by Melody Grace
I watch, chilled.
“It can’t be as bad as you think,” I try to reassure him. “Maybe they just need to work on a different cut—”
“The studio’s already poured a hundred million dollars into this thing!” Blake explodes. “They gave me a shot, to carry the whole movie. And I fucking let them down!”
“Is that what your agent said?” I ask, trying to bring him back. “I’m sure once you have some time to calm down…”
“The movie will still suck. And this is only the beginning,” Blake explains, looking stressed. “Once the press picks up on it, they’ll crucify us. And critics, reviewers… We’ll be lucky if it breaks even when it releases. Bad word of mouth can sink a movie before opening weekend.”
I take a breath, watching him. I hate that he’s hurting right now, and I don’t know what to say to make it better. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I know how much this movie meant to you. But there will be other parts. The role you’re shooting now is great, and Dash loves what you’re doing—”
“Dammit, Zoey, you’re not listening to me!” Blake yells, echoing in the huge space. He catches his breath, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry, but you don’t understand. I shouldn’t even be doing this movie! If I’d done what my agent wanted, and picked another big blockbuster part, I’d be back in Hollywood with my next starring role already locked down. Now, nobody’s going to hire me again with this kind of negative buzz. My career over, before it’s even begun!”
I don’t believe it, but I can’t argue with him, not when he’s like this. “Let’s eat,” I say, trying to calm him. “Forget about this whole thing, just for tonight. There’s nothing we can do about it, not right now, but we’ll think of something. I promise you.”
Blake meets my eyes, and there’s a distance there I don’t recognize. “There is no ‘we,’” he says, hollow. “This is my problem. Look, I’m not in the mood to hang. I need to go clear my head.”
“But—”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Blake puts the beer down and walks away, heading out onto the back deck. He slams the door behind him, and takes off down the steps, onto the dark, windswept beach.
I sink back against the counter, tears welling in my throat. He’s in pain, I get it, but he’s shutting me out. Acting like he’s all alone in this, when I’m right here, ready to help.
“I’m guessing he’s a no on the pizza.”
I turn. Dex is back, his dark hair wet from the shower.
“I…yes, I guess.” I wipe my eyes quickly, trying to hide my tears.
He gives me a sympathetic grin. “Don’t worry. Baby brother will come around. He just needs to let off some steam, that’s all.”
“You heard?” I ask, biting my lip.
Dex nods. “I got the general gist of it, yeah. Don’t hold it against him,” he adds, moving to grab Blake’s abandoned beer. “Reviews are tough, and for someone like Blake… Well, you know.”
I pause. “I don’t know if I do.”
“Just, things have always come easy for him,” Dex explains. “He had everyone line up and hand him this role, tell him it was going to make him a superstar. He’s been banking on that all year now.”
“He’s worked for it!” I protest. “You know how long he’s spent auditioning, taking classes. He’s talented, I’ve seen it myself.”
“I know, I’m not saying he’s not,” Dex agrees, taking a gulp. “But that’s the dizzying thing about Hollywood. You go from unknown to A-list overnight, and you lose a bit of perspective, that’s all. I mean, a year ago, he would have been over the fucking moon to be doing this movie with Dash,” Dex adds with a wry look. “But now he’s acting like it’s small-fry.”
“He’s just upset,” I argue. “He doesn’t mean it. You know what it’s like having bad reviews try and tear you down.”
“Believe me, I do,” Dex sighs. “I’ve got a thick skin, I don’t give a fuck what some random critic says. But Blake? I don’t know, he’s always cared too much about the validation, the applause.”
I pause, uncertain. Part of what Dex is saying rings true.
The front doorbell sounds. “Pizza time,” Dex whistles. “You sticking around?”
“I should go…” I glance towards the beach, but it’s dark out, and I can’t see Blake in the shadows.
