Hot in Hellcat Canyon (37 page)

Everyone
he knew would see those photos. And while the Hollywood community at large knew the drill and would take it with a grain of salt, except for maybe Sir Anthony Underhill—poor sap, his publicist was probably fielding a lot of phone calls this morning.

Britt would see those photos.

And if she was squirrelly before . . . well, that was nothing compared to how she’d feel now.

And in truth, he couldn’t blame her.

Because there was no way he’d insult her with a flurry of “I can explain!” texts. At a certain point he just sounded like a guy crying wolf. She wasn’t that stupid.

But he also couldn’t bear sending her texts that were ignored. It
really
wasn’t fun the first time.

He stared at his phone.

At the blue flower she’d given him that had sent his heart skyrocketing.

She probably felt like an ass for sending it now, and he wouldn’t blame her.

He vented by sending Franco a one-word text:

Asshole.

With a link to that website.

He got a text back immediately.

I thought you and Becks were working it out.

He frowned. Was Franco being a jerk, or was he actually contrite?

He texted back.

No.

Franco texted back.

Sorry man. Worried about a particular other woman seeing it?

He stared at that a moment, wondering again whether Franco was being a jerk.

Or being a friend.

With Franco, half the time the two were synonymous.

He sat there, paralyzed with fury and panic.

Three seconds later he got another text from Franco.

If she really loves you, you can’t lose her.

Wow.

Franco must have waited
years
for a chance to say that. It was almost cinematically timed. He might be Irish, but he could hold a grudge like a mafioso.

Thing was . . . J. T. might not have actually been wrong when he’d said it the first time.

Maybe he wasn’t entirely clueless after all.

And if these photos shot straight to hell whatever remaining chance with Britt he had, so be it.

And he might be out of his mind. But like he’d told Britt about his truck, he didn’t like to give up on things.

Maybe he should remind her she’d said the very same thing.

“
T
his is not what I ordered,” Casey said firmly, pushing away a Glennburger with cheese and bacon.

Britt had heard this sentence quite a bit all day.

“Oh, Casey, I’m so sorry.”

She’d been saying
that
sentence a lot all day, too.

Britt snatched up the plate so quickly the pickle wedge rolled off the edge and thumped onto the table. As if it, too, were scrambling to get away from her.

Who knew misery came in such wide and surprising varieties and had infinite strata?

Those two photos on TMZ were all but stamped on her corneas, and it was like she was trying to see around them as she moved about the restaurant.

Just when she’d told her sister J. T. was a good guy, too.

So much for that. It was almost
hilarious
how wrong she’d been.

He might be the only guy in the world who’d drunk-texted a dying orchid to a woman.

And she might be the only woman in the world stupid enough to fall for it.

The other possibility, of course, was that she might have driven him right into the clutches of Rebecca Corday with her . . . what was the word Laine used—ah, yes: pigheadedness.

All
possibilities were awful.

J. T. had made her feel like a fool, whether or not he knew he was being photographed.

She was just pivoting to dart back to the grill with the botched order in her hands when Casey clamped her hand on her arm and held her fast.

“Britt.” She stared somberly into her face. Like someone about to issue a blood vow.

Britt was alarmed. “What?” she asked on a hush. “What is it?”

Casey hesitated for strategic effect.

“We are going to get drunk.”

“Come again?”

“You’re coming over to my house tonight, I’m going to make margaritas, and we’re going to get drunk, because that’s what you need.”

“Listen to her, Britt,” Sherrie said, whizzing by to fetch back to the kitchen another order Britt got wrong.

Ah, hell. They were probably right.

Alcohol wouldn’t kill her feelings for J. T. stone-cold dead. But it might give her a merciful reprieve from them. There would be plenty of time to feel terrible later.

Giorgio was glowering at her. She mouthed “sorry” at him.

He shook his head to and fro mournfully. As if he’d known from the moment John Tennessee McCord walked into the Misty Cat that his flawless grill coordination, the poetry of his days, would be shattered.

