Rising Star

by Susannah Nix

  “Good, actually.” She glanced down to where his hand was still holding her arm and then back up at him with her eyebrows slightly raised.

  Shit. “Sorry.” He let go of her and shoved the errant hand into his back pocket so it wouldn’t be tempted to touch her again. “What does ‘good’ mean?”

  “Well—”

  “Background!” the second AD shouted. “I need background over here!”

  “I’ve gotta go,” Alice said, edging away.

  “I’m done for the day,” Griffin said. “I’m about to head out.”

  “I guess I’ll see you later, then.” She gave him a tentative smile and snagged a handful of M&Ms before heading off to join the other extras.

  Right. Later. He could wait to hear the details, he supposed. At least she’d said it was good. That was promising.

  Griffin put in his two hours at the gym, then went home and spent the rest of the day killing time. As the evening turned into nighttime and ten o’clock approached, he started to get increasingly restless. He had a six o’clock call time in the morning and he ought to be going to bed soon. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he’d talked to Alice and found out how her meeting had gone.

  At eleven he gave up and headed to bed anyway. For all he knew, she wouldn’t be home for hours. He should at least try to sleep.

  It was nearly midnight when he finally heard her come in. Griffin got up and followed Taco into the kitchen, where they found Alice staring into the open fridge. “Shooting ran long today,” Griffin said, stifling a yawn.

  She glanced his way and then back to the fridge. “Yeah. Alfie kept messing up his lines.”

  Alfie didn’t have a lot of fucks left to give. He was almost sixty and hadn’t exactly been good about memorizing his lines even when he’d still cared about this job.

  “So?” Griffin said. “Tell me about the meeting this morning.”

  “Umm…” Alice still had her head buried in the fridge.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know. I have the munchies, but I haven’t been to the store so there’s nothing to snack on.”

  He nudged her aside and grabbed the Greek yogurt and coconut milk off his shelf. “I’ll make you a smoothie.”

  She wrinkled up her nose. “I don’t want one of your gross, goopy protein drinks.”

  “You’re gonna like this. It’s like a milkshake.” He pulled a Ziploc bag of frozen bananas out of the freezer. “Trust me.”

  Alice gave the brown, mushy bananas a skeptical look.

  “Go sit down,” he ordered.

  She hopped onto one of the stools at the counter and watched while he gathered the rest of his ingredients and carried them over to the blender with Taco following hopefully at his heels.

  “So?” Griffin asked as he measured frozen berries into the canister. “Did you tell your advisor the truth?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t turn around, figuring it would be easier for her to talk about it if he wasn’t looking at her. “Did she believe you?”

  “Yeah, she did. She was surprised, I think, but she took it seriously.”

  “That’s great. What’s she going to do about it?”

  “Well, first of all, we’re kicking Dr. Gilchrist off my committee.”

  He glanced at her in surprise. “Just like that? She can do that?”

  Alice was actually smiling. “Yeah, apparently. I just have to file some paperwork with the dean’s office and it’s done. Dr. Frazier said she’d find someone to replace him and smooth it over with the rest of the committee.”

  Griffin reached for the plastic honey bear and squeezed a dollop into the blender. Then, remembering Alice’s sweet tooth, he added some more. “What about the stuff you needed his help for?” He hadn’t really understood that part of it or what exactly it was she needed from him, but she’d made it sound like it was insurmountable.

  “Dr. Frazier thinks I can leave it out. If I was pursuing a career in academia, it might give me an edge up on the tenure track, but since I’m not…”

  Griffin glanced over his shoulder again. “You decided that for sure?”

  Alice nodded. “We talked about it—a lot—and I convinced her that it’s just not what I want anymore. I’ve never loved teaching, and there are a lot of data science jobs I can get with my PhD. I’d rather go into the private sector.” She looked remarkably calm and at peace with her decision compared to this morning.

  He turned back to the blender in relief. “But you’re definitely finishing your PhD?”

