Reckless (3 page)

"
Cold Chinese is good," he agreed, and steadied himself for her onslaught.

* * * *

Much later as they lay in bed, he kissed the top of her head. "Hungry yet?"

"
Yeah" she replied. "I could eat."

He chuckled at that. She certainly could.

They ate out of the cartons, and washed it down with lukewarm beer. LeAnn turned on the TV and they watched an old movie while she rubbed his shoulders. Troy had one eye on the movie and the other closed. He smiled sleepily to himself.
Full stomach, blow job, beautiful woman sitting naked on top of me rubbing my back…this is the life.

* * * *

They spent an hour resting and the one after that devouring each other before it was time to leave.

"
Next time we should order pizza," LeAnn commented.

Troy wanted to say something but he couldn
't after the way she had treated him so tenderly. He'd take the man's way out and break it off over the phone…later. He finished dressing quickly and they walked out to their cars together.

"
Call me tomorrow?" She smiled at him.

"
I promise." He kissed her lightly.

* * * *

Troy got extraordinarily busy at work the next day and forgot to call. He was sound asleep at midnight when his cell phone rang, startling him awake.

"
Hello?" he barked into the phone.

"
You said you were going to call me tomorrow. Now it's the day after tomorrow."

He blinked, trying to wake up.
"LeAnn? Oh Jesus, yeah. I got busy. I'm sorry."

"
You promised you were going to call," she reminded him. "You said
I promise
."

Troy yawned and flipped on a lamp.
Christ, I don't want to do this now
. He thought he'd better. "I'm sorry. I swear to you, I was overloaded with work today. I really intended to call."

"
When can I see you again? I need to see you, Troy."

"
LeAnn." He rubbed his face with his hand uncomfortably. "I think we need to take a break. I'm really busy right now, and I told you before I wasn't looking for a relationship."

"
You also told me you loved me."

Fuck
.
He knew that would come back to haunt him. The things men said to get laid. "Now, LeAnn," he chided. "You know why I said that."

"
Well, Troy, I guess I can't believe the things you tell me, then. I guess you're a liar, Troy."

He was tired and getting fed up with this conversation. Something occurred to him, and he asked,
"How did you get my number?"

"
Caller ID, of course. You called me Wednesday, remember?"

Shit!
He smacked himself in the forehead. Why the fuck hadn't he used a different phone?

"
Troy, I need to see you, just one more time. Please, Troy." She was whining, almost begging.

I hate
this.
"I'm sorry, LeAnn. Let's be adults about this and go our separate ways. I really enjoyed spending time with you, but it has to end. Goodnight." He pushed the disconnect button on his phone.

He lay back and looked at the ceiling
, cursing his libido when his phone rang again. He looked at the Caller ID and cursed her. He pushed the button and said, "It's late, LeAnn. Go to sleep."

"
Troy, please don't do this to me!"
Tears, sobbing.

"
We had an agreement. It was just supposed to be a little fun, remember? It's not fun anymore, I'm sorry."

"
You will be sorry," she said softly.

Troy pushed the disconnect button again.
Damn, I really hate this.
He turned off the cell phone and set it on the nightstand. Anyone wanting to reach him could leave a voicemail. He tossed and turned for a while, and then fell back to sleep. When he woke the next morning, he spotted the phone. Yawning, he picked it up and turned it back on. There were forty-seven new mail messages.

Troy stared at his cell phone. He sighed and pushed a button.

Are you sure you want to delete all voicemail?

Quite sure, thank you
.
He pushed the button again.

He lit a cigarette and thought about what to do. The first thing was to change his cell phone number, which was simple enough. He
'd have to notify about fifty people of the change—that would be a pain in the ass. But then it would be over. He called his mother in New York, it always cheered him to speak with her. By the end of the weekend, he was feeling better about things, energized and focused on the week ahead.

He returned to the studio Monday in a good mood. His producer blew that right out the window by barking at him,
"McBride, what the hell have you been up to?"

"
Depends. What's up?" Troy smiled nervously.

Harold Bean didn
't smile back. "I'm referring to the sixty damned phone messages the switchboard operators took for you this weekend." He shoved a huge wad of papers into Troy's hands. "We're not your damned answering service."

Troy glanced at the messages. The top one said:
Call me today. I mean it. LeAnn.

"
Shit!" he swore, and looked at Harold. "I'm sorry. I've gotten into somewhat of a mess."

Harold poked him in the chest.
"Fix it. The studio isn't happy." His boss walked off.

To hell with the studio,
Troy thought as he went to his dressing room.
I've got the number one rated show on their damned network.
He looked at himself in the mirror.
What are they going to do to me? Nothing.
He dropped the load of messages into the trash can. What was he going to do about LeAnn? Now
that
was the question.

He
glanced up as Dave walked into the room. "Hey, McBride."

"
Do you have any of my special aspirin?" Troy rubbed his temples.

Dave went to the cabinet on the wall.
"It's just Acetaminophen, dumbass."

