Authors: Amy Love
Chapter Two
Chelsea woke up alone and she didn’t mind at all. She stretched out fully on the bed as rays of sunlight peaked around the heavy curtains. It was nice waking up alone; she didn’t have to worry about morning breath or the state of her hair or how terrible her mascara looked. She stretched out even farther, taking up far more room than she would have been able to if her stranger had stayed.
She dozed in and out for a few more minutes, but then her need for coffee and a shower became greater than her enjoyment of the bed and she sat up and ran her hand through her messy hair. She took a moment to look at her surroundings. She was in the guest bedroom of her sister’s apartment and pictures of herself and her sister, Jamie, as children lined the walls. She couldn’t help but smile at their old prom dresses and the ridiculous ways they used to wear their hair. Finally, Chelsea climbed out of bed and winced a little at the pleasant soreness between her legs.
Naked, she walked to the bathroom, locking the door behind her and making sure to avoid the mirror. She put the water on blast and once it was blistering hot, she stepped into the shower. She took her time removing her caked on makeup and then slowly lathered up her soap and ran it over her skin. She sighed in the bathroom as she remembered the night before and thought of her sexy stranger she would never see again.
It was for the best that they didn’t meet again. This way their night could forever be just be a one-time thing. The next time Chelsea was sitting in traffic or in line somewhere she could think of that night and have a reason to smile. She didn’t mind being a pleasant memory to her stranger either. It was getting harder for her to go out unrecognized and she knew she soon wouldn’t be able to do something like this without it ending up in the tabloids and ruining her reputation.
“You’re finally up!” her sister exclaimed, sitting at her kitchen table, a laptop open in front of her. Chelsea nodded as she reached for a mug of coffee. Her wet hair was wrapped up in a towel and she was wearing her sister’s bathrobe. “Details please,” Jamie said. “I heard some strange noises coming from you room and then I heard someone leave very early this morning, so you owe me details. Name, biographical info, the works.”
“Yeah...” Chelsea said as she sipped her coffee. “That’s the thing. I was bad last night.”
“How bad?” Jamie asked as she closed her laptop and turned to face her younger sister.
“I don’t quite remember his name or who he was,” Chelsea admitted a blush crossing her cheeks.
“What!?” Jamie exclaimed, her face lighting up in glee.
“I kind of remember us chatting at the bar and then dancing, but it’s all really vague and fuzzy. I do remember inviting him back to your apartment and I do remember the awesome sex we had, but all the other details are getting lost in a haze.”
“So, the sex was good and he didn’t have a personality. Sounds like the perfect man,” Jamie said as the sisters shared a wicked grin.
Chelsea smiled over at her sister, glad to finally be in like-minded company. She had been in LA for so long, surrounded by shallow, money-driven people. It felt good to be her real self again. It felt good to be around family.
Chelsea and Jamie were only a year apart in age and when they were younger people had often asked if they were twins. But Chelsea had, as her label put it, that good-old-fashioned-American look. She was tall and thin with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Jamie had dark red hair and was a little curvier than her sister. They were partners in crime and they had always had been.
“You were at the bar with me; you must have seen him. Don’t you remember anything?”
“Hmmm...I remember you talking to a couple of guys, but you weren’t into them. Then there was another guy...” Jamie looked thoughtfully at the ceiling, but then shook her head, “but I can only remember the back of his shirt and then I left with Jason, remember? You said you were okay and that I should go. I do remember us giggling about how hot he was, and maybe there was something else, but that’s all I can remember.”
“Yeah. Oh well. I guess it will have to remain a mystery. He left not too long after we were finished.”
“Our flight leaves tomorrow at two,” Jamie reminded her sister.
Chelsea groaned into her coffee cup and rolled her eyes. “Let’s say the flight was cancelled or delayed. Let’s just hang out in your apartment and go get drunk and party every night instead,” Chelsea pleaded.
“No,” Jamie said, “besides, Chels, the internet exists now and mom can all too easily check out our stories. All it takes is one Google search to prove we’re lying. Besides, don’t you want to know who her new boy toy is? She said he’s taking her to Paris this spring for her birthday. Who in our Podunk town can afford a trip Paris?”