  “Yeah. Dr. Frazier’s going to help me finish my dissertation—without having to interact with Dr. Gilchrist.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Yeah.”

  He turned on the blender and the motorized racket filled the kitchen, cutting off further conversation. When it was finished, he reached for a silicone spatula and said, “What about Gilchrist? Is anything going to happen to him? Is she going to report him?”

  Alice hesitated before answering. “I asked her not to. I don’t want to get involved with a Title IX investigation. I just want to get my degree and get out of there.”

  Griffin nodded and got a glass down from the cabinet.

  “Maybe that’s selfish,” she went on as he poured her smoothie. “But I just don’t have it in me to take him on. If I go public with what he did, they’ll put my whole life under a microscope. It’s not just that everyone will know what he did to me—I would hate that, but I could stand it. It’s that all my relationships, my sex life, everything I’ve ever said to anyone will get written up into an official report. It’ll be humiliating and traumatic, and he’ll probably still get off with a gentle slap on the wrist—if that. So what’s the point?”

  Griffin set the smoothie in front of her. “You don’t have to convince me.”

  Alice stared at the smoothie and sighed. “I think I’m trying to convince myself.”

  “You need to protect yourself. First and foremost.” When she didn’t respond he went on. “Don’t beat yourself up over this. You’re a student. It’s not your responsibility to fix the university’s problems—they’re supposed to protect you. You reported the harassment to your advisor, so now she’s aware. She can keep an eye on this guy in case he tries his shit with anyone else.”

  Alice’s chin lifted in a halfhearted nod. “Yeah. That’s what she said. And I told her if someone else decided to make a report later, I’d be willing to go on the record to corroborate. I just don’t want to be on my own with this, his word against mine.”

  “I get it. It’s a shitty position to be in. No one should have to go through something like that.”

  “No one should, but they do. All the time.”

  Griffin’s fingers twitched with an urge to reach across the counter and take Alice’s hand. Instead, he balled his hand into a fist and nodded at the glass in front of her. “Drink your smoothie.”

  She reached for it and took a tentative sip, the skepticism written all over her face. A surprised smile fluttered to life as she licked her lips. “This is really good!”

  He felt a warm rush of pleasure, which he hid behind a smirk. “I know.”

  She took another sip and her smile got wider. “It tastes like ice cream.”

  Griffin realized he was staring at her mouth like some moonstruck sap in a romcom, and went to wash the blender at the sink, stepping around Taco, who’d given up on getting a treat and laid down in the middle of the room. “And yet, it’s full of stuff that’s good for you,” he tossed over his shoulder in an attempt to sound casual. “Calcium. Protein. Potassium. Plus a little cocoa powder and a lot of honey.”

  “That’s why it tastes like ice cream.”

  He heard her get up, and when he turned around she was standing right beside him.

  “Thank you,” Alice said, and startled him by giving him a hug.

  A soft rush of breath tickled his neck, and he felt the warmth of her body through h
er thin navy cardigan. Before he could respond, she’d already stepped back again, leaving a whiff of peach shampoo in her wake.

  He swallowed, hoping his face didn’t reflect his sudden rush of confused emotion, and deflected with a joke. “It’s just a smoothie,” he said, affecting a grin.

  “No it’s not.” Alice gave him a shy smile before taking her smoothie and heading off to her room.

  The scent of peaches lingered as Griffin watched her depart, and he chided himself for the inappropriate and unexpected thoughts that had begun to creep into his brain.

  Don’t be an ass. She’s not for you.

  9

  Dinner tonight? I’m cooking.

  Alice found the Post-it on the coffeemaker when she got up Saturday morning, and it induced a surge of girlish excitement that she tried fruitlessly to squash.

  Just when things were finally looking up in every other area of her life, she’d developed a new problem in the form of Griffin. Namely, all these feelings she was starting to have about him.

