Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
That wasn’t completely unusual. My shooting schedule made it so we went weeks or even a month without seeing each other sometimes, even though we lived in the same town. I usually felt her presence, though. She would drop by the apartment when I was on location to drop off groceries because she knew that fell through the cracks, or she would run the vacuum and water my plant. Just small signs to let me know she was thinking about me.
“I’m actually home right now,” Rowena said after a pause.
I frowned. Something about the way she said it made me think she didn’t mean the house that we’d renovated ourselves a few years ago–and then called in the experts to fix what we’d done. “In Denver?”
“I just got back from breakfast with Grams. She says hi.”
“Mom, I told you I’d figure it out! You don’t have to move back to Denver!” Exasperated, I opened the refrigerator door and then shut it again without getting anything out.
Another pause, and then, “Honey, Gram and Gramps are getting older. They need my help sometimes.” My mom didn’t say it, but there was an unspoken ‘more than you’ hanging in the air.
I started to insist that I did need her. She was my mom. It had always been the two of us against the world in this crazy world-making town. But there was a note in her voice that made me pause. She sounded like maybe she also needed her mom. I swallowed my plea as the extraordinary thought began to trickle into my mind that my mom wasn’t just my mom, and my grandmother wasn’t just my grandmother–that before I came along, they’d had a whole relationship without me. And then, when my grandmother was sixty, and my mom was thirty-three, my career had separated them. Now my grandmother was seventy-three, and my mom missed her.
Even as I knew this, I knew that if I insisted, my mom would cave. She’d come back to LA and focus her life on mine again.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I interrupted whatever she was saying. I hadn’t heard the words, but I’d caught the tone. Apologetic, offering, caving. “Tell Gram and Gramps I said hi. Maybe I can fit in a quick visit before shooting starts.”
Again, I didn’t catch exactly what she said. There was a strange buzzing in my ears. But I caught the tone–she was relieved. She wasn’t just willing to move back to Denver and teach again, she wanted to. She’d never been stage mom material, though she’d done her best to want what I did. Now I was an adult, and she wanted to go home.
She was leaving me alone.
We hung up, and I burst into tears. Some adult, my brain muttered cynically. Crying for your mommy. It felt good though. Cathartic. In a way, it made me feel like an adult for the first time. My mom was gone, and I was finally on my way to the next phase of my career. It felt like a tradeoff. And in a town that bartered bodies and souls regularly, it felt right.
I let the last wave of childish loss sweep through me, then went into the bathroom and washed my face. The reflection in the mirror had red rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks, still, but I smiled at her anyway. She looked like an adult. A young one, still tentative and unsure, but she was on her way.
Now if only she could stop thinking about Garrett Thompson.
As his name crossed my mind for the thousandth time since the night he kissed me, I saw the reflection change. Electricity jumped into my eyes. My lips curved up in a secretive smile. A flush glowed on my cheekbones, better than any blush. I tried to force my mouth to frown warningly at the girl in the mirror, but it wouldn’t cooperate.
I turned away, disgusted with her. With myself. Garrett had made it very clear that what happened the night of the premiere was a mistake. Our only communication since had been either in my head or via text. Short, terse messages. Sometimes just links to articles. Nothing that even hinted that his tongue had been in my mouth, his cock hard jutting into my hipbone, just a few days ago. Which was for the best. Sleeping with Garrett put my relationship with Noemi at risk. Sleeping with Garrett when I was supposed to be with Andrew Quinn put my entire career at risk. The Magical Melody fanbase was what kept the rabid Andrew Quinn-centric fanbase in check. They were the only thing balancing out the deluge of she’s not good enough for him messages on social media. It made my stomach hurt to think about what would happen if pictures came out of me and Garrett in that shadowy corner, hands all over each other.