan Baron, she debated for a moment whether or not to answer. It seemed wrong to care about her career at this moment. She felt like all of her mental energy should go to finding Jamie. But, at the same time, she had asked a lot of her label and spending five minutes on the phone with Ryan seemed like a fair price to pay.
“Hey,” Chelsea said into the phone as she finished dressing.
“Hey, I just thought I would check up on you. I didn’t hear from you at all yesterday.”
“Yeah, this family thing is still going on,” Chelsea said. She felt herself choking up and she cursed her constant tears. Why couldn’t she just get ahold of herself? All of this crying wasn’t doing anyone any good, it certainly wasn’t helping Jamie.
“Are you crying, Chelsea?” Ryan asked and his question sounded sincere.
“No,” Chelsea said letting out a sob. “I’m just a mess at the moment, but I’m trying to get it together.”
“It’s okay,” Ryan answered. “You can cry. You don’t need to be perfect or strong all the time. You’re allowed to show some weakness.”
“No, not now I can’t. I need to be strong.”
“You can’t be strong every moment of the day, Chelsea,” Ryan said, “and if there’s one time that you’re allowed to cry and be vulnerable, it’s when you’re talking to me.”
“Thanks,” Chelsea said. It was possibly the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her and Chelsea was grateful for it. Maybe this fake relationship with Ryan wouldn’t be that bad.
“Do you want to talk to me about it?”
“I can’t,” Chelsea said. But surprisingly she wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell him everything that had happened. But then she reminded herself that she had never actually met Ryan Baron and she wasn’t sure what his intentions were. At this moment he was just a nice voice on the phone, but anyone could be that.
“Can’t or won’t?” he challenged.
“Both, I guess,” Chelsea answered. “I know that’s vague and not very helpful, but it’s the truth. There is just some family stuff that I have to deal with. Hopefully it’ll turn out to be nothing, but I still need to give it my full attention.”
“I totally understand,” Ryan said. “I’m kind of the same way. When I’m prepping for a role I get really method and really into it. It’s a lot and some people can’t handle it. But when I’m in the part, I’m all in, no distractions of any kind, I give it my all.”
“Right,” Chelsea said as she rolled her eyes. It wasn’t fair, though. Ryan had no idea that he was comparing acting in a movie to dealing with a real life kidnapping attached to real life fighting pits. Still, it did make him sound a little ridiculous. Chelsea could hear Blue in the kitchen and she was impatient to join him. “Look, I am sorry about this, but I have to go.”
“Of course, babe. No problem. I’ll talk to you later.
Babe? Chelsea thought as she ended the call. She shook her head and walked into the kitchen. Blue was slouched down in a chair the paper in front of him. Chelsea looked at the paper as she walked closer to him and her eyes went wide.
Local Singer and Superstar Chelsea Riley Dating A-Lister Ryan Baron.
“Wow,” Chelsea said, walking past Blue, “only like two things in that headline are true.”
“Is that right?” Blue asked. Chelsea could hear the anger in his voice and she turned around to look at him. “This article says you’re confirming the relationship and you’ve been leaning on Ryan for months now. Who the fuck is Ryan?”
“It’s not like that,” Chelsea said quickly. “We’ve never even met. It’s just a thing our publicists set up.”
“What?”
“It’s normal,” Chelsea said with a shrug. “They use pretend relationships to put stars on the cover of magazines and in gossip columns. This reminds the public that the person exists so when their movie or album comes out, people will know about it and go to it.”
“And you’re doing that?” Blue demanded. “I can’t believe you, Chelsea.”
“It’s part of the game. Either you play it or you starve. Besides, the ten million offer was only if the relationship with Ryan happened and I know how bad that sounds,” Chelsea said. “But it’s just...” she searched for the word, but couldn’t come up with it, “it’s a thing people do. It’s part of the job.
“What job?” Blue demanded.
“Don’t do that,” Chelsea counted. “It’s pretend. It’s just another story fed to the press. It doesn’t cost me anything and it gets me everything I want. Why wouldn’t I do it?”
Blue nodded. He was standing now with his hands on his hips and he looked up from the floor right into Chelsea’s eyes. “So what does that make me?”
