Vote Then Read: Volume I

by Carly Phillips

  “I won’t get mad. I promise.”

  Rolling onto his back, he rests his forearm on his head. “I don’t know, Reese. You sure you want to talk about this?”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “I don’t know what it is. I’m not one of those guys who keep a running tally, makes notches on bedposts, or any of that. If I had to guess, it’s probably over seventy since you.”

  I swallow that down, then repeat more for myself, “Seventy?”

  He sits up and leans over me as I roll onto my back. “See what you’re doing?”

  “I’m not judging. I’m not mad. I’m digesting.”

  “Shit. I should have lied. I knew it.”

  “No,” I say, looking at him and reassuring him. “I’m glad you didn’t lie. I don’t deal well with liars. I’m glad you were honest, even more so because you were worried about me.” I scoot closer so I’m tucked into his warmth. He wraps an arm over me and his head drops behind mine onto a pillow. With a loud exhale I’m thinking he doesn’t believe I’m not mad. “Don’t stress. For real. It’s okay. I mean that’s like seven women a year for the last ten years. When it’s broken down like that, it’s not that many and you are a supermodel, so it could be a lot worse.”

  “Two things: Did you just call me a supermodel? Secondly, did you just break down my sex life over the last ten years? ’Cuz when you put it like that, I feel like I’ve really slacked.”

  Laughing, I nudge him with my elbow. “You did not slack. I’m just not going to freak out over something I can’t control. You were a free man and could do as you pleased. And I assume you don’t like being called a supermodel?”

  I turn in his arms so I’m looking up at him. He kisses me, then says, “Just doesn’t really fit what I’m doing and I associate that term more with women, but it’s technically correct, so it is what it is.”

  “I’m sorry.” I rub his neck. “I won’t use it if you don’t like it.” Lifting up, he also leans down and we kiss again. Moving a little so I can get a better look at his face, I ask, “You didn’t ask me my magic number. You’re not curious?”

  “I know you’ve been with other men. I’m not naïve enough to lie to myself, but I don’t need any visuals or details. I’m fine living in ignorance when it comes to your life after me.”

  If I’m not mistaken I think I’ve hit on another sensitive subject. Taking his face in my hands, I move my pelvis to the side to meet his, and whisper, “What was that about a lovemaking?”

  The right side of his mouth lifts into a sexy smirk, but it’s replaced with his lips on mine. And round two begins.

  24

  REESE

  We talk.

  We laugh.

  We make love. Again.

  We fall asleep by nine and wake up famished at midnight—for food this time.

  Danny Weston is irresistible.

  Yes, he’s hot. Yes, he’s famous. Yes, his body is perfection. But he’s also adorable and so funny. I haven’t had this much fun in forever. He says, “Okay, this time, lie down.” He pats the marble counter. “Naked.”

  I laugh. “Why do I have to be naked on a cold marble countertop?”

  Holding a bowl he just retrieved from the fridge, he says, as if it’s the most obvious answer in the world, “Because I want to eat these berries from your body.”

  “I should really tell you no every now and then.”

  “But you can’t and I love that about you.”

  After pulling my panties off, I press my bare body against him. He’s still in the knit boxers that cover way more of his body than I like. “What else do you love about me?”

  Any other guy would turn serious, but not Danny. He rolls with the punches, another characteristic of his I’ve always admired. He doesn’t let life bring him down. “I like that you ate the cake at dinner when no other woman in Spago would dare smell a dessert, much less eat it.”

  “That was some damn good cake.”

  “Looked like it. You know what else I love?”

  “What?”

  “I love that when you laugh, like tonight, it’s real, from the heart, or the gut more like it. You’re not doing it to humor me. You’re laughing for you.”

  Charmer! “Fine, Romeo. You win. I’ll get on the cold marble just for you.”

  “Yes!” He fist-pumps. In one swift motion, he lifts me and props me up on the counter.

