Choosing Hearts - The Fighter's Passion (Gritty, Explicit Romance Novel) (A Lusty Stand Alone Story) (16 page)

She climbed into the passenger’s seat fighting her dress in with her
before getting the door closed. The driver was an incredibly skinny girl with
auburn hair tied up in a pony tail. She had horn rim glasses. She looked so
comfortable in athletic shorts and a tee shirt. Gia was jealous.

The girl said, “The parking lot by the Stinson Bodega, right?”

Gia had to think. “Um, yes, that’s it. Thank you.”

As she girl drove, she said, “I like your dress. It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

Gia expected the girl to ask where she was going dressed up so oddly. As
they made the first turn, Gia guessed that the Stinson Bodega parking lot was
all the explanation that was needed; like she might be shopping in her Friday
Night Bodega Corset or something. It was tough to stand out as weird in Los
Angeles.

Gia was kind of sad to think the girl didn’t recognize her.

Gia shifted in her seat and tried to smooth her dress down again. She was
having trouble breathing the way her stomach was bent in the seat against her
ribs. This was not a dress and corset combination that was designed for hopping
into an Uber.

They pulled into the parking lot that was adjacent to the bodega, but not
really for it. The lot was empty with several tufts of grass breaking through
the pavement around clusters of sand. The outline of the foundation for
whatever building had once used the lot could still be seen. There was no other
evidence the place had ever existed. Gia was only twenty-five, but she began to
think of the vanished building as a symbol for what her career would be one
day.

Gia climbed out being careful to keep her skirts down on her legs to hide
any view of what was and wasn’t underneath. Her severe heels stabbed into the
sand that coated the lot.

“Is this the right place?” the girl asked through the open door.

Gia leaned in. “Yes, they’ll be here soon or someone will murder me while
I wait. How much do I owe you?”

The girl smiled. “You’ve already paid. It already hit my PayPal. We’re
square.”

Gia nodded and closed the car door. As the hybrid backed out of the lot
almost silently, Gia said, “Uber pays better than being the star of a movie
these days.

As she stood in the middle of the vacant lot, she went to pull her phone
out of her clutch. She wasn’t sure if she was going to call Don or check for a
follow-up message from Jack. Before she found out, the limo pulled up to the
curb at the edge of the lot and stopped. They didn’t even pull into the lot to
let her in. She waited for a window to roll down and for Don to give her a
cheesy line, but he didn’t give her that much.

Gia walked forward with as much grace as her heels and the sand would
allow her. The driver stepped out and opened the door for her. As she crawled
inside head first, she considered letting her dress ride up to give the driver
a special tip and preview of the movie. The door closed behind her before she
could follow through.

She sat down on the bench seat next to Don who had his phone up to his
ear. His dark hair was slicked back and his deep, bronze tan was real from the
beaches up the coast where he lived, but still managed to look fake on him.

He smiled and his blue eyes sparkled at her. She smiled back. He held up
a finger to her and his eyes lost focus seeming to stare a thousand miles
through the side of the limo which began to roll. He growled with the smile
still pulled over his lips and bleached white teeth. “No. No. No! That is not
what I said, so that is not what I want.”

His smile of happiness and his look of anger were almost identical. The
focus of the eyes were the only difference she could see in either look.

Gia watched out her tinted window as he continued negotiating the set of
a new picture – one she was not cast in. She did not expect to be the
girlfriend cast in all his movies. She didn’t even really want to be that. Not
being read for the part at all bothered her. If he had asked, she would have
said yes. She always said yes. She couldn’t bring herself to turn down any
role. Maybe it was good that Don didn’t ask then. It still bothered her though.
He needed to pay her for the last gig before he got wrapped up in another one.

He brought the phone away from his face. As he started searching for
another number, she asked, “Hey, should we talk about tonight?”

“I have one more call to make before we get there,” he said.

“Are we still announcing it?”

“Sure. Just let me do the talking. I’ve got this, baby.”

“We should talk about how it will all work at the other appearances,” she
said putting her hand on his wrist to stop him scrolling through numbers.

He looked up, smiled, leaned over, kissed her on the cheek, and shook her
hand off his to go back to scrolling. “We will. Tonight’s a big night
personally and professionally for both of us. I have to make this call while
I’m hot and on people’s minds tonight. You and I can talk any time.”

She sniffed and looked away. “Why couldn’t you come all the way to me to
pick me up?”

He shook his head. “Don’t be like that. You’ll be the star when we get
out. The limo would have bottomed out and got stuck, if we pulled all the way
up in there. It’s a rental.”

“No, I mean, why couldn’t you come by my place to pick me up.”

He shrugged. “Your neighborhood smells funny. I don’t want to make a loop
and make us late either. Big night. If you moved in to my place, this would all
be easier.”

She looked back toward him. “Do you mean that?”

“Sure. Whatever you want. I have to make this call though.”

He brought the phone back to his ear and he was back to telling what he
didn’t mean and what he didn’t want to the person on the other end. When they
pulled up to the theater, he found the time to end the call and they stepped
out together.

