Rising Star

by Susannah Nix

  “It’s gorgeous,” Alice said, ruffling Taco’s ears as her eyes traveled over the stylish but impersonal space.

  Griffin shrugged like he didn’t have an opinion. “I hired a decorator. We were midseason on LV Gen when I moved in and I didn’t have time to furnish the place myself. Between work and the gym, I don’t get to spend all that much time here, to be honest.”

  That explained why it felt more like a staged TV set than a real home. Alice was reassured to hear that he didn’t spend much time at home. The less he was around, the less awkward she’d have to feel about intruding on his personal space.

  He headed into the open-plan kitchen that was separated from the living room by a breakfast bar and gestured around him. “This is the kitchen, obviously.”

  That part of the house looked a little more lived in. There were dirty dishes in the sink and a fat tub of something called Stacked Protein on the counter next to the coffeemaker. The kitchen had been fully updated with shiny new appliances, stainless steel counters, and beechwood cabinets, and there was a breakfast nook at one end with booth seating around a small white table.

  Taco started wriggling in Alice’s arms, so she set him down on the tile floor. He sat himself at attention in the middle of the kitchen with his tail swishing like a windshield wiper and his attention focused intently on his owner.

  “He thinks he’s getting dinner,” Griffin explained. “But he’s not. It’s too early.” He reached into a canister on the counter and extracted a dog biscuit, waving it over Taco’s head. “This is all you get, you glutton.”

  He tossed the biscuit in the air and Taco leaped up to catch it in his mouth.

  “Anyway,” Griffin said, pulling open the large Viking refrigerator as Taco wolfed down his treat, “I cleared some space for you in the fridge.” The two bottom shelves were lined with matching plastic containers that all bore handwritten labels, but the one above it was empty. “The studio’s got me on a diet for this movie I’m shooting next month, so I have these nutritionist-prepared meals delivered.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” Alice said. “Saves you from cooking.”

  “It’s not as cool as it sounds. They’re mostly unsalted chicken breasts and plain vegetables. Maybe a little quinoa if I’m really lucky. Do not recommend.”

  “So they’re not worth stealing. Noted.”

  He pulled open the pantry door. “I cleared some space for you in here too. That’s where I keep Taco’s food, so he gets real excited whenever you open it. Just FYI.”

  Indeed, the dog had begun spinning in excited circles, racing from the pantry to his food bowl and back again.

  “How often do you feed him?” Alice asked.

  “Twice a day, but you don’t have to worry about that yet. I’ll do it until I leave.”

  “I can start helping out now that I’m here.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it.” Griffin shut the pantry and strode out of the kitchen. “Your room’s this way.”

  Alice followed him through the dining room and down a hallway to the back of the house. “My room’s down there,” he said, pointing to a doorway at the far end of the hall. “Laundry room’s the second door on the right.” He turned to face her, hooking a thumb at the open door on his immediate right. “The guest bathroom is yours. Towels are in the cabinet next to the shower.”

  Alice peeked through the doorway and caught a glimpse of clean white lines and shiny jade green counters. A glass door at the far end of the bathroom opened directly onto the deck, presumably affording the same stunning view as the living room and dining room when the shade was raised. Alice would not be raising the shade.

  “And this is your room.” Griffin opened the door directly across from the bathroom and she followed him into the guest bedroom she’d be living in for the next four months. “It’s not the biggest or the brightest room in the house, but I hope it’s okay.”

  The single window was high and narrow above a double bed topped with a crisp white duvet and cheerful turquoise pillow shams. There was a Scandinavian-style dresser on one wall and a small matching desk opposite, beside a pair of frosted-glass closet doors. Like the rest of the house, it was attractive, but in a sterile, elegant way, like a hip boutique hotel.

  “It’s amazing,” Alice said. “Seriously. I love it.”

  “Cool. Let’s go get your stuff, then.”

  Thirty minutes later, the two of them had carried all of Alice’s stuff into Griffin’s house. Boxes of books, food, toiletries, and shoes cluttered the floor of the formerly neat little guest room, while mountains of clothes and plastic coat hangers covered the bed. Griffin leaned in the doorway, surveying the chaos.

  “Don’t worry,” Alice told him, unzipping a suitcase stuffed with hoodies and T-shirts. “I’ll have it cleaned up by tomorrow.”

  “Whatever,” he said with a shrug. “It’s your room. You can do what you want with it.”

  “Thank you for your help. And for letting me stay here.”

  “You’re gonna stop thanking me at some point, right?”

  “Probably not.”

  He shook his head, smiling. “Okay, well, make yourself at home. And let me know if you need anything.”

  Alice spent the whole afternoon and evening in her room unpacking, venturing out only a couple times to get herself a glass of water and use the bathroom. Griffin spent most of the day watching basketball in the living room, then went outside to sit on the deck. He was out there when she went into the bathroom, and she heard him muttering to himself. Peeking through the window in the door, she saw him sitting with his back to her, holding a script in his hand—memorizing his lines apparently.

