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“I loved you, too,” I confessed, “but we both understood our relationship had an expiration date.”
I waited for him to say more, but there was just the hum of silence, both of us having said everything pertinent.
“I’m never going to tell anyone about what we had, Eric. I’d never tell anyone about the other girls, either, but I’m not going to stop living my life because you have some misogynistic concept of ownership. You have your trophies. Let’s leave it at that.”
“I should go.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling the empty victory for what it was.
“You take care of yourself.”
“You, too.”
Eric hung up, and Kenzie slumped back into the couch, face neutral. She was staring at me, waiting for me to say something other thanI told you so. I wasn’t going to say it because I think part of her had been right, especially my freshman year when I was naive and oblivious to what was going on. But, on the other hand, perhaps I’d been grateful for his friendship and guidance, and maybe he’d used that to gain my trust to get to what he wanted. Either way, it didn’t matter. Whatever Eric and I’d had, it was over and gone for good.
“Do you feel better for calling?” Kenzie finally asked me.
“It’s a different kind of closure.”
“Who knew you were a little heartbreaker.”
“Never my intention.”
“You give good loving,” she said with a laugh, her straight face cracking into a smile.
“Oh, shut up.”
“I kinda knew that from the photos.”
“Kenzie!”
“Too soon?” she asked, reaching for my hand, pulling me onto the couch with her.
I landed on her with a huff and pinched her hip in protest, making her squeal with laughter. I was glad to see at least some things never changed.
ChapterFive
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Iheard Noah’s footsteps coming through the house, even out by the pool. Noah had a beautiful infinity pool on the deck of his hill house, and I loved to watch the sun hit the horizon over the city from inside the heated water. That he understood my enjoyment meant he headed straight for me.
I looked over my shoulder when his hurried steps hit the decking around the pool, and I smiled at his messy hair and bright eyes. Since we’d been back from our trip on the Darling, he’d been doubling his efforts to find an investor while his team worked on finding a script they thought he might want to produce as well as star in.
“That’s a good smile,” I noted, turning my back on the sunset as Noah dropped what he was carrying onto a lounger and started to strip down to his boxer briefs. “What are you—?”
He was in the pool before I could finish the sentence, his long, toned body cutting through the water until he surfaced right in front of me, hands on my hips, lips crushing mine in a bruising kiss.
My fingers found their way into the wet strands of his hair. I took the time to indulge in the kiss and the man. Noah was almost vibrating in excitement, his hands sliding around my back so his arms could pull me tighter against him. He was the one to break the kiss between us, his body pressing mine against the wall of the pool, and his eyes reflecting the lavenders of the sunset.
“We found a script,” he said in victory.
“You did?” Two days seemed quick to me, but I was clueless when it came to the inner workings of Hollywood and the pursuit of filmmaking. I supposed if you contacted the right people, and the wheels were set in motion by a team, anything was possible. “Tell me about it.”
“It’s a typical action script—lots of explosions and gunfire—but it has a great love story at the heart of it, too. My character is ex-military, struggling to find work and live life normally now he’s discharged. He ends up getting janitorial work just to make some money, and he meets a crazy, sexy scientist in the building where he’s working. They start flirting, and eventually, he asks her out on a date. They fall in love, and he does better. At her suggestion, he finds work as a bodyguard. Then one day, she doesn’t come home, and he finds out her lab has been working on some chemical warfare shit, and she’s been kidnapped, so he has to hunt them down and rescue her.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“It’s well written. Heartfelt, too, but the guy who wrote it had a buddy who was ex-special ops and helped him out with terminology and tactics and shit, which means it’s well though out, too. He only submitted it this week, so we snapped up the option before anyone else could.”