“Stay,” Dex insists. He opens the door, and grabs the boxes from the delivery guy, passing over some cash before joining me back in the living room. He spreads the boxes on the coffee table. “See? I can’t eat all this alone. And Alicia’s away, so we don’t even have to pretend to be civilized and eat with silverware.”
He yanks open a box and stuffs half a slice of pizza into his mouth. Cheese drips down his chin. He swallows and burps.
Despite everything, I laugh. I really don’t want to go back to the B&B alone, and maybe Blake will calm down soon and want to talk. “OK, OK, I’ll have some. But only to save you from terrible indigestion.”
“That’s the Zoey we know and love.” Dex sprawls back on the couch, “Selfless to the end.”
I grab some plates and a slice of pepperoni and join Dex on the couch. He puts on the TV, some cop show, and we eat in companionable silence like we have done a hundred nights before. Other people find Dex intimidating—that whole brooding tattooed rock-star routine—but we’ve always gotten along great. I know that deep down he’d do anything for his family, and he’s become like an adopted big brother to me too.
“So, you and Blake, huh?” Dex waggles his eyebrows at me. “Took you guys long enough.”
I flush. “Not really. I don’t know what we are. I mean, you heard him,” I add sadly. “He won’t even talk to me about this stuff. It’s like he’s still shutting me out—not just about this, but everything.”
Dex slowly finishes another slice.
“You know, after our parents died, everything kind of fell apart,” he begins. I look over, surprised. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talk about it; Tegan’s the only one who mentions it sometimes, but that’s more in a wistful way. She was the youngest, still barely a teenager when they passed.
“Blake was the one who kept us together,” Dex continues, looking thoughtful. “I remember, the day after the funeral, he wanted us to go to a baseball game. He wouldn’t shut up about it. And it was the last thing I wanted to do, you know, we’d just put their bodies in the ground, and he wanted us to go cheer and wave and eat hotdogs while a bunch of strangers hit a ball around. But, he insisted, so eventually Tegan and me went along. Ash was working,” he adds. “Ash was always working back then. Anyway, we went to the game, and I was feeling just…numb inside. Like I couldn’t imagine ever being happy again. But Blake did his thing, you know. He made us all wear baseball caps, and got one of those foam fingers to wave around, and joked around so much, that before we even realized, we were having fun. Like nothing bad had happened.”
Dex smiles, and I can see the memory in his eyes. “That whole afternoon, it was like we were normal again. Just a bunch of teenagers kidding around in the stands. That was his gift to us.”
Tears well up again, this time thinking about everything Blake—and the rest of them—have been through.
“That sounds like Blake,” I smile.
Dex looks over, his dark eyes quiet with memories. “I never saw him cry about it,” Dex adds, “not at the funeral, or after that. I never saw him yell or lose his temper. Me, I must have broken half the crap in the basement, I was so fucking hurt and lost and mad at the world. But Blake, he hid it all. He just kept pulling the rest of us out of our grief, pretending everything was OK, until we believed him.”
He pauses again. “What I guess I’m trying to say is that Blake has never let anyone in. He wants to pretend that everything’s OK, it’s his way of coping with stuff, I guess. And most of the time he gets away with it. But you shouldn’t give up on him. He needs someone like you, someone who won’t just let him brush it off. You both deserve more than that.”
; I swallow, feeling moved. “I don’t know what I can do,” I admit. “I don’t even know if this means anything to him. Us.”
Dex gives a wry smile. “It does. Even if he hasn’t figured that out just yet.”
I wish I could believe him. But I don’t know what’s going on with Blake. He only lets his guard down for these brief moments, and then it’s back again, faking at being fine with that casual smile, ready for his close up.
I want him to let me in, but maybe he’s just not wired that way.
I hang out at the house a while longer, waiting for Blake to get back. Dex finishes his food and goes to call his fiancée, but I wait around, my hopes fading with every passing minute. I wonder if I’ve already screwed this up, saying the wrong thing and trying to reassure him when he just needed to get his anger out. But I don’t know what else I would have done.
