No Laughing Matter: Lennox Brothers Romantic Comedy Page 21

  “Goodbye,” I whispered.

  And somehow I managed to let her go.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Carlotta

  The dictionary definition of stupidity had to be falling back in love with the guy who’d already taught me how bad heartbreak could feel.

  But that’s exactly what I’d gone and done. And now I wasn’t just chewing on a crap sandwich, I was getting chunks of existential despair stuck in my teeth.

  What made it worse was that I was back in my tiny studio apartment in LA, and someone in the next-door apartment was playing Wham at full volume. Wake Me Up Before You Go Go was pumping out so loudly, my lamp was trembling. It was annoyingly difficult to lie around feeling like my heart had caught fire and burned out the inside of my chest when Wham was cranked up.

  The weird thing was, in spite of the fact I’d been caught in the middle of what felt horribly like one of the fantasies from my youth, for the first time in my life, I knew without a single doubt what was real.

  My feelings for Mason were one hundred percent real. The ache in my heart wasn’t a fantasy, or make-believe.

  Fact. I loved Mason.

  Fact. Mason had made me feel special and treated me like I was precious.

  Fact. I missed him with an intense longing that was hard to bear.

  Also a fact, he’d made it very clear he didn’t want a relationship. He hadn’t been entirely honest with me, and when it came down to it, he’d chosen his job over me. But even knowing that, the feelings I had for him weren’t going away. They weren’t even dimming.

  I needed to talk to Nat.

  When she answered her phone, I could hear the café’s coffee machine hissing in the background.

  “Hey,” she said. “Are you listening to Wham?”

  I rolled onto my back and tucked the hand not holding the phone under my head. “My neighbor is.”

  “Edward Lennox is playing Wham? Is that one of the ways he tortures your mother?”

  “I’m not in San Dante. I’m back in LA.” I glanced out of the window at my magnificent LA view, consisting of a metal roof and thirteen rusty air conditioning units.

  “You’re in LA?” Her voice rose. “You left without telling me?”

  “I’m sorry. I got here the day before yesterday. I needed some alone time to get my head straight and the guy sub-letting my apartment had moved out, so when they let me out of jail, I bolted.”

  “The line’s crackling and I thought you said they let you out of jail.” She chuckled. “Funny, right? What did you really say?”

  “You know how I was working for Santino? Well, it turns out that him and that creep Frankie were part of a drug ring.”

  “What?”

  “I only found out when I accidentally trafficked ten pounds of cocaine across the border.”

  “WHAT?!”

  I winced, jerking the phone away from my ear. She’d almost deafened me. “I thought I was just delivering Santino’s car. Then a bunch of cops showed up.”

  “You trafficked drugs and got arrested? You went to jail?”

  “I spent a day and night in lockup before they dropped the charges. Thank goodness they believed me when I told them I had no idea about the drugs, or I’d be in serious trouble.”

  “Oh my God, Carlotta.” Nat sounded breathless. “I can’t believe this has been going on without me knowing.”

  “Sorry I didn’t call you earlier. It’s been a whirlwind.”

  “Please come back to San Dante. Life’s so boring without you. You’re the perfect best friend for a writer.”

  “I miss San Dante more than I ever thought I would. I especially miss you.” I hesitated. “And weirdly, I kind of miss Mom. You think that means I’ve contracted some kind of brain disease?”

  “I miss you too. But what about Mason? He must have flipped out when he found out you were in jail.”

  “Mason’s back in Houston. His vacation’s over.”

  “He’s gone? What, for good?”

  “He ended our relationship, but I’m not sure he really wanted to. When he said goodbye, he looked miserable.” I hated not being able to tell her the whole truth about Mason being a DEA agent, and that he’d left me in the dark about whatever he was doing in Houston. Having to lie was almost as bad as being lied to, especially when I couldn’t be honest with Nat.

  “So you won’t see him again?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I think I’m in love with him.”

  “Wait. Stop. Are you telling me that since the last time we spoke, you’ve smuggled drugs, spent time in jail, gone back to LA, and fallen in love?”

  “It’s been a busy few days.”

  “You’re not kidding. What the heck have I been doing with my life?”

  “I wish none of it had ever happened. I might not even get to see Mason again.”

  “Houston isn’t that far away. You could just go there and tell him how you feel.”

  “Maybe I’ll call him. Even if our relationship’s over, I could tell him I want to be friends. There could still be chance.” Hope flickered in my chest.

  “Are you going to stay in LA?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I’m trying to get my old waitressing job back, because I don’t know what else to do. To go back to San Dante, I’d need to sub-let my apartment again, or end my lease.” I let out a sigh. “It’s been so great having you as my best friend again, you know? I wish we could live in the same city.”

  “I’ll always be your best friend, but yeah, I know what you mean. It’s a lot more fun when we get to hang out together.” A loud grinding sound started, probably the coffee machine at the café, and she raised her voice to talk over it. “At least your Instagram followers seem to like you again.”

  “But so far none of my sponsors have replied to my messages, so I’m not making any money.”

