Starlight Love

by Kat Bellemore

  Maybe she would have been glad of it a month ago, or even a week ago. But not when she’d no longer be able to be with Eli. Even working the grueling days, being able to work alongside him made everything worthwhile.

  “I don’t understand,” Adeline said, attempting to keep her voice level. “You said, and I quote, that you are more than falling for me. But then you turn around and do this.” She blew out a frustrated breath and squeezed her eyes shut. It took a moment for her to regain control. “I heard the advice Christopher gave you. He suggested that when you were talking to Daisy, to pretend she was me. And then everything turned around and clicked into place, and you were amazing.” She opened her eyes, and her gaze met Eli’s. “So, why don’t you want me around?”

  That was a painful question, and one she immediately regretted asking.

  Eli gave her a long stare, and she could tell that he didn’t want to answer the question. But he finally resigned with a long sigh and a shake of his head. “I didn’t follow his advice. I pretended you weren’t there.”

  21

  Eli didn’t know how this conversation had gone from a disaster to the equivalent of a nuclear meltdown, with everything spiraling out of control. The idea had seemed like a good one at the time—he couldn’t focus on anything with Adeline on set. He’d kept thinking about how she was standing so close, yet so far, and wondering if she still smelled like a mixture of citrus and chocolate. Was a slight smile playing on her lips, like it usually did, lighting up her eyes?

  Or would she be helping one of the crew members that seemed to need it, even though she wasn’t supposed to? In the past couple of days, Adeline had done that several times.

  And then Daisy had been looking at Eli like she was going to murder him for not paying attention and making them start again. And he’d realized that not only did he have no clue where they were in the scene, but he’d completely forgotten his lines. And he wasn’t at all in character, with Benjamin nowhere to be found, so the British actor wasn’t any help in improvising.

  Eli couldn’t work like that. And there had been only one solution. He’d honestly thought Adeline would be okay with it, and Christopher had agreed.

  But the way she was looking at him now, Eli had definitely made some faulty assumptions there.

  Was he technically firing her?

  Eli didn’t like to think of it like that, but he supposed he was. He was telling her to not show up for work anymore, but he’d thought of it more like paid time off.

  “I don’t understand why you’re angry,” he said. “You can get paid for catching up on your favorite TV show or something.” He paused, then gave her a smile, but it was strained, and he attempted to relax it. “I just realized I don’t know what your favorite TV show is. I bet it’s one of those medical dramas. Am I right?”

  Eli had meant to turn the conversation more lighthearted, something to lessen the damage. But he quickly realized it hadn’t been the right tactic.

  Adeline was left speechless, no longer spluttering but just staring. When she finally found her voice, it was quiet. “You never asked me what I want. You just assumed that I’d rather go sit down on a couch and watch someone else live out their life.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand, letting him know she wasn’t finished yet.

  “The fact that I don’t watch TV is beside the point. I had just finished telling you that I like you. A lot. More than a lot. I can’t believe I’m even saying that, considering where my feelings for you began. But being with you makes me happy. And makes me want to live a better life. And I want that life to be with you. It doesn’t matter if it’s from a distance twelve hours a day, and my feet hurt, and I’ve had to restrain myself at least five times from smacking Daisy upside the head with a chocolate box. Because I’m with you. When you care about someone, that’s all that matters.” She pulled in a shaky breath, like she might cry, and Eli felt like his own emotions were about to cave in.

  Adeline straightened, pulling herself back together. “I can be a help and not a burden. We could make a great team.”

  Maybe they could, and hope sprung in his chest. He’d never done things that way, with a partner. It sounded nice. But then memories of forgetting his lines resurfaced. He had felt so distracted and lost. Torn. People were losing faith in him. Even Christopher had seemed to harbor more doubt lately.

  They couldn’t afford another day like today.

  “I—” He couldn’t say the words, but he didn’t need to.

  Adeline stumbled back, as if she couldn’t put enough distance between them. “I didn’t believe the stuff that they’d written in the magazines, because you were nothing like they said you were. There was no way you were someone who would abandon their wife for six months out of the year and expect her to stick around. She had to have been after your money, or your reputation. Everything had to have been her fault.” Adeline’s gaze held a fierceness that he’d never imagined her capable of. His heart slid into his stomach; he didn’t want to hear any more. But Adeline had more to say. “I didn’t believe a word of it, until now. You want me on the sidelines before things have even had the chance to get started between us. I’m not going to make the same mistake your poor wife did, though.” Adeline spun away, but before she left, she sent a final glance over her shoulder. “I hope you and Benjamin are very happy together.”

  And then Adeline was gone.

  A sudden chill swept over him.

  Here Eli was again. The ink had barely had time to dry on his divorce papers, and he’d managed to ruin another relationship. It seemed everyone was angry with him nowadays.

  Eli couldn’t help but ask the question everyone else had been pressing him to answer for years.

  Was it worth it?

  They had been referring to the money and fame and all that.

  But that had never been what Eli was after. He’d just wanted to do something he loved. Act. And that meant overcompensating for his deficiencies the only way he knew how. Extreme method acting.

  But was it worth it?

