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  “Do not say that man’s name to me.”

  “Maddox, Maddox, Maddox,” I fired back, immature and not giving a shit. “It is how it is. You have two choices. If you know, then you accept him and love him or bow out of his life. I made my choice a long time ago, but just saying, it wasn’t a choice. It’s just the way it is. In case you haven’t noticed, I love my brother and always will. But I swear to God, Mom, if you don’t stop calling me and harping about this shit, I’ll be forced to choose sides and I’ll choose Diesel.”

  “I’m not losing my son and daughter over this insanity.”

  Insanity?

  “Yes, you are, you don’t lay off,” I returned. “This is my final warning. Leave Thanksgiving alone. Think on all of this. You call one more time and mention this kind of shit, I’m blocking you, Mom. And we’re done. No going back. No making amends. Find your way to being all right with this or shutting up about it or you no longer have a daughter. Your choice. But hear me on this and believe it. They go down to Phoenix and cause trouble and it gets physical, Maddox will lose his mind and it will not be pretty. And just to say, either of them lay a hand on Maddox, all bets are off. Diesel will come undone. Trust me on that. And save your husband and at least one of your sons a world of hurt.”

  And with that, I disconnected and glared at my phone.

  “That seemed like an unpleasant conversation.”

  I jumped in my chair and turned to see the dark-headed man wearing an expensive suit standing beside me.

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  Really, considering I was undercover in this gig, I needed to keep my shit a whole lot tighter.

  “Benito.”

  “You wished to speak with me?”

  I didn’t.

  Ever.

  He pretty much made my skin crawl.

  But he was my boss.

  So . . .

  “I wanted to talk to you about a script Meryl gave to me,” I told him.

  “You have full script approval, Tallulah,” he reminded me.

  “Well, this one is outside the general scope of Luxe’s focus.”

  He nodded, turned, walked four steps, then dragged another director’s chair over to mine.

  Fabulous.

  He was going to settle in.

  He sat in the chair, knit his fingers and rested his elbows on the arms of the chairs so his hands stood suspended in between.

  “Share,” he urged, an attentive look on his face, a warm look in his dark eyes.

  I was not fooled.

  “It’s m/m,” I said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “M/m, man on man.”

  His face twisted.

  Yup.

  I was not fooled.

  “Please listen, Benito.”

  “I do not do gay porn,” he bit off.

  “These are, uh . . . erotic love stories we’re doing. Right?”

  “Your talent is indisputable, Tallulah. But as you know, your first film was not received as we’d hoped. But the second one caused a stir, which sent our female clientele to the first one, and even though there’s been very limited time for customer discovery, both are performing better than the top performing title I’ve ever produced.”

  The power of the woman-centric dollar.

  Had no one learned from the romance novel, fashion and cosmetics industries?

  I tried to put some enthusiasm behind my, “Yeah. I know. And that’s great.”

  “The crew is very attuned to you. Your production rate is exceptional, especially considering the quality you achieve. We’re about to imprint the DVDs of our third film in six months, and I’ve seen it, as you know. It’s surpassed the other two, and the other two were outstanding. You have a gift. This next film will only increase interest and uptake. I’m considering lightening your schedule, giving you more time for editing, and providing a budget for pre-release marketing, maybe even organizing a premiere, if this continues as it has done.”

  This would excite me, if it wasn’t coming from him.

  And it wasn’t porn.

  And considering the fact I was undercover and I could not be out in the real world with this, for more than one reason, so there was no way I could go to a premiere or do any interviews or shit like that.

  Benito kept talking.

  “I already know one competitor who’s scrambling to produce films of like quality to ours. Before he even finds the capital, we’ll corner the market.”

  “I’ve read the business plan, Benito.”

  “And it doesn’t include gay porn.”

  “Your target audience is women,” I reminded him.

  “As you said, you’ve read the business plan and outside your obvious talent, my target audience is one of the reasons you’re sitting in that chair.”

  “Right. So trust me on this. Women want m/m love stories and more, they want m/m sex scenes.”

  He stared at me.

  “They’re hot,” I said.

  He stared at me longer, and I was about to say something when he said, “You have interest in them?”

  I had no interest in porn on the whole. I didn’t judge, it just didn’t do anything for me.

  But porn wasn’t about reality.

  Porn was about fantasy.

  In most cases, it didn’t really have anything to do with what you got off on in the real world.

  I mean, I had no doubt men wanted to have sex with the slutty nurse with lots of lip gloss and her uniform undone down to her navel.

  Or three slutty nurses done up like that.

  But he knew it was never gonna happen.

  So it was about what you got off on mentally.

  And right now, either way you swung it, gay or straight, it was produced for the mentality of dudes.

  Now a hot guy going at a hot guy and make that hot, but also a love story?

  “Absolutely,” I answered.

  He again stared at me.

  I took it.

  Finally, he nodded.

  “Make it a ménage,” he declared.

  Oh shit.