***

Flashes did their job and strobed over the red carpet. Gia did her job
and gave her practiced answers to questions where they fit. She made them sound
more convincing than her Splatter Love dialogue ever did. She still blamed the
editing for ruining her performance, but she did not bring that up in any of
her answers. They asked about Gia and Don’s relationship and they gave their
practiced coy looks to each other and their non-answer answer.

As they turned to go inside, she scanned the stands across the street
which were full. Gia stared for a couple beats wondering if Don had paid to
have people to fill out the crowd to make it look full. If he had money for
that, then he needed to pay her.

She saw the pink hat in the crowd and she smiled. What if that really was
Jack the Liker showing up with one moment to prepare after their conversation?
She started to focus on the person wearing it just out of curiosity, but then
locked her attention on the outline of blue bells stitched on the pink front.
They were overlapped and turned at canted angles as if they were ringing just
like on her little league uniform. That hat couldn’t exist. The outlines were
like the foundation of the building from the parking lot where she waited for
the limousine – it was the after image of a life that no longer existed. That
hat couldn’t really exist.

She froze and tried to focus on the face, but the flashes from cameras
kept washing the color out of the world. Don held her arm at the elbow and
said, “We need to go in. Come on.”

She looked toward Don and back into the crowd in the stands across the
street. The hat was lost like magic and she started to wonder if she had seen
it at all. Gia turned and they swept inside.

They circled the room making nice with invited guests with money to
invest and Don moved to the center with Gia as they waited for everyone to
gather and the catering staff to pass out the flutes of Champaign.

Gia whispered, “Will I take your name?”

“Whatever you want,” he whispered back as he took two glasses from the
tray and handed Gia one. “You might want to keep Gia Sorah at this point now
that you are getting real attention and notice.”

She smiled. “Sure, as a screen name, but legally, I mean.”

“You want to be Gia Blackheart?” He smiled and looked away. “That’s not a
bad screen name either. We could be a Hollywood, Horrorwood, power couple,
huh?”

“Would I not be Gina Blanchard in real life though? Like on a marriage
license?”

Don frowned. “You can be whoever you want, but I’m not using that name
anywhere.”

Her real name, her Kentucky name as Don Blackheart aka Donald Blanchard
called it, was Gina Sullivan. Sometimes she looked at her Hollywood name on
posters, on boxes, or online and wondered if her real name wasn’t the better
name in many different ways. She thought about outlines of buildings and bells.

Don rang one of his skull rings against his glass and everyone drifted to
silence.

Ding Dong, the career is dead, she thought.

He looked good in his grey tuxedo with tails. He was smiling in a way
that could have been happiness or anger, but since he was a center of
attention, she assumed he was happy.

He gave his speech about the movie and then announced that he and Gia
were engaged. The crowd made the noise of surprise and clapped. The flash from
cameras increased exponentially and they kissed on cue just like he had
directed.

She graciously took everyone’s congratulations on the way into the
screening. Gia fought the temptation to ask each of them if they had been paid
yet. The movie got laughs and gasps at all the right places. Gia cringed at her
own dialogue. She was going to get blasted by critics. She could feel it. Love
Splatter would have been a better title, she thought again.

They took more questions and congrats afterward and returned to the limo.
A few of the dates of the important men were stumbling on their heels with the
drunk walk of baby giraffes. Don gave them dirty looks as photographers took
their pictures like he was surprised they were acting like that.

The couple gave one more wave and smile before disappearing inside the
limo.

“You want to go back to my place?” he asked.

He was already scrolling for another number.

“I’ll need to go back to my apartment to pick up some things.”

He shook his head. “Just order what you need after we get back.”

She frowned. “What happened to whatever I wanted?”

She expected him to relent, but he said, “Just do what I said. I need to
return these calls.”

She pulled his phone hand down away from his ear. “I’m not sitting around
your place in this uncomfortable dress all night while you talk on the phone.”

He shook her hand off and said, “Stop it. This is important.”

“Just take me back to my place. All the way back. Not to an abandoned
parking lot for me to wait on a stranger.”

“Fine. Tell the driver. I need to take this call.”

“You still need to pay me for the movie,” she said.

He froze. “Wow. Is that what this is about?”

“It’s about giving me more than a brush off between phone calls, Donald
Branchard.”

He grimaced as if she had blown the onion smell into his face. “I’ll take
you home, we’ll talk tomorrow, and I’ll do a proper night out on the town to
celebrate our engagement.”

She smiled, but looked away, so he would think she was still angry. He
saw it though. He said, “That’s my Gia. Put on a nice dress and heels for
tomorrow.”

She frowned and shook her head.

***

He was still on the phone as the driver let her out. The limo pulled away
and she sighed in the dark outside her building. It really did stink. The
actual smell of her surroundings as well as the whole situation she found herself
in.

Gia turned and scrolled through her messages seeing lots of notes from
acquaintances about the engagement, but nothing about the movie. There was
nothing from back home either. She punched in the code from muscle memory and
went inside.

