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  “Have I told you lately that this show is going to be awesome? I was so stoked to get hired for this. You have no idea.”

  Charlie had more than an idea. From the very beginning, Liz had come out as her biggest fan. Good thing she had a wicked sense of humor and made Charlie laugh—a highly needed activity—on a daily basis, otherwise Charlie might have had to quit working on the show altogether.

  When she initially met with her agent and some studio executives to discuss the TV rights to Underground—with Jo still firmly by her side—it was the endless fawning that had irritated her most. Not because she was averse to praise, but because, coming from a certain type of person, it sounded insincere. She knew when a person was going through the motions, putting on a show meant to charm her. Charlie was allergic to that giggly, high-pitched tone of voice even the most robust men adopted when trying to slither their way into a signed contract with her.

  “Don’t stop now, Liz.” Charlie had started to think of Liz as another good friend in Tinseltown. “Tell me more.”

  “I really want to show you off to my softball buddies. My popularity has grown exponentially since I started working on this show.”

  “Okay. Okay. Enough.” Charlie evaluated Liz, who had big, round eyes and always wore a blazer.

  “Thank goodness. I need to use the ladies’ room before we continue.”

  Charlie walked out with Liz, leaned against a wall, and checked her phone. Nick had posted a picture of him and his dog, Annie, on Instagram, and Charlie clicked like. The next picture in her stream was one posted by Ava Castaneda. Unfortunately, the ultra-sexy TV host hadn’t posted a picture of herself, but of a plate of food she’d cooked. Charlie liked that one as well.

  She scrolled through the rest of her feed, before sending a text message to Nick.

  I’m playing softball with a bunch of lesbians in WeHo tonight. Want to come?

  Charlie sent it more as a joke than anything else. She could easily predict Nick’s reply, which came within the next minute.

  Hell no, girl. Have fun. xo

  * * *

  And Charlie did have fun. Over dinner with Liz and her wife, Sarah, she’d happily accepted two beers, while the others refrained, taking their upcoming practice session very seriously. By the time they arrived at the ball field, Charlie was enjoying a mild buzz that kept her mellow.

  Liz introduced her to the team members, who were all very friendly—but not too friendly in the way that Charlie loathed so much. While they warmed up, Charlie sat next to a variety of women as they rotated through the game.

  The sun hung low in the sky, and someone had brought a cooler with more beer, and when Charlie tilted her head back to drink, and the sun shed its evening rays on her face, she experienced something that a lesser person, one without Charlie’s acute experience with disappointment, might describe as happiness. Charlie, however, was not the least bit open to that idea.

  Still, she had to admit, the weather in Los Angeles was always good. The sun always showed up, and never in that muggy east-coast-summer kind of way that made you long for air-conditioned rooms and winter.

  Charlie made small talk with most of the women; the depth of the conversation depended entirely on how long the person remained seated next to her.

  “What do you think?” Liz asked when it was her turn on the bench. “Shall I order you a uniform?”

  “I might be tempted.” Charlie stared straight ahead. A woman who had introduced herself as Britt earlier missed an easy ball. “I’ll need some practice, though.”

  “I’m not saying we—and by we I mean I—are not competitive, but we mainly do this for fun. Whether you can actually pitch or bat doesn’t really matter. Britt over there couldn’t hit a ball if it were about to smash her in the face, which it has, on numerous occasions.”

  Charlie laughed. “How often do you practice?”

  “Once a week on Wednesdays, and then we have a league game on the weekend. Usually on Sunday morning.”

  “There’s a league?”

  “Of course there is. Our baby, Sharon, tends to show up hungover almost every Sunday, but the rest of us are pretty well-behaved. We have cats to put to bed and all that.”

  “At the risk of sounding terribly cliché, I’ve been thinking about getting a cat. I had two back in New York, but my ex got custody when we split. They live with a man now.” Charlie couldn’t help the bitterness coming from her mouth.

