Catch a Falling Star (In Love in the Limelight Book 3) Page 9

As they walked hand in hand, Wendy forgot about the cameras and coverage as she felt overtaken by the closeness of Colin. Jeepers, she had to calm down. And she had to get a handle on the PDA's, for sure. If she could kiss that cigarette-scented lecher Mike Pierce Season 5 of Ups and Downs and command her body to react as if she liked it, then surely she could kiss Colin and force herself to react as if it didn't rock her socks off. She needed to telegraph how comfortable she was with her soon-to-be-husband. Not how crush-crazy she was over the cutest boy in town.

  They stepped up to the door where two big players stood as bouncers.

  “Wendy,” Colin introduced, “this is Marcus Roberts and Carmen McRobb.”

  Wendy turned and took the first boy's hand in hers and shook it. “Marcus,” she sighed with a smile. “Coach has told me so much about you. Are your little brothers Ray Ray and Joey inside? Will I get to meet them, too?”

  “Yes, ma'am,” he said with a bit of a falter. “Yes, Miss Hunter. Thank you Miss Hunter. They will be happy to meet you Miss Hunter.”

  “And I'll be happy to meet them, too. And Carmen.” she said, turning, offering the second boy her most radiant smile. “How's the shoulder feeling?”

  “Good to go, Miss Hunter. Good to go.”

  “Excellent. Thank you both for helping out on guard duty tonight and this morning.”

  “Our pleasure, ma'am.”

  “Good job, guys,” Colin said with a smile.

  Then Wendy felt him put his hand oh-so-lightly at her back and usher her into Katy's.

  Once inside, she was swamped by the music, the fried fish smell, the bluish brownish atmosphere, the warmth of the hazy space. It all folded her in, like a paramedic's blanket. Wendy instantly adored every detail—the rough wooden tables, the benches, the fish nets on the walls, the pitchers of beer and soda, the frosty glasses.

  A hush as thick as swamp fog fell across the place as Wendy and Colin stepped out of the dim light of the doorway and into full view. She bit her lip and smiled. All the people looked genuine enough to have come from central casting. The whole place looked so much like the set of that rockabilly video she'd starred in. As Colin slid his arm around her waist, she was about to say how authentic everything looked. But she stopped herself in the nick of time when she turned to him and saw him smiling out at everyone. Right, it was all real. Colin was real. Katy's was real. The townspeople were real. For once, she was real.

  Colin felt like he was watching a flower unfurl its petals as Wendy breathed it all in. But before he knew it, someone came bounding up to them and scattered the magic. Wendy's faculties kicked in before his did.

  “Andre!” She smiled and hugged the team captain. And she hugged him hard. A real hug. “Thank you so much, Andre. For this morning,” She let him go and looked around. “And for this.” She gazed right into his dazzled eyes. “For everything.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” he said with a dumbstruck smile. “Me, too, ma'am. I mean, I will. Yes, thank you. Ma'am. Miss Hunter. Ma'am.”

  Wendy kept smiling at him, her hand on his arm, as focused on him as if he were telling her the secret of NIMH.

  Colin felt his stomach drop like he'd catapulted down a log flume ride. Good God, Wendy had turned Andre into mush in less than a minute. Did she make him look and sound that befuddled, too?

  “Andre,” Colin began, then cleared his throat. What had he been going to say? Why was he here again? How the hell could he still smell Wendy's hint of perfume in here?

  Andre recovered his wits. “It's all set up, Coach. All the tables. Everyone's pretty spread out. We figured you guys could eat a little bit at every table. Be making the rounds all night.” He smiled at them both like he just brought home his best report card ever. “Good practice for the wedding reception, right?”

  Colin felt Wendy lean into him and rest her head against his shoulder. “Mmm. Right on, Andre.” And she said it in such a lilting voice that Colin almost suggested that they get married at Katy's.

  Wait. What? Nobody was actually getting married. But Wendy made it so tempting to sink right into the fiction. Lola always said what a generous actor Wendy was. This must be what she meant—that Wendy made it easy for everyone else to slip right into the story.

  “Which table are Marcus's brothers at?” Wendy asked.

