To Hate Adam Connor
: Chapter 15

Lucy

“Olive.”

“Olive, wake up.”

Nothing. Not even a groan.

“Olive. Olive. Olive.”

Finally a groan. “Go away, Lucy.”

“You have to wake up,” I said as I started pushing both of my hands on the bed to make her bounce on it.

“Give me a good reason and I’ll consider opening my eyes,” she mumbled, turning away from me and hugging the pillow tighter to herself.

“Because I woke up.”

“Yeah. I don’t think so. Nice try, now go away.”

“Olive.”

“Lucy.”

I sighed and got on the bed. “Olive, wake up.”

“Lucy, go away.”

This time it was me who groaned.

“That’s not how we play the game, Olive. I come to your room to wake you up and you wake up. And I can’t even lie on your boobies and get comfortable because you’re lying on top of them. Squishing them. Killing them. Have a heart, woman!”

“What did you do to Jason?”

“What did I do to him? Were you dreaming of us having a threesome?” I gave her a gentle push and settled down to lie next to her. “I’m flattered that you chose me to play a role in your fantasies, my green Olive. Give me all the details.”

She released a long sigh. “You’re not going away, are you?”

“Umm…” I pulled one of her pillows from under her head. “Nope.”

“That’s what I thought. Okay.” She accepted the inevitable and plopped onto her back, hitting the covers a little too enthusiastically for my taste. “What time is it?”

“Nine something.”

“Really? Well, that’s a first. You usually wake me up at a more ungodly hour.”

“See?” I bumped her shoulder with mine. “I can be nice. I’m a good friend.”

“Okay. Now that I’m awake…why am I awake again?”

“Because I have news.”

“Good news or bad news?” Olive asked as she lifted the covers so I could get under them. As much as she acted like she hated when I woke her up early, I knew she loved my visits to her bedroom just as much as I did.

Okay, maybe not as much as I did, clearly, but she loved them nonetheless.

I thought about the things I wanted to share with her and couldn’t decide if they were bad news or good news. Definitely a few good ones, but maybe a colossal bad one that would eclipse all the good news? I wasn’t going to think about that one until I was forced to.

“A few good ones, maybe a few bad ones, too?” I ventured without committing to anything.

“Okay. Hit me.”

“Which one do you want first?”

“Give me all the good ones first.”

I nodded. Good choice. “The best one among all the good ones is that I got you…” I drew out the word and paused just to build up more tension.

“Yes…you got me…?”

“I got you…a freaking AUDIOBOOK deal for Soul Ache!”

She sat up in bed and looked at me with big eyes. “We have a deal?”

“Yup. We got one. And that’s not even the best part about it.” Having trouble containing my energy, I sat up and crossed my legs.

“Tell me already!”

“You’re going to be the narrator!”

Her face fell. “What? The narrator? Why would I be the narrator?”

“Because who would read your book better than you?”

“Lucy. No.”

I pushed at her shoulder, and she staggered back. “Olive. Yes.”

Shaking her head, she got out of the bed. “No way. I’m not doing that.”

I watched her pace the length of the bed and let out a long breath. “Yes, you will. And you wanna know why you’ll do it with the biggest smile on your face, my green Olive?”

“Oh, please, enlighten me.”

“Because your freaking husband is your co-narrator, that’s why.”

The pacing stopped, and I had trouble containing my giddy smile.

“Jason? He’ll read with me? You talked to him about this?”

“Of course I did. As much as I think I should have the right, since I practically gave you to him wrapped up in a pretty little package, I can’t make decisions like that in his name. So I talked to him a few days ago and considering the size of that smile he gave me, he really, and I mean really liked that idea. The publisher loved it too, sooo…it’s a go!”

She climbed on the bed again, sitting on her heels and wearing the cutest grin on her face. “You’re a genius, Lucy. I love that idea. I don’t like the fact that I’m gonna be reading it, but me and Jason…I love it.”

I smiled back at her. “You’re welcome, my little green Olive. At first they were concerned about paying Jason, but he doesn’t want anything, so the deal is only for the audio rights for Soul Ache. You’re getting a very big chunk of an advance for it. I made sure of that.”

“So that means you’re getting a big chunk of commission, too.”

I furrowed my brows. “Uh, no. I’m just helping you. And I actually like having the title of temporary agent, so I’m keeping that, but yeah, I’m not taking your money.”

“Yes, you are. Why the hell would you spend so much time talking to so many publishing companies?”

“Because I’m helping you.”

“Yes. Because you’re good at this stuff. With numbers, with getting people to do what you want them to do. And you care about my work. You care about my characters and you want the best for me. I don’t think there is a better agent than you for me, so I’m keeping you and you’re keeping your commission.”