CHAPTER 21

L
ike any responsible citizen who planned to get drunk on a weeknight, Britt took the bus as close as she could get to Casey’s house. To add insult to injury, she was required to sit on the bus bench featuring Rebecca Corday trailing a scarf from her flawlessly manicured fingertips. But it really enhanced her drinking mood.

She brought the now fully recovered coleus plant with her. She knew, somehow, that Casey would take good care of it. She would at least make sure that the leaves were regularly trimmed.

Britt hadn’t drunk a little too much with a girlfriend in ages.

She wondered if she’d lost her knack.

Casey’s house was a white cottage about twice the size of Britt’s house. Its green shutters matched the tidy lawn, which, like the shrubs, was clipped ruthlessly short, as befitted the yard of a hairstylist and waxer.

She nearly crashed into a long tubular wind chime dangling from the front porch and rang the bell.

Which only made her think of J. T., who had nearly been brained by one at the Angel’s Nest.

She could hear the promising sound of a blender through the door.

She waited it out. Then rang again.

Casey flung the door open. A big pitcher of something frothy and pink was in her hand and a shaggy yellow dog panted knee-level.

“I’m so glad you came, Britt! I thought we’d go sit in here. My roommate is working tonight so we have the place to ourselves.”

“Oh, good! I . . . I brought you a plant, Casey.”

Casey beamed and scooped it into the crook of her free arm.

“Gosh, that is awfully sweet of you, Britt. It’s beautiful! Let’s just bring it in here with us. It’ll like the kind of light we get in the kitchen.”

She led Britt through a hall painted a very stylish glossy orange. The walls were decorated with framed inspirational messages in striking modern fonts: “Imagine”; “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind”; “Give Peace a Chance.” She suspected they were more aspirations than credos, given Casey’s own mythology.

Her living room was clean lined and tidy and contemporary and bright, and she’d managed to blend turquoise and orange in her upholstery and accessories in a way that didn’t singe Britt’s corneas.

She settled at the vintage blue retro Formica table in the kitchen while Casey pulled down glasses the size of goldfish bowls and poured the drinks.

They sat for a moment of shy silence, sipping. Britt had forgotten how delicious margaritas were. They’d sucked half of their glasses down before anyone spoke.

“So are we going to talk about the elephant in the room? Initials J and T?” Casey wanted to know.

“Him?” Britt snorted. “I don’t care about
him
.”

“Of course you don’t,” Casey soothed.

“He can do anyone or anything he wants. We were just having a little fun. S’over now.”

“Of course you were! Of course it is!”

“He can, in fact, fuck himself.” Wow, two sips in and her psyche was liberated.

“He probably can!” Casey encouraged. “Speaking of which, I’m just going to come right out and ask it,” Casey said finally. “You don’t have to answer . . . you can tell me to mind my own beeswax and I swear on everything I hold dear that I won’t tell a soul . . . but was he
good
? Be honest.”

Britt took another hearty gulp. She wanted to be
mean
, not honest.

“Okay. Think of the best thing you ever saw . . . ever tasted . . . ever did . . .”

“Yeah?” Casey encouraged breathlessly.

“. . . ever felt . . . ever smelled . . .”

“Yeah?”

“And multiply it by a million.”

They let that assertion ring alone for a moment.

“Daaaaamn,” Casey whispered.

Alas, apparently alcohol ultimately was truth serum.

“But I don’t care about him at
all
!” Britt added hurriedly.

“Of course you don’t,” Casey soothed. “And can I tell you something, Britt? He kind of scares me.”

Britt gave a short laugh. “Gosh, I didn’t think anything scared you, Casey. You know, he’s actually a lovely person. Who has a great laugh and wears reading glasses and looks like a fallen angel when he sleeps.”

Britt blinked. That was some florid blather. That margarita was a fast worker.

Casey was apparently arrested by the tipsy poetry of this, because her eyes went dreamy.

She took another sip. She was beginning to think Casey was right about getting drunk. Feelings were for the birds! She would feel her feelings later!