  “Poor pussies,” Liz said. Charlie had told her all about her messy, painful breakup a few times already.

  “I want to be sure I’ll be sticking around first. I don’t want to say goodbye to another pet.”

  “Liz, you’re up.” Britt approached the bench. “I’ve had about enough, anyway.” She crashed down next to Charlie. “Hand me a beer, will you?”

  Charlie reached into the cooler and grabbed one for herself as well.

  “Cheers,” Britt said, then followed up with a sly grin. “Come here often? For the record, I know that pick-up line never works.”

  Charlie was too tipsy to get worked up about the mention of a pick-up line. Instead, she smiled back. “It’s my first time,” she said. “I guess that makes me a virgin.”

  Britt elbowed her in the bicep gently. “I’m not supposed to say, but some of the girls have a bet out on you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Tiff, Josie, and Andrea over there, or The Terrible Three as we like to call them. Just ignore them, though. They’re troublemakers.”

  “What sort of bet?” Charlie took a few more sips of beer, wondering what her life would be like without alcohol. Perhaps she’d never leave the house at all.

  “Let me put it this way—after this game is done, you can expect some major hitting-on-you to commence.”

  “Oh Christ,” Charlie muttered. “You’re not serious, are you?”

  “Well, you’re single, hot, and you have a steady job. You’re a catch, so…” Britt pulled up her shoulders.

  “Who did you bet on?” Charlie asked.

  “Oh, I would never.” Britt played coy. “Actually, I bet on none of them—that was the fourth choice. You don’t look like the kind of girl who can be easily picked up on the sidelines of a softball game. I might be wrong, but that’s the impression I get.”

  “How about you?” Charlie looked at Britt sideways. A softball outfit never really looked flattering on anyone, but Britt seemed to fill hers out nicely. “Does anyone have any bets out on you?”

  “Me? Why would they?”

  “Don’t know.” Charlie shrugged. “’Cause you’re kinda hot?” If this could be called flirting, she wasn’t doing the best job.

  Britt’s laugh came all the way from the bottom of her belly. “I’m sorry,” she said after her laughter subsided. “I wasn’t expecting that at all.”

  “Come on, Britney,” Andrea of the Terrible Three shouted. “One more round for you.”

  “I’m drinking already,” Britt said, lifting up her can of beer as evidence. “And my name is Britt, with two Ts so less intelligent people like yourself know where it ends.”

  “You can’t hear the second T, Britt.” Andrea drew out the Ts. “I’ll finish your beer.”

  “Fine.” Britt got up. “But just so you don’t waste your breath, I told Charlie about the bet.” With that, Britt ran onto the field. Charlie thought she detected a spring in her step that hadn’t been there earlier.

  “To clear up any misunderstanding,” Andrea said, “Tiff, Josie, and I are not disrespectful women with only one thing on our mind. It was only a bit of a joke between us. I hope you’re not offended.”

  “Of course not.” Charlie emptied her third can of beer. The mild buzz she’d walked onto the field with had transformed into severe giddiness. “If anything, I’m flattered.”

  “Are you coming for a drink with us after? We go to a bar around the corner. You live in WeHo, right?”

  If Andrea was even the tiniest bit of a player, the way she was ramb
ling masked it expertly. Or maybe it was part of her game. Charlie just enjoyed the attention. Liz had been right. Attending a softball game was much more effective than bar crawling.

  “Sure. I’d love to.” Charlie smiled widely at Andrea just to toy with her a bit.

  “I’m sure you get this a lot, but your novel Crying Rivers meant so much to me when it came out. I re-read it every year.”

  “Thank y—” Charlie started to say, but was cut off as the rest of the team rushed off the field. It looked as though practice had ended.

  Half of the players high fived each other, while the other half didn’t seem too bothered by the goings-on.

  “Drinks are on you, losers,” Josie said to the group of women huddled around Liz.

  Of the Terrible Three, Charlie thought Josie to be most her type. She was Asian-American and had the sharpest cheekbones Charlie had seen in LA, and this being LA, she had seen quite a few.