  That was too close to the bone.

  “I—”

  He slithered off his stool in the only way a slimy reptile could.

  “Have the script rewritten, make it a ménage. I’ll read it and consider it.”

  It hurt a lot to say it.

  But I had to say it.

  “Thanks, Benito.”

  He stilled and studied me in that way that creeped me out. Partially because I was worried he’d figured me out, as in, I was there to inform on any little thing I’d seen or heard that might put him behind bars, and partially because I worried instead that the asshole actually liked me.

  “Please do not ever hesitate to bring your ideas to me, Tallulah. I mean no offense when I say I honestly had not expected this, but I find our collaboration very rewarding, and not just monetarily.”

  Yeah, it was the second.

  And yeah, that totally creeped me out.

  “That means a lot, Benito.”

  Damn, but I was proud of myself I got that out without choking.

  “I’m glad it does. Now I hope whatever that distressing call was about you get it sorted out.”

  I wondered how much he heard.

  I really had to be more careful.

  “Family stuff,” I muttered.

  “Always difficult,” he muttered back.

  If he had family, that would surprise me. He seemed the type to kill his mother and eat his young.

  “Sadly, I have things to do,” he went on. “Perhaps we can have dinner some night?”

  Oh God, no.

  “That’d be cool.”

  He smiled his oily smile, tipped his head to me and slunk away.

  Gulk.

  I decided to come in early the next day and go over my notes.

  In other words, get the hell out of there.

  I didn’t take this work home with me.

  I lived alone, so it wasn
’t like anyone would see it.

  I just didn’t want it at my house.

  I was on my way home trying not to think of my chat with my mother, my chat with Benito or the fact that I somehow had to pull off a tender “first time” sixty-nine scene the next day when my car rang.

  I looked at the dash, closed my eyes, opened them because I didn’t want to kill myself in a car accident, and instantly decided after this was over to take a vacation somewhere there were no phones, no Internet, no television (so no porn channels), just a beach, a hut and mai tais.

  Lots and lots of mai tais.

  Then I took the call, feeling guilty that I didn’t want to take the call.

  “Hey, Amy.”

  “Hey, doll. Dinner this week?”

  My mother was a lunatic who thought she could “reprogram” my brother.

  And Amy was using me to fill the shoes of the daughter she’d lost to drugs, pornography and a clearly very dysfunctional relationship.

  And there I was, unbeknownst to Amy, directing porn films.

  Undercover.

  But still.

  “You name the night and the place, I’m there,” I said.

  “Excellent. How’s Friday? But just so you know, Paul won’t be joining us. He has other plans.”

  Yes.

  I knew that already.

  This was mostly because Paul would have a date with the bottom of a vodka bottle.

  “Friday’s great. And that’s okay about Paul. Tell him I said hi, though, and want to see him next time.”

  “Yes. Of course. I’ll tell him you’re missing him.”

  I was.

  In a variety of ways.

  “You having a good week?” she asked.

  I was having a shit week.

  Nope.

  I was having a shit seven months.

  And it was worth a repeat.

  I had to direct a tender “first time” sixty-nine scene tomorrow.

  It wasn’t likely to get better.

  “It’s been great.”

  “You haven’t given us a YouTube link to tune into in a while,” she fished.

  “I’m working on a few things. Soon,” I lied, feeling crap about it.

  “You’re so talented, Rebel. I’m calling it now. I get to help you pick your dress when you win an Oscar.”

  Like the Academy would give a woman a director’s statue. It seemed almost made up that Kathryn Bigelow scored it. Barbra hadn’t even gotten a nod for Yentl.

  Though at least Jane Campion got to buy a suit in 1993 and nabbed screenplay for The Piano.

  I pulled down the alley that led to my back drive.

  “We should start a binder, get ideas,” I suggested.

  “I’d love that!”

  Amy couldn’t wait to watch something I did, and that had been the way even before Diane had died.

  I wasn’t sure my mother had even watched the DVD I sent them of the first wedding I did solo.

  “Waste of your fuckin’ time,” Dad had said when I did that video in high school and I’d asked them to watch. “Not gonna waste mine.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Mom had agreed.

  On that happy memory, I pulled into my back drive.

  “I’m home now, Amy. Gotta get some food then pop next door to check on Essence.”

  “Right. Okay. I’ll text with where we’re going and the time. I’m thinking Mexican. No! Thai! You love Thai.”

  Diane did too.

  “Sounds awesome.”

  “It does. Look forward to it. See you, doll. Tell Essence we said hello.”

  “Will do. ’Bye, my lovely.”

  “Goodbye, honey.”

  She disconnected, and I stared at my dash for I didn’t know how long.

  Then I got out of my car.

  I weaved my way through five cats and had no choice but to let Ashes in, since he scooted by me when I opened the back door that led to my colorful kitchen.

  The paint job was Essence’s idea. It was whacky as all get out.

  But I dug it.