I narrowed my eyes at her and considered her words. I mean, I did need a job, that was already an established fact, but taking money from my best friend…I didn’t care for that idea all that much. She was my best friend, my sister from another mister. I’d help her as much as I could and truly enjoyed helping her with anything she needed, but when—

Olive snapped her fingers in my face, breaking into my thoughts. “There is nothing for you to think about. I asked you to be my agent. Agents get paid. You got a deal for me, which makes you officially my agent. Not a temporary one. I didn’t even ask you to get me an audiobook deal, yet you still did. You’re my agent, Lucy. And you get twenty-five percent.”

“Twenty-five percent? Are you crazy? Do you even know how much of an advance you’re getting?”

Was I really considering taking money from my friend? And that amount of money? I didn’t think so.

“That’s around what agents take. Every book deal, audio deal, foreign rights, or whatever you get in front of me to sign, you’ll get twenty-five percent of it, both from the advance and the royalties.”

Feeling uncomfortable, I shook my head and shifted in place. “No way.” No freaking way, that was too much money. “Twenty-five is too much. Don’t give that much of your money to anyone.”

She shrugged as if I was the one who was talking nonsense. “You’re my agent. You’ll look out for me and get me the best deals possible. You already did it. I don’t know why we’re still talking about this. I would never even think of suggesting that I could narrate the book with Jason. Even if I did think of that, I could hardly get them to say yes on it. Also, Jason already played Isaac, are you sure his contract wouldn’t be a problem?”

“Way ahead of you. I already talked about that with his agent. Tom said it would be a good promotion for the movie when it’s out on DVD. And he checked the contract to make sure, too. Everything is okay on that front.”

“See?” She pushed my shoulder with her index finger—a little too hard. “You already thought of everything. You’re my agent.”

“Yeah,” I relented and rubbed the spot she had just poked. “I’m an agent who doesn’t even have an ARC of your next book. What an agent. Maybe you should ask Jasmine to be your agent.”

Was I still a little jealous about that? Yeah, maybe. So what?

Olive extended her hand and gestured with her chin for me to take it. So I took it.

“Twenty-five percent.”

I sighed. “Ten percent.”

She gave me a bored look. “Twenty-four percent.”

I think you can guess how long it took us to agree on a number, but in case you’re not sure, a long, long time. There was a lot of handshaking along with nodding and some more headshaking. At the end of it, we agreed on fifteen percent and that was it.

“Now can we go to sleep?” she asked with a hopeful look. “Maybe a short nap?”

I tackle-hugged her, and we fell onto the pillows. “We’re working together.”

She laughed. “Yes. I can already hear the distant sound of you cracking the whip.”

I let out another long sigh. “Always thinking the worst of me. I’m being very nice to all the publishers.”

“I love it when you crack the whip, so it’s all good. Wouldn’t want anyone else to be my agent. You know what you should do?”

“What?”

“You should call Catherine and let her know you got a job.”

I gazed at the ceiling, my stomach turning. “I don’t think she’d be happy to hear that at all. She really wanted me to take that accounting job.”

Feeling Olive’s eyes on me, I did my best to look unaffected, but she knew me enough to see through it.

“Okay. I shouldn’t have even brought her up. My bad.”

I made a noncommittal sound and tried not to think about any of the bad stuff. “All right, are you ready for the second piece of good news?”

“No napping, then? Fine. Hit me.”

“No napping because we’re going out to celebrate the audiobook deal.”

“Mimosas?”

Alcohol…I wasn’t sure I could do that. I wanted to drink all the alcohol, all the tequila I could get my hands on, but I was very afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to do that for quite some time. I nodded anyway and thanked all my stars that Olive didn’t question my silence and left it at that.

“Now before a celebratory breakfast, the second piece of good news is that I have a much, much bigger, like a humongous-ly big deal I’m trying to finalize before I tell you about it, and the third piece of good news is that I found an apartment!”

Olive propped herself up on her elbow and looked at me with a pouty mouth, looking all sad and heartbroken. “What? You’re leaving?”

I turned onto my side to face her. “Did you hear what I said about the humongous-ly big deal? No?”

She kept staring at me, so I rolled my eyes.

“I’ve been here for weeks, Olive, and I’ve been looking for a small apartment since the day I got here, I just hadn’t found anything.”

“And now you have. Where?”

“Closer to our old apartment. You remember the tea shop that closed? The one where you dumped a cup of tea over my head and got us kicked out? Two blocks from that. It’s still close to USC, so I think I’m gonna look into getting a roommate.”

She eyed me sharply. “I didn’t dump it over your head. I tripped and fell.”

“Yes. You fell on me. When you had a hot cup of tea in your hand.”

“It wasn’t hot. It had cold milk in it. Anyway, you survived. And you shouldn’t leave now. Not when you’re getting closer to Adam and Aiden.”

I snorted and let out a not-so-ladylike laugh. “Getting closer to Adam Connor? Are you kidding me? I hate him even more than I did a few days ago.”

