Damage Control (The Hollywood Series Book 2) (26 page)

Then she was gone.

Grace craned her neck to see where she was going, but Lauren quickly disappeared around the corner. Grinning despite herself, she shook her head. Lauren Pearce was a force to be reckoned with when she was trying to take care of someone. She let her head sink against the backrest and closed her eyes.

She jumped as, seemingly only seconds later, the driver’s side door was pulled open and Lauren dropped onto the seat next to her. “Here.” With a proud grin, she held out a large chocolate waffle cone with two scoops of ice cream.

Her mouth watering, Grace stared at the decadent offering. “Oh my God, you’re so bad for my diet. You bought me ice cream?”

Lauren grinned. “It’s just what the doctor ordered.”

“The set medic didn’t say anything about ice cream.”

“What an oversight.” Lauren tsked. “Everyone knows that you need to cool a shiner like that.” She pointed at Grace’s eye with her own ice cream cone.

“With ice cream?”

Lauren lifted one shoulder into a half-shrug. “Whatever works, right?”

“And what excuse do you have for getting yourself some too?”

“None.” Lauren happily swirled her tongue over her frozen treat. “I don’t need an excuse for ice cream. But if you don’t want yours…”

Grace snatched the second cone out of her hand before Lauren could pull it back. “I didn’t say that. Do you know how long it’s been since I last had ice cream?”

“About as long as your last hot dog, I’d guess.”

There was no answer from Grace as she was busy sampling her ice cream.

Grace eating ice cream was quite possibly the most erotic thing Lauren had seen in her entire life. She almost groaned as she watched Grace’s tongue swirl over her cone. The pink tip of her tongue darted out to lick a drop of cream from the corner of her mouth. Then she tilted her head back and moaned.

The sound went through Lauren, making heat pool low in her belly.
Oh, God.
Maybe getting Grace ice cream hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Something cold dripped onto her fingers. When she wrenched her gaze away from Grace and directed it downward, she realized that her own ice cream was melting while she’d been busy watching Grace devour hers. She licked a bit of her peanut butter cup off her hands.

“God, this is so good.” Grace moaned again. “What flavor is this? I don’t think I’ve had it before.”

Lauren shifted in the driver’s seat. “One is pineapple coconut and the other white chocolate raspberry truffle.”

“Yum. Pretty exotic choice, isn’t it?”

“Would you have preferred something simple, like vanilla?”

Grace gave her a teasing smile. “You think I’m vanilla?”

Lauren nearly choked on a piece of almond. Was Grace flirting? “Uh, no, I just thought maybe you wanted to try something new, since there are so many different ice cream flavors just waiting to be explored.”

“Good guess. When it comes to ice cream, I’m definitely open for experimenting.”

Ice cream. She’s just talking about ice cream.
Lauren took a long lick of her cone. It tasted great but did little to cool her down. Not when her mind was busy imagining how sweet and cold Grace’s lips would feel against her own.

“What did you get?”

“Excuse me?” Lauren’s brain had trouble keeping up with anything but the erotic movements of Grace’s tongue.

“Your ice cream. What flavors did you get?”

“Oh. Peanut butter cup and coffee with roasted almonds.”

Grace laughed. “Coffee. I should have known.” She didn’t speak again until she had finished the last bite of her cone, lightly swaying back and forth and sometimes moaning, definitely in ice cream nirvana.

Lauren was still holding her melting ice cream, which was dripping all over her hands. “There are some napkins in my pocket.” She’d stuffed a handful into the front pocket of her jeans before leaving the ice cream store. Studying her hands, she tried to decide which one was less sticky and wouldn’t leave stains on her pants.

“Thanks. I got it.” Grace reached over and pulled one of the napkins from Lauren’s pocket.

Lauren’s breath caught when Grace’s fingers brushed her hip. She nearly dropped her soggy cone.

“Your ice cream is melting,” Grace said while she wiped her fingers on the napkin. “Don’t you like it?”

Drops ran down the outside of the cone, and Lauren quickly licked them off. “I do. It’s delicious.” She peered over at Grace. “Do you want to taste?” The moment she’d said it, she wanted to slap herself.
God, you really are a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?
After suffering through watching Grace eat her ice cream, she’d have to watch her lick her cone.

With a smile that looked a little shy, Grace nodded.

Charmed, Lauren held out her ice cream cone. She was sure that not many people got to see this side of the famous actress.

