When Stars Collide by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Olivia went through the motions of greeting her guests backstage, all the while hoping Thad would appear. She’d delivered the performance of a lifetime and longed to share that with him.

Flowers arrived, more well-wishers poured into her dressing room. Mitchell Brooks had tears in his eyes. Sergio held her so tightly he nearly crushed her ribs. It wasn’t until the last guest had left and she’d removed her makeup that she accepted the fact Thad wasn’t coming backstage to see her.

Sarah appeared, dressed in street clothes with her face scrubbed. She’d dodged Olivia after the final curtain, and now she regarded her warily. “Don’t be mad at me. It was his idea.”

“I know it was. His latest version of making me sing on one leg.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” She saw no reason to go into Thad’s theory about elite athletes choking under pressure from various mental blocks. That kiss had given her something else to focus on besides waiting for her voice to fail her. She was fairly certain she could have delivered a strong performance without their shenanigans, but she couldn’t deny that the sight of the two of them locked together had been the perfect image to plant in her brain and carry with her onstage.

She smiled at Sarah. “I hope you enjoyed every second.”

“You’re not upset?”

She pulled on the purple hoodie she’d worn to the theater. “I know you both too well to have bought your act for even a second, but it did seem to go on longer than necessary.”

Sarah’s grin was pure mischief. “He really is a good kisser.”

“And I’m sure you are, too. Don’t try it again.”

Sarah leaned against the doorjamb. “You killed it tonight.”

“I’m not the only one.” Sarah had sung her heart out. Never had their onstage chemistry been so electric.

Sarah ran a hand through her hair. “He didn’t come backstage, did he? He’s probably afraid you’ll kill him.”

“I doubt that.” Thad would surely have known she’d see through his performance, and it wasn’t fear of retribution that had kept him away.

“You’re a strange person, Olivia,” Sarah said. “Any other woman would be clawing my eyes out right now.”

Olivia smiled. “I know who my friends are.”

Sarah shoved her hands in her jacket pockets. “I called Adam’s sisters and told them everything.”

“I can’t imagine that was an easy conversation.”

“They needed to know the truth. Maybe now they can start living their own lives.”

Olivia hugged her. “You’re a good woman, Sarah Mabunda.”

“Likewise, Olivia Shore.”

After Sarah left, Olivia gathered up her things. Thad was furious with her, and yet he’d cared enough to do this. She hesitated, and then texted him.

As she left the theater, she waited for more from him, but it didn’t come. When she got back to her apartment, she tried again.

*  *  *

She had another horrible night’s sleep. When she got up the next morning, she didn’t bother reading the reviews. She knew exactly how good she and Sarah had been. No one else’s opinion mattered. She had to see Thad.

He was blocking her?

No!

*  *  *

She got dressed—all in black to show him she meant business—and set off for his condo, only to come up against one more person intent on ignoring her.

The concierge reminded her of a snotty Ralph Fiennes. “He isn’t in, Ms. Shore.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

The concierge regarded her from behind the curve of his reception desk. “He didn’t.”

“Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“I don’t.”

“When did he leave?”

He glanced at his watch as if he were late for an appointment. “We’re not permitted to give out information about our residents.”

“I understand. But Mr. Owens and I are dear friends. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m sorry. That’s our policy.”

He didn’t look sorry. He looked happy—a small man wielding his sliver of personal power over someone he regarded as more privileged than himself. She hated him.

She gave him her most withering look and strode from the lobby. Once she was on the street, she pulled out her phone.

Where are u? Call me.

She waited. Traffic flew by. She waited some more, but he was ghosting her. She hailed a cab and called Piper from the back seat. “I’m looking for Thad. Do you know where he is?”

“I don’t.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“I haven’t.”

“Would you check with your husband?”

“Hold on.” She could hear Piper turning away from the phone. “Coop, have you talked to Thad?”

Olivia heard him in the background. “Yeah, why?”

“Olivia is trying to find him,” his wife said. “Do you know where he is?”

“Nope.”

“Sorry.” Piper was back on the phone. “Maybe Clint knows.”

“Could you give me his address? I’ve lost it.” Olivia had never actually had it.

