by April Fire
“Dina, just give me a shot,” I tried to convince her. “Look, what’s between us, it’s…real. I don’t know what it is yet, but you can’t deny that there’s something there. Please?”
She gazed up at me, real pain etched into her face, and grabbed her jeans, panties, and shoes off the floor.
“I should go,” she mumbled, grabbing for the door, and I had a flashback. To the first time in the trailer, to the last time in the trailer, to that night we’d spent out together - all those times when she’d walked away from me without delivering anything close to an answer for her actions. She owed me one, surely, after everything that had happened.
“Dina, wait,” I implored her. “I want you to stay. Give me a-”
“Will, I can’t do this,” she shook her head and opened the door. “I’ll send another artist down. I’ll see you…I don’t know, around.”
And with one last tearful look in my direction, she slammed the door shut behind her and walked out, leaving me standing alone in that dressing room and feeling as though someone had just landed me a brutal sucker punch.
Chapter Thirteen
Dina
It’s funny; when you’re not working on a set, time just seems to drift by. With a production like the movie I had just come from, every minute of every day was set out in block print so that not a second was wasted and they could get the most out of their budget, but back in the big city, nothing was as regimented.
It had already been a couple of months since the movie was finished up, and I had spent that time just kind of drifting around the city, not doing much of anything except trying to keep a roof over my head and the money coming in. Those stresses I could handle, though – they were the normal stresses that came with living a life like the one I did. And at least none of them revolved around a certain Will Derry.
I stopped making the cup of coffee I was going to have with my breakfast and stared off into space, the pang of his name bringing me to a standstill. When was this going to get better? When would it get easier? I had no idea, as it had been what felt like a lifetime since our hook-up in that dressing room and the memories were still as fresh as they ever were. The feel of his fingers on my flesh, the way he felt inside me – I had never had sex like it before.
I had hoped, spur of the moment, that it would go some way to getting him out of my system, but I knew at the moment that I walked into the room and saw him sitting there that I had to fuck him. It was like some kind of magnetic draw, that pull that snapped me to his side no matter what.
But I hadn’t heard from him since then, so it seemed like he’d taken my advice and backed the hell off. I didn’t know what I was thinking when I shut him down. I mean, I wanted him, and there he was, after we’d hooked up, telling me that he wanted more and that he couldn’t stop thinking about me and that there was something between us and he felt it too, and what did I do? I ran the hell out of there.
Everything combined at once – the sex, his confession, my mixed feelings – and I needed some time to get my head on straight before I could give him the answer that he obviously expected right there and then. If I would have taken just a second longer, then I would have stayed. I would have given him my number, told him to call me, and walked off with that warm feeling in my stomach like I was kindling a fire. Like this was the start of something. Because Will was right; there was something between us, something special and unstoppable and something that even now made me feel as though I was being dragged across the city towards him.
I knew I could have reached out to him if I really wanted, that I could have been the one to make the effort after he spilled his guts to me the way he did, but I was terrified – scared that if I came running, he wouldn’t be interested in me anymore. Because there was still a part of me that couldn’t shake the feeling Will was really in this for the thrill of the chase. And what then? What if I ended up heartbroken and with nothing to show for it?
I shook my head and carried on making my coffee. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life hung up on some guy who I’d hardly had anything with in the first place. Yes, the fucking was fun, but I still barely knew him. I liked him, and he was fun, but what about when things got hard? What about when stuff wasn’t all romantic and big and galas and movies? How would he deal with the day-to-day of it?
Those were the questions I comforted myself with in the middle of the night when I was trying to convince myself that it wouldn’t have worked between us. They were so familiar to me now that I probably could have recited them like some kind of childhood chant. They weren’t doing a whole lot to comfort me anymore, though I never would have admitted that to anyone but myself. I felt a keening hole inside me every time I thought of him, every time I thought of what he was offering me and how good things could have been between us.
I was snapped from my self-indulgent reverie by the sound of my phone buzzing on the counter next to me; I grabbed it off the side and answered it at once, just glad to have something to take my mind off the nasty spiral that my brain seemed so intent on dragging me down.
“Hello?” I spoke as perkily as I could manage, hoping that it was the call back from that job I’d applied for back in Devina. I wanted to get out of the city, and that town had really stolen my heart. Plus, it would mean that the place wasn’t permanently linked with Will in my mind, which could only be a bonus.
“Hi, Dina?” I heard a familiar voice down the line – it was Caroline, the woman with the connections who had landed me that job with Will in the first place. She had been the one to put them in touch with me after I worked alongside her on the movie that caught their attention. I had forgotten to call her since I’d been back, and instantly prepared myself for a well-deserved passive-aggressive “but I hadn’t heard from you in so long, I was getting worried!”.
“Hey, Caroline,” I picked up my coffee and took a sip. “How are things going? Sorry I haven’t been in touch-”
“No, it’s not about that,” she cut across me, and I could picture her waving her hand to dismiss me. “I just got a call from that movie you worked on? They’re trying to get a hold of you.”
