The tinted glass separating the front and back rolled down enough for him to politely hand me back my clothes. Shockingly, everything except one sock was there.
In a minute, the car started moving, and I was finished getting dressed before we turned back onto the main road back to town.
“I know I shouldn’t blame my mother,” came Dalton’s voice. The glass divider was already rolled up again, so it had to be coming from a speaker.
“Hello?”
“Are you talking? I can’t hear you unless you push that green button on the ceiling.”
I looked up and spotted the button. Of course! Now that I saw the button, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been able to find it when Vern was driving me out to Dragonfly Lake.
“You don’t have to talk,” Dalton said.
I pressed the button. “This is weird.”
His laugh crackled over the speakers. “It might be easier to tell you this way.”
“What?” A dozen horrible thoughts raced through my head, including but not limited to the following:
He was married.
He was dying of an incurable illness.
He was leaving town tonight.
He never wanted to see me again, but thanks for the fun.
“I was born into an adult film star family,” he said. “Also known as p**n stars.”
I had no response for that at first, but after a moment, I pressed the green button and said, “Congratulations?”
“My mother, my father, and their girlfriend were all p**n actors. Correction. Some of them continue to currently be p**n actors.”
I stared at the tinted glass on the driver’s side, where the outline of his head was barely visible.
“And that’s my big secret.”
I pressed the green button. “I didn’t know that about you.”
“Nobody does, except my attorney. When I was sixteen, I ran away from home with a… family friend. That was when I moved to New York and lived in that awful apartment I told you about. It was really stupid of me to trust someone who was barely more than a kid herself, mentally. I had no idea how dangerous it was.”
“I understand. I did some dangerous things when I was about that age.”
We continued to drive along the road into town, the trees outside the windows being interspersed with farmhouses and lawns. Who was this family friend he’d run away with? I didn’t feel jealous, so much as fiercely protective of a young and naive Dalton Deangelo.
He wasn’t talking, so I pressed the green button again. “So, I’m guessing Dalton isn’t your real name?”
“Do you hate me for lying to you?”
“I don’t hate you. And you lied to the whole world, so I know I’m not that special.”
“Ouch.”
I sat back in the seat and crossed my arms.
He continued, “Everything else I told you is true. My family members were fine with keeping the secret. As long as the checks kept coming. I’m always looking over my shoulder, though. That reporter, Brooke Summer, has a major hard-on for getting some dirt on me.”
I leaned forward and jabbed the green button. “She’s a phony piece of shit.”
“And a lousy lay.”
I sat back, crossing my arms again. I couldn’t see his face, so I had no idea if he was joking or not.
Dalton continued, “Full disclosure. I slept with Brooke once, after an awards function. It was the kind of dirty sex you regret while you’re still doing it. I took off right after and didn’t give her the intimate interview she’d been after, and then I refused to take her calls.”
Ugh. The image of Dalton and that woman. Together. I felt sick, a gritty nausea deep in my stomach. And his parents were in p**n o movies? I liked to think of myself as being open-minded and progressive, but I’d seen enough reality shows about the adult film business to know it had a real seedy side. And he’d been raised around all those people. What would that even do to a kid? I couldn’t imagine.
I pressed the intercom button. “Is that everything?”
“Yes, Peaches. That’s everything. I’m an open book to you. I hope you won’t tell anyone, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if my secret got out. I was only in a few adult films myself, and it was credited to other fake names.”
I pressed my fingers to my lips, horrified. He’d been in a few adult films? How many? Not that it mattered. Even one was too many.
He continued, “Okay, now that’s everything. I was underage when I did those films, so if word gets out it’s me, they’ll have to pull them. They won’t be able to profit. Of course, it will get leaked, and the gossip sites will run screencaps, and I’ll be a laughingstock with limited career options when my show inevitably ends, but I won’t die. You can’t die of shame, can you?”
The tinted screen was still up between us, and I was glad he couldn’t see the horrified look on my face. I’d just had sex with a former p**n star—a former underage p**n star who was himself the offspring of p**n stars. My emotions were truly split. I was both horrified and also insanely proud, like that one time I drank vodka shots too quickly and threw up a little in my mouth.
I f**ked a p**n star.
Maybe I was a fun girl, after all.
“Peaches?”
“I’m still here. And no, I don’t think a person can die of shame.” I licked my lips, choosing my words carefully. “It’s very brave of you to bare yourself to me. It takes great strength to be vulnerable.”
“That’s really nice to hear. You’re a sweet girl, do you know that? I’m always slobbering over your hot body like a damn fool, but you’re the real deal. The whole package. You’re a triple threat: cute, smart, funny.”
The car came to a stop, and I blinked at the tinted window, surprised to see the front lawn of my house.
I turned and looked up at the green button on the ceiling. I could just press it and tell him my secret, too. My heart sped up at the thought, my cheeks flushing.
Instead, I pushed the car door open, jumped out, and ran all the way to my house without saying goodbye.
Trespassing? A sordid p**n star past? It was all too much. Way too much.
~
When I ran from Dalton’s car into my house, part of me expected him to chase me. Not a big part of me—because I’ve never been the type of girl guys fight for—but a small, hopeful, pathetic part of me.