  He sat down in the cold sand, not caring that it was causing his skin to prickle with pain. Eli was starting to think that he deserved it.

  Something that Adeline had said was bothering him. Well, all of it, but one thing in particular. She had referred to Diane as his “poor wife.” As if she were the one to be pitied, rather than him. Eli had been the unfortunate victim whose wife left him and took the house and the Tesla on her way out. So why did Adeline feel bad for her?

  Eli lay back on the sand and placed an arm behind his head. He could feel the cold bite even through the sleeve of his jacket. The stars danced above him, stretching far into the distance. He’d never bothered to look at the stars in LA. There had been no need, because even with his expansive backyard, there had been too much light pollution.

  Eli closed his eyes and tried to recenter himself, forcing away all of the competing thoughts that threatened to consume him. He didn’t want to think about Amaretto or Benjamin, or even Adeline at that moment. The sound of the waves calmed his mind, and he slowed his breathing as he filled his lungs with the cold air. He didn’t know the last time he’d taken the time to slow down. Probably hadn’t been since he’d last visited Oklahoma a couple of years earlier.

  He’d gone with Diane, on their first vacation since their honeymoon. Eli had wanted to go somewhere relaxing, like maybe the Caribbean or an Alaskan cruise, but Diane had insisted they go to see his folks. It had been too long since they’d been, and his dad and stepmom were closer to family for Diane than her own had ever been.

  Eli sat up, struck by the thought. Diane had forced him to go see his own family. He wasn’t visiting for Christmas this year because he was too busy. And he’d been too busy last year. Eli had to work harder than everyone else, and he’d managed to convince himself that sacrifices had to be made.

  The realization made him sick to his stomach.

  It was his fault. All of it. Including
the divorce.

  Diane wasn’t the bad guy here.

  He was.

  And it had taken a small-town chocolate-shop owner to make him realize it. Even the dissolution of his marriage, and the growing distance he’d felt between himself and his dad—that hadn’t been enough. They’d tried telling him, but he hadn’t listened.

  Eli jumped to his feet and practically ran to his trailer, though his legs were so numb that he stumbled a few times on the way. His hands hadn’t fared any better, and it took a full minute for him to get his key in the lock on the door and gain entrance.

  The phone that he’d turned off and shoved to the back of his dresser drawer was still there, crammed into a corner under a stack of T-shirts. When he tried to turn it on, it refused. Eli looked for the charger, but it wasn’t in the drawer with the phone. His movements became chaotic and crazed as he turned everything inside out, trying to find it.

  It took fifteen minutes, and Eli’s trailer was a disaster by the time he’d finished, but he finally found the charger. It had been thrown into the utensil drawer and had been wrapped around the handle of a spatula.

  He’d worry about his organization skills later—another byproduct of his dyslexia. Eli plugged the phone in and impatiently waited for it to get enough charge to turn on. When it finally did, he punched in one of the few numbers he knew by heart. Good thing too, because he had already deleted her from his address book.

  Diane didn’t pick up. He didn’t blame her, but he tried again. And again. On the third round, just before it would have gone to voicemail, the line quieted. It was as if she had picked up but wasn’t sure she wanted to have this conversation, and so stayed silent.

  “Diane?”

  A beat. “Hey, Eli.” Her voice held a tired drawl. “It’s late. You okay?”

  Eli glanced at his phone. 11:00 p.m. Diane had always been the early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of person. But what he had to say couldn’t wait, and strangely enough, hearing Diane’s voice brought a comfort to Eli he hadn’t been expecting to feel. It wasn’t love, per say. That ship had sailed long ago. But it was more affection for a close friend.

  “Yeah, thanks.” Eli shook his head. “Actually, no. I…” He hesitated, but thanks to his exhaustion, he didn’t have the inhibition he’d normally be battling. “I’ve messed up. Badly.”

  Diane released a long sigh. “You need me to pick you up from somewhere?”

  “No, no. We’re filming on location in a small coastal town. I just—”

  Diane interrupted him, now seeming fully awake. “You’re on location?”

  “Y-yeah.” He wasn’t sure what had gotten her so excited. “But the thing is that—”

  “As in, you are filming your movie. Amaretto. The one where you made me listen to a hundred British accents to see if you had the right one.”

  Eli’s patience was thinning, and if she didn’t let him speak soon, he was afraid he’d talk himself out of it. “Yes, that one. It’s been going terribly, though—”

  Diane gave a low chuckle. “I’m not surprised.”

  That gave Eli pause. “You aren’t?”

  “No. Because there is no way you would be on the phone with me right now if it was going well. Out of all the movies you’ve made, all the times you left for months on end, this is the first time you’ve ever called me before filming was complete. You never touch your phone mid-production. And yet, here you are, and we’re not even married anymore.”

  Eli rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on. “I’m not calling about the movie.” His irritation was starting to show.

  “Must be about the Tesla, then. It’s only fair I got it, you know. I—”

  “It’s not about the Tesla,” Eli practically shouted, having reached his limit. “I’ve been trying to apologize.” Okay, not the best way to tell Diane how sorry he was for everything he’d put her through. But she could be so infuriating sometimes.