  Ever since he’d caught her crying the other morning and been so sweet and supportive, she’d been struggling with what could only be described as a crush. It wasn’t like it was new news that Griffin was an incredibly attractive man, but recognizing that someone was attractive and actually being attracted to them were two very different things that Alice’s brain usually had no trouble compartmentalizing. What was happening to her now was definitely the latter, and she needed to cut it out immediately. The very last thing she needed was an unrequited crush on an inappropriate man.

  Alice silently repeated the list of reasons she shouldn’t be having feelings for Griffin: landlord, employer, actor, not her type, not his type, and altogether too much potential for heartbreak all around. She’d been repeating it on a loop for the last several days, but so far it hadn’t done anything to dissuade her from her ill-advised preoccupation.

  He was simply being friendly. Like a friend. A surprisingly good friend, but a friend nonetheless. There was no point torturing herself by reading any more into it than that.

  When Griffin came home a couple hours later with an armful of grocery bags, Alice got up from the couch to help, because that was what friends and good roommates did for one another, and not at all because she wanted an excuse to be near him.

  “What’d you get?” she asked, peeking into the reusable grocery bag he passed her. This one was full of his usual eggs and spinach, which gave her very little idea of his plans for dinner. Given how strict his diet was, she’d already reconciled herself to eating roasted lean meat with some sort of dire vegetable on the side.

  Flashing her one of his endearing grins, he pulled a package of rib eyes and a pair of russet potatoes out of another bag. “My specialty: steaks and loaded baked potatoes.”

  Alice looked at him in surprise. “Can you eat that?”

  “Today’s my cheat day. I can eat what I want—within reason—and what I want is to throw a couple rib eyes on the grill and slather a baked potato with all the dairy products it can hold.”

  “Nice.”

  “I hope you like steak.”

  “I love steak.” She almost never had it because it was too expensive for her budget, and in any case she wasn’t a good enough cook to be entrusted with a pricey cut of meat. But she was willing to bet Griffin knew how to cook the perfect steak on that fancy grill on the deck.

  He dug around in a bag and came out with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia which he shoved into her hands. “That’s for you.”

  Alice stared at it and then up at him. “You bought me ice cream?”

  “I thought you could use a reward for facing your advisor and moving forward with your dissertation.” He took it back from her and tucked it in the freezer, along with several bags of frozen vegetables.

  She felt an embarrassing rush of heat crawl up her throat and turned to fold the grocery bags that had already been emptied. “You’re going to share it with me though, right? Since it’s your cheat day.”

  Griffin shook his head as he stacked four dozen eggs in the fridge. “Dessert’s too hard to come back from if I let myself slip. I learned that the hard way.”

  “That sucks.”

  He shrugged. “I might have one bite. And then I’ll just enjoy watching you eat the rest.”

  She felt herself color again and hid it with a laugh. “That’s weird.”

  “Hey, I gotta take my pleasures where I can get ’em these days.”

  At five o’clock, Griffin went outside and started up the grill. Then he went to the fridge and opened two beers—one he brought to Alice on the couch and one for himself.

  “Cheers,” he said, and clinked his bottle against hers. The look on his face when he took his first taste was positively orgasmic, as was the groan that followed. “God, I miss beer.”

  She watched him, laughing. “Do you and your beer want to be alone?”

  “No, we’re open to a threesome.” His eyes widened as he realized what he’d said. “Shit. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine,” she assured him. “I can take a joke when it’s actually a joke and not a come-on with a threat hidden behind it.”

  He grimaced in embarrassment. “Just to be clear, I do not literally want to have sex with my beer. Although…” He held up his bottle and raised a speculative eyebrow. “With enough lube…”

  Alice snort-laughed. “Okay, now you’re creeping me out.”

  He collapsed onto the couch next to her with a bone-weary sigh. “I just miss beer so much.” He gazed at the bottle as he smoothed the label with his thumb. “I know it’s the main reason I was chubby, but god I wish I could have beer and an acting career at the same time.”

  She pulled her legs up underneath her and turned toward him. “I guess there’s a lot you’ve had to give up for your job. Eating, drinking, your privacy.”