“Why? Because he isn’t doing those pushups anymore?”

Jesus! Even my own friend was taking that self-absorbed bastard’s side. I sank back into the bed.

“So disappointed in you right now, my green Olive. I bet you won’t feel all lovey-dovey toward him when you hear that he broke into your house last night.”

Hmmm, maybe I could convince Olive to press charges against the Hotshot Movie Star. Now, wouldn’t that be a great plot twist! And such great revenge, too. However, Olive was quick to kill those beautiful dreams.

“He didn’t break in. He called Jason, and he let him in. And I was right on the other side of your door after he sneaked into your room because I had to listen and learn why he was here, but Jason pulled me away, and I couldn’t hear a damn thing. So spill already. Did he rock your world?”

“We didn’t have sex,” I mumbled under my breath.

“Not for your lack of trying, I assume?”

Ignoring Olive, I reached for her phone on the bedside table and checked the time.

“Look at that, we need to head out. I don’t want to be stuck in traffic until lunchtime. My stomach is grumbling; I need food, maybe waffles, maybe eggs, maybe croissants, maybe all of the above. I also need coffee. Then I’ll probably need dessert. Come on, lazy head.” I jumped out of bed and smacked her with one of the pillows. “We’re going out to celebrate.”

“I’ll never understand your enthusiasm for mornings, Lucy.” She pulled the pillow out of my hand when I was about to smack her—lightly, of course—again and pushed her hair out of her face.

Just as she was rolling out of the bed, she stopped and turned to me with a frown. “You said you had good news and bad news. You never told me the bad news.”

I avoided eye contact and played with the edge of the covers to have something to occupy myself with. “Let’s just say we have to swing by Target to get something. I’ll tell you all about it after the celebratory breakfast. I’m dying from hunger, come on.” I threw the cover at her face. “Stop torturing me and get up.”

“Jesus. Fine.” She flung the covers and hopped down from the bed after a long stretch and yawn. “What time is it?”

“Maybe around…eight-ish,” I said over my shoulder as I walked toward the door with quick steps—everyone needs a head start when they are running away from an angry female.

As I reached the doorframe, she dropped her hands, very slowly, and looked at me with murder in her eyes. So, obviously I smiled at her. Big. “It’s called breakfast for a reason, it has to happen very early, Olive. Don’t be mad at me.”

“If I were you, I’d start running.”

A Father Fighting for His Son: Another Custody Battle?

Remember the last time we mentioned we were hearing rumors circling around about the possibility of a custody battle between Adam Connor and Adeline Young? Well, the day has come, folks. The battle has begun.

Now, usually when a celebrity couple goes through a custody battle, we rely on sources close to the couple to spill about what goes on behind those closed doors, because who doesn’t like a healthy dose of drama when it comes to the lives of their favorite celebrities? But in this case, we think the reason behind this new development is pretty obvious, wouldn’t you agree?

Yesterday, Adam Connor released a statement saying he had nothing against the mother of his child, but to ensure his son’s safety in light of recent events, he was filing papers to request primary custody of his son, Aiden Connor. The only comment that addressed the paparazzi mess in the statement was made in one single sentence: “Understandably, Aiden is still uneasy about what happened, but he is doing better.”

Hollywood’s hottest dad also pointed out that he wasn’t trying to sever the relationship between the mother and son, that he was okay with Adeline Young having visitation rights. To top it all off, even though Adam Connor stressed that he wasn’t doing this to hurt Adeline and was only thinking about what his son needed at this point in his life, we think Adeline will be plenty pissed when she gets the call from her lawyer.

What are your thoughts on this? After Adeline got slammed by the media outlets and diehard Connor fans because of the way she handled everything after the incident, we are thinking this might not have been her first clash with Adam on how she is raising their son—or not raising, in her case. Do you think she’ll fight this?

If you were a fan of the couple and were rooting for them to get back together…we’d say it’s time to say goodbye to those dreams. When we tried to reach Adeline’s reps for a comment on Adam’s statement, but the only thing we heard was crickets. No doubt they’ll release a statement on their own when they’ve had enough time to regroup, so we’ll make sure to keep you in the loop on future updates.

We’ll leave you with the best part of Adam’s statement.

“My son means everything to me. I have to know he is safe. I have to make sure he isn’t worrying about things he shouldn’t even think about or know about at his age—like being scared about whether a man with a camera will jump out from behind the bushes when he is playing in his own backyard. The only way to do that is if he is in my care and I know where he is and whom he is with at all times. Again, I have nothing against Adeline. We still talk, we still spend time together, and I wish her nothing but the best. This is not about us. It is about what’s best for Aiden. While I get that this may be front-page news for some people, I’m asking you to respect our privacy going forward. Please don’t make this out to be something it isn’t. This isn’t Adam Connor fighting with Adeline Young. This is a father fighting for what’s best for his son.”