Forever With Him

by Stacy Travis

  She grinned, and I realized it was the first time I’d seen her smile that day.

  I wondered how it had been lost on me that something was bothering her.

  “Careful what you wish for, lady. I will be a monster botherer.”

  “I can’t believe Jordan didn’t say anything to me.” Jordan, my boss when I’d worked for a startup in the Bay Area, had been dating Annie for a couple years, all through her pink-hair phase, her platinum-blond phase, and the red-hair phase that made her look like Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Firmly settled into a brunette phase, Annie had hinted that she and Jordan might be moving in together. I’d just called him with a venture capital question the week before, and he hadn’t mentioned anything.

  She looked sheepish. “He doesn’t know.”

  “You have to tell him. He’ll want to know. And he’ll be supportive—you know that.”

  “I know. It’s just that I keep thinking that if I don’t tell anyone, maybe I can still turn it around.”

  “Is there a chance of that?”

  Annie shrugged, but she was the type of person who never uttered a thought before considering all the angles. If there was a chance of still winning the promotion, she would have already doggedly pursued it. “Probably not.”

  “So is it a matter of waiting another year, or do you feel like it was this time or never?”

  She smiled ruefully. “Honestly, I just thought it would be this time. I have no idea about never.” The water had reached its boiling point, and the kettle had barely started to whistle before Annie turned off the heat. She reached into a drawer filled with boxed tea bags and rummaged around until she found what she wanted, a box of decaf chai. “You want a cup?” she asked.

  I looked at the assortment and chose an Earl Grey, figuring I had a late night ahead, and the extra burst of caffeine might help me along. While we waited for the bags to steep, I thought about how I’d missed the signs that something had been bothering Annie over the past few weeks. “You need to call Jordan tonight and tell him. That’s probably half of why you feel bad about it—you’re carrying it around alone. You’ve gotta tell him.”

  “Yeah. You’re right,” she said.

  “I know I’m right. Listen to me.” I felt very insistent that I knew of what I spoke. Because I was great at relationships—anyone’s except my own.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Nikki

  I stared at the dress hanging in its hermetically sealed clear pouch and almost decided to leave it on the hanger and pull my old standby black dress out of the closet. There was nothing wrong with it. It had gotten me through several weddings and one Christmas party at work.

  The best thing about it was that it was plain. I could make it look a little more interesting by pairing it with a pair of dark-red silk stilettos and a cute handbag that matched, or I could let it fade into looking rather ordinary with black pumps and a blazer. I liked its versatility, I told myself. Really, I liked the idea of fading into the woodwork.

  The dress Jemma and I had finally decided on was not a wallflower dress. It was a come-check-out-my-cleavage-in-my-pushup-bra kind of dress. It was a strapless pale pinkish-silver column of smooth silk that hugged my waist and accented the hourglass tendencies of my hips. It fell to just above my knees, and its sleek texture made me look like a slippery silver-pink eel. In a good way. At least that’s what Jemma had convinced me to believe.

  “Trust me, you’ll be so happy in this dress. You can breathe, right? Breathing’s important,” she’d said.

  Once I’d assured her I could in fact breathe, she signed off on the fashion choice by taking about a million pictures of me in the dress. Sort of. She cut my head off, so really it was just the dress. But then she posted them on her social media accounts, because in addition to being a budding publicist, she was also working on being a fashion influencer and wanted to exploit the dress while she could. It was sort of our quid pro quo after she’d agreed to help me find said dress.

  I was actually relieved she’d cut off my head.

  The soothing sounds of coffeehouse music played on a satellite radio station on my computer. I usually listened to that kind of music when I worked on art, but pulling myself together for the premiere felt like a sort of performance art, so I decided the music felt appropriate.

  Chris’s handlers had sent a hair-and-makeup team to my apartment without asking if I wanted them. It almost felt like it would require too much of an explanation to turn them down, so I acquiesced. I wasn’t great with makeup, anyway. Other than lip gloss or a little mascara, I didn’t wear much, but I knew the red carpet and the potential for photographers required more work.

