by Alex Rosa
This time I step up to him, only inches between us as I look up at his towering frame. “And I would never expect you to apologize for that.”
His eyes dart all over my face, searching for something, and it’s such an intense look that I have to take that step back. He reaches for his camera, and before I can protest he snaps a few more photos.
Click. Click. Click.
“Gio, please . . .”
“That reminds me. My show is Friday.”
That’s four days away. There’s so much going on I can barely keep my schedule straight.
“I’ll be there. That’s the day after this awards show I’m going to with Blake.”
Gio, entirely unaffected by Blake’s name, like he said he wouldn’t be, nods. “Oh, I heard there was something like that going on this week. That’ll be good.”
“Yeah, I’m excited . . . Nervous, too. I have to go shopping.”
Talking mundane shopping chitchat with Gio feels so silly. He’s so much bigger than my silly worries or chores.
“Why don’t you keep the dress you’re wearing?”
My mouth falls slack as I peer down at the deep navy fabric with its intricate embroidery, and I bask in the tight strapless bodice encasing me, feeling the same awe I felt when I pulled it over my body for the first time hours ago.
I utter, “It’s too much!” for the third time today.
“It’s not. It fits you so well, and if you’re hitting the red carpet you’ll be wearing something before anyone has ever seen it. It’s pretty perfect, actually. Walk the red carpet right. Fashion forward. You have to think that way now. It matters.”
He’s teasing me, or chastising me. There’s a difference, and I can’t tell which he’s going for, but his words hold truth I need to force myself to wrap my head around. I guess it does matter now.
“Are you sure?” I ask, smoothing my palms over my hips.
“Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Well, then, thank you. I owe you, and I have no idea how I can repay you forever—”
“You never have to repay me. You’ve given me more than you realize.”
I don’t have the energy to sink my teeth into that one, not after everything we’ve already discussed. It’s been a long day.
“Thanks, Gio, seriously.” I release a yawn and stretch as best I can with this dress on. “I think I’m going to crash early to bed. What time is it? Close to eight in the evening now? Can you drive me home?”
“Are you hungry?” he asks as he follows me toward the curtain. I raise an eyebrow in his direction, and he laughs. “Ah, yes. Maybe another day would be a better time.”
“Thank you,” I repeat with a coy smile, and he mirrors my look. I have to force myself to walk away to change. I’m pleased he can tell it’s better we part ways for the night.
***
Gio’s sleek, midnight Audi cruises down the darkness of my street, and I let out a string of laughs as Gio explains to me how much he loves Nicki Minaj, and I argue with him that it’s her butt he’s in love with, and not her music.
When Gio relaxes and unveils an uncharacteristically loud laugh, it’s almost as funny as my joke. We’ve finally leveled out from our conversation earlier, and my life is back to calm. Lately, everything has felt like I’ve been managing the balance, but every punch, or ebb and flow, or hurdle that has come my way, I’ve conquered.
I’m still trying to contain my laughter as I clutch my chest, trying to catch my breath as I watch Gio attempt to wrap his lips and accent around a Nicki Minaj lyric belting through his car speakers.
“Stop, stop! I’m gonna die of laughter!”
He stops, joining in with me. Gio doesn’t reach out and touch me, ever. He just sits comfortably in my presence, and I really do believe him when he says he has his feelings under control.
Pulling up to the curb in front of my house, he says, “Hopefully you’ve laughed yourself into exhaustion.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m sure. Thanks for driving me around today . . . and just for everything.”
For once he doesn’t argue with my “everything” and instead nods his understanding. “No problem. I’ll see you Friday, then?”
“Most definitely. I wouldn’t miss it.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but no sound comes out, and instead, it snaps shut. He hums before shifting back to words. “I look forward to it. I’ll be sure to send you the address.”
I nod, and watch odd, giddy excitement flit over his features. How can such a roguish man work the whole young-boy angle so easily? It’s crazy.
I laugh again, only because he’s so ridiculous in that you-belong-in-a-zoo-or-a-museum sort of way, and I throw my arms around his shoulders from the passenger seat.
He petrifies in my grasp, and I know I’m crossing a line he might not be ready for, but if anyone’s going to keep this as friends, it’s me. This is platonic, and I mean that with every fiber of my being. I simply appreciate him.
“Thank you, Gio. Seriously.”
He lets his hands rest, featherlike, against my ribs, and I know this is him being careful, and I respect that. I pull away and turn to leave. “’Bye, Gio. See you Friday.”
“Ciao, bella.”
When I exit his car, I wave him off as he drives away, pulling in a deep breath of the crisp night air. That guy is such a trip. I’ll manage it. I’ll manage him. Like everything else in my life, it’ll be okay.
I pull my keys and cell phone out of my pocket, my mind absentmindedly swinging to Blake. It’s a reflex, really. When I think of home, or sleep . . . or eating or breathing, it’s always Blake my mind returns to.
I turn toward the driveway, seeing it empty and devoid of vehicles other than my own car.
Another night alone. Josh is away wooing Vanessa, and Blake is hard at work.
I decide to call Blake, but my hand barely swipes across the screen of my phone before I hear the slurring sound of my name.
