Love, Valentine Style Read online

  L.A. Happenings by Lyle Lincoln

  …Have you heard? Nearly a year after his death, we’re finding more of Dooley Rule’s children. Can’t wait for the official count from the Dooley Foundation, Hollywood’s favorite life coaching firm. Who are these hidden Rules? And will they be as fascinating and gossip-worthy as Dooley’s other children?

  …It’s a day of questions. @GlitterfrostGem is one of starlet Mimi Sorbet’s BFFs on Twitter, a frequent #WomenCrushWednesday of NBA Flash’s assistant coach, Randy Farrell, and a soon to be featured date on Blue Rule’s matchmaking reality show. But who is she really? Actress? Porn princess? Lucky sperm club member? I’m dying to know.

  Chapter One

  Everything about Gemma Kent’s life was a lie.

  She’d thought Dooley Rule was her godfather. Yeah, take away “god” and you got that right.

  Then the hottest gossip columnist in L.A. called her a mystery woman. The mystery is why no one recognizes me when my hair isn’t straightened and my make-up isn’t heavy.

  And now she was helping perpetuate the worst lie of all on Valentine’s Day. She’d thought her half-sister, Cora Rule, was setting her up on a blind date. Only it wasn’t a date. It was an exercise in confidence building by the Dooley Foundation for a client – a young, sexy NBA coach who embodied everything Gemma found honorable in the world - honesty. The same man who kept tweeting sweet things to her @GlitterfrostGem on Twitter’s Woman Crush Wednesday. He’d cyber-stolen her heart. He’s going to be so disappointed in me in real life.

  Gemma’s stomach did contortions that’d terrify a member of Cirque de Soleil. College students working as part-time receptionists didn’t land dates with NBA coaches. Not unless they were beautiful, tall, and well-endowed. Gemma was plain, petite, and sharp-tongued.

  What started as an innocent assignment for the Dooley Foundation – accompanying a popular actress fresh out of rehab on shopping trips – had gained her made-over Gemma notoriety as Miss Glitterfrost Gem. Her alter-ego’s picture was posted on gossip sites. Once a picture of her and actress Mimi Sorbet made it to a sidebar of People magazine’s cover! But no one ever posted Gemma’s real name. She was known only as Mimi’s BFF and by her Twitter name – @GlitterfrostGem.

  No one would have known about her had Cora not “borrowed” Gemma’s phone and tweeted that first picture of Gemma and Mimi on Gemma’s account, hashtag bestie, hashtag MimiSorbet.

  And now Gemma was one of three women meeting Coach Randy Farrell on Valentine’s Day. He’d choose one of them for a dinner date. She’d bet her next car payment it wasn’t going to be her. He’d take one look at Gemma and see she was a phony. Crush over. Foolish heart broken.

  Sitting on a stool in Cora’s bathroom, Gemma’s stomach contorted once more.

  Cora flung her long, dark hair over her shoulder with a sophisticated flair Gemma envied, and then rummaged through her large make-up case as if Gemma needed more paint on her face. “Don’t you have contacts?”

  “No.” Gemma wore glasses. Black-framed, rectangular lenses. The only time Gemma didn’t wear them was when Mimi made her over and carted her around Beverly Hills, leaving Gemma feeling like a mole dragged into the sunlight.

  Because of all the media exposure, she couldn’t be Glitterfrost Gem with her glasses on. Thus, tonight’s dilemma – glasses meant honesty. Honesty meant Randy wouldn’t want her. Because when he’d met plain, lens-wearing Gemma Kent, she’d been invisible to him.

  Just as she was about to bite her lip, Gemma remembered she was wearing several coats of Bite Me red lipstick.

  “No glasses tonight. You need to look hot.” Cora paused in her rummaging to slide Gemma’s glasses onto her own face. “Yeesh, you really are blind.”

  “Only without my glasses.” Gemma blinked eyelashes heavy with mascara.

  “I didn’t go to all this trouble for you to dumb-down the look.”

  “Cora, this is me you’re talking about. I don’t have a look.” Until a few months ago, she’d been clumping around in combat boots because a condition of her godfather’s…her father’s…will stipulated that her tuition to UCLA would only continue to be paid if she wore army boots every day. She might have been considered fashionable if she’d worn them once or twice a week. But everyday?

