Now a Major Motion Picture

by Stacey Wiedower

  He flipped the novel over again and noticed a bookmark inserted more than halfway through it. He stood rooted to the floor, holding the book, Amelia’s book, in both hands. He was dumbfounded, unsure what to do next.

  The sound of Erin’s footsteps moving toward him down the hall jarred him enough that he managed to drop the book to his side and sink dazedly onto her aqua-colored quilt. Erin. Oh, God.

  She breezed into the room, red wine swirling in the stemmed glasses she held in each hand.

  “Hey, you.”

  Her voice was soft. She slid onto the bed beside him, reaching out to hand him one of the glasses. He made no move to take it from her. When he finally managed to compose himself enough to speak, he gestured with his head to the book that was still in his hands.

  “You’ve…read this?” His voice cracked in disbelief.

  Erin glanced down at the book in surprise, not yet processing the shift in his mood. She looked back up at him, a sheepish smile on her face.

  “Who hasn’t?” she asked wryly. When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I know, I know. I fell victim to the trend. My friends just kept talking about how good it wa…”

  Her voice trailed off as she finally seemed to process his staggered expression. She stared at him in confusion for several seconds, and then her eyes followed his to the photo on the book’s back cover. Her eyes grew wider as realization sank in.

  “Mel.” She mouthed the word, no sound escaping from her lips. “Is that…that’s not…Amelia?” Noah just stared at her, a combination of distress and disbelief clouding his expression.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Mel Henry is Amelia? Your Amelia?”

  He couldn’t form the words to confirm her suspicion. He gazed after her as she scooted from the bed and plunked the wine glasses on her dresser. They clicked together with a sharp clink, a few drops of dark-red liquid sloshing onto the light-colored wood. She rushed out of the room and disappeared down the hallway, returning a few seconds later with a thin, rumpled magazine in her hands. She leafed through it frantically before folding back several pages and thrusting the flimsy publication in his face.

  “That’s your Amelia?”

  He looked up at her, still in shock, and slowly reached out with one hand to take the magazine from hers. His eyes roved the page she’d placed in front of him for a couple of seconds before landing on the photograph she’d intended for him to see.

  It was his Amelia. Only she wasn’t his. This Amelia was locked in an embrace with—he peered more closely at the photo—some actor. What was his name? He couldn’t remember.

  He couldn’t focus enough to read the words beneath the photo to find out.

  The hand holding the magazine dropped to his side, and he lifted the book again to read the back cover. Once he’d done that, he turned it over in his hands another time, lifting the front cover and flicking past the opening pages to get to the first chapter.

  His eyes drank in the words on the page. Her words.

  He felt lost. This wasn’t real, wasn’t possible. He’d just been given way too much information to handle all at once. So it took a few minutes for him to process the fact that his girlfriend, his very annoyed girlfriend, was standing in front of him with her arms crossed, watching him have a moment she should never have been forced to witness.

  He’d blown through about six pages when Erin’s voice finally broke into the thick layer of silence that hung over the room.

  “Would you like to borrow it?” she asked dryly.

  He glanced up and gave her a bleak stare. Then he blinked hard a couple of times and shook his head, reclaiming his senses.

  “Oh…oh. I’m…sorry. This is…well, I don’t know what the hell this is. I’m in shock.”

  She stared at him a few seconds longer, her face fully expressing the hurt, the distrust he thought he’d finally managed to erase. If she’d doubted, during their earlier conversation, that he’d gotten over his past enough to see a future with her, well, now there was probably no question in her mind that he hadn’t. He shook his head. He couldn’t win.

  At least he finally knew what his sisters had been keeping from him.

  Anger swelled up inside him at this thought. How could everybody—how could anybody—have kept this from him? Apparently everybody knew who Amelia was, who his Amelia was.

  Erin spun on her heel and left the room. He watched her walk away, not sure what to do. On one hand, he knew he needed to follow, make things right, make up for his reaction just now.

  On the other hand, he needed a minute to himself. He glanced back down at the copy of US Weekly laying by his side. He picked it up, his eyes grazing over the cover in distaste. He’d never understood the appeal of celebrity gossip magazines.

  Celebrity gossip. And Amelia was part of all that? He shook his head, incredulous. He couldn’t make that fit together in his brain. What the hell had happened to her? Well, one way to find out, he thought wryly, flipping through the glossy pages to find the photo again. When his eyes landed on it, he pulled the magazine close to his face to study the grainy, blown-up image.

  It was torture. It was definitely Amelia, and she had definitely been caught with this Colin—he finally read the caption under the picture, shaking his head in awe and disbelief when he saw the words “New York Times best-selling author” in print—sharing an intimate moment.

  He couldn’t imagine that she was happy about this photo. But what did he know? He hadn’t seen or spoken to Amelia in years. He didn’t know her anymore. The thought made a pool of sadness well up inside him.

  There was somebody he did know, though.

  Somebody he’d just hurt.

  Again.

