(Amber)
“If we forget that life itself is a cruel contest, especially in the wilds, then we are shocked and pained by the hunters’ story.”
—SAXTON POPE
After the hostess seats us, she hands Jaxon and I menus the size of postcards, then inquires about our drink order, rattling off all the usual brunch libations. Bellinis, Bloody Marys, micheladas, and the like, but Jaxon politely interrupts before the word “mimosa” comes out of her mouth. He removes his amber-lensed horn-rimmed sunglasses and holds up two fingers listlessly.
“Turmeric tonics for both of us, please.”
When the hostess disappears, I wrinkle my nose for Jaxon’s benefit.
“I’m nowhere near hungover enough to require anything being billed as a tonic.”
Jaxon tosses his sunglasses on top of the leather messenger bag sitting next to him, then peruses the succinct menu.
“Trust me. A tonic will do you good today.”
Anxiety wriggles its way up my spine, slowly, until I can feel it needling across my neck. If I was a little less perceptive, or Jaxon were a little less blunt, I might indeed blame this sensation on a hangover. Instead, I label it for what it is.
Dread.
We spend far too long pretending to read the menu, especially given that we’ve been here before and the fact that there are only seven things on the menu. Three of those items are omelets with weird fillings that don’t appeal to me, and of the other four, two are vegan and one is oatmeal. The former doesn’t enter my lexicon, and the latter I eat every damn morning at home, which leaves us with what we always have. French toast that is stuffed with sweetened cream cheese and drenched in brûléed bananas. It’s the best sort of comfort food—nothing but fatty, sugar-drenched carbs—and something tells me I’m going to need all the comfort I can get.
Jaxon sets his menu aside, prompting me to do the same as he leans forward, arms resting on the tabletop, fingers clasped together. Reflexively, I lean back, lengthening my spine to the back of the chair while mentally willing the crown of my head to meet the ceiling.
“Bud Smeltzer emailed me last night. I saw it after I got home from your place.”
A mustachioed man with too much pomade in his hair appears tableside, sets our tonics on the table along with drinking straws, and sidles away without a word. Jaxon taps his straw from the paper liner, and I do the same, forcing my mind to stay on track. There’s a fault line under my career, and it’s about to crack right open, I just know it.
“They’re not renewing Record Racks for next season.”
I tap my straw to the tabletop again, too hard, and it buckles. I toss it aside and grab the glass, going bottoms up on the orange-colored concoction, swallowing before the taste can truly hit my tongue. Even so, my face squishes up, so I chase it with a drink of water before speaking.
“Because why? I’m interested in hearing what half-assed excuse they used.”
“They feel, quote, ‘The future of the Afield Channel does not lie with Record Racks or align with Ms. Regan’s brand.’ ” Jaxon’s expression turns droll, and his eyes then roll up to the ceiling. “And yes, Smeltzer referred to you as Ms. Regan. Like he hasn’t made twelve thousand thinly veiled comments in the last five years that imply he’d like to roll over next to you in the morning.”
“Well, Ms. Regan is curious where their brand does lie. Ms. Regan wants to know if they even watched the tape of her Colorado elk hunt. Because Ms. Regan feels like they might have strung her along, even though they had already decided to ax her like a gangrened appendage.”
“Tell Ms. Regan to stop talking about herself in the third person. It’s obnoxious.” Jaxon sighs. “Supposedly, yes, they did watch the tape.”
“And?”
“They claim the production quality was not what they anticipated. Then some tagline crap about “world class-production with engaging storytelling and dynamic film sequences.” I don’t speak television technical mumbo-jumbo, but there was some mention about certain filming specifics. I have no idea what any of it meant, and I’m guessing Smeltzer doesn’t, either.”