  “You have two looks.” Cora stood between Gemma and the mirror, blocking Gemma’s view of herself. “The Dooley Foundation receptionist, and the hottest secret in the Twittersphere, Glitterfrost Gem.” She set Gemma’s glasses on her nose, then stepped aside so that Gemma could see herself.

  Gemma sighed wistfully. The woman in the mirror had conservative cleavage, tamed shoulder-length, straight brown hair, and beautiful, dark eyes behind Poindexter glasses. The little black dress Cora had loaned her was understated and classy. “This isn’t me.” No matter how much she sometimes wished otherwise. “I’m a fraud.”

  “This is you. Embrace it. Two looks make you more interesting.” Cora dug in her closet and came up with a pair of red pumps.

  Those crimson shoes struck fear in Gemma’s heart. They matched the color of the lingerie Cora had made her buy earlier. Stripper clothes, her mother would say. Gemma had never worn anything but white cotton. “I should wear my combat boots.” And the glasses. And a trench coat.

  “I threw those hideous boots away while you were getting dressed.”

  Gemma’s breath caught. “I’ll dig them out of your trash.” And she did. Those boots were the only physical link to her dead father. Sure, he’d been a liar and a coward for not telling her the truth, but he was her father.

  While she was hugging the boots to her chest, Cora snatched her glasses back.

  Forty-five minutes later, Gemma and Cora were still bickering about boots and glasses as they entered Javier’s restaurant, where the mini-dates were going to be filmed as part of their brother, Blue’s matchmaking reality show.

  Almost legally blind, Gemma wobbled on Cora’s heels into the foyer. “Give me back my glasses. Randy isn’t going to choose me.” Her volume diminished pathetically. “I’m filler.”

  “Rules are never filler,” Cora chastised.

  “I’m not really a Rule,” Gemma whispered. “Or Glitterfrost Gem.”

  “Thank God, you’re here.” Blue loomed into blurred view and dragged Gemma toward the back of the restaurant. At least it sounded like Blue. She couldn’t make out his face. “I didn’t want to start until you got here.”

  “I need my glasses.” Was that panic in her voice? Gemma wanted to schlump out the back door.

  “Give her the glasses, Cora. Now isn’t the time to torture her.” Blue was her hero.

  Glasses were placed in Gemma’s hand. She wasted no time putting them on.

  Sitting in the booth were two of L.A.’s hottest celebrities – Mimi Sorbet and fashion designer to the stars, Xuri. Mimi looked like a miniature Marilyn Monroe. Xuri looked like she could star in a modern remake of Memoir of a Geisha. Even with Cora’s makeover, Gemma was the one who didn’t look as if she belonged.

  Gemma spun, wobbled, and crashed into Cora. “Don’t make me do this,” Gemma whispered. “I’m nobody.”

  “Not to us, you’re not.” Cora turned her back toward the booth, keeping her hands on Gemma’s shoulders so she couldn’t flee. “To us, you’re a Rule.”

  “I’ll be humiliated.” And that was if she managed not to fall over in Cora’s heels. If she was a Rule, she was the weakest link.

  “Hey, you can have your pick of men.” Cora shook Gemma’s shoulders. “You could reject Randy.”

  Reject Randy?

  He was her crush. She’d seen the game film where he went down in a melee of limbs during the championship game at the Final Four. She’d seen him limp to his feet and tell his coach he was okay, when in reality he wasn’t. That took courage. The kind of courage the other Rules had. If Gemma had any guts at all, she’d have been tweeting at him hashtag Man Crush Monday.

  She’d met him before. Several times. Gemma Kent,
the prickly-mannered, army boot-wearing receptionist for the Dooley Foundation, didn’t interest Randy Farrell, up-and-coming young coach in the NBA and former NCAA stud. Nope. Randy was only interested in Glitterfrost Gem, fabricated bestie of Mimi Sorbet. He’d met Glitterfrost Gem once at a Flash practice and they’d barely exchanged a handful of words. How could she be infatuated with a guy who couldn’t recognize her when her hair was in its normal tight curls and she wore glasses?