Troy shook his head.
"No, I need the kind with caffeine."

Dave shoved a couple capsules in Troy
's hand. "Then drink it with a fucking Coke."

Troy looked at Dave sheepishly.
"I screwed up."

Grinning, Dave hopped onto the sofa.
"I heard something juicy was going on! Spill it."

Troy looked at the pills in his hand, then back at Dave.
"Get me a fucking Coke first, will you?"

Dave rolled his eyes and went off in search of a
soda. He returned with one and sat to hear his friend's tale of woe.

Troy told Dave
the latest events, what happened between him and LeAnn, and how it ended up.

"
You slept with her twice?" Dave shook his head. "Once, you probably would have been okay. Twice is, like, I don't know, man."

Troy groaned.
"What's done is done. My question is, what do I do about it?"

Dave waved his hand.
"I don't think you'll have to do anything. She's venting, blowing off steam. It'll all die down in a couple days."

"
You think?" Troy really wanted this to be true.

"
Sure." Dave nodded. "No one could have a crush on you for longer than a couple days, anyway. You're such a jerk."

"
Thanks. Your compassion is underwhelming."

Dave laughed, and they both looked up as one of the make-up assistants tapped lightly on the door.
"Mr. McBride?"

"
Yeah, call me Troy, sweetheart." He looked the girl over, tiny tits but not bad otherwise, big blue eyes and long brown hair. He shook his head to clear it.
This is no time to be thinking about a woman.

She looked down, embarrassed.
"I'm not sure I should be here. I told this to Jill, and she thought I should bring it to your attention."

Dave spoke up
. "Come in, Becca. If Jill thinks it's important, it must be." Jill was the head make-up artist on the show, and Becca's boss.

Troy motioned her in
, noticing Becca carried a laptop computer.

"
It's kind of embarrassing, really," she said.

"
Sit down," Troy urged her, and leaned against the wall.

"
Well." She looked at her computer. "I like to surf websites, see what people are saying about the show, and such." She glanced at Troy, and he nodded. "There's one woman on here, she has a whole webpage devoted to you."

Troy and Dave exchanged
knowing glances, smiling. Dave said, "There's more than a few of those."

Becca turned her computer on.
"Yeah, I know, I've seen a lot of them. But this one is different. She used to write the usual, silly stuff, but this week, her stories have gotten more intense."

Troy pointed at the computer.
"Fire this puppy up. Let's see what's going on."

Becca typed furiously on the keyboard.
"It takes a minute for the page to load." She punched some more buttons. "Dang it! Page not available. Stupid computer."

"
Why don't you give us the address, and we can look at it later?" Dave asked.

"
Okay." She typed again, trying to get the page up. "This is so irritating!"

Troy smiled at her.
"It's okay. I appreciate your efforts."

She stood
, hoisting the laptop. "It's probably nothing. But her stories this week were just weird." Becca headed for the door, then turned and gave Troy a smile. "Goofy, too. I can't picture you driving through
Big Boy
for hamburgers in your Mercedes."

Troy
's heart caught in his throat. He looked at Becca's computer, and when he spoke it came out raspy. "Why don't you have another look at that site? Maybe the page popped up."
Breathe.

She opened the
computer and looked. "Hey, yeah, it did!"

The three of them peered at the screen. There, amidst a huge title labeled
Troy's
World
, were six lovely photos of Troy McBride. There was a big black X through each one of them.

He gulped.
"Uh, Dave, I think maybe you'd better call the police."

* * * *

The police, in cooperation with the website server, were able to close down the web page, but not before Troy got a copy of it printed to disc. He sat in front of his computer reading every gory detail about the past week of his life.

LeAnn
had
been the one to send him flowers, and she had been at the
Kismet
taping with the sign. She
had
followed him from the studio to the club, where
she
picked
him
up. It was all there, printed on the internet for the world to see. She described their lovemaking in minute detail. He'd been the perfect fool.

The website and cell phone were set up under a fake name and address. Troy could offer no information about LeAnn
, so the police were at a dead end until she made further contact.

There were death threats called in to the studio, so they upped their security. Only a few weeks remained in the
Kismet
season and no one wanted to take any chances with their star—especially the star himself. He kept his guard up, and was as wary as he had ever been.

He stuck close to Dave, but everything remained quiet. One evening when Dave forgot some paperwork in his office, Troy waved him off. He was tired and didn
't want to walk back inside the building.

"
I'll call you when I get home," he said, whistling as he climbed into his car. He raised his keys to the ignition and felt the sting of sharp, cold steel. He looked out the corner of his eye and saw a hunting knife with a six inch serrated blade pressed against his neck.

"
Hello, LeAnn. I've been expecting you."

"
Hello, Troy, my love," she spoke into his ear. "I'm sure you've got a global positioning system and all kinds of Batman shit on this car, but don't use them. We don't want to be disturbed tonight."

Troy turned to look at her, but the knife pressed into his flesh.
"LeAnn, love, I'm afraid it's too late for that. You're seriously disturbed already."