  Andre turned toward the dining room. “Oh, they're—“

  Just then the restaurant door behind them opened and a flurry of high-pitched giggly noise put Colin on high alert. The cheerleaders were here? Who the FUCK invited them?

  Then he heard her voice. “Hello, Colin.”

  Fuck. Tanya.

  “We heard there was a football event going down tonight.” She moseyed right up to him. “Your boys outside didn't seem to think we were invited, but then, Mr. Colin Scott Hunter would hardly want to be caught on camera dissing an entire team of high school girls, now would he?”

  “Of course not,” Wendy said, smiling. “I'm thrilled you're all here. The more of Colin's friends and students I can meet, the better.” She shook Tanya's hand vigorously.

  “Andre?”

  “Coach.”

  “Go arrange a table for Miss Diaz and the cheerleading squad. Sound good?”

  “On it.” And he disappeared.

  Tanya took a step back and gave Wendy a once over. An assessment that clearly found the starlet lacking. Tanya looked pointedly at Colin, back to Wendy, and back to Colin.

  Wendy stepped back into his closeness. “Wendy,” he said, “this is Rocheforte's cheerleading coach, Tanya Diaz. Tanya, this is my fiancée, Wendy Hunter.”

  Tanya looked back at Wendy. “Dressed down for the natives, did you?”

  Wendy shrugged with one shoulder, the dreamy smile back. “I'm comfortable.”

  “Really?” Tanya pursed her lips. “I thought you felt most comfortable in your birthday suit.”

  A direct hit.

  But Colin couldn't move or speak. He felt completely paralyzed. The balls to meet someone and seconds later confront them with their worst moments ever!

  But Wendy knew the ropes.

  Her voice came out quiet but steady. “I just met you. I don't know anything about you. But still, I would never wish that kind of betrayal and hurt on you.” She looked to the girls. “Or on anyone. It's impossible to go through life and feel love without getting hurt, but betrayal is something I hope you all escape.”

  A sadness ran along the undercurrent of her words, and Colin saw Tanya bite back whatever retort she'd been about to hurl.

  “Well,” Tanya said, twisting her mouth, “you seem to have landed on your feet.”

  Wendy smiled but looked wistful. “What else can you do but get on with it, right?”

  “Coach! Miss Hunter.” Andre came up to them, smiling. “It's all ready for the cheerleaders.”

  “Great job.” Colin clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Miss Diaz, this way.” And Andre led them all to their table.

  And God, the way Tanya called to her charges and they fell in line made him feel like the Sharks were trouncing on Jets territory.

  Wendy smiled and nodded at all the girls as they filed past, and some looked unsure as to whether they should act as frosty as their coach in a show of solidarity. But Wendy didn't seem to mind any of the full-on or half sneers at all. Nope. Instead of getting miffed, she handled all the slings and arrows.

  Chapter 15

  ANDRE

  Okay. Coach isn't gay. At least not with Miss Hunter. Not that he could be gay with a lady. I mean, well, he isn't. They're not. He's so into her. And she's like a bug around him and he's the bug zapper she can't stay away from. Or something like that. But what was up this morning? On Coach's porch? Is Coach on drugs? Does Miss Hunter bring him drugs? Do they do drugs together?

  “Andre?”

  I jump back. Miss Hunter touched me for a second on my arm. Now she's looking at me all sweet and concerned.

  “Are you okay?” she asks. “You look … upset. Can I help? Can I
do something?”

  But what can I say?

  “What is it?”

  And she's looking at me like she's going to keep all my secrets safe in a shoe box. But what else is in that damn box? “What are you doing to Coach?”

  It all comes blurting out of me, but as soon as I say it, I regret it. Her face crumples. Not like she's gonna cry. But like she's thinking about it. Like I hit on something real.

  “Andre.”

  Damn. Coach is NOT happy. He looks all stony and Vader, and I can see he's got a hand at her waist. Like what? He needs to protect her from my question? But she's her own woman. Isn't that what he's always telling us about girls?

  “On the porch,” I say, holding my ground and looking at Miss Hunter. “What was that?” I shake my head. “That wasn't Coach.”