It turned out Clint lived in Chicago’s western suburbs instead of in the city like any other normal guy in his twenties.

Olivia texted him.

The taxi dropped her off at her apartment where she got her car and headed west to the wealthy DuPage County suburb of Burr Ridge.

Clint’s massive French chateau-style home stood ready for the reincarnation of Louis XVI. The house had steeply sloping slate roofs, five tall chimneys, numerous second-story balconies with elaborately curled wrought-iron railings, and—capping it off—a tower. The only thing missing was Marie Antoinette prancing through the topiaries. Clearly Clint had more money than he knew what to do with.

Before she got out of her car, she tried Thad once again.

Stop messing with me and call.

She waited.

A midnight-blue Alfa Romeo whipped around the side of the house and sped down the drive onto the street. She caught a glimpse of not one but two gorgeous young women.

The pervert looked rumpled when he answered the door.

She stomped past him into the marbled entryway. “Really? Two?”

He shoved a hand through his rumpled hair. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

An unwelcome thought intruded. “Is Thad here?”

“You think I’d tell you if he was?”

Which meant he wasn’t. A relief. “I need to talk to him.”

Clint yawned and stretched, revealing one hairy armpit through the sleeve of his baggy white T-shirt. “Not my problem.”

“Don’t you dare cop an attitude with me, young man!”

That cracked him up. “Come on. I need coffee.”

“And an STD test,” she muttered.

“I heard that. Things aren’t always like they seem.”

She favored him with the disapproving humph of a septuagenarian dowager.

His kitchen was as over-the-top as the rest of house. White marble, white tile, and not one but two crystal chandeliers. “Just out of curiosity. How much did this place cost you?”

“You’d have to ask T-Bo.”

“I would if I could get hold of him!” She took in a bevy of cherubs painted on the ceiling. “And why would he know how much your house cost?”

“He’s kind of my financial adviser. He negotiated the deal. He keeps tabs on some of us younger guys to make sure we don’t blow all our money.”

She studied the chandeliers, gazed more closely at the frolicking cherubs. “He failed you.”

“Not really.” He grinned. “You have no idea how big my contract is.”

“Big enough to give raises to a lot of schoolteachers, I’m sure.”

“Now you’re playing dirty.” He pulled out one of the counter stools.

“I’ll play dirtier if you don’t tell me where Thad is.”

“You think it’s my job to keep tabs on him?”

“You’ve been doing a good job of it so far, so yes, I do.”

He leaned back on the stool. “Let’s put it this way. If he wanted you to know where he was, he’d tell you.”

“You seriously intend to withhold this information from me?”

“Yeah. ’Fraid I do.”

“Fine. Then call him for me.”

“Sure. Give me your phone.”

Damn it. He was so much smarter than he looked. “Call him from your phone.”

“That’s a definite no.”

She stated the obvious. “Because he’ll pick up for you but he won’t pick up for me.”

“You want to make me some pancakes?”

“I do not.”

“Want to go out for pancakes?”

“What I want is to talk to him.” She sounded whiny and pitiful, exactly the way she felt.

Clint cocked an eyebrow at her. “The last time you did that, things didn’t go well.”

“He told you about it?”

“Let’s just say I had to pick up the pieces you left behind.”

She winced. “I need to fix this.”

“I’m afraid your idea of fixing it might be different from his.”

“I won’t know that until I talk to him. Please. Call him on your phone.”

“Exactly how self-destructive do you think I am? I need him.”

The stubborn set of his jaw told her no amount of pressure would make him agree. Who else would know where he was? Maybe his friend Ritchie Collins, the Stars’ wide receiver she’d met that night in Phoenix? “Ritchie! How do I find him?”

“Ritchie’s on a mission trip to Haiti with his church.”

“Shit. Who are his other friends on the team?”

“Most everybody, but if you think I’m handing over a roster, you’re wrong.”

“His agent, then. He has to talk to his agent, right?”

Clint gave her an oily smile. “A guy named Heath Champion. The top sports agent in the business. And a word of advice: they don’t call him ‘the Python’ for nothing.”

