Some Like It Hot (29 page)

“Stop,” Sam ordered.

“How come?”

“First, the ceremonial kiss from the queen.”

“Yes, your highness.”

Sam giggled again, then stepped drunkenly toward Parker, who had closed his eyes. She kissed him. Then she kissed him again. It was friendly, that's all. Well, maybe a little more than friendly, but not much. …

“Samantha?”

Oh God. She knew that sexy, slightly accented voice. It belonged to Eduardo. But it couldn't be real, because Eduardo was in—

“
Samantha!
”

Sam pushed Parker to one side so she could prove to herself that she was having auditory hallucinations.

Nothing phantasmagorical was involved. Eduardo stood not five feet from them, in jeans, a white T-shirt, and an open light blue shirt.

“I left the party in Mexico to surprise you.” His voice was hard and cold. “But I am the one who is surprised.”

Parker tried to go to Sam's defense. “Hey, man, this isn't what it looked like. It's prom night, Sam was missing you—”

“Shut up before I feed you your teeth,” Eduardo seethed.

“But—it isn't fair. You should have told me you were coming.” She knew that was a weak effort, but she was too mortified by her own behavior to think of anything else to say. Mortified and drunk.

Eduardo's eyes narrowed. “Why? So you could pretend to be the girl I thought you were?”

Fear clutched Sam's stomach. “I
am
that girl! This was stupid, I know. I was just lonely and missing you and we were goofing around and—”

“Save it, Samantha,” Eduardo spat, “for someone who gives a damn.”

He turned and headed back toward the hotel parking lot. Sam stumbled after him. “Eduardo, wait, please.
Please
!”

He didn't stop; Sam was too wasted to catch up with him. All she could do was watch him disappear around the corner of the hotel. She felt bereft, lost, alone. How had this have happened?
How?

Parker came up next to her and put a supportive arm around her shoulders. “What's with that guy? He just loves to show up unannounced.”

“Go to hell, Parker.”

“Relax, Sam. Talk to him tomorrow. It'll be okay.”

Funny, five minutes ago he'd been as wasted as she was, but now he sounded perfectly sober. Had he really been so drunk in the first place, or had he only been
pretending
to be drunk so that she would be tempted to kiss him?

“You got drunk and you kissed me,” Parker went on. “Nothing else happened. It's
prom night
, for God's sake. What's the big deal?”

Sadness washed over her. She was megarich and semi-famous. She could get anything, go anywhere, meet anyone she wanted, but what she couldn't get was a do-over of the moment her first true love had found her kissing someone else.

“The big deal, Parker,” she replied calmly, with all the dignity and sobriety she could muster, “is that you don't give a shit about me, but Eduardo does. He really, truly does.”

Who Says Romance is Dead?

A
nna and Ben walked with their arms around each other, heading away from the bonfire until its faint light was far off in the distance. They were about to spread out their beach blanket when Anna nearly tripped over something. At first she thought it was a rock. But then it groaned. A someone. She peered closely at it.
Two
someones.

Skye. Her shimmery silver dress was near her waist, revealing an equally shimmery silver G-string. She was entwined in the gangly limbs of none other than Marshall.

“Sorry!” Anna half-gasped, astonished to see that the mental-health chaperone was a closet party animal. “We didn't see you.”

Skye lifted her head from Marshall's shoulder long enough to peer up at Anna and Ben. “Marshall is helping me get over Damian.”

Marshall shrugged. “What the hell. I already lost my job.”

“If you can't be with the one you love …,” Skye slurred. “However that thing goes.”

“Love the one you're with?” Ben filled in helpfully.

“Yeah, whatever.” She put her head back in the crook of Marshall's arm.

“Okay, well …” Anna had no idea what to say; it was everything she could do to keep from giggling.

“Party on,” Ben suggested, peering down at them.

He pulled her away from the macking couple, and they managed to walk down the beach another hundred yards or so. Then they couldn't help themselves; they burst out laughing … before spreading their own blanket on the sand and giving themselves over to the moment.

At a guesthouse on Twenty-fifth Avenue in Santa Monica, Dee slept wrapped in Jack's arms. Meanwhile, he thanked whatever gods had led him to this moment and this girl. She stirred; Jack pressed her closer.

“Everything is okay,” he whispered, kissing her hair. “Go back to sleep.”

He couldn't say for sure that they wouldn't both wake up in the morning and give each other that who-are-you-and-what-the-hell-did-I-do? look. It had happened to him so many times; the wow-I-had-no-idea-it-was-so-late while pulling on his jeans, followed by the hey-I'll-call-you lie as he stuffed his wallet into his back pocket and made a hasty retreat.

Maybe that would happen. Maybe it wouldn't. But
this
feeling,
this
moment, had never happened to him before: He wanted to hold Dee forever. He kissed her forehead.

Shit
. Maybe this was what love felt like.

