Role of a Lifetime (10 page)

Chapter 23

Kelly stood at the foot of the bed trying to decide what to do.  He had been slightly confused when he had woken up but the memories came back to him when felt Holly shift under the covers next to him.  The very hot memories.  He had quietly slipped out of bed to use the bathroom and had been planning on crawling back into bed when he had noticed the time.

Now he stood, looking down at Holly in bed, frozen in indecision.  It was early enough that he could probably slip out of the hotel and get home and no one would have any idea he had spent the night there.  That was probably the right choice, for Holly's sake.  But he didn't really want to go.  He stood there watching her sleep.  The covers had slipped down to her waist and her breasts rose and fell gently with each deep breath.  Kelly glanced back at his jacket.  He knew he had several more condoms in his pocket.  It would be so easy to crawl back into bed with her.  Less easy to let her wake up on her own but he would wait.  Dammit, he thought, as he started to get hard, and he picked his clothes up off the floor and started getting dressed.

He quickly texted the car service he used.  He thought about texting Holly right then and there, telling her why he was leaving and that he would send a car for her later.  But as he gazed at her phone sitting on the desk he changed his mind.  If it rang it would wake her up.  Part of him wanted her to wake up because, if she did, he wouldn't leave.  It wasn't until he slipped out of the room, carefully shutting the door softly behind him that he even thought about leaving a note.  But by then the door had locked behind him and it was no longer an option.

In the elevator he inventoried in his mind what they would need to rent her from the surf shop that afternoon.  She hadn't given him a definite answer about surfing but Kelly decided he was going to push her on this issue.   He wanted to see her try it.  Then they could eat dinner at his house, he had some grass fed tenderloin in the freezer that he had been waiting for the right time to eat.  Hopefully she would be willing to spend the night at his house this time.  Heck, she didn't really even have to fly home on Sunday, Lia was at school.  He was scheduled to be at the studio for the first read through on "Mistakes" on Monday.   It would be next to impossible for him to fly back East for the next six to eight weeks, but there really wasn't any reason Holly couldn't stay in California longer if she was willing to.

Happy in the thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to talk Holly into extending her stay, Kelly headed over to the front desk.

"I think I left my baseball hat in the lobby yesterday," he told the clerk who had greeting him with an obviously fake cheerful "Good morning sir."

"What color?" the guy asked.

"Yeah, it was a baseball hat," Kelly said and the guy rolled his eyes and went into the room just off the desk.

"These are the baseball hats," the clerk said, as he pulled them one by one off the stack he was holding, and laid them out for Kelly to pick, er, find from.

Kelly was pretty tempted to pick the pink one just to see the guy's reaction but instead he chose the one he thought was most likely to fit.

"Oh here it is, great, thank you so much," he said as he picked up the hat.

"Glad I could help sir, is there anything else I can do for you today?"

Kelly tried to figure out if the guy believed him or just didn't care, but he couldn't.  Probably the second though.

"No, thank you," Kelly said and walked away, adjusting the brim of the cap as he did so.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he checked it to find his ride was waiting outside.  He put the cap on and pulled it down low, then headed out to the car, looking as far down at the ground as he could as he did.  He dozed in the car on the ride out to Malibu.

"Mr. Rockport, sir?"

"Yup, thanks," Kelly said and pulled forty bucks out of his wallet to tip the guy.  The cab fare would be billed to him, he had an account with the company.

Once inside his house, Kelly grabbed a glass of water and dug around in the freezer for the steaks he wanted.  He left them on a plate on the counter to defrost, then headed up to his bedroom to take a shower.

After his shower, he looked longingly at his bed, but his phone was still downstairs.  He went back downstairs and, confident he would hear the phone if Holly called, lay down on the sofa and went back to sleep.

Chapter 24

Ring, ring, ring!

Oh god, thought Holly, and she unwillingly opened her eyes.  Where was she?  The hotel, right.  The phone kept ringing and it seemed so loud she scrambled to get it just to make it stop.  She realized as she crawled across the bed that Kelly's side was empty, but she didn't have time to process that fact, and what it meant, before she answered the phone.

"Hello?" she said.

She wasn't concerned about who it was or why they were calling.  She just wanted the noise to stop.

"Mom?"

It was Lia and she was upset.

"Lia?  What is it, what's wrong?"

"Mom."

Holly waited but Lia didn't say anything.

"What is it honey?" Holly asked fearing the absolute worst.  Actually fearing about twenty of the absolute worsts.

"Dylan,"

Dylan what, Holly thought frantically.

"What Lia, what happened to Dylan?"

"Nothing happened to him, he, he,"

"Honey?"

"He broke up with me."

At that Lia burst into tears.  Holly was so relieved she let out a huge sigh of relief, then quickly hoped Lia was too distraught to notice.  It would be okay.  Better actually.  Holly was not a fan of Dylan, she had always found him somewhat arrogant and she worried, a lot, about how he was treating her daughter when they were out of Holly's sight.  Of course there probably wasn't a boy on the planet who Holly would trust enough not to worry about that.

"Honey, I'm so sorry," she said, and she meant it.