*  *  *

Superagent Heath Champion’s office was all intimidation with lacquered walls, luxury leather, and a set of silver-framed family photos to give it a human touch—a pretty auburn-haired woman and some children. The man himself—rugged, hard-edged, handsome in an intimidating way—regarded her with cool politeness. “That would be a violation of agent-client privilege.”

“I’m not going to kill him!” she exclaimed. “I just want to talk to him.”

He gazed at her over his desk. “So you’ve said. But Thad’s had some stalking incidents in the past.”

“Do I look like a stalker?”

“You do seem a little unhinged.”

And that was why they called him the Python.

She was getting nowhere, although she did contemplate the possibility of trading her own easygoing agent for this hard-edged browbeater. She planted her hands on his desk and leaned forward. “Throw me a bone, Mr. Champion. Who can I talk to who won’t care so much about your precious agent-client privilege?”

Six hours later, she was in Louisville, Kentucky.

*  *  *

Thad’s mother was the coldest, most hostile woman Olivia had ever met. Understandably so, Olivia reluctantly admitted, since Dawn Owens also believed Olivia was stalking her son.

She appeared to be in her fifties, but Olivia calculated she was older. She could have been a model for senior fashions with her slender body, light brown bob, good skin, and Thad’s perfect nose.

“I’m not a stalker. I swear,” Olivia said, which only made her seem more like a stalker. She tried to peer past Mrs. Owens’s tall silhouette into the front hallway of the Owenses’ colonial-style home: brass wall sconces, a grandfather clock, no Thad. She tried again. “I’m Olivia Shore. Google me. I’m completely respectable. Thad and I traveled together for a month promoting Marchand Timepieces. We’re friends. And I—” She knew she was looking crazier by the second, but she couldn’t help herself. “And I love him. With all my heart.”

Mrs. Owens pointed toward the street. “Leave before I call the police.”

Olivia gave it one more try. “I’ve driven all the way from Chicago. Is he here?”

Thad’s mother turned her head toward the foyer. “Greg, call the police.”

A deep, male voice—but not the one she wanted to hear—rumbled from inside the house. “Thad’s on the phone, Dawn. He says to let her in and feed her, but that’s all. Hold on. Uh-huh . . . Uh-huh . . . He says if she seems like she’s drunk, put her up in his room for the night and don’t let her drive, but kick her out first thing in the morning.”

Totally defeated, Olivia rubbed her cheek and turned away toward the front sidewalk. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“Wait,” Dawn Owens said from behind her. “Come in.”

*  *  *

Thad’s old bedroom was disappointingly stripped of his childhood mementos. The ivory walls displayed a series of floral watercolors instead of sports posters. There were no shelves full of Little League trophies, no abandoned Trapper Keepers, or boxes of old mix tapes. It wasn’t as though his parents had forgotten him, however. The downstairs was filled with photographs of Thad at every stage of his life.

His father, Greg, was an accountant, a good-looking one—tall and lean like his son, but with salt-and-pepper hair. Over dinner last night, he’d confessed to Olivia he had little interest in football unless his son was in the game. “I’d rather read. Dawn’s the athletic one.”

“I played division three varsity basketball all through college,” Dawn said.

Despite Thad’s directive, his parents had not kicked her out first thing this morning, but since it was already ten o’clock and she had another performance the following night, she needed to get on the road. As she packed up the toiletries she’d tossed in her overnight bag before she’d left Chicago, Dawn spoke up from her perch on the side of the guest bed. “I wish you could stay longer.”

“Me, too. You really didn’t need to put me up, you know. I could have found a hotel.”

“But then I’d have missed the opportunity to entertain a world-famous opera singer.”

Olivia smiled. “At least now you know I’m not a stalker.”

Dawn laughed, not at all embarrassed. “Or a big drinker, despite what Thad said. That boy . . .”

“Is a menace.” Last night, Olivia had told Dawn far more than she’d intended about her relationship with Thad, including an account of her drunken tussle with him on the terrace that first night in Phoenix. Thad’s mother had proven to be the perfect listener—nonjudgmental, sympathetic, and unshockable.

Olivia had to ask. “Do you have any advice for me?”

