Even if it would have taken her thirty seconds to return a text.
Now it’s Tuesday, she’s still not replied, and every passing hour makes it harder to pass off her radio silence as the demanding life of a college student or a dead phone battery. I wonder if she’s okay. I wonder if her parents would even try to call me if she wasn’t. And then I wonder if I should call them. I try to remember her friends’ names. (Kayla something. Aimee something. Shayma something.)
I’m not cool with the direction my thoughts are taking, because I don’t do clingy or needy or dependent or possessive.
I’ve spent most of the day with Brooke, first at her attorney’s office with Dad, and now at Kathryn’s house making a scrapbook about us for River. After printing out photos of ourselves and parts of LA – hiking trails, parks, his bedroom-to-be at each of our respective places – we glue-stick them on to the pages, like kindergarteners.
‘So, how do we plan to explain our relationship to him, since we’re planning to move him from the one home he knows … into two he doesn’t know at all? Two parents who are already separated – that might be confusing.’
Brooke chews one side of her lip, thinking. ‘Hmm. Well, we need to convince him that we’re friends. That we aren’t going to drag him into a tug-of-war. All our self-portraits are separate. Are there any photos in existence of the two of us together, happy? But not, you know, happy-happy. Maybe something taken during School Pride?’ Glancing at my dubious expression, she waves a hand. ‘Yeah, never mind. We pretty much loathed each other for the duration of that whole thing …’
After today’s revelations, I feel even worse about how I treated Brooke then. Seriously, having a conscience is ass. ‘The only friendly one I know of is from five years ago – the one that got printed along with the pics of us at LAX a couple of weeks ago, along with all the theories about why we were flying together.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Right? Because nothing coincidental ever happens to celebrities.’ She thumps herself in the forehead and grabs her phone. ‘Duh. Let’s just take one now. Lean in.’
We lean our heads together and smile, and she takes two or three shots. After we choose one and she sends it to her laptop, I say, ‘You know what the media is going to do with this story, right? River. Us.’
Sighing, she nods. ‘I’m not sure what slant they’ll take, but they’ll probably either try to make us into a pre-packaged little family, or we’ll be the new young Hollywood poster children for teen irresponsibility. Like having a child is comparable to being jailed and rehabbed non-stop for a coke addiction. I wouldn’t care what they say about me –’
‘That’s new.’
She shrugs. ‘I just don’t want River getting hurt because of it. Especially the whole illegitimate thing. So … I was thinking about giving Rowena an exclusive for the first photos of River –’
‘What? No. Why would you even consider letting one of those vultures take photos of him?’
‘Because, c’mon, Reid, be realistic – they’re gonna take photos of him. This is a huge story, and Hollywood babies are stalked hard. If we have Rowena do them, we diffuse some of the demand for him, and control how he’s presented to the general public.’
I grimace. ‘Alarmingly, that makes some sense …’
‘Of course it does. Look. He’s four. If we can manage the way his story is told now, it will become the accepted account of his life. Once he’s old enough to realize we’re his real parents, it won’t be a big deal.’
‘Except when he figures out that you and I were happy-happy at least once, which should absolutely be our secret code word for sex.’ I flutter my lashes and affect a feminine voice. ‘Reid, since you have River this weekend, I’m going to happy-happy my new personal trainer!’
‘Shut up.’ She punches me in the arm just hard enough to bruise. ‘I don’t do people who work for me. Gross. And trust me, you’ve been getting a lot more happy-happy than I have recently.’
‘Jealous?’ She tries to punch me again and I block her and laugh. ‘Didn’t you say you’d decided to do the season finale of Life’s a Beach, along with that brainless beefcake you were involved with – what’s his name – Xavier something-or-other? I’m sure he’d be game for a little happy-happy.’
Hiding her face, she laughs. ‘Ugh! We were involved all of once – he was all pretty and no skill.’
‘Unlike yours truly.’ Grinning wickedly, I waggle my brows and she rolls her eyes.
‘Christ, your ego always was ginormous. Unbelievably, it appears to have grown. How does your new girlfriend handle that thing? Or is that what you like about her being an ordinary girl – ass over elbows because hot superstar Reid Alexander is paying attention to her.’
I feel like she’s just poked my good mood with a pin. ‘Dori’s not like that.’
‘Oh?’
‘She’s never been awestruck by me or impressed by the whole celebrity thing, whether I wanted her to or not. She doesn’t think of me like that.’
She arches a brow. ‘So you say. But you can’t escape who you are, Reid, and neither can she.’
And with those words, Brooke verbalizes exactly what I’m worried about. The odd solidarity building between us today served as somewhat of a distraction from my uneasiness concerning Dori, but that’s all it was – a distraction.
‘I’m going to step outside and call her,’ I say.