Chapter 52

There were four or five famous faces outside the private room when we got back. Two were television actors I’d seen and two were girls that seemed to be famous for no apparent reason. The fifth was the girl I’d seen on stage earlier. I didn’t know her name but I did know her panties were striped.

One of the women tried to get to Liz but Dom and Brian blocked her. She appeared offended. Liz tapped Dom on the shoulder and pointed to the private room. A member of the club’s security detail had stationed himself outside when we’d left to make sure no one entered.

Dom nodded and opened the door.

The newcomers entered first and the girl from the stage caught my eye and rolled hers toward the heavens. She looked young – much too young to be in a bar and much too young to be showing off her underwear.

I was thankful we left our drinks on the tables. That kept the guests from sitting in the chairs. They seemed intent upon taking over the room. The two young women pulled chairs from along the wall and sat down right in front of Liz, putting themselves between me and her.

The guys were trying to sneak covert glances up Skye’s skirt and down Jill’s blouse – along with admiring Liz’s legs. The girl from the stage just sat down along the wall. I glanced at her but still didn’t know where I might have seen her before.

I let it go because trying too hard wasn’t going to help.

“You should totally join us!” one of the women said.

“We’re fine here, thanks,” Liz said. “We just got in today. We’re just blowing off some steam and then we’re heading out.”

“This is the hottest club in town,” one of the men said as if being seen anywhere with less panache would be a sin.

“He’s right,” the second woman confirmed. “The others have really fallen since this place opened. They’re strictly B-grade.”

I shot Dom a glance that Liz must have caught even though the women had done their best to monopolize her attention.

“We’re just here to relax,” Liz said. “I’m in the middle of my tour and I needed a break.”

“We saw you in L.A.!” the first woman said.

“I’d heard you were coming,” Liz said. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to talk to you. I had to head to Nashville right afterward.”

“What happened to the big party you were throwing?” one of the men asked. He played a werewolf on TV – which tells you all you need to know about his talent level.

“That was a miscommunication with my label,” Liz said. “They threw the party. I was never going to go and it was never my idea.”

“It was A-list all the way, Babe,” the second guy said as he tried to slide closer to Liz. “A lot of people were pretty put out to have it dropped at the last minute.”

Liz shrugged her indifference.

I seriously doubted any A-list party would have his name on the guest list but I refrained from saying anything. Instead I found myself looking at the young woman along the wall again. She seemed amused.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friends, Liz?” she asked in a bright voice.

“I was if I got a moment to talk,” Liz said. “That appeared to be increasingly unlikely as time passed.”

No one appeared fazed by the unveiled insult.

“This is my boyfriend, Travis,” Liz said.

I got two cool glances from the men and two appraising, but dismissive, glances from the women. They had taken my measure – and I had come up lacking.

“Good to meet you, Travis,” the young woman said, waving from her chair.

“You, too,” I said, feigning politeness. She had parted her legs and was doing her best to give me a look up her skirt without Liz noticing.

“That is Dom and Skye,” Liz said. I didn’t know if she saw the peep show or not. “And that’s Jill and Brian next to them.”

The girl along the wall used the introductions to shift in her chair. I looked away.

“Well, we’re having a little blowout tomorrow night,” one of the men said. “Of course you’re invited.”

I got the distinct impression that “you” was not meant to include the others in the room – just Liz.

“No thanks,” Liz said. “We’re not sure how long we’re staying so we’re keeping our options open. Maybe next time.”

The group kept trying to convince Liz that she needed to either do something with them later in the week or join their entourage that evening.

She kept parrying and dodging without telling them to “Fuck off” (which were the first words to pop into my brain).

The rest of us were ignored but the self-styled A-listers would talk louder if we deigned to speak to each other in their presence.

I was marveling at Liz’s aplomb when the girl from the stage show appeared in front of me and leaned against the back of the chair across from me. My eyes were right at crotch level but I kept them on her face.

“So, tell me about yourself, Travis,” she said, talking over the people she had arrived with.

I shrugged.

“Nothing much to tell,” I said.

“Oh, please,” she said, raising her hand for a dismissive wave and strategically hooking it in her skirt so it flipped upward. I saw her striped panties in my peripheral vision but kept my eyes on her face. “Everyone wants to know the real story behind the guy that has finally landed Liz!”

I kept my face impassive.

“Then it appears that everyone is going to be severely disappointed,” I said. “There is no real story. What you see is what you get.”

The young woman laughed like I’d just told her the Mickey Mouse joke. She leaned forward and put her arms on my shoulders.

“Ooh, strong,” she said. I took her wrists and lifted them off me.

She lifted an eyebrow at me and smiled.

“Maybe you and I can lunch this week,” the other man said to Liz as I tried to keep the young woman from sitting on my lap. “I have a movie coming out and I think you’d be perfect for a part.”

“I have an agent for that,” Liz said. “Call him if you want to discuss it. You’re interrupting a private gathering of friends without an invitation. I’ve tried to be polite but I guess polite isn’t going to work.”

She stood.

“Dom, please show our guests to the door,” she said.

Dom nodded. The actors were all much smaller than me. I estimated the taller was perhaps 5-feet-8. Dom was 6-foot-3. He made a vague gesture to the door and the group started out after a brief sneer at the collective.

Liz hooked my new friend by the arm as she tried to pass.

“Try that shit again, Little Girl, and you’re going to find the sort of problems your daddy’s money won’t fix for you,” Liz told her in a harsh voice.

The girl offered an insolent smile and brushed Liz’s hand away.

