“I had a feeling you did,” he says, and he can’t stop grinning.
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Why would it bother me?”
“I don’t know,” I say with a shrug.
“Do you masturbate when you read your erotic novels?”
“Yes.”
“I would love to watch you sometime.”
My eyes widen with shock. “You would?”
“Of course,” he says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world, when it never occurred to me he would. Or anyone would want to. “I want to know how you touch yourself.”
My skin is burning again, and if we keep talking like this, I’ll be doing a striptease for him in the middle of the stage. But I can’t seem to resist. I reach for him, trailing my hand through his hair. I love the way his hair is so soft under my fingers. He sighs deeply, and leans close to me, resting his forehead against mine. “Jill,” he says in a low voice.
“Davis,” I say, and that’s all, because there’s nothing more to be said. Then we’re silent like that, quiet for a few moments, and there’s something very comforting about being with him, as the snow falls outside, and we’re inside. But soon I break the silence.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Did I taste like sin and heaven?”
He nods, then presses his lips lightly to my forehead. “You are my sin.” He brushes them gently against my earlobe. “And my heaven.” Then the barest of kisses on my lips. “And everything in between.”
Then he pulls back, and his expression has changed from the softness of the moment to a steely one. “And I hate that you’re in love with Patrick. I hate it. Because it makes me crazy to want you this much and to know how you feel for him. It makes me utterly insane.”
I open my mouth to say something, to deny it, to ask how he knew it was Patrick. But I stop, because he’s right. And he’s waiting for me to offer a denial, but when no words come, he stands up and turns away from me, his voice suddenly cool as he reminds me why I’m here. “We need to get back to work.”
“Do you want to do that scene again?” I ask tentatively, the words coming out all choppy.
He shakes his head, and waves a hand dismissively. “The blocking is fine. We’ll work on your solos.”
So we spend the next two hours working and nothing more. When we’re done, he holds open the door for the car, but doesn’t join me. And of course, that’s because he doesn’t want anything more from this actress.
* * *
Reeve grunts as he bench presses a heavy set of barbells. He’s working out even more as he preps for his leading role in Escorted Lives.
We’re at his gym in the East Village early the next morning after a run. I do bicep curls with ten-pound weights, to the sounds of dumbbells hitting the floor and machines slamming down.
“How did you know it was real?”
“What do you mean?” He gives me a curious look.
“With Sutton,” I say, as if he should be able to follow the random thoughts that have percolated in my head since my last private rehearsal with Davis.
“Ah,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “With the complicated, vexing, inscrutable Ms. Brenner.”
“Yeah. How did you know that you were feeling something for real?” I switch to triceps. No flabby chicken arms for me. “Or that she was?”
He pushes the barbell up for one more rep then places it in the rack. He sits up on the bench, elbows on his knees.
“It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. She was a tough one. Hard to read. Lots of layers of self-protection there. Took a while before I could really figure out if it was real.”
“And even then she tried to deny it,” I say, remembering when Reeve came to my apartment a few days before my Crash the Moon audition, completely flummoxed over what to do next with her. Before he laid it all on the line for her.
“That’s my woman. She could put up walls like no one I’ve ever seen.”
“Hmm,” I say, as I push my arm back for another curl. If Reeve only knew about my walls. My secrets.
“Is this about Patrick?” he asks, tilting his head to the side and pushing a hand through his brown hair.
“Yeah, of course,” I say quickly. Too quickly. Because my mind isn’t on Patrick at all. But it should be.
“He’s doing that whole let’s-be-friends-first thing?”
“Yep.”
Nearby, a burly man with a worn blue t-shirt that shows off arms as big as tires brings a set of weights to the ground. They clang loudly. “Are you going to go out with him again on another of these,” he stops to sketch air quotes, “Friends dates?”
“I hope so,” I say. Then once more, as if the repetition will make it true. “I hope so.”
Because I do hope for Patrick. I hope that I can connect with him the way I’ve always wanted to. That it can deepen now that he’s a real thing in my life. It has to. Really, it has to.
“What do friends do next?”
“I don’t know. I can’t ask him to dinner. That would feel like a date. And we’ve already done coffee.”
He wiggles his eyebrows as he stands up from the bench. “I know what you can do!”
“What?” I ask eagerly, my eyes lighting up.
“Bowling. There’s that bowling alley in the Port Authority. It’s awesome. It’s two blocks from the St. James so you can go there some evening after rehearsal.”