Hard As Rock (5 page)

Then he turned back to Glen and started writing a check. “Who do I make it out to? Rolling Stone?”

“Actually… I had to front the money out of my own expense account, so… you can make it out to me.”

My mouth dropped open.

What the FUCK?!

This was an open-and-shut case of bribery. THIEVERY. Glen was a fucking, absolute asshole – an embezzler, a crook, a criminal!

“That seems highly irregular,” Ryan said mildly.

‘Highly irregular’ was like saying RuPaul in drag is a little bit gay.

“She’s not officially on the books,” Glen shot back. “So I had to get a little creative.”

Ryan paused from writing the check. “Wait… so you ‘hired’ a writer with little experience, didn’t pay her, and did some sort of expense account… ‘scheme’ to cover her expenses? Does
Rolling Stone
even know she’s working on this assignment?”

Glen took a long time to answer.

When he did, he gulped. “Not entirely, no.”

Whoa.

WHOA.

My world got rocked a little bit more.

Ryan cocked his head to the side. “So… they don’t know she’s working for you on this.”

“…not officially, no.”

Ryan glared at him like a wolf staring down a dog.

Glen shrank slowly behind his desk.

Then Ryan went back to writing the check. “What’s your last name, Glen?”

“Ryan, you can’t – ” I protested.

He held up a hand and turned his head far enough towards me so Glen couldn’t see him wink.

Trust me.

So I did.

“Smith,” Glen said.

Ryan finished writing the check, tore it out, and held it out over Glen’s desk.

Glen grabbed for it –

But Ryan jerked it back, just out of reach.

“I trust this concludes all our business?” Ryan asked coldly.

Glen blinked at him. “Business?”

“From this point onward, if you take this check, Kaitlyn owes you nothing.”

Glen looked over at me with smoldering hatred. “She owes me a story – ”

“You didn’t pay her, she’s working off the books, Rolling Stone has no idea she even exists, and we’re reimbursing you for any expenses you covered. If you take this check, she’s free and clear from this point onward. She
might
supply you with a story, but that’s at her discretion. She’ll call you, not the other way around. Deal?”

Glen whined, “But she was
supposed
to deliver the story.”

Ryan fluttered the check. “Deal or no deal?”

Glen stared at the check like a starving dog eyeing a morsel of meat. Then he snatched it away from Ryan. “Deal.”

Ryan stood up and took my hand. “Then that concludes our business. Good day.”

Glen just hunkered down behind his desk, holding the check like Gollum would his ring. I almost expected him to croak out,
The preciousssssss.

Then we were out of his office and gone.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said.

“I know,” Ryan said.

“I could have handled it.”

“I know.”

“You basically just bribed him to leave me alone.”

“I know.”

“That doesn’t feel very good.”

He looked over at me as we reached the elevator.

“I’m sorry,” he said, in all sincerity.

I sighed, and we got in the elevator alone. Nobody else entered. It was just the two of us.

As the doors slid shut, I leaned my head against his arm.

“Thank you,” I said.

He found my hand, gave it a little squeeze, and then let go.

“You’re welcome.”

I didn’t find out Ryan had booked first class until the desk person came over the loudspeaker and announced that boarding the plane was about to begin.

Ryan stood up and held out his hand to me. “Come on, that’s us.”

I stared at him. “First class?! Ryan – !”

“Hey, I’m a rock star,” he joked. “I have to keep up appearances.”

“I’ll… I’ll pay you back. For this, and for Glen – ”

“Kaitlyn, if I were in bad shape, would you give me fifty dollars?”

“What?”

“If I were starving, or hurt, would you give me fifty dollars? What you make in a couple of hours, say.”

He was being overly generous with that ‘what you make in a couple of hours.’ That was more like what I averaged over a
day.

But I went with it. “Of course.”

“And would you expect me to pay you back?”

“No, of course not.”

“Well, I basically gave you the equivalent of what I make in a couple of hours. So don’t worry about it, okay?”

First: my mind was blown. That level of generosity was just staggering to me.

Second: math. I was trying to add it all up in my head, and the closest thing I could think of was,
He’s making 50 grand a day?!

Third: it didn’t matter how much he was making a day.

“Ryan, it’s still twelve thousand dollars. And whatever this plane ticket cost. I can’t accept that much money. I appreciate it, but – ”

“Kaitlyn, I’ve been really, really lucky in my life. I’m more fortunate than 99.9% of the rest of the world. I have the best job there is, I love what I do, and I get paid well for it. Let me do something nice for somebody I care about, okay?”

I started crying again. Right there on the boarding ramp to the airplane.

“Hey… hey,” he murmured, and put his arm around me. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s… it’s a good cry.”

And it was.

“If you say so.”

“I say so. Ryan?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

He smiled. “You’re very welcome.”

I had never flown first class before. The wider seats… the extra attention and courtesy from the airline attendants… the comfort… the glass of champagne they brought me before anybody else had even begun to board…

It all distracted me for about five minutes.

But as the people filed past, and the plane taxied to the runway, and then took off, I slipped further and further into a quiet depression. Ryan tried talking to me in the beginning, but eventually saw I needed to be alone with my thoughts… and so he let me go.

There was a movie I once saw called
Kiss Of The Spider Woman.
It was about a couple of prisoners in a South American jail cell. One line I particularly loved was from William Hurt, who played a gay man imprisoned for his sexuality. It went something like this:

The most wonderful thing about being happy is that you think you’ll never be unhappy again.

I love that quote, because it’s so true. When you’re truly happy, everything is bliss – and always will be. You’re absolutely
sure
of that fact deep down in your bones.

But there’s a flip side to it as well:

The most horrible thing about being unhappy is that it feels like you’ll never be happy again.