I grit my teeth to avoid unleashing a curse-laden tirade. Production quality, my ass. Unlike big-budget shows on major networks, I don’t have a studio backing me. What I do have is a team of brilliant freelancers behind my show, including production guys who have more talent in their beards that Smeltzer has in his entire body. But we’re a shoestring operation, and my neck has been the one on the line this entire time, financially and otherwise. From monopolizing Colin and hiring Teagan, to sourcing the right company to edit and package the final cut, I’ve done all of that from day one. Even after I scored my last three—far more lucrative—contracts with Afield, not much changed except that I had more money to invest. The result of that investment was Smeltzer once proclaiming that Record Racks had redefined what outdoor programming should look like.
Now they want me to believe it’s not up to par? Bullshit.
I make a valiant attempt to loosen my jaw and breathe like a normal person, instead of a bull in the chute. Jaxon takes a sip of his tonic, and try as he might, his own face squishes up a little.
“Just so we’re clear, is it worth my time to show up at Smeltzer’s office? Is there room to talk this out with them? Or is this a full-stop rejection?”
He shakes his head. “Full stop. No room to talk, nothing between the lines. He values your previous partnership with Afield and wishes you the best in all your future endeavors, blah, blah, blah. I’d say the door is closed.”
“So I’m done. I need a new gig.”
Jaxon doesn’t answer. He gets that I already know the answer, but my saying it aloud will help it to sink in. My leg begins hopping under the table like the needle on a sewing machine, the result of an impulse to bolt from the table, go home and get to work on what’s next. A new project, a new gig, a new way to make my living—and I want to get to work now. But Jaxon knows me too well. Without a word, he raises a hand to settle me down, then extracts a glossy folder out of his messenger bag, tossing it on the tabletop in front of me.
“That is the latest from Bona Fide. A full media kit and links to the sizzle reel. Investors are on board now, so they’re anxious to lock down talent. They want you for this Los Cabos thing, doll. Badly.”
Emblazoned on the cover is a color photo of a white-sand beach with a predictably gaudy but luxurious mansion hovering in the background. Taking a closer look, I try to find evidence of a hellmouth lurking under the sand, or a two-headed creature of some sort that suggests this is a breeding ground for unnatural things but find nothing. It all looks harmless, really—like a warm, relaxing place where I could lick my wounds, earn a paycheck, and buy some time to figure out my next move.
A server appears, a small notepad in one hand and a pen in the other.
“Are you two ready to order?”
French toast as usual, but I want a side of bacon, too. And a piece of their strawberry cream pie to-go. After today, it’s nothing but lean proteins and colorful veggies—no beer, no Braden cookies, no white flour, no potatoes.
The topless bikini diet.
An hour later, Jaxon drops me off at home, full of French toast and caffeine, courtesy of the two cortado coffees I drank after finishing my tonic. The caffeine combined with the anxiety means my body needs a release. Braden, unfortunately, isn’t home yet, so any hope for his playing a part in that release isn’t an option, leaving me to go about it another way—with a good, hard, sweaty workout. Punishing my body has always been the best way to quiet my mind, so here’s hoping it will work today.
Forty-five minutes later, I’m in the backyard working through another set of box jump burpees, with a very specific X Ambassadors song blasting in my ears on repeat. The urge to puke or pass out dissipated early on, leaving only angry energy, the kind that makes it easy to focus on hitting my marks, even when Braden emerges from the house. He pauses at the edge of the patio, his stance wide and Charley acting as his dutiful shadow. Even without giving him my entire focus, I can feel his gaze from here.
I push through the rest of the set, then lean down and grab my water bottle, taking a long slug before walking his way slowly. When I take my earbuds out and lift my sunglasses up, Braden scans the length of me, lingering on the flat of my torso between the sports bra and workout shorts I’m wearing.
“Do you have any idea how fucking hot it is to watch you work out that hard?”
I level my eyes on him, but his remain on my body. “I imagine it’s almost as hot as it would be to watch you work out hard.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. Braden shoves his hands in his pockets, so forcefully the gesture reads as a calculated precaution to keep him from reaching for me. He lifts his gaze to mine, and I expect something heated when he does, only to have it disappear in a flash.
