by Elise Faber
She’d picked up the shield.
Hey dumbass, you just pointed out she’d reached out and because of that, she was going to retreat. Of course, she picked the shield back up.
Good times that I was now having mental arguments with myself.
That was the surest sign of stability.
Snorting to myself, I picked up a plate, along with a handful of napkins, and turned to hand them to her, still focused on her face, still rather pointlessly trying to figure out what was going on in her brain. Though, maybe that wasn’t the stupidest thing I’d been doing of late, the least of which was bringing her greasy pizza when she was due on set in a few.
The biggest of which was faking a date in order to think that she might care enough that I was going out with another woman.
Her response to that had been lukewarm—I thought I’d detected a little disappointment in her texts, though they were texts and context was hard to fully grasp, but when I’d stepped back a little, hoping she would reach out, she hadn’t. And then the next week’s Pizza Night had been perfectly friendly.
Friendly.
If one could consider throwing up and then passing out, friendly.
Ugh. I was definitely beginning to hate that word.
I stifled a sigh, put the second-guessing about whether I was playing this situation right aside, and just focused on the moment. I was with Eden. That needed to be enough.
“When are you due to hair and makeup?” I asked, and I’d been so focused on her face, on my own inner monologue, and the stupid fucking pizza, that I hadn’t fully processed what she was wearing.
A fucking doozy it was.
Or maybe a two-by-four to the temple.
Because that dress.
I’d known it was red.
I’d known it was tight.
I hadn’t been able to fully predict the effect a garment could have on me. I should have known—it was kind of what I did for a living, capturing the best angle, the best light and shadows, the most visually satisfying expression of the individual being photographed.
But this wasn’t any of that.
It was Eden, which was a gut punch on any day.
But Eden in this dress.
Holy fucking shit, it was a miracle I had an ounce of sense left and managed to return my gaze to her face. I really, really enjoyed the mental survey I took on the way. Long legs, short skirt, flared hips, and breasts . . . good God, had her breasts always been that big?
Fuck. I was turning into a pervert.
Except, God, I wanted to get my mouth on them.
I needed—
She sat down next to me and took a bite of the pizza, talking around it. “I’ve got about twenty minutes. It won’t take long,” she said. “They’ll just touch up what I’ve got going here.”
“You look beautiful.”
Green eyes on mine. A shy smile on her lips. “Thanks.” Another few bites then she added, “Of course, that won’t help much. We’re shooting the rain scene. Which means this pretty dress”—she brushed a hand down her side—“is about to get doused with water.”
Pebbled nipples.
See-through fabric.
Okay, so the last one was probably unrealistic considering the color of said dress, but a man could hope, couldn’t he?
The first, though . . . yeah that was going to be in my fantasies for life.
My cock twitched, I cleared my throat, and fuck, but the image of water sluicing down her skin brought me right back to that day at her house, the kitchen table, the syrup and sugar, then washing it off afterward.
Maple-scented hair, silky skin—
So not helping my dick-twitching situation.
I needed to pull it together and—
“Do you still have that shoot this weekend?”
I nodded absently, picking up the pizza from my plate, mainly to shove something in my mouth so I wouldn’t say everything I was thinking. Which was basically, 'Get naked and I’ll bend you over this couch.'
That was not patient, nor friendly.
So I shoved a giant bite into my mouth and just nodded at her question.
“I thought you weren’t working for a few months.”
I shrugged, chewing for several long minutes before I was able to swallow the hunk of a piece I’d taken. “It’s been a couple months.”
“No, Damon,” she said. “It’s been one month.”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “It’s been seven weeks since I finished my last job and came home. So I’m technically on month two, which means it’s been a couple.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s hardly logic.”
“It’s photographer logic,” I said, setting my plate down and leaning back. “Which means it’s solid gold.”
A snort. “Solid gold shit.” Wrinkling her nose, she set her plate down. I noticed she’d barely eaten anything.
“Are you okay?”
Lips pressed flat, she rubbed her stomach lightly. “Yeah, I think my dress is too tight for pizza consumption.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
She grinned. “Stop trying to be charming. I’m imitating sausage at this point.”
“I said it once and I’ll say it again, you’re beautiful.”
“I’d be a lot more beautiful if I didn’t feel like I was going to upchuck.” She stood and stretched her back with a soft groan. “How am I supposed to look like I’m longingly searching for my long-lost love while depressingly walking through the rain, all while looking sexy?”
“I’m not sure even Meryl Streep could pull that off.”
Another wrinkle of her nose. “I don’t think a little nausea would slow down Meryl.”
“I—”
I stopped, my brain pinging with a warning. Last week, with the vomiting, tonight with the nausea. This tight dress. The breasts I could swear were bigger.
The fact that I’d used a condom during our night together.
But . . . had I used one in the kitchen?
I had to have. I’d never not used one. I always took extra precautions and—
“Was the dress always this tight?” I blurted.
