The Hollywood Project: Shuttergirl Part 22

"Yes."

"I'm going with you."

I glared at him. He'd been pushed around constantly by Jake and his buddies, but Tom was brave, the poor sad sack. Brave and stupid.

"Miss Cartwright?" A six-foot-four solid wall of man in a navy suit approached from a black Chevy SUV that was as big as a bus.

"You must be Carlos," I said, glad to be rescued from telling Tom he couldn't go with me.

We shook hands.

"I'm here to watch you," he said, "not to get in your way. If you tell me where you are at all times, I won't have to."

He said it so cleanly and professionally, it didn't ruffle any of my feathers. That was a talent.

"You coming in?" Tom asked, opening the door.

Carlos held open the door. "That's what I was hired to do." He smiled, big and wide. He could have been an actor himself. Of course, Hollywood couldn't tolerate even the slightly unattractive.

I realized I would have a hard time taking care of my business with Jake whether Tom interfered or not.

Deep breath. I could figure it out. I had to.

I didn't know when I became so dedicated to making Michael and me happen, or at least, not sabotaging the thing entirely. Probably when he fell asleep on me and the world outside stopped mattering. Or when he took me to his secret place. Or maybe when he tried so hard to protect me that I felt the need to step in and protect him.

Carlos was a pretty un.o.btrusive shadow, sitting outside Tom's apartment as I inspected every picture of Randee and her band. We broke down his retouch technique to the last pixel. Only when the woman herself showed up did I leave, and in the darkness, with the bus of a car behind me, I wondered what I was doing with my night, and I missed him.

I should have been out chasing something, someone, making myself available for an opportunity to make money. I didn't want to cross him or his friends again, and the phone wasn't ringing no matter how hard I stared at it. I could call Kill Photo, but why take two steps back if I didn't have to?

Could I continue to work with Michael, for however long it lasted? And if I wasn't a paparazza, what was I? Who was I?

I opened the silverware drawer, and I stared at me in poorly fixed black and white, scratching for a cigarette, pain everywhere down below. How hard had it been for Tom to develop this carefully enough to do an exposure test? And the rest of the pictures, where that s.h.i.+rt was pulled up and the sheet wasn't covering what was between my spread legs, how hard had those been to work on? How hard would they be for Michael to see? Would he ever look at me again?

I knew Jake's number. I just had to call him and ask him how much for the pictures. It didn't have to be more than that.

I sat on the edge of my bed and dialed four digits before another call came in. It was Michael.

"Hi," I said, relieved to put off Jake for the moment.

"Hey, I hear Carlos got there?"

"Am I supposed to feed him or something?" I lay back on the bed, suddenly relaxed, as if I had permission to not worry about anything.

"His partner will come relieve him. You're not supposed to even know he's there."

"Okay."

"About before?"

"You being a jerk?" I creased the sheets in my fingers, making a sharp edge of the fold. I caressed it against my knuckles "That."

"You get a do-over."

"Thank you," he whispered.

I could almost feel his breath on my ear.

"You're not working?" he asked.

"No, you?"

"I'm at a thing. A boring thing."

"It's quiet," I said.

"That's how boring it is."

"You should come here."

"Ah, Laine, what I'd do..."

"What would you do?" It must have been the touch of the sheets and the dim light that made me ask. Or maybe it was the silence on his end.

"Kiss you, of course. But everywhere. Every inch of skin. I want to taste it."

"Oh." I had nothing more articulate. He'd never said anything like that to me, and the pleasant shock went right between my legs. "Michael..."

"Laine, the next time I see you... I'm taking you. I mean it. And then that's it. You're mine. I'm not kidding."

Voices came through the phone. Background noise, as if they'd entered the room.

"Tell me you heard me," he said.

"I heard you."

"What did I say?"

"You want me."

"What else?"

"G.o.d, I'm so turned on I can barely think."

"Good. I have to go. Let Carlos stay close. See you tomorrow night."

The line went dead, but I felt like an electrified fence. I was supposed to call Jake. Wasn't that what I had been doing? But I couldn't. Not while I could feel my underpants rubbing against me. The last person I should talk to in that state was Jake.

I stuck my hand in my panties. I was soaked from only a few words. Everything was wrong. Everything stood between Michael and me, but my body wanted an uninterrupted night with him. More than wanted it. My reaction was a response to need.

