Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)(85)

Erma picked up Nicole and kissed her cheek. They extended loving affections while I scrolled through. Junk. Spam. I thought I should call Laura back and explain about Brad and how it wouldn’t happen ever again. Maybe meet up when I got back.

And Paula had texted, as if she hadn’t caused enough trouble.

“Come on, Miss Cara!” Nicole called out.

Susan tapped my shoulder. “Good-bye Cara,” she said, hugging me. “I hope you come back.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to hope with her, because I’d committed myself, and hoping meant I thought we could fail. I didn’t feel that anymore.

“I will,” I said, taking her by both shoulders. “We won’t be strangers, I promise.”

“Good.”

Erma crouched down to hug Nicole. She picked the girl up and swung her. I wrapped my arms around both of them.

“Bradley!” his father yelled from the other room. “Let’s get a move on.” He came into the kitchen before he was finished with his sentence. “Like middle school all over again. Aw, sheesh, now what are the women doing? All this hugging. Where are we? California? Get in the car before you all turn us into hippies.”

I hugged him and despite his fear of hippie-dom, he hugged me back.

“Thank you,” he said into my ear. “You take good care of my family. Thank you.”

“I love them,” I said without thinking.

Brad was right behind me. He draped his arm over my shoulder when I pulled away from his dad.

“Hands off my girl.”

Milton put his palms up, all eight fingers spread in surrender.

“Out,” his mom shooed us. “The front door’s wide open. We’re gonna be overrun with bugs in here.”

We piled into the limo, which had been sent all the way from Fayetteville.

Erma stood at the porch steps, Susan next to her. The driver held the door open for Brad. He put his arm around his mother, and she broke out in tears. Real, honest tears.

“Why is Grandma crying?” Nicole asked suspiciously. “What’s Daddy doing to her?”

“She’s sad he’s leaving.”

“Grandma!” Nicole called out. Erma wiped her eyes and faced the open limo door. “Come to the airport with us!”

“Oh, I can’t have him drive all the way back.”

“Sure you can,” Brad said. “We have an hour in the lounge to kill. You can kill it with us.”

“Need a ticket to get in the lounge.”

“I’ll get you a ticket. Go get your ID and come on.”

“The expense!” Erma protested.

“I’ll get it,” Susan said, running into the house.

“Come on, Grandma!” Nicole patted the seat next to her.

Brad pushed her to the back of the car. “No one says no to my daughter.”

“He made three mill on his last movie,” Milton said. “He can buy another limo ride. Go with them. I gotta clean up the mess around here. It’s like an army ran through the house.”

Erma was not impressed. “You never cleaned a thing in your life, Milton Sinclair.”

“I will if you git!”

Seeing she had everyone’s approval, Erma Sinclair got into the back of the limo, next to me. Brad shook hands with his dad and Buddy, then slid in next to Nicole. Susan came back with Erma’s purse. The door closed and we were off to Thailand.





CHAPTER 67


BRAD


I played with Nicole on the limo ride to the airport. She kneeled on the floor and used the seat as a table, drawing herself and her new school, her impressions of a long airplane ride, the pony I was apparently getting her, and her name. The whole name. Nicole Garcia-Sinclair. All the letters, facing the right direction, in order, right side up. We hadn’t legally changed it, but she was telling me something.

I picked up the paper and held it up.

“Hey, Cara,” I said. “These letters are all in the right place? Right?”

She didn’t answer.

She was looking at her phone.

A plane screamed in the sky above. We were almost at the airport.

“Let me see,” Mom said, taking the page. “They’re perfect!”

Nicole smiled and put her head down to make more letters. And Cara slid her hand over the glass of her phone, eyes wide, chin jutting and tender at the same time, as if she wanted to weep but couldn’t.

“Teacup?”

She didn’t answer. She put two fingers on the glass and spread them to make an image bigger. I swallowed but nothing went down.

Mom and Nicole chattered about the drawings. I could barely hear them through the scream of Cara’s concentration.

She put her phone in her lap and looked out the window as Arkansas farmland whooshed by. Did she know? Was it the truth? A lie? Had Paula embellished? Made it sound worse?

How could it actually be worse?

I texted her.

—Teacup? What’s wrong?—

Her phone dinged. She looked at it, then at me. She put the phone back in her lap and looked out the window.

Okay. This wasn’t working. I wasn’t sitting there wondering what the f*ck was wrong with her. I didn’t do that. I didn’t sit and wait for things to happen. If she was going to be mad, she was going to do it now.