No photographers had bothered to follow her home.

Upstairs in her apartment, the garbage onion smell was still there. She
realized that she had left her bedroom window open and she groaned. As Gia
walked through the dark, unlacing the corset behind her and taking her first
deep breath of the night, she froze staring at the shape of a man’s head in the
open window.

She wanted to scream, but her throat felt tight and she couldn’t find her
air. She was a scream queen with no scream left.

Gia turned on the light and saw it was only a hat sitting on the sill. It
was the pink hat with the outline of the blue bells on the front. It was the
hat that couldn’t exist. She almost wished it had really been a person instead
of this.

“Hello?” she called.

The apartment was tomb silent except for distance traffic noise drifting
in the window on the cool night onion air. She finally made herself walk
forward and picked up the hat. It felt new like it had just been made. She
brought it to her face and smelled the inside for sweat. All she could smell
was the onion odor that was everywhere now.

She closed the window and knew that if this was one of her movies, he
would already be inside and waiting on her. She would need to check all the
closets before she went to bed. Gia wasn’t sure what she would do once she
found someone though.

Not someone, she thought, Jack the Liker and the magic hat maker.

She traced the blue bells with her finger. It was the foundation for a
life that wasn’t there anymore – her Kentucky life. It would be the outline for
her career soon.

Gia moved the hat farther away from her face even though she still held
the thing. She whispered. “Not possible.”

She still held the hat by its brim as she pulled out her phone. As she
did, she intended to call Don to come back and get her, but then she realized
she would never get through his string of calls. He would assume she was
calling to fight and not return her call until morning. She thought about
calling the police like any sane woman would do, but then, she opened Jack’s
message thread.

He had given one more response. It was longer than the screen would allow
and she had to scroll as she read it: “I found the hat. I swear they had one on
the wall in the store. After I bought it, I thought about how weird it would be
if you actually saw me. I left early from the premier and drove by your place.
You have location on for your Periscope videos. You might want to turn that
off. I gave the hat a toss toward your window as a joke, but then it landed on
the sill. I freaked out and almost looked for a ladder, but then thought I had
already crossed all of the lines as it was. I swear I am not hiding in a
closet, although I guess that is exactly what a dude that hides in closets
would say. I swear I’m the harmless kind of creepy. I’ll go away and leave you
alone both virtually and in the real world. Hope you enjoy the weird engagement
gift and congratulations on the movie. I was going to pirate it, but I decided
to preorder the Blue Ray, so you will get your cut like you deserve. Sorry I’m
so weird. – Jack the Liker.”

She looked up and out across her bedroom. “Jack?”

Her voice echoed and rang off the metal in the apartment coming back to
her empty.

“Like ringing bells,” she added and then shivered.

Jack the Stalker was the only one that congratulated her on the movie. He
was also the only one that bought her a present tonight including her own
director/fiancé. He might be the only one in the world that gave a damn whether
Gia got paid at all.

“The movie is already up for preorder?” Gia shook her head.

She tapped the message to give a reply. Her fingers hovered over the
keypad on her screen as she considered the oddity of it all. She typed: “That’s
okay. You don’t have to vanish. Cool gift. We all get creepy sometimes.
Splatter Love, Gia.”

After she hit send, she still considered calling someone. Gia set her
phone and clutch aside. She clawed her way out of her corset and pulled her
dress over her head and cast it all onto the floor.

Gia lifted her breasts and let the tepid air of the apartment dry out the
sweat. The skin around her stomach and sides was a map of red and purple
creases leading to some magical, alien land. She was sure her back looked the
same way. She needed someone to give her a rub down, but she was alone – she
assumed.

Don would be too busy, but she bet Jack or one of the junk pic dudes
would gladly do it for her.

Gia let her breasts drop from her hands and she walked over to her
vanity. She lifted her phone and shut off location in her settings. She
realized she was standing naked by her window, so she turned off her light.

She used the glow of her phone to find her way to the bed. The dress gave
an odd shimmer in the darkness and shallow, blue blaze from her phone. She
could almost imagine a body sprawled on the floor of the bedroom in that dress.

Gia laid down and knew she must be exhausted physically and emotionally
because her bed was not as comfortable as it felt in that moment.

She woke up the next morning naked and staring at the ceiling. She
realized in the morning light that she had forgotten to check the closets. She
was still holding the phone in one hand and the pink hat in the other.

Her memory tried to tell her that she hadn’t been holding the hat when
she fell asleep. Gia got up and held her aching head between the heels of her
hands. She had not drank enough the night before to feel like this. Her calves
were trying to cramp up on her and gave her an odd gate as she walked. She went
to take a shower because she smelled as bad as the neighborhood.

Gia checked the phone and had no new messages from Don or Jack. She set
her phone aside and put on the hat. Gia turned on the shower waiting as she
wore nothing but her pink hat and falling curl ringlets. She took a cigarette
out of a nearly empty pack by the sink and held it between her lips seeing how
long she could go before she lit it.

***
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