The corners of his eyes crinkle. His forehead does the same. “What’s wrong?”
My heart lurches in my rib cage, halts for a beat, then thuds unsteadily. I have zero time for—or interest in—a confessional, so I avert my eyes and pretend to brush grass off my legs.
“Nothing.”
“Nice try,” Braden says. “But your eyes are red and your makeup is all smudged. Have you been crying?”
Stupid tear ducts, stupid eyeballs—giving away my secret, nearly an hour after I gave in to a crying jag that lasted all of ten whole minutes. After that, I put on my workout gear and decided to leave self-pity in a pile of sweat on the grass. I tip my sunglasses down.
“I’m fine.”
Braden tries again, stepping close so he can clasp one of my hands in his.
“What happened at brunch? Did Jaxon—”
I step back, jerking my hand away, cutting him off before he starts to sound like the therapist I did not make an appointment with. My only getaway is the house, so I set off that direction.
“Afield isn’t renewing my show. They looked at the tape of my elk hunt and didn’t bite. It’s over.”
Behind me, Braden hisses his way through a few curse words. A large tub of black raspberry–flavored hydration supplement is on the kitchen counter, and by the time Braden slinks in, I’ve added a scoop of it to my water, screwed the lid back on my bottle, and started to shake it up leisurely.
“Fuck. I’m so sorry about this, Amber.”
“Not your fault.”
Braden stiff-arms the countertop, his palms flat to the granite surface as he takes in my stone-faced expression.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about.” I inspect the pink concoction in my water bottle, looking for any undissolved crystals, hoping I can shake them into submission if there are.
“Really?” Braden scoffs. “You’re losing your show, the thing you’ve committed the last five years of your life to, and that doesn’t bring up anything? Because those red eyes that you’re trying to hide behind your sunglasses—inside the fucking house, by the way—tell a different story. I’m here, Amber. Talk it out. I’ll listen.”
I realize then how stupid I must look standing in my kitchen wearing a pair of aviators, studying my water bottle like it’s the answer to everything and trying to pretend this doesn’t hurt. The way Braden has grown to understand me makes it hard to hide no matter what, so I don’t stand a chance at stumping him when I’m this raw. But I don’t want to talk. I want to move on from this without some deep dive into my thoughts and feelings, when that shit won’t change a thing. My best defense is to distract him—and sex is a distraction Braden and I do well. I yank my sunglasses off and tuck them into the center of my sports bra.
“I don’t need to talk it out because I’m fine. That reality show I told you about, the one where I’m a fishing guide in the tropics? It’s a go. So I have things to do to get ready for that. Do you want to be on that list, Braden? Of things I do?”
Braden’s expression doesn’t particularly change, but the temperature in the room drops a good twenty degrees. Slowly, he pushes up from the counter and shakes his head.
“No. I don’t want to be on your list of things to do.”
I shrug, leaving him where he stands as I stride back out into the sunshine, extracting my phone from the band around my arm. Taking a seat on the wooden box I used for my workout, I hold the phone up, adjusting until I have the right light and a pose that shows the perfect amount of skin. With my sunglasses back on to hide all evidence of my shitty day, after a few clicks I’m out in the world as I should be, filtered and absolutely fine.
Braden is back on the patio, stationed there like an angry sentinel. One I should ignore—but can’t.
“Something you want to say?”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “You don’t see the irony, do you?” I send daggers and a silent message his way. I don’t want to play. Spit it out. Braden sighs.
“Life as you know it is ending and all you can think to do is take a fucking selfie. Fucking shallow as a wading pool.”
The sting smarts only long enough to get me on my feet and put us toe-to-toe.
“I’m shallow? That’s the best you can do? I’ve heard it before, and I’ll hear it again. You saying it means nothing to me. Because when you leave tomorrow, Braden? Nothing in my life changes. Nothing.”
