“Merry Christmas,” I said, shuffling over to the coffeepot. “Where’s Mom?”
“She went with her book club group to serve a pancake breakfast to the needy or something. She dragged my mom too.”
“Are your parents not going to the casino this year?”
Kallum’s family was Jewish, but they also took advantage of the unlimited crab-leg Christmas buffet at their favorite riverboat casino every year. Since nothing about our Christmas celebration was religious and since Kallum was allergic to shellfish and preferred to be in his pajamas anyway, he was a Kowalczk come Christmastime.
“They’re going to the casino after the charity thing.” Kallum stepped back and reached for a container of cocoa powder.
“And Mads? Is she up yet?” I asked, pouring a cup of coffee and then looking down at the stack of bills next to the coffeepot. They were all printed on pink or blue paper. The big deal bills. I’d taken an unpaid leave of absence from the theater to go to Vermont, and I had received only my first payment from filmingDuke the Halls, which had gone toward my own health insurance premium. Which meant there definitely wouldn’t be enough between my and Mom’s money to take care of the entire stack of bills, or maybe even only one of them, depending on how bad they were.
I resisted the urge to whiskey up my coffee.
“Maddie is still asleep, I assume,” Kallum said as he attached a dough hook to the stand mixer.
“What are you making for us today?”
“Eggy breakfast pizza is in the oven, and I’m currently getting the stuff ready for a hot cocoa pizza for when your mom gets back and your sister finally awakes from her coma.”
The idea of the hot cocoa pizza almost soothed the sting of carrying the stack of bills over to the table to sort through. Kallum pulled out the breakfast pizza and set it on a rack to cool, and then he started working on the cocoa dough.
“Hey, man, I’m sorry about all the gossip around this Christmas movie thing. Even though I’m not sorry it took the heat off me for the sex tape,” he said, measuring the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl.
“Don’t think we’re not going to talk more about that later, by the way.”
Flour was now being sifted as he slid past my pointed remark. “Did you have any idea that Bee was Bianca von Honey?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I definitely had an idea.” I picked up the first brightly colored bill, this one from Mom’s psychiatristand stamped with a big Final Notice on the outside, and abruptly felt the weight of the world drop onto my shoulders. “Steph thinks I should deny it, though. Claim I didn’t know anything.”
Kallum was measuring the wet ingredients now. “Not a bad idea.”
“I fell in love with Bee,” I said without meaning to, still looking at the bill.
And then I froze. I hadn’t even used that word withmyselfyet. Did I really mean it? Could that really be something Nolan Shaw could do? That Nolan Kowalczk could do?
Meanwhile, Kallum was slowly turning in the most dramatic circle ever turned, his mouth hanging open and his eyebrows raised up to meet his dark blond hair. He had flour in his beard. “You fell in love with a porn star? In the lasttwo weeks? This is why you can’t go places alone, Nolan, I’m serious.”
I set down the bill, swallowing. “I was kind of a fan of Bianca’s before the movie, actually. I’ve been super into her for years, and then she was just there, like a wish come true. Except suddenly my wish wasn’t only sexy and gorgeous, she was also witty and silly and brave, and we understood each other... and then one thing led to another. For the last week or so, we’ve been together. Hiding, but together.”
Kallum studied my face. “Methinks that would make it harder to throw her under the PR bus.”
I squished my eyes closed, because they suddenly burned in that about-to-cry way, and I didn’t want to cry on Christmas morning. “But if I don’t throw her under the bus . . . if the attempt to restart my career doesn’t survive this scandal, thenI’m fucked. I’m back to having no money for me and Mom and Mads; I’m stuck in this pit of final-notice bills and praying that we can keep the lights on and get Mom what she needs. I’m stuck knowing that it will never, ever get easier.”
I opened my eyes to see Kallum shaking his head. “No matter how hot the hottie, family comes first. Kin before sin.”
“But I don’t want to lose Bee either,” I said softly, looking down at the bills. “With her, everything felt so doable, solight. Like everything would work out. I felt like the old me and the new me, but also like the best parts of both.”
“Okay, look,” Kallum said, starting to pace. “This is a solvable problem. Because maybe Nolan Shaw can’t have a porn star girlfriend, but he can have asecretporn star girlfriend.”
I’d basically suggested the same thing to Bee, but hearing it from someone else’s mouth made it seem kind of crappy.
“You know how people have a desert-island book?” Kallum went on. “The one book they’d bring to a desert island? She’ll be your desert-island hottie. Love, longevity, the whole works, just in secret. Maybe you could get together at a resort every few months, like at a Sandals.”
“Sandals,” I echoed.
“They’re really nice,” said Kallum. “I went to a wedding at a Sandals once.”
“I don’t think that’s what I want,” I said. “Or at least not all of what I want. The sex is amazing, and I’m not saying no to that, but I want all the other stuff that comes around it too. I want to be with her. Like reallybe. Just in our normal, everyday lives. Doing chores and sleeping in and shopping for new blinds together.”
