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“Not okay,” he says, shoving in more noodles and cleaning up the sauce on his jaw with his hand. “What hurts is that you would think the worst about me.”
“You don’t know what I was thinking.”
He sets the bowl down and brings ice green eyes to mine. “Let me see if I can take a guess. You were thinking, movie star, he’s probably found someone to fuck on set.”
Guilty, my eyes drop.
“Let’s analyze this and then table it because I’ve been trying pretty damn hard from the onset to make myself clear. I want to build something with you. And I can’t do it alone. I’m not a movie star, I’m an actor. And I love my job, but it’s my job. I want the same things as everyone else, a place to call home, reciprocal love. I’m not at the place of party and pussy anymore.”
“Geesh, okay,” I say, gathering our dishes. “We haven’t been dating that long.”
“Three months,” he says pointedly, grabbing my wrist. “Longer, really. All of that time apart counts. Those phone calls count. It’s a part of it. This time apart was a test we passed, no thanks to you.”
“I wasn’t going to—”
“You were a woman who thought she’d been scorned which made you unpredictable. You have no idea what you would have done.”
I sit at the edge of the bed next to his muscled thigh and look over to where he rests against my headboard. “This is hard, Lucas.”
“Just as hard for me,” he says unwavering. “All relationships are hard. Right?”
“Right.”
“Just try to have a little more faith in me, in us, and trust.” He leans over and sucks my nipple into his mouth tugging the taut skin softly with his teeth. And then his hands, his perfect hands are on my skin, and I’m underneath him. Hovering above me as I lay panting, he doesn’t move just stares down at me expectantly.
“Okay. I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“Good, because I propose you agree to a few more things,” he murmurs before turning me into a puddle of agreement beneath him.
“Hit ‘em, knock ‘em over—with an attitude, with a word, with a look.”—Marlon Brando
Lucas
TWO AND HALF MONTHS AGO
“Hey, boss,” Nova calls out to me where I sit in a director’s chair on set. “We’re about forty in of forty-five.” I nod in acknowledgment, and she leaves me to prep. Satisfied with what I’ve rehearsed, I let my eyes drift from the script to the clouds above trying to blink away the fatigue. I refuse to let it slow me down. Body aching from lack of sleep, I stretch my neck and arms as exhaustion threatens to set in. Batting away my needs, I think of Maddie, of the way she worked me constantly to rid me of all selfish thoughts while she prepped me. Though she mercilessly drilled into me that the emotions of my characters mattered most, Maddie had her own points of weakness. In all our years together, I can only think of one time that she begrudgingly revealed them to me.
I take the cracked cement steps to her trailer and knock twice before I open the door.
“Maddie,” I call softly before I close it behind me. Sunlight streams through the window past the sheet in the empty living room. I never take my shoes off at home, but I do at Maddie’s because she keeps her carpets clean. Sliding them off, I call her name again.
“Go home, boy,” she orders from her bedroom. “We aren’t running lines today.”
Too excited to mind her, I run to her bedroom. “I brought you something.”
“Lucas,” she scolds when I reach the threshold and see her lifting to sit in her robe. She doesn’t have any makeup on, and there’s an empty bottle next to her nightstand.
“You aren’t supposed to drink, it will dry out your skin.”
“Do as I say, not as I do,” she says, gathering tissues and tossing them in the seashell covered wastebasket next to her. “I’m tired, boy, run on home. We can run lines tomorrow.”
“It’s okay, I just,” I approach the bed and hold out the drawing. “I made you something.”
She straightens up further, and her eyes focus on the paper I have in hand. She takes it from me and studies it until her eyes start to spill.
“I didn’t want to make you cry,” I say, backing away.
“You drew this?” she asks, her voice chalky. “It’s pretty good.”