  At ten thirty he retired to his room, calling out a good night as he passed her door. Alice waited five more minutes before padding quietly out of her room. Griffin’s door was cracked, and yellow lamplight spilled out into the darkened hall from his bedroom. She ducked into the guest bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face, then scurried back to her room, closing and locking the door behind her before changing into pajamas and getting in bed.

  Alice lay in the strange bed in the strange room of the strange house and tried to make herself relax. She was used to hearing the noise of the city around her, but it was eerily quiet up here in the hills. No, not quiet, she amended as an owl hooted somewhere outside. All this nature around her made a different kind of noise than she was used to: trees rustled in the wind, crickets chirped, and some sort of night bird tweeted its head off outside her window. It was going to take some getting used to—along with everything else.

  It was weird to think about the fact that Griffin Beach was lying in his bed just down the hall. She wondered if he slept in pajamas or just his underwear—or maybe naked. Surely he wouldn’t do that with her in the house, would he? Not with his door open, anyway.

  Wind rattled the window above the bed, and Alice pulled the duvet up under her chin, trying to shake off the sense of unease. She suspected she wouldn’t be able to fully relax until Griffin left in a few weeks.

  She heard the click-clack of Taco’s paws on the hardwood floor outside her room, followed by a snuffling at the crack under the door. He pawed at the wood and let out a pitiful whine.

  “Taco! Cut it out!” Griffin called from his room. “Let her alone.”

  Alice rolled over on her side, pulling her knees up to her chest, and tried to sleep.

  It’s not like you’ve never had a roommate before, Alice reminded herself as she lay in bed on her first morning in Griffin’s house. She’d been awake since the crack of dawn, thanks to the damn birds that had started chirping at some ungodly hour, as if they were calling forth the sun with their cacophonous racket.

  She hadn’t wanted to be the first one up for fear of waking Griffin, so she’d stayed in bed, trying to pretend everything was normal. Except nothing about this was normal. Griffin was a heck of a lot richer, and hotter, and more famous than any roommate she’d ever had. How was she supposed to act normal
around all that?

  It was one thing to interact with him at work—literally her whole job consisted of pretending to act normal around actors—but that was in a controlled setting where there were rules in place to guide everyone’s behavior and she knew exactly what was expected of her. It was also for a limited amount of time each day. Sure, when the shooting days stretched to fourteen hours it could feel like forever, but there was always an end in sight, when she could go home and relax.

  There was no more relaxing for her at home now. There was just more tiptoeing around and trying not to get in Griffin’s way, stretching out forever.

  No, not forever. Just for a few more weeks, until he left for Atlanta. Then she’d have this awesome house all to herself. Three whole months on her own, living in luxury without the stress of paying rent. She just had to survive the next few weeks first.

  She heard Taco scurry down the hall past her bedroom, followed a moment later by Griffin’s shuffling footsteps. Alice got up and quietly made her bed, laying out the pillows exactly as they’d been arranged yesterday when she arrived. The kitchen shared a wall with her bedroom closet, and she could hear Griffin opening and closing cabinets on the other side. She sat on the corner of the bed and tried to psych herself up to leave her room. Was she willing to walk around in front of him in her pajamas, or should she get dressed before going out there? Or maybe she should try to sneak into the bathroom first so she could take a shower before she had to interact with him?

  While she was still deliberating, Griffin walked past her room again on his way back to his bedroom. Shortly thereafter, she heard water rushing through the pipes in the attic, which probably meant he’d started up his shower. Now was the perfect time for her to dash to the bathroom for a pee, which she really needed quite badly at this point. Once she was safely locked in the bathroom, she could hang out in there until she heard his water shut off, then take her own shower and get dressed for the day before she had to face him. It was the perfect plan.

  Alice grabbed her clothes and a shower tote with all the toiletries she’d need, stepped out into the hall—and found herself face to face with Griffin.

  Wearing nothing but a towel.

  A towel that was sagging dangerously low on his hips and only just barely covering his man bits.

  She froze, so startled she let the shower tote tip, dumping its contents all over the floor. “Damn,” she muttered as she dropped to her knees to gather up her things, which at least gave her something to look at that wasn’t Griffin and his sagging towel.

  “Hey,” he said sheepishly. “Morning.”

  “Morning,” she said, trying to ignore his mostly naked—and extremely impressive—body.

  Settle down. It’s not like it’s the first time you’ve seen his abs.

  He’d done plenty of shirtless scenes on Las Vegas General, not to mention a cover of Men’s Health last year that she may or may not have drooled over at the checkout stand.

  This was just the first time she’d seen his abs in person—most of his shirtless scenes on LV Gen had been love scenes that didn’t require background, so she’d only seen them when they aired on TV later. Turned out it was one thing to see Griffin Beach’s abs on-screen or in an airbrushed photo, and something else entirely to see them standing two feet away from her in the flesh, with mere millimeters of sagging terrycloth hiding his unmentionables. Apparently they hadn’t done that much airbrushing for the magazine cover. His six-pack was very real, as was his Adonis belt and the vein leading down to his—yeah. Wow.