  He took another swig of beer and rested the bottle on his knee. “Losing my privacy was almost as bad as giving up beer. When I was at Whole Foods today, this gaggle of teenagers followed me around the store giggling and whispering to each other. It’s hard to shop when you know someone’s watching everything you put in your cart so they can report it on Twitter later.”

  “That must get old.”

  He shook his head, frowning. “I don’t want to sound like an ungrateful asshole. I know how lucky I am to be doing as well as I am.” His mouth curled in a half-smile. “It’s kinda nice that people like my work enough to act like total weirdos around me when I go out in public.”

  “Do you ever wish you could go back to being invisible?”

  He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Sometimes. You don’t really appreciate the luxury of anonymity until you lose it.”

  “I’ve seen some of the stuff people say about you online. It must creep you out to have people talking about you like that.” Alice had always been morbidly fascinated by the way people treated celebrities online. The weird possessiveness and the othering. Like they were an inanimate object instead of a real person with feelings and insecurities like everyone else.

  “A little.” Griffin took another swig of beer. “Mostly I try not to look at that stuff. My Twitter mentions are insane. It’s just a never-ending stream of people calling me ‘Daddy.’” His lip twisted in revulsion. “Why?”

  “Don’t ask me. I’m baffled by it too.” She shook her head as she sipped her beer.

  “So gross.”

  “So gross,” she agreed.

  “Better prep the potatoes,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. When he was done, he carried them out to the deck, along with his beer. “You coming?” he asked Alice.

  She followed him outside, and they sat on the deck chatting as Taco lounged at their feet and the sunset painted the sky a thousand different shades of orange. It was hard to believe how normal this had already come to feel. Living with Griffin, sharing his space and his meals. Talking like friends.

  Alice realized with a shock that
she was completely relaxed, aside from the small inconvenience of her crush on him. It was an odd sensation, not feeling on edge or on guard around him. Not having to watch what she said or worry that she might laugh too loudly or at the wrong thing. Whether he’d suddenly turn on her and take offense—or worse, decide she’d been coming on to him.

  She trusted him. Maybe she shouldn’t, but she did. It wasn’t something she would have thought possible a month ago, but here she was. Completely comfortable with Griffin Beach.

  If only she could stop thinking about how attractive he was.

  After forty-five minutes, the alarm on Griffin’s phone trilled a series of ascending notes. “Steak time!” he announced, getting to his feet.

  Alice grabbed their empty bottles and followed him into the kitchen. “Do you want another beer?” she asked as he started prepping the steaks.

  He cast a longing look at the fridge. “Desperately, but I’d better not.”

  She decided not to have a second beer either. Instead, she got them both tall glasses of water and carried them out to the table on the deck. Then she went back inside for silverware, plates, napkins, and fixings for the baked potatoes: butter, shredded cheese, and sour cream—aka all the dairy they could hold.

  By the time she had the table set, the steaks and potatoes were coming off the grill. Griffin brought them to the table, and they sat down to their feast.

  “I hope you’re ready to steak it to the limit,” he said as he carved off a bite and waved it in the air.

  Alice couldn’t help laughing at his terrible wordplay. “Wow. Way to dad-joke.”

  He swallowed a mouthful of steak with a blissed-out expression. “Well, I never had a dad, so I had to make my own dad jokes.”

  “That’s funny,” she said as she loaded her potato with sour cream. “I didn’t have a dad around either, and I never missed the jokes.”

  He winked at her as he tossed Taco a piece of steak. “You missed them. You just didn’t know you were missing them.”

  Alice groaned, smiling as she cut into her steak.

  Griffin wolfed down his own steak in about two minutes flat, then proceeded to make increasingly orgasmic expressions over every cheesy, sour cream-topped bite of baked potato. The more he did it, the more she laughed, and the more she laughed, the more he did it. “God, I love dairy.” He sighed happily. “You have no idea.”