Celeb Crush (22 page)

“This happened at lunch?” I repeat.  “Why didn’t you guys call me sooner?”

“We didn’t want to worry you.  She’s okay right now, but the doctors want to keep her overnight.  Can you do us a favor, though?  Can you pick Talon up from here and take him back with you to Ellen’s for tonight?  The poor kid’s starving and exhausted.”

“Yeah, I’m on my way.”

I hang up with Bran and let Ellen know what’s going on.  She immediately jumps up to get extra blankets and pillows.  I don’t know if Earl will be here when I get back so I mumble a few pleasantries his way before I run out the door.

I stop off at the Run-In Mart to pick up a colorful bouquet of flowers.  That’s what you do when you visit people in the hospital, right?  Should I get her a few balloons, too?  No, maybe that’d be weird.  They only have the Mylar balloons with congratulatory phrases, anyway.  There are cards, too, but…no, I should just go.

The hospital is small, but built stupid because they keep adding on to it haphazardly.  I’ve been there a few times over the years so I can mostly find my way around.  I ride in the elevator with an exhausted-looking nurse who keeps giving me the evil eye.  She starts interrogating me when we get off on the same floor.

“Visiting hours are almost over,” she barks.  “Are you even immediate family?”

I stand there, awkwardly holding Aunt Susan’s flowers.  “Well, not technically…”

“You’ll just have to come back tomorrow, then.”

What can I do?  Hit her?  Nah, she has that look in her eye like she’s seen terrible things and needs someone to take it out on.  I keep my mouth shut and get back in the elevator.  I get a text from Bran when I step into the lobby but I spot him and Talon before I can read it.  Talon looks mutinous.  He doesn’t want to leave.

“Thanks for coming, Andi,” Bran says, putting a hand on Talon’s shoulder.  Talon immediately shrugs it off, jerking his shoulder away.

“It’s fine.”  I thrust the bouquet at Bran.  “Give this to her, okay?  Let’s go, kid.”

I haul Talon out of there before the meltdown starts.  To my surprise, he’s super quiet.  He starts sniffling, keeping his head down so I can’t see his face.  I let him be as we walk to the garage.

“You want to talk about it?” I ask him before I start the car.

“No,” he mumbles sullenly, surreptitiously wiping at his eyes.

“Okay,” I reply.  “Let’s go get some ice cream, then.”

We stop by Talon’s favorite fast food restaurant, and I get a double order of cheeseburgers and fries, plus two fully loaded sundaes.  I take him back to Ellen’s where we eat our meals on the couch while watching Horror Tales 1 & 2.  Yeah, it might give him nightmares, but I figure sometimes make-believe isn’t nearly as scary as real life can be.  Better for him to dream about zombie/spider hybrids than the real monster living inside of his mom.  That’s my reasoning, anyway.

Talon is fast asleep, curled into a little ball on the couch.  There's a plastic spoon stuck to his cheek which I reluctantly remove.  I’m wide awake, thinking about nothing in particular, but too restless to go to bed.  I feel like I'm forgetting something, or I'm missing something important—but what?  I can't figure it out.

My phone is clutched in my hand.  I start texting and hit send before I fully realize what I'm doing.  My phone buzzes an instant later.

I'm on my way

He’s coming.  It’s like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  I sigh in relief, and go upstairs to take a shower.  A few minutes later, I come back down dressed in one of his old shirts that I’ve stolen.  I settle back into the recliner, my eyes suddenly feeling very heavy.  I’ll just close them for a few minutes…

A soft kiss on my forehead startles me awake.  I breathe in his familiar sexy scent before I open my eyes to look at him.

“Hey, Tiger,” Luke says softly, brushing my hair back from my face.  “How’s your aunt?”

“She’s okay.  She’ll be back home tomorrow—or today, I guess.”  I cover a yawn behind my hand.  “What time is it?”

“Almost five.  Scoot over.”

I sit up, moving my legs so Luke can squeeze in next to me on the recliner.  He scoops me up and places me sideways on his lap.  I think about protesting, but I am just too comfortable.  I rest my head against his chest, listening to the thudding beat of his heart.