  Griffin squatted down to help her pick up her things, which unfortunately caused his towel to gap, exposing an alarming amount of skin on his muscular upper leg, all the way up to—

  Alice tore her eyes away again, hoping he didn’t notice her blushing as she accepted the bottle of shampoo he held out. She hurriedly shoved the rest of her stuff back into her tote and stood, trying to keep her eyes averted.

  “Sorry.” As Griffin got to his feet, he finally seemed to notice his towel wasn’t covering him as well as it could and tugged it up higher on his hips, grimacing. “I promise I won’t make a habit of parading around the house in a towel. I just realized as I was about to get in the shower that I left my clothes in the dryer.”

  “It’s fine.” Alice shuffled her feet, looking everywhere but at Griffin.

  “I put on a pot a coffee. Help yourself when it’s ready.”

  “Cool. Thanks.”

  “I’m just gonna—” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, backing away toward the laundry room.

  “Yep,” Alice said, “me too,” and fled into the bathroom.

  6

  Well, fuck.

  So much for trying not to make Alice uncomfortable.

  He’d practically flashed her on her first morning here. Great job, asshole. The way her face had gone gray, she’d probably decided he was as much of a creeper as those freaks on Craigslist.

  He really had not intended to strut around in front of her mostly naked. He just wasn’t used to sharing his house with anyone. He’d lived alone for seven years and gotten used to doing things a certain way—like leaving his clean clothes in the laundry room.

  He’d just have to be more careful, now that Alice was living here.

  When Griffin reemerged from his bedroom fifteen minutes later—freshly showered and fully dressed this time—he heard the shower running in the guest bathroom and caught a whiff of something pleasant and tropical-smelling as he walked past the door. Mango, maybe, or peaches. Whatever it was, it smelled nice.

  Still feeling like a bit of a heel, he went into the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee, and added a dollop of the depressing coconut milk creamer that was all he was allowed these days. God, he missed dairy. And sugar. And soft, fluffy white bread oozing with butter.

  He spent a lot of time thinking about food these days. This diet the studio had him on was brutal. He’d foolishly thought he looked pretty good when he went up for this part—he’d kept off the weight he’d lost for Troublemakers 4 and retained most of the muscle—but not good enough, apparently. They wanted even less body fat and more muscle definition, which meant force-feeding himself a lot of protein and not much else, on top of an aggressive bodybuilding program in the gym.

  As he made his usual, depressing breakfast of poached eggs and sautéed spinach, Griffin reminded himself how much this project would do for his career. A Jerry Duncan film. Most actors would kill for a part in one of Duncan’s movies. This project would make him or break him. If it was a hit, he’d be able to ride it to the next level of his career—but if it tanked, he’d be marked as box office poison and his film career would be over at thirty, before it had really gotten going.

  No pressure or anything.

  At least he had someone to look after Taco while he was away. That was one less thing to weigh on his mind—assuming he didn’t scare Alice off before he left for Atlanta.

  They only had to put up with each other for a few weeks, and then he’d be gone and she could have the house to herself. Surely he could cohabitate with someone for a few weeks.

  Except he’d never lived with a woman before—not since his mom, anyway. All his previous roommates had been guys, and he’d never even had a girlfriend that lasted more than a few months.

  Griffin didn’t have room in his life for a full-time girlfriend, as he’d been angrily informed by the last two women he’d tried to have a relationship with. They’d both accused him of being selfish and self-involved, of ignoring their needs and putting them last. They hadn’t been wrong either. He had done those things. He was a shitty boyfriend. But he wasn’t willing to change his ways.

  His career was his number-one priority and it demanded one hundred percent of his focus. Everything else had to come second. He barely had room in his life for a dog; no way did he need all the added trouble and obligations of a girlfriend. Besides, he liked being on his own without having to answer to anyone else. Why would he want to give up all th
at freedom?

  These days Griffin kept his “relationships” to fleeting encounters and temporary hookups. He rarely even brought the women he slept with back to his house—he had to be careful who he gave his address and wifi password to—but it wasn’t like he was a dick about it. He always made it clear right off the bat that he wasn’t looking for anything serious or long term, and sought out women who were fine with that.

  Maybe one day he’d be ready to settle down, but not now. He was only thirty, and he had other priorities. It wasn’t fair to invite someone into his life, then expect her to be okay with taking a back seat to everything else—so he simply didn’t invite women into his life.

  The irony that he had literally just invited a woman to move in wasn’t lost on him. But he wasn’t inviting her into his life. Just his guest room—and just temporarily. It was a mutually beneficial business arrangement, that was all.

  When he noticed Taco rouse himself from his post-breakfast nap and scamper across the kitchen floor, Griffin threw a glance over his shoulder and saw Alice standing by the pantry. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she answered back, bending over to pet the dog butting against her legs. Her long blonde hair was still wet, and hung in damp waves around her face.

  Griffin turned back to the stove, pushing his spinach around the pan. “You sleep okay?”

  “Yeah. Great.”

  “The bed’s comfortable enough for you?”

  “It’s awesome. Better than mine.”

  He set the spatula down and turned to face her, ready to eat crow. “I’m really sorry about this morning. It won’t happen again.”