I closed my eyes and imagined him above me, groaning my name, unaware of anything around him but my body. I imagined him breathing in harsh gasps as he came, and my fingers moved enough for me to come with him, even though he wasn't there.

My hand cupped my ache as it built again. I wasn't making another call, and I wasn't accepting one. I fell asleep basking in the warm promise of him.

Chapter 26.

Laine I knew Michael was taking me to a movie, and that meant jeans and nice shoes, a short leather jacket, and hair thrown up in a nest. Not a big deal. But a short phone conversation with Phoebe shook me from my fog of stupidity.

"Big Girls premieres Tuesday," she said. "It's huge."

I sat on my balcony overlooking the newly gentrified street and threw back my head. I knew that. Nothing premiered in that town without my knowing, and somehow, I'd let that star-studded bit of Oscar bait drop from my radar.

"He would have told me," I said, bending at the waist until I was in crash position.

"Unless he thought you already knew. I mean, with him starring in it and all."

"This is going to be very public, Phoebe."

"What are you wearing?" she asked.

"They'll all be there."

"Laine?"

"This is it. It's all over."

"Laine?"

"I'm not going," I said.

"I have a few hours before I leave for Vegas. Meet me at Grandview."

When I saw Phoebe fingering a lacy thing in the dress department, I knew something was wrong. She was too sharp a woman, too crystal clear and energetic for that faraway dreamy look.

"Phoebe?"

"Would you show me this one?" The height of the rack prevented her from getting the dress off herself, and she'd probably shooed away three salesgirls already.

I pulled the cream, floor-length lace dress off the rack, and she stared not at it but through it.

"What?" I said.

"It's nice."

"Not my style."

"I have to get a wedding dress," she said.

"You're not getting off-the-rack at Grandview. Sorry." I clicked the hanger back in place.

"I have to get it made custom for, you know, the chair. G.o.d, I hate this. I'm going to hate every minute of it. I mean, I'd run away and get married if it weren't for my family and the whole concept of running, which I never got a taste of."

Phoebe rarely got depressed. She didn't spend a minute pitying herself. She'd put herself through law school and made a name as a tough negotiator and relations.h.i.+p-builder by using her girlishness not as a handicap but as a weapon. I admired her strength, and because of that, I respected her fragile places.

I sat on a leather chair next to the rack. "Do you want to go get some coffee?"

"No. I want to just do this. Flat out." She said it as if what was coming was hard, as if it had been eating at her.

"Go on," I said.

"You can't be in the bridal party."

"Why not?" She'd picked me as the maid of honor because she didn't have any sisters. We'd talked about dresses and responsibilities. I mean, maybe a demotion for whatever reason but to be cut out completely? "What did I do?"

"Nothing. You're my best friend. Ever since you tripped over me running after Rabine Johnansen. You know why? Because you laughed and helped me up. You've never treated me like a cripple, but you've never ignored it either. So this is the thing. I am a cripple. And I'm supposed to use different words, but this is the fact. And the happiest day of my life is in six months, and I'm going to be in this chair for it. I want... I want something else. I want it to be different."

I had the feeling from her run up that she wasn't cutting me out of the bridal party as much as she was letting me into something else. "What do you want me to do?"

"Wedding pictures are forever, and I don't want them to be ugly. If it's just the usual thing, me and Rob under a trellis, except I'm in a chair, I'm going to cry whenever I look at them. All I'll have of this day for the rest of my life will be the pictures, and I don't want them to look like an excuse, or half done, or fall short of the norm. Everything about it has to be different. Can you do that for me? Can you... I don't want a photographer. Can you not be the photographer? Can you be the doc.u.menter? I'll pay you anything."

"You want me to photograph your wedding?"

"Yes."

What was I supposed to say? No, Phoebe, I think wedding photographers are failures. Or Sorry, that doesn't fit in with my vision of myself?

Besides the fact that would be rude and break her heart, besides the fact that our friends.h.i.+p might not recover from such a rejection, I had to be honest with myself.

The idea was kind of exciting.

"I need complete creative freedom," I said. "You go all bossy lawyer on me, and I'm just going to drink and dance all night."

She slapped her hands over her mouth. "You'll do it?" she said from behind her fingers.

"I need full access to every step of this, so get Rob and your brothers on board. They can't get on my case to make it boring and normal."

"Yes. Anything."

"I can't guarantee you'll look like a model."

"No, no, the point is that it's real. And beautiful but-"