“Ugh, who knows? I just know I am not in the mood to meet another boyfriend of hers. I’ve met more than my fair share and they leave as fast as they come.”
“Oh yeah, remember the last guy who tried to get me to quit my job as a bartender and work for him selling those healthy shakes?”
“Pyramid scheme guy? Yeah, I remember him. He still owes me forty bucks for gas.”
“Remember how he kept telling us it wasn’t a pyramid scheme, despite the overwhelming evidence?”
“Mom sure can pick ‘em,” Chelsea said with a shake of her head. She couldn’t help but wonder who her mother’s new boyfriend was. A cook at the diner, a bartender at her favorite watering hole. Chelsea’s mother lived in a small town and she didn’t have that many options.
“Well, look.” Jamie said, reaching across the table to take her sister’s hand. “We’ll go for the holidays, behave ourselves, and if it goes well we could go an entire year without having to make the trek back to Idaho again.”
“Plus, us going to Idaho is much better than Mom coming here,” Chelsea admitted. “Remember last time when she kept trying to get us to score her some coke? God, that was so embarrassing.”
“You know Mom, anything for a good time,” Jamie said with a roll of her eyes.
Chelsea nodded and took another swallow of her coffee. In truth both she and her sister were far more like their mother than either wanted to admit. Jamie was twenty-four and Chelsea was twenty-three, neither one of them had gone to college and neither one worked a steady job. Jamie worked as a bartender at the hottest club in San Francisco and Chelsea was up in LA where she had been hard at work on the album her label was pushing her to complete.
In a lot of ways the two women were leading their mother’s dream life. They had both gotten out of Idaho and gone on to travel and have adventures. Their mother, Colleen, hadn’t been so lucky. She had become pregnant with Jamie at seventeen and Chelsea at eighteen with their father, a man named Rick who no one had seen in a long time. She told them repeatedly that there was a big world out there and she wanted them to see as much of it as possible. She didn’t want them to end up like her, stuck in some two-bit town. But it was just like a mom. Now that both of her daughters had spread their wings, Colleen was desperate to have them both come home as often as they could.
Chelsea leaned back in her chair and remembered Idaho. They had grown up in a decent sized town. Most of the people there had either been farmers or worked on a farm. It was normal for kids to miss school when it was planting and harvesting, or the first day of hunting season. Most people bragged about their pickup trucks instead of Bentleys or Ferraris. Chelsea could remember the old beater VW Fox she had bought for seven hundred dollars. She had driven that car all over town, had written her first song while sitting on the hood as she stared out into endless potato fields.
She hadn’t been home in over three years. She had seen her mother and sister, but she hadn’t been back to Idaho and something about the trip made her nervous. She wasn’t sure what her old town would look like anymore. Would she fall in love with Main Street and its quaint charm all over again, or would she only see the chipped paint and dilapidated streets? Her memory of her town was bittersweet and some part of her was worried that going back to it as an adult would somehow strip it of it’s charm.
Chelsea went back to the guest bedroom and dressed slowly. She kept it simple with a pair of black skinny jeans and a blue and white striped shirt. But no matter how hard she tried to think of something else, her mind kept going back to her mystery man. He had complete control over her and she could still feel his lips on her neck and hear the low growl he let out when she touched him.
I should have gotten his number
, she thought with a shake of her head. Sex that good was too rare a thing to waste on a one-night stand. It would have been nice to have a guy on call every time she wanted to visit her sister. But there was nothing to be done about it. Her mystery man was gone, leaving nothing but a condom wrapper and memories to show he had ever been there at all.
Jamie despised lateness and they arrived at the airport on time. Chelsea was a little surprised to see the blinking bursts of lights from paparazzi as their cab dropped them off. The two sisters quickly hopped out of the cab and grabbed their things and Chelsea pulled a hat low on her head. The paparazzi weren’t here for her; she wasn’t that famous yet, but if they saw her...
“Hey, is that Chelsea Riley? What’s her going rate?” someone shouted out and Chelsea felt her face go red.
