Scandal Sheet aka Hollywood Scandals

How you doin?

Got an hour? But I finally settled on, meh.

Meh? I take it that means not good.

This story, I explained. It’s…complicated.

There was a pause. Then, I’m worried about you.

I felt my throat suddenly clog with emotion. Here I had blown Black off not once, but twice, and not only was he not mad, not even mentioning my standing him up, but he was genuinely worried about me.

I’m okay.

You sure?

I nodded at the empty living room. Yep.

I’ve missed you.

I’ve missed you, too, I typed, honestly meaning it. Okay, so I knew Black was a fantasy. And our whole relationship consisted of a few words on a screen. But I had missed him. I’d missed having someone who cared enough to ask if I was okay. I’d missed having someone I felt comfortable talking to. Really talking. Honestly. Maybe it was because of the anonymity, the fact that I’d never really expected to meet Black in person, but I felt I could be honest with him in a way I couldn’t with anyone else in my life. I didn’t really know why. And I didn’t want to analyze it. All I knew was, he felt good. And I’d missed it.

Hey…Knock knock, he typed.

I couldn’t help the corner of my mouth tilting up.

Who’s there?

Madame.

Madame who?

Madame foot’s caught in the door.

I laughed out loud.

Good one.

Thanks. Talk tomorrow?

Definitely. And this time, I really meant it.

’Night, Bender. Be good.

’Night, Black.

And then his little “online now” icon disappeared. I left the IM window open, rereading our conversation again to hold on to that comforting feeling just a little longer. And I found myself chuckling out loud a second time over his corny joke.

“What’s that?”

I spun around to find Cal standing behind the sofa, looking over my shoulder, squinting at the conversation on my laptop screen.

I quickly flipped the top down.

“Nothing.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t look like nothing. You chatting with someone?”

“No!” Which in hindsight might have come out a decibel or two higher than convincing.

His other eyebrow lifted.

“Someone special?” Cal teased.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s no one. Just a friend.”

“Uh huh.” He sat down on the sofa beside me, giving me an expectant look. He clearly wasn’t going to let this one go.

“He’s…a pen pal.”

“So, it is a man.”

“Sorta.”

“Sorta?”

“No, he’s a screen. I mean, he’s not real. Well, I guess he’s real in that there is someone typing, but he could be anyone, you know? Some loser in his mother’s basement, some creep in prison, who knows?”

“So, your pen pal is a felon?”

“No! Look, I don’t know who he is. He’s just…nice.”

He tilted his head to the side, his expression softening, going serious. “You going to meet this nice guy?”

I shook my head in the negative. “No, it’s not like that. Look, he’s just someone who…gets me. Not many people do, you know?”

He leaned in. The scent of fresh soap still clung to him. “Maybe that’s what you’d like to think.”

I pulled my eyebrows together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He smiled. “It means if you’d quit being such a hardass, you’d see there are lots of people who care about you. Who care about your well-being.” He reached out a hand and gently tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Who get you,” he said quietly.

I swallowed. Hard. My body felt frozen, my skin tingling, blood rushing to my head as I tried to read the look in his dark eyes. It was soft. Almost tender, if I thought Mr. Tough Guy did tender. His face was inches from mine, so close I could feel his breath on my lips. My tongue darted out to lick them, and I followed his eyes to my mouth.

Oh, God. He was going to kiss me.

What’s worse-I really wanted him to.

Maybe it was because I still had a warm fuzzy feeling running through me from talking to Black. Or maybe it was the emotional toll of the day. Or maybe it was just the fact that I hadn’t gotten it in long enough that I was beginning to forget what it was even all about.

But I found my mouth drifting toward his.

He leaned in a fraction closer, and his lips brushed over mine. I was surprised at how soft they were, that anything about him was this soft. They tasted like toothpaste, minty and clean. His goatee grazed against my cheek, sending shivers down my spine as I closed my eyes, drinking in the moment. I think I sighed into his mouth as his tongue touched my lips, gently parting them.

“Hello? We’re back!”

I jumped off the sofa like a jack-in-the-box, immediately putting two feet of distance between Cal and me as the aunts bustled through the front door.

“In here,” I said. I licked my lips, tasting Cal there, and felt my cheeks burn a bright candy-apple red.

Aunt Sue and Aunt Millie bustled into the room, dropping an armload of items onto the coffee table: a bag of sandwiches, a two-liter bottle of Coke, and a purple Tupperware container with Hello Kitty painted on the side.

“What’s this?” I asked, pulling back the lid on the container.

“Hattie.”

“Hattie? Hattie Carmichael!?” I took one giant step back from the Tupperware.

Aunt Sue nodded. “We picked her up from the crematorium on the way home.”

I wrinkled my nose. “And brought her home in Tupperware? Don’t they usually give you an urn for that?”

“They wanted to charge us two hundred dollars for an urn,” Millie piped up. “Can you believe the nerve? I mean, we’re just going to spread her ashes tomorrow anyway. Who pays two hundred dollars for an urn they’re only gonna use for one day?”

I was at a loss to answer that question.

“So, Millie offered to go down the street to the dollar store and pick up a pretty ceramic jar or something,” Aunt Sue said.

I looked down at the plastic container. “That’s not a ceramic jar.”

Millie shrugged. “I think my eyesight might be slipping a little.”

Understatement alert.

But Aunt Sue waved her off. “No matter. This works. In fact, it’s better. Spill resistant lid.” She flipped the Tupperware upside down and shook it. “See?”

I looked from one wrinkled face to the other. Then to Cal for help. He just grinned, holding up his hands in a surrender motion as if to say, “Hey, they’re your aunts.”