After All

by Karina Halle

  I shrug and clink my glasses against theirs, noticing that Emmett avoided my eyes. I think both of them are now realizing that what they’re proposing isn’t exactly as enticing as they first thought.

  Autumn takes a sip and clears her throat delicately. “So, what I’m saying, is that Emmett’s career is rocky at the moment.”

  “Rocky?” he asks, his forehead lined with worry.

  “Not rocky,” she says smoothly as she flashes him a placating smile, “fragile. I mean, instable. Like, resting on the edge of a precipitous cliff.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s way better.”

  “Well it’s the truth,” she says and now anger is creeping into her voice. “And if you would just play the game right, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  He rolls his eyes, leaning back in his chair. “Oh that’s right, be a good sweet boy, suck it up. Don’t be a fucking human being, lest the world turn on you.”

  “But it’s true. This is your comeback, you don’t get a chance to mess it up.”

  I can’t help but make a snorting sound. Both of them look to me sharply.

  “What?” Emmett asks tiredly.

  I swirl the wine around the glass, wondering how he’s going to take this. “I don’t know. This doesn’t seem like much of a comeback, does it?”

  Emmett is shooting me daggers. He’s practically smoldering in his seat.

  “Look, he had faded into obscurity,” she says. “Doing theatre in London is great and all but no one really gives a shit. It’s a has-been move.”

  “It’s not a has-been move,” I tell her. “It’s not even a move at all. It’s something to do because you love to act. You love the art and the craft of it. It’s a place where you really learn the extent of your talents, where you’re able to do something you love for a living. Maybe it doesn’t make you rich, maybe people don’t remember who you are but you’re making art every single day.”

  Emmett frowns, totally puzzled as to why I’m standing up for him. The thing is, I’m not standing up for him at all. It’s just she touched on something dear to me. Not that I would admit it.

  “Fine,” Autumn says. Then she composes herself and flashes me those pearly whites again. “But you can’t say this isn’t a comeback. He was big when he was on Degrassi, or at least known. He went away to London. Now he’s back, better than ever. He’s sexy now. Age has only been his friend.”

  “Sexy or not,” I say, knowing his ego is probably soaking up that one, “a real comeback is one when you’re proud of the work you’re doing. Emmett isn’t proud. He’s just working. He’s working on his comeback. That will still happen.”

  I’m making all the assumptions in the world, I know this, and yet I get the feeling off of him that he probably agrees with me.

  “But only if he smartens up,” Autumn says, as if she’s his school teacher. “And that’s where you come in.”

  I sigh before taking a large gulp of wine. Jeez, I could go for a martini or something. “So you think that by the public thinking that we’re dating, they’ll look more favorably upon him and then he’ll get more popular? I mean, what if it doesn’t work like that? Or what if he does something stupid again?”

  “You know I’d really appreciate it if the two of you would stop talking like I’m not here.”

  Autumn waves him away with her hand. “If he does something stupid, then I’m not representing him anymore. Don’t worry, he knows that. We’ve discussed it. I can only do so much and it doesn’t look favorably on me and my services if I have a client who is consistently out of line.”

  “Consistently,” he mutters to himself, shaking his head.

  “And if he’s a good boy and, well, you’re a good girl, and the public buys into it and it still doesn’t help, well, no harm done. It’s just three months.”

  “But he’ll be out of money,” I tell her. “And he has to put up with me for three months and I’ll have to put up with him.”

  She shrugs, pressing her hands into the table. “It’s a hard bargain, I know. So now that you’ve brought up the money part of the negotiations, how much are you wanting?”

  I raise my brow. “Isn’t it dangerous to ask me that?”

  “I can tell you’re not easily convinced, so it’s better to just see what we can do to make it happen.”

  I rub my lips together, thinking. I came up with a number earlier and I have no idea if it’s fair or not. But we all know this isn’t going to be a walk in the park. And I know this is the one chance I have to finally give my dreams a go. I’ll never have another one.

  “Do you have a pen?” I ask Autumn. “Because I have terms.”

  She pulls out her phone and shows me her notepad app. “Go.”

  I take in a deep breath. “I still have a personal life that I want to keep personal. I don’t want to do any interviews with anyone. I don’t want paparazzi banging on my door, so I don’t want anyone to know where I live. Or work. I want to keep my life as normal as possible. If anyone says anything rude or slanderous about me, especially regarding my appearance, I want you to handle it and I don’t want to see or hear about it. I want to keep whatever dignity and respect I have during this whole thing. I want at least three nights a week to myself. I want my family kept out of it. I want Emmett to stop hitting on me,” I give him a loaded look, to which I swear his cheeks go red. Autumn, who has been furiously taking notes on her phone, pauses, narrowing her eyes. “And on top of it all, I want fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars?” Emmett repeats with wide eyes.

  “Forty thousand dollars,” I quickly amend myself. I knew I was pushing it. “Deposited into my bank account tomorrow.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Emmett says, leaning across the table. “You a mob boss all of a sudden? You’re not getting a dime until three months is over. How do I know you won’t up and leave right away?”