Grace bent her head and swiped her tongue across the peanut butter ice cream. A moan escaped her. “Oh, wow. That’s really good too.”

“What can I say?” Lauren’s voice sounded a little hoarse. She hoped Grace wouldn’t notice or would think it an effect of eating something cold. “I’m a woman of taste.”

When Grace straightened, she had a little bit of ice cream on her nose.

Lauren’s overactive imagination showed her pictures of her leaning forward to lick it off.
Are you out of your mind?
“Uh, you have some…” She pointed.

Grace wiped at her nose with the napkin. “Guess I’m a messy eater.”

No, you’re a sexy eater.
Lauren held out her cone. “Would you like to eat the rest?” On the one hand, she knew it would only prolong her torture, but on the other hand, she enjoyed the way Grace enjoyed her ice cream way too much to want it to end.

“Don’t you want to finish it?” Grace asked.

“The coffee one is all gone, so if you like peanut butter, be my guest.”

Grace looked back and forth between her and the ice cream. “I really shouldn’t.”

That was what she’d said before taking the second hot dog. Lauren grinned and pressed the cone into her hand. “Enjoy.”

Within minutes, the remainder of her ice cream was gone.

Happily crunching the last bite of cone, Grace wiped her fingers on the napkin again and then touched Lauren’s forearm.

Tingles spread through the upper part of Lauren’s body.

“Thank you,” Grace said. “I haven’t had anyone bring me ice cream when I came home with a boo-boo since my father died.”

Sticky fingers and tingles be damned, Lauren covered Grace’s hand with her own and squeezed. “You’re welcome.”

CHAPTER 18

“I’m so, so, so sorry,” was the first thing Amanda said when she called Grace later that day.

“Stop apologizing already.” Grace tried to fluff the sofa pillow beneath her head. “It’s not your fault. If Cody hadn’t pulled me to the side at the wrong moment…”

Amanda sighed. “Still. I feel bad for giving you that black eye.”

“Nothing a bit of concealer won’t cure. Besides, it wasn’t all bad.”

“How’s that?”

Grace closed her eyes and could almost taste the delicious ice cream melting on her tongue. “I got a double scoop of ice cream out of the deal.”

“You? Getting ice cream?” Amanda let out a disbelieving snort.

“No, really,” Grace said. “I did. Lauren bought it for me when she drove me home.”

Only silence filtered through the line.

“Amanda?” Grace looked at the display to make sure they hadn’t been disconnected. “You still there?”

“Um, yes. I’m just a little surprised she’d do that. Maybe I need to switch publicists, because mine sure never did something like that for me.”

“Not even when that meanie of a camel bit you?”

“Nope,” Amanda said. “Not even then.”

Grace didn’t know how to explain why her publicist would buy her ice cream and miss a few hours of work just to pick her up from the airport. These were just two of the many things that Lauren had done for her even though they weren’t in her contract. They were becoming friends, but she felt as if she needed to protect that growing friendship from being trampled on by everyone else. “Maybe your publicist would if you paid her better,” she finally quipped.

“Are you sure that’s all it is? Lauren appreciating the paycheck she gets from you?”

“Yeah, okay, I think we’re becoming friends too.”

“That too, but I think it might be more than that.”

At Amanda’s suspicious tone, Grace’s hackles rose. “What are you hinting at?”

“Well, if my gaydar isn’t totally off, she’s a lesbian, so…”

Grace sat up on the couch. “Oh, come on! Just because she’s a lesbian doesn’t mean she’d be interested in me. You of all people should know that.”

“Yeah, why would she be interested in you, just because you’re drop-dead gorgeous, rich, and one of the nicest people in Hollywood.”

“That’s nonsense,” she said more loudly than intended. She normally didn’t shout at people, but now it was hard to keep her voice down. “You’re really selling Lauren short. She’s more professional than most other people in Hollywood.”

“I saw the two of you playing pinball at your birthday party, and excuse me for saying so, but that didn’t look very professional to me. She seemed to have forgotten that you’re not just her client but also a married woman.”

The memory of Lauren’s arms around her, their bodies pressing together as Lauren bumped the pinball machine made Grace flush. She told herself it was just anger heating her cheeks. The sofa pillow sailed across the room, nearly shattering the Chinese vase. “Bullshit! You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I’m sorry,” Amanda said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s not my place to say things like that to you. I know we haven’t been friends for very long and haven’t gotten to know each other that well. I should have kept my mouth shut. I just feel like you’re one of the few fellow actresses I can really talk to.”