  “You’re not going to do any more drug trafficking?”

  I snorted. “Not if I can help it.”

  Muffled voices came through the line, then Nat said, “I’m really sorry, Lottie, I have to go. More customers have come in. Call you back later?”

  “Sure.”

  “Love you.” She hung up before I could tell her I loved her too.

  Weird how I hadn’t wanted to go back to San Dante, and now I didn’t want to be in LA. After living in different cities for years, it was only natural Nat and I would grow apart. But now we were real best friends again, and talking to her about my broken heart was the best medicine there was.

  And later, I’d probably call Mom to check in on her, which is something I would never have thought to do before. I couldn’t help but cheer up a little as I imagined how surprised Mom would sound when I said I was just calling to say hi.

  Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun started playing at lamp-shaking volume, and I sang along, doing my best attempt at head banging while horizontal. I even threw the blankets off so I could wave my feet in the air. According to scientific studies, it’s impossible not to sing along to Cyndi Lauper, and even in my heartbroken state I had no defense against science.

  Then my phone dinged. One of my sponsors had replied to the message I’d sent them.

  Dear Carlotta. Thank you for staying in touch. Please give me a call to discuss the promotion of our skin care range.

  My breath caught.

  They wanted me back?

  Then I read the next sentence.

  We’d like to schedule another naked shoot.

  I sat up on the bed and dialed her number. The brand manager’s name was Carol, and in contrast to the silent black hole my emails had been falling into since the gory duck photos, she greeted me warmly. But when she started to talk about doing a naked shoot, I cut her off.

  “The thing is, I want to take different kinds of shots from now on,” I said. “They’ll still be funny, but I want to be more authentic, and I’ll probably leave most of my clothes on.”

  “Oh?” She sounded surprised. “But your brand is—�
�

  “My brand is changing. It’s maturing. But if you stick with me, I think you’ll like what I do next. Let me come up with some concepts, and you’ll see for yourself.”

  She hesitated for a long time. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “We like what you were doing before the unfortunate duck incident. If that’s not what you want to do now, we may need to rethink working with you again.”

  I took a breath, wondering if I was making a mistake. Reviving my Instagram career was all I’d wanted. But the entire point of what I did was to help other people feel good about themselves, and I could only do that on my own terms. Starting with not letting other people dictate which parts of my body I chose to show.

  Besides, like Mason said, I had more than one superpower. I could design my future the way I wanted it. From now on, I was firmly in the director’s chair, taking control of my life.

  “That’s your choice,” I told Carol. “You’ll see how my new brand evolves over the next few weeks. If you like what you see, please call me.”

  I hung up and dragged a hand through my tangled hair, taking a deep breath and getting mentally prepared. I had one more phone call to make. The most important call of all. This one would help me decide what happened next, where I lived, what I did. Because there was one thing I wanted more than anything, so if Mason said he was willing to talk in person, I was ready to get in my car and start driving.

  I dialed Mason’s number.

  There was a click, then a recorded voice came on the line. “The number you have called is no longer allocated.”

  What?

  With my stomach in knots, I hung up and dialed again, just in case there was some kind of mistake. But after trying a third time, I had to accept there was no mistake. The number had been disconnected.

  Mason was gone.

  Chapter Thirty

  Carlotta: Eight Months Later

  When I knocked on Asher’s door, I wasn’t even sure he still lived in the same house. After all, it had been eight months since I’d last seen or spoken to him. Not since I called him from LA to find out if there was a way I could contact Mason after finding out his phone had been disconnected.

  But when the door opened, Asher was standing there, and he looked exactly the same. He was wearing black jeans and a gray shirt, and he was still startlingly handsome. He was leaner than Mason and his hair and eyes were darker, but the resemblance was strong.

  “Hi, Carlotta.” Asher greeted me without a flicker of surprise, almost as though he’d been expecting me. “I heard you’d moved back to San Dante.”

  “I arrived a few weeks ago, and I have an apartment here now.” I gave him a rueful smile. “This place is like a small town the way gossip spreads. I should have figured you’d hear.”

  “Come in.” He opened the door wider, stepping back, and I glimpsed someone else inside. A woman gazing curiously at me. Did Asher have a date?

  “No, that’s okay.” I stayed where I was. “I just want to ask you something, and it’ll only take a second.”

  “You’re still looking for Mason.” It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.

  “Do you know how I could get a message to him?”

  “I’m sorry. I still have no way to contact him. That hasn’t changed.”

  A familiar chasm opened in my heart. “So you haven’t heard anything at all? Nothing in eight months?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know what he’s doing, or when he’s coming back.”

  “Do you even know if he’s alive?” The fear Mason could be dead had wormed its way into my brain one sleepless night a few months ago. As more and more time went by, that fear had taken root and grown. Though it sounded ridiculous to voice it out loud, like one of Mom’s fantasies, I needed to know Mason was okay.

  Asher stepped forward, letting the door swing shut behind him, and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “He’s alive. I’d know if he wasn’t.” Though I’d always found it hard to tell what Asher was thinking, his voice was gentle and his eyes were soft. But my heart still lurched with dread. Asher hadn’t scoffed at the question, and he wasn’t acting like my fear was irrational. That had to be a bad sign.

