Chapter 7
We had planned to stay in LA through Monday, but when we arrive at the hotel, Blitz gets on the phone with his travel agent and manages to book a flight for that evening.
“I’m sick of this city,” he says as he tosses clothes into a suitcase. “Everybody is in it for fame and glory and nobody cares about anybody else.”
I walk carefully around him, picking up my own things and painstakingly folding them in a perfect arrangement in my bag. I know he doesn’t want to do the show anymore. I’m with him on that. But something about the finalists is really getting to him.
We’ve really only been together a couple of months. I’m not sure how to handle the rage version of Blitz. I wonder how much of him I haven’t really seen.
“We have lots of time before we have to leave,” I say. “Sit with me.”
Blitz sighs and plops onto the bed next to me. “I’m sorry, Livia. I’m not doing so well with people forcing me to make long-term commitments I don’t want.”
“It’s all right,” I say. “That would get to anybody.” I hold on to his hand. “What is so bad about doing the show?”
“It would be a huge fake,” he says. “I would have to dance with those girls and pretend to be considering them. It was hard enough when I was half-interested in a few of them. It will be impossible now.”
He presses his fingers against his eyes like he’s tired. “I’ve made my own bed here. I know it.”
“Giselle really made you mad,” I say. “Big-time mad.”
“She’s the queen of manipulation,” he says, his voice edgy. “I don’t even know what she wants, just to be noticed, to make headlines, or what. It definitely isn’t me. She was banging half the crew and trying to get in the pants of Tom.”
“Tom?”
“The red-faced producer who threatened to sue.”
“Oh, that lovely man.”
“Right. He’s trying to show he has balls by pushing me around. I’m sure she was probably blowing him in the bathroom before the meeting started.”
“If all that is true, then they should be happy wrestling the show from you and leaving us out of it. Let the girls have their revenge auditions for male dancers of their own.”
“I don’t know if they’ll go for it. The first season of The Bachelorette killed it, but after that, it just dropped like a stone.”
“Well, then they should kill it with these girls, right? First season.” I stand up, pacing the room. “It’s perfect. Lots of drama. Dancing. Scandal. We don’t need to have anything to do with it!”
Blitz leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. “There’s a lot of money at stake here,” he says. “A huge show. I don’t know what they’ll do.”
I can see he’s had enough. I kneel down in front of him and slip my fingers around the back of his neck. His muscles are in knots. “We’ll get through this,” I say. “It seems big, but it’s not in your heart, you know? It’s just business and career.” I press my hand against his chest. “It’s not going to affect what’s in here.”
He lifts his head and presses his palm on top of my hand. “You’re right. How can we even worry about something as silly as a TV show when we have wheelchair ballerinas to train, and a little girl to watch grow up?”
“Their class is on Valentine’s Day,” I say. “I thought we could buy them all red sparkle sticks to dance with and take home.”
He kisses my hand. “That sounds perfect.” His eyes meet mine, dark and expressive. I can picture the camera close-ups from his show, how millions of women swooned over this very look. But it’s real now. It’s mine.
His mouth shifts into a mischievous grin. “Are you still going to love me when I’m sued into poverty and can’t afford sparkle sticks for dancers?”
“Of course,” I say. “I think when I showed up here in LA for that finale I had nothing but a backpack with a change of clothes.”
“It’s true,” he says, pulling me to him so that our foreheads touch. “Not even a toothbrush.”
“Also true,” I say. “Just don’t ask me to live with your parents.”
He laughs. “Hell, no,” he says. “I’ll teach dance lessons to Weeza before I resort to that.”
God, Weeza. She was a dancer from San Antonio who had called Blitz a sellout.
“We’ll be fine,” I say. “We better go or we’ll miss that plane.”
“Find your sunglasses,” Blitz says. “We had a very public day and we’re about to get on a commercial flight with the good citizens of California. We’re bound to be spotted.”
I pull a pair from my bag and slip them on. “I’m all over the incognito,” I say.
Blitz pulls me onto his lap. “I could not get through all this without you,” he says.
I kiss his ear. “You wouldn’t be in all this mess without me,” I say. “You’d just do the show.”
“No way,” he says. Then, “Well, okay, maybe. I guess I’d be pretending to plan a wedding with Mariah right now.”
“I knew it!” I squeal. “She was the one!”
“You didn’t think I would pick Giselle, did you?” he asks.
“I’m glad you didn’t pick anybody.”
“I’m supremely glad you chose me,” he says.
There’s a knock at the door.
“Here for our bags,” Blitz says ruefully, looking over the unpacked disaster from all the activity that morning with wardrobe and makeup.
He sets me down and goes to the door. “Tell housekeeping to send some people up to pack all this and have it shipped,” he tells the man outside. “We’re traveling light.”