Grace rubbed her face with her free hand and winced when she accidentally touched the tender, still-swollen area beneath her left eye. While it was true they hadn’t been friends for that long, spending up to sixteen hours a day together for a week last year and then doing the same this year had brought them closer. They both shared the same work ethic and a similar sense of humor. She did consider Amanda a friend, even though they saw each other mostly at red-carpet events and on set. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to make you feel as if you couldn’t be honest with me. It’s just… Do you know how many people swarmed around me like bees to honey, pretending to care for me, just because I’m nice, rich, and…”

“Drop-dead gorgeous,” Amanda said for her.

“But that’s all just skin-deep. Everyone before Nick wanted just my money or my body or both, and I don’t want to think that Lauren might be one of those people.”

“That’s not what I’m—”

The sudden bang of the front door made Grace jump.

Seconds later, her mother strode into the living room and dropped a stack of paper onto the coffee table.

Not again.
“Amanda? I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“Are we okay? I really didn’t mean to—”

“We’re fine,” Grace said. “It’s just that my mother dropped by. There seems to be something important going on.”

They said good-bye and ended the call.

“Mom, you’ll give me a heart attack if you keep coming in like that.”

“Do you see that?” Her mother waved her finger at the stack of printouts on the table, ignoring what Grace had said. “That’s why I didn’t want you to—” Her eyes widened and her mouth snapped shut as she caught sight of Grace’s shiner. She rushed toward her. “Oh my God! What happened to your eye?”

Grace tried to fend off her mother’s hands that were fluttering all over her face. “Nothing. Just—ouch, Mom, that hurts. It was just bad timing while we were shooting one of the action scenes.”

“How often have I told you not to do your own stunts? They have stuntwomen for that.”

“I know. But it looks more authentic if I do it myself, and it wasn’t dangerous.”

“Dangerous enough to give you a black eye,” her mother muttered. “I told you that nothing good would come of you doing that lesbian show, and now look…you got hurt.”

Grace shrugged. “It could have happened on any other set too. At least it wasn’t my nose like that one time when I got hit by a champagne cork during the wedding reception scene and the director insisted on icing my nose with the entire cooler of ice.”

They both laughed at the memory, and her mother finally let go of her face and sank onto the couch next to her.

“So what’s this?” Grace pointed at the papers on her coffee table. They looked like printouts from websites. “Don’t tell me the gossip sites are writing nonsense about me again.”

“No. Not the gossip sites. Some other people.”

Grace frowned. “What other people?”

“I don’t know. Writers, I guess. They’re writing stories about you…
homosexual
stories.” Her mother nearly seemed to choke on the words.

Grace reached for the stack of paper and skimmed the first page. It was a short story written by someone using the pseudonym CPFan. The story was littered with typos and grammar mistakes but otherwise entertaining. The character Grace had portrayed in two episodes—the daughter of a casino owner—was a suspect in a murder case, and Detective Halliday was back in Vegas to investigate the case.

In an interview room in a police station, Detective Halliday towered over the suspect, who was sitting behind a metal table. Almost nose to nose, they were shouting at each other.

Grace turned the page.

And then they were kissing. The chair toppled over as Grace’s character pressed the detective against the table and slid her hands under the other woman’s shirt.

Heat crept up Grace’s chest and into her cheeks. She stopped reading and fanned herself once with the stack of papers.

“See what I mean? That’s porn! Lesbian porn!” Her mother paced the length of the living room. “We need to contact your lawyer right away. We’ll sue. We’ll…”

Grace pinched the bridge of her nose, wincing when pain flared through the area around her left eye. How she wished she were back in Lauren’s car, eating ice cream, instead of dealing with this. “It’s not porn, Mom. I think it’s called fan fiction. These stories aren’t written by professional writers. They’re just fans.”

Her mother snorted. “What fan would write something like that about you?”

“They’re not writing about me. This is about Alexandra—my character.”

“We need to tell the network, then. They can sue them for copyright infringement.”

“I’m pretty sure they already know,” Grace said.

Her mother stopped pacing and stared at her wide-eyed. “And they’re just letting them write this…this…?” She gestured as if unable to find a strong enough word.

“I don’t think anyone officially allowed it,” Grace said. “It’s more of a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy. But if you think about it, isn’t it a great compliment that the show and its characters inspired people to write stories about them?”

“Maybe. But did it have to be that kind of story?” Her mother resumed her pacing.