  Apparently, he’d managed the impossible and stunned Diane into silence. The only evidence that she was still on the line was the sound of her breathing.

  “You’re…what?” Diane’s voice was soft and held obvious confusion.

  “I want to apologize,” Eli repeated, his voice now matching Diane’s tone. He released a long sigh. “I had always thought I was a master at juggling my home and professional lives. And I always thought of it as a win-win. You were able to do your own thing while I was gone without worrying about my schedule. You’ve always loved your girls’ nights out, and all that.”

  He stopped when Diane snorted. “Yes, a girls’ night out is nice, a couple times a month. But staying home by myself for the other twenty-eight? Not so fun.” She paused. “I hadn’t realized how difficult it would be. And I explained that to you. Multiple times.”

  “I listened,” Eli said, suddenly defensive.

  “Yes, and you suggested I take up martial arts,” Diane said with a laugh. “I didn’t want to get a black belt in Taekwondo. What I wanted was you.”

  “And I rearranged my schedule so I could be home more.”

  Diane was quiet. “I know. And I appreciated the effort. Until you suggested I visit your family for Christmas last year, because you’d be shooting a movie in France. Never mind that everyone else was going on break and traveling home to their families, and you could have too. Or that I could have flown out to France and spent the holidays there. You didn’t want to break character, so you chose to instead spend it alone.”

  “You know I have a learning disability.” Eli was about to say more, but Diane harrumphed, and Eli could tell she was just about done with this conversation. It was a repeat of many nights near the end of their marriage. So, not much of an apology. He’d instead turned it into a rehash of everything he’d done wrong, with him defending himself, like usual. It was hard not to. But if Eli continued to say and do the same things he’d always said and done, he’d end up with the same result, which was the problem.

  Because Eli already saw how quickly things had imploded with Adeline, and it wasn’t much different than how things had ended with Diane.

  So he stopped.

  Eli forced himself to stop seeing himself as the victim and instead said something he’d never thought to say. “I’m sorry. You’re right, and you have been all along. I neglected you, and I’ve neglected Dad.”

  A pause.

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Yes, I do,” Eli said, and was surprised to realize that he really did. He wasn’t just saying it to make himself feel better. Diane deserved to have the Tesla and the house, and everything else. “I wasn’t the husband you deserved. And frankly, I’m not the actor or the producer that Christopher deserves.” He’d really made a mess of things. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for Hollywood after all. “I don’t know if I’m meant to be an actor. Dad could probably use a hand around the farm. Think he’d let me move in for a while?”

  Diane laughed at the idea, but it wasn’t with malice. It was light, and genuine. “Are you kidding me? Of course you’re supposed to be an actor. Just like every one of the other actors out there who have dyslexia. But the difference between you and them is that you’re the only one destroying your life over it.”

  Diane had never been one to mince words, and these ones hit where it hurt. Especially because she couldn’t be more wrong. “People who have dyslexia don’t go into acting.”

  A shocked silence followed. “Do you really think you’re the only one out there in the spotlight that has dyslexia?”

  He was too embarrassed to say that yes, he had. His silence spoke for him.

  Diane sighed. “You would have known this if you’d just talked about it with me, or anyone else. My brother has dyslexia, and I tried to tell you what I know, but you shut your gift away, like it was a wart that needed to remain hidden. You’d have realized how many actors, writers, CEOs, inventors, and so many others have dyslexia. It’s your superpower. It’s where your creative genius comes from—the ability to see t
hings differently than the rest of us.”

  His superpower.

  Eli was grateful that Diane couldn’t see how red he must be at the moment. Despite the cold night, warmth spread up his neck and into his cheeks. Had everyone known this except him?

  “You really do deserve someone amazing,” Eli said after a moment. “And I wasn’t that person. I am sorry for that.”

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t be, Eli. Just the fact that you called me, and that you’re not talking to me in a British accent, tells me a lot. You should probably be apologizing to the other woman, though, rather than spending all your efforts on me.”

  Eli choked on his own spit. “Sorry?”

  “Oh, come on. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you hadn’t managed to screw things up again,” Diane said with a laugh.

  Was he really that transparent?

  “Thank you.”

  “Always happy to help. Though, you might not want to make a habit of calling up your ex-wife. Girlfriends don’t usually like that much.”

  “Duly noted.”

  Eli hung up the phone and lay down on the bed, one arm tucked under his head. He had been right when he’d married Diane—she was one of the good ones. Still was. And knowing that they were back on friendly terms and that she’d forgiven him helped lighten the load he’d been carrying.

  There was still plenty of burden left, though, and he wouldn’t be free of it until he took care of a few things.

  22

  Adeline sat on her back porch, wrapped in a wool blanket, a mug of hot coffee in one hand. She hadn’t slept, and had instead spent most of the night listening to the waves, looking to the stars, and asking for guidance from God, or the universe, or anything that would listen. Because something had broken last night, and she didn’t know how to fix it. Didn’t know if it was possible.

  How could she have been so stupid as to let her guard down? She had known better. But Eli had found the chink in her armor and slithered his way into her heart.