An hour later, I emerge from the long shower I escaped to and discover that Braden and Charley are nowhere to be found. After looking outside, I breathe a sigh of relief because his truck is still here, which means wherever they’ve disappeared to, it’s on foot. But if Braden had packed up his things and left for home today instead of waiting until tomorrow as planned, I couldn’t blame him.
The hot water and steam did a number on my body, easing my limbs until I was so unsteady on my feet I needed to press a palm to the shower wall for support. My mind followed, leaving too much room for every uncomfortable, restless thought I tried to push away. Now, on top of everything to do with my career, I’ve managed to screw up the first real relationship of significance I’ve had in years, all because he’d had the balls to ask me how I feel.
After curling up on the couch, I draw back the curtains to keep an eye out for Braden and Charley, then dig out the media kit Jaxon gave me at brunch from my bag. The last few hours have cast a pallor over the white-sand beach on the cover, along with the images of beautiful people who grace the interior. Maybe it’s the darkening sunset light outside, but the whole thing looks far less harmless than it did earlier. I grab my tablet and type in the Web address for the sizzle reel, clicking on the video player when the page loads.
A terrible samba-reggae track blares loudly from my speakers, and I grimace, turning down the sound as far as I can without muting it entirely. The camera pans over a shot of the beach, then zooms up a stone walkway leading to an enormous patio, and crosses over a shimmering infinity pool. A quick cut takes us to the house, through opened slider doors that run floor-to-ceiling, revealing a Spanish-style living room with high ceilings supported by teakwood beams and covered in decorative tile.
Nice digs, no question about that.
The opening track fades out, replaced by a hip-hop ode that somehow manages to outsuck the first song by a stretch. Nonsensical lyrics including “Patron pahr-tay,” “jiggle-wiggles,” and “saltshakers” are to blame, along with a rapper who sounds like a cigar-smoking Elmo. On the screen, a bedroom door swings open, where—naturally—we find three gals jumping on a bed, grabbing at one another to keep from falling over, clad in only skimpy boy shorts and cropped tank tops. Giggling ensues until they all flop to the bed in a tangle of tanned limbs. Then, because there is only one way for this to go, one of them grabs . . . a pillow.
Feel free to smother me with a pillow, because a pillow fight commences. Complete with the feathers swirling about in the air and plenty of slow-mo close-ups of bouncing cleavage.
I force myself to finish watching despite the sudden migraine-like pain brewing behind my right eye. Mercifully, the masterminds behind this nightmare know to cut straight from the cleavage to the pitch, with appealing data designed to lure in advertisers. The reggae track from hell sounds again just as my front door opens and I slap the cover on my tablet shut, like I’ve just been caught streaming a particularly dirty Tumblr video.
Braden unhooks Charley’s leash, walks through the living room without looking at me, holding a carryout bag from a ramen noodle joint that’s a few blocks away from my house. He fell in love with the bowl he ordered when we went there on his first night in town, one that features a spicy, lemony-garlic broth teeming with fat noodles, diced pork, and wood ear mushrooms.
He raises the bag in the air. “Dinner.”
We eat in silence except for the slurping. When we finish eating, I start to clean up, brushing off Braden’s attempts to help. He doesn’t protest, disappearing down the hall toward the bedroom. I waste as much time as I can wiping down the countertops even when no actual cooking has occurred today, washing the two forks and two glasses we used during dinner by hand. I let Charley out to do her thing in the backyard for a bit and stand there drinking a beer in the dark.
After that, unless I want to start vacuuming or scrubbing the grout in the bathroom, there’s nothing to do but go in the bedroom and see what I find. Clasping the media kit and tablet to my chest tightly, I linger at the threshold to gather the humility I couldn’t summon up this afternoon. Deep breath. There will be more to lose if I don’t try to fix this.
