by Stacy Travis
“You really think you’re hilarious, don’t you?” He signaled the waiter so we could order more food. We tucked the menus to the side and sat back to enjoy the view. It was nice not to feel hurried. I didn’t want to think about tomorrow, when I’d be home and we’d have to revert to texts and FaceTime.
Chris looked at me as if he had something on his mind.
“Yes?” I asked.
“What? I didn’t say anything.”
“I see the gears moving in your brain. You’re worried I don’t have the right dress for the premiere. And knowing you, there’s probably some atelier a few doors down from here, where a bunch of elves are waiting to sew me into some princess clothes.”
“Is this what happens when I don’t see you for three weeks? You lose your sanity?”
“Tell me you weren’t thinking about a dress.”
“I wasn’t thinking about a dress,” he said.
I just waited. I knew I could sweat him out if I didn’t say a thing.
Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Do you have a dress?”
I grinned. “I have a dress.”
“See? I wasn’t worried.”
I eyed him suspiciously. I hadn’t been needed at work that day, so I’d spent a little time shopping. I’d found Chris a pair of socks with clouds and a matching Joni Mitchell quote. It was crazy to me that such socks existed, but after a quick dash through MOMA—I couldn’t leave New York without seeing more art—I went to the museum gift shop, and there they were.
He was wearing them, and I was wearing my purchase, which was a tight tank dress in cerulean blue, the color of the dress I’d worn to the premiere in Cannes. When I’d walked out of Chris’s spare bedroom in it, his eyes had slowly roamed the length of my body, which was hugged at every curve by the dress, leaving little to the imagination. “You look gorgeous,” he’d said quietly. I sensed that he had more to say, but he was still gathering the words. His gaze looked hungry, a fire ignited in his eyes that hadn’t been extinguished over the course of dinner.
“On the subject of dresses,” he said, melting my eyes with his intense stare.
“Yes?”
“I love you in this one.”
“Thank you.”
“I love you no matter what you’re wearing. And even,” he said, running his hand down the length of my arm, eliciting a chill, “when you’re not wearing anything.” He leaned in close to my ear, and his breath feathered against my skin when he spoke. “Especially then.”
I lost all interest in the remaining courses of our dinner, which Chris had boxed up and paid for within three minutes. He took my hand and helped me off the barstool, his eyes never wavering from mine. As he led me out of the restaurant, walking close to my side, he leaned in again. “Apologies in advance if I end up ripping this dress in two.”
I looked at him, and the heat rose in my cheeks at the suggestion of his carnal want. I swallowed so as not to drool. Then I nodded.
It wasn’t a long walk. But it was long enough for Chris to keep making suggestions about how quickly and how aggressively he needed to get the dress off my body. “I might not make it all the way home,” he whispered, gesturing to a park, where the grass looked comfortable but very, very public.
“How do you feel about making love in an elevator?” he growled, pulling me in closer, wrapping his hand around my waist, and squeezing my ass hard.
I wanted to answer, but every time he spoke to me, it shot a white-hot, delicious flame to my center, and I fell speechless again.
“Or do you prefer the bed? The soft sheets against your naked skin and me against you?” he asked when we’d stopped at a traffic light, brushing my hair back from my neck and attacking it with a row of hot, wet kisses from my ear to my throat.
My knees felt weak, and I looked desperately up the block to count how many more buildings we had to pass before we made it back to his apartment.
Maybe he sensed the weakness in my knees, or maybe he couldn’t wait any longer to meld our bodies closer together, because he lifted me up, cradling me in his arms for the last few yards to his building.
The park was out, and we never made it to the bed.
But the private elevator was in use for a very long time.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Los Angeles
Nikki
The truth was, I didn’t have a dress for the premiere. Before I met Chris, the only times I’d ever needed to wear anything remotely dressy was when I was a bridesmaid in a couple of my friends’ weddings, and I didn’t think a long baby-blue halter dress with a matching bolero jacket was the move for a Hollywood premiere. To say nothing of the iridescent-green maxi dress with an organza shawl.
“You don’t have a perfect go-to cocktail party dress?” Jemma asked.
I wanted to tell her that I didn’t go to perfect cocktail parties, but I worried that might make her not want to help me. Instead, I asked if there was any chance she knew of a store that sold really cool, glamorous, inexpensive evening or cocktail dresses. She did a spit take of Caesar salad and shook her head at me.
“Yeah, those are oxymorons. You’re gonna drop at least a grand on a dress.”
I didn’t want to drop that kind of money on a dress.
We were at the barely edible Italian place near work, and I’d decided to forgo pizza for the time being for the sake of fitting into the mythical fabulous-but-cheap dress.
“Do you have a perfect little black dress?” I asked, unexcited about the fancy lettuce salad that cost me thirteen dollars. “And can we head back to the office? I have a conference call in fifteen minutes.”