  “Charlie is joining us for drinks,” Andrea said to Liz.

  “Awesome. Let’s go, lesbos,” Liz said.

  In New York, Charlie had hung out with a group of lesbians occasionally, but the vibe among them had been completely different than the one she got from this group of women at night fall. For all the shows it put on and its immediate fakeness, LA offered much more breathing room than New York. The canyons here were nature-made, as opposed to being a valley between two blocks of high-rise buildings.

  At the bar, Charlie got involved in a long conversation with Andrea. Still, as her level of drunkenness increased, it became harder and harder to keep her eyes off Josie. While Andrea visited the washroom, Charlie quickly pulled Liz to the side and asked, “On a scale of one to a hundred, how lesbian is Josie?”

  “Josie, huh?” Liz said, pulling her lips into a pout. “Is that the kind of woman you go for?” She pouted even more. “She’s a lovely girl, really, but I’ve never really seen her with anyone longer than a few months. But, to answer your question, I think I can safely say she’s a ninety-nine.”

  “What about the other one percent?” Charlie slurred her words.

  “Nobody is a hundred percent, Charlie. We don’t live in that kind of dreamworld.” Liz slapped her on the shoulder as if she’d made a big joke. Charlie failed to get it, although she could, somewhere in the depths of her intoxicated mind, guess that Liz was ridiculing her percentage system.

  “Look, Liz, I’m going to get out of here. I had a bit too much, and we have a big day tomorrow at work.”

  “You betcha,” Liz said. “I do hope we can get Elisa. How super freaking awesome would that be?”

  “It would be out of this world. Let’s sleep with our fingers crossed.” Charlie drew Liz into a hug. “Thanks for inviting me. I had fun.” Charlie said her goodbyes to the rest of the team, ignoring the look of disappointment on Andrea’s face, and lingering in Josie’s space perhaps a bit longer than necessary for the exchange of a farewell.

  She walked home in a bit of a zig-zag line, and further pondered what a coup it would be for Underground to bag Elisa Fox in its lead role. Then her thought process was rudely interrupted by the chime of her phone with a message from Nick.

  How was muffball practice?

  Charlie was wasted enough to ignore his comment. She texted back that she’d had fun. By the time she reached her house, she received another text from Nick.

  Not as much fun as you’re going to have this Saturday when you’ll be my date at Ava Castaneda’s dinner party.

  Charlie’s mouth fell open. What was he talking about? Another text quickly followed.

  You can stop drooling now. Jason can’t make it and you’re the next best thing. Go shopping for something fancy.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “You’re really not playing the cruelest prank in the world on me?” Charlie asked for the umpteenth time.

  Nick’s car service had picked her up in a town car, with Nick already in the backseat.

  “Charlotte Cross, please listen to me. Not even I could be so coldhearted as to trick you into believing you’re going to meet the woman you’ve been lusting after for years. I do have standards. I don’t mess with people’s crushes like that.”

  “I’m so nervous.” Charlie squeezed Nick’s knee between her restless fingers.

  “It’s just a casual dinner. Relax. She’s the most divine cook. It’s going to be wonderful.”

  “Who else is going to be there?”

  Nick sighed. “I told you. I don’t know.”

  “Does she know I’m coming and not Jason?”

  “Yes.” Nick put a hand on hers. “She’s looking forward to having you, but Char… just one tiny word of advice.”

  “Yeah?”

  “When you’ve had a few, you have a slight tendency to start going on about,” he curled his fingers into air quotes, “‘one hundred percent lesbians.’ If you could save that for another night, that would be great.”

  Charlie was momentarily lost for words. “I don’t really go on about that so much?” she said in a small voice.

  “When you have some booze in you and your filters, erm, stop filtering the way they should. I’m saying this as a friend, okay? Please don’t take offense.”

