The Truth About Air & Water (Truth in Lies #2) (46 page)

“Linc, are you okay?” Brad asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He glares back at me apparently unhappy that I mentioned his fall and his head gash and Trinna Danner in the last two minutes.

Well yeah, what-the-fuck-ever.

“I suppose they got pictures of all of that too,” Kimberley says in despair.

Her general well-being seems to deteriorate with each pass. For some reason, I find this incredibly funny and start to laugh. Linc tries to shush me putting his fingers over my mouth which just spurs me on.

“There may have been some extracurricular activity inside his truck in terms of
doing the deed
that the media may have seen and also photographed.” I flip Linc off to match his finger play.

“I’m resigning both of you as clients,” Kimberley says wearily.

“I’m
not
your client,” I say airily. Tequila continues to dominate my thought process or lack thereof.

“Oh, but you are,” she says quietly. “Who do you think pays me to watch over you? San Francisco Ballet that’s who. What do you think I spend that retainer money on when I can’t be there twenty-four seven with you? Sam Wilde is a friend of mine, Tally,” she says with a heavy sigh.

“What?” The air rushes out of me. “You know Sam?”
She knows Sam. What all does she know? And why didn’t Sam tell me?

“Yes, we go back a ways,” Kimberley says sounding less sure of herself.

“Kimberley, leave Sam out of it. That’s Tally’s business. And he doesn’t belong in this conversation,” Linc says irritably.

“Sam is as much a part of this conversation as the two of you are,” she says.

“Geez, Kimmy, you are messing with her life way too much,” Linc says with a groan. “As much as mine!”

“Really? You’ve got your life so under control, right now, Linc?” She asks. “This is why I’m fielding calls for you left and right!
Both of you
are spinning out of control. We only have the upper hand with how the world views you when we have the power, but you two are just
giving
it away. I told you I would handle the LA thing. I told you to tell Tally, but you decided to wait and now it is blowing up in your face as well as hers. You both need to listen to me good and well and often.
I had this.
You both just made it into something bigger than it was in the first place. The
Dirty Dancing
move might have been epic. The wedding clothes, too. But then you literally destroy the perfect moment with the big move by setting your dress on fire and having make-up sex, so
it all looks staged
. I really can’t believe this. This reckless behavior. What I don’t get is
why
. You
love
each other. Start acting like it.”

“That wasn’t make-up sex,” I say into the warring silence that follows. “That was
good-bye sex
. There’s a
difference
.” I can feel Linc’s mortal wound all the way over here some four feet away from him.

“Oh, Tally. Please stop. Both of you need to quit hurting each other this way. Talk to each other like Brad has told you more than once! And let me do what I can to fix this. For the record, Sam is a friend of mine. Sometimes he works for me. He has for a long time. Three years, maybe four years, on and off, on the down low. He does data analysis and security detail for some of my clients and —”

“
I
was his security detail?” I ask feeling mortally wounded myself.

“No. No. No. I called him in early January and he mentioned you—told me he knew you as a friend and would keep an eye on you. He wasn’t
technically
working for me. Frankly, I think he got in over his head and naively thought he could handle you, Tally; and yet…” She sighs. “He called me last night fairly distraught telling me you’d broken things off with him. And then called back again when he saw what TMZ was running.”

I moan out-loud. Of course I didn't allow my plan and the tirade that followed to message my psyche as to what all of this would do to Sam.

“Tally? I warned him a long time ago that you and Linc were pretty epic,” Kimberley says. “I think he’ll survive. It’s probably the timing of your hook-up with Linc that upset him the most but—”

“Can we just stop talking about Sam?
Please
?” Although I go on to talk about Sam. “I cut him loose earlier today because I had things to take care of. It wasn’t fair to him. I haven't been fair to him. I needed to be free of Linc before we could move forward. Before
I
could move on.” Linc is looking at me but I just stare straight ahead. “Get away from you. Be
free
of you.” I finally look over at him. “That’s what this is. That’s
all
this is. To be
free
of you.” I slice at the air with my hand and Linc flinches. “How dare you mess with my life this way, Kimberley,” I say irritably summoning up the last vestiges of anger anywhere I can find it.

“Why? Because you were doing so well on your own? No panic attacks, huh, Tally? You’re in debt to the max paying for a wedding that never happened. Who do you think hired Andy? Go ahead and ask yourself how the perfect nanny falls into your lap like that? Sam took care of it. I encouraged him to help you out and didn’t worry about it too much because normally Sam knows how to handle things doesn’t get emotionally involved with any of my clients. Do I think he came close to the line as it relates to you?
Yes. But
I made it clear to him how things were with the two of you weeks ago and I warned him you needed time to work things out with Linc without his interference.” She sighs. “Because, Tally, you do still love Linc and Sam must see that too. And for the record, Linc did not know about Sam. Trust me on that one.”

“Quit defending Linc. He can defend himself. But none of this excuses what happened in LA and what he did with Trinna Danner,” I say harshly and hear the guy sitting next to me suck in air as fast as the couple on the other end of the line.

“LA is hard to explain or escape,” Kimberley says sounding a little shaken. “I’ll handle it. Miss Trinna Danner will have a lot to answer for when a lawsuit lands on her doorstep for all of these false accusations; and it will; trust me. I can make her life a living hell and I will.”

