Chapter 113: Let’s Start Over

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Nolan left the adult-video catalog on the kitchen counter for exactly eight seconds before deciding that was a terrible place for it.

He folded it twice, shoved it into a drawer, and turned around to find Katherine Walker standing in the doorway with one eyebrow raised.

"Do I want to know?"

"No."

"Good answer."

The house had become a staging area for Hawaii. Katherine, Mia, Charlize, and Susan had luggage open across the living room. Grace had extended the school trip into a five-day stay plus the weekend, Lisa had covered the upgraded expenses, and Susan had somehow turned the hotel arrangements into a small military operation.

Charlize held up a swimsuit against herself. "Too much?"

"For Hawaii?" Nolan said. "Probably not."

"For you?"

"Definitely."

She laughed and threw a rolled towel at him.

Mia looked up from a list. "How is Kate Moss?"

"Alive. Angry. Bored already."

Katherine’s expression sharpened. "And the press?"

"Thinks I am a dangerous gentleman."

"That sounds about right."

Charlize leaned on the back of the couch. "Did you really knock down Johnny Depp?"

"He tried to hit me."

"That is not a no."

"It is the explanation."

Katherine folded a shirt with unnecessary precision. "Kate’s whole image is fragile waif. You probably sneezed and broke something."

"That is cruel."

"It is also a reminder to avoid fashion models with bones made of cigarettes."

Nolan nearly smiled.

His phone rang before he could answer. Leo DiCaprio.

"I am sorry," Leo said the moment Nolan picked up. "I mean it. I did not know it would turn into this."

"Your mother said anything?"

"She keeps bringing you up, which is a whole separate nightmare. She also said Kate has no shame and that you should have left."

"Your mother is right on the second part."

"Only the second?"

"I am choosing mercy."

Leo laughed weakly. "Thank you for not telling reporters I introduced you."

"You owe me."

"I know."

"Start by not introducing me to anyone else for a week."

After Leo hung up, Kate called.

Nolan let it ring.

She called again.

Then again.

On the fourth call, he answered.

"You are persistent."

"I am bored," Kate said. Her voice was softer than it had been in the hospital. Pain medication and humiliation had sanded off the edges. "And I wanted to introduce myself properly."

"We met."

"Not properly. Katherine Ann Moss. Everyone calls me Kate because Sarah made it sound sharper."

"Nolan Callahan."

"Let’s start over."

"From the part before the ambulance?"

"From the part where I say thank you."

He did not answer at once.

"Your statement helped," he said.

"It was true enough."

"That is not the same thing."

"It is in my business."

She gave a quiet laugh, then inhaled too quickly and stopped.

"My car key is still at the medical center," she said. "If you are as responsible as you looked on television, you can bring it to me."

"That is a trap."

"Yes."

He went anyway.

At Cedars-Sinai, Kate’s room had already become a small fortress of flowers, garment bags, agency calls, and controlled panic. Her mother had flown in from England and looked at Nolan with the cold politeness of someone measuring how much blame she could assign without starting an international incident.

Kate dismissed her with a few clipped words. The room grew easier after she left.

"Sarah wanted to ban you from visiting," Kate said. "I told her I would scream."

"Healthy coping strategy."

"It works."

She had a bed tray, oranges, water, and a stack of magazines she clearly hated. The brace made her movement awkward. For a moment, the famous face fell away and she was just a twenty-year-old woman trapped in a body that had betrayed her.

When she needed help with the bedpan, pride left the room before Nolan did.

"You do not have to," she said, staring at the ceiling.

"I caused enough of this to help clean up the consequences."

He handled it with the same practical calm he would have used taping a teammate’s wrist. No joke. No stare. No intimacy stolen from vulnerability. That, more than anything, made Kate look at him differently when he washed his hands.

"I can quit cigarettes," she said suddenly.

"Good."

"And pills."

"Also good."

"Do not sound so doubtful."

"I sound experienced."

She rolled her eyes. "Runways make me nervous. Shoots make everyone touch you. Photographers offer things when they want you loose. You learn habits early."

"Then unlearn them."

"You make it sound easy."

"No. I make it sound necessary."

She studied him. "Do you want to know about my boyfriends?"

"Not particularly."

"Mario Sorrenti. Johnny Depp."

"That is a complicated list."

"It gets worse if I count campaign nightmares. Mark Wahlberg was never my boyfriend, just the man from the Calvin Klein work who made me hate going to that set."

"Naomi introduced me to Johnny. He was charming, and then he was Johnny." Kate stared at the ceiling again. "Temper, jealousy, chaos. I wanted out before you. You just made it obvious."

"Glad to be useful."

"What about you?"

"Irish-American. Raised in California. High-school senior. Football problem."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the version cleared for hospital release."

She smiled despite herself.

Before Nolan left, Kate lifted one hand. He looked at it, then bumped his fist gently against hers.

"Hawaii," she said. "Call me after."

"Recover first."

Outside, Jennifer’s agent called in a panic.

"Did you tell reporters Jennifer was joining the cheer squad in Hawaii?"

"I said if her schedule allowed it."

"Her album work cannot pause every time a handsome football player creates national gossip."

"Then say no."

There was a long silence.

"How many cameras were there?"

"Enough."

"Fine. She goes. The album waits three days."

That should have solved one problem. It created another.

Sarah Michelle Gellar refused to let Jennifer join the cheer line.

"She is not on the squad," Sarah said in Grace’s office, arms folded. "She does not know our routines."

"She has dance training," Grace said. "You will place her where she does not break formations."

"This is not a music video."

"It is also not your personal monarchy."

Sarah’s face went stiff.

By the time the BHHS group boarded the flight to Honolulu, Jennifer had a cheer uniform packed, Sarah had a grudge packed twice as neatly, and Nolan had accepted that Hawaii would not be restful.

Across the Pacific, a student volunteer named Margaret Quigley waited at St. Louis School with a clipboard and rumors.

The Hollywood team was coming.

Someone had told her their quarterback ate raw meat.

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