Now, there’s nothing left to do but wait.
I look around, bored by the TV. Blake’s script pages for the week ahead are sitting on the coffee table, so I pick them and start to read again. This time, knowing everything I do about how Dash is shooting it, and how the characters are developing, I can’t help wanting to makes changes. As the time ticks past, I find myself scribbling notes in the margins and crossing out lines, writing new ones instead that fit Blake’s voice better. This script was written months ago, before Lila and Blake ever signed on, and although it’s good, it could be so much better if it used their strengths to really play up the emotion of the scenes.
Before I even realize, it’s midnight. Blake’s still not back.
What if he went to drown his sorrows with Lila?
I try to ignore my insecurities, but there’s no avoiding the truth: he doesn’t want to see me. Whatever he’s going through, he’s determined to do it alone.
Reluctantly, I grab my coat and head for the door. Nothing about tonight has played out the way I imagined. I pictured us snuggling together on the couch—and then retreating to his bedroom to pick up where we left off in the city. Instead, I’m driving home alone, feeling more anxious about our relationship than ever before.
It starts raining even before I put the key in the ignition, a gentle smatter of raindrops on the windscreen. Then, suddenly, the skies open in a torrential downpour. I drive slow, the headlights beaming through the dark, glad I only have a mile to go to the B&B. When I pull up outside the cottage, I pause in the driver’s seat, waiting for the rain to let up.
Then I see someone in the beam from my headlights, huddled under the awning by the front door, drenched through.
It’s Blake.
16.
Blake
Dammit, I shouldn’t have come here, but I couldn’t think what else to do.
Everything is crumbling down around me, everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve. My hopes and dreams destroyed with one single phone call, and I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do next. I hate that I yelled at Zoey, that I pushed her away. I didn’t want her to see me at my worst, I couldn’t bear to reveal the mess that I really am, but now I’m here, standing drenched on her doorstep.
A failure.
“Blake?” Zoey races through the rain from her car. “What are you doing here? You’re soaked through!”
Her blonde hair is plastered wet to her head and her beautiful blue eyes are full of concern for me. I feel an ache in my chest. I shouldn’t be here, dragging her down with my bullshit. I shouldn’t be burdening her with my problems.
“I should go—” I turn away, already regretting showing up at all.
“No!” Zoey quickly unlocks the front door and pulls me inside the B&B. It’s dark, just a lamp in the hallway, and total silence around. “Shh,” she says quickly. “Don’t wake the others.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, regret slamming me hard. I’m still screwing this up, even trying to make it right. “I shouldn’t have come. I just needed to see you, I’m sorry—”
“It’s OK.” Zoey blinks at me, confusion in her eyes. “Come on, you need to get warm.”
She leads me up the old wooden staircase and down the hall to her room. I catch her hand, but Zoey gasps, clutching it. “You’re freezing,” she says, closing the door behind us. She grabs a blanket from the bed and wraps it around my wet shoulders. “How long were you out there? You could have caught a chill. Blake, you can’t get sick, not with the shooting schedule for next week—”
“Fuck the shooting schedule.” I throw the blanket down, that desperate anger rearing up in my chest. “It doesn’t matter what I do now, the movie’s screwed, just having me in the lead.”
“You know that’s not true,” Zoey protests.
I exhale, sinking down on the bed. “But it is.”
I look up at Zoey, wracked with guilt and self-loathing. “I let them down, I let them all down. The studio, the director, my management… They took a chance on me, and I fucked up, and now everyone has to pay the price.”
I bury my head in my hands, just imagining their reactions back in Hollywood. I was so excited to hear how the screening went, I left messages with my agent Josh all day. I was expecting rave reviews, everyone to tell me how great I was.
I wasn’t prepared for what he said.
“It’s…got some problems,” Josh told me reluctantly, when he finally returned my calls. “They’re going to kick it around, think about re-shoots, or going back for a new edit.”