  “I won’t.” Charlie was definitely offended. More than that, she was embarrassed. She racked her memory for times when she’d mentioned the subject. There were one or two nights that she could remember bringing up how she would never date a woman again who didn’t have a proven track record of being a lesbian. Not that she would go exclusively for gold stars, but she had to do something, even if it was ridiculous. She couldn’t handle another breakup like the one from Jo.

  The car wound its way up the coastal highway toward Malibu, where Ava’s house was located.

  “You’ve gone all quiet.” Nick said it in the voice his TV alter ego often employed to get something he wanted. “That really wasn’t my intention. Come back to me, my friend, please come back.”

  Charlie waved him off, straightened her spine, and focused on the fact that within fifteen minutes she’d come face-to-face with Ava Castaneda. The gorgeous Latina wasn’t only a former model, she’d also hosted the same popular cooking show Knives Out for the past fifteen years. An impressive feat in the current TV landscape. Charlie wasn’t much of a cook herself, but she was a loyal viewer nonetheless because she needed her weekly dose of ogling the tall brunette.

  “How did you meet her again?” Charlie asked as the car pulled up to an impressive driveway leading up to a high fence.

  “Nick Kent and company,” the driver said into the intercom, and the gates swung open.

  “I’m gay and famous, darling. Everyone wants to be my friend, especially the mega-gorgeous.” He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “That includes you, by the way.”

  Charlie knew he said it to give her a confidence boost.

  A few moments later, they stood in front of Ava’s surprisingly modest house. It wasn’t a small, humble abode by a long shot, but it wasn’t the mansion Charlie had expected either.

  “Nickie!” Ava walked out of the front door, arms open wide. She wore a long, off-white dress that highlighted the bronze color of her skin sublimely.

  Charlie hadn’t even said hello and she was already trying to catch her breath.

  “Hello, beautiful.” Nick threw his arms around Ava. Charlie waited silently. It was a real hug between friends, not one of those halfhearted Hollywood embraces she’d experienced too often since moving to LA.

  “And you must be Charlotte,” Ava said after she and Nick broke away from each other. Charlie had expected an outstretched arm for a handshake, but instead Ava pulled her into a hug as well. “Welcome to my home.”

  “It’s an honor to be here,” Charlie mumbled. “Please, call me Charlie. Even my own mother hasn’t called me Charlotte since I was ten.” Because of the nerves running amok in her system, Charlie was unable to enjoy the warmth of Ava’s embrace. She curved her arms delicately around Ava’s shoulders, as though
Ava was made of the most breakable porcelain. “I am such a big fan of yours.” Charlie had heard the same words tossed around far too often in this town, so they sounded a bit trite, even though she meant them with all her heart.

  “And I of you. I heard about Elisa Fox joining your show. That’s quite something.”

  “It sure is,” Nick chimed in.

  Ava rested her gaze on Charlie for a few more seconds. It was as though Ava glowed under the fading evening light. Charlie had never seen anyone as beautiful in person before. Ava’s dark brown eyes seemed to look straight into her heart—a ridiculous and unsettling sensation.

  “Do come in.” Ava led the way inside and then outside again to a back patio overlooking the ocean. “The other guests have arrived already.”

  Ava’s house was appointed stylishly, but not lavishly. Unlike the size of the house, this was exactly what Charlie had expected. The view of the ocean, however, was nothing short of astounding.

  “Nick, you’ve met Eric and Sandra before.” They rose and beamed smiles at Nick and Charlie. Charlie recognized Eric as the head judge of Knives Out and, if the specialized press was to be believed, Ava’s on-and-off boyfriend.

  Eric, Nick, and Sandra hugged, then Ava introduced them to Charlie.

  “Sandra’s my publicist, and you might recognize this gentleman.”

  “I most certainly do.” Charlie exchanged quick cheek kisses with these people she didn’t know, then tried to figure out if, perhaps, Eric and Sandra were an item.

  After they’d all sat down, Ava poured Cristal from a bottle she kept in a fifties-style ice bucket next to her chair.