“Hey,” he says, nudging my leg.  “Look who’s here.”

I open my eyes again and straighten in surprise when I see what Luke is holding in front of me.  “Deadeye Jones!  How did you—did you break into my apartment?!”

Luke just flashes smile Number Seven.  “You don’t really want to know, do you?”

After a couple of seconds, I just shake my head.  I take Deadeye and tuck him securely under one arm.  I lean into him with a slight smile on my face.  “Thanks, Luke.”

“Anything for you.”  He waits a few beats.  “Andi, I’m sorry—”

“No.”  I let my eyes drift shut again.  “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

Luke’s arms come around me.  He doesn’t say anything after that, and neither do I.  I’m not in the most comfortable position right now, but somehow it feels exactly right. 

This is where I want to be.

Chapter 18

“Where do you want all this?”

Bran limps out of the garage, his eyes widening when he catches sight of me standing there with a bag of ice over each shoulder, and another two dangling from each hand.

I roll my eyes when he quickly grabs the ones from my shoulders.  “There’s a freezer in the back.  Why didn’t you get someone to help you with these?” he scolds me.

I follow him back into the garage.  “Everyone else has their hands full.  Did you see how much food your mom brought?”

Bran chuckles as he dumps the bags of ice in a big metal freezer in the back of the garage.  “She’s Italian; she can’t help it.  Remember how she used to watch you like a hawk to make sure you ate everything she put on your plate?”

“Yeah,” I reply sourly, throwing in my bags of ice.  “I’m surprised Megan doesn’t weigh two hundred pounds by now since she’s carrying your mom’s first grandchild.”

“Mom learned her lesson the first time she tried to overstuff Meg—and it all came back up on her great grandma’s lace tablecloth.”

I snicker at that.  “Really?  She hurled at the table?”

Bran grins, leaning against the freezer.  “All over the table.  And dinner.  And my grandma, and my aunt Lola.”

I outright laugh this time.  “That’s impressive.  How red did her face get after that?”

“So red.  Don’t tell her I told you.”

“I won’t.”  I lean on the freezer next to Bran.  “Remember that time she wore those squeaky shoes on the first day of freshman year, and everyone kept accusing her of farting every time she scuffed her foot on the floor?”

Bran chuckles quietly.  “Poor Meg.  She was mortified.”

“Yeah.  And you ran back here to get her a new pair.”  I suddenly turn to face him.  “Just how long have you been in love with her?”

Bran seems taken aback by my question.  He drops his eyes, letting out a sigh.  “A long time,” he finally admits.  “Since before you even came here.”

“Huh.”  I nod wisely, trying to make it seem like this isn’t a huge revelation to me.  It only just clicked!  What a dummy.  “So, what—I was just a poor substitute?”

“What?  Of course not!”  Bran grabs my hand, his face intensely earnest.  “Listen…by the time you came along, I had long given up on anything happening between us.  Meg always thought of me as a brother, so I resigned myself to that role.  Then you moved here, and we got along so well.  You’re beautiful and exciting, and I became infatuated with you.”

I pull back, gently taking his hand from mine and letting it drop where it may.  “But you were secretly in love with my cousin the whole time, right?”

He doesn’t deny it, his guilty look speaking for itself.  “I didn’t know,” he says, shaking his head.  “I thought I was over her.  I never would have—”

“Yeah, yeah.”  I wave him off.  I guess I should be offended or hurt, but I’m not.  I feel like I can blame my horrible of treatment of Bran on him now.  “A part of me always knew it.  That’s probably why I might have seemed…abusive at times.”

“I’m sorry,” he says miserably.  “About everything.  I never meant for things to happen the way it did—or for you to get hurt in the process.”  Almost exactly what Megan said.  Is there a handbook for cheaters somewhere?

I thought about this day, I’ll admit it.   I never wanted Bran back, but I’ve always wanted him to beg and plead for my forgiveness.  I thought I would stand there righteously and let him ramble on and on.  Now I just feel weird, and I want him to shut up.  Sap overload.

