A Little Bit of Truth (Little Bits) (30 page)

“Way to go stud,” Maya gives me a high five. “How did suit shopping go?”

My lips twitch, “You set that
up didn’t you?”

A devious look sets on her face, “Aren’t you glad I did?”

Wrapping my arm around her shoulder I kiss her temple and lead her up the steps to Marie’s place, “Yep. Fire Joseph.”

She only
cackles in response, her head thrown back and her hair falling past her ass. Then she sobers and with a nod, gives me a firm, “No.” Then, with a pat to my arm she walks on ahead.

Foam Party

If Jacob grunts and adjusts himself one more time, (as a hint to tell, Maya, James,
Summer, Chris and my brother to leave), I will hurt him. Or screw him in the bathroom to shut him up. Plan B, the screwing in the bathroom idea is the most appealing.

And then I notice
Summer’s face.

My mind get
s sidetracked for a while, I find myself staring at my friend. She looks tired, worn, depressed. Her usual bubbly self seems to be nonexistent at present and this concerns me. I wonder if she and Chris are still having problems.

She trusted me with her troubles not too long ago. She and Chris, at the beginning of their relationship were insatiable. I remember it well as they were insatiable only a room away from Maya’s through College. Summer never had any problems.

Recently, from what she’s told me, Chris has turned into a wham bam thank you ma’am type of guy. In at least eighteen months he hasn’t given her an orgasm and although they aren’t arguing you can tell they’ve lost their spark. He barely pays attention to her anymore. Summer believes a baby will save her relationship. I think differently. That’ll only succeed in further dividing their time together.

It sucks and it scares me a little bit.

I just agreed to go steady with Jacob. In other words, I’m now his permanent bitch and that scares the shit right out of me. What if this happens to us? What if I find him in bed with another woman? What if I get bored and he finds me in bed with another man.

I’ve only ever been in one relationship and that ended not so well. We stayed ‘sort of’ friends but he wanted things I didn’t at the ripe age of eighteen.

Jacob’s hand jolts me from my thoughts as it takes a firm hold of my thigh, only inches from my still heated groin.

Eyes go to us, I roll my own and attempt to push his hand away. He only slides it up further, cupping me in front of everyone with a smug smile on his face. It feels good but it’s also completely wrong.

“Okay, okay, we’re going,” Maya snaps with a pout.

“Finally!” Jacob groans as I climb up from the sofa to embrace my friends. I notice Summer leaves with Chris walking ahead of her. This is not good. Could this be the end of a marriage?

I notice my brother staring at
Summer with a curious expression right before I grab his jacket, throw it at him and shove him out the door after Maya. Time to play.

Jacob is on me before the draft has left the hall, his hands tug at my clothes and his mouth attacks my neck.

Then my phone rings.

“Leave it.”

“Can’t, it’s Loryn.” He looks at me as if to ask how I know it’s her when I haven’t seen my phone. “Personal ringtone.”

“Awesome. Do I have one?”

“Call me and find out.”

“Stop moaning,” Marie sighs as we walk into the salon and greet Loryn. “Hey you!”

“Oh my God, is it weird that I’ve missed you?” Loryn beams at Marie before they hug tightly.

I hear a crash (like somebody dropping a metal tray on the ground) and wince at the voice that follows, “Dear Lord. I do believe I have just died and gone to heaven.” I turn and come face to face with a dude, a dude with blonde hair curled over one side of his head. He’s wearing a light blue shirt and dark skinny jeans. Is it judgmental of me to instantly know that he’s gay? “Please can I hug you? Just for a second?” Because if the clothes didn’t do it, the way that he talked would have made that bulb ping in my head.

I hear Marie sniggering behind me, Loryn joins in when I’m being suddenly embraced by this male who is only a couple of inches shorter than myself. “Get him off me,” I say, my body tense.

My demeanor has nothing to do with the fact he’s gay and everything to do with the fact that he’s male and pressing his crotch against mine. My dick is squealing and trying to claw its way inside of my stomach.

“Nah,” click, click, click. Fucking Marie.

“Ooh, great idea Marie!” The guy suddenly says and grips me around the waist. “Smile Jacob, you have such a handsome smile.” Oh God.

Well, at least his cock is nowhere near mine.

This does make me a bit happier.

“That he does,” Marie laughs. Click, click,
click.

“OOOH! Me too! The kids will never believe this!”
A thirty something woman with black hair styled into a fashionable bob comes rushing from the staff area and flings herself at me and the guy. I only just manage to stop myself from falling backwards. Click, click, click.

“That’s enough now guys,” Marie winks at me and holds out her hand. “I’ve got beauty to capture. By the way,” I take her hand, she turns me back to the two people who just photo raped me. Okay, maybe that’s a little bit dramatic but it happened so fast and was kind of painful to endure. “This is Toby.”

“Hi honey,” Toby shakes my hand. “Call me if you need a stylist. I’m fabulous.”

“And this is Raquel.”

“Nice to meet you Mr. Stone.”

“Umm…” Marie is already dragging me away. I manage to pinch Loryn’s cheek briefly on the way past. She waves me off and goes back to her customers who I didn’t notice before but I’m noticing now and they both have their phones out. Great.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” I ask Marie as she sets up her cameras and lights.

“I didn’t know that’s how they were going to react. It’s the first time I’ve met them. They started the day before I got a call from the hospital saying…”

“YOOHOO!”

“Who’s that?” We both look to the door and I see Marie visibly tense.

