“I could say the same for you.”
“I am happy,” I say, even though there’s a hollow ring to the words.
“What about you? Are you being careful with your new show?”
I pick up a fork and twirl it between my thumb and forefinger, looking away. “Yes,” I mutter, because now she’s back to seeing right through me.
She presses her palms together, almost as if she’s praying. “Please tell me you’re not falling for some captivating young actress who’ll break your heart again?”
I drop the fork.
“Oh, Davis,” she says, worry etched in her features.
“Michele, I’m fine,” I tell her, because it’s up to me to look out for her, not the other way around. I look down at the menu, so she can’t read the expression on my face that clearly says I’ve been busted.
“I don’t believe you. I don’t want to see you get hurt again. I hate what Madeline did to you.”
“She just left, that’s all. Okay? Please, let’s stop investing this and her with so much monumentality. Besides, it was a few years ago now.” I don’t want to dwell on Madeline Blaine. I don’t want to revisit all the promises we made, all the things we said to each other. Most of all I don’t want to be reminded of how much it hurt when she walked away soon after the play we worked on together ended. You gave me my first big break and for that I will be forever grateful, but I don’t have time in my life for love. I need to focus on my career and only on my career. Then she went to LA and did just that.
It’s not like I expected a f**king plaque for having cast her, for having plucked her out of the pile of young hopefuls. That’s my job, that’s what I do. I would never expect her to owe me anything as her director.
As the man she fell in love with though, I had hoped for a lot more than a cold goodbye after the curtains fell. But that’s how it goes with actors. They fall in love with their roles, they fall in love with the show, they fall in love with you. Then it ends and they move on, because they know how to turn emotions on and off.
“I read she was in talks to do that new Steve Martin play. I’m totally not going to see it, even though I love his work,” she says, as if she’s making a solidarity statement by boycotting this show preemptively.
“Let’s talk about something else. Health care reform or the impasse in Congress,” I say sharply, because I need to shut this topic down. My sister is the only person who really knows me. Sometimes I hate being known. Sometimes I prefer the appearance I’ve carefully crafted with my work.
My sister is insistent though. She reaches her hand across the table to wrap it around mine. “I know you worry about me, but I worry about you too. Just let me, okay? You’re all I have.”
The waiter appears with a plate of bread.
“Thank you,” I say to him.
“But of course, sir.”
He leaves.
I grab a piece of bread and bite into it. When I finish, I point to the bread. “You should have some,” I say, reminding her to eat. She always forgets to when she’s sad, and the last thing I want is for her to be sad for me. I’m fine, I’ll always be fine. But even though I like to think I’m the one who looks out for her, as I have since that snowy day our parents died in a car crash when I was only seventeen, the truth is we look out for each other. “I promise I won’t do something as abysmally stupid as fall for an actress again.”
“Good,” she says, and takes some bread. “There are plenty of wonderful women in the world who won’t use you to get ahead.”
I want to believe that Jill wouldn’t do that. I want to believe that she’s different from Madeline.
As soon as I realize that, I know too that I don’t really care if Madeline will be in town. What I do care about—maybe too much for my own good—is the sweet, sexy, vulnerable woman who’s already gotten me hooked. But that’s a different problem, a far bigger problem, and that’s precisely why I’m going to have to resist her with everything I have.
Jill
Now that my beer-soaked skirt and tights are in the hamper, I wash my face, brush my teeth, and pick a long t-shirt to sleep in. I slide under the covers and grab my eReader, because I want to return to a Patrick state of mind. Between the messed up morning in the stairwell and the buzzkill of Alexis in the bar, I need to get back into the groove with the main man of my fantasies. The one who makes me feel again.
I click on the title Kat gifted me. She got me into her steamy romance novels, and now I’m a junkie. I started with the lovey-dovey stuff but I’ve moved well past her now, and am all about the out-of-the-gate heat.
Especially on nights when I’m alone. When I can say his name out loud.
I open the novel and skip straight to the good stuff. The hero’s a rock star, and he has a filthy mouth, and I could never imagine liking that in real life. I’m sure Patrick whispers only sweet nothings about love and beauty and how I’m the only one for him, but somehow this dirty-talking rocker who’s telling his woman that he wants to bend her over the bar at the hotel where they’re staying is doing something for me tonight.
“I’m going to take you and it’s going to be hard, and it’s going to be fast. I’m not going to be gentle, and I’m not going to apologize, but you’re going to f**king love it,” he said, his voice rough against her ear.
“Yeah? Why don’t we see if I love it?”