  Unlike the premiere we went to in France, the one in LA didn’t strike the fear of God in my very soul. I wasn’t as worried about what other people would think of me. By then, enough photographers had snapped pictures of us together and enough gossip magazines had written their breathless stories that Chris and I were old news.

  That meant I needed to look the part of his arm candy, but there would be no wagging tongues speculating on our relationship status. I focused on the arm candy part and let the hair and makeup people work their magic.

  The hair stylist decided to flat iron my normally wavy hair into a sleek, long sheet, pinned back on one side with a glittery clip. The makeup was mostly in hues of pink, which brought out the pink shimmer in the pinkish-silver dress.

  By five fifteen, Chris was waiting outside my building, the town car idling in the street and the driver standing by.

  He looked handsome in a way that was unfair to the rest of the male species with his hair slicked back, his face clean-shaven, and his dark suit. “Hol-yyyy,” he said. “You look… there are no words for it. You look absolutely gorgeous. I am the luckiest guy alive.”

  A deep blush crept across my face, not so much because of his words but because of the way he was looking at me like he wanted to devour me. He actually licked his lips.

  “Let’s get in the car,” I said, “before you chase me upstairs and tear me out of this dress.”

  “Oh, I can make quick work of that in the car. Don’t you worry.” For good measure, he showed me his Joni Mitchell socks, as if I could have loved him more.

  I made a move to evade him and get to the car, but he grabbed me from behind and wrapped his arms around my waist while planting soft kisses along my neck and walking us to the car together.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered into my ear, sending a chill over my skin. “I can find many, many places”—he kissed my shoulder—“to kiss you.” He nipped at my chin. “That won’t mess up your makeup one bit.” He kissed the sensitive skin behind my ear as the wet heat from his lips blazed a path through the center of me.

  “I…” I started to say something. But the words died on my lips, and my brain went into free fall. To hell with my makeup. I just wanted to kiss him.

  I was glad we had a long drive all the way across town.

  I prayed for traffic.

  The outside of the theater on Hollywood Boulevard had two sweeping spotlights crossing in the night sky and heralding the arrival of the movie with the kind of fanfare typical of a premiere. But since I’d survived the press gauntlet at Chris’s side once, this time it felt a little less stressful.

  The flashbulbs assaulted us, and Chris got pulled this way and that to pose for photos, but the carpet itself was rather short, so it didn’t take very long to walk on it. I did my best to stand up straight, smile when asked, and move when someone wanted a photo of Chris alone.

  Then we were done.

  We walked through the glass doors of the movie theater, just as we had in Cannes. The scene was similar. People loitered in the lobby, hoping to catch one more glimpse of the film’s stars before taking their seats. There were buckets of popcorn and cold drinks on offer by the doors to the auditorium, where most seats were filled by the time we entered the lobby.

  I knew there would be reserved seats in front for us and
any other guests of the film’s director and actors.

  At the premiere in Cannes, Chris had opted to do an interview instead of sitting in the theater, so I wasn’t sure if he’d be accompanying me inside, but he didn’t let go of my hand as we made our way through the lobby. There were two sets of double doors leading into the auditorium, and I didn’t think much about it when we passed the first set. I figured maybe Chris liked to walk down on the left side, where there were fewer people.

  But we passed the second set of doors too. He kept a tight grip on my hand, almost as if he was afraid I might escape. “We’re not going in there. We’re going this way,” he said, leading me down a hallway to a different set of double doors and what looked like a second theater.

  I didn’t hear the same level of commotion emanating from that one, and I wondered if it was some odd overflow area for people who couldn’t get seats in the main theater. Honestly, that was fine by me, since Chris had obviously seen the movie and didn’t care where I sat. “Is it a smaller theater? Does that mean we can make out in the back row?”

