Monica gasped, lightning crashing in her head as she, of her own volition, began pumping wildly atop him, setting the pace. Eric threw his head back again, the corded muscles of his throat betraying the self-control she knew he was exercising. Every time she rose up and slammed herself back down on him to take him inside, she felt a bit more of her consciousness being punched away. She wanted burning oblivion. She rode him harder and harder until finally, her body rose up one final time in furor and a second climax ripped through her seconds before Eric’s own. Eric shuddered beneath her, his release feeding hers as they shared a relaxation of muscle and mind. Panting, Monica rested her fevered forehead against his, waiting for her breath to return to normal. She might not have said the words she’d longed to say, but her dream had come true.
FIFTEEN
They’d moved to the bed. She’d asked him to spend the night, and he’d agreed, and now they were lying there, entwined, silent but close. Monica was afraid to talk and break the spell. Eventually, though, his silence began to alarm her.
“You okay?” she asked, smoothing back some hair from his face.
Eric nodded. “Yeah, I’m just, you know . . .”
No, she didn’t know. “What?” she made herself ask gently.
Eric was quiet a long time. “I’m kind of confused.”
“Why?”
“Because I—my history with women . . .” He shook his head. “I’m not explaining this very well.”
“Want me to explain it for you?” Monica offered.
Eric looked guarded. “Sure.”
“You’ve never had sex that meant anything to you before. And what we just shared meant something. You fantasized about me for years, but the woman you fantasized about was just that: a fantasy. Now you know me and want me—the real me—and it scares you.” She searched his face. “Am I right?”
Eric rolled on his back with a sigh, looking up at the ceiling. “Yes. But it’s more than that. It’s the expectations that go with what just happened.”
Monica rested her chin on his shoulder. “What do you mean?”
Eric turned his head to look at her. “You want to define this as a ‘relationship’ now, right?” There was distress in his eyes.
“I guess,” Monica said cautiously, afraid of saying the wrong thing.
Eric scrubbed his hands over his face. “I do care about you—the real you,” he admitted. “But I don’t know if I can be what you want me to be. I don’t know how to do that.”
“What is ‘that’? Be a real boyfriend? Have you ever tried?”
“No, because it’s never interested me.” He rolled toward her, running a finger up and down her shoulder. “Can we just keep this simple for now?”
“What does simple mean? Just have sex and tell ourselves we’re just getting off on each other?”
Eric drew back, stung. “No, of course not. Just take it one day at a time, without any expectations or preconceived notions of where we want it to go.”
“Because you’re afraid of where it will go,” Monica said tersely. “Because you want an easy out in case you want to dump me.”
“No.” Eric gripped her shoulders tightly. “Tell me: Do you know where you want it to go?”
Monica hesitated. Did she know? She wasn’t imagining herself walking down the aisle with him or moving in with him. She was simply imagining them having what they had now, maintaining the new emotional connection that existed between them, with wonderful sex thrown into the mix as well.
“No,” she said quietly.
“Well, there you go, then.”
“It’s not that simple, Eric,” she insisted.
Eric’s jaw set. “It has to be. Simple is what I do, Monica. Simple and uncomplicated.”
“Forever?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a deep exhalation of frustration. “See, this is what I’m talking about. I’m feeling pinned down here, and I don’t like it.”
Monica blinked. “Okay, let me make sure I’m getting this straight: we’re going to have a real relationship, but we’re not going to call it that, because you can’t handle that definition.”
“I guess,” Eric murmured, looking uncomfortable.
“So you think having a real relationship, not calling it that to ourselves, but acting to the outside world like we’re having a real relationship, is simple and uncomplicated?” Monica asked.
“I don’t know,” Eric snapped.
“And what happens if it gets more and more intense?”
“I can’t think about that right now. That’s where the ‘take it day by day’ comes in.”
Monica thought. “Okay,” she eventually capitulated. “If that’s what you need to do, then okay.”
Even as her mouth was forming the words, she wondered if she was now compromising herself personally, just as she did professionally. Why should he get to set the terms? Wasn’t she entitled to at least some expectations? She could tell this was the real Eric: he wasn’t just handing her a line of bull; laissez-faire was all he could handle right now. He’d admitted he cared. For someone who’d spent his entire life doing nothing more than bagging babes until they bored him and he moved on, this was progress. Monica sensed that if she pushed him, he’d bolt, and she didn’t want that. Patience, she told herself and settled back peacefully in his arms.
“I don’t appreciate this torture.”
Monica ignored Monty’s comment as she walked with him slowly around the Pond in Central Park. As usual, she’d found him holed up in his apartment, growling at the TV in his musty bedroom. Barking like a drill sergeant, she instructed him to get dressed because she was taking him out. Monty issued his standard protest, but it stemmed more from tradition than any genuine resistance. She could tell he was glad to see her.
It was a lovely Sunday, the sun dappling the swaying leaves on the trees as well as glinting magically off the water. The episode of W and F featuring Monty had aired recently.
“Did you watch yourself on my show this week?”
