Starfire (Peaches Monroe #3)(85)
Author: Mimi Strong

As for my other ex, Adrian Storm, he kept to his word and worked at the bookstore through Christmas. After that, he hired and trained a replacement, and left for Chicago. We haven’t stayed in touch, but whenever I see his parents over at my parents’ house, they tell me he sends his best.

Adrian and Golden became an official, monogamous couple at the first annual Beaverdale Duck Pond Park Picnic, which happened the same day as my wedding. I felt sorry for Golden for a while, because she seemed to have been his second choice, though who could say, really? They had this whole funny drama between them that seemed straight out of a romantic comedy movie. He wanted her to come to Chicago with him in January, but she wasn’t sure she could give up her job, then he proposed, and she freaked out and said he was only worried about being alone, and didn’t actually love her. He packed his bags and took a bus to the airport to leave a day early, so when she came to her senses, he had already left town, and… you can guess where this is going, right? Yes, she raced against time to get to the airport, where they declared their love for each other in front of everyone getting frisked and scanned for security.

Good for them, I say!

My parents just celebrated their twenty-seventh anniversary in March of this year, and added a twenty-seventh decorative pillow to their bed. They may have to get an extra bed soon, just for the pillows.

My mother told me that every time they see Dalton’s father at a family event, my father is extra attentive to her needs for several weeks after. They seem as happy as ever, though my father still has the recliner up in the attic for when he needs to annoy her about something.

Kyle is eight now, and he surprises me by how great he is at sports. The kid is way more coordinated than I was at his age, and he’d be on every sports team in town if my mother let him. I really notice the changes in his maturity. He’s more guarded with his emotions now, mostly because he wants to spare my feelings. It’s not always easy for him, having a big sister who gets talked about on the gossip sites, but I try to make time for us, one on one, whenever I visit. I think he’s going to grow up to be a remarkable man one day, and I’m going to cry at every single graduation and milestone. When he’s old enough, we’ll tell him the truth about how he came into this world, and I think he’ll understand.

I’ve been in touch with Kyle’s father, Toby. He’s living in Idaho these days, where he got married to an older woman with two children from a previous marriage. They’re expecting another baby any day now, and he called me last month, almost too emotional to speak. He wanted to apologize to me for not being more supportive after Kyle was born. I think he was nervous as hell about being a father, and dealing with some pretty colossal guilt. I told him the same thing I’d been telling myself for years. We were just dumb kids, trying to do the best we could, and everything worked out, so there was no point punishing ourselves. We certainly weren’t going to do it again!

After that phone call, I went a little baby crazy. I poured a glass of wine and got the laptop out, my excuse being that I was looking for a gift for Toby. His little baby girl would be a part of our big family one day when she was old enough to meet her half-brother.

I’m telling you, I started looking at changing blankets with little ducks and kitties, not to mention the frilly dresses, and a fever took hold of me. For an hour, I wanted nothing more than a little girl to dress up in adorable baby clothes.

Then I got another phone call, this one from Dalton, inviting me last-minute to a film opening. I dashed around my fabulous LA house, running between my two giant walk-in closets to find the right shoes and handbag to wear with one of my red carpet dresses. As I touched up my makeup in the back seat, while Vern drove me to the TV set to pick up my husband, I knew that my baby fever could wait a while—at least until the novelty of this fabulous new life wore off.

We have the best of both worlds, with our LA life, full of glamorous parties and Dalton working way too hard, plus our quiet getaways to the cabin in Washington State.

In October, I was able to celebrate my twenty-third birthday at my usual place, DeNirro’s. My whole family joined us. I had the deep-fried tortellini, and Dalton went crazy and ate an entire basket of bread all by himself. (Don’t worry, fans, his personal trainer made him sweat it all off.)

We get up to the cabin at least twice a month, which makes it all the more shameful that we haven’t gotten around to hanging up our wedding photos or any of the other artwork we collect on trips. I guess there’s no rush, since we have our whole lives ahead of us to get everything perfect.

Perfect.

That word has taken on a funny meaning for me. Whenever I do an interview, people ask me what it’s like to be married to the perfect man.

I don’t dare tell them the truth—that he does about a million things that drive me crazy. For example, he takes twice as long as I do to get dressed. He’s got to lay out the clothes and carefully ponder what designer-hole-filled T-shirt to wear that day. Perhaps the most maddening thing he does, though, is tease me with little tidbits from his scripts for the show. He’ll tell me enough to get me excited, but not the whole storyline. All through the season that just ran, I kept threatening to quit watching entirely. It was bad enough having to see him put his lips and teeth on beautiful actresses, let alone being subjected to the same brutal cliffhangers as regular people who weren’t married to the star. For crying out loud!

At least I get some perks from being Mrs. Deangelo, and I don’t just mean the nice house, beautiful pool, and staff to take care of me. Dalton makes even married-people sex feel deliciously naughty. I’ve had those crazy high-heeled platform shoes on so many times, I’m starting to be able to walk quite gracefully in them.

Of course these are all things I can’t tell reporters and magazine editors, so when they ask me what it’s like, I just smile and say, “Perfect.”

I’ve been doing more press lately, so I can build up publicity contacts for when my movie comes out.

Hold on now, don’t get too excited! Nothing is for sure, and I certainly won’t be the one on screen, so you won’t see me up there.

The big news is that not long after leaving the bookstore, I found my new career—the one thing I’d always dreamed of doing but hadn’t dared tell anyone.

The whole time I worked at Peachtree Books, I was doing research for this dream job, and I didn’t even know it. I brought home so many books, and whenever I ran across one that would make a perfect movie, I’d imagine how to adapt it to the screen. I’d figure out what scenes to cut, which ones I might change around a bit, and I’d even cast the roles with my favorite actors and actresses.