  I sit straight up, pushing up with my hands. “Holy shit, it’s cold.” Swinging my legs around, I get into the crab crawl position. “Help a girl out, why don’t ya? Get me that towel. Chop chop,” I tease. “It’s freezing up here.”

  He reaches around and grabs the dishtowel hanging from the oven handle. He lays it flat and I sit. It’s still cold, but bearable. “I hope you’re hungry.”

  “Starving.” He places berries in particular places on my body, admiring his work as he goes along.

  “Is that the big dipper?”

  “Good eye.” He takes the berry tip of the big dipper and pops it in his mouth.

  I try not to move too much, but I very carefully rest my head on my arm, giving me a better view of this incredibly sexy man eating off me. I’m not shy around him. Not guarded. I’m relaxed in a way I haven’t been in a long time. I’m comfortable in being me, being naked, being exposed—body and soul to him like no one else before… not even him. Reveling in this ease of our relationship, I decide now is a good time to ask him a few things I’ve been curious about since I came home. “You really flew in a day early just to see me?”

  He plucks a berry from my belly button and pops it in his mouth. With the smirkiest of smirks, he replies, “I did.”

  “Did you have to wait long?”

  “No, not long.” The smirk transforms into a genuine smile, one that makes my thighs squeeze together in response, and a few berries go rolling off. “Oops.” I laugh making the rest of them scramble into the lines of my body, sending some to the floor, and a few onto the counter.

  He ducks quickly to the floor to grab the runaways and I sit up stretching to get the few that escaped across the slick marble. While reaching as far as I can to get the last one, I hear it.

  Shit.

  But I’m too slow to stop it. The brass bolt on the door clunks, the front door knob turns, and Keaton walks in. I freeze in horror. He’s stunned in place just inside the doorframe. I gasp. The berries fall from my hand and I cover myself in shock. And shame—something I’ve always felt around him.

  Danny stands and before I can scream, I’m swooped from the counter and behind him with one arm wrapped around me, shielding me from my ex.

  Keaton breaks the silent standoff we seem to be having. “Reese! What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing, Keaton?” I ask, peeking around Danny’s shoulder. “You have no right to walk into my apartment without my permission.”

  “I was stopping by to check on you.”

  “It’s after midnight, Keaton. What the hell?”

  Danny cuts in. “Hold up. Who the fuck are you?”

  “Who the fuck are you? And what are you doing with my girlfriend?”

  Danny’s arm returns to his side, my body cold without him. He glances back at me. His tone is firm when he says, “Get dressed.” He hands me the dishtowel because there is nothing else to cover me with.

  Pushing down the unsettling feelings overwhelming my insides, I take it out on the ex. “Leave, Keaton. I mean it.”

  His eyes are set on Danny, his gaze locked. “This is the model.” Instead of leaving, he moves closer, his accusatory tone becoming threatening. “You’re that fucking model.”

  “What’s it to you?” Danny throws back.

  “What’s it to me? Everything. That’s my girlfriend you’re fucking around with. Vittori is my client.” He laughs. “You are so fucked. I am going to ruin you.”

  Danny leans his hands on the marble. Only minutes before, I had sat there in complete bliss. “Let me tell you something. You can’t fuck
ing ruin anything for me. I’ve got a reputation that far exceeds one job. And as for Vittori, fire me, but he’ll just hire me direct and bypass the middleman. And lastly, and I want you to listen good and hard. Reese isn’t your girlfriend and I wasn’t fucking around with her. I was fucking her. Get it straight, asshole.”

  Keaton’s hands are fisting, his face red with anger. I’ve never seen him like this and a million scary thoughts of the revenge he’s going to attempt run through my head. With the towel tucked under my elbows, I raise my hands in a cautionary manner in hopes of calming him. “Please, Keaton. Please just leave. We can talk tomorrow. You’ve been wanting to talk. I’ll do it. I’ll meet you and we can talk.”

  Danny’s breath is heavy, the sound filling my ears. His disapproval is heard when he says, “Go to the bedroom, Reese.”

