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I wantedthisto be real. I was so afraid that it was history repeating itself. The high-powered studio head and the naive assistant who thought it was love. “Just you,” I whispered. The truth. The small part of it I could tell him.
“You’ve got me.” He pushed up on his elbow and looked down at me. “Do I have you?”
I laughed a little as I nodded. Not because it was funny, but because it was ridiculous. Did he have me? Of course he did. He’d have part of me forever.
Far longer than he would want once the truth came out.
24
JULIAN
Things fell into place over the next few months so beautifully it felt like the hand of fate had decided to throw the game my way. Michio never got hurt the way Miller was increasingly fearing that he would. Everything was cleared for Miller to continue documenting at the Olympics–he just wasn’t allowed inside the gates of Olympic Village. Callum’s agent occasionally asked how that skateboarding kid was doing, which told me Callum was following the story somehow. He still hadn’t signed the paperwork on our latest offer, but I had a feeling it was getting closer and closer.
On Wednesday evening, as I was about to close up shop and head home to meet Willow, Dana came into my office. I knew instantly she was the bearer of good news. It wasn’t a walk so much as a strut. She flipped her golden hair over her shoulders and put her hands on her hips. “Guess. Fucking. What.”
“Callum signed?” I guessed.
“Not yet, but he might as well have, because Fletcher James just signed his own death certificate. He’s not waving the white flag so much as setting that motherfucker on fire. He’s–” Dana threw up her hands, words escaping her.
I laughed, pleased, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what she was talking about. “Fletcher is presumably still alive?” I checked.
“For all intents and purposes, but he’s out of the running forAll the Dying Light.” Dana collapsed in the chair opposite my desk. She nodded toward my computer. “Check your email.”
I’d already closed it down, but I opened it back up now. I found it immediately. An email from our father. The subject line read:Fletcher James is an idiot.I raised my eyebrows at Dana significantly. She nodded back. “Keep reading.”
Our father went on to tell a story about how he had gone golfing with the rest of the former industry movers and shakers in his retirement crew. One of them told him about how Fletcher’s latest play forAll the Dying Lightwas offering to finance an anti-veganism documentary.
I looked up at Dana again, disbelief and laughter expanding in my throat. “That fucking idiot,” I marveled.
“Fucking idiot,” Dana agreed, laughing with me. “Can you believe it?”
“I really can’t.”
“This calls for a celebratory dinner,” she said, already rising to her feet.
I stood up, too, but I shook my head. “Another night. I have to get home.” I didn’t have to say why. Dana knew. Willow and I spent almost every evening together, but last night had been an exception. Tuesday night happy hour with the guys still took precedence, especially now that their lives were so busy.
“Oh my God, why won’t you just introduce me to her already,” Dana griped. “Invite her out with us.”
I considered it, but I had a feeling Willow would decline. She never wanted to be seen out together in public. Her career, she said. “Why don’t you come over?” I offered instead. “I want you to get to know her.”
Dana glanced at the calendar on my desk. “I’m not driving to Venice for a girl you’ve already been dating for three months,” she decided, flipping open the clasp on her purse.
“What? Why not?”
“Because six months is your limit, so she’ll be gone in another three.” Dana flipped her hair over her shoulder. She was rummaging around in her purse now, like she hadn’t said anything particularly noteworthy.
“She’s not going to be gone in three,” I said, and the ice in my voice startled her.
She looked caught off guard. Confused. Like I’d just told her my name wasn’t Julian or something equally incomprehensible. “Oh, I–sorry. I didn’t mean to–” she flapped her hand, like she wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. Then she let her arm fall to the side, palm up. The other one rose to match it. “It’s just that…well, you kind of have a pattern, Julian.”
I knew I had a pattern. I was the one caught in the damn thing. And that was how I could say with unshakable certainty that Willow wasn’t a part of the old pattern. She was something entirely new. “She’s not going to be gone in three,” I repeated, unable to explain it any other way.
Dana let her arms fall back to her side. After a moment, she nodded. “Good. Great. Then…I guess I’ll drive to Venice one day to meet her. Not today, though,” she added quickly.
I thought about the conversation with my sister on the way home. Willow and I had been doing whatever the hell it was we were doing for three months, and the only living thing in her life she’d introduced me to was Camper. I knew a collection of names, but I couldn’t put them with faces because I’d never seen them. And I knew her mom had been back in town for a month, but Willow hadn’t once mentioned introducing us.
When I got home, Willow was already in the kitchen. She wasn’t cooking, thank God. She had tried once or twice, and then we’d agreed to leave it to me. She was sitting at one of the barstools, a glass of water to the right of her laptop, a frown pulling down her pretty mouth.