Lia would be okay and a broken heart was a small price to pay for getting away from a person who was wrong for you, but it could be years, if not decades, before Lia understood that.  Lia just kept crying.

"When did he break up with you?" Holly asked, more to give Lia something to focus on so she maybe would stop crying than anything else, "This morning?"

She looked at the clock, it was eight-o-two, which meant 11AM back east.

"No, last night."

"Oh honey, you should have called me."

"I did.  You didn't answer so I thought maybe your phone was busted or something.  When Rachel got up she said we could try to call the hotel, so I got the number from the e-mail you sent me about your trip."

Holly looked across the room at her phone.  She started to get out of bed, realized she was naked, stopped, and looked around.  Kelly wasn't there.  Unsure if he was in the bathroom she dashed across the room, planning on hopping back in bed her the phone.  As much fun as last night had been, naked in the morning is not the same as naked after a couple of glasses of wine the night before.  Especially not when you're forty-five.

Once she got to her phone and turned it on her heart sank.  Lia had called at least ten times.  Multiple texts.  There were voice mails, several.  Holly was sure she would never listen to them ever.  No, she would.  She deserved to.  She had been out having fun and her daughter had needed her, for the first time in a long time, really needed her, and Holly hadn't been there.

"I'm so sorry Lia," Holly said, on the verge of tears herself now, "I left my phone in the room last night and when I got back I didn't check it because it was...so late."

"It's okay Mom, I understand."

Well, she wouldn't have thought it was possible, but Holly felt even worse.  And with three thousand miles between them she felt also helpless.

"What can I do Lia?" she asked, guessing her daughter wouldn't have an answer.

"I don't know, I just wish I could go home, I keep crying and everyone in the dorm knows now, I think, I just want to get out of here."

"That I can do," Holly said, "I'll pack and go to the airport and I'll drive from the airport to pick you up and take you home.  You can go back on Sunday or, what time is your first class on Monday?"

"Ten."

"Okay, maybe even Monday morning, we'll play it by ear."

"What about the rest of your trip Mom?"

"It was only one more day anyway,"  Holly said and, finally unable to stand it any longer, went around the corner to the bathroom.

The door was open and the light was out but she turned the light on and even looked in the shower just to make sure.  Kelly was gone.  Great.  One session of really hot sex in exchange for not being there when her daughter needed her.  Way to go Holly, she told herself.  Was she ever going to stop making bad choices when it came to men?

"Mom?"

"I'll go the airport and change my flight, okay, and when I know what's going on I'll call you, okay honey?"

"Okay."

"I should get moving though," Holly said.

"Okay."

"I'll call you later, love you."

"Love you too Mom."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Holly showered and raced around the hotel room packing.  She stopped when she realized she didn't have a ride to the airport.  Kelly had picked her up when she had flown in and she had assumed he would drop her off as well.  Now that wasn't an option.  She grabbed the hotel phone and, after glancing briefly at the directory, dialed the front desk.  The woman who answered told her there was a shuttle that left on the hour or they could call her a cab.

"Cab please," Holly said, "Oh and I'm going to be checking out today."

"Oh, sorry to hear that, has there been a problem?"

"No, not with the hotel, family...thing," Holly said, and hung up to finish packing.

At the airport she let out a gasp when the attendant at the ticket counter told her what the cost was going to be to change her flight.

"Ummm, you could switch to coach if you don't mind," the woman said, "Then it would only be, hold on."

Holly ended up agreeing to that and called Lia when she was waiting in line at security.

"My phone's on the last bar, I'm going to turn it off, hopefully charge it on the plane, okay?  Oh, no I can't," Holly said, realizing the cord was in her luggage.  The luggage she had just checked when she had changed her flight.  "I don't have the power cord actually, I packed it by mistake, I'll call you when I land."

"Okay Mom," Lia said sniffing.

"You'll feel better once you are home," Holly told her.

And after one, or possibly two, nights at home, Lia would be itching to get back to school.  Once a teenager had a taste of that kind of freedom the other stuff didn't matter as much anymore.  After all, in the beginning, that's why Holly had always gone back, hadn't she.  Even though she shouldn't have.

That's all done.  Long done, Holly told herself.  Lia was the important thing now.  And Dylan was at a different school over an hour away from her.  Lia would meet someone else, or, even better, decide to focus one hundred percent of her energy on her education.

"Okay Mom."

"Maybe like eight hours I'll be there, but I got to go now."

"Okay and Mom?"

"What?"

"Thanks."

Chapter 25

Kelly woke up suddenly.  He stretched out quickly, then leapt off the couch and headed to the kitchen.  He grabbed his phone and stared at it, confused.  Nothing from Holly, no calls or texts.  Shit, thought Kelly, she might think he bailed on her.  He glanced at the clock and wondered if she could still be asleep.  It was after eleven.  He wasn't sure but he called her.  It went right to voice mail.  He hung up and sent her a text.  Then he waited.

The clock on the microwave refused to change so he poked the steaks on the counter and flipped them over.  Then he forced himself to empty the dishwasher.  When he looked back at the clock six minutes had past.  Plenty of time for Holly to have read and replied.  Maybe she was in the shower?