Braden is sprawled out on my bed in just his boxer briefs, an arm crooked behind his head, and reading a book clasped in his other hand. Charley is snoozing at the foot of the bed with the top of her head nudged up against Braden’s leg.
I stop short when Braden lowers the book an inch or so to peer my way because it feels like the first time in days he’s looked at me, even if I know our fight started only hours ago. Not to mention that the sight of a nearly naked Braden in my bed with his brown hair a little messy, just lounging there for the taking while reading, is apparently a masturbatory fantasy come to life for me. And one I didn’t even know I had—because my entire body believes this can be fixed with one good, long round between those sheets.
“I’m sorry,” I croak.
Braden lowers the book completely, laying it on his chest still opened. His now-free hand rests on his abs, low enough that his fingers tick just under the top edge of his boxers and I catalog the sight for later use.
“I didn’t mean what I said earlier. You leaving tomorrow isn’t easy for me. Especially now.”
His face slackens. “I’m sorry. The shit about you being shallow? I don’t think that. That was just my fucking ego taking a cheap shot.”
I make my way to the bed and crawl up on it, resting on my heels and casting the tablet onto the duvet cover. Braden lifts his head to one side.
“When I came home today, Amber, all I wanted was to talk to you. About . . . us, I guess. Then I saw you out back—the sweatiest, sexiest, most kick-ass woman I’ve even seen—and my plan changed. I wanted to let you finish your workout, fuck you until you saw stars, then talk. Instead, we ended up here. Pissed off and hurt, the both of us.” Braden clears his throat lightly. “But I’m still here if you want to talk. About your show, about us, about what’s going on in your head. About anything.”
This was the moment I flinched earlier, when I thought it would be better if I pushed him away. Since that definitely didn’t work out, I have to stay put, no matter how hard this is. I shift my position so I’m sitting cross-legged, cutting a glance toward the tablet.
“This Cabo thing? I’m not a hundred percent sure about it. Honestly, it’s not what I want to do, it’s what I have to do.” I grab the media kit and tablet, replacing the book on his chest with them. He gives it all a cursory glare. “That’s the media kit. And there’s a promo video cued up on my tablet. Look at it, tell me what you think.”
Braden shakes his head. “You don’t want that.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t. Because you already know what I think.”
“You said you would talk to me about anything. I want to talk about this.” I scoot a little closer to him. “Humor me.”
He shimmies up to sit with his back against the pillow and the folder and tablet tumble off his chest and onto the bed.
“You should know by now that I’m truly shit when it comes to humoring people,” he grumbles, snatching up the folder and opening it.
I snort, waiting as he reads through the folder, then set the tablet in his reluctant hands once he’s finished. The opening track begins to play, and I blush when Braden’s head rears back a few inches at the horrific sound of bongos and maracas being played by what sounds like a passel of angry monkeys. As the video plays, Braden’s expression remains in check, betrayed only by the tiny flare of his nostrils when the sorority sisters start to thump one another with pillows. Although I can’t tell if it’s because his libido is flaring at the bouncing breasts or his dander is rising at the icky spectacle of it all.
The video ends and he hands the tablet back without a word.
“Well? Tell me.”
“I think if you do this, it will be a mistake.”
“OK. But why?”
He scrubs a hand down his face. “Because you are nothing to them. If you pass on this, they’ll just find another hot blonde willing to do what they want you to do. But if you do take it, you will become just another hot blonde. They will reduce you to tits and ass.”
“I am just another hot blonde,” I state. “I have tits and ass worth camera time. And they want to pay me a lot of money.”
Braden’s eyes harden. “Do not say you are just another hot blonde. You aren’t. No one is just anything. I get that showing the results of all your hard work on your body is part of your brand and it’s why these companies pay you to endorse their products, I do. But that’s just a fraction of what you’re capable of and you shouldn’t take a gig that doesn’t allow you to be one hundred percent of who you are. Don’t fucking settle, Amber.”