  “This isn’t worth a fight. You have a shoot tomorrow.” Turning to Keaton, I plead, “We can’t risk losing this campaign. Vittori spent a fortune on the last shoot and we’ll lose even more if Danny can’t make this shoot. Please. Just leave. We will talk tomorrow. I promise.”

  “You heard her. Leave,” Danny snarls. “This is your last warning before I call the cops and have you removed.”

  Dread sinks to the bottom of my stomach as Keaton laughs again, purposely pushing all of Danny’s buttons. “I’ve got news for you, pretty boy.” He holds up a key. “I come and go as I please.”

  Needing this to end before this confrontation gets violent, I screw my lack of dress and walk to the door with the dishtowel over the front of my body. I open the door wider. “I want you to leave right now or I will call the cops. You have no right to use that key.” I hold my hand out. “Give it to me.”

  He turns to me, looking up and down my body with disgust. “We’re going to talk in the morning.” When he slams the key in my hand, the teeth dig into my skin. I wince, but hold back showing the pain I experience.

  As soon as he walks out, I shut the door and lock all three bolts and add the chain. Danny has gone to the bedroom. He’s sitting on the end of the mattress with his head in his hands when I walk in. Giving him space, I take my robe and slip it on, then lean against the wall. “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, keeping my voice quiet.

  “I don’t know. Do I? Do I want to know what that was about out there?”

  “I think you know.”

  He stands up and grabs his jeans from the floor. “Yeah, I know.” He starts putting them on and I want to stop him. I’m just not sure I have a right to. He reaches for his shirt and his beanie, snatching them from where they landed in our sexual frenzy to get them off earlier. “I’m gonna go.”

  “I’d like you to stay.” I tuck my hands behind my back, restraining myself from running to him and begging him to stay here with me when that’s all I want to do.

  His eyes reach me and I’m pinned to the spot where I stand. “I don’t know anything about your life. You haven’t given me anything except what I’ve found out because I overheard a phone conversation, and now I’m stuck in what looks like a fight between a boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  “Keaton and I are not together, Danny. I wouldn’t have been with you if we were.”

  “Then what the fuck was that about? He has a key and apparently uses it when he pleases.”

  “I’ve tried to get it back from him. He wouldn’t before, but I got it now.”

  “You got it because I was about to pummel him.” He’s frustrated pulling the beanie onto his head. He walks past me. “I don’t want to fight with him. I haven’t been in a fistfight in years, but I’ll tell you I was close. Very fucking close. But I don’t give a shit about him. I care about you and I don’t want to fight with you either.”

  “Let’s not then.” I follow him back into the kitchen. Berries are all over the counter, a reminder of how good it was a short time ago.

  He turns toward me, his back to the door. “If I stay, we will. I need to cool down and I can’t in here, not with you.”

  “What are you saying, Danny? Are you mad at me?”

  “Blindsided. I don’t know what’s going on and I’m upset. So yes, I’m mad at you.”

  “You have no right to be mad at me. I didn’t ask him to come over.”

  “I need time to sort through this so I don’t take it out on you. I’m being honest with you so I don’t make it worse. If I stay, it will get worse.”

  My heart is pounding in pain and I feel betrayed. Why did I drop my guard for him? “Honest? Now you’re honest with me? Wow,” I say, my pride making me snarky.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know what that means. You weren’t honest with me back when we were together, but now you spout off about how important honesty is to you?” I scoff. “Well, I’m glad you’ve grown a conscience.”

  A look of disbelief crosses his face. “I’m leaving, that’s something you should be familiar with.”

  “Screw you!”

  He turns and unlocks the bolts I thought were protecting us from the outside world. It seems maybe we need protection from each other. He opens the door and keeping his back to me, he says, “I’ll see you at the shoot.”

  The door closes and with full fury I pound against it with both of my fists. I turn my back on it and slide down, closing my eyes as I bring my knees to my chest. I wish I could stop the tears, but there’s this place deep inside that only Danny Weston can reach and he just ripped it open.