  But whether Mason was in danger or not, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

  Wiping my hand over my face, I resigned myself to the truth.

  Asking Asher had been my last chance to find Mason. My last dead end. Eight months since he’d vanished, and there was nothing left to try.

  “Come in,” said Asher. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

  “No. Thanks. I need to go.” I got back into my car and drove to Nat’s café.

  It was time to face reality.

  I took several deep breaths and gave myself a pep talk before going into Nat’s. She was behind the counter scribbling in a notebook, and the café was deserted. She looked up when I walked in and gave me a smile.

  “I thought you might be my new chef turning up to work,” she said. “Good thing I don’t have any customers, because he’s two hours late.”

  I leaned against the counter. “That sucks. I’m sorry.” After a series of bad chefs, Nat’s latest one was by far the worst.

  She moved to the coffee machine and started making me one without needing to ask. Just one of the many reasons I loved her.

  “How are rehearsals going?” she asked.

  In spite of the heaviness of my heart, I managed a smile. “So much fun. I love being a director. I just hope my first show isn’t a total disaster.”

  Judy had called me when she decided to retire from the Spotlight Theater, and I’d jumped at the chance to replace her. Now I really did have the best job in the world, and I loved my small apartment a few streets from Nat’s café. My sponsors were back, and I was posting messages of empowerment again, and doing it exactly the way I wanted.

  In fact, my life would be pretty much perfect if I weren’t pining after Mason.

  “I’ll come and see every performance,” promised Nat over the sound of the coffee machine. “I’ll sit in the front row and cheer.”

  “You’re the best. And guess what? I’m going on a date tonight.”

  Her eyes widened. “You are?”

  “Mason’s been gone a long time, and I don’t know if he’s ever coming back. He has no idea I have feelings for him, and maybe he doesn’t feel the same way about me.”

  She handed me a coffee, her expression sympathetic. “Time to move on.”

  “Dating is the only way I’ll ever get over him.”

  “Who are you going out with?”

  “His name’s Rex.” I held up my phone to show her the picture on the dating app. The guy I’d picked was as far from Mason as it was possible to get. Slender, blond, and clean cut. No visible scars. A finance executive with the most unimaginative profile I could find. “We’re meeting at that new French restaurant on Ocean Drive in a few hours.”

  “He looks nice. And I hear that restaurant has great food.”

  “I bought some new underwear, just in case.”

  “First date and you’re buying underwear? Lucky Rex.”

  “And I bought some beer and wine, in case I decide to invite him back to my place for a nightcap to kick things off.”

  She blinked. “You’re serious about this.”

  “Deadly serious. I’ll do whatever it takes to get over Mason, and Rex could be my rebound guy.”

  “Rebound Rex?”

  “Just what I need to mend my broken heart and set me on the road to recovery.” I sipped Nat’s delicious coffee with a sigh. “Although good coffee makes even the pain of a broken heart easier to bear.”

  “Rex is only one letter away from sex. Maybe it’s a good omen?”

  “I hope so. It’s been so long since I had sex, I’ve forgotten which one of us gets tied up.”

  She laughed. “Don’t ask me. The last time I went on a date was back when people thought flip phones were cool.”

  I was cautiously optimistic about the whole
evening, but when I walked up to Rex at the restaurant that night and he stood to greet me, my heart sank. It wasn’t that he was bad looking. He was quite handsome, but in a not-Mason kind of way. And he was too small. Not smaller than me, but only half Mason’s size. His jaw wasn’t square enough. And when he put out his hand to shake mine, his biceps didn’t have their own zip code.

  “Hi,” he said with a toothy smile that was nothing like Mason’s playful grin.

  I smiled and said hello, trying to convince my rebellious brain to stop with the comparisons. Rex seemed nice enough. A good first step back into the world of dating.

  “You’re really in finance?” I asked as I sat at the table he’d reserved. “I know this is a weird question, but can you prove it?”

  He looked startled. “I’m actually a Financial Analyst. I work for a bank, researching companies to determine whether they’d be a good lending risk.”

  “Is that interesting?”

  He shrugged. “It pays the bills.”

  His answer placed him about as far from Mason being married to his job as I could ask for. But I wanted to be sure he was right for me.

  “Do you have any unusual hobbies?”

  “Not really. I have a modest investment portfolio and do a little share trading.”

  “Do you read fantasy stories?”

  “I like biographies.”

  “Favorite TV show?”

  “I just watched a fascinating documentary about the rise and fall of virtual currencies.”

  There was a glass of water waiting on the table, and I took a sip, trying to wrestle my feelings into submission.

  Rex’s answers were perfect. He seemed honest, and too rooted in the real world to lie or make up stories. He held down a steady, easily-verifiable job, and would probably retire early with a healthy 401K.

  While Mason had been exactly wrong for me, Rex should be completely right. So why did I have an overwhelming urge to fake a sudden bout of diarrhea so I could take off?