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“The trucks that couldn’t deliver today are on their way now,” he continues. “I’m paying the driver’s overtime, plus a bonus for taking time away from their families to provide for the community. I’ve also ordered additional trucks to deliver more food tomorrow.”
“Wow,” I mutter, because I have no words. Maverik’s stunned me into silence.
“Franny has my credit card, and she’s out purchasing as many gift cards as she can, to hand out to the families who suffered today because of my… ego.”
“Maverik, that’s too much—”
“It’s not enough.” I shake my head. There’s no way I’ll be able to do enough, not after the realization I’ve had. “There’s somewhere I want to take you after we go to the center, though. If you’ll let me take you.”
He holds out his hand again, and I look down at it, wanting to take it. Needing to take it.
The man standing in front of me is not the same one who called upon his fans to make a point. He’s not the man who lied in court or drinks himself into a stupor and then drives drunk or asks for inappropriate favors because he’s a movie star.
He’s the man I hoped existed underneath the acting.
“Okay,” I murmur, closing the distance between us and slipping my hand into his.
Good thing I was on a walk and my house was already locked up. I might’ve used that as an excuse not to take him up on the offer to learn more about the real Maverik Steele.
Six
WILLOW
Ithink it’s safe to say the community has forgiven Maverik, and not just because of the meal, the gift cards, or the food drive tomorrow. But because of the heartfelt apology he gave them before dinner started.
I watched faces transform, and not because of his Hollywood charm. He was being real with them and showing the man he was underneath the glitz and glamor.
One of them.
Maverik’s past has always been shadowed in mystery, but tonight, he laid it all out to them. How he grew up in the system, and once he turned eighteen, was tossed out into the world with nothing but the clothes on his back. He told them about the wintry nights he spent on the street and the meals he scrounged from dumpsters and abandoned food.
He told us of the chance he got one afternoon from a man who believed he had the good looks and stature to make it in Hollywood. The man paid for a month at some motel downtown, gave him a gift card for food and challenged him to make it. Maverik took his challenge and two weeks later booked his first gig.
Though Maverik never named the man, it was the way he looked at me that gave me a hint of his identity.
It was my father.
Now I know why my father wanted me to meet Maverik the night of the gala.
Arthur Davenport was playing matchmaker.
Only, we met too late, because Maverik had been twisted by the fame.
“Where are we?” I ask, looking around the empty parking lot we’re parked in. A row of tents lineup along an old brick building. Dirty faces and curious eyes peek out at us from the open flaps.
We left the center after everything had been passed out, and Franny insisted that she and a few of her volunteers could handle the cleanup, giving me no excuse but to let Maverik take me to the place he wanted to show me.
“This is where I lived before all the fame.”
“Here?” I ask, looking from him to the row of tents. My heart aches fiercely in my chest at the thought of Maverik living on the streets. Hearing about it is one thing, but actually seeing where he lived… it’s almost too much.
“Yeah, right there on the end.” He points to the left of the long line of tents. “I even had a tent mate for a spell, but he moved up north.”
“I didn’t know.”
“No one did. I made up some bullshit about my family to the media, or lack thereof, and never looked back.”
“Until today?”