  Again.

  25

  REESE

  Sleep doesn’t come. I sit near the window I paid so proudly for a year ago, but the view has lost its luster. Sitting here feeling his loss reminds me of the last time I lost Danny…

  My bags are packed, suitcase by the door, backpack at my feet. It took me days to get everything in order, all leading up to today. I push the play button once more to listen to the voicemail message Danny sent yesterday when I was out.

  “I’m coming home tomorrow. We need to talk. Be at the apartment at six. See you soon.”

  No I miss you. No I love you. Just we need to talk.

  Modeling has taken over his life, and my life has become a side effect to the life he left behind. I knew we’d go through a change, transitioning from seeing each other all day, every day, to every few days or even a week. But I could have never predicted the last year we struggled through. Or maybe it was only me who’s been struggling.

  I haven’t seen him in over a month. Paris, Milan, Rome. Everywhere but here for five weeks. He doesn’t even know I found a job in New York City. Our time on the phone is too limited to mention such things going on in my life when his life is so exciting. So big. Mine feels small in comparison. I feel small—small time, small town, a part of a small past. His small past.

  I really thought I’d get to tell him face to face. Been desperate to see his reaction, his pride. His anything for me. Missed calls, out-of-sync schedules, and unpredictable email service all add to the list of obstacles keeping us apart. The leading factor is Danny becoming an overnight sensation in the modeling world. That boy next-door meets the sexy alpha male are names he’s often called. My hands fist and I tamp my annoyance that I could have told them that. But my thoughts don’t matter. I don’t matter in that world, his world.

  I grab the stack of magazines from the dining table and drop them one by one on the coffee table in front of me. Each one taunting me with an ad of him and some model or models that all look too cozy for my comfort.

  If that were me cozying up to male models, he would not be happy. He would not be okay seeing other men touching me.

  I’m bitter. Life here has become unbearable. They took him, the man I love, and made him a star. The magazines can’t get enough of him. The designers all want him, but so do I. So much. I miss him. I miss the way we used to hang out all night and talk. I miss his arms around me. I miss going to bed with him and waking up to him kissing my breasts, rousing me from sleep.

  There’s no doubt he’ll be packing his stuff soon
enough and moving away. I’m the only thing holding him to Nebraska. It’s time I let him go. I’m tired of feeling second best to a career. I’m tired of the tabloids, and seeing him at the center of it all. I’m tired of seeing him with other women.

  And then the message came while I was at the library.

  We need to talk… We need to talk… We need to talk…

  I don’t care about his job. I care about him, but he’s lost who he was and now he’s willing to lose me. Dump. Me.

  Our friends, my family, everyone tells me I have to let him go so he can pursue his dream. While my dream of getting married, having kids, and career are sidelined. We’re on two different paths going in two different directions. I’ll get moved to New York and give him my address as soon as I have one. Maybe with me pursuing my career things will be better. Maybe he’ll find me interesting again.

  My breath comes rapidly and shortens. How am I doing this? How am I leaving the only man I’ve ever loved? With the last bit of strength I have, I stand taller and lock the door. He needs to see what it’s like to be lonely. He needs to understand how much he’s hurt me. This will wake him up. He’ll miss me. He’ll miss me I just know it. I pray that we can work through this again. With me in Manhattan, the stars have aligned if we can work it out.

  So a year after his career took off, I stand in the doorway, saying goodbye to our… his place forever with his, “We need to talk” ringing in my ears. I say goodbye to this lonely place and leave, just like he left me behind.

  I can’t lose him again. By five a.m., I get dressed for work and by six I’m out the door. I decide I’d rather lose myself in my job than sit here losing myself to the hurt I’m feeling.

  Walking through the lobby, the overnight doorman, Dave, is leaving his shift, so we walk together. “You worked all night again?”

  He says, “Ralph’s still sick. I worked half his shift and mine. It’s not a party building so I got a few naps in. But don’t worry, the doors were locked.”