  At that moment, though, it did not make me feel what it usually made me feel: the warm welcome home of Essence’s whacky goodness.

  I just wanted to get in my car and drive.

  And drive.

  And drive.

  And then when I got to the end of the earth . . .

  Scream.

  My phone in my hand rang.

  I dug it out, saw it was again Mom, took the call irately and put it to my ear.

  “Mom—”

  “This is your father. I’m using your mother’s phone since I can’t get through to you on mine. And let me tell you, missy, it is not all right you speak to your mother the way you did. Your position in this family drama is unhinged. I’ve a mind to—”

  “Go fuck yourself,” I bit out, disconnected, found her contact, blocked her and stood there staring at the phone.

  Though I’d probably unblock her in a week just because I was me.

  It wasn’t weak.

  It was the fact that if I blocked them, they’d turn to Diesel and I could not let that happen.

  Okay then.

  Well that was that.

  At least for now.

  The rest?

  I had a dead friend.

  And really no father, and that wasn’t because of this latest shit. He’d never been a good father to me (or D).

  Also, really no oldest brother, because Gunner had always been an asshole.

  Now I had a feeling, if she didn’t get her head out of her ass, I might be losing my mother.

  And somehow I had to find a way to protect Diesel from all this shit.

  But I was a stand-in daughter to grieving parents, one of whom, if what his daughter went through was anything to go by, was on a one-way trip to unrecovered alcoholism.

  And every day I took my life in my hands, directing porn and trying to take down a drug dealing pornography producer and get some slippery woman I did not trust to finagle a confession from a killer.

  So yeah.

  Great day.

  Great week.

  Great last seven months.

  Awesome.

  But I had D.

  And Mad.

  And Molly.

  They just were hundreds of miles away and had no idea all this was happening to me.

  Not even Diane.

  “Meow?” Ashes called.

  Translation: Where are the treats?

  I should not feed him.

  He wasn’t even mine.

  And Ashes was getting fat.

  I went to my huge-ass stash of cat treats.

  It seemed I was incapable of not doing bad things.

  Especially if, in the end, they had some slim chance of making someone happy.

  Mr. Allen

  Rebel

  Present Day

  It happened when I was on Speer Boulevard, about to take the bridge over I-25 to get to my place in the Highlands.

  First, two bikes passed me on either side, moving in together in front of me and slowing down.

  Then, I saw movement to my left and sensed it to my right.

  Looking side to side, I had a bike at both.

  “Shit,” I whispered, lifting my foot from the accelerator while taking in the identical patches on the backs of the leather jackets of the riders in front of me before I glanced in my rearview.

  Two more bikes behind me.

  “Shit,” I hissed.

  I should have known. Hank was not all in with what I was doing, and Eddie was definitely not in.

  Not to mention, I’d heard talk on the set. Something was going down with Benito and the Chaos Motorcycle Club, and it’d been going down for a while. There were even some folks who’d been there when it all kicked off years ago, when the Club had interrupted production to save some girl from her porn debut.

  Benito would not like something like that.

  And apparently, he didn’t.

  Also apparently, they didn’t
like that he didn’t.

  And word was—flying in the face of all that was holy with motorcycle clubs—Chaos being true to their name was tight with certain cops.

  Shit.

  I looked left and caught the sunglassed eyes of the biker beside me. He took his hand from the grip and made some motions.

  I was not paying attention to the hand motions.

  I was staring at his face.

  I grew up with bikers. My dad was a biker. My oldest brother was a biker. They were not in a club.

  What they were, were assholes.

  But not a single one of Dad or Gunner’s friends were that flat-out, drop-dead gorgeous.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He looked forward and he was no less fabulous in profile.

  Great.

  He also edged his bike toward my car so I had no choice but to pay attention to the road, and not his handsome face, and move from the center lane into the right lane.

  Then I held my breath in order to stop myself from screaming when the two bikes at my sides forced me into the exit lane and onto the exit ramp to I-25, both of them riding partially on the shoulder (on one part of this journey, one side of that shoulder being narrow with a short wall protecting a drop off to a freaking highway), but mostly tight to my sides.

  They were going to kill themselves with this shit.

  Once safely merged onto the highway, I turned my head left and pounded on my window, doubtful he could hear it over his pipes.

  Somehow I got his attention, and when his sunglasses fell on me, I shouted, “I got it, asshole! Just lead!”

  My window was closed. His bike was loud.

  He still jerked up his chin.

  What he didn’t do was stop caging me in.

  Motherfucker.

  In this manner, they guided me onto 6th Avenue and all the way down that long, heavily trafficked, three-lane bastard into the foothills. I lost my side bikes on the small mountain town roads that led to back country roads, the guy to the left going forward to lead the pack, the guy to the right falling back.

  It did not make me feel cozy and happy when we hit a gravel road, in the middle of nowhere, that was winding and ended at a remote cabin that did not look like it was set up to play its role as a vacation relaxation station.