“Two-fifty for a photo,” someone else shouted out and before she knew it Chelsea was surrounded by paparazzi as they crowded around her.
“Chelsea, need help with your bags?”
“Chelsea, are you seeing anyone?”
“Chelsea, Entertainment Weekly called you the next All-American Girl Next Door, how does that make you feel?
Chelsea didn’t answer. It was useless to answer them. They were sharks and answering their questions was akin to chumming the water. She smiled and kept her head down as she and Jamie piled their bags on top of a trolley and pushed it into the airport, leaving the paparazzi behind.
All-American girl next door, that was, indeed, what her label was going for. She wondered what the paparazzi would think of her exploits last night; she had amazing sex with a man she didn’t remember the name of and she still wanted more. It wasn’t exactly girl next door kind of behavior, but Chelsea had never really been the girl next door and she was starting to get worried she wasn’t going to be good at playing the part.
Chelsea Riley liked going to parties and dancing; she liked doing shots and smoking the occasional joint. She liked having fun and being around people who liked fun. But if she wanted success she would need to put all of that behind her. If Chelsea Riley wanted to be famous she would need to be the sweetest, most innocent girl next door all of time. No more clubs, no more strange boys, just romance and true love.
Chapter Three
“I’ve never been hounded by the paparazzi before,” Jamie said as they took their seats on the plane.
“That wasn’t hounded,” Chelsea said with a scoff. “I’m not famous enough to be hounded. They must have been waiting on someone else and were just killing time with me.” Chelsea had seen pop stars who were truly hounded by the paparazzi. People like Rihanna, Britney, Miley, and Taylor couldn’t take two steps out of their house without a dozen men with huge cameras and hoards of screaming fans shouting their names.
Everybody wanted a piece of them all the time and it made Chelsea nervous. She needed to figure out who her real friends were now before it was too late. She needed to surround herself with people she could trust and be herself around, but it was proving to be hard. She had plenty of hook-ups in Hollywood, but nothing serious. It seemed that everyone she met was just searching for fame and they didn’t want to be with Chelsea; they just wanted to use her as a stepping stone.
It was true that Chelsea wasn’t famous enough for that kind of attention, but her label was hoping she could be. Her next album was in the bag and she had finished the vocals last week. Now it was up to the editors and marketers to turn it into a finished product that would sell millions. If everything went as planned her entire life was going to be completely different in just a few months.
Once the album dropped she would forever be “Chelsea Riley: the girl next door.” Chelsea Riley the pop star would never go home and have hot sex with a total stranger; she would need to be too much of a good girl for that. Chelsea Riley the pop star would sit at home and drink tea and write mournful songs about the boy next door who was with someone else. She would need to be sweet as sugar and twice as nice all day every day or else her album sales would plummet. In a lot of ways this trip home was one last hurrah for the real Chelsea Riley, the one who like tequila shots and X-rated clubs.
The seatbelt light lit up above Chelsea and she and her sister dutifully buckled themselves in. The plane began to accelerate and then her stomach dropped as the wheels left the tarmac and they were airborne. They rose higher and higher as the city receded below them and then they were surrounded with big, white, puffy clouds.
***
“My girls!!!!” Colleen’s squeal was loud enough to make all the heads in the terminal turn to look at her, and boy did they get an eyeful. Colleen was wearing a pair of skintight leather pants and a pink, silk, lace, spaghetti strap top. Her hair was blown out and feathered and she was wearing more makeup than a Kardashian. In her own world, Colleen was still that nineteen-year-old party girl, even though over twenty years had passed and she was in her forties.
“Hi, Mom,” Jamie and Chelsea said in unison as they hugged their mother.
“You look great, Mom,” Chelsea said as she kissed her mother on the cheek.
“That’s right. I’ve been doing Pilates and CrossFit,” she said, her voice still a little bit louder than it needed to be. There was a gaggle of businessmen not too far from them waiting for their luggage and looking appreciatively at Colleen out of the corner of their eyes. Chelsea could see that her mother was putting on a bit of show. “I’ve got the ass of a twenty-five-year-old!” she said, giving herself a nice hard slap that sent the business men elbowing each other and raising their eyebrows. “I am going to look great when I’m your date for the Grammys,” she said to Chelsea.