And on that plane flight, I felt like I would never,
ever
be happy again.

I had fallen into a deep, dark hole. I was alone, and miserable, and would always, always hurt so bad that I wanted to die.

Ryan had helped. He had helped tremendously. But he couldn’t stop the bleeding. He could only soothe me a little bit, distract me for a moment… but my life was seeping away from me, second by second, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

That’s what it felt like, anyway. Like I was dying from the jagged edge of pain that was slowly tearing its way through my heart.

As the plane soared into the sky and I stared out at the kingdom of clouds beneath us, I replayed all of the events in my mind, like a movie on repeat, with one word echoing over and over again on the soundtrack:

Idiot.

Idiot.

IDIOT.

I had known. I had known from the very beginning that this was going to happen, and I had walked into the trap anyway.

I knew from the first time I met Derek that he was a womanizer. Four years ago, back when I was in college and he was a struggling wannabe, he had still had sex with dozens and dozens of women. I
knew
that. That was one of the biggest reasons I didn’t sleep with him then. Because I didn’t want to wind up as another notch on his bedpost.

I had held back from sleeping with him when I came to LA because of that very reason. I knew what he was. I knew what he did.

And I gave in anyway.

But I didn’t just give in; I
plunged
in. I gave away my heart without question. I let myself fall in love totally and completely, and after it started, never gave a single thought or worry for how vulnerable and defenseless I had become.

I remembered what I had told myself at the afterparty the night I kissed Derek, the night I totally gave myself over to being destroyed:

I realized what I had thrown away:

Happiness.

Or at least a shot at it.

That’s all it ever really is, isn’t it?

Just a shot.

No promises.

Just maybe… MAYBE… a chance.

What a crock of shit.

The way I felt now, I would have given
anything
to go back in time and punch myself in the face and yell, “Don’t
do
it, you IDIOT!”

But like the stupid little frog that I was, I had opened myself to the scorpion… and he had stabbed me through the heart in return.

Maybe not literally, but it
felt
like he had taken a knife and plunged it all the way through my chest.

I
felt
dead. And that was all that mattered.

What was crazy was, even after I’d let myself fall for him, I had every warning in the fucking world!

Shanna had told me.

You know his past. Do you really think he’s going to change his spots just because of you?

Guys like Derek Kane don’t change everything about themselves like that. They might say it, and they might mean it, and they might actually follow through for awhile… but… in the end… Derek’s Derek. He is who he is: a player.

You’re thinking you’ll be the long-distance girlfriend of a guy who’s slept with way more people than I have, which is saying something. And you think he’ll be loyal, and faithful, and never ever step out with one of the supermodels on the Sports Illustrated bathing suit cover who’s throwing herself at him.

A warning clear as day. A giant fucking red flag slapping me upside the face.

Even if I was going to continue to be stupid, I should have heeded her advice:

Have a good time. Get your rocks off. Not fall head over heels in love and expect a future full of roses and ponies.

Enjoy the ride. Enjoy the hell out of it. And then… come back to reality, babe. ‘Cause wherever your head is right now, reality ain’t it.

Nope.

I hadn’t been anywhere
close
to reality.

This
was reality, this hell I was trapped in.

And I had chosen it for myself, like a fool.

She had been so right, and I wouldn’t fucking listen.

Ryan had warned me that first night in LA:

Just one word of advice: be careful. He’s my best friend, but… just be careful. Don’t give too much of yourself away. Not completely.

But I did. Like an IDIOT.

Riley had warned me, too:

Stop letting the cock go to your brain, Blondie… quit making excuses for him just because you like how he fucks you. Here’s the truth: as long as Derek’s getting his way, he’s sweet as pie. Problem is, he needs you to say ‘You’re so awesome’ all the fuckin’ time. And he gets bored real quick. Just remember that. What’s your type – assholes?

No. I – I’m in love with Derek.

So… your type is assholes.

She’d called it exactly right, and I’d been too besotted and lovestruck to know truth when I heard it.

Even Killian had told me:

From all the evidence I’ve ever seen, Derek’s not a one-woman chap. He’s a bit of a… free spirit, you might say. He’s just wired that way. It’s in his nature.

He had called me a frog, which I didn’t want to hear, and warned me about the scorpion, and I hadn’t fucking listened. I had written it off as the addled advice of a pothead.

Then it turned out that the pothead had ten thousand times more sense than me.

But no matter how much it hurt, I kept thinking of Derek, and playing all the beautiful scenes from our relationship again and again:

The first night I had met him, when we sat outside my dorm room and talked and laughed until three in the morning.

When he told Shanna,
I’m in love with your roommate.

Singing ‘Under The Bridge’ for me.

That impromptu volleyball game in the grocery store.

Telling me how he had cried during
Dumbo…
and when I started crying, saying,
I’m not going to make fun of you.

The candlelit dinner he had made for me in my dorm room.

The way he had touched me, made love to me on my dorm bed.

The way he had held me on that last day in Athens and whispered,
Stay with me, Kaitlyn… please. Stay.
And when I wouldn’t, how he had looked at me when he said,
Have a wonderful life. I love you.

I started crying again just to think of it.

But now all those scenes were tainted by his betrayal… and by my complete and utter stupidity.

Because I realized that all of them had happened four years ago.

I tried to remember the sweet times from the last five weeks… and all I could recall was us walking on the beach and him telling me that his father had died. But I had just felt close to him then. That moment hadn’t been about me; that hadn’t been about
us
.

I tried again. I remembered him calling me his girlfriend when we were tripping on mushrooms, but Shanna had nailed that one:

Was anybody naked at the time, or did a certain someone want to get naked, and the other someone didn’t?