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“Okay, okay.” Yasmin had tapped her chin with a short, manicured nail. “That’s good, actually. Do the fundraiser—it shows you can be serious.”
Such an eye-rolling remark. His whole thing was being serious. With his background, having people take his acting workseriouslywas all he ever strove for.
He didn’t have to pretend to care about the Studio, a program offered at the community center near where he’d lived when he first came to Boston. They’d held acting classes at a price he could afford back then, so once he’d made it big, he donated to them every year. He wasn’t even their only celebrity alum, but this was the first time he’d been able to get back for their fundraising event.
“Do the fundraiser—”
“I was going to—”
“But until then, stay in your hotel room until this all blows over. Don’t contact Nikki except through me. No clubs. No restaurants. I’ll talk to Donna and Nikki’s publicist, and we’ll figure out a schedule to bring you both back.”
Most of those words made no sense. He wasn’t about to go to his adopted hometown and sit in a hotel. His relationship with Nikki might be only for the cameras, but if she wanted to talk to him, neither Yasmin nor anyone else was going to stop her. And “bringing them both back”? She had to be overreacting. One party where things had gotten a little out of hand—thanks to Nikki, though Alessandro hadn’t said that to Yasmin—wasn’t about to kill his career.
But over the years, he’d learned that arguing with Yasmin made his life more difficult. And she did—usually—handle his affairs with professionalism and expertise. Most importantly, she was always on his side. Which he appreciated after years of struggling to break into the business with no support from his own family.
So he’d just nursed his bruises and his ego, told her he’d do what she said, then gotten on a plane. Coming home—what he called home, anyway, because Rome certainly wasn’t it—had soothed his soul from the moment he’d heard the first missedRfrom his driver. And he knew where he’d go, whatever Yasmin said.
He’d gotten the hotel room like she said, because the security would stop people from showing up at his door. The Rosette was used to hosting famous guests, and he only had to give his alias for them to arrange everything. But he couldn’t stay up there any more than he could throw himself in the Charles River and disappear. And if he used the driver Yasmin had arranged, she would know his every move.
So he’d gotten up at a ridiculous hour and walked in the dark and in the best disguise he could think of to Oh Beans! before anyone else would be there. He wanted Roman’s coffee, sure, but he also wanted to soak in a group ofnormalpeople, people who weren’t connected to the insane world he’d just—temporarily—left behind.
Roman, Grace, and Sophia had treated him just as he’d hoped. Which was to say, they’d hugged him and told him off and complimented him and insulted him all in the first ten minutes. And that was all the equanimity he’d been given, because then Megan Fielding had walked in and turned him into that stumbling, pitcher-dropping fool she’d met ten years ago.
The door to the coffee shop opened, and instinctively Alessandro pulled the peak of his baseball cap down low. He really did have to go. If people found him here, he wouldn’t be the only one inconvenienced. He tended to draw crowds, and time was marching.
He stood again, scraping the chair along the ground as Grace greeted the newcomer. The jarring sound made him duck his head, which was good, as the stranger had turned to look at him.
“What can I get you today?” Grace asked loudly. “Roman’s just put out the pecan Danishes. You won’t believe the caramel drizzle.”
Alessandro slipped out behind the customer, sending an apologetic grimace to Sophia and Roman for not saying goodbye. He had to go to the Studio today anyway, and his disguise wouldn’t protect him forever. Eventually, someone was going to know he was in town.
With nothing else to do for two hours before the Studio opened, he went back to The Rosette and showered and changed before checking his social media mentions. In the low thousands—not too bad. Not the one point four million hits the blurry footage of him trying to get Nicola out of that club had gotten three days ago.
Nikki’s social media, however, showed shots of herself on the plane, in the Warsaw airport, and in the countryside on the way to her parents’ home. She might as well have hung a sign on herself and stood on Rodeo Drive. So why had he just hidden himself behind his reading glasses and a thick hoodie?
Alessandro ordered room service breakfast and paced while he waited. Nothing to do but sit in his own thoughts. Ugh. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the suite’s sitting room and looked out over the mixture of old and new that made up his adopted hometown. His heart rate slowed.
Then he remembered the situation he was in and the phone call Yasmin had relayed from the producers of his next movie. He had a no-controversy clause, “standard stuff,” Yasmin had said, that did not take kindly to handcuffs and a night in jail. His biggest budget movie yet was on the line if he didn’t turn his reputation around. Years of work, destroyed by one misplaced joke from Nikki.
Maybe.
He started pacing again.
He knew he should take the car to the Studio, but he had too much nervous energy to burn up, so after he’d eaten, he walked across town—and yes, despite Nikki’s showmanship, he stayed in his cap and hoodie, though his reading glasses had made him queasy on the walk to Oh Beans!—to the community center where the Studio held its classes. However, the people he passed were too intent on their phones or their conversations or in hiding their faces in their scarves from the cold to look at him. He should remember to only come back in the winter from now on.
The center was a stocky, contemporary building that filled a block between an empty lot and a strip of stores with their shutters half-closed. Alessandro had never seen them all open at the same time. The letters on the side of the community center, though, were clean and bright, and a window in the side was cheerfully painted with Bruins players in a picturesque snowfall. The art classes were still going strong.Buono.
He pulled open the heavy doors and breathed in the smell of cleaning fluid and perfume that somehow welcomed him every time he came. He’d always had such mixed emotions when arriving here. Sometimes hope from a callback. Sometimes despair when a casting director had glanced at him and said “no” before he’d even gotten a word out. Full-on celebration when he’d gotten his first play.
Once he had a couple of those under his belt, he was able to give back to the group and squash some of those feelings. Now, he wondered how much of his next paycheck he could afford to give the center. Five years of big checks was great, but LA and all the expenses his fame entailed were not cheap. But this neighborhood didn’t have much, which made community centers like this worth their weight in gold.
First, he went to the main office. Charlene, the source of most of the perfume, squealed and came around her desk to hug him.
“Tell me,” she said, holding on to his elbows—about as high as she could touch him without stretching—“is it true? Did you knock a guy out with one punch?”
“It was a lucky punch,” he said. Well, what did people expect? He’d been in three action movies, one of which had busted his rib. He knew how to throw a fake punch. The photographer had unfortunately moved in the wrong direction.
“I bet! Well, it’s good to see you, Alessandro,” Charlene said. Her head came to his chest, though her hair went a lot higher. “You here to see Etta?”
