“Everyone knows my juicy stuff. I mentioned you were in Sea Blue Beach, and Dave asked about you.”
“Tell me, were you drunk? High?”
“No. That was just the actor Matt Knight, entertaining. I should call Dale Cranston. Tell him to come punch me.”
“How about if I punch you?” She gave his arm a sharp jab. “Thanks to you my answering machine is loaded with messages like, ‘Harlow, we had no idea.’ ‘Harlow, how could you let him do you that way?’ ‘Harlow, I thought we were friends. Why didn’t you tell me?’ ‘Harlow, how awful for you.’” She paused and shook her head. “My mother’s message was the best, though. She asked where she went wrong and why didn’t I tell her? ‘Wasn’t I always there for you?’ So on top of being the pity of the world, I’m nowguilty for not confiding in my friends and family. But you—” She stabbed him in the chest. “I confided in you. You said it was in the vault. That no one would know.”
“I tried to get the producer to edit it out.” He leaned against the wall.
“By the way, Xander thanks you. He’s telling the press how much he loves me. That the Billionaire treated the Beauty poorly but he’s going to make it up to me.”
“Is that what you want?”
She sank down onto the old, shredded, soft quilt on the bed and brushed a tear from her cheek. “I started to feel at home in Sea Blue Beach, like I’d found my life, not the one belonging to everyone else, and the supermodel Harlow Hayes.” She peered up at him. “Even wondered if you and I might...” She waved off the thought. “Never mind. I’m leaving. Going to Buckhead. I can’t do this on my own. Mom wants to help, and—”
“I’ll help, Harlow.” He knelt next to her. “I know you can’t trust me but... Remember when you brought me the cupcake? In jail? I started to tell you something.”
“We got interrupted.”
“You’re not wrong wondering about you and me. Yet, considering my utter failure with your trust, I’ll keep my thoughts to myself. But one day I’d like to tell you—”
“Matt, we should just call it a day.”
Once again his careless speech wounded a precious thing. “Can you at least forgive me? Please.”
“I’d have felt less betrayed if you told them I was a fat, burger-binging slob who invented the potato-chip spoon for ice cream. Or that when we met in Sea Blue, I was tucked under my steering wheel, eating a slice of pizza.” She smiled softly. “As embarrassed as I am by that, it was a pretty funny scene.”
“You had me the moment I saw you crouching down.” Matt sat next to her on the bed. “Remember Trinity from Biggs?”
“The red light. Second red light, actually.”
“Yours isn’t the first life I’ve ruined.” Matt rose up to sit next to her.
“Aren’t you being a bit dramatic? You’ve not ruined my life. My trust, yes. Not my life.”
“Well, I ruined Booker’s, and he was my best friend. We grew up together. Bodie, the lawyer who got me out of jail, is his older brother. Granny and his Granny Harriet are best friends. When Booker and I got our licenses, we used to sneak out and go drag racing down Highway 20.”
“So that’s a thing with you.”
“Granny gave me a sweet ’70 Cuda when I turned seventeen. Booker, Bodie, and I souped it up with headers, carburetor, intake manifold, mag wheels. No one could beat us. Booker got cocky one night. Ended up smashing the car and breaking his leg. He missed our entire football season.”
“And people worry about girls using too much toilet paper and spending hours on the phone.”
Matt laughed, hoping she listened to his story in the name of forgiveness. “Booker was crazy smart and was up for every scholarship known to man. USC had offered me a full ride to play football, so going into our senior year, we felt like we had it made in the shade. Then Booker got hurt, and Coach benched me a few games for being reckless. Our dads made us watch videos of tragic car wrecks. Once Booker got out of his cast, Grandpa Nickle had him working every Saturday for the rest of the year. Said if he had time to sneak out and drag race, he had time to work. Dad hauled me to work with him. I had three jobs besides football and school.”
“Sounds reasonable.” She cut him a side glance. “So Booker’s sister is mad at you because he missed a football season?”
“Booker was a four-point-oh student. Bs were not acceptable. Cs, devastating. He came skating one night. I was the floor guard, so we chilled and skated, talked. He confessed he was flunking an advanced Calc Two course. I laughed because Booker never failed anything. But he was serious. Really panicked. The wreck hadmessed with him. I jokingly suggested he should steal the answer key to the fall final. The transom over the gym door never latched, and the math teacher, Ellison, never locked his file cabinet.”
“Ah, I see. He stole the test and you blabbed?”
“He aced the test, and no one was the wiser until my loose lips sank his ship. Let’s just say teenage boys and beer don’t go together. Booker got expelled. No leniency at all. The principal was a hard-nose, old-school, by-the-book kind of guy. No amount of persuasion made him change his mind.
“Booker didn’t graduate. He lost his scholarships. He accused me of blabbing because he’d wrecked my car, but I promise that was not the reason. It was just a bunch of guys drinking cheap beer trying to one-up each other. And I had the story to top all the stories. By Monday morning, it was all over school.
“Booker’s parents made him finish up at night school, but nothing was the same. He planned to go to law school like Bodie. But because I couldn’t keep a secret, because I wanted to entertain the guys, I ruined his life and lost my best friend.”
HARLOW
