LOL: Laugh Out Loud (After Oscar, #2)(30)

“Medical records are pretty well protected, so the paparazzi shouldn’t be able to get their hands on that if you don’t want them to find out who the father is,” I told her.

“That’s not the problem,” she said. “The problem is that the father doesn’t know he’s about to be a father.”

“Oh.” When Polly had told me about the pregnancy, she hadn’t said anything about the father and I hadn’t asked. It was her business, I figured, and if she wasn’t ready to tell me yet, I wasn’t going to push her. But I didn’t have to know who the father was to know what to tell her. “You should probably tell him.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” she snapped back. “It’s just… it’s not that easy. He… uh… doesn’t know who I am.”

Words escaped me for a long moment. “What? How? I don’t understand.”

She let out another long sigh. “It was when I was on location in North Carolina. We’d been filming for two weeks straight and we had a long weekend and I just wanted to get off set and escape all the shit with the movie and I went out to a bar in one of the suburbs and I met this guy and I kept waiting for him to recognize me and he didn’t and I went home with him and…” Her voice warbled and she broke off.

“So it was a one-night stand?” I asked gently.

“We didn’t leave the house the entire three-day weekend.”

“A three-night stand, then.”

“And we’ve been texting every day since,” she added. “And talking on the phone. And video chatting. His name is Howard. He’s a regular guy, a businessman. Owns a small architectural firm. And he’s a widower and has three kids, twin girls who are in college and a son who’s in law school, and he’s kind and sweet and fucking amazing in bed. He does this thing where—”

“Zzzzttt!” I said, cutting her off.

Other than the TMI about their sex life, I’d never heard her talk about a man like that. All gushy and melty and breathless. I smiled. “It sounds like you like him.”

“I do,” she admitted.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Oh, I don’t know. What do you think will happen when I call him up and am all like, ‘Hey honey, been to the movies recently? I’m guessing not because if you had you might have recognized your long-distance girlfriend on the big screen.’”

“He refers to you as his girlfriend?”

I could hear the blush in her voice. “Yeah.”

“Though seriously,” I continued. “How has he not figured out who you are? Your movie is killing it at the box office, and the poster for it is basically your face with crosshairs over it. Plus you’ve been on the cover of every tabloid for the past two weeks. Is the man dense? ’Cause if so, I’m not sure about the viability of a long-term relationship.”

“He’s a fifty-two-year-old widower. He spends his weekends at home reading spy novels, and I doubt he’s ever given any of the gossip magazines a second glance, especially with his daughters out of the house.”

I gave a whistle. “Older man, huh, Pol?”

“Can it, Roman.”

I turned serious again. “You’re going to have to tell him.”

“I know. I just… I’m scared to. He’s so normal and stable and solid and good and so outside all the crap and bullshit of our world and this is going to freak him out.” She let out a long breath. “I don’t want to lose him.”

“You’ll lose him if you don’t tell him,” I told her. “Relationships can’t work without honesty and open communication.”

“Why do you have to be so fucking reasonable, Roman?” she grumbled. “You make it sound so easy.”

I laughed. “Yeah, it’s super easy. That’s why I’m holed up in my ex-boyfriend’s ‘cottage’ with—” I was about to tell Polly about Scotty but caught myself at the last minute. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to know, or that I didn’t trust her, and it certainly wasn’t that I was embarrassed to be shacking up with the carriage driver. It was more that I felt a need to protect him. Shield him. If he wanted to tell people he’d hooked up with me, that was his decision to make. But I wouldn’t make it for him.

“With?” Polly pressed. “Is there something or someone you’re not telling me about?”

“Without anyone to warm my bed,” I finished. “That’s what I was about to say.”

“You know how easy it would be to fix that,” she said. “Head to the nearest town and flash that grin of yours and you’ll have your pick.”

Or I could just go back upstairs, I thought to myself. I immediately pictured Scotty the way I’d left him, cuddled under the covers all soft and warm. I couldn’t wait to slide back in behind him and draw my arm around his middle and pull him close.

“Call Howard, Polly. Give him a chance,” I said, already making my way back upstairs. “And let me know how it goes.”

“Fine,” she grumbled. “Good night.”

I hung up the phone and slipped back into the bedroom. We hadn’t taken the time to close the drapes and the moonlight on the snow reflected in through the window, casting the room in a soft glow. I shucked off my pants and crept onto the bed, sliding under the covers and scooting until I could feel the heat radiating from Scotty’s body. With a sigh I closed my eyes and let myself sink against him.