Say yes, say yes—
“Um . . .” She frowned, eyes drifting to the side as she considered my question. “No? I guess it wasn’t quite this tight during fittings. I mean, it was definitely restrictive, it has this built-in corset thing that squeezes and lifts . . . well, anyway Pizza Night is catching up with me. I’ll just have to cut back.”
“Are you—” I broke off, not sure how to phrase it. “I—”
Shit.
I shouldn’t do this now. If she wasn’t worried about possibly being pregnant because my dumb ass hadn’t used a condom that morning, then the best time to give her that bit of information wasn’t right before she had to go and film the most pivotal scene in the movie.
“Damon?”
She’d been pacing back and forth, bare feet padding almost silently across the floor. Now, she’d stopped and looked at me.
Because I was being really fucking weird.
Really weird.
Shit. I needed to not panic. I needed to not panic her. Not when I didn’t know for sure and when she was working.
I forced a smile, popped to my feet. “Sorry, I’m . . . uh . . . I just had the best idea for the shoot. I’m going to take off, so I have time to try it before the sun fully sets. I’ll leave the pizza—”
“Dam—”
“Can I bring you breakfast tomorrow?”
“I—”
I reached for the door handle, pausing to look back. “French toast?”
She froze, face freezing.
Shit. Not French toast. I needed to suggest something else. Omelets? Burritos? Fuck. Who gave a shit about breakfast? All I could think was that she’d had her big break, her career was just taking off, and I’d impregnated her—
A shake of her head, her frozen expression clearing away. “French toast sounds perfect. Ten?”
“Ten
,” I agreed.
Then I pushed open the door and I got the fuck out of there before I said something that might ruin her night, her scene, her life . . .
Something else that was.
Ten
Eden
I’d slept a solid eight hours, but I was still exhausted when I crawled out of bed at a quarter of ten the next morning.
Shooting had run until well after midnight, but my driver had gotten me home immediately after we’d wrapped. Which meant I’d been tucked into bed by just after one. Not the latest I’d been up, not by a long shot, but paired with all the long days of filming, and probably more likely, dealing with the emotional exhaustion that was Grant, and I was more tired this morning than any other time I could remember in recent memory.
But breakfast was being delivered by the wonderful Damon, and I had two whole days off from shooting.
We’d pick up on Sunday, push through the final weeks of filming in New Mexico, and I’d be done with Grant.
Until promotion.
Joy of joys.
But that wasn’t scheduled until next year, and so I had a full three-hundred and sixty-five days to recover.
Sometimes I had to focus on the simple things in life.
Snorting, I turned on the shower and spent the next ten minutes washing off the fatigue—though not my hair. Not only did I not have forty-five minutes to dry it, but throughout filming, my locks had been washed, dried, curled, and teased too many times over—not to mention slathered with products and also food from the dinner-gone-wrong scene. They’d also had slime in them along with artificial paint.
Basically, my hair had been put through the wringer and it needed a break.
So I tied it up, dry shampooed it, and then tugged on leggings and a cozy sweater.
I’d give it some quality attention later. A conditioning mask would go a long way toward rehabbing my working girl hair.
No makeup, because clearly, my face had undergone as much on the makeup front as my hair had on the styling front.
Luckily, Damon wanted to be just friends.
I sniffed. So, he didn’t need to see me dolled up.
Of course, I was also deliberately ignoring the fact that I’d been the one who wanted to stay just friends, that he’d wanted to continue on that day, that he’d stuck around since then.
I’d just thought—
“What?” I said, glaring at myself in the mirror. “I’d say he got in under the armor, nearly have a heart attack from admitting it, and then he’d tug me into his arms and declare his unending love? And I would just be magically okay with that?”
First, I didn’t think I wanted that. Okay, that was a lie. A part of me did want it, but the rest of me couldn’t fathom a world where I just put the past behind, jumped on the HEA bandwagon, and galloped down the aisle.
Even if that person was Damon.
Because, second, I couldn’t let someone in. I physically didn’t think I could do it.
Although . . . and this was the third point, Damon was already in.
My heart skipped a beat at the thought, throat tightening, fear shivering down my spine.
“Stupid,” I muttered.
I met my gaze in the mirror again and saw the truth within them. I’d stood in front of a mirror like this many times before. Sometimes, like now, my green eyes filled with fear, sometimes they were ringed in black eyes, sometimes they were judging or assessing as I did my makeup or prepared to do a photoshoot or walk the runway. But many more times I stood like this, emerald depths empty, my emotions shoved down and locked away.
Not anymore.
The edge of the Band-Aid had been peeled up slowly, millimeter by agonizing millimeter. First, by the photoshoot six years ago followed by the weekly calls, then by Artie and Pierce and filming Carrot, then Daphne and her sweet, newborn innocence . . . and then Damon in my bed, Damon at my house, Damon in my trailer.
Damon making me feel.
Damon—
Enough.