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” Chelsea said rolling her eyes at her sister who was trying to keep her laughter quiet.
“Did you bring the Camaro?” Jamie asked as she began to pull their luggage off the carousel.
“Oh no, honey,” Colleen said with a conspiratorial wink. “Terrance hired a limo.”
“A limo?” Chelsea asked.
“Who’s Terrance?” Jamie asked.
“Ta da!” Colleen crowed as she threw her hands around an older, heavyset balding man in a crisp suit. Chelsea hadn’t even noticed him; he had been standing by the carousel talking to a man who had his back to them. “This is my new beau, Terrance, Terrance DeMarco.”
Chelsea’s heart stopped. DeMarco...No, there was no way it could be
that
DeMarco. It couldn’t be, it would be too much of a coincidence.
“Like DeMarco’s Auto Repair shop, DeMarco?” Jamie asked.
“Like the many DeMarco’s Auto Repair shop,” the man corrected, holding out his hand. “I’ve done quite a bit of expanding these last few years. You must be Chelsea and Jamie. Colleen here has been telling me so much about you girls. I feel like I already know you.”
Numbly Chelsea shook the sweaty hand of Terrance DeMarco, his handshake oddly weak and limp and she pulled away from him quickly. Terrance DeMarco, of all of the men in Snowbird, her mother had to start dating Terrence DeMarco. There was something about Terrance that made the hair on the back of Chelsea’s neck stand up. There was something about the way he talked to people, something about the way he looked at them; it was like a spider looking at a fly. His eyes were dark and beady and he seemed to always be licking his lips. It didn’t help that Chelsea probably knew more about Terrance DeMarco than her mother did.
“Well, thanks for the limo, Mr. DeMarco,” Jamie said. She gave a sidelong glance at her sister who ignored it. Jamie knew all about Chelsea’s huge high school crush on Terrance’s son, Blue, and Chelsea was hoping that her sister could keep her mouth shut about it for the entire trip.
“Well, I wasn’t sure how else we could fit all five of us and all your luggage in a normal car anyway.”
“Five?” Chelsea asked. She felt sick and suddenly very lightheaded.
“Sure, did you not know that Blue was on the plane? He said he was going to call.”
“I must have forgotten,” a deep voice from behind them said.
Oh no,
Chelsea thought as her eyes went wide. She struggled to keep her face neutral, but all at once the night before came rushing back to her. She remembered exactly who she had been with; how could she have forgotten? Blue, she had run into Blue at the club. It had been Blue she had been drinking and dancing with; it was Blue she had brought home.
“Blue, so good to see you again,” Chelsea heard Jamie said. She looked at her sister out of the corner of her eyes and could see the huge smile her sister was trying desperately to hide. Yup, Chelsea had been with Blue last night and her sister knew it, too.
“Hey, Blue,” Chelsea said, finally turning around. She kept her eyes focused on the floor and then the collar of his shirt. She was too embarrassed to look at him. She was struggling to keep her cheeks from burning red, her hands from shaking, and her voice from stuttering. She had slept with the son of her mother’s new boyfriend. Her mother’s boyfriend’s son just happened to be Chelsea’s high school crush. Life in a small town could be so terrible sometimes.
“Hey, Chelsea,” Blue said and Chelsea finally looked into his eyes. He was wearing a knowing, but gentle, smirk; he also looked very good. Any vestiges of his high school self, the smattering of zits, the JNCOs, and the baggy basketball jerseys were gone, replaced with a stronger, confident looking man. Blue had bulked up and he was wearing a pair of well fitting blue jeans over tan boots, a tight white t-shirt, and a light blue jacket with the sleeves halfway rolled up his arms. His dark brown hair was swept to the side and he was clean shaven. He looked good, far better than he had any right to.
“Why didn’t you wear your blue dress uniform?” Terrance chided his son. “People bend over backwards for guys in uniform, you probably could have been bumped to first class or got to meet the captain or something.”
“That is why I went into the Army,” Blue said. “For the free flight upgrades.”