Monty gave a pained shake of the head. “Awful. A rote, wooden performance, just as they demanded of me. I hope to God no one I know watched it.”
“I bet you liked the nice, fat check you got for one minute’s work, though.”
Monty just grunted.
She’d come to the conclusion that Eric was right: it was time to show some backbone. She decided to broach the topic of Monty’s disdain for what she did.
“I know you probably don’t mean to,” she said, “but it hurts me when you put down daytime. It’s how I make my living.”
Monty said nothing.
“You say it’s compromising my talent, yet when I came to you to fill in—”
“That was for one day,” Monty interrupted sharply. “There’s a difference between compromising for one day and compromising for a decade.”
“I’m not sure I agree,” Monica said bravely. She took a deep breath. “And I also think you owe me an apology for your behavior on the set that day.”
Monty seemed to get very still despite their strolling the lake. This was probably the first time in all these years that she’d ever challenged him. Maybe challenge was too strong a word; perhaps disagreed was better. The first time she’d ever disagreed with him. How sad was that?
“I saved this for you,” was Monty’s response. He reached into the pocket of his coat, pulling out the print edition of Back Stage. “I think you should audition. You’d be perfect for it. You could keep your day job and display your true talent at night.”
Monica took the paper and unfolded it. Circled was a casting call for a new play opening on Broadway written by one of England’s top playwrights. The producers were looking for “tall, blonde women between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, capable of doing an impeccable, upper-class British accent. Agented submissions only, please.” Monica could do a British accent in her sleep. In fact, she was adept at a multitude of accents: Irish, Scottish, Cockney, Australian, French, American S
outh, New England Yankee . . . mimicry was a gift she’d had since she was a small child.
Monica swallowed. “Thank you for thinking of me.”
“Auditions are on Friday.”
“Yes, I see that.”
“Promise me you’ll go.”
She wanted to but found she couldn’t. Her life wasn’t that simple anymore. Her job was demanding, and now that she was in a whatever-you-wanted-to-call-it with Eric, she had even less time to play with. Excuses, excuses. What if she auditioned and didn’t make the cut? She appreciated Monty’s belief in her, but after ten years of not having to audition, she feared she’d be rusty. Still, this could be her chance to prove the depth of her talent. She thanked Monty again, folded the paper, and continued at a snail’s pace with him around the Pond. Later, she thought she heard him say, “And I’m sorry,” under his breath as she was leaving his apartment, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Balls to the lot of them.”
The vehemence in Gloria’s voice did nothing to assuage Monica’s pain as she lay with her head in the older woman’s lap, winding down from a crying jag. Despite her trepidation, she’d decided to audition for the play. She’d aced the upper-crust British accent the producers desired. When she was called back to read two days later, she half allowed herself the thought that she might get the part.
The ensuing two days, spent waiting for her agent, Renee, to call with news, were torturous. The minute the phone rang and she heard the deliberately measured tone of Renee’s voice, she knew she’d been rejected. “They thought you were great, Monica,” Renee assured her, before adding after a slight hesitation, “but they didn’t want to cast a soap actress. They were afraid the production wouldn’t be taken seriously.”
Monica’s first reaction was fury. Why couldn’t she be seen simply as an actress, not a “soap actress”? If she had the chops, what did it matter? Jesus Christ, it wasn’t like she’d been earning a living doing porno films for the past ten years!
Her anger was short-lived. She segued quickly into despair and self-doubt, followed by utter devastation. She sucked. She shouldn’t have tried to stretch herself. She would always and forever be Monica Geary from W and F. The soap opera actress. She knew there were worse brushes to be tarred with. But it still hurt.
Her first impulse was to call Eric. But as she dialed his number, she realized she needed to talk to someone who could understand her anguish. And so she sought out Gloria.
“You have to understand,” Gloria said, stroking Monica’s hair as they sat together on the couch in Gloria’s flower-filled living room. “Not only is the industry competitive, but they like to put actors in nice, tidy boxes where they’re easily definable. So this one is labeled a character actress, and that one is branded the kooky best friend, and this one over here is Mr. Action-Adventure. Try to do something different, and the powers that be—idiots that they are—become spooked. ‘What if I can’t sell this person in this new role?’ is all they can think. They’re terrified of risk.”
“But if you’ve got the talent—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But other actors have made the jump from soaps to movies. Or the stage.”
“My angel,” said Gloria, cupping Monica’s cheek, “for every Meg Ryan, there are one hundred other actors who leave daytime and find themselves starving or offered the most insulting roles imaginable. Why do you think so many return?”
Monica swallowed, closing her eyes. “I know. I just thought—”
“You’d finally be taken seriously?”
“Yes,” Monica whispered.
“Sit up.”
Monica did as Gloria said, rubbing her eyes, which now felt raw.
“You are taken seriously,” said Gloria sternly. “Your peers take you seriously. Your fans take you seriously. Don’t you realize that until you stop letting others define success, you’re never going to be happy?”