Blitz turns to me and waves me over. I grab my purse and shift the sunglasses on my head. At the last minute, I grab a scarf from a box on the wardrobe rack.
“Good call,” Blitz says, and rummages through a plastic bin. He produces a newsboy cap and sticks it jauntily on his head. “Very not me,” he says.
“Adorable,” I tell him.
We pass by the man, who nods at us, and head downstairs to find our driver and move on to the airport. I can’t wait to put LA behind us.
When we get downstairs, though, it’s a different car.
“Well, hell,” Blitz says when he sees the dusky blue Jaguar. “I guess that answers one question.”
I hang on to his arm as a man in a cowboy hat gets out and walks around to open the back door.
“I’ve seen this car before,” I say, right as I remember where. It’s in all the pictures on all the dates of Blitz and the contestants. It’s his car.
“Come on, now, don’t waste any more time,” the man says in a deep Texas drawl. “You gotta flight to catch.”
Blitz hesitates, then lets me loose so he can shake the man’s hand. They thump each other heartily on the back.
I don’t recognize him. But Blitz turns around and gestures to him. “It’s probably about high time you met my best friend and bodyguard. Livia, this is Duke.”
“Nice to finally see you in person,” Duke says, extending a hand.
“You actually exist,” I say. “I’ve heard about you.”
“All bad, I’m sure,” Duke says.
“What are you doing here?” Blitz asks.
Duke grins. “Hannah’s stooges checked up on me, figuring I was selling your half-used bars of soap on the black market.”
“Were you?”
“Hell, no, you ain’t worth a plugged nickel now that you’re practically hitched.” He winks at me. “Anyway, they said I better resume my duties or I was fired. I came on down to see what’s what with you.”
“Holed up in the hometown,” Blitz says. “Trying to get away from a pissed-off public.”
“I saw you kissed a pig at a rodeo,” Duke says with a laugh. Behind the blue Jaguar, a limo pulls up and honks. “Assholes,” Duke says, then he calls out, “Your celebrity ain’t any bigger than my celebrity!”
“It’s all right,” Blitz says. He leads me to the door and I duck inside.
As I slide across the seat, I remember what Blitz told me early on about all the cameras installed inside. He’d bought a new car to drive to Texas to avoid unauthorized footage of him.
I look around anxiously. I don’t spot anything obvious.
Blitz closes his door. He also glances at the ceiling, floor, and doors.
“Would we know if we’re being recorded?” I ask.
“Nope,” Blitz says. “Although I know there was one here.” He pushes a button on a rectangle of metal in the ceiling and a screen pops down. Loose wires spring out.
Duke gets in the car and slams his door. He glances back as he buckles up and says, “Oh, I scrubbed the car. No cameras.”
“You just jerked them out?” Blitz asks, stuffing the wires back against the screen to close the lid.
“Pretty much,” Duke says. “I didn’t do your place, though. That’s wired so hot you’ll probably have to level it to get them all.”
Blitz sits back. “I’ll just sell it,” he says. “I’ll need the money anyhow.”
Duke pulls away from the hotel. “That Giselle chick sue your ass into oblivion or what?”
“Nah, she dropped her suit for a new tactic. I quit the show.”
Duke doesn’t respond to that, merging into traffic.
Twilight is starting to fall, and streetlights pop on ahead.
“So what’s your next step?” Duke asks. “Should I ride this wave until it crashes or find another line of work?”
“It’s not settled yet,” Blitz says. “They’ll keep you on the payroll until I say.”
Duke catches my eye in the rearview mirror. The car isn’t terribly big. “So what’s your story, Livia? You grow up in San Antone?”
“I moved there four years ago,” I say. “From Houston.”
“That’s one hell of a city,” Duke says. “Couldn’t pay me to live there. All the traffic of LA but none of the eye candy.” We stop at a light and a girl in a bikini top and jeans saunters in front. He honks at her. She doesn’t look.
“Not with me in the car, Duke,” Blitz says. “I’ve got enough attention right now.”
“Now that’s the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” Duke says. “You check out Twitter today?”
“Been avoiding it,” Blitz says.
Duke messes with his phone, and when the light turns green, he tosses it back to us. “Check out what’s trending.”
The phone lands on the seat between us. Blitz ignores it, but I pick it up. “Did you post that picture of the girls in blue from the signing?” I ask him.
“No,” he says. “I can do that.” He pulls his own phone out of his pocket.
But as I look at all the Tweets about Blitz since the images of the finalists hit the media this morning, I hold out my arm. “I wouldn’t say a word right now,” I tell him.
“Why?”
I don’t want to tell him. It’s not as bad as the #BurnBlitzBurn that trended when he was in trouble. But it’s close.
There are pages and pages, as far as I can scroll, all saying the same thing.
#DanceBlitzRematch