“Watch your mouth,” Terrance said and his voice slipped into a dangerous low tone that made Chelsea nervous. “You might be a big military guy now, but that doesn’t mean you can disrespect me in front of Colleen and her daughters.”
Chelsea glanced at her sister and they shared a worried look as their eyes looked everywhere but Terrance or Blue. There was a very clear threat in Terrance’s words and Chelsea could only too easily remember Blue ranting about his father and lying to teachers about how he got his bruises and black eyes.
It was bad enough that Chelsea had slept with her almost stepbrother. But the fact that Terrance was a known violent jerk wasn’t helping anything. Had he done anything to Colleen? Did she know what his true colors were? One last trip home, wasn’t that what had Jamie said, that they would just need to come and make nice for a couple of days and then not come back for a long time? Of course it wasn’t going to be that simple; it was never that simple with Colleen.
Blue didn’t react to his father. He stared at the older man and then, without a word, he began to lift Jamie and Chelsea’s luggage onto a carousel.
“Oh, we can do that,” Jamie said, reaching for a bag.
“Nonsense!” Terrance said loudly. “I didn’t raise my boy to watch a lady lug around a bunch of heavy baggage. He’s a healthy strong boy and he needs to start earning his keep anyway.”
No one said anything. It was awful and uncomfortable and Chelsea didn’t know what to do. It was in her nature to help people and she wanted to defend Blue or at least strike out at Terrance. But the situation was too messy. Terrance was her mother’s new boyfriend and no matter who he was, Colleen always sided with her new beau and never her daughters. Besides, Chelsea didn’t want to draw any attention to her relationship with Blue; she didn’t want to give anyone a reason to suspect there might be something else going on between them.
She didn’t feel good about it. The tension was making her sick. But she swallowed all of her reservations down and gave Blue a weak smile as the last of her luggage was piled onto the trolley and he began to push it towards the doors. Terrance took Colleen’s hand and they led the way with Chelsea and Jamie bringing up the rear.
“Well,” Jamie said under her breath, “this looks like things will be terribly awkward for the entire trip.”
“You cannot tell anyone about me and Blue the other night,” Chelsea said in a desperate whisper.
“I can’t believe you forgot it was him.”
“I must have blocked it out or something.”
“He does look very good, though,” Jamie said, tilting her head to get a better view of Blue’s ass as he pushed their luggage through the terminal.
Chelsea felt an odd sensation well up in her chest and it took her a moment to recognize it as jealousy. She instinctively wanted to tell her sister to back off, but she wasn’t sure why. She and Blue weren’t really anything to each other anymore. They had been friends in high school; Chelsea had always hoped it would turn into something more, but it never had. Chelsea had always thought Terrance was the reason Blue had pushed her away but she had never been able to get any proof. She did remember the tough life Blue had led. His mother had died when he was very young and Terrance had raised him. Blue’s father was a strict and demanding man with a quick temper. Thinking back on it, Chelsea couldn’t remember Blue saying a single good thing about him.
“Oh my God,” Jamie whispered with a giggle, “you do realize that if mom and Terrance get married you will have hooked up with your stepbrother, right?”
“Shut up!” Chelsea said, shoving her sister away from her. It wasn’t fair. Chelsea had met Blue long before her mother had met Terrance. If anyone should have been dating a DeMarco, it should have been Chelsea.
“Push me all you want. I’m still right.”
She was right, and what was worse, Chelsea wanted more. Blue had been so amazing last night and now that she had a face to put the sensations it was harder for her to forget about them. Nothing could happen between them. She needed to think of her career; she was supposed to be single when the album dropped. Her manager had made it clear that they wanted to sell her as the girl next door just looking for a good man to come and sweep her off her feet. There was no way that her maybe stepbrother and the son of a violent auto mechanic was the guy they had in mind.
Still, though, it was Blue. Blue was the first guy Chelsea had ever fallen for. She had written dozens of songs for and about him. She had dreamt of him and fantasized about him and now here he was, fresh out of the Army and pushing her luggage through an airport. If only things had been completely different, maybe they could have made it work.