  “Andre.” Coach is mad, all right.

  “Coach,” I say, looking right at him. “Miss Hunter asked me a question. We are having a conversation.” I can feel myself starting to freak out. When things go to hell, I always think about Coach and what he tells us, but now it's Coach that's whack. “What about respect?”

  Miss Hunter steps away from Coach and toward me. “'What did I do to Coach?'” she repeats in a higher voice, her eyebrows still crinkled as she nods to herself, like she's psyching herself up for the next play. “I did what I never wanted to do. I brought my crazy famous life crashing into his. I put him in an impossible spot. I told the world about us and I didn't tell him I was going to do that. And since then, he's been scrambling, trying to make sure no one gets hurt. On the porch this morning, he was trying to make the best of a bad situation.” She looks right into me then. “I guess he didn't seem like the Coach you know. But when you love someone and you get together with them, sometimes you change a little in the way you act, because it's not you by yourself any more. There's someone else to consider, a person you're always thinking about. But the true Coach is still there, looking out for everybody, caring what happens to everybody. Things are getting weird right now, but the true Coach is still there.” Miss Hunter smiles up at me then. “What was the last thing Coach said on the porch?”

  “For us all to go get breakfast.”

  She's still smiling and her eyes are, like, shining. “See? Looking out for his troops. You had his back this morning, and he had yours. He's still Coach.”

  Now I'm smiling, too. “Welcome to the team, Miss Hunter. Welcome to the team.”

  Chapter 16

  THE STORY OF WENDY AND COLIN

  And just like that, Wendy asked Andre to introduce her to her new teammates. She took his arm, turned back and threw Colin a kiss, and asked him to please make sure to order her extra cole slaw. Then she told Andre how she was dying to meet the guys after hearing about them for so long. And they disappeared into the blue-brown haze.

  Colin stood there, his heart pounding in his chest. What just happened? Wendy was like freaking Rumpelstiltskin, weaving magic from so much fluff in the blink of an eye. But how had she known the right things to say to Andre? Colin ran a hand through his hair. Was Wendy for real? Was any of this real? Or was she just a Hollywood diva who knew how to give the performance of a lifetime in any given situation? What the hell was going on?

  “You can wipe that smile off your face.”

  Colin jumped to see that Tanya had slid up to him as quietly as a devil. Had he been smiling? At least it was better than looking panic stricken. “Hi, Tanya.”

  “Don't 'hi,' me. You could have told me the woman was Wendy Hunter.”

  Colin turned to her. “What woman?”

  “When I asked you out,” she hissed.

  Colin remembered how he'd told Tanya there was someone else. A woman he loved but couldn't have. Thinking of it made him feel hollow. “Tanya, it shouldn't matter. I told you I loved someone else. It shouldn't matter who.”

  “You could have told me I was up against a super-famous multi-millionaire.”

  Colin was shaking his head. “You were never up against anyone. That's the point. I mean, is that how you see yourself? As a man-stealer, always on the hunt? You're so much better than that.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Save the speeches, Coach. I'm not some man-eating tramp. If you want to know the truth, I didn't really believe that you had someone. I couldn't picture it.”

  Colin felt a chill ice through him but he willed himself not to react. “Right.”

  “I mean it, Colin. The way you're always going on to your kids about respect and mutual this and that, I couldn't see you with anyone who'd live up to your standards.”

  “My standards? I do not have a checklist for the perfect woman. I never did.”

  “That's not what I mean. It's just hard to imagine you letting anyone in to your Fortress of Values.”

  “Whatever.”

  Tanya angled her head and studied him. “Hmmm ... I guess it makes sense that you claimed to love her when you couldn't have her.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “Wendy Hunter is the perfect woman for you. She lives in Hollywood. Thousands of miles and an entire planet away. So, you could have fun with her, even 'love' her. But since she's never really going to be available to move into The Fortress full-time, that lets you off the hook, doesn't it? You can love her without ever having to try to make it work. And you get to stay feeling so pristine.” Tanya started giggling but in a matter of seconds, she was laughing hard. “But she's come crashing into your Fortress now, hasn't she?”