The truth smashed through me. Josh usually buries his bad news in five layers of sugar-coated bullshit. For him to give it to me straight like this, it must be bad.
“What kind of problems?” I demanded, panicking. “Is this just stuff with the story, or pacing, or…?”
Josh sighed. “The whole thing’s a mess, nobody’s getting out of this with their reputation squeaky clean. The director’s already in the middle of a breakdown, the exec in charge is updating his resume… This movie is looking to be a hundred million dollar mistake.”
I slumped back against the wall, numb. “What about me?”
Josh paused, too long. “I’m not going to lie, it doesn’t look good for you. They’ve already hit pause on any talks of a sequel, maybe even moving it from a summer release earlier in Spring when there’s less competition. I’m making calls now about a couple of scripts, but people are backing off, they want to see how this one plays out before they hire you for anything else.”
In an instant, my visions of stardom shattered into pieces. No red carpet, no cheering crowds. No magazine covers, and getting my pick of scripts. But worse than that, worse than anything, was the realization that this was on me.
I fucked it up. I wasn’t good enough.
Maybe I never will be.
“Blake?”
Zoey’s voice drags me back to this moment. She’s still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, looking too beautiful and good to be dealing with a wreck like me.
“This is it,” I say, hollow. “The end of everything. I can say goodbye to my acting career right now.”
“You know that’s not true,” Zoey argues. “So what, you had a few shitty reviews. It’s early days!” she protests. “You don’t know who else will like it.”
“It doesn’t work that way. I wish it did.” I sag, feeling all my anger drain away. “But I don’t have my next big job booked, and failure, it spreads fast. The minute people start hearing about this mess, nobody will touch me for another role.”
“You don’t know it’s a mess,” Zoey insists. “This is one screening, and one room full of people. So they didn’t tell you what you want to hear, is that it? You’re just going to quit on them?”
My temper flares again. “This isn’t some horseback riding lesson,” I tell her, trying not to get mad. “You can’t reverse psychology me on this.”
I swallow back my harsh words. This isn’t her fault; she doesn’t understand. So I try to explain, make her see how this ruins everything.
“This was supposed to be it, my big break.” I get up, pacing the smal
l room again. “All those years I spent going to auditions, all the classes and near-misses and callbacks. Everything I’ve been working for. I thought it was over now that I’d finally arrived, you know?”
Zoey sits on a chair at the bureau and watches me, waiting.
“And I was proud, too,” I add, with a twist of self-loathing. “That I was finally making something of myself. That I could pay my brothers back for all the help they’ve given me, that I could stand on my own two feet. Not just be Dex’s little brother, or crashing in Ash’s apartment. Be a man of my own. But now…”
I pause, seeing it all slip away from me.
“Now, nothing’s changed.” Zoey’s voice comes, strong and determined. She gets up and walks over, putting her hands on my chest. “You’re still a good actor, you’ve still worked hard. And your family realizes that, they’re all so proud of you.”
“But it’s not the same.” I shake my head and try to turn away, but she pulls me back.
“No, it’s not the same. Maybe your path to stardom doesn’t happen the way you imagined it, but that’s life. Not everything works out the way we plan.”
Something flickers in her eyes, a flash of sadness and regret, then Zoey looks away.
“You can hope and dream for something for years, and then get exactly what you always wanted, and it’s nothing like you thought it would be. Real life isn’t a dream, Blake. It’s a lot messier and more painful than that.”
Her arms drop. She stands back. And suddenly, through all my hurt and self-loathing, I realize: she’s not talking about me.
She’s talking about us.
Pain slams through me. I’ve fucked it up, I knew it. Now she’s seen the truth, what a mess I am, it’s all over between us. “I shouldn’t have come,” I mutter.
Zoey’s expression turns sad. “Fine,” she murmurs. “It’s late.”
We stand there, not moving. I know I should go, but my feet won’t move an inch.
I can’t walk away from her.
