Chapter 6
Hot pursuit
I have no idea where I should take my comatose passenger.
It’s about half an hour since we left the marina — surely by now the partying celebs will have discovered that their guest of honour has gone AWOL? I hope like heck they also discovered his note and haven’t initiated an official search and rescue for him. If they check on shore, they’ll surely hear all about the commotion of fans and how Logan Rush was driven off by a young woman. Will they think I’ve kidnapped him?
Trying to get away from the cars following us, I take a series of turns and wind up in an unfamiliar and derelict industrial area on the outskirts of Cape Town. The one-way road is three lanes wide, lit by the sulphurous yellow of streetlights, and mostly deserted. Two homeless men argue drunkenly at an intersection, and I hurry on. In a quiz with the question “By whom would you prefer to be accosted, late at night, on a deserted street? (a) Two intoxicated hobos, (b) An armed car hijacker, or (c) A pack of rabid Rushers,” I would choose (d) None of the above.
I’ve got to find a safe place to park until Logan wakes up and is sober enough to give me a clue as to where I should take him. Plus, I need to shake off our tail of fans and paparazzi before we pick up even more in the city. A glance in the rear-view mirror confirms that another couple of cars have already joined the procession.
One of Zeb’s favourite sayings is, “We only chase the ones that run.”
Are the fans and photogs only following because we’re trying to escape? If I give them a proper chance to see Logan and calmly take pictures of him, maybe they’ll behave politely and then go on their way and leave us be.
Yeah, and maybe pigs will grow wings and fly.
The traffic lights ahead turn amber. I’ll have to stop. Is there any way I can turn the tables on my pursuers?
I speed up to the lights, now red, and wrench the wheel around to park us sideways across the road’s three lanes with my door facing our oncoming entourage. I yank up the handbrake and, with the engine still running, get out of the car to face them, closing the door behind me and raising my hands in a stop gesture. The other cars pull up to a halt, and expectant faces stick out of windows.
“Come see,” I call loudly, beckoning them closer.
One photographer and a couple of fans climb out of their cars.
“Come on, quick! He’s asleep in the car. You can take some pictures.”
As soon as the first few race over towards us, phones and cameras held at the ready, the rest scramble out of their cars to follow suit. Just as I hoped, now that they’ve been given permission to intrude, they drop all the hysterics and walk over quietly to stand clustered at my side of the car. The lead girl bends down to peep in through the window of my closed door and asks politely, “May we? May we take pictures?”
“Yes, of course. Can everyone see? Is everyone close enough?”
They’re all out of their cars now, clustered close by and chattering excitedly.
“He’s there — in the car!”
“It’s really him!”
“She’s going to let us take pics.”
“Aww, my battery’s flat!”
The traffic lights change to green. A bald, gum-chewing paparazzo with a narrow, ferret face steps right up to me.
“We can’t see through metal, lady. Or through you.”
“Of course,” I say with what I hope is a disarming smile. “I’m sorry. Here, let me get the door for you.”
I turn to open the car door and, in the same movement, fling myself into my seat, release the brake, and screech off down the intersecting road.
“Go, go, go!” I yell at my car, slamming my foot down flat on the accelerator.
The engine whines a loud protest, but the crowd isn’t on my tail. Yet. The red light probably won’t stop them, but they’ll still have to run back to their cars, get inside, and start their engines. If I can just find a good side road, somewhere … somewhere — there!
I careen into a dark street which curves out of sight of the main road, and turn up the first open driveway I see, speeding past gates dangling off broken hinges and down the dark driveway beyond. The ghostly white of my headlights illuminates tall Cypress trees growing on either side. Fifty metres in, I cut the engine, switch off the lights, slide down in my seat and sit still, panting as hard as though I’ve just outrun a chainsaw-wielding maniac.
Beside me, Logan still sleeps as deeply as a dead man. My crazy stunt-woman driving must have flung him around some, but it hasn’t woken him. He looks so peaceful that I poke him in the ribs to check he’s still alive, and relax when he grunts then hiccups. I feast my eyes on his face. No two ways about it, the boy is a looker — despite the purple lump now visible on the top of his forehead.
Incredibly, impossibly, he’s even more attractive in person than on the screen. He’s the real-life embodiment of everything I’ve ever learned about him. And I have learned pretty much all there is to know about him.
Logan Rush. Age: 20. Nationality: American. Height: 6 ft. 1 inch (which my online converter tells me is 1,85 metres). Foot size: 10. Hair: black. Eyes: blue.
The websites don’t give details of the exact shade of his eyes — plain old ‘blue’ is good enough for them. But not for me. Zeb can call me obsessive all he wants, but when it comes to Logan Rush, I believe accuracy is important. I’ve studied the movies and photographs, and I think his eyes are a deep cobalt blue. Deep enough to hold secrets. Deep enough to fall into.
The last time I watched Beast: Sun, forcing Zeb to watch with me, I’d pressed freeze-frame on a close-up of those eyes and saw that the blue of his irises was rimmed with a darker outline. I sighed and stared, batting away Zeb’s hands as he scrabbled for the remote control.