  “Laugh it up, Tanya.” Colin nodded toward the cheerleader table as he saw Wendy approach it. “Because she's about to blast into your house.”

  “Oh, shit!”

  Tanya took off across the cluttered dining room, Colin shaking his head as he followed. What gold was Wendy spinning now?

  Colin moved in to stand next to Wendy's chair as she hunkered down with the girls.

  She was sitting there, elbows on the table, talking to them as if she were one of them. “I get you,” she was saying. “Lots of people like to get down on cheerleading as sexist,the way girls jump around in tiny skirts for boys.” She looked at them all, a smile washing across her face. “But it doesn't have to be like that. Remember, it's always between you and the audience. Not you and the guys. You and the audience.”

  Colin could feel himself getting pulled in to Wendy's hypnotic force as she looked each girl in the eye, one by one.

  “You told her to say that!” Tanya's shrill protest slashed across the moment like a needle dragging across an LP. Her eyes cut into Colin with just as much sharpness.

  “I did not!” Colin yelled back across the table to where Tanya stood.

  Wendy flashed a quick look at him then she glanced at Tanya before focusing back on the girls. “I don't need a man telling me what to say. And don't ever fall into that, girls, ever. Speak up and speak for yourselves.”

  Colin felt spellbound again. Damn, Wendy knew how to galvanize an audience. And he could see the young cheerleaders practically bending towards her, like sunflowers to the sunshine.

  Tanya actually guffawed. She totally made a snorty kind of sound.

  Wendy turned to her. “Even if I were spineless enough to let a guy tell me what to say, when would Coach have told me? We hardly ever get to see each other. When we do, we talk about a lot of things, sure. But we haven't gotten around to discussing cheerleading yet.”

  * * * * *

  What felt like hours later, and it kind of was, Wendy looked across the cab of the truck. Colin's face flashed into view with passing streetlights, and Wendy was pretty sure he was clenching his jaw. He sure as heck wasn't talking to her.

  What was going on?

  She'd gotten along with all the players and even bonded with some. She'd held her own against Tanya and even melted some of the chillier cheerleaders. The entire evening, she'd joined in as they'd all eaten, talked, laughed, and danced.

  Wendy smiled at how she blew them all away with her mad line-dancing skills. But her moves hadn
't won her any points, apparently.

  “Everything went all right tonight, didn't it?” she ventured.

  Colin looked at her for a second before turning back to the road. “What? Oh, yeah. Good job, Wendy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You didn't slip up once. Not even when you were talking to the three Johnson boys and Antoine Johnson, to boot. You kept them all straight.”

  “Memorizing material got me work. Being good with people and faces got me famous.”

  “So, it is just a tactic.”

  The lash in his words caught Wendy off guard. “Tactic? What do you mean?”

  “Getting to know people and making those connections that feel real—it's part of your job, part of the song and dance.”

  Wendy let the silence of the cab sink into her as she considered. “It's not so much part of the job as part of who I am. Connecting with people, even with the characters I play, is something I'm good at. I don't do it because I'm a star. I'm a star because I do it.”

  “You're famous because you're so good at faking it?”

  “Why do you assume it's fake? Do you think that because I found out about Jamal Johnson's mother's lupus today, I can't really care? Do you think it's too soon and too temporary, so I shouldn't bother feeling anything?”

  Colin jutted out his jaw and didn't speak for a few minutes. “I guess it's just that ...” he finally began.

  “What?” But Wendy asked softly, not with a challenge.

  “With you, it's all so ephemeral. Play one part, then on to the next. Care today, gone tomorrow.”

  “You don't think we should make connections where we can and when we can? You don't think we should try to make the fleeting moments count?”

  “Some of us are in it for the long haul.” He pulled the truck into his paparazzi-flanked driveway. “Smile, Princess.”

  As he put the truck into park, he laughed softly as though they were in the midst of delightful repartee. They each climbed out and met in front of the truck, taking each other's hands. They looked all toasted-brown-sugar at each other and almost touched noses before turning to the paparazzi and waving. One more adoring look at each other and then they headed into the kitchen through the back door.