  “He’s right,” Autumn says. “We have to make sure that this runs smoothly. Remember, neither of you can date or hook-up with anyone else. It’s not worth the risk. That will be in your contract too.”

  “Fine,” I grumble.

  “And giving you the money upfront is a dangerous move. I mean, you could just leave town, couldn’t you?”

  Maybe that’s the plan, I think to myself.

  “Emmett will be taking you out for dinner, mini-trips, buying you whatever your heart desires, so don’t forget that part too. In exchange, you’ll need to pretend to be his girlfriend in your personal life and public one. This means, you can’t tell your friends and family that this is a set-up. Not even your closest ones. Not even the ones whose wedding you were at. You can’t trust any of them.”

  I nod, even though I already told Jackie everything this morning. Luckily I know she and Will can keep a secret. I exchange a glance with Emmett and wonder if he’s told Will anything at all. Men can be so damn secretive, it wouldn’t surprise me.

  “Now,” Autumn says, “that everything has been laid out, is this something you’d be willing to do Alyssa?”

  I take a moment to think about it, even though I’ve already made up my mind. I suppose if I were downright evil instead of slightly evil, I could tell them no and then threaten to tell the gossip sites everything they just told me, unless they gave me the money to shut me up.

  But the truth is, even though I still think the whole idea is ridiculous and the next three months are going to turn my life upside down in ways I can’t imagine, I wouldn’t do that to Emmett. For all his many faults, I can tell he’s got a good heart somewhere underneath his manwhore façade. His honesty and sincerity can be endearing and maybe it’s pure ego that’s putting himself up to this risk, thinking nothing could possibly go wrong, but he’s got just as much to lose as I do. Actually, he has a hell of a lot more. Both of our dreams are at stake but at least his are realized and apparently hang in the balance.

  I give them a quick smile. “If all terms are held to…yes. This is something I can do.”

&nbs
p; Autumn grins at me. “Fantastic! I’ll get the lawyers to draw up the contacts tomorrow and have them sent to your work.”

  “You know where I work?”

  “I know everything about you Alyssa,” she says. If she wasn’t so pretty I’d think that was the creepiest thing I’d ever heard.

  “Well, just make sure the rest of the world doesn’t know it too,” I remind her.

  After the meal is over (though delicious, I barely ate since my nerves were doing a conga line), the three of us step outside of the restaurant to the flash of a camera blub. There’s just one photographer but he’s already here and already capturing us together.

  “What’s your name sweetheart?” he yells at me and for a moment I don’t know what to do, I just stare blindly at the camera and hope my makeup still looks presentable.

  “Emmett needs his privacy,” Autumn says to the photographer. “This is a very new relationship.”

  And then she whisks the two of us away to his car, getting me in the passenger seat. Before I know what’s going on, Emmett is driving the two of us away, leaving Autumn and the photographer behind.

  “Holy crow,” I say, turning in my seat to watch as we drive off. “That started fast. How the hell did they know you were even there?”

  “All the best restaurants have spies,” he says with a sigh. “They place a call and then the paparazzi show up. I think they must get paid out for it.”

  “Well then it was pretty dangerous to have the meeting there, wasn’t it? I mean, I still haven’t signed the contract.”

  “Yeah, well,” he says. In the passing orange street lights I can see his hands kneading the steering wheel. “Autumn thinks more highly of me than you do. She assumed you were someone who actually liked me.”

  “Oh,” I say quietly. In the car, in the fading evening light, everything seems more intimate. Being at dinner with Autumn put a nice distance between us, a distance that helped me analyze everything from a business point of view. But being alone with him is already changing that and the three months have barely started.

  As silence slides in, I feel forced to explain. “It’s not that I don’t like you.”

  “Alyssa, it’s fine.”

  “No seriously. I’ll admit I don’t know you at all. I just don’t like your type.”

  “My type?” He glances at me and something hot flashes behind his eyes.

  “Yeah. You know. A womanizer. You sleep around.”

  “So? You do too.”

  “I do not.”

  “And I don’t care if you do. If you go and get laid most nights of the week, have one-night stands. You do you. I’m not here to judge. But it’s not exactly fair that you judge me.”

  “I don’t just sleep with men and discard them. I date them. And yeah, maybe the date ends with sex but I’m not using people.”

  “Who says I’m using people? Do you think I used you the other night?”

  “No…”

  “I got you off, didn’t I?”

  I roll my eyes. “Yes. You don’t need to remind me. Remember, that’s something that can’t happen again.”

  “Regardless, I didn’t use you. We both got what we wanted. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “It’s dirty.”

  At that he grins, even though there’s a hint of coldness in his eyes. “Dirty? I admit I like it dirty, but I’m clean. I always use protection. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “But nothing. What’s really the deal here? You can sleep around and have sex with as many guys as you want and it’s empowering or something. Because you’re a woman. And that’s fine. But don’t give me the double standard.”

  “Women have been getting the double standard all our lives!” I exclaim.

  “I agree. I know they have. But no one should be judged for the way they operate their sex lives, men or women. If they’re being careful and not hurting anyone, I just don’t see why it’s anyone’s business.”

  I know I should keep it to myself. That my personal life doesn’t belong in something that’s fake. But I can’t help it. Verbal diarrhea strikes at the worst times.