  “Gemma, come sit with me.” Mimi held out her hand. She was wearing a black wraparound dress and a nervous smile. The fragile actress was still vulnerable in venues that served liquor.

  Gemma took Mimi’s hand and sat, greeting Xuri tentatively.

  Xuri didn’t smile. Rumor had it Xuri never smiled. The designer fixed Gemma with an evaluating stare, then said in her exotic accent, “Come see me Monday.”

  “Why?” Gemma asked.

  “You need a wardrobe that defines you.” Xuri sniffed and looked away.

  “Oh, my God,” Mimi whispered, clinging to Gemma’s hand. “She likes you. I asked for an appointment and she pretended not to hear.”

  Gemma wasn’t impressed. She’d worked at the Dooley Foundation for too long. The Rules made magic happen. They could arrange for you to bump into a talkative sex therapist at the mall, sit next to a powerful movie producer at an NBA game, or makeover the little, unfashionable, boot-wearing half-sister they’d recently discovered and were most likely embarrassed of.

  Never be afraid to be who you are, Dooley had told Gemma one day not long before he died.

  Great words of advice if you knew who you were.

  There was nothing wrong with Randy Farrell that a good woman couldn’t fix.

  And he had his sights on the perfect woman. But she was shy and in order to meet her, he’d had to bargain to be in this Valentine’s Day evening of dating, filmed no less. It was a white tablecloth, dark paneling, suit and tie event. There were cameras and a production crew. Daunting for a guy from Indiana, who was more comfortable in T-shirts and basketball shorts than in a starchy button-down.

  Blue Rule, the emcee of the show, entered the private dining room at Javier’s. He sat across from Randy at the small table. “Here’s how things go down. Each woman comes in. You have up to ten minutes to break the ice, but during that ten minutes, you need to ask her these three questions.” He handed Randy an index card.

  Having seen Blue’s matchmaking reality show once or twice, Randy knew this was coming. But he’d created his own three questions.

  “After the third candidate, you’ll choose your Valentine dinner date,” Blue said.

  There was no question in Randy’s mind who he’d pick. But he nodded his agreement, fiddling with the knot of his tie. Other than to coach, the last time he’d worn a tie had been when he met the President of the United States with the rest of his college basketball championship team. Back then he’d also worn a knee-brace and an Achilles boot. He’d sacrificed his body for a shot at history. Nearly a year later and he was still unsteady when he moved too quickly.

  The door opened and Xuri, the beautiful, Japanese, fashion designer walked in. He greeted her with a handshake. She was a few years older than he was, and her expression was intimidating as hell.

  He waited until she was seated to begin. “What’s your favorite sport?” His first question.

  “Sumo wrestling.” Xuri sounded bored.

  Randy noted Blue shifting his weight and hurried to his second question. “Do you like basketball?”

  “No.” She was about as warm as a dead fish.

  There was no sense asking any more of Randy’s questions. He glanced at the card Blue had given him. “Would you take me on the red carpet dressed the way I am?”

  “No.” She didn’t hesitate. “You bought your jacket off the rack.”

  Randy had come to Hollywood via conservative Holy Southern Cross University. The amount of attention paid to appearances in L.A. never ceased to amaze him.

  But Xuri wasn’t done. “Your jacket bubbles on your shoulders and makes you look like…What is the word? A scarecrow.”

  “It’s been a pleasure to meet you.” Randy stood, feeling hot and bothered. And not in a good way.

  “You didn’t ask all my questions.” Blue frowned when Xuri had gone.

  “I asked one and it was the deal-breaker.” While they retrieved Bachelorette Number Two, Randy updated his Twitter feed: Waiting for my #WCW.

  The door to the private dining room opened again and in walked the crush of every man in America – Mimi Sorbet. She was a petite, blond bombshell.

  For a moment, Randy was star-struck. Never mind that he’d met the actress once before at a Flash practice, the same one where he’d met Glitterfrost Gem. Mimi was fantasy beautiful, with a lush mouth and a pair of boobs his mother would roll her eyes over.