“I’m over it,” I say quickly.  “Besides, you guys deserve each other.  And if you hadn’t cheated on me, I would never have met Luke.  So I guess you did me a big favor.”

“Uh…you’re welcome?”

“We should probably go back out and help with the food,” I say.

“Yeah, you’re right.”  He tosses his longish bangs out of his eyes with a skater boy flip of his head.  “Hey, you know who’s coming today?  My great aunt Ezzie!  Now you’ll see I wasn’t lying about that thing she does with her glass eye.”

“If she does it, I’ll give you that fifty,” I say absently.  “I saw Jillian in the house.  I didn’t know she was coming.  She knows about Luke, right?”

“Don’t worry; we talked to everyone,” Bran reassures me.  “They know not to take pictures or videos, or mention him on any of their online accounts—or you’ll come after them personally.  They all agreed.”

I nod, satisfied.  Sometimes it’s good that my reputation precedes me.

Bran stops to check on something in the corner of the garage.  I look over his shoulder and see a small crib with beautiful intricate curlicue designs carved into the wood.

“This is Susannah’s crib,” he says proudly, noticing my interest.

“Who’s Susannah?”

“My daughter,” Bran replies with a touch of wonder in his voice.  “That’s what we’re naming her.  Susannah Grace.”

I run a hand over the smooth wood.  “You made this?”

“Me and Charlie.  Meg wants to paint the crib hot pink now that we know we’re having a girl.” 

“Could be cute.”  I stand there, staring at the crib for a while.  I don’t look at him when I say, “You’re going to make a good father.”

“Thanks.”  He sounds startled.

I shrug and walk away before he tries to hug me or something.  It’s true, though.  Bran will make a good father, and probably Megan will make a good mom.   For the first time, it really hits me that those two clowns are going to be responsible for another life.  Scary.  Better them than me, I guess.

It’s a beautiful sunny day.  Children laugh and play, running through the sprinklers on the front lawn.  The delicious smell of roasting meats permeates the air.  There is enough food to feed an army, which is good because there’s a shit ton of people here.  Even Grandpa Joe and his wife Lola are here from Florida.  Ellen brought Earl, and I was hoping for a showdown between the two men, but no such luck.

I would have done a quick fade into the background and escape like I usually do—if not for the famous person at my side.  So far, people have been good around him, though we haven’t had a minute’s peace since Luke got here.  Everyone wants to talk to him and be around him, and since he won’t leave my side I’m stuck, too.  I keep a close eye on Jillian, Bran’s cousin and obsessed Lucas Greyson fan.  She’s always right there, staring at him like she’s in a trance.  When Luke tries to talk to her, she starts shuddering and crying.  He gives her a hug, and she grabs his ass!  I end up hauling her away by her hair.  I think it’s important to set an example in front of everyone.

I don’t usually drink, but I have no other way of coping in this situation.  Being a lightweight, it only takes me a few beers to get me tipsy.  When I get tipsy, I get pretty free with my affections. 

Things are still strained between me and Luke.  We don’t talk about what happened, but it’s always hanging in the air between us.  It’s like we’re standing in the eye of a hurricane, wild winds and tension swirling all around us.  We’ve been sleeping in the same bed.  Stupid, I know, but I can’t bring myself to tell him no.  Thanks to him, I’ve discovered my severely repressed sex drive—and it turns out that it’s hornier than a teenage boy watching porn for the first time.  It’s complete torture lying next to him.  There are times when I want to press against him, and let him take away that aching emptiness that keeps me awake at night.  But I force myself to picture him with Kat, kissing her and touching her the way I want him to kiss and touch me.  Then I get so pissed I have to stop myself from kicking him off the bed.

Now that I can blame the alcohol on my actions, I start to get pretty handsy with Luke.  I let my body brush teasingly against his; I touch his chest, letting my fingers drift down his rock hard abs.  I press my mouth to his neck, and not so gently graze my teeth against his skin.  I find his sharp intake of breath a very satisfying reaction.