  “My father was like that,” I blurt out. “He was a gambler, a drunk. Always getting into trouble. He was cheating on my mother all the time for as long as I can remember and finally left her high and dry, all alone to take care of me and my four sisters. I don’t know where he went. Back to England maybe. Who knows. Really, who cares. But when he wasn’t a supreme asshole, he was nice and charming and constantly trying to win her back, win us all over. And then he would fuck up all over again until he disappeared one day with just a single note. So yeah, I’ve seen the damage that kind of thinking can do. I’ve seen the truth about that type.”

  More silence envelopes us. The engine hums, the dashboard lights making everything glow with an eerie quality. I can’t believe I just unloaded all of that on him.

  After a few long, agonizing beats, Emmett clears his throat. “I’m really sorry your dad was an asshole. To leave your mother and you like that, well, he’s no fucking man, that’s for sure. But this isn’t even something you need to worry about with me. We’re not actually dating, remember? It’s all for show. You don’t have to worry about getting hurt when there’s nothing at stake.”

  I stare at him curiously. What’s odd about all that is that he’s not promising he’s not like my father. He’s just reminding me that it’s irrelevant. Does that mean if we were actually dating, his faithfulness would come into question?

  I guess that shouldn’t surprise me if it’s true. And in the end he’s right. It doesn’t matter.

  “Tell me something,” he says to me. “Did you mean what you said earlier, when you were talking about the theatre?”

  I nod, looking out the window as the city flies past. It’s getting darker earlier now, a sign that summer is coming to a close. I always get painfully sad as July turns to August, mourning the end of summer before it’s actually over.

  “You just…” he pauses. “You said everything I was thinking. Or that I’ve been trying to tell myself.”

  “Well it’s true,” I tell him. “I know it feels like all or nothing sometimes in life, but there’s nothing wrong with living in the space in-between.”

  “Very astute,” he says. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  I twist my head to give him a dirty look. “Hey.”

  He shrugs, biting his lip momentarily. His eyes are back to being playful, mischievous, the same kind of eyes that lured me into having sex with him. Now, more than ever, I have to stay vigilant. “Just being honest. You’re blonde, you’ve got gorgeous tits, a sweet ass. Skin like cream. Fuck me eyes.” His smile broadens. “Or fuck you eyes, depending on your mood.”

  “What’s my mood telling you now?” Man, the nerve of this guy.

  “Oh, you’re definitely giving me the finger,” he says with a laugh.

  “Do you really think we’re going to survive three months of this?” I ask him. Point-blank. No beating around the bush.

  “I’ve had to survive a lot worse than you, sunshine,” he says to me. “I know you’re going to get on my nerves and push my buttons and tease me with those lips of yours. But I’m always up for a challenge. Surviving is just another word for adapting. I’ll adapt to you. You’ll adapt to me. We’ll survive each other. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I tell him. If he’s this game for it, then so am I.

  We’re almost at my apartment when he lowers his voice and asks, “So, forty thousand dollars. Can I ask again what you’re planning to with that money?”

  I should just tell him. I know he might even help me. Or maybe that’s why I don’t.

  “It’s nothing,” I say. “Besides, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. Might as well have something left to talk about.”

  I thought he would press me more but instead he says, “Fair enough.”

  When he pulls up alongside the apartment building, he turns in his
seat toward me and puts his arm behind my seat, leaning in as if he’s going to kiss me.

  “What are you doing?” I ask him, jerking my head back.

  “Giving you a kiss goodnight,” he says, as if I’m clueless.

  “Can you not?”

  He laughs but doesn’t move. “Hey, you better get used to it.”

  “I told you I’m not sleeping with you.”

  His mouth quirks up into a half-smile. “I know you did and I shall cry myself to sleep about it every night. But when we’re together, in public, well…we’re going to make out and I’m going to feel you up. Feel free to do the same to me.” He sighs as he reads the shock on my face. “Alyssa, that’s what couples do. They show affection with each other in public. If we don’t, people will talk.”

  “But we’re in your car. There’s no one around to even see us right now,” I point out.

  Emmett stares at me and I can almost see him trying to form an argument. Then he looks down and smiles, shaking his head. “All right, so I was just trying to get a head start.”

  Shit. He’s actually being adorable right now.

  I think it’s time for me to escape.

  I put my hand on the door handle and push it open a few inches. “Thank you for dinner. I guess I’ll sign the papers tomorrow and we’ll take it from there.”

  “Dinner tomorrow night?” he asks.

  “Already?”

  “I don’t have to be on set until Wednesday. Might as well take advantage of my days off while we can.”

  Just as long as you don’t think you can take advantage of me.

  “All right. I don’t get off work until five so I don’t think I’ll be ready earlier than seven.”

  “Seven it is. See you tomorrow, sunshine.”

  Chapter 8

  Alyssa

  I’ve been working at Mad Men Studios for six years now. Started as receptionist and then worked my way up to office manager. And when I say worked my way up, I mean about a year into the job¸ I had a meeting with Ted and asked if I could do something more challenging. He agreed. Office managing it was.