“Kimmy,
chill
,” Brad says. “Tally, take a breath. Take a moment. Think this through. Going nuclear is not a strategy; it is an end-game. All I ask is that you just listen to what Linc has to say about the night in LA, just
listen
. You two can work this out if you still care about each other. If that’s what you both want. Just trust that Linc has told you the truth, what he knows to be true. And know, that is all that matters.”

“That’s so easy for you to say, Brad. The Lincoln Presley I know would never have done this to me.
Never
.”

Linc sucks in more air beside me. It is quite possible he’s having a panic attack, and it could be said that I have crossed the line over into new territory and reached a new set of lows.
Gone nuclear
as Brad just said.
An end-game. Yes. That’s what this is. That’s what I want.

I can’t really look at Linc right now. My mind tumbles with thoughts of Sam. The phone calls. The talks. Lending his shoulder to cry on. A good friend.
Without the benefits.
We’d fallen into a safe routine with all of that. He was safe. And now that I’m cut loose look at all I’ve done to Linc and to me and to Sam in a matter of hours. Just reliving the disastrous deeds of this evening cuts me to shreds.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say to Linc. “Stop the car.”

“It’s a truck,” Linc says mildly, but then he gets a good look at my anxious face. “Kimberley. Brad. We’re going to have to call you back.”

He ends the call with Kimberley in mid-sentence, pulls over to the side of the road, leans over, and flips open my door. I slide down the seat to the ground without tripping and race towards the grassy field I can see up ahead gasping for air and trying to make it as far away from Lincoln Presley as humanly possible because I am absolutely fucking done with all of this.
Done. Done. Done.

I’m in a field because we’re in Fresno on the edge of town, and they have farmland here as well as orange groves and orchards instead of manicured lawns and concrete sidewalks like San Fran. Alamo Square. Sea Cliff.

Still too drunk to stand properly, I fall to my knees and vomit up the tequila and parts of the hamburger meal from earlier. Within seconds, Linc holds my hair, but I hit that too along with his right hand.

It’s a long while before I’m through with this part. Linc eventually undoes his cuff links, takes off his white tuxedo shirt, and starts to clean my face with it despite my protests.

We are way past wicked.

We have passed up malicious and perhaps even evil.

We are in the midsts of Neverland with nothing of good in sight.

Rock bottom.

The darkest hour has arrived.

For me.

“Thanks,” I say in small voice.

“Better?” Linc asks pulling me back along with him towards the truck. “I’ve got a bottled water in here somewhere, behind the seat I think.” He hands me one. I gargle, spit some of it out and then drink the rest of it down. He unwraps a stick of gum and hands it to me and then grabs a fresh baby wipe from the back and starts cleaning the goo that landed in my hair and on his hands.

“Memorable. Not part of the plan.” I have difficulty meeting his eyes.

He nods and says offhand, “hey, thanks for not throwing up in the truck. Very thoughtful and much appreciated.”

It makes me laugh. “Sure. You’re welcome.”

I turn away embarrassed by tonight’s latest event and feeling like a loser on too many levels to comprehend. I cut Sam loose and now he knows all the sordid details and the untold depths of my fucked-up-ness. I’m without a safety net of any kind to save me from the charms of one Lincoln Presley. And the night is not yet over.
Clearly.

Linc calls Kimberley back. He launches into a five-minute lecture about her messing in his affairs and mine. He shoots me a
we’re-in-this-together-comrade
look but I just vaguely nod. “You have to let us handle this on our own. If she lets me live, I’ll call you tomorrow. I know. She knows that too. Marla has Cara. I’ve already talked to them.” He hangs up the phone and stares straight ahead out the windshield.

“
When
did you talk to Marla?”

“Charlie called while you were in the restroom changing at O’Riley’s.” He frowns. “Getting ready for the next part of your epic plan.” He hesitates. “So are you going to tell me what the plan is?” Before I can answer, he’s saying, “here we are. This is where I live.”

I look up at the dark house and can’t quite hide my smile. “I know. A taxi dropped me off here hours ago with my stuff—waited for me, actually—but I left most of it on your front porch. Except for the dress and the tux.”

“The dress,” he cringes upon saying those two little words. “Wait. Your stuff is here? No hotel?”

“I didn’t think it through; a hotel was not part of the plan.”

He sighs looking frustrated. “So what’s the
plan
, Tally? Just
tell me
, so I can be properly prepared.”

“On the bus on the way down, I typed up the list on my iPhone.
Tally’s Epic Plan.”

On edge now, I still manage to hand him my phone displaying the list.

1. Go to Fresno.
   
2. Find him.
   
3. Bring Garment bag.
   
4. Do The Move.
   
5. Call Amy LA Times
   
6. Call Baxstrom.
   
7. Call Kimberley.
   
8. Do the deed fast.
   
9. Do the deed slow.
   
10. Write a note.
    
11. Leave him.
    

He reads it aloud. Then he doesn’t say anything more. Instead he just gets out of the truck and comes around to my side and opens the door for me. His head is bleeding again. It takes all my willpower not to reach up and help him out when he starts swiping at it with a baby wipe. But then he’s picking me up and putting me over his right shoulder taking me completely by surprise.