Page 6 of One Day and Forever
It had come in the early hours of the morning two days ago.
Wedding off. My choice. Still going to Hawaii or Drea will never forgive me. Best man no longer needed but please still come and be my emotional support human.
He’d picked the message up ten hours later, when he’d woken from a jet-lagged deep sleep, and immediately tried to call her. No answer. He’d sent a text.
Shit! You okay? What can I do?
A few hours later, the reply came back.
Nothing. Licking my wounds. Long story. See you at Glasgow Airport day after tomorrow, same plans as before. Will explain everything then. Now only love you, Drea, Stevie Nicks and Lenny Kravitz. xx
That was it. There had been several missed calls and a couple of texts back and forth since then, but he still had no clue what had happened. All he knew was that it must be bad, because Kara wasn’t one for unnecessary drama. Speaking of which… Sienna had now pulled off a huge pair of sunglasses (yep, even in New York in January in the middle of the night), and she looked stunning as always, even with no make-up and a baseball cap pulled low down on her forehead. Although, she must need her Botox topped up because for the first time in years he could see the grooves of a frown between her eyes.
‘But you’re still going to Hawaii? And you’ll be there on our wedding anniversary. Have you even considered cancelling and coming back to LA instead? With the time difference, you could be there tonight and we could do dinner at the Sunset Tower.’It was one of his favourite restaurants, but the last thing he felt like right now was getting dressed up for a night on the town. ‘I thought we were going to try to make this work, Ollie?’
Ah, there was the guilt trip, right on time.
A couple of months ago, they’d squeezed in a couple of sessions with Sienna’s therapist to discuss their marriage. Years of working in different time zones, on schedules that rarely matched up, had caused a drift that they could no longer ignore. After talking it through, they’d both agreed that they’d stopped prioritising each other and committed to making an effort to breathe new life into their relationship. If he were honest, it was still dangerously close to flatlining, but he wasn’t prepared to give up yet. As soon as he got back from Hawaii, he was going to spend a month in LA and they’d both promised to try to rekindle what they’d once had.
When he’d got the text to say the wedding was cancelled, he had thought about skipping Hawaii, but only for a split second. Kara never asked him for anything, and she was clearly going through it, so he couldn’t bring himself to desert her. Not now.
‘Babe, I’ll only be there for two days and then I’ll be home. Or you could change your mind and come to the wedding. My mum will be there too and?—’
‘How can you ask me to do that? Ollie, my career is in crisis! I’m not doing a fucking hula dance when I should be back in LA, talking to my agent, setting up meetings and auditions. I don’t have time to go swanning off with your friend who isn’t even getting fricking married now…’
There were so many things about that outburst that pissed him off, he didn’t know where to start. Kara was so much more than a friend, she was family. As were Drea and their mum, Jacinta. His dad had been a passing ship, a fleeting holiday romance that was over the moment his mum and Jacinta had got on the plane back from Tenerife. Three months later, his mumhad found out she was pregnant. Nine and a half months later, he was born into a world that consisted of his mum, his lovely grandparents, Jacinta, Drea, Kara and him. It had stayed that way until his lovely mum, a well-known pub and club singer who had been known to claim that she possessed ‘the mightiest set of pipes in Glasgow’, landed a gig as a cabaret singer on cruise ships and sailed off when he was sixteen. Not for one second had he felt abandoned or neglected though. She’d done it to support him while he was studying and trying to break into acting, and when it came to day-to-day mothering, Jacinta had stepped right into the void that his mum had left. The two lifelong friends were like a tag team, but without the wrestling ring and the overblown dramatics. Actually… maybe just without the wrestling ring.
‘Sienna, I’m not doing this. You make it sound like Kara is just some random mate, but come on, you know she’s like a sister to me…’
He was about to launch into his usual defence, but she cut him off as she slipped her shades back onto her face. Even the sight of his naked six-pack wasn’t softening her attitude. ‘Oh, spare me, Ollie. I’ve been hearing it for years, and I’m over it. The only reason we’re not celebrating our anniversary today, on the day we were supposed to get married, is because of your oldest fricking friend.’ The disdain had ramped up now to ‘very obviously pissed off.’
‘Come on, that wasn’t her fault…’
‘No, it was yours. You were so desperate to marry me, you put it off for twenty-four hours until she could get to us. My mother has still never forgiven you.’
He had no defence to that one. Six years ago, he’d been madly in love with this beautiful star he’d been seeing for three months, and feeling like the luckiest guy in the world because he’d blurted out a proposal on Christmas Day and she’d stunned him by saying yes. Caught up in the moment, they’d decided to have atiny wedding as soon as they could get the paperwork sorted out. That’s why, a week and a half later, he was waiting for Kara to fly in to be his Best Person at a City Hall wedding that consisted of his bride, her parents, and… Actually, that was it. His mum was in the middle of an ocean and couldn’t leave the ship for three more months, so they’d zoomed her in. His grandparents had long passed by that time. And Jacinta and Drea couldn’t make it at such short notice because they both had commitments they couldn’t change. When Kara’s flight had been delayed for a full twenty-four hours, he’d implored Sienna to postpone the ceremony for a day and back then she’d been so in love with him that she’d willingly agreed.
He wasn’t sure she’d make the same decision now.
‘So you’re not changing your plans, even though I’m asking you to do that for me,’ she demanded, and Ollie watched as her chin jutted forward, a challenge from someone who had got her own way her whole life.
‘Babe, I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. Which I do!’ White lie. He was getting desperate not to come off as an asshole and trying to make her feel better. ‘Calvin is picking me up in half an hour because I’ve got a few promos to shoot here for the show.’ That wasn’t strictly true, and he hated to fudge the truth with her, but he wasn’t ready to tell her what was really going on.
Calvin Fraser had been his first ever manager, back in his early acting days in Scotland, before Ollie had headed off to pastures new across the pond. He’d semi-retired now that the biggest star on his roster, soap queen Odette Devine, had hung up her crown, but they still caught up whenever Ollie was in town and Calvin occasionally brokered endorsement deals with Scottish brands. Ollie felt his face flush at the knowledge he was lying by omission, but he just hoped Sienna was too distracted by her anger to notice. Calvin was joining him today for something far more important than a promo shoot, but sharingthat information could wait until later. Right now, he still had a situation to defuse.
‘Look, I’ll make all this up to you, I promise.’
‘I remember you saying that six years ago.’
Situation escalated. Shots fired. Right in the jugular. Man down. He’d seen this play out too many times. The only smart move was an emergency evacuation. Thankfully, American Airlines intervened to facilitate that.
Another bing-bong in the background. A call for the last remaining passengers for the flight to LA.
‘I need to go. Talk later. If you can fit me in.’ And with that, she pouted the lips that were injected at a shockingly expensive Beverly Hills clinic every six months, and hung up.
How was this his life? Knackered, wet, naked, standing in a cold bathroom in Glasgow, getting bollocked by his wife. Not exactly the high life. And now the doorbell was ringing. He pulled a towel around his waist and made his way down to the ground floor, where he checked the security monitor at the front door. One of his favourite faces filled the screen, so he immediately opened the door, but stood behind it just in case there were any paps out in the wild. The last thing he needed was a half-naked pic of him opening the door. It would be all over the internet before he’d had a chance to get his jeans on.
Only when Calvin had cleared the doorway did Ollie close the door and reveal himself.