I yanked open the drawer on my vanity, knowing that even if I wasn’t going to wear a bunch of makeup for him, that I’d still need moisturizer. The dry air in California demanded it. Except . . . the bottle wasn’t on my counter. My eyes searched the drawer’s contents, then the countertop. I didn’t appear to have slung it either place while washing my face half-asleep the night before.
“Damn,” I muttered, bending to pull open the cabinets. Not there. Not there. Not—
I spotted it on my dresser in the closet.
Right next to the hamper.
Thank God it hadn’t made it inside. That would have been a mess, not to mention a waste of a very expensive moisturizer if it had taken a ride through the washer-dryer.
Delirious. Clearly, I’d been delirious last night.
Glancing at my phone, I saw it was only a few minutes before Damon was due to arrive. I hurried to the closet, snagged the bottle, and whipped back around toward the bathroom—
“Ouch!”
I’d slammed my elbow into the shelves that were in one corner, knocking a small box off the top, where I’d stashed it.
Stashed it out of sight.
Because it was that box.
The small cardboard shoebox hit the carpet, its lid falling off, contents spewing everywhere—a bit of lace, a narrow gold band, a picture of me and Tim, my eyes bright and excited, Tim’s already lined with rage that would become physical pain for me. A dried rose and another picture, this one a smaller black and white image that had been beyond precious.
I stared at the picture and . . . the pieces in my mind shifted and realigned.
I’d already lost everything.
That little rectangle had once been critically important to me . . . and I’d lost it.
The doorbell rang.
Damon was here.
My lungs froze, breath locked inside. Then a sob escaped.
“F-fuck,” I stuttered. I didn’t want to lose him, too. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to be alone.
No.
I didn’t want to be alone if that meant I wouldn’t have Damon, if I just let the connection I had with him fade away. For him to find a future with someone else while I was left behind, still stuck in the same pattern I was now, living a half-life, wanting more but too scared to go for it.
Because Damon was different.
He’d always been soft where Tim had been sharp and brutal. He was supportive and kind, a thoughtful friend, a lover who was more focused on my pleasure than his own.
All that was without me giving him anything in return.
Patience when I’d only offered the opposite.
Damon wasn’t Tim, and I wasn’t the same woman with him as I’d been with Tim. I was more and stronger and healthier and, dammit, I deserved to find my only little slice of a happy future.
And I wanted to have that future to include Damon.
The fear gripping me for so long began to slowly disappear, replaced by tiny bubbles of hope, sneaking out from the seams of my armor. Maybe . . . I could have Damon without him having power over me? Maybe, we could build something where I didn’t need to constantly be picking up my shield and donning my armor? Maybe—
The doorbell rang again.
Maybe, I needed to stop musing about the past, open up the front door, and take a chance.
Could I?
I glanced down at the black and white picture and thought, How can I not?
I stowed the items back in the box, putting it on the shelf, though not shoving it onto the top one this time.
No more shame. No more of my past holding me back.
I walked out of the bathroom, pausing to glance at myself in the mirror again, half-expecting my face to have undergone a complete change after what I’d worked through in the past five minutes.
But I was still just me.
Green eyes, red hair, pale skin—
My cell buzzed and I glanced down, saw that Damon had sent me a selfie of him wearing a sad face and
holding up a bag of food from my porch.
I grinned then sucked in and released a long, slow breath. I could do this.
Sorry. Was in the shower. The code to the garage is 6262 if you want to let yourself in.
A beat.
And now you’ll never get rid of me. *insert evil laughter here*
I sucked in another of those breaths. Just go for it.
Keep bribing me with sugary carbs and I’ll consider it.
I hit send before I really considered what I wrote, and when I saw those words on my cell’s screen, I couldn’t believe that my fingers had typed them. I’ll consider it? Holy fucking shit. My hands shook as I set my phone down, chest heaving, panic rising again—
Dammit.
“Just enough.”
Cold water splashed on my face, hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, clothes straightened and free of wrinkles.
And it was enough.
To snap out of this cycle, to accept Damon wasn’t my ex. That I was different with him than I’d been with Tim. That I was different now. I’d pushed through the nightmare, had let it lead me to a new life and a new future. That was great and showed I was strong, that I could persevere, but—
I sighed. But if I pulled back now, had I really moved beyond the past?
No, because if I didn’t do that with all parts of my life, then it didn’t mean anything. If I was too scared to even consider that I might be able to build a future with a loving partner, with someone like Damon, then I had no hope of doing it with anyone.
But . . . I had. I was already breaking through that wall, wanting more.
And I was starting to think that I’d put so much effort into pushing Damon away in the first place, specifically because I knew deep down that he was different, knew he had the ability to get inside my armor.
“He is different,” I whispered to myself, ignoring my wide green eyes. “He’s everything.”
My heart skipped a beat, but I nodded and stepped back from the counter.
No more dithering. I was doing this.
