Layla sighed. “God, you can be so negative sometimes.”
Mallory waved her away even though the comment stung, a little bit anyway. She was a realist, not a pessimist. And the reality was that documentary producers spent the majority of their time applying and interviewing for grants and scrounging for financing and had more sense than to bask in the glow of a few throwaway comments that would reap absolutely zero results.
Of course, it didn’t help her attitude that she was having major problems raising the money she needed to work on her current documentary about the infamous murder twenty-five years ago of a young actress called The Red Gardenia. Forget her rent. Yesterday her cameraman had threatened to walk out on her if she didn’t pay what she owed him for the past month.
She scratched the back of her neck. Then there was that little time limit she’d given herself when she’d first come to L.A. Five years. She’d given herself five years to make it in the city. And obviously she hadn’t made it yet. And that five-year anniversary mark was coming up quickly. Too quickly.
But she wasn’t going to tell Layla that. To do so would be to focus on the negative. Today presented a whole slew of fresh opportunities. And that’s where she preferred to concentrate her energies: the future and all its possibilities.
Well, on that and taking an easy jab at her friend.
“Shouldn’t you be off gaping down someone’s throat or up someone’s colon, Dr. Hollister?” she asked.
Reilly barked with laughter, then caught herself when Layla stared at her. “Hey, it was funny.”
Layla took her purse from the back of her seat and hiked the strap over her shoulder. “I’m off from the clinic until the New Year. Remember?”
“Ah. Then I amend my previous comment. Both you and Jack need to find some ambition.”
“I have ambition.”
Mallory hiked a brow. “Getting married isn’t an ambition, Lay. It’s death.”
Jack mumbled something under his breath and pushed from the table. “I need a refill.”
“Get me one, too,” Mallory called after him.
Reilly and Layla shared a stare then looked at her.
“Does Jack seem a bit grumpier than usual?” Layla asked.
Mallory scratched her nose. “Not that I’ve noticed.”
“I think he is, too,” Reilly said to Layla.
Mallory shrugged. “Maybe he has a column due or something.”
Layla shook her head. “No…no. It’s something more than that. I can tell. Something’s bothering him.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Mallory said. “He’s always fine.”
Which was an out and out lie. Because she had noticed that Jack seemed particularly irritable and irritating lately. But to admit that might require her also to admit that she knew because when Layla had called he’d been lying in bed next to her with one of his legs covering hers and his hand over her right breast. And she couldn’t do that. Namely because Reilly and Layla would kill her if they ever found out she’d gone back on the promise they’d made three years ago for the three of them to maintain a platonic relationship with the ultra-yummy Jack Daniels. Keep the friendship, ax the sexual complications.
Well, she had kept the promise. For about six hours. Before she’d ripped off his clothes and indulged in fantasies she hadn’t even known she’d fostered.
Mallory cleared her throat. Of course, it had only happened the one night. Well, okay, it had happened another night about three months after that. Then every couple months like clockwork she and Jack would end up taking a wicked tumble. Up until three months ago, anyway. Since then they were either at his place or hers three or four times a week.
But if Layla and Reilly ever found out…
“Remember, I need you guys there by six,” Layla said, getting up from her chair.
Mallory blinked at her. “Need us where?”
“The rehearsal dinner.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Mallory pointed at her. “I’ll be there.”
Layla narrowed her eyes. “You’d better be, Mall. The last thing I need is to have to worry about you.”
“Hey, I said I’ll be there, so I’ll be there.”
Jack came back to the table and handed out fresh cups of coffee. “I’ll make sure she gets there on time.”
Layla’s face instantly relaxed. “Thanks, Jack.”
Mallory sighed. “Why is it when he says anything, you guys accept it like it’s the God-spoken truth, but you question everything that comes out of my mouth?”
Reilly smiled at her. “Not everything. Only those things associated with events you’d rather not attend.”
“Like my engagement party,” Layla said.
“Or my reopening two weeks ago,” Reilly pointed out.
“You guys didn’t need me at either place.”
“No,” Layla said, “but we wanted you there.”
It was nice, Mallory thought, how these guys needed her, even if sometimes it was a little suffocating. Didn’t they understand that she was used to looking after herself and only herself? That growing up she’d been so much extra luggage that her mother probably wouldn’t have filled in the lost baggage form at the airport should Mallory have gotten misplaced en route to her latest husband’s apartment/house/condo?
Of course they didn’t understand. Because she’d never really told them about life growing up as Mallory Woodruff. Because to do so would be to dredge up the past. And there was that thing about her liking only to look out on to the future.
“Sorry,” she said blithely.
They laughed.
“Okay, maybe that could have sounded a little more sincere,” she admitted. “But the sentiments are there. The last thing I want to do is hurt any of you.”
Layla leaned over and gave her a hug. “Now that sounded more genuine.”
Even Jack seemed to be looking at her a little too closely. Mallory reached across for his last sticky bun. He moved it out of reach.
Layla smiled. “I’ll see you guys at six. On the dot. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later.”
Mallory gave her a military salute, which, she supposed, was apropos given what she wore: fatigues, short black boots and T-shirt that read Three Stages Of Marriage: Lust, Rust And Die. “Yes, sir. I mean, ma’am.”
“I’m going to make you pay for that one,” Layla said.
Considering all that was going on over the next day and a half, Mallory had little doubt that she would.
TWELVE HOURS LATER at Layla and Sam’s rehearsal dinner Jack watched Mallory as if it were the first time he’d seen her. The woman had absolutely no clue how he really felt about her. Of course, it probably didn’t help that whenever they were around Layla and Reilly he had to be so careful to keep his expression neutral. He watched the way Mall’s mouth moved when she talked and wondered why it was he always wanted to kiss her when she was speaking.
For a moment there, the briefest of moments, the agitation he’d been feeling lately dropped away and he was able to enjoy Mallory the woman. For a moment there, she’d emerged something other than the driven, career-minded producer. She’d even seemed a bit human, somehow.
Then