“Why?” I furrowed my brow. “Is something wrong?”
“I think you got nominated for something,” she dropped in casually, and I slammed my hand down on the counter to keep myself upright. Holy shit!
“Really?” I gaped in shock. “Are you sure?”
“No, I haven’t got a clue, really,” she replied brusquely, in her way. “But it sounded like good news. You need to get hold of them. And stop making me have to relay messages!”
“I will, I will,” I promised. “Can you give me the number?”
She read out the digits to me and hung up, and I paced back and forth around the apartment for a minute or two until I got the nerve to actually pick up the phone and call them. I was too excited. What if it was actually an award? I had never been nominated before. Not for anything.
I couldn’t imagine why my work on Will’s movie was going to turn many heads, but I wasn’t going to complain if it had. Finally, I dialed the number and held the phone to my ear, listening to the monotone buzz long enough that it lulled me into an almost hypnotic state. When someone did answer, my head jerked back in surprise.
“Oh, hi,” I greeted them awkwardly. “It’s…Dina? I got a call from a friend saying that you were trying to get hold of me-”
“Yeah, we didn’t have your phone number on record,” The woman at the other end of the line confirmed, sounding bored. “Thanks for getting back to us so soon.”
“Uh, no problem,” I tried to sound as cool as she did and failed. “So, uh, what’s this about?”
“Your work has been getting some awards buzz and the directors want you to come in and meet with them again, talk about how they can make this work for the movie,” She explained. “Can I give you a time and address?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” I agreed at once. “Please do.”
She gave me the time and the
place and hung up the phone, leaving me staring at the blank screen with a grin on my face that looked fit to split me in half. What the fuck! No-one had so much as seriously looked at my work before Will had, and now there was awards buzz about it? How many people had seen it? Did they have a distributor yet? I would be seeing them in a couple of days’ time, and all my questions would be answered then. And then it hit me – I’d be seeing Will again.
I stared at my phone even harder, the reflection of my face registering the realization that he’d be back in my life again, however briefly. Well, maybe not him – maybe I’d just be meeting with Derrick? But the woman on the end of the phone had specifically said “directors”, which sounded to me like they were both going to be there…
I was glad I had a few jobs lined up over the next couple of days, because if I hadn’t I could have seen myself all too easily slipping into obsessing over seeing Will for the first time since our encounter back in that dressing room. What had it been, six weeks? And he hadn’t bothered to reach out to me again? I guessed he was doing the right thing from his point of view, considering that I had shut him down over and over again. As far as he was concerned, I had made my stance on us clear and he was just respecting that.
But how could I convey to him that I felt differently now without completely shooting myself in the foot? What was I meant to say, to do, now that I knew I was seeing him again? All of it felt so painfully, intensely unfair – all this time he’d been pursuing me and I’d been knocking him back, and now that I finally decided I actually wanted him in my life, he shrugged his shoulders and walked away and left me to pick up the slack. Well, that’s what I got for taking so long to figure my own damn self out.
I woke up early on the day of the meeting, hours before I needed to leave, and drank three cups of coffee in quick succession. I was buzzed with energy even without the caffeine, and carefully made myself up, pulling my hair back and up off my face and slicking on some subtle make-up that displayed my skills well enough to remind everyone what I was nominated for.
My heart was skipping around in my chest, my brain trying to make sense of the surges of emotion that were pulsing through it. Excited, nervous, stone-cold terrified and a little turned on at the memory of what we’d got up to all those weeks ago – I was a mess, and I had to put on a decent game face already.
I arrived at the office space rented to cover the business side of the movie, and was nodded through by the same receptionist who had been on the phone to me earlier. I took a deep breath and briefly shut my eyes as I headed through to the meeting room, wondering what the fuck I was going to be faced with once I got inside.
I paused with my hand on the door, lingering for a split second in the promise of what I didn’t yet know. If I didn’t open this door, then none of it was real. If this door stayed shut, then I could make like Will was in there and that we could figure things out and that he had waited for me all this time. I could pretend I’d been nominated for a dozen awards and was the front runner to pick up each and every one. I could make like everything was perfect, even just for a minute. But then, with a swell of resolve, I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Hi, Dina,” Derrick got to his feet and greeted me, holding out his hand. I took it, but my eyes had been drawn to the man sitting behind him – Will.
He had grown out his stubble a little, and looked tired, as though he spent many of the nights we’d been apart up late trying to make things happen for the movie. He was studiously staring at his hands, and my eyes followed his – I felt a jolt of excitement when I remembered how good they’d felt all over me, how hot it had been when he’d slipped them between my legs to cup my pussy.
Derrick paused and half-turned over his shoulder, obviously waiting for Will to do the same. After a second of silence, Will got to his feet and took my hand.