Monica glanced away, not knowing what to say. She knew Gloria was right.
“I know that the way you’re feeling right now, you probably won’t give a tinker’s damn about this,” Gloria continued, “but I wanted to show you something, just in case you hadn’t seen it.”
Gloria picked up the latest issue of Soap World and handed it to Monica. There were two pages of polls, ranking favorite characters for each of the shows. Monica was ranked the number one character on W and F, followed by Gloria, and then Royce. Chesty was sixth.
Monica looked up at Gloria. “Okay, that does help,” she admitted with the hint of a smile.
“Especially since Titty LaRue didn’t even make the top three.”
Monica laughed.
“Feel better?”
“A bit.”
“Still going hot and heavy with that ice boy of yours?”
Monica blushed. “Yes.” Hot and heavy was the perfect way to describe it. Her patience ploy seemed to be working; it sometimes felt like she and Eric couldn’t get enough of each other, both in and out of bed. She was now a fixture at, at least one Blades’ home game a week, her name chanted with such affection by the fans that she always left the arena touched. She still got the sense that Eric was holding her at arm’s length emotionally, but he’d come a long way. Even so, there was no way she was going to risk telling him she loved him. He was going to have to say it first.
“Why aren’t you with him tonight?” Gloria asked.
“His team is away, playing on the West Coast.”
“Then let’s you and I go out and wreak havoc,” Gloria said with a wicked glint in her eye.
“What do you have in mind?”
“Anything that doesn’t involve my potentially breaking my hip.”
Monica chuckled. “C’mon. I’m sure we can figure something out.”
“Talk to Mom and Dad lately?”
The cautious tone in his brother’s voice got Eric’s full attention as they sat at the Blades’ favorite bar, the Chapter House, nursing beers. Up until now, Eric had only been half listening anyway, his mind preoccupied with Monica. The press was still eating up their relationship, which was great. He was playing well, in part, he was sure, because she was his good luck charm. But their day-by-day thing had turned into a month-by-month thing, complete with “real” couple activities, like hanging around the apartment (usually hers) in their sweats watching TV and eating pizza, or else hanging out with Jason and Delilah at their apartment, doing much the same thing. He knew she was falling in love with him, and it was freaking him out. So were some other things that he didn’t care to explore too closely. Too bad he couldn’t talk to anyone about it.
Eric took a bite of a stale pretzel, chasing it with a sip of beer. “Dad left me a message, but I haven’t had a chance to call him back yet.”
“Well, I talked to him last night.” Jason looked grim. “He and Mom turned down our offer for more money.”
Eric blinked. “Are you kidding me?”
“They said it was stupid, pouring that kind of money into a failing venture. They said we needed to keep our money for ‘our future.’ ”
“Did you remind them of how much money we make?”
Jason frowned. “Of course I did. But you know Mom and Dad.”
“What happened to the farm being in the family for three generations and all that?” Eric heard the rising panic in his voice. He couldn’t believe what an emotional subject this was for him.
“I think they’re just tired,” Jason continued with a sigh. “Dad mentioned selling and he and Mom buying an RV and driving around the country in it.”
Eric could picture it. He’d never seen two people who got along as well as his parents, even after all these years. Sometimes the affection between them even made him uncomfortable. He and Jason recently had a really uncomfortable conversation about whether their folks still “did it,” a discussion they both swore never to repeat.
“An RV,” Eric mused. “They’d like that.”
“Anyway”—Jason took a long pull o
n his beer—“Delilah and I came up with an idea.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to buy the farm from Mom and Dad.”
“What?”
“Hear me out,” Jason said quickly, as if he were fearful Eric’s gut reaction would be negative. “You know Delilah loves it out there. It could be our summer home—of course, you and Monica would be welcome to use the house whenever you wanted, too. We’d pay Mom and Dad way above the market value of the house, the cattle, and the equipment. They’d be in a really great financial position—and the land would remain in the family. What do you think?”
Eric mulled it over. “I think it’s a great idea.”
“Are you upset?” Jason asked, looking at him with concern.
“No, of course not.” Eric paused. “Well, maybe a little. I’d like to feel like I was doing something more to help out. I grew up there, too, you know,” Eric reminded him testily as he reached for another stale pretzel.
“I didn’t mean to insult you,” Jason apologized.
Eric clapped him on the back. “You didn’t. Honestly. You just took me by surprise.”
“I know.”
“What if Mom and Dad won’t go for it?”
“I think they will,” said Jason, finishing the last pretzel in the bowl and holding it up for the bartender to refill. “Especially if Delilah suggests it to them. They think Delilah walks on water. Monica, too,” he added significantly.
Eric ignored the comment, draining his beer.
“You two seem to be getting very serious,” Jason continued.
Eric just nodded.
“I have to say, I never thought I’d see you in a serious relationship, you know?”
Eric forced a smile.
“You guys up for a movie Thursday night?”
“Can’t. I have to go to that charity ball for Ronald McDonald House, remember?”
“Is the Mrs. coming?” Jason teased.
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