Reel (Hollywood Renaissance 1)

She scans my face, and I make sure she’ll find nothing to worry about in my expression.

“You sure you alright?”

“I’m sure, Mama. I just wanted you to know.” I smile and squeeze her hand, wanting to shift to more exciting parts of my life. “Now, don’t you want to hear about the movie I’m in?”

“Oh, yeah. Spill it all! And that director, that Canon Holt. He as fine up close as they say he is?” She leans over conspiratorially, her smile and her wink wicked. “You can tell your mama.”

And for the first time in a long time, I do.

35

Canon

Me: Merry Christmas. Well, Merry Post-Christmas.

Neevah: Merry Post-Christmas. How was yours?

Me: Great. Yours?

Neevah: Okay, I guess.

Me: Want to talk about it?

Neevah: With you?

Me: Yeah, with me. Unless there’s someone else you’d rather talk to.

My phone rings right away.

“Everyone else was busy, huh?” I ask, stretching out on the lounge chair by my pool. Seventy-five degrees in December. Why would I ever leave Cali?

“Something like that.” She laughs. “So what’d you do for Christmas? Lemon Grove with the fam?”

“I did. It was great seeing everyone. Drove up on Christmas morning. Came back to LA last night. How about you? How’d it go?”

“Rough,” she breathes out a heavy sigh. “At least with my sister.”

“Oh, so she was there? I thought they were going to Virginia.”

“Good memory.”

I could tell her I remember everything she says, but with me dragging her to Santa Barbara for New Year’s, she probably already suspects how much I like her. “Like” is a tepid description for my burning curiosity about this woman. About how she thinks, what makes her laugh. How will she feel when I’m inside her? How will she look after I fuck her?

Questions.

“They were going to Virginia,” Neevah continues, oblivious to the dirty track my mind is on. That’s for the best. “They ended up staying. Terry and I had a run-in on Christmas Eve.”

“You argued?” I ask, feeling protective of Neevah, even though I know she can hold her own.

“Epically.” Her humorless laugh carries a note of sadness. “It was long overdue, but it was still . . . messy, and we didn’t get anything resolved.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I am, too. Her daughter, my niece Quianna, overheard us arguing. She apparently never knew I used to be engaged to her father, or that they cheated and she was the result. I mean, she’s a kid. Why would she know? I feel awful that she heard it from me. It was very soap opera. College Canon would have loved it.”

We both laugh at her attempt to lighten the mood. Family drama like this, though, you can only lighten so much.

“You said that was Christmas Eve. What about Christmas Day?”

“They didn’t come to Mama’s. They went somewhere else. I guess it would have made it more awkward for everyone, but it’s that kind of thinking that kept me away so much the last decade. Sometimes shit has to get awkward before it gets right. I see that now.”

“Will you reach out to her again?”

“I’m not ready. I know I should be, but she hurt me worse than anyone ever has, Canon. I don’t have feelings for Brandon anymore. God, I was over him my freshman year in college. But what they did? What she did? It still hurts.”

“I can imagine.”

“And you know what hurts as much? She seems mad at me! Seems to resent me for . . . I don’t know, pursuing my dreams? Finding some success? Getting out of our hometown?”

“I could see that.”

“Well I can’t. I’ve been basically without my family since I was eighteen years old. It’s like a divorce, and she got custody of everyone.”

Neevah doesn’t realize how fantastic she is. After Dessi Blue releases, there will be enough people letting her know. For now, I just listen, letting her unburden what she’s obviously been holding in.

“At least Mama and I talked,” she says.

“How was that?”

“Uncomfortable. Awkward. Needed. We cleared the air. She doesn’t fly, but she’ll try to get up to New York to see me when the movie wraps.”

I don’t like to think of Neevah returning to the East Coast. I have no hold on her, and I know New York is her home. There is a part of me, though, that hopes she’ll decide to move to LA. I could find a dozen projects that would keep her here, but she would hate that. It would be a disservice to her. I’ll make it clear if she needs anything from me, it’s hers. We’re still several steps away from that kind of discussion.

“I’m really excited about Santa Barbara,” she says, her voice hushed, husky. “Are you?”

I answer first with a raspy chuckle. “What do you think?”

“Sometimes I don’t know what to think. I understand your reasons for us not pursuing the . . . attraction between us until after the movie, but there are days when you are on set and I don’t even see you, and Kenneth brings my notes and we have no contact, and I wonder if I’m dreaming it all.”