“Ask him who can call in a loan and bankrupt him at any time she wants,” Liz advised. “All your pretty toys would be sold to pay what he owes me. Don’t fuck with me and keep those assholes away – or you’ll be hitchhiking back to L.A. Now get the fuck out.”

Jill and Skye broke into laughter when the door closed.

“Christ, I thought she was going to rub that skanky puss on Travis’s face,” Jill said.

“Who is she?” I asked.

All eyes in the room landed on me.

“I kept thinking I should know who she is but I couldn’t place it,” I admitted.

That brought more laughter – and Liz onto my lap.

“Her grandfather was a studio head in Hollywood,” Liz said. “She’s just ... an heiress, I guess. But she’s heir to a dwindling fortune – because she and her sister seem intent upon snorting it up their noses.”

I shrugged. It added nothing to my knowledge base.

“She had a sex tape last year,” Brian supplied with a blush and a look at Jill.

I nodded but tried to keep my face even as the pieces clicked into place.

“Christ!” Liz laughed. “I should have led with that. Yeah, she got fucked in the back of a limo on her 18th birthday. Someone released it and she decided to make some cash off of it.”

“Damn!” I said. “I could have been a star! I might have been as famous as a TV werewolf or something.”

Jill laughed and covered her mouth.

“He plays a vampire,” Skye informed me.

“Oh,” I said. “I could never be that famous. A werewolf is one thing; a vampire is something else entirely!”

“Could you see him, Liz?” Jill asked. Liz seemed to understand that the “him” in this instance was me.

“Only his back,” Liz said. “It wasn’t until she wandered over that I understood they were making a run at him and not at me.”

“Me?” I asked.

“You,” Jill confirmed. “She gave him the whole show. She flashed him on the dance floor as you guys walked past. Then she gave him another free puss shot up here. When that didn’t work, she went with her fake boobs. She leaned forward to give him a look down her top.”

“Bitch,” Liz muttered.

“His eyes never once dipped below her neck,” Jill said. “Even when she gave him the gyno view from across the room, he was totally cool.”

“I thought that nasty box just itched,” Liz said, laughing now. “I noticed she wasn’t very ladylike but that’s nothing new. I mean, seriously, ‘That’s the sweetest cock I’ve ever had in my cunt!’ What sort of lady says things like that?”

Liz giggled when I pinched her butt.

“I mean besides me,” she amended with a smile toward her friends. “Besides, you know I always say ‘pee-pee’ and ‘coochie-coo’. ‘That’s the sweetest pee-pee I’ve ever had in my coochie-coo.’”

“‘I might have a part for you, ‘“ Jill mimicked. “‘It’s about three inches long and smells like rotting garbage.’ Douche.”

“Hannah doesn’t realize it but her ... indiscretions ... have put a big dent in her family fortunes,” Liz said. “The old money set was pretty appalled and they stopped propping up some of her father’s failing ventures. I helped him out last year and he owes me big time. I insisted upon very favorable terms and he’s lived up to them so far. But I could crush him in half an hour if I wanted. I suppose the same is true with the rest of them. My investment company gets calls from Hollywood studios every month, offering a part to me if I’ll help finance some piece of shit movie.”

“You should have seen Travis’s face when they were talking about your A-list party,” Skye said. “He actually pinched his lips together to keep from asking them how they’d know anything about something like that. I could see it.”

“In their element, they’re pretty famous,” Liz said. “I have no doubt that my label invited them. I have no doubt they showed up. Those guys are the ones the Nashville guys think will keep my Q-rating up.”

“It’s become a game,” Skye said. “People try to guess who you’re talking about in all your songs. If they see you with Patrick Jason and a song about a stupid asshole comes out, people are sure you’re throwing shade at him. It doesn’t matter to them that the song was written and recorded before you met the guy. It’s like a parlor game to some people.”

Liz grimaced but nodded.

We made one more trip to the dance floor (and the ladies knocked down three more margaritas each) before it was time to make our way out.

Liz was a bit too drunk to walk straight so she put her arm around my waist. She stopped to get her photo taken and to wave to the fans as we exited. It was almost three in the morning but the sidewalk was still packed with photographers.

“Hannah probably let the wait staff gangbang her to prove to herself that she’s still desirable after you crushed her,” Liz giggled. “She’ll flash her twat to the cameras so everyone can see the spunk is still fresh.”

We managed to get everyone in the car without providing a peep show and started the route back to where we were staying.

“That wasn’t too bad, was it?” Jill asked.

“If you think being surrounded by nasty, drunk assholes isn’t too bad, then sure,” I answered. I pulled the phone I had acquired out of my pocket and handed it to Dom. “You want to make sure the little prick didn’t upload anything to a cloud server.”

“You can’t just take someone’s phone from them!” Jill said. “That’s theft ... even in Mexico.”

“He dropped it while he was trying to get a shot up Liz’s dress as she danced,” I answered blithely. “I picked it up and the bouncers hustled him away before I could return it.”

Dom was trying to get the phone to turn on but couldn’t get past the security screen.

“I’ll have to spoof this when we get back,” he said.

“See?” I said. “A pervert with a cell phone and a bunch of fawning assholes looking for a way to bring you down. Nothing bad about that at all!”

The strain from the evening before was still evident as we sat down to breakfast the next morning. Liz had been silent after I had revealed the “acquired” cell phone and that didn’t change much even after we got back to the hotel. She had showered and gone to sleep.

Our meals on the yacht had been filled with jokes and laughter. Now we all sat quietly and consumed our food. Part of it, I’m sure, stemmed from the hangovers being nursed by the three females at the table.