“He has beautiful eyes, admit it,” I insisted.
“They probably exaggerate them using CGI.”
“What?”
“Computer graphics imagery. His six-pack is probably CG-enhanced, too.”
“It is not.”
I forwarded the movie to the point where Logan peeled off his shirt, about to transform into a tiger, and studied his form.
Phwaor! (I may or may not have said that aloud.)
“Yup, photoshopped. Definitely,” said Zeb. “Or maybe it’s body paint.”
“Cynical much?” I said. “You just don’t want to admit that you think he’s hot, too.”
“Do not.”
“Do too.”
“I prefer the other one — with the blonde hair and dimples. Is he in the next scene?” Zeb said. He snatched the remote, and then we were looking at the fair-haired villain.
“I love Logan Rush.” I said it every time I watched one of his movies, and I meant it.
“You don’t love him — you don’t even know him!” Zeb objected.
“I do,” I said stubbornly. “I know he has a younger sister who lives with their mother in Atlanta, Georgia, in the States, and that when he was just seven years old, his father died in a car crash and they were left penniless. Poor little thing. His first acting role was as Peter Pan in a sixth-grade school production.”
I knew everything there was to know about his rags-to-riches story. I even knew he had a crooked baby toe on his right foot from when he’d pulled a sewing machine onto himself at the tender age of eight. (Where was his mother — the negligent woman? He might have killed himself!)
“You know what his publicity department puts out — that’s not the same thing as knowing him. He could be gay for all you know. He probably is.”
“Wouldn’t change how I feel about him,” I say loftily. “And, for your information, we have loads in common.”
Zeb laughed out loud at that. “Like what? You’re eighteen — just — and he’s what? Twenty-five?”
“He’s not even twenty! That’s a difference of less than two measly years.”
“Both your parents are still alive, you live in South Africa while he lives in the USA, plus there’s that little fact of him being a massive movie star and you’re Miss Nobody just finishing high school!” He batted away the popcorn I threw at him. “To me, it seems like you have nothing in common.”
“Well, that goes to show how little you know.”
Like Logan, I also had a sister. Four of them, actually. I was also passionate about ecology — I figured he must be, given the subjects of his movies. I had a dog and so did Logan. Mine was a mongrel called Lobster. His was a beagle called Toffee that he’d adopted as a puppy from an animal shelter four years ago. Awww!
“A dozen magazines have crowned him the ‘Sexiest Man Alive,’” I told Zeb. “He’s also ranked #1 on Movie Newz’s ‘Hottest actors under 25’ and been Teen Screen’s ‘Hottest Heartthrob’ for the last three years in a row. They call him the Prince of Hollywood.”
“Romy,” cried Zeb. “I’ll admit he’s the hottest star in the freaking Milky Way if you just stop talking about him. Please!”
Zeb looked to be near breaking point, so I’d eased up on the public raving about Logan. But I didn’t stop dreaming about him in private.
It feels like I’m still dreaming now as I sit beside him, watching him sleep. I study him in the faint light, feature by 3D feature. His hands have long fingers and surprisingly slender wrists. His jaw, shadowed with slight stubble, is squarer than it looks on-screen, and his face leaner. His slanted brows are the same pitch-black as his hair, which he wears just a touch too long, and his eyelashes are impossibly long. Lashes like that are totally wasted on guys.
I wish I could pry open an eyelid and check the precise colour of his irises. But mostly what my hands long to do is to touch him. Gently. To smooth back the thick lock of hair that flops over his forehead when he shifts in his seat, to trace the line of his cheekbones, to test the pressure of his lips.
My hand is halfway to his face when I check myself. It’s not okay to caress people when they’re practically unconscious. I remember his attempts to evade all the touching and invasion of his personal space on the yacht. Poor guy, people are probably always trying to get a hold of him — mere mortals wanting to touch a god. I’ve read accounts of fans snatching at his clothes and even yanking hairs out of his head. No, it wouldn’t be right to touch, no matter how seriously tempted I am. And I am seriously tempted.
I tuck my hands under my arms and force myself to look away. Tilting the rear-view mirror, I check behind us and see the lights of a car slowly cruising past along the road, but no one has followed us up the driveway. I reckon I’ve shaken our tail. Still, it’s probably a good idea to hide out here for a little longer. Then it occurs to me that I have no idea where ‘here’ is.
From my position sunk down low in the seat, all I can see out of the window are the low-hanging, shadowy-leafed branches of a tree. I raise my head just a few inches and peep out.
In the dim light, I see an angel, pure white and draped in robes, with wings outstretched towards me.
I jerk bolt upright and stare around, my eyes taking in the shadowy details — the angel mounted on a massive stone plinth; the rows of marble headstones and stone crosses; the badly mown grass, plastic floral arrangements, and in a grassy patch just next to where we’re parked, the deep rectangular hole with a mound of loose earth alongside.
I’ve driven us straight into the dead centre of town.