  Randy had to bend so Mimi could reach his cheek with the mover-and-shaker air kiss people in California loved so much. Mimi smelled like a bouquet of roses, which reminded him of his grandmother, whom he’d last seen in her open casket. Definitely a desire-killer.

  When Mimi was settled across from him, he asked, “What’s your favorite sport?”

  “I don’t like sports much. Growing up, I was into beauty pageants.” She rolled her shoulders and gave him that million-dollar smile. “I was Miss Arkansas.”

  “Congratulations.” No sense asking her any more of his questions. He didn’t want to talk about world peace. He flipped over Blue’s card. “Would you take me on the red carpet dressed the way I am?”

  She leaned over to look at him from head to toe, exposing more of her goods. “There are some events where what you’re wearing would be acceptable.”

  It was a better answer than what Xuri had shot him down with. He consulted Blue’s card again. “What do you find most attractive in a man?”

  “A year ago, I would have said a great smile or a killer body.” She considered him again, giving him the confounding impression that there was more than sex on her brain. “That sounds rather shallow. Frankly, I don’t know what I find attractive anymore.”

  Everyone in the room, including Blue Rule, who was the relationship master, seemed to perk up and take notice. This was Hollywood’s hottest sex-kitten, just months out of rehab. She sounded as if she’d lost her meow.

  Mimi laughed self-consciously. “You know what? I’m going to take myself out of the running. You seem nice, but I have this friend…And frankly, I’m not looking to date right now.” She walked out with a tantalizing swing of hips that left every man staring at the door.

  “That’ll make good television,” Blue muttered to his fiancé and producer, Maddy, who was nodding and grinning as if she’d just won the lottery.

  So far, Randy had been rejected by two of Hollywood’s most intriguing women. He updated Twitter: Here comes #WCW!

  A few minutes later, the door opened.

  It was her.

  Gemma’s black dress clung to her petite, gently curved frame, and featured a rare glimpse of creamy cleavage. He gulped. Gemma was like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. You never knew what you’d get, but whatever it was, he liked it.

  “I’m Gemma.” Her hand was small, but her grip firm. She didn’t look him in the eye.

  “We’ve met before.” In reality, they’d met once when she’d been dressed like this – in the clothes of a Hollywood celebrity, without her glasses. They’d been at several of the same events when she’d been dressed in skirts or leggings and army boots. Always the boots. But at those events, she avoided him like foot fungus. And he, who led giant men on the court with words and actions, was struck stupid by this miniature dervish of a woman. He’d resorted to pinging her on Twitter every Wednesday. What a wuss.

  He smiled, trying his best not to look like an awkward petri dish of foot fungus. He leapt ahead in his questions. “Do you like basketball?”

  “If I say no, will you choose someone else?” Her sarcasm wasn’t unexpected. He hadn
’t heard her talk without it when she’d attended Flash events. She was always digging at Cora.

  That’s what he enjoyed about her. She was sharp and sassy, but caring, too. Real in the land of phonies. His body flushed with adrenaline, much as it had before an important college basketball game. “If you say no, I might try to convince you otherwise.”

  She eyed him warily, as if he’d approached her on the street, asking for gas money with some lame excuse about a stolen wallet. “I watch a lot of football, but recently I’ve become a Flash fan.”

  Points to her. He had another question, a request for her phone number, but he decided to save it for later. “Would you take me on the red carpet dressed the way I am?”

  “Why would I take anyone on the red carpet?” She seemed to check herself out. “Do you expect me to dress like this every day?”

  “I hope not.” A girlfriend that involved in her appearance would be exhausting.

  “Is there something wrong with the way I’m dressed?” There was that temper, so contradictory it made him grin.

  “No. You look hot.”

  She huffed as if she didn’t know what to believe.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Blue cross his arms over his chest and lower his chin. If Randy wasn’t careful, if he didn’t obey Blue’s rules, he was going to blow his chance with Gemma. He referred to Blue’s list of questions. “What do you find attractive in a man?”

  “Honesty.”

  He wanted to squirm. He didn’t. He’d asked to participate in Blue’s show on the condition that Gemma be a part of it. Blue hadn’t gone easy on him. He’d interrogated Randy as if Gemma was his little sister. Randy glanced down at the card and then back up at Blue. “I’m not asking this question.”