Chapter 37

Author’s Note: Wrapping up LA with some surprise fun. It’s going to be a fast and furious finale when we get back to Houston! Your comments and insight really inspire me! Thanks for being such brilliantly dedicated readers!

After the intensity of my hookup with Juliet Lawson and having drunk just enough wine to make me sleepy, I dozed off on the couch. I could still smell her perfume and arousal when Kelly and the girls came through the front door. The sun was starting to drift lower, signaling the start of golden hour in Beverly Hills.

“Hi, daddy,” Kat said, sliding onto the couch next to me and helping brush the sleep from my eyes. “Did you have a nice surprise?”

“It was very nice,” I said. “It’s almost as if I dreamed it.”

She kissed me, and I saw she was high.

“Looks like you three had a fun afternoon,” I said, seeing her dilated pupils and the litany of shopping bags they had come home with.

“We had an absolute blast!” Jess said.

“Here we go, girls,” Kelly said, coming from behind the bar with her favorite cocaine-laden tray. “Let’s keep the party going!”

“So it looks like we’re going to make it a memorable last night in LA?” I said.

Jess beat Kat to the coke and hoovered up two lines.

“We should get changed,” Jess said.

“How was your surprise, John?” Kelly asked me, walking over and running a hand through my hair.

“Exquisite,” I said. “Thank you.”

“There’s no time for thanks,” Kelly said. “We bumped into a producer friend of mine who’s a client. It seems he thought Kat and Jess were two of my new girls. So I figured it might be nice to arrange an intimate little party here tonight.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun,” I enthused.

“Peter was absolutely smitten by Jess,” Kelly said. “And he has a friend that he’ll bring for Kat. Do you know what that means?”

“What?” I asked.

“I get to be your date for the evening, Mr. Cameron,” Kelly said with a sparkle in her eyes.

“And I thought you had already given me the best surprise of the trip,” I said. “What a treat.”

Kelly licked her lips. “I hope so,” she said. “I’m feeling extremely decadent.”

Kat and Jess had already scrambled back to the guest house to change. Kelly walked upstairs to the master bedroom.

“They’ll be here in two hours,” she called to me from the second floor landing. “Put on something nice but don’t dress up. California casual. I’m going to warn you. Peter’s friend is, well, let’s just say you are going to recognize him.”

I joined my girlfriends in getting ready. I put on a pair of linen shorts and a lightweight, button-down shirt. Jess wore an elegant, flowing one-shoulder dress. Kat put on tight, ripped jeans and a loose-fitting yellow shirt dotted with white flowers. She added more color with red lipstick and looked very young.

“You both look exquisite,” I said. “I’ll go help Kelly get things set up and see you over there.”

Back in the main house, there was a flurry of activity underway. I don’t know how Kelly did it, but she had catering from a restaurant setting up already.

“John, be a dear,” she said. “Can you make sure we’ve got at least six bottles of Cristal chilled. Peter loves Cristal.”

“I am at your beck and call all night,” I said.

“Don’t say that,” she said playfully, “you’ll make me weak in the knees.”

The catering staff had set up and left within an hour. Kat and Jess returned just after they left, looking like knockouts.

“You two are going to blow them away, literally and figuratively I’m sure,” Kelly said. “Now here’s the score. Girls, I’m not going to hide the fact that you’re visiting from Texas. Peter’s guest has a ranch about an hour from Houston. This could be a real opportunity for our collaboration, Jess. So let’s make it work. John, I’m going to tell them you’re a wealthy client I met while visiting Kat one time. Just follow my lead, okay?”

We all nodded in agreement. There was palpable excitement. Peter was a well-known producer. More than well-known. He was a legend. He had won the best picture Oscars three times. Kelly wouldn’t say who Peter’s guest would be, though she clearly knew. It stoked the anticipation in the house.

I popped a bottle of Cristal and poured four glasses. Two more sat empty on the bar. Now that we were alone in the house again, Kat put the cocaine tray on full display.

“We are going to need a lot of that tonight,” Kelly said. “What you’ve heard about some of these Hollywood types is absolutely true.”

Kat sat on my lap as she bent over the coffee table to snort a couple lines. Jess was wired and pounding Champagne. She was climbing the walls with excitement.

“Peter just had this presence,” she said. “Like just with a handshake he took control of me. It’s totally larger than life.”

“Come on, Kelly, give me a hint about my date!” Kat pleaded.

Kelly wouldn’t spill any of the beans. She did a couple lines and drank her Champagne. We heard a car door close, and Kelly shot for the door.

“John, you go to the bar,” she instructed. “Girls, come stand behind me to greet them.”

