Page 45 of Mr. Not Nice Guy

A sardonic, borderline hysterical laugh explodes from her, and she pulls the robe tighter around her. “You can’t help me, and you don’t want to anyway. That’s why you told me I better not fucking call you if anything bad happened. So when theworstthing imaginable happens to me, you bet your fucking ass that I have no interest in talking to you about it.” She flips her hand at me and turns, marching toward the sliding glass door to a small balcony. “So get out of my apartment.”

“I shouldn’t have said that.” I remove the check from my pocket and step over to the table to set it down. I turn to face her, but she’s got her back to me, and that’s probably for the best because I owe her some excruciating honesty. “I was jealous…Iamjealous because I don’t want to think about you and another man. But that’s not an excuse. I shouldn’t have said that. I’ve told you before that it’s my job to be there for you no matter what, and it is. But also…I justwantto be the person who’s there for you no matter what. Because I do care about you. I definitely don’t hate you. The way I feel about you is the polar opposite of that, and it’s why I got so jealous yesterday.”

She’s silent for several seconds. “You’re a fucking liar.”

“You’re grieving,” I repeat. “And I’m not going to leave you alone right now while you’re going through this.”

Scarlett sniffles and then says through a broken voice, “You’re not making me feel better. Just go away.”

I take a small step away from the table and into the living room. “What was her name, Scarlett?”

Silence stretches for so long that I nearly repeat the question, but then she says in a small voice, “Hazel.” She clears her throat. “She took me in when I was little because my mom was too messed up and selfish to raise a child. And it was just us for my whole life.”

Scarlett slowly turns from the window and crosses the room to a small, round table in one corner. She picks up a thick photo album and carries it to the coffee table, where she sets it down and then sits on the sofa.

Opening the cover, she goes on in a quiet, fragile voice. “She was a singer and a musician and a performer. She taught me everything.”

The fact that she’s flipping through the photo album and sitting on the sofa seems like an unspoken invitation, so I sit down next to her.

Looking at the photos, I’m struck by the resemblance between Scarlett and her grandmother. The pictures tell the story of a sassy, coy, yet beautiful young woman with a smile that could light up a room. She’s decked out in spectacular pin-up style costumes while she stands with two other women at a microphone, and with groups of uniformed men while she poses with her hip thrown to one side and arms draped around their necks. Other pictures show her strutting across a stage with a shiny trumpet, and it’s so reminiscent of Scarlett at the music festival over the summer that they could be the same woman—aside from the hair.

Hazel’s hair in this photo is a little longer than what was popular for women of her era, but it has a shiny, old Hollywood wave to it—and it looks exactly like Scarlett’s did before I forced the stylist to cut it all off, albeit in some shade of brunette rather than purple.

I also can’t help but notice that I’ve seen all of Hazel’s outfits and costumes before. From the looks of it, Scarlett’s entire wardrobe consists of dresses and skirts and shoes that belonged to her grandmother back in her heyday. The realization causes the distinctive dread of having been a total dick to creep up my throat.

“She’s beautiful,” I say as Scarlett turns another page. “You look just like her.”

She sniffles again. “Idolook just like her. I always wanted to be just like her. I was perfectly happy to be anobody, jiggling my tits for tips in seedy bars,” she says with an edge in her voice, echoing my words from the first night I realized who she was, “and I was fine with just pathetic tips, but she got really sick, and I needed to be able to make enough money to care for her as she got worse.”

Scarlett slaps the album shut and looks at me. “Do you know why I had purple hair, August?”

I have a feeling the reason is going to make me feel even more like a dick, but I simply shake my head.

“The day she was diagnosed with dementia, she was devastated.” She runs her palm over the album cover. “She loved her life. She lived on her own terms and became a legend in her own right by being magical and spectacular, and she loved every moment of it, and she knew that diagnosis meant she was going to lose all of it. So, I threw her a party to cheer her up.” She reaches up to grab a fistful of her disheveled curls. “I was a brunette. My hair was actually a really nice shade of brown. But my Maw-Maw needed cheering up, so I threw us an out-of-season Mardi Gras party, and I dyed my hair royal purple just to make her smile. And every single day after that, it made her smile because it was so off-the-wall and silly.”

I swallow hard. That’s actually worse than I anticipated. “I didn’t know, Scarlett. I’m sor—”

“You have been such a royal asshole to me.” Her eyes are big and brimming with tears, and her pouty bottom lip is trembling. “And what Ihatealmost as much as her dying, is the fact that when I got that news yesterday, I wanted you there with me. But then I couldn’t even call you. I can’t depend on you. You can’t be anything to me that I need or want. Not personally. Not professionally. So give me one good goddamn reason why I shouldn’t quit and save myself from ever having to see you again?”

Hearing her tearfully admit that she wanted me to be with her while she was faced with such a loss, but didn’t think she could call me feels like a dull knife being driven through my heart. The words are almost a croak as they leave my throat. “I’m sorry, Scarlett.”

Her brows are drawn together, forming a deep V between them, and a couple of tears spill over her cheeks. “That’s not gonna do it for me, August.”

“Did you hear what I said?” I cautiously reach for her face, and she lets me wipe her tears. “I did something stupid because I can’t stomach the idea of anyone else being with you. I’ve done a lot of stupid things because I don’t know what to do with you. I don’t know how to deal with what I feel for you. I don’t know how to deal with it professionally, and I don’t know how to deal with it personally. Because when I have felt like this before, I wasn’t enough for the person I loved. So how am I supposed to believe that I will ever be enough for the single most remarkable woman I’ve ever met?”

“You’re such a liar.” My hand is still on her cheek, and she lets her face sink into my palm while she clasps my wrist. She squeezes her eyes shut, causing more tears to spill out, and then she sucks in a ragged breath and begins to sob. “I feel like this is killing me. I don’t know what I’m gonna do now. What am I supposed to do now?”

I reach to cradle the back of her head with my hand. “You are going to make her proud by carrying on the legacy she started. You’ll become a legend in your own right by following in her footsteps. By being magical and spectacular and loving every moment of it just like she did. Because you didn’tjustdo this for her. If it was just about having enough money to take care of her, you could’ve done anything. But you held out for this because you have a fire inside of you that burns for this just like she did. And that fire is what has driven me mad with how much I want you. So, you know what else I think you should do?”

Scarlett hiccups and sniffles as she blinks her eyes open in a weary, questioning glance that causes my stomach to turn with nerves over what I’m about to say.

“You should let me love you so hard and so much that you’ll never again feel like you lost everything because you lost her.”

She stares back at me, and her breathing starts to calm down. “You can’t be in love with me if you’re managing me.”

“Well, I fuckingam,Scarlett. And trying to ignore that isn’t doing me any good.” I stroke her cheek with the back of my fingers. “And I hate that I made you feel like you couldn’t call me yesterday. If I had known, I would’ve come immediately. I hate that you went through that alone. But I’m here now, and I’m staying. I’m going to stay here and help you with this and with anything else that happens. I’m going to show you that youcandepend on me, and that Icanbe everything you need and want. Is that a good enough goddamn reason for you?”

Her face tilts lower as her bottom lip trembles again, and then she gives me a subtle, tiny nod.

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