  He stood, closed the magazine, and tossed it onto Erin’s dresser. With another long glance at the cover of the book that now rested in the center of her bed, he finally willed himself to walk away from it, flipping off the light and heading down the hallway to try to somehow fix the damage he’d just done.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Brain Freeze

  His expression was contrite as he walked into Erin’s living room. He joined her on the couch, where she was curled into a tight ball in the spot they’d just left. He scooted in close to her and wrapped his arms around her sulking form.

  “I’m sorry.” He whispered the words, his eyes heavy with remorse. “Seeing the book was a shock. I had no idea…”

  She eyed him miserably. “What’s it to you?” She shook her head in disgust. “You haven’t even seen her in years.”

  He winced. She had a point.

  Her eyes were piercing as she studied him. “What happened between you two, anyway? I have a right to know.”

  Ouch. Now it was his turn to look miserable. It felt like her gaze could slice right through him. With a resigned sigh, he glanced up at her. He’d always figured it’d have to come out sometime.

  He could barely get the words out.

  “She walked in on me with another girl,” he mumbled, his eyes cast downward. “I’d been drinking.” He paused. “That was it. It was over.”

  The silence between them was thick. He couldn’t look at her. Shame washed over him in a violent wave, almost as if it had just happened, as if he’d betrayed Erin, too.

  After a long moment, her voice, softer now, broke the stillness.

  “Wow. I never would have guessed that.” She paused for several seconds. “I figured she cheated on you.”

  He exhaled in a huff and looked away, rubbing a hand across his forehead in agitation. Yeah, he’d never taken himself for a cheater, either.

  “Well, that explains a few things.” She reached up and grabbed his chin, turned his face toward hers. She drew in a sharp breath and then blew it out in a long, slow gush. “Look, Noah. I don’t really know what to say to help you through this. All I know is, you’re not with her. You’re with me. You say you want to be with me. So do you? Do you really?”

  She didn’t give him a chance to
answer.

  “Because I want to be with you. I don’t care about your past. I have my own past to deal with.”

  She stared at him sadly.

  “I love you. I can’t help it. I just…do.”

  He stared back. Could she really forgive him for this? For tonight? For Amelia? Did it even matter if he couldn’t forgive himself?

  At a loss, he pulled her back into his arms.

  “I love you, too. I’m so sorry.”

  * * *

  Back at his place the next morning, he sank onto the sofa and dropped his head into his hands. He’d spent the night at Erin’s after all, though he couldn’t believe she’d wanted him to stay after the way he’d acted.

  It almost would have been better if she hadn’t.

  He tried to make up for what she’d seen, for the obvious show of feelings he’d displayed for someone else. But as he kissed her, mumbling apologies between his kisses, he felt the wall slowly slide back up between them. When they moved from the couch back into her room, he thought if she could have built an actual wall between them in her bed, she would have.

  And then there was the fact that it was hard for him to act…normal…with her, knowing that the book was there in the apartment, calling out to him from the spot where she’d tossed it on her bedroom floor. What had Amelia written about? Once Erin’s breathing grew even and he was sure she was asleep beside him, it took everything in him not to sneak out of bed to find out.

  The long night of sleep—or in his case, no sleep—didn’t help the situation. She made him breakfast, and they both made an effort to act like nothing had changed, but the atmosphere between them was strained. When he left, she kissed him good-bye, but it was impossible to ignore the tension that hovered in the air like a poisonous cloud. It was even harder to resist a side trip on the way home to buy the book for himself, but for reasons he couldn’t articulate, he forced himself to drive straight to his condo. For one thing, he didn’t know if he could handle reading books Amelia had written, and for another, like Erin had said, what was it to him? He had no claim over Amelia anymore. He knew she shouldn’t have one over him.

  Amos walked over to the couch and began nudging Noah’s hand with his nose. With a groan, Noah rose and went to the kitchen for the leash, thinking a walk might help him clear his head.

  It didn’t.

  When he and Amos got back to the condo, he shed the previous night’s clothes and headed for the shower. As he walked past the phone on his nightstand, he thought about calling Sam to let her have it, but decided it wouldn’t do any good. What could he say? “I told you so” was hardly an appropriate response, and besides that, he didn’t want to discuss Amelia with anybody, especially his sisters.

  How do they even know? he thought. Obviously Amelia was using a fake name, though he couldn’t fathom why. Had his sisters recognized Amelia from the cover photo, too? Just how well known were these books, anyway?

  He turned off the shower and walked, still dripping, to his room. He dressed quickly and then pulled his iPad out of his nightstand drawer. When he googled the name “Mel Henry,” the volume of entries it returned boggled his mind. He stared at the small rectangular screen until he couldn’t stand it any longer.

  He turned off the device and stood, deciding to do what he always did when confronted with thoughts he wanted to avoid. Snapping Amos’ leash back on his collar, he flipped off lights, headed out to his garage, loaded the two of them into his car, and directed it toward the office.

  * * *

  The rest of the weekend dragged by in slow motion. He spent most of Saturday alone with Amos in his office suite, throwing himself onto his mountain of work in an attempt to channel his nervous energy into something productive.

  He felt like he was going crazy.

  It was as if Amelia had returned to torture him just when he’d started to think he’d moved past her. And the worst part by far was that it wasn’t only him who was being hurt by it. He was dragging Erin down with him, which was so unfair. He knew it, but he couldn’t stop it. The mere sight of Amelia’s book—this tangible piece of her that had suddenly materialized in his life—had reopened all his deepest wounds.