“Good to see you again,” he managed, sounding almost genuine. This must have sucked for him. Here he was, sure that he had gotten rid of me for good – and then I came swanning back into his life because I’d had some potentially major success. It was about the worst way you could see an ex again – though I wasn’t sure if that was an accurate term for what was between us.
“So, as I’m sure you know, your work has been getting some awards buzz…” Derrick launched into a spiel, and I did my best to listen. It wasn’t hard, considering that they were basically talking about how good my work was. I couldn’t believe it, but they’d sent out the rough cut to a few festivals and studios, and had received back a handful of awards that it was under consideration for already. I’d been nominated by three different festivals for my work. I had to repeat that to myself a couple of times in my head, because it just seemed to make so little sense – me, getting picked for rewards for my work, three times?
Derrick was keen on laying out how we would go about campaigning for this and the other awards the film had been nominated for; I listened as best I could, but I found my gaze drifting off to Will as he spoke. Will had said very little since I had arrived, only really speaking when Derrick turned to him to get some back-up or confirmation on what he was saying. Every time he spoke, it was like someone had jabbed me with a bare wire, my body jumping in reaction to the sound of his voice. How could I ever have denied what there was between us? How could I ever have turned him down? It seemed so ridiculous in retrospect, but I knew it had seemed deadly serious at the time.
Derrick got to his feet, stretched, and turned to me.
“I’m going for a glass of water; can I get you anything?” he asked, and I shook my head.
“No,” I replied. “But thanks.”
“Catch you in a minute,” he nodded as he left the room, leaving just Will and I in there alone. I took a deep breath. Now. I needed to talk now if I was ever to have a chance of making this man part of my life again.
“Will, I-”
“Look, if you think I just got you back here because I was trying to see you again, I didn’t,” he cut across my bluntly.
“No, I never thought that,” I furrowed my brow. His face softened and he slumped a few inches down in his chair.
“I just can’t seem to get a read on you, can I?” He raised his eyebrows ruefully
“Will, I need to tell you something,” I dived in, glancing over my shoulder to make sure that Derrick wasn’t about to bust back in on us in the middle of what he was saying. “What happened in the dressing room, I- it overwhelmed me. It took me by surprise. I didn’t have a good answer for you when you asked if I wanted to be with you, so I just told you to go.”
“And I did,” he eyed me suspiciously, as though not sure if he liked where this was going.
“I was wrong,” I implored him. “I know I’ve got no right to come in here and ask for another chance, but I was so scared of everything I thought you were, and now-”
Derrick walked back in, making me jump. He paused for a moment and looked between us, as though he could practically taste the atmosphere that had emerged in his absence.
“Everything alright?” He asked, and we both nodded stoically, not making eye contact. The meeting picked up where it had left off, but I couldn’t shake the conversation from my brain. Could I have phrased it better? Was he mad at me for bringing this up when we were meant to be having a professional business meeting?
Had I missed my shot with him in the first place? I kept on shooting looks in his direction, hoping I would get a read on what was going through his mind, but I came up blank. His expression was studiously neutral, the years of acting experience coming in handy to throw me off the scent of what was actually going on.
“So, we’ll be happy to cover some of your expenses to come out to the festivals if you’d be willing to do some rep for the movie,” Derrick finished up, glancing over at Will who nodded robotically. “Does that sound like something you could manage?”
“I don’t see why not,” I nodded. “The sooner you can give me the dates, the better, so I can clear my work schedule.
”
“We’ll have them to you by the end of the week,” he promised, and got to his feet. Will did the same, and I felt a shock of panic lance through me – this was it. The meeting was almost over.
“Great to see you again, and congratulations,” Derrick smiled warmly as he shook my head. He wandered out of the meeting room as Will stepped forward to do the same, and I realized that this was my last chance to say what needed to be said.
“I know I walked out on you before, and the time before that,” I admitted. “I know you’ve got every reason to think that I’m bullshitting you or that this isn’t real. But please, listen to me – I want you.”
“You’re going to need to do better than that,” Will replied, and I saw the flash of hurt in his eyes that was borne from all the times that I’d left him with no explanation. I felt a stab of guilt, took a deep breath, and went on.
“I was so scared of being with someone like you,” I explained. “Someone…fuck, you must know what your reputation is like, Will. The way people see you, I didn’t want to risk becoming just another one of those women you used and then tossed aside. And then when you seemed to get more into me the more I turned you down…”
I trailed off, and he glanced out the window beside us before he replied, gathering his thoughts.
“I get that,” he admitted. “But it’s always felt different with you, Dina. And I can’t promise that we’re going to be together forever or some shit, but I’m not dumping you as soon as you stop running. I -- I need you, I think.”
The words hung in the air between us, and I stared at him. I knew exactly how he felt, because it mirrored almost word-for-word what I thought when I looked at him. That I had no idea how this was going to go, but that I had to find out for myself. I had to know first-hand what we would make of each other, once and for all.
“So, what happens now?” I asked, my heart beating hard in my chest as my gaze flicked down briefly to his lips.