Chelsea opened her mouth and closed it as she searched for the words. “I don’t know,” she finally blurted out. “But you were complaining about the paparazzi and stardom. I didn’t know if you were in this for the long haul. There’s also the issue of our parents getting married. Don’t pretend like this has been simple; this has been complicated from the start.”
“At least I’m honest with myself,” Blue said. “I want to be with you, Chelsea. Not the superstar Chelsea Riley, but the one I know, the one who made me use humane mouse traps and couldn’t pass an algebra class to save her life. I don’t want to pretend and I don’t want to lie.”
“I want to be with you,” Chelsea said. “But it’s complicated. There are millions of dollars at stake on my career and I can’t just do whatever I want. Not yet.”
Blue shook his head and stalked out of the kitchen and Chelsea closed her eyes and slumped down into a chair. What was she supposed to do? She loved Blue and she wanted to be with him. But her career was everything to her. Chelsea had gambled every last cent she had on a music career. There was nothing else she wanted to do. Was she really going to throw it all away for some guy?
Blue came back in the kitchen with his jacket on. “We’re going to Club Hell; I know one of the bouncers there. He might have some info,” Blue said.
Chelsea looked up at him. There was so much she wanted to say, but she didn’t know her own mind at the moment. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted and so what was the point of arguing.
It was early when they got to Club Hell. At that hour they didn’t need to pay a cover and they walked right through the front door and into the grimy club. Welcome to Hell! Declared a red banner that hung over the bar. The walls were painted a dark red and the floors were black, the lights were low and in the middle of the morning the place felt dark. Even at this early hour there were people drinking and smoking.
“Hey, beautiful,” a woman said as she swept past Chelsea and looked her up and down. Chelsea had never been here before. She and her sister had always been to scared to go and it looked like with good reason.
“My buddy’s upstairs,” Blue said into Chelsea’s ear and he took her by the hand and pulled her through the club. There wasn’t one main dance floor, but instead a bunch of rooms that connected to each other. Each time Chelsea would be sure they were almost there only to find herself in another room. Each room had its own color, from the walls to the light bulbs. One room was blue, another a soft yellow and on and on they went.
Chelsea was trying to keep up with Blue when a strong-looking tattooed man in a leather jacket brushed passed her. He stopped in his tracks and turned around reaching out to put his hand around Chelsea’s waist. She was too shocked to do anything, but Blue was fast and he struck out and shoved the man, pushing him a few steps back.
“Back off,” Blue seethed, taking Chelsea by the hand and moving past the man.
Chelsea’s heart was pounding and she looked up at him, but his eyes were staring straight ahead. Finally, they reached a stairwell and they climbed all the way to the top where a tall thin man was watching video feeds of the various dance rooms.
“Yo, Blue,” the man said as he jumped up from his seat and walked over to them clapping Blue on the shoulder.
“How you living, Ernest?” Blue asked. “Your leg giving you any trouble?”
“I’m good, man. The leg don’t hurt too bad. The boss gave me a stool to sit on and that helps.”
“Me and Ernest met at the hospital,” Blue said. “But he was worse off than I was.”
“IUD took my leg from the knee down,” Ernest explained, pulling up his pant leg to show Chelsea the gleaming white prosthetic underneath.
“Why were you in the hospital?” Chelsea asked Blue.
“Rocket blast sent me flying. I broke a couple of ribs, nothing too bad,” Blue said with a shrug.
“You never mentioned it,” Chelsea replied. She couldn’t help but feel hurt that Blue hadn’t told her. He hadn’t told her anything about his time in the Army, just that it had been hard. He was so closed off and hard to read. Chelsea wished she could read his mind and flip through his memories like they were a pages in a book.
“So the fight’s in two days at the abandoned mall,” Earnest said.
“We know that, but who are the sponsors.”
“Okay,” Ernest said, looking around the room, “but this is a favor and you don’t tell anyone, and you didn’t hear it from me. The sponsors are these new guys out of Detroit. I guess the market there dried up and they’ve scattered across the country. They have a lot of money, like a lot. But they’re nasty. The fights are brutal.”
“How do you get in contact with them?” Blue asked.
“Don’t you know?” Ernest asked. “Your dad is their contact man.”