He waited another five minutes then called again.  No answer.  Five more minutes.  Another call.  Straight to voice mail.

"Dammit," Kelly said and searched on his phone until he had the number for the hotel.  He asked for the room number first.

"Umm, there's no one in that room sir," the woman told him.

"What?  Holly Sawyer."

"Sawyer?  S A W Y E R, let me check, no one registered under Sawyer sir."

"What?  She was there this morning."

"Let me check, yes, she checked out, around eight thirty this morning."

"What?"

"Ummm, Holly Sawyer, room 402 checked out this morning, she checked out early, oh.  Is this about the room fee?  I can't refund it, I'm just the switchboard, I can transfer you to the front desk and see if they can help you."

"No," Kelly said, "Oh, thanks."

He hung up before the switchboard operator could say goodbye.  He dialed Holly's number immediately and though it went right to voice mail it still seemed to take forever for the beep.

"Holly, hi, it's me, Kelly.  Look, I'm sorry I left, I woke up and it seemed like a good idea to get out of there before the paparazzi figured out I spent the night at the hotel.  It was stupid but I was just trying to protect you, I swear.  Just call me and I'll drive over and pick you up, alright," even as Kelly said that he realized that Holly had checked out of the hotel hours ago, it was unlikely she was still there.  He continued, "Or wherever you are I will come get you, just call me."  He paused then added, "And you don't have to go surfing if you don't want to, okay."

He ended the call thinking that he may have just left the absolute lamest voice mail in the history of the technological age.  He hadn't said anything about how great last night had been or how he couldn't wait to see her again or how he really was hoping she could stay in LA longer.  Kelly dropped his elbows onto the kitchen counter and his forehead onto his fists.  He could deliver lines, brilliantly, when someone else wrote them, and he had time to practice them.  Ad-libbing he sucked at.  And he had never hated himself more for it.

Frustrated, he glared at his phone and considered his options.  He couldn't find her.  He had no idea where she could have possibly gone.  Once she called him they could straighten it out.  He was sure of that.  He could figure out what to say while he waited so he didn't sound like a complete idiot when he said it.  Like he should have done before leaving the voice mail.

Kelly grabbed his phone and headed to the bedroom to change.  He could run his mile loop.  He used it when he was short on time or wanted to do sprint intervals.  That way he wouldn't be too far from home if, no when, Holly called.

He felt better as he ran and as he ran he organized his thoughts.  By the end of the second mile he knew exactly what he wanted to say and he spent the third mile perfecting it.  But she still didn't call.

On the sixth mile Mabel yelled at him from her front yard.

"What the hell are you doing Kelly?"

He just smiled and kept going.  She was waiting for him the next time around.  Standing in front of her house this time.

"You stop and take this," she said, holding up a bottle of water.

Kelly stopped, more because he knew he'd catch hell from her later if he didn't, than because he wanted to.  He didn't protest when she pushed the water bottle on him, he guzzled it down and it wasn't enough.  The booze from the night before had dehydrated him.  He felt like absolute shit.  The only reason he had kept running was because he didn't want to deal with the fact that Holly still hadn't called.

"What the hell are you doing?" Mabel asked him again, "I've never seen you run sprint intervals that long."

He had to laugh, remembering the day she had first asked him about it and he had tried, rather unsuccessfully he had thought at the time, to explain the reasoning behind that particular type of training.

"What are you doing for dinner Mabel?" he asked.

"You didn't answer my question."

Kelly laughed again, but it was fake this time, "My trainer, he came up with it, you know me, I just go with the program."

"With no water?"

"No that was me, I forgot the water.  Now, you didn't answer my question," he kept talking although Mabel was muttering about dehydration, "what are you having for dinner?"

"Oh, I have a salad."

"You want some steak to go with that?"

Mabel gave him a funny look, then shrugged and said sure.

"I'll go home and clean up and be back with it, you got gas in your tank?" he said, referring to the grill on her deck.

"Far as I know."

"Okay, then, it's a plan."

Kelly walked home slowly.  When he got home he called Holly again, but again it went straight to voice mail.  He hung up immediately.  The only thing that might make him look like a bigger idiot was leaving another voice mail.  Kelly took his second shower of the day and got dressed.  He rinsed off the steaks and decided not to season them.  Then he headed back through the neighborhood to Mabel's.

She offered him some wine but he declined, opting for some more water instead.  Kelly grilled the meat and they ate on the deck.  He filled her in on the details of the party.  Then they just sat.  It was a pretty, quiet night.  Kelly had all but given up when his phone chimed in his pocket.

He opened it and read the text from Holly.

"I went home," was all it said.

Kelly sat there staring at the text.  She was home, should he call her there?  What had happened, why did she go home, without even telling him?  The more he thought about it, the more pissed off he got.  She couldn't have called him or texted him or something?  She just checked out of the hotel and flew home.  Fuck.

"I'm going to get some more wine Kelly, you want another water?"

"No Mabel, I think I'm ready to switch, what are you drinking?"

"Well this is red, but I might switch to white, you want some?"

"Yes.  Please."

"Okay, give me a minute, I have to open a new box."

Fantastic, Kelly thought.  Just fucking fantastic.