Grace shrugged. “I’m sure there are others too.” She stood, walked over to her mother, and gently gripped her shoulders to make her stop pacing. “These stories have nothing to do with me. They are just fiction.”

“Just fiction,” her mother repeated as if trying to get it into her head. She inhaled and exhaled audibly. “Okay. So you don’t think we should call your lawyer?”

Sometimes, Grace felt as if she were the mother and Katherine the child. “No,” she repeated as patiently as she could, “we definitely shouldn’t.”

“All right. But you need to keep an eye on these crazy fans. I don’t want anyone to take them seriously.”

“Yes, Mom. Do you want a smoothie?”

Her mother looked at her dainty gold watch. “No, thanks. If I don’t hurry, I’ll be late for my mani-pedi.” After two air kisses and a wave, she picked up the stack of printouts, holding them between two fingers, and swept out of the house as quickly as she’d come.

Blowing out a breath, Grace flopped onto the couch.

Grace saved the attachment with her travel itinerary the studio had sent. Seven premieres in as many days, waking up in a different city every morning… The weeklong tour to promote
Ava’s Heart
would be exhausting. She took a sip of her green smoothie, for a moment wishing it were something stronger—or at least something more tasty. That made her think of the ice cream Lauren had bought her that morning, which in turn made her think of the fan fiction.

Thinking of Lauren makes you think of fan fiction?
She raised an eyebrow at herself. Well, Lauren was a lesbian, so it was only natural to jump from thoughts about her to thoughts about lesbian fiction, right?

She opened a new tab in her browser and typed in a search for
Central Precinct
fan fiction. A number appeared above a list of links. “Two hundred forty-seven thousand hits? Wow.”

A random click on one link revealed an entire archive of fan fiction. There had to be hundreds or maybe even thousands of stories. Grace’s astonishment grew as she clicked on several and read a few of the descriptions.

Some stories took place in alternative universes in which Alexandra, her character, was a detective too. Others were crossovers that had the
Central Precinct
characters meet the heroes and heroines of other popular prime-time shows. Most were short; others had to be longer than some of the novels on her bookshelf.

Several of the stories paired Alexandra with Detective Halliday’s male partner, but the majority were lesbian in nature, some about her character with one of the female leads, but most about the detective and the medical examiner.

This apparently was a world of its own. A world she’d had no idea existed, at least not to this extent.

She clicked on one of the Alexandra Eadington/Linda Halliday stories and started to read. Her mother had told her to keep an eye on the crazy fans and their stories, after all.

During the first chapter or so, it felt strange to read a story about the character she portrayed on TV, but then the fast-paced plot and the three-dimensional characterization quickly drew her in. Faintly, she worried that reading this author’s interpretation of Alexandra Eadington would influence her portrayal should she be asked to guest-star in another episode, but then she pushed the thought aside and continued to read.

Some time later, she realized the sun had set outside and she was reading just by the glare of the laptop balancing on her belly. Not setting the laptop down, she stretched out one arm as far as it would go, turned on the light, and continued to read.

Unlike some of the stories she’d skimmed, this one was good. Really good. Better than some of the books she’d read in the past.

She grinned as for once, it was her character who was allowed to save the day. Much better than ending up with a black eye. She followed a link to the story’s next chapter.

Detective Linda Halliday had invited Alexandra over for dinner as a thank-you for saving her life—and now she was watching her guest devour the chocolate mousse she’d made for dessert.

“You’ve got a little…” Linda pointed to the corner of her mouth.

Instead of using her napkin, Alexandra flicked her tongue along her bottom lip. “Gone?”

Linda had to clear her throat before she could answer. “Uh, no.”

Again, Grace had to think of the ice cream they’d eaten that morning and of Lauren directing her to wipe some of it off her nose. She rolled her eyes at herself.
You’re really obsessed with ice cream. Get it out of your head. It’s salad and fruit for you for the foreseeable future.
She directed her attention back to the story on her laptop.

Alexandra licked her upper lip, her tongue dancing along the curved contours. “Now?”

Was Alexandra teasing her? Was she…flirting? Linda took a big gulp of her Coke, then another one, wishing she could fish the ice cubes out of her soda and slip them down her shirt to cool off. This had to end, or she’d do something stupid. Like walk around the table and wipe that bit of chocolate mousse off with her thumb—which she promptly did. Slowly, she put her finger into her mouth and then withdrew it.