“I’d love nothing more than for things to work out between the two of you.”

Olivia heard the hesitation in her voice. “But?”

“But . . . I’m not saying this to hurt you.” She busied herself rubbing her hands along the thighs of her khaki slacks. “I’ve never known Thad not to go after something he really wants.”

The truth of those words cut right through her. If Thad wanted her, he would have talked to her by now.

*  *  *

On Friday, the day of the next performance, she took a late-morning yoga class, picked at her lunch, and nursed her pain. She wanted to cry, but she stomped around her apartment instead—livid with herself for falling for such an insensitive, arrogant jerk.

Her anger took her through another spectacular performance.

Only as she lay on Radamès’s tomb, mourning the part she’d played in his death, did the fog clear from her brain. She’d learned a lot about herself recently, things she wanted to share with him. Things he did not want her to share.

As Aida and Radamès died behind the tomb walls, she saw herself years from now, padding to her apartment door just like Batista Neri, her hair lusterless from the black dye she’d use to conceal her gray. Maybe wearing a similar pair of run-down bedroom slippers. She’d let her students in one by one, doing her best to train them, even as she couldn’t quite suppress the bitterness that she no longer possessed the voice or the stamina to sing Amneris or Azucena. That she didn’t have the agility to play Cherubino. That she’d be laughed off the stage if she attempted the sultry Carmen.

That was her future. Unless . . .

*  *  *

“What’s behind your sudden desire to cook for me?” Clint asked from his perch on one of the counter stools in his over-the-top kitchen.

“Guilt for dumping my problems with Thad on you.” She made killer salads and decent omelets, so how hard could it be to whip up a tasty pasta sauce? She gazed at the mess she’d made chopping a giant yellow onion. It didn’t look like the ones on cooking shows.

“You’re not too good with a knife,” Clint said.

“I’m very good with a knife. It’s just that I mainly use it to stab people. Or, depending on the role, myself.”

“You do know how to make pasta, right? You said your special sauce was a recipe handed down from your Italian great-grandmother.”

Her great-grandmother was actually German. “Something like that.”

He eyed the package of ground turkey she’d bought, along with the rest of the ingredients. “I didn’t know Italians use turkey in their meat sauce.”

“I’m eastern Italian. And instead of standing there making cracks about my cooking, would you check my car windows? I think I left them down, and it’s supposed to rain.”

“Who knew you’d be such a bad date?”

“A reminder not to pursue older women.”

“Hey! You called me!”

“Windows, please.”

He threw up his hands and headed out the back. The second the door closed behind him, she dashed for the end of the counter where he’d unwisely left his phone.

*  *  *

The pasta was underdone, the sauce too sweet from all the sugar she’d dumped in to counteract an overabundance of thyme and oregano. After a couple of bites, Clint set aside his fork. “What part of Italy did you say your great-grandmother was from, and did they happen to have a lot of famine there?”

She poked at the mess on her own plate. “I’m new to cooking.”

“Next time, practice on somebody else.”

The doorbell rang. She curled her bare toes around the rungs of the stool she was sitting on.

“If that’s one of my girlfriends,” Clint said as he rose, “you’re out of here.”

“Ingrate.”

The moment he left the kitchen, she hurried to the doorway, but the house was the size of an aircraft carrier, and she couldn’t eavesdrop. Why did a single guy have to live in such a monstrosity?

She wasn’t able to make out anything they were saying, not even a rumble, until she could. “Olivia!”

It was Clint.

She was suddenly more nervous than before she walked onstage. She wanted to run out the back door, get in her car, and make this all go away. Instead, she forced herself from the kitchen, turned three corners, and walked down the long stretch of hallway toward the two towering figures waiting for her. One of them stood quietly, but the other was irate. “You took my phone!” Clint exclaimed. “What the fuck, Livia?”

The text she’d sent had been right to the point.

T-Bo, I broke my wrist. Can you come to my house right away?

“I only borrowed your phone,” she muttered, which, she knew, missed the point.

Clint threw up both of his big hands. “You got his hopes up that he’d start for the Stars this fall!”

She hadn’t thought about that part.

Clint stormed upstairs. “She’s all yours.”