  “Something like that,” he said. His expression was tight, and I saw a muscle flinching in his jaw.

  “Chris,” I said, stopping in my tracks, which forced him to stop. He looked at me, and I could tell something had changed from the time we’d stood outside in front of the cameras. He no longer looked confident. “Is everything okay?”

  He didn’t answer but started walking again toward the other set of doors. I was confused by his change in demeanor. But maybe that was what seeing his own films did to him. Maybe he was just nervous. I’d only seen his movies in the privacy of his apartment, where he didn’t have to worry about the reaction of anyone but me. And he already knew how I’d react. “Everything’s fine,” he finally said.

  “It doesn’t really seem fine. Are you sure—?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  I decided to let it go. I didn’t want to add to his stress. I would just sit with him and be supportive in whatever way he needed.

  Chris pulled on the handle of one of the doors and ushered me inside. It was a smaller screening room, but it was completely empty except for us. I’d seen movies in that very theater and had never known this other screening room existed. It felt like our own private theater, at least for the time being. Of course, the rest of the seats would get filled quickly enough.

  “I like this,” I said. “Where should we sit?”

  “The best seats are in the middle and slightly to the left,” he said quietly.

  I walked to the seats he was gesturing to and sat down. He sat next to me. “Did you get them to open this other room so you wouldn’t have to sit with the riffraff?” I tried to joke because I still didn’t know why he was suddenly so serious.

  “It’s just us.”

  “What?” I wasn’t sure if what he meant by that or why he’d led us in there, for that matter. Unless… “Does this mean we can make out?” The thought of that excited me more than the movie, but Chris still didn’t look relaxed. It was strange. If it was just the two of us, he should be more calm, not less.

  I really didn’t know what to make of him, his nerves, or our private room, so I told myself the same thing I’d been saying all day: just go with it. I grabbed a handful of popcorn out of the bucket between us and used the other hand to eat it, one kernel at a time.

  Chris looked over at what I was doing and started to laugh. “You look like a bird.”

  “Maybe I am a bird.” I offered him what was left in my hand, but he waved it away.

  “Listen,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you today, and I know earlier wasn’t a good time, and I’m not sure what you’re doing later…”

  My face fell, and I sensed the heat rising in my cheeks, because he was making it clear that whatever I was doing, it wouldn’t be with him. “I have no plans,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady and hoping he didn’t notice the crack.

  “It doesn’t matter. We can talk now.”

  I realized what it was—the goodbye conversation. He probably had plans right after the movie with his people. There had been a party after the Cannes premiere, too, and he probably had a big night ahead of him. He hadn’t mentioned anything about it to me, which clearly meant I wasn’t invited. It was fine. He could say goodbye, we would watch the movie, and if I was lucky, I would escape the theater before I cried or did some other embarrassing thing.

  So I steeled myself for whatever he had to say. I was a big girl. I could handle it. I could say goodbye right back to him and hide my emotions in the darkness of a two-hour movie after that. “Sure, okay,” I said.

  He looked straight ahead, and I wondered if he planned to say goodbye without looking me in the eye, which seemed cowardly. Then again, I didn’t need the visual of his actor-perfect emoting. I heard him exhale a deep breath, and he turned toward me. His hand reached for mine, and he interlaced our fingers. I immediately felt the heat of his skin, and an unwelcome twinge ran straight through my stomach and ended between my thighs.

  Damn it. He was going to torture me.

  Before he could spit out what he wanted to say, the lights dimmed all the way so the movie could begin. “It’s fine. We can talk afterward,” he said. Then he pulled away and tucked back into his own seat, still holding onto my hand. “Just… let’s watch the movie.”

  I could hear the projector start above and behind us. “Wow, since when are you so uptight about watching your movies with me?” I turned halfway around in my seat to look him in the face.

  He wouldn’t look at me. Instead, he kept his gaze focused on the screen.