“Sure.” Jemma pushed her chair back and went to the counter to ask for a to-go box for the rest of her salad. I snuck a look at her from behind. We were roughly the same size. Even though Jemma favored blousy caftans and leggings with slouchy boots at work, she could have had a perfect premiere dress hanging amid her work attire.
“And in answer to your question, I have a black velvet cocktail dress from Banana Republic.”
“Could I borrow that? Do you think it would fit me?”
Her laugh was sarcastic. “I was kidding. Do you think I shop retail? I’m all about secondhand clothing stores and Goodwill,” she said. Suddenly the grandma-like caftans made sense. But I doubted Goodwill was the direction I should go when there was a good chance I would end up standing next to Chris, who would look amazing, in photos.
“Don’t you and Chris have any fancy friends? People who go to the Oscars and have loads of dresses? This is LA. Someone must have a dress they’ve worn to an awards show or a museum gala.”
“I’m sure lots of people do. I just don’t happen to know those people.”
“Hey!” she said, clapping her hands for her new idea. “I’m sure there are lots of designers who’d love to put a dress on Chris Conley’s girlfriend. I still can’t believe you’re dating him, can I just say?”
We were standing close to the line of people waiting to order, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth, Jemma obviously realized what she’d done. At least ten people were staring at me. We turned and practically ran out of the restaurant.
“Wow, sorry about that. I didn’t realize that just saying his name was like human clickbait.”
“Welcome to my world.”
“So yeah. What’s that like?” she asked as we walked.
“Um, it’s been fine for the most part. He’s really good at navigating so he can sit facing away from crowds, and most of the time, people don’t notice him. Or if they do, most of them are discreet with their pointing.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
“But how is it for you? Is it weird being with someone who’s, like, rock-star huge?”
“That’s what I mean. It never feels that way. I don’t watch those kind of movies, so I don’t think of him as huge. He just seems like a normal guy.”
“Wow. That’s…interesting.”
Anni
e’s mom was a therapist, and she used to complain that her mom used the word “interesting” to avoid saying what she really thought about anything. “His new haircut—that was interesting,” she would say. Or “Her parents left her at home without a babysitter. That’s interesting.”
Lots of people used the word as a substitute for something more descriptive. I had no intention of letting Jemma off without telling me what she really meant. “It’s not interesting. Say what you’re really thinking.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I was thinking you’re living in kind of a bubble, aren’t you? Like, you don’t see superhero movies, so he’s just a regular guy. You do realize those movies make a billion dollars. Each.”
“So?”
“So he’s a really big deal to a lot of people. You should be aware of that is all I’m saying. When do I get to meet him?”
“Ah, that’s where this was all really leading, right?”
She shrugged. “I’m your very close, capable work friend. I should merit a meeting. And maybe a date with one of his hot actor friends.”
I laughed at her generous description of our work friendship.
“You know there’s not a hot actor club. They don’t all know each other and hang out together.”
She shrugged and pulled open the heavy glass door to our building. “Hey, here’s a thought about your outfit dilemma. What about Rent the Runway?”
“You mean, rent a dress?” I asked. I’d never looked into doing anything like that. I’d never had a reason to. But it kind of seemed like the perfect solution to my wardrobe issues.
Jemma was already googling the site. “This is perfect. For fifty bucks, you can get something swoon-worthy for the premiere. You might need to pay a little more for expedited shipping, but this seems made for you.”
Both of us were so firmly glued to Jemma’s phone, swiping from dress to dress, that we missed our floor in the building and had to ride down to the basement before going up again. But the dresses on her phone were worth it. One of them would be perfect.
When we returned to our respective offices, I thanked Jemma for her help, and she grinned at me like the fairy godmother who was sending her Cinderella off to the ball. A part of me wanted to tell Jemma the truth—after the premiere, there might not be a Chris and Nikki. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
Ever hopeful that something would change, I clung to the idea of our rom-com movie ending, even though I was fairly certain Chris hadn’t reevaluated his life choices. He would have told me if he had.
When I really thought about getting dressed up and spending one last glamorous night with Chris, I felt depressed. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to say goodbye and have my last memory of us be picture perfect—or worse, captured in a magazine for me to cry over later.
We weren’t perfect. We were messy. We’d achieved that level of normalcy, and I loved it. We’d gotten close to something that could have worked, something with a future. If only…
But no.
I was done with hoping and wishing. I’d already done that with one boyfriend, and there I was, thinking about doing it again. The best thing I could do for myself was to see the situation for what it was. If Chris couldn’t find a balance in his life between work and everything else, I had to move on.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nikki
I had always loved the month of December. Even though living in Southern California meant that I never had a white Christmas or even much weather to speak of, it didn’t matter. Twinkle lights wound around trees and holiday music always made me happy. In fact, I might have been the one person on earth who never tired of Christmas music. It didn’t matter that it started before Thanksgiving and played its final notes in the wee hours of December twenty-fifth. I would take all of it, as many renditions of “Santa Baby” as the in-store sound systems wanted to throw at me.
