Page 70 of His Girl Hollywood
“How could anything on earth possibly be funny at this moment?”
“I was thinking… If you wanted to touch my ass so badly, you could’ve just asked.”
She gave him a look of pure exasperation and continuedpushing. “Just get out alive, and then we’ll talk about when and where I can touch you,” she grumbled. The catwalk five feet from them suddenly roared to life, the flames having licked their way to the ceiling in a matter of minutes. “Go!” she urged.
He turned to slide down the chute, but he caught himself as she pushed on his back and he turned back to her. “Lena, wait—”
“There’s no time,” she hissed. But he didn’t listen to her. He pressed a fierce kiss to her mouth. It was quick, but he hoped it conveyed everything he wanted to say. His gratitude. How much he wanted her. What it meant to know that she had come for him. She pushed him off her, looking regretful as she did it. “You have to go.”
He nodded. “Just one more thing.” She rolled her eyes. “I love you.” Her eyes turned to glossy platters, and with that, he braced his hands against the inner workings of the chute and pushed himself forward, sliding down toward the circle of light that he knew was the end of the line.
He hadn’t been planning to say it. It had just come out. Suddenly, he was rushing headlong through the dark, his stomach twisting and turning as he plummeted to earth. He didn’t know if it was his wooziness from being beat up repeatedly in the last twenty-four hours, the effect of the stench and the metal tube designed for thousands of fish to pass through it, or the stunned feeling of realizing the crystalline truth of the words he’d uttered. He loved Lena. Maybe, in fact, he always had. He’d been too wrapped up in himself and his dreams and his resentment of his father and what home had meant to him to realize it. He loved her, and if they did get out of this alive, he was going to spend his days making up for a decade of lost time.
Before he knew it, he was plunging into the sunlight, the early morning rays practically blinding in their intensity. A sight that was not aided by the persistent orange glow from the fire raging fartherdown the pier. It had jumped the dock and set the cannery ablaze. It gave him a sick kind of pleasure to know the place that had brought his parents together and trapped them in their miserable marriage was turning to ash around him.
The light of the sun and the fire was nothing compared to the pain of his entire body slamming into the wooden planks of the dock. It knocked the wind from him and he choked on the air, struggling to catch his breath. Just as his lungs eased, he looked up to see Arlene hurtling toward him, a look of shock and fear on her face, her titian hair streaming behind her, a gleaming bronze in the firelight. He had only a moment to admire it and the way it made her eyes sparkle as she landed atop him. “Oof.”
She frantically ran her hands over him. “Oh my God, Don, are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
He laughed, and it made him wince. “I just wanted to prove to you that I could be a soft place to land.” He grimaced, the cut inside his cheek bleeding again. He must’ve bitten it reflexively when he’d hit the ground. She practically tackled him, showering his face with kisses, and he groaned.
“Don’t. Ever. Do. That. Again,” she huffed out between each kiss.
“What? Get kidnapped? Wasn’t exactly my idea.” She shut him up with a kiss that made the cut on his lip sting. She was very possibly going to love him to death, but compared to the previous options, this was infinitely preferable. They were interrupted by the sound of rubber squealing to a stop. He looked up to see Joan Davis driving Pauline Morgan’s trusty old Buick, Joan’s hair flying wildly in the wind and the firelight turning her brunette curls to burnished copper.
“Stop necking and get in the car,” Joan yelled. Lena giggled, and Don could hear a note of hysteria in her voice. He reached for her hand, and she pulled him to his feet. They sprinted to the car,adrenaline fueling him to push through the pain in this last gasp of their escape.
Flynn Banks flung open the door to the back seat. “Get in, you blighters, we haven’t got all day!”
Arlene and Don slid onto the bench seats, a tight squeeze next to Flynn and Eleanor already in the back seat. He’d barely had time to clock the bizarre ensemble Flynn was sporting before Joan peeled away. Don hadn’t even gotten the door shut when the tires screeched once more. As Don pulled it closed behind him, he saw Dash in the front seat next to Joan, gesticulating wildly. “Left, left! Don’t you know how to drive?” The last word was cut off as she swerved to narrowly avoid a parked shipping truck, and they all ducked out of misguided self-preservation.
Don surveyed the scene. The fire raged behind them as he looked out the back window. The flames were nearly at the sardine chute now, proof positive that if he and Lena had taken even a minute longer to make their escape, they’d have been toast. As Joan sped forward, he noticed a pile of Frankie’s men laid out in front of the warehouse. His jaw dropped, and Flynn shrugged as if to say “All in a day’s work.”
In the distance, he heard sirens. “About time. Guess they could see the smoke,” Joan muttered.
“From the fire you started!” Dash growled.
“A minor detail,” Joan retorted. She made a hairpin turn, and Don was certain he could feel the back left tire rise off the ground beneath him. The path took them back onto the rickety bridge that would lead them off Terminal Island. Joan gunned it, and Don prayed the car didn’t launch into the harbor as she raced over the boards that groaned under their weight. She neared its end and a firetruck, lights flashing and siren blaring, careened toward them, threatening to flatten them. The fireman driving laid on the horn,but Joan powered ahead, swerving at the last moment to avoid a collision. Eleanor yelped, Flynn swore, and Arlene dug her fingers into Don’s knee as the car went airborne for a moment. It crashed back to earth, rattling Don’s spine and sending a wave of pain through him so intense that stars dotted his vision. Everything turned to black.
Chapter 28
Don slowly resumed consciousness, but the aches that flared across his body made him wish he hadn’t. One of his ribs felt broken, his cheek was definitely swollen, and his legs pulsed with pain. He should be grateful. Because that meant he could at least feel his legs. Andthatmeant he could still dance.
He blinked open his eyes and was surprised to find himself looking up at the familiar ceiling of his parents’ bedroom. The shadows licking the walls and the soft light suggested it was sometime in the late afternoon.
“Oh good, you’re awake.” He turned and winced immediately at the sudden movement. Arlene was sitting in one of her mother’s dining chairs at his bedside.
“What happened?” His throat was raw and his voice hoarse from what he’d endured.
“What do you remember?”
He closed his eyes and tried to conjure memories. Arlene’s face. Dash Howard untying him. A mad escape through a fire and a fish chute. Joan Davis driving a getaway car and Flynn Banks in the back seat. The fact that Arlene—and a host of people she loved—were now mixed up in Frankie Martino’s business hit him anew. He shouldn’t have left the clues for Lena; he should’ve let Frankie do whatever he was going to do and accepted his fate.
Then another memory came to him. He’d told Arlene he loved her. He suppressed the urge to explain himself, to tell her it was okay if she didn’t feel the same. Perhaps it was best for him to play dumb. Pretend it had been a moment of madness in the escape. One he didn’t even remember. That seemed easier than listening to her tell him she could never feel the same way. That committing herself to a man who’d been fool enough to sign a contract with a gangster wasn’t her idea of happily-ever-after. That he was a bigger idiot than she’d ever realized.
“I remember you rescuing me, and Joan driving us away. Then, nothing.”
“That’s about when you passed out.” Arlene nodded. She reached for his hand and gently entwined her fingers with his. “How do you feel?”