“I wouldn’t be settling forever. Just this show, then I’ll be able to go back to the drawing board and find something better.”
Braden grinds his jaw tight, then loosens it as if he’s about to say something else, only to clamp it shut again.
“What?”
“I can’t watch you settle. Even if it’s for a little while. And . . .” Braden grabs the media folder and flips to a FAQ page, holding it up in front of me. He points to a header printed in red, bold-face letters.
“I also can’t know that you’re down there being someone else’s love interest. I’m sorry, I know this isn’t about me, but I can’t sit here and talk about this without saying that. I can’t.”
My eyes drop to the bold-face header and the details below.
Interested in falling in love while in Los Cabos? We sure hope so! Cast members won’t be at a loss for opportunity to find love, not if we have anything to say about it—and when you do meet someone, you’ll have six sun-soaked weeks to get to know them! Viewers love a good “will they or won’t they?” so we cast with potential love interests in mind. Think of us as your very own matchmakers . . . with the sexiest, most spontaneous, fun-lovin’ matches in mind JUST FOR YOU!
I want to roll my eyes the way I did the first time I read it, but I stifle the reaction just in case Braden then thinks I’m mocking him, instead of this FAQ that sounds like it was inspired by a website for some high-end girlfriend experience. I grab the folder and toss it onto the floor.
“I’m not interested in being anyone’s love interest but yours. Even if they use editing magic to make it look like I was interested in someone, it wouldn’t be real.”
“From my side of the screen, it would feel real. And if you think I’m evolved enough to not have that gut me, you’re wrong. I’m not. I couldn’t do it.”
His expression, paired with that last sentence, sounds a lot like Braden drawing a line in the sand. Tears threaten to pool in my eyes, but I will them away by letting my pride do the work. He may have said he knows this isn’t about him, but he went ahead and made it about him anyway.
“So you’re pulling a Laurel. You’re blackmailing me with your feelings and asking me not to take this show.”
Braden’s face turns stony. “Low blow, mountain sprite. I took my own earlier, so I’d be a fucking hypocrite if I called you out on it, but I’ll just state the obvious. No, I’m not asking you to do anything based on my feelings. I’m just telling you where I’m at. It’s called communicating.”
I start to scoot away so the physical distance between us matches the growing divide that’s come every time we open our mouths today, but he latches a hand on to one of my ankles.
“Don’t. If either of us holes up or backs away, we’re fucked. The only chance we have is to keep talking.”
I dip my head and fix my eyes on the gentle grasp of his hand to my ankle, his thumb now skimming up the back of my calf in a slow, winding pattern. Despite the size of him and the power I know he has, there’s nothing aggressive in the gesture, and I don’t feel trapped in the way I might have expected—because no one has seen me the way Braden does. Truly and righteously seen me, every facet and from all sides. And he never acted as if he wanted a little more of this or a little less of that, he simply took note and moved on to the next thing. I draw my fingers up and down his forearm through the dark hair there, watching as gooseflesh rises under my touch.
“What am I supposed to do, then?” I ask, voice lowered. “Get a job at Cabela’s? I thought we were joking around when we talked about that.”
“Lots of people have regular jobs, Amber. They have someone who loves them, things they like to go do, places they love to visit. They’re happy. They have ordinary lives that they wouldn’t trade for anything.”
My heart sinks like a stone. What Braden just proposed—an ordinary life—was noble and simple. But I don’t want that. I’m greedy because I want everything. I want him, and what I had, and the guarantee there will be even more to come.
When I don’t reply, Braden’s hand goes still and he slowly lifts his fingers one by one. He draws his hand away and slinks down so he’s lying on his side, staring up at me. His eyes are sad. Defeated. Worst of all, accepting. Because once again, he’s seen me. He could see that the ordinary life he’d presented, the one he could so easily give me, wasn’t enough. He was making note . . . and moving on.