“I have to confess, I like my guys big and dumb and sweet. And hot. Not look-into-the-sun hot, though. I’m more comfortable when I can manage them. Which is why Truck was my type.”

“Was . . . or is?” Britt teased slyly.

Casey actually slowly blushed. And looked faintly distressed.

So Britt didn’t bug her about that anymore.

She took another sip. They were quiet a moment. The big yellow dog panted companionably under the table. And licked Britt’s ankle, and she giggled.

“Is it hard to talk about J. T.?” Casey sounded tentative. “Sorry if it is. It just seems like you need to.”

“Honestly, I don’t even know how to talk about how I feel right now. You saw those photos. And you saw what happened at the Misty Cat when Rebecca Corday walked in the first time. Half the town did.”

“It was like the only giraffe at the zoo finally got a mate.”

“Thanks. Thanks for that.”

“You’re prettier than she is.”

Britt snorted.

“
As
pretty. In a different way. Pretty without needing to wax or trim a thing.”

This was about the highest compliment Casey could give a person, and Britt was quite touched.

“You’re pretty, too,” Britt told her.

“I know,” Casey said placidly. “And you know, I get afraid of things, Britt. I do. I get afraid I won’t find anyone to settle down with and have kids before it’s too late. Because that hasn’t quite worked out for me. I get afraid something will happen to my house, like a big tree falling on it. But I went to Greta at the New Age store and she told me how to feng shui the place for protection.”

“Can’t hurt!”

“That’s what I said!” Casey said.

They sipped a moment in silent solidarity.

“Do you remember that fight I had in the street with Kayla? About Truck,” Casey ventured.

“Casey, I think you have to assume that fight has passed into legend. They’ll probably start teaching it in school around here, along with Sutter’s Mill and Fort Sumter.”

She sighed. “Well, I’m not proud of that. My mama tried to raise a lady. And I do know how to behave. But Kayla started it. You know what she said? ‘You’re
never
going to find someone.’ Kayla and I go way back to when we were little girls. She
really
knows how to hurt me. It’s funny, because I think that’s her biggest worry, too—that she won’t find anybody. And that’s how we ended up fighting. Anyway, if I have any sort of credo it’s this: I always fight back.”

Britt was uncertain about the wisdom of this credo.

“You’re not a believer in passive resistance? Turning the other cheek?” she tried.

“Oh, you mean like Gandhi and all that? The thing is, passively resisting Kayla would have gotten me snatched bald-headed that day. Turning the other cheek would have gotten that one slapped, too. Sometimes you just have to wade on in there and flail a bit and hope for the best,” she said placidly, and tipped the pitcher into Britt’s margarita glass.

Britt took a healthy sip. “This is the
best
margarita I’ve ever had.” The more she drank, the easier it went down, too. Casey wobbled to her feet and pressed the button on the blender to ensure they wouldn’t run out.

She wondered if Casey’s last sentence ought to be her philosophy, too: wade on in there and flail a bit.

“If you’re going to fight, you might as well
try
to win, right?” Casey settled into the chair opposite her and clinked her glass against hers. “Even if it isn’t pretty. And if you can’t win, sometimes revenge is sweet.”

“But knowing when you can’t win is part of it all, too, probably. Or when
not
fighting is kind of the only way you
can
win.”

Casey was quiet a moment.

“Oh, sweetie,” she said finally, gently.

Which was the first time Britt realized that everyone really did believe she’d lost J. T. forever.

She supposed it was touching that everybody cared.

It was a peculiar emotional position to occupy. To know that when the truth of it settled in for good, that when he was gone and stayed gone, or was underfoot in Hellcat Canyon alongside Rebecca Corday, that the townspeople had her back, like a lot of busybody feather pillows.

“You’re so smart, Britt,” Casey said suddenly. “You’re the bomb, you really are. I always wanted to be your friend, but I didn’t think I was smart enough. I felt shy.”

“You were
shy
? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say it like that.
I
was shy. I always admired how bold you are, Casey. You’re so cool.”

They had clearly already reached the affectionate phase of inebriation. They beamed at each other.