Page 2 of Hearts Adrift (A Texas Beach Town Romance #4)
My wound rushes the last portion of my tour down a short hallway that branches off to a big bedroom, a smaller second bedroom, a coat closet, a narrow window-lined hall leading back into the other end of the kitchen that has a washer and dryer tucked into a nook, and a little bathroom, inside which I locate a first aid kit under the sink next to an unexplained empty faded pink bag and box of condoms. In dressing my reckless gash, I catch my gaze in the mirror.
That’s when I let myself see how sunken my eyes look, I guess from the single hour of sleep I managed last night. And my hair, sweaty from being stuffed inside a hood all day, hangs in short tangles down my forehead. I look paler than I realized. Sickly. Exhausted.
In other words, I look exactly like the villain they say I am in every comments section since the video got out.
I look away from my reflection and notice my knuckles are still as red today as they were yesterday, as if a makeup artist snuck up unseen to retouch their reddened appearance for another take.
This is why we have fight choreographers. Specialists trained in the art of fake ass-kicking. First rule: safety first and no one gets hurt.
But what if I wanted the director to hurt? What if it was the most satisfying thing, to plant my knuckles in his smug jawline? How do you safely choreograph that?
I close my fingers.
Then my eyes.
I just realized my phone stopped ringing.
This might be the first moment of true peace I’ve had in twenty-four hours.
First chance I’ve gotten to take a real breath.
Even if that breath is full of orange-scented cleaner and bleach from whatever the housekeeper used to wipe up the shower and toilet before I arrived, assuming it wasn’t to cover up the odor of a corpse.
Pretty sure someone’s died here. I probably glossed over that part in the ad.
Oh. I left my phone in the car. Probably on purpose.
That must be why I haven’t heard it ring.
As lovely as it is to exist in this life without one, I am just as much a slave to the toxic stream of information it provides as anyone else.
So when the coast is clear, I make a quick trip to the car to fetch it—as well as the bag of hot Cheetos that hid it from my view—and hurry back inside.
Then I take a seat on what we shall call the “ambiguously beach-colored couch”, and munch on the Cheetos with one hand while flipping through missed calls with the other.
Not half a minute later, my phone rings.
It’s the first call I’ve gotten today that I answer. I turn on the video, showing my tired-ass self. “Hey, angel-boo.”
“What the fuck?” Anya shouts after her face pops up—my short-haired lesbian bestie and moral compass since the college days. We did the acting thing together for a bit until she pivoted and became a lawyer—a good one at that.
“What?” I ask innocently. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah, and half the internet knows, and the other half is finding out as we speak.” She comes nose-close to the phone. “What the hell was that, Riv?”
“Not at liberty to discuss it and honestly don’t wish to. But just between us, this is actually kind of fun. I’m hiding out like a criminal.”
“You are a criminal.”
“Clips on the internet never tell the full story. Not even the funny ones, half of which are staged. Is it weird that the excitement of this is giving me a semi?”
“Have you talked to legal? What’s your agent saying? Did he set you up somewhere until the dust settles?”
“Can I get tetanus from glass? Is that a thing? Asking for a friend. Your friend. The one you’re talking to.”
“At least tell me you’re okay.”
I’m about to crack another joke, but her question stops me. I think it’s the first time in weeks someone’s asked me that without being paid to. “Always,” I answer plastically.
“How bad is it?” she presses. “As bad as it seems?”
Worse , I want to say, but instead I smile. “I’m in some beach town bungalow on the Texas coast that looks like your Aunt May’s old house and smells like the retirement place she’s in now. I broke the key in the lock, then broke my elbow getting in.”
“You broke into a house?”
“Well, it’s mine, technically,” I reason, “until I run out of money.”
“You? Running out of money?”
“Anything can happen now, anything’s possible. Don’t write it off your bingo card just yet.”
“Where are you exactly? I still live in Austin. I can be there by midnight. Is it Galveston? Corpus Christi?”
“Details of my precise location have been redacted for your safety. Best stay out of this, keep your hands clean.”
“I’m a lawyer, my hands are never clean.
Riv, listen to me.” She adopts that tone she always gets when shit gets serious.
“I know I’m not your legal counsel by any means, but please, just stay put, don’t talk to anyone, even online, and if you love me at all, on your dear mother’s life, swear to me you won’t drink. ”
“Eight years sober in a week and two days. You think a measly thing like the self-destruction of my career will put an end to my sobriety?”
“I’m going to make some calls,” she decides, because no matter what I say or do, Anya makes my unhinged life her pet project to fix.
“I’ll assume your own people are, as usual, useless.
Do you have a TV there? Internet? Look up Cissy Sees .
It’s this brilliant series with a non-binary lead named Cissy who is secretly solving a murder while trying to plan their own wedding, unaware that their fiancée’s dad is the murderer.
Tiny spoiler, but you learn it in episode 2, so whatever.
Put that on, and I’ll call you back before you get to the first twist. It’s a big one, total jaw-dropper. ”
This is what Anya does: sits me in a highchair, stuffs a pacifier in my mouth and a rattler in my hand to keep me distracted, then sorts my shit out.
I wonder when the day will come that I sort my own.
No matter who’s at fault, I always get myself into these messes, don’t I?
I’m always the reason my team scrambles to figure out how to handle my latest act.
Whatever they’re being paid, it isn’t enough.
I’m a lot to handle. No one ever realizes what they’ve signed up for until it’s too late when they become responsible for wrangling River Wolfe.
Actor. Model. Part-time Director-Puncher.
“Are you seriously rubbing yourself?” blurts Anya.
I let go at once. My hand has a mind of its own.
“Nope. By the way, I read this place is cursed. Do you still believe in evil spirits?” I’m off the couch and in the kitchen, bag of Cheetos hugged to my chest as I stare down at the shards of glass left on the floor.
My arm still stings under my half-assed bandages.
“One of the reviews of this place said you can hear them if you press your ear to the—”
“I don’t believe in anything that can’t be litigated.
” She leans forward. “ Cissy Sees . Episodes are just forty minutes. Don’t just jerk off the whole time.
I’ll call you back soon.” She hangs up. After a minute in the silence, I crouch down, set the bag of Cheetos aside, then gently press an ear to the floorboards and listen.
You know, just in case.