That meant I was in a great mood all month, and not just because Chris would be in town in a few days, although that helped a lot. I was in a great mood even though he was planning on dragging me to another premiere. I felt almost certain it was an action movie he’d shot last year, and I felt nearly positive that he’d told me the name of the movie… but alas, I would always be an arthouse movie girl. And when he spoke about action and adventure and superheroes, they all blended together in my mind into one loud, big-budget film with elaborate action scenes.
I felt a little bad about my lack of finesse when it came to those films. I really did try to keep them straight, and I had watched every single one—there were a lot of them—since we started dating. I watched all his movies carefully so we could talk about them, which I enjoyed even more than he did.
“By the time the movie comes out, I’ve mostly forgotten it. You realize that, don’t you?” he would say when I insisted on dissecting the action sequences and talking about why there needed to be so much destruction of property to get the point across. I secretly thought maybe he, too, thought they were all the same.
“Well then, this is a good refresher for you. You’ll be all prepared for your press junket, because I need you to explain why thirty-six police cars needed to collide in that last scene instead of just two. The point would have been made with two.”
He’d humored me and explained how the buildup of action scenes was the whole point. “The police cars colliding is the end result. The action is the helicopter tracking the van, the explosion on the bridge, the near death of the driver and last-minute hop on top of the police car, which then drives into a dead-end road and a major showdown. It’s an action film. Exciting action is the point.”
Then I asked him to break down how much of the film’s budget went into sets and stunt people and destruction of property. “You realize you could make ten indie films for what it costs to film one car chase.”
“Yes, I know. Ten indie films that would collectively make an entire nation want to drown its sorrows in a bucket of chardonnay... if they could see through their tears well enough to reach the bucket. I’d rather be the one riding on top of a police car on a death mission than watch a destitute mother sell her oldest child in order to feed the rest of the brood.”
“You heartless, heartless man.”
“You safe-driving, rule-following woman.”
On movies, we had to agree to disagree.
I panicked when I figured out that the couple days Chris would be in LA were also the two days Annie planned to be in town for work. I’d promised my best friend that we would get together. I knew I could spend time with both of them, but selfishly, I didn’t want to do that. I valued my alone time with each of them.
Fortunately, the scheduling deities took pity on me. Chris needed to shoot a segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live and had to stick around for a dinner meeting with his agents afterward. We’d agreed to meet at the bar in the back corner of a hotel by the beach at around ten. That gave Annie and me a chance to eat and catch up.
Annie and I grabbed salads at Whole Foods and set up our bachelorette dinner picnic in my apartment. Annie munched her salad in silence for a few minutes, which gave me a chance to get out of my head and think about the fact that she hadn’t mentioned anything about the work promotion she’d expected the last couple times I’d talked to her. She’d been so excited, so certain it would happen, and then… nothing.
“Annie,” I said, watching her chew.
It was almost as if she’d read some article about how important it was to chew each mouthful fifty times before swallowing. She didn’t seem to want to talk. Finally, she swallowed and couldn’t ignore the fact that I was staring at her. “Yeah?” she said then scooped another forkful of feta cheese and a cherry tomato into her mouth and began a marathon of closed-mouth masticating.
“What’s up with the promotion? I’ve been meaning to check in with you.”
Her expression didn’t change. She kept gently chewing. I knew it didn’t take that much effort to make a tomato fit for swallowing. She was stalling. Final
ly, she swallowed and looked up at me, a blank expression still disguising any emotion. “Parsons got it.”
I was shocked. Annie had been on the partner track at her law firm from the moment they’d hired her as a summer associate. She’d aced the bar exam and litigated her way to millions of dollars for the firm. Her words didn’t make sense. “That’s impossible,” I said. “You deserved it.”
“Not this year. At least that’s what I was told.”
“So what does that mean?” I still felt dumbfounded by what she was telling me.
Annie pushed her salad away, suddenly looking tired. “I don’t know what it means. I guess I could look for another job. Or I could keep working my ass off there and hope they see things differently in a year.”
“That sucks. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“When did you hear?”
“Three weeks ago,” she said.
“Wait, seriously? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She looked at me like I was daft. “Are you kidding? You were busy in Chris-land, trying to work out your schedules, and stressing about everyone at work seeing you differently. I didn’t see the point.”
I pushed my own salad away, feeling suddenly sickened by my friend telling me I’d been too self-involved to bother with her problems. I got up from the table, retrieved the lid to my salad, then replaced it. There was no point in opening the popcorn I’d bought. I’d lost my appetite. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is. I’ve been a terrible friend.”
“You’ve been fine. This is on me. I didn’t want to weigh you down you with my stupid failure.”
I watched her as she poured filtered water into my orange teakettle and put it on the burner. “First of all, you’re not a failure. And second, I want you to weigh me down. Weight on me is less of a load on you. Unless it’s pretzel bloat, of course, in which case it’s just bad all around.”