She was in her element. Immediately as the doorbell chimed, Kelly opened the door. Peter walked in first, and it was bizarre to see such a famous face just nonchalantly enter the room.

“Kelly!” he exclaimed and wrapped his large arms around her. Peter was a large man. Tall and commanding. “This is such a wonderfully unexpected evening. Thank you for the invitation. You remember my friend Stephen, don’t you?”

As shocking as it was to see Peter in the house, watching Stephen come inside made me think we had stumbled onto a movie set. He was tall, as tall as his movies made you think, and had salt-and-pepper hair. His dashing good looks on the big screen weren’t manufactured. He was extraordinarily handsome and carried with him charisma that filled the room. Playing with a royal flush of looks and charm, no wonder he was a famously committed bachelor.

“Of course!” Kelly exclaimed. “Such a joy that you could make it. Come in! Come in! Peter, you remember Jess, whom you met this afternoon. And Kat, of course. Stephen, you must meet Kat.”

Jess had moved forward and embraced Peter warmly. He put his arm around her possessively, like they were old friends. Kelly beamed. From my perch at the bar, I could see how starstruck Kat was. I wondered how wet her panties must have gotten when she saw who her date was.

“Stephen,” the star said as he extended his hand toward my girlfriend. “You’re enchanting.” After Kat shook his hand, he pulled hers to his lips and kissed it lightly. If anyone else had done that, it would have seemed corny. With him, it felt seductive.

“Gentlemen,” Kelly interrupted briefly, “you also must meet my dear friend John Cameron. John, you’re not tending bar. Join us!”

I brought two glasses of Cristal and handed them to the Hollywood heavyweights, then quickly retrieved my own from the bar.

“John,” I said, shaking hands with both in turn. They were gracious and introduced themselves.

“John is from Texas,” Kelly explained. “He’s been discussing some investments with me. He made a major killing with a hedge fund manager and now just indulges in the good life.”

“Well, if he’s hanging out with you, Kelly, then he must know a lot about indulgence,” Peter said with a hearty laugh.

“Well, here’s to indulgence then,” I offered and raised my glass. We all toasted, and the evening took off.

We paired up as couples, which was the intent. Kelly chatted with me at the bar, where we sat on stools and watched Kat and Stephen chat on the couch, while Jess and Peter went straight for the cocaine.

“I’ve never seen someone with a bigger appetite for coke,” Kelly whispered to me. “He will kill five or six grams on his own tonight, if he decides he wants to party.”

“Well, Jess will give him a run for his money,” I said.

We turned our attention back to the living room.

“Do you like blow, Jess?” Peter asked.

“Oh,” Jess said nonchalantly, “just a couple lines every thirty minutes or so!”

Peter guffawed loudly. His personality was larger-than-life. “Well, then we will get along just fine! Ladies first!”

He passed her the straw and pulled back her hair as she addressed the lines before her. He rubbed his other hand on the small of her back as she snorted the coke.

Stephen and Kat had immediately tumbled into conversation. She sat close to him, her body turned in his direction, and her gaze was fixed upon his handsome, famous face. I wasn’t sure I had seen Kat ever turn smitten so quickly.

Peter, like a cocaine vampire, snorted six lines and then refilled their Champagne glasses. We chatted, and Jess flirted relentlessly with Peter. I also couldn’t help notice out of the corner of my eye that Stephen invited Kat to do coke with him. My head nearly exploded seeing the leading man of his generation offer Kat a bump off the back of his hand. She eagerly took it and then, channeling her inner seductress, licked his skin to get any remnants. Stephen smiled and moved his head close to Kat’s ear. He whispered something, and she gave a breezy laugh and smiled.

“Of course,” I heard Kat say, and she undid two more buttons on her shirt.

Stephen sprinkled a bump of coke into her cleavage and sniffed it. He followed suit with a quick tongue cleanup, then let his lips wander over her collarbone and up her neck. I noticed Kat give an imperceptible, surreptitious glance in my direction. She knew I was watching her, and she smiled. She whispered something to Stephen, but I could easily read her lips.

“Do you want to fuck me?” she had said.

Stephen’s response was simply to put his hand on her thigh, whisper something back as he nibbled her ear. He stood up, extended his hand, and they made their way to the back guest room. I wondered if the scent of Juliet Lawson’s perfume would linger while he fucked my girlfriend.

“Stephen never wastes time with a pretty young thing,” Peter said as he refilled his Champagne glass again. “I knew as soon as I saw her he would flip for her.”

“I’ve done pretty well today, haven’t I?” Kelly said.

Peter had his arm around Jess again. “You can say that,” he said. “I always have loved Texas girls.”

“I thought you just told me back on the couch that you liked coke whores,” Jess said.

“That only makes it better!” Peter said.