  Why? Damn it—why? Why can’t I just get over her? He grimaced as he considered how many times that thought had crossed his mind in the past nine years. He didn’t have an answer, and he was tired of circling the subject. He pulled the iPod he kept at work out of his top desk drawer, put in his earbuds, and turned the volume up loud. With Pearl Jam’s “Ten” drowning out his thoughts, he threw himself into the intricacies of the mechanical systems of the Miami hotel he was trying to design.

  When he finally looked up from his work—hunger and exhaustion winning out over self-avoidance—it was almost nine. Erin, thankfully, had prior plans tonight and was out with her friend Hilary. He could only imagine what she was saying to Hilary about him, but at least he didn’t have to worry about what he’d say to cover up the fact that he couldn’t handle spending the night with her, at least until the discomfort of last night had worn off.

  He just wanted to be alone.

  He managed to accomplish that goal for most of the rest of the weekend. Erin called Sunday morning and was evasive, saying she had papers to grade and wasn’t sure if she had time to see him. But because he was flying out again Monday morning, they made plans to have dinner together that night.

  Across the table at Mattito’s, a Tex-Mex place near Erin’s apartment, he was relieved to find that the anxious edge between them had softened somewhat—she seemed as eager as he was to forget about Friday. They sat out on the patio with a couple of beers and shared their usual order of Bob Armstrong dip before their entrees arrived, talking about work and friends and the upcoming week as if nothing had happened. When he dropped her off at her place after dinner, he got out and walked with her to her door. He wrapped his arms around her and felt her body go slack against his, like she’d expended her very last bit of energy having dinner with him.

  “I’m going to miss you this week,” he said.

  She looked up at him, her eyes unreadable. “I miss you already.”

  She stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed him. Without another word she released her arms from his neck and turned, sliding her key into the lock, opening the door, and disappearing inside.

  * * *

  Before he knew it, Monday arrived, bringing with it the not unpleasant promise of a mind-numbingly grueling week. When the buzz of his alarm pierced into his consciousness, Noah rolled over with a groan and grappled for the snooze button, still exhausted. He groaned again when he realized he had no choice but to drag himself out of bed and hurry into the shower. He was out the door twenty minutes later, his rolling suitcase in one hand and Amos’ leash in the other. He had to swing by the kennel and then rush out into morning traffic to make his 8:00 a.m. flight.

  Once inside the terminal and through the security line, he glanced at his watch. Traffic into DFW had been lighter than usual this morning, so his mad rush hadn’t been necessary—he still had thirty-five minutes to kill before he had to be at his gate. He popped into Starbucks for a cup of coffee and then decided to hit the newsstand to pick up a paper to read on the plane. He scanned the offerings and reached down to snag a copy of The Wall Street Journal from the pale wood shelves. As he straightened back up, he accidentally knocked into the arm of a thin, auburn-haired woman in a navy-blue pantsuit who was standing at a rack behind him. A spurt of coffee sloshed through the opening in the top of his cup and splattered onto his newspaper. Meanwhile, the book the woman had just picked up flew out of her hand, landed with a loud thwack, and skidded across the floor. It stopped beside his right foot.

  “Whoops, I’m sorry.” He flashed an apologetic smile and bent down to pick it up.

  “That’s okay. It didn’t hurt.” She grinned back and reached out to take the novel from his outstretched hand.

  All at once, he realized what he was holding. His breath stuck in his th
roat, and he didn’t release his grip on the book. Amelia’s book.

  “Are you all right?”

  The woman’s head cocked to one side as she watched him, both of them now holding the book. Noah realized it wasn’t the same one he’d found at Erin’s apartment, though its steel-gray cover looked similar. He remembered that the back cover of the book he’d seen said she was the author of three best-selling novels.

  He released his grip with a sheepish look.

  “Yeah, uh, I’m fine. Sorry.”

  “You can have it if you want it. There’re more.”

  She gestured to a tall, narrow rack beside them, one entire side of which was devoted to a splashy display of Amelia’s novels. He stared at them, dumbfounded, and the woman winked.

  “You should read them. They’re good.”

  She smiled at him again before turning to take her book to the register.

  He remained frozen in place, the woman already forgotten. He studied the shelves, noting three different titles in what was obviously a series. Two were available in hardback and paperback, and a third was in hardback only—It must be new, he thought idly. He glanced down at the dripping paper in his hand and then back up at the books.

  Should he?

  How could he not?

  He blotted at the paper with his Starbucks napkin and then turned to the shelves to grab a copy of each book, striding over and dropping the entire load onto the checkout counter before he could think too hard about what he was doing. His heart pounding, he made the purchase and stuffed the books into his carry-on bag. Outside the store, he dropped the ruined newspaper into a recycle bin and headed toward his gate.

  He forced himself to wait until the plane was in the air before sliding the first book in the sequence out of the bag he’d shoved under the seat in front of him. Within minutes, he was fully absorbed, lost instantly and completely in the world born out of Amelia’s imagination.