  I had no choice but to join my stick in the mud for his movie, so I turned back around. But the opening scene didn’t look anything like his usual movies. It had subtitles, for one thing. And it was in French. And it was… an arthouse film I’d been telling him I couldn’t wait to see. It wasn’t out in theaters yet. I knew because I’d checked as recently as that morning.

  Oh my God. I couldn’t believe it. “You had this movie screened just for us?” I asked in sheer disbelief that he would do something so utterly kind. And the arthouse-film hater was watching it with me. “But what about your movie?”

  “I’ve seen it a dozen times. This is for you.” He looked forward at the screen when he spoke.

  “I’m so… touched. You’re amazing,” I said. I knew I was ruining the opening scene by talking, but I also knew that I probably wouldn’t miss much by looking away from the screen and staring—still dumbfounded—at Chris. “You hate subtitles.”

  He turned to meet my eyes. He didn’t look as stern, but something about his expression still seemed nervous. “I love you more,” he whispered. He interlaced his fingers with mine and brought the back of my hand to his lips, where he kissed it. I sighed like a Southern belle, and he chuckled quietly. “And I speak French.”

  He did speak French. I’d forgotten.

  The movie was gorgeous and touching and thoughtful. I loved it because I noticed the tiny details and the subtle themes. The cinematography was stunningly beautiful, with long tracking shots over lush fields and gossamer flower petals. A pair of childhood friends realized they loved each other too late to be together. She was married. He was devastated. She was devastated. Their star-crossed love went unrequited.

  Big, sorrowful tears rolled down my face because I wanted her to cheat. I wanted them to be together. I needed her to say she’d made a mistake. But she didn’t.

  I stole a look at Chris, wondering if he’d think I was an incredible sap for getting so wrapped up in the on-screen relationship that I was brought to tears, and I saw that his own eyes were wet with the same emotion.

  “Chris,” I whispered so he’d look at me. When he turned, I put my hand up to his face, cupping his cheek so he would tilt down toward me. I needed to kiss him. I needed to feel his lips on mine. I needed to tell him I couldn’t let him go. “I’m so in love with you. And I do want more, but I don’t have to have it now.” I fe
lt desperate, needing to assure him that I wasn’t going to change my mind, that it wasn’t one more of my equivocating pronouncements. “I know I’ve been bossy and demanding, but I just wanted you to consider what I was saying.”

  “No,” he said, looking away then picking up his jacket off the chair and unfolding it. “That’s not good enough.”

  “Wait,” I said. I couldn’t let him finish his sentence and put on his jacket and walk away. “I have more to say. Don’t go. Please don’t.”

  Maybe it was the look of abject panic on my face, but Chris took both of my hands in his and pulled me to him. “Nikki, relax. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re not?”

  He shook his head. “I was starting to say, however, that you can’t ever stop asking for what you want. You have to fight for it. Especially because you and I want the same thing.”

  “We do?”

  “We do.”

  “You don’t ever want to be apart? You want us to live together all the time? You really want some water because… salty popcorn?”

  He nodded and reached down to grab a fresh bottle of water for me. “All three. Plus… there are a couple things,” he said, vulnerability in his dark eyes. “First, I spent most of the day lifting contingencies and signing escrow papers on a house.”

  “I’m sorry. What?” The words made no sense.

  “I bought a house.”

  “You bought a house.” I realized I was repeating what he’d said, but I couldn’t help it. He was saying words. I was saying them too.

  “In Santa Monica Canyon. It’s been on the market a long time, and the owners were thrilled to hear from a buyer who appreciated the handmade tile and the treehouse views.”

  My eyes went wide. I was likely in shock. “You bought the place I want to sit in when it rains?”

  He nodded. “All nine days of annual LA rain. I also cleared my schedule for the next six months. I don’t start a new film until next summer.”

  I blinked at him, trying to process what he was saying, because it sounded like he was saying the things I’d fantasized about him saying, but that was impossible. He didn’t want them.