“Loryn’s mother.”
And then she grabs a tripod for her camera, folds it closed and stomps on through to the salon. Uh-oh. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

I grab Marie around the waist as we enter the salon, she raises the tripod threateningly. Loryn
’s features take on a mixture of devastation and relief. Relief that Marie has come to her aid or relief that she’s seeing her mom again.

Dear god, this woman is a mess. I can see the resemblance between her and Loryn, except this woman has blue eyes. She looks skinny and gaunt and ill. I wonder if she’s on drugs or maybe alcohol.
Something isn’t right I know this much.

“Mom,” Loryn says without emotion as the woman hugs her. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here to see my baby and her new place,” the woman cups Loryn’s face with her hands and kisses each of her cheeks. I grab Marie around the waist to stop her from committing murder,

I wince at my own careless thoughts and feel elated that I didn’t say this out loud. It’s just an expression. Nothing more.

“Calm,” I whisper in her ear as we watch the exchange. “Your clients have just walked in.” I turn to Toby after realizing Marie isn’t going to leave Loryn alone with this female. “Can you take them to get a drink? Marie will be with you shortly.”

“No problem,” the man says and follows Toby into the staff area.

“I’ve missed you terribly…” Blue eyes fall on me and look me up and down. “Well hello there, I’m Harriet.”

I don’t respond.

“Hi Marie.” Harriet sneers with disdain at my woman. Fucking bitch.

Marie
doesn’t respond either.

“So, where shall I start?”

This time Marie does respond, “You can start by getting the fuck out of our building and never coming back.”

Harriet blanches and presses a hand to her chest, “Excuse me?”

“You heard me bitch, I said get the fuck out.”

“Marie,” Loryn says softly but Marie cuts her off, “No Loryn. You don’t have to deal with this just because you’re related.”

“I know,” Loryn says quietly, her voice solemn and distant. I put my free arm around her and bring her to my side. “Mom, you need to leave.”

“Yeah, do what you’re good at,” Marie hisses, I give her a squeeze to shut her up. I know she’s trying to be protective but this is none of her business unless Loryn gives her permission to make it so.

“The cheek,” Harriet scoffs and looks at her daughter. “I’ll come back later when she’s gone.” Loryn seems to be frozen against me, I can almost hear her pulse fluttering wildly with shock and sorrow and possible anger.

“You okay?” I say to no one in particular. Marie grunts at me and pulls free, Loryn remains silent, still dazed.

“That fucking bitch. Loryn just say the word and I’ll wipe her out with a spoon!” Marie snarls and pulls Loryn into her arms. “Say something.”

I didn’t realize Loryn was crying until just now. My heart lurches as I see her wipe tears from her cheeks. “I’m so sick of my family.”

Marie doesn’t say anything but the look on her face tells me she knows the feeling and for some reason I don’t think she’s talking about her brother.

“We should get back to work,” Loryn suggests and wipes her face. “Sorry about the family drama guys.”

With a smile in her direction I sit in the corner by the window and wait for Marie to prep her new couple for their shoot. It only takes an hour before her next appointment comes in, and then the next, and the next. After four hours of tiring my thumbs out by playing on my phone and tiring my arms out from sweeping the floor free of hair after each client and tiring my fingers out from signing endless autographs, Marie finally finishes.

She doesn’t leave until
Loryn leaves, we even drive Loryn home and Marie tells Lucas to keep an eye on her.

“Finally,” I grin and pull Marie onto my lap in the back of the car. She smiles wickedly and grinds herself against me.

“You might want to sit down, there’s a car following us and although the windows are blackened I don’t trust them enough to safely say you’re both completely out of sight,” the driver surmises and takes a sharp right.

I knew this day would come sooner or later. Especially when the press got word of my poisoning, I haven’t been checking the tabloids and neither has Mari
e so I wouldn’t know if word has got out or not, I’m just guessing the reason as to why we’re being followed as that seems the most likely. Here’s hoping it’s just a straggler looking to catch me in an awkward situation to earn a quick buck. Maybe I should moon him?

A lot of celebrities have a real problem with the press but I keep my private life as private as possible. It’s rare I do anything to hurt my reputation so I do get followed but there’s never more than an update about me online. Not including when the papers assumed I was having an affair with Maya. They also got pretty heavy when I announced my ‘relationship’ with Beth.

I told my publicist to denounce our relationship, although I’m unsure if she has as I’ve barely answered a call since I came to the city.
This is now the most likely candidate for why reporters are following me, now that I think about it.

My agent has called many times and left messages. Maybe I should have listened to them.
Yeah, that would probably be a good idea.

With regret I slide Marie off my lap and wrap my arm around her instead. What if she can’t handle this? It’s all been good when the press have been hardly existent, but they will get bad again. Will she mind?

What am I saying? Of course she’ll mind! It’s my job to protect her and make sure she doesn’t have to handle it.

We drive in silence for ten minutes, I’m starting to think Marie has fallen asleep until I hear her choke on a gasp at the sight only twenty feet away.

Just fucking great. This week has to be the worst yet best week of my life.

“Drive around the block,” I snap at the driver, feeling my irritation rise.

“Don’t bother,” Marie laughs and calls her brother. “You on it? (Pause, laugh) Good. We’re outside.”

“What’s going on?” I ask and lean over as she does to look out of the window. It’s then I see Mason and a man I don’t recognize run from the house with… is that black paint beneath their eyes? Oh dear god. They’re wielding fire extinguishers! The foam kind! “Marie…”

“CHARGE!” Mason shouts and attacks the large group of vultures, formally known as the paparazzi
, who are surrounding Marie’s house. Thick white foam appears from all directions as two other men start squirting them from behind. The paparazzi run, crashing into each other, trying to protect their equipment from the onslaught.