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“When is the moving company coming?”
“They’re not.”
She gives me a confused look. “Then, how are you getting your stuff here?”
“I have a few boxes in my car.”
She attempts to get up from the steps, and I extend my hand to her. When her fingers slip between mine, a rush of electricity shoots up my arm. I release my grip on her, running my hand down my jeans to get rid of the strange feeling.
“What about your furniture?”
“The owner rented the house turnkey.”
“What about books or pictures?”
“I’m a minimalist,” I confess. “I only buy what I can carry. And I’m not a sentimental person.”
“What kind of minimalist lives in a Beverly Hills mansion by themselves and owns three luxury cars?”
She has me there.
“I like cars and houses. I care little for personal possessions.”
“How come?”
I consider her question for a second and tell her something few people know. “When I was ten years old, my house caught on fire. We lost everything but the clothes on our backs. It taught me a valuable lesson.”
“And what’s that?”
“Material possessions are pointless. My parents didn’t have enough money to replace my video games and comic books, and I got along fine without them.”
She gives me a mischievous look. “You read comic books?”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“You look more like the captain of the football team, not the president of the chess club.”
I wiggle my eyebrows. “Looks can be deceiving.”
Willow pushes open the front door and invites me inside.
She leads me down a long hallway and stops in front of the second door on our right. “This is your room.”
* * *
After I dump my boxes into the bedroom, I sit on the edge of the bed, wondering how the fuck I ended up here. I had one of the most promising careers in Hollywood until a few years ago.
What went wrong?
I had the house, the cars, the smoking hot actress girlfriend, millions of adoring fans, and studios throwing money at me left and right. And now, I’m living in a guest bedroom in my agent’s house. This is officially the dumbest thing I have done.
Willow pops her head into my room, a smile in place. “I’m ordering pizza. You cool with that?”
“Yeah, sounds good. I like pepperoni, extra cheese.”
I close the distance between us, and Willow sucks in a deep breath. She feels that connection between us, palpable energy that hangs in the air, thick like fog.
Willow is gorgeous, with a smoking body that could get me into trouble. She’s bossy and demanding, not afraid to call me out on my shit. I like that about her. She seems to know what she wants when I can barely get out of bed in the morning. And she’s the only person willing to risk their future to save mine.
I can’t be the Nico everyone thinks I am.
“Sit with me,” Willow says as she walks out of my bedroom. I catch up with her in the hallway, and she adds, “We can get to know each other better while we wait for the pizza. I want to know everything that makes Nico Chase tick.”
I move into the living room and sit at the farthest end of the couch from her. I don’t want to open up to a stranger. My friends don’t even know the reasons for my slow decline. Some movies make a career, while others can destroy it.
Willow crosses her legs, drawing my attention to the skirt riding up her long, lean thighs. Her fingers move across the keypad of her phone, and then she drops it onto the coffee table.
“The pizza will be here within the hour. So, let’s chat. What projects do you want to pursue?”
“I just want to work again,” I confess. “I miss acting.”
“Start with your old theater group. It’s a step in the right direction.”
I shove a hand through my messy hair that I hadn’t bothered to comb before moving out of my house. “This is humiliating.”
She slides across the couch cushion, though, keeping her distance. “Everyone has to start somewhere.”
“I already paid my dues.”
“People in this town are harsh but not unforgiving. So, tell me something about yourself, something no one knows.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“When did you drink all the time?”
“Before we wrapped on Twelve Steps.”
“You took the role too far,” she hedges. “A lot of method actors go the distance for a character. But they rarely assume that role for years after the movie wraps. Is your drinking a problem we need to address?”
I consider her question for a long, hard moment. Most mornings, I wake with the stale taste of scotch on my breath with a migraine pounding at the base of my skull. Do I have a problem?
“No… I don’t know. I can stop drinking.”