My eyes fly upward to the trees that divide us from the home next to us. I see Jason stumble from his perch against one of them.
My blood turns into frigid ice in my veins.
“What are you doing here?” We are far from formalities and manners at this point. I just need to know why he’s here, and to get him far away.
The stumbles in his steps tell me this is a recipe for disaster. His deep-chocolate eyes are glazed over with misplaced interest as they heavily focus themselves on me.
I try counting to ten in my head, and with each passing second I try to create a game plan. My body is on full alert.
“You’re always running from me now. You’re like a name I keep hearing in the wind.” His hand lifts up, his fingers twiddling in the night air as he acts out the motion of a breeze. He’s most definitely wasted and barely making sense.
I wonder which game to play. The soft and sweet, catch-me-if-you-can approach? Or the firm, I’m-a-woman-to-be-reckoned-with, to strike fear?
I don’t know what my heart is up for, but I know it aches and throbs with each pulsing churn of my blood from one chamber to the next.
My body knows how this works, because most of the time it’s what took the brunt of the damage. I heave in a deep breath, carefully analyzing the situation. Jason is always the same when I’ve seen him since the breakup. Totally unchanged. It’s infuriating. Though, I don’t know why I don’t expect it. His shoulders are solid and broad; his skin still overly tan from beach days; and there is the constant chewing of the lip ring on the left side of his mouth as he watches me. It’s that look I thought meant he’s appreciating me, but the truth of the matter is, whatever he’s thinking right now isn’t good.
I gulp down the moment, my grip tightening on my keys. I peer over his shoulder to my closed front door, wondering if running to it I would have enough time to u
nlock it, and make my way inside before his stumbles could catch up with me. I’m not sure if it’s worth the risk.
Instead, I glance at my phone, swiping my finger across the screen. I consider whose number I should dial, and who would pick up, let alone understand.
“Skyler . . .” he repeats. “I’ve been wanting to talk youuu . . . If I could just have a moment of your t-t-time . . .”
I chew the inside of my cheek, my eyes rounding in my skull as I contemplate his words, and my predicament. His faded-black band T-shirt is the same one I remember over seven months ago shimmying my body into before I’d fall asleep for the night. I cringe at the memory, closing my eyes as if to delete it, letting them fly open anew, fresh, but it’s still the worst sight. Jason stands a couple feet away from me now, and I try to play it cool.
“You have me now, Jason. What did you want to say?”
His face sours. His thick brows scrunch up tight as his tongue licks his bottom lip.
I’ve upset him. Shit.
“I don’t have you. I’ve never had you! You left me. You ran away from me. You moved on to someone who doesn’t even see you for what you are.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, and I refuse to find meaning in this drunken man’s babbling. I won’t subject myself to this insanity. It’s ludicrous, but I worry I don’t have a choice.
Another sandpaper gulp slips down my throat.
“Stop, Jason. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh yeah—oh yeah!” He steps forward, getting in my face. His breath is disgustingly slick as it hits my face with the pungent smell of whiskey. I try my hardest not to gag.
“Blake. That’s his name, isn’t it? Who was that guy who dropped you off now? New guy, Skye? New man to make you feel good? To tell you what to do? To tuck you in at night? To touch you where you want—”
“STOP!”
“Oh, you don’t like that? I used to be enough, but the papers are plastering you as the girl who has to get her attention wherever she can.”
I shake my head. I don’t need another Jason-induced revelation. No thanks.
He raises his hand to my shoulder, and attempts to shove me back a step.
I don’t let myself wobble. I stand firm. It isn’t until that same hand comes up to my face, and his long fingers stroke my jaw that my eyes widen in terrified anticipation.
It’s another move I used to love. He even grabs my chin fondly. I can see his eyes piercing me, pinning me, watching me, as if he’s only doing it to elicit a reaction—my guess is a smile, but I won’t. I can’t. I want to pull away, but I’m trying to play this by ear until I feel like I can get to my front door safely.
When will that moment come?
When my face hardens with a look of impatient disgust, Jason grunts harshly, and his fingertips take a grip around my throat instead, digging into my skin.
“You’re such a bitch.”
When I try to reply, his grip on my throat tightens in a restraining squeeze that turns my words into a gasp. In a desperate attempt at breathing, I drop my phone, my fingers flying to his hand. I can hear my phone fall onto the cement with a clatter.
His free hand smacks one of mine away, while my other does nothing to affect his grip, no matter how much my hand tries to wiggle between his fingers. I can’t manage both fighting back and breathing, so I let my hands fall to my side.
I try to steady my stance, but I’m rigid anyway, petrified about what’s to come, because I see no foreseeable escape in sight. This is bound to end terribly. I feel it in my bones.
“I hate that I love you,” he spits out bitterly. His eyes are searing with rage as he holds me to the spot, his grip barely loose enough for me to heave in tiny, shallow breaths of oxygen.
I wish the bile in my throat would rise high enough so I could spit at him, but instead my mouth is cotton, and the only liquid I can manage leaks from my eyes.