After Eduardo coldly stormed away, Sam downed three cups of bitter black coffee and then took her returning lucidity and bitch of a headache to a large craggy rock by the ocean, just to think. She wasn't big on religion, but she found herself proffering deals to whatever god was in charge of these things: If he would only forgive her, she'd never be mean or petty again. She really
would
become the girl Eduardo thought she was, instead of the self-centered bitch she often allowed herself to be.

She raised her knees to her chest and encircled them with her arms, breathing in the salt air. Her perch was surrounded by the Pacific, and the constant lapping of ocean against the stone was somehow soothing. A plan. She needed a plan. What was the best way to apologize? She had to figure out how to—

“Hey, Sam.”

Cammie. Dressed way down in Earl jeans and a pink paisley Imitation of Christ T-shirt; she held a large envelope in her hands.

“Have a pleasant evening?” Sam mustered all the energy she could just to ask the question. It wasn't much. She'd been sitting on the rock for a long time and hadn't even had enough will to check her watch.

Cammie didn't reply; she just motioned at the rock with a gesture that Sam interpreted by scooching to one side so her friend could settle in.

“Could you find anyplace
more
uncomfortable to sit?”

“My ass has more padding than yours does. So, you and Adam took off early in a moment of passion? That's lasted until now?”

Cammie shook her head. “Not exactly. It's been a strange night.”

“Tell me about it.” Sam shook her head sadly. “Where's Adam?”

“Home. I'm alone.”

Okay, that
was
strange. Normally, Sam would have pressed her, but she had other things on her mind. “Guess what? You missed Eduardo. He showed up to surprise me.”

“Really,” Cammie replied. Her voice was uncharacteristically flat.

“He caught me kissing Parker because … I don't know. I was drunk.”

Cammie gave the smallest of shrugs. “Shit happens.”

Sam bristled. “Oh well. Thank you
so
much for all your love and support in my hour of need.”

“Funny, isn't it,” Cammie mused, “how something can feel like the biggest thing in the world, but then in an instant, everything can change?”

“What can be bigger than that? I just lost Eduardo—”

“I've got bigger.” She fingered the large envelope in her lap.

“What are you talking about?”

Cammie pressed her lips together. “Okay, I don't know any way to say this but to say it. It's about my mother. She didn't kill herself. I'm sure of it.”

Sam put a hand to her forehead. Mental rewind. What did Cammie's mom have to do with anything?

“What are you talking about?”

Cammie tapped the envelope. “What's in here. I'd tell you to read it but it's too dark. Besides, no one in Hollywood reads, so I'll give you the coverage. Your mother was doing my father a long time ago.”

“
What
? And what does that line of total bullshit have to do with any of the other bullshit that happened tonight?”

“Forget tonight, okay?” Cammie begged. “Can you just do that for one goddamn minute?”

Sam was shocked into silence. Cammie
never
begged.

“Okay,” Sam agreed cautiously, though she was skeptical. “My mother. Your father. Way back when. Prove it.”

Cammie hoisted the envelope. “In here is the police report about my mom's death. The papers were sealed, but Adam's parents got a hold of them. …” She stopped, then started again. “It's pretty goddamn clear. The night my mother died, your mother was with her. She got picked up at the Carpinteria marina and dropped off there later. Your mom told the cops she did my father on the boat.”

Sam shook her head as if to clear it. “My mother was having sex with your father?”

Cammie gestured unemotionally to the papers. “It's all in here.”

Sam put her palms on the boulder to steady herself. “This doesn't make sense.”

“Yes it does. If they killed my mother.”

Sam gasped. “That's insane.”

“If it's so insane, why has it been a big secret all these years? Why did your mom leave town? She never sees you, never calls—”

Sam slapped her hands over her ears. “Stop saying that.”

“Why, Sam?” Cammie pressed, loud enough so that Sam could still hear. “Why?”

Sam's hands fell to her sides. She shook her head. “You're jumping to conclusions. Sick conclusions.”

“Maybe the right conclusions. That's what we have to find out.”

Sam had never seen such determination in Cammie's eyes before. “What are you going to do?”

“It'll be light in a few hours. Even though it's Sunday, my compulsive father will be at the
Hermosa Beach
set by eight
A.M.
I'll be waiting for him. With this.” She tossed the envelope up and down, like Sam had seen movie criminals do with their murder weapons.

Sam had no idea what to do or what to believe. If she read the affidavit that Cammie said was in the envelope, would it make more sense?

God, poor Cammie. She really thought that her father had
—

Ugh
. Clark and her mother. What a repulsive concept.

She turned to look at her friend. Cammie's hands were literally shaking. That was a first, too. The two of them had been through so much. They bitched and gossiped and fought with each other, but in the end, they knew each other better than anyone else on the planet knew them.

She took Cammie's trembling hand in her own and squeezed it.

“What's that for?” her oldest friend asked, her eyes looking out to the dark abyss of the Pacific.

“When your father shows up, we'll
both
be waiting for him.”

Cammie Sheppard was a lot of things, but
grateful
was a characteristic no one had ever ascribed to her … not until that moment on that rock by the ocean, when Cammie squeezed Sam's hand back.