Maybe I’d have something to say. Maybe I would even argue at this point. But the fact that I can’t terrifies me. I try to let my watering eyes dart left or right in the hopes of seeing a passerby, but this suburban street is deserted, and that scares me even more.
He’s my weakness in more ways than one.
“I don’t know how to be better,” he sputters. “I want to be better, but the truth is you were the only one who made me think I could be.” With his hands still tightly around my neck, I can’t help but think this insanity is transforming into bizarre. “Did you ever love me, Skye? Can I make this better?”
I nod my head that little bit, and he can see me trying to speak, my lips bobbing with the words I can’t fight. He loosens his grip a little more, and his drunken stare widens in hope.
When I can speak, I don’t waste another second, because it’s clear I’ve run out of options, and I don’t have much to lose. He’d overpower me anyway. I might as well give it all I’ve got.
“I loved you once, Jason. I loved you so much, but you broke me the moment you did what you’re doing right now. Your love isn’t love. It’s far from it, and now I hate you.”
I lift my right knee fast and hard into his groin. His grip around my neck constricts painfully when my knee makes contact, but he throws my body back as he writhes in pain, releasing me.
I try to catch myself, because all I know is I’ve got to get inside my house, and this is my chance, but instead I fall. I fall hard.
My elbow is the first thing I feel scrape across the pavement, and then it’s the slamming of my tailbone after. The force of his thrust is more than I realize as I get ahold of myself just in time before my head falls with my body to the cement.
“You fucking bitch!” he shouts. “You deserve whatever you get coming to you!”
My hand flies up as my blurring eyes see Jason looming above me in the shadows of the porch light. I think he’s going to drag me up and away, but instead I feel a hard kick to my gut.
The air is pushed out of my body in a scream. Finally! Sound! Although I’m in pain, I’m pleased by the release of any human alarm. Please, someone, hear my screams.
I think I see his leg swing back for another blow, and my arms flail in front of me as I try to scramble up, but the unthinkable happens.
His shoulders fly back, and this time he shouts. His deep voice is full of anger and disdain as he says, “Fuck youuu!”
I scramble upward, my abdomen aching with every movement. I blink through my daze from the blow of the kick, and I see Gio, his arms around Jason in a vise grip, looped under his arms, and his hands pushing Jason’s head brutally forward.
How? What? Wh—
“Skyler, call the police!”
Everything hurts, but I operate like a machine, his words the command as I robotically scramble for my phone. I reach out for it near the steps to my door, and the skin of my elbow painfully stretches with the feeling of a deep wound that I know will require cleaning. I can only seem to focus on my outstretched hand with the phone mere inches away, my fingertips shaking and frantic until they wrap around the device.
I can hear Jason thrashing against Gio’s unmoving grip, but I don’t have the energy to look.
When I turn on the screen to my phone, the large crack across it shocks me, but I continue on, swiping across the screen, my fingers fumbling, but I dial that precious triple-digit number that has saved me more than once.
“This is 9-1-1, what is your emergency?”
“Help. I need help . . .”
Chapter 16
Blake
The evening is finally winding down, and I’m talking to the director, who’s been my idol since I was in high school.
Lucky for me, he’s taken a liking to my constant questions and has complimented me on the growth I’ve made since the start of filming. I could fucking glow at hearing that from him, but I try to keep my cool. It fee
ls like acing a test, and that’s a feeling I’m not so accustomed to.
After getting over my phase of being starstruck and getting into the groove, it’s nice to just talk. This is doubly helpful since me and Kathryn have reached the highest level of awkward since our hotel-room encounter in New York. Regardless, I’ve been enjoying the distance. She’s been occupying herself with the rest of the cast, and I’ve come to terms with it. I’m not in the mood to play the mediator between us. She crossed the line, and we both know it.
“We only have about three more scenes to finish. I can’t wait to take a look at the film roll, and get it into edits. Today’s scenes turned out great. I think you gave your stuntman a run for his money, Blake.” We share a bout of laughter before he continues, “Just don’t forget to keep eye contact.”
I nod my agreement, but the vibrating sound of my phone within my pocket interrupts us. He slaps a firm hand on my shoulder, shaking it jokingly before letting go as he says, “Let’s call it a wrap. We’ll pick up filming in a few days. Time off might do us all some good. Plus, my wife is pissed. If I miss my daughter’s birthday, she’ll have me in the doghouse. I got a princess party to plan.”
He gives me an eye roll, but his smile tells me it’s worth it. He’s a family man, and although directing is his passion, he has his priorities just like the rest of us. It also helps that the studio will do whatever he wants when they know he’ll bring in the revenue when it comes to the release of the film.
I wave good-bye, catching the last ring of my phone before it goes to voice mail. It’s Skyler, and I can’t wait to tell her I’m coming home early, and she gets me for a few days.
“Babe, guess what?”
“Blake.”
My abdominal muscles clench painfully, but it’s not nerves that fuel it, but possessiveness.
“Gio? Is that you? What’s going on? Why are you calling me from Skyler’s phone?”
He hums, thinking something over, and when I hear the sound of his sigh twisting around what sounds like someone crying in the background, my heart skips a beat.
