Starstruck

by Rachel Schurig

  Of course my eyes had to meet his at that moment. He returned my gaze, unblinking, and my throat felt dry. “Your turn,” I said, both afraid and eager to change the subject.

  “Let’s see,” he said, and I shook my head.

  “Nope. Off the top of your head, don’t think about it.”

  “I want to adopt a dog. Read a book just for fun—I never read books anymore. Learn how to cook. Try something different. Live in one city for more than a few months. Be a father. Find someone to love me just for me.”

  “I guess we have a better idea of what we want than we thought,” I murmured. He laughed, leaning forward to clink my glass against his.

  If he kisses me right now, I thought, I won’t be able to say no.

  But he didn’t. He ran a hand gently over my knee, a simple gesture that sent my heart rate out of control, before settling back into his spot on the couch.

  “Live in one city, huh?” I asked. “Which one would you choose?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe one I’ve never been to before.”

  “Are there any cities you’ve never been to?”

  “I’ve never been to Seattle,” he confessed.

  “I think it rains all the time.”

  He snorted. “Just like London. It already feels like home.”

  We sat on his couch for a long time, talking about everything and nothing at all. I told him how I had wanted to be a paleontologist when I was little, but that I sucked at science too much to seriously consider it. He told me about boarding school, how it was almost like having brothers. I told him how I used to wish I was an only child, without so many cousins, when they all got so loud and on my nerves.

  And that, in turn, made me think about Beth. I had left the house when she was hungry, when she needed me. Of course I’d taken the time to make sure Sam would feed her, but the guilt was starting to weigh on me. Sam put her down for the night once or twice a week while I worked, and I hated it every time. Tonight, I had let him do it just because I was upset.

  “Don’t do that, Sofie,” Jackson said, reaching for the hand that was currently twisting the edge of the pillow tassel next to me. I dropped it, but he wasn’t talking about the pillow. “It’s okay to need a night away. Especially when something really shitty happens.”

  I nodded, even though I wasn’t quite convinced that I wasn’t a completely terrible mother. “You made sure she was safe,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Sam was there.” When I still didn’t respond, he smiled. “But, if it will make you feel better, I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “You will?”

  He nodded. “Of course I will.” He moved to set his wine down and frowned slightly. “Actually, I’ll call a driver to take you home. I don’t suppose I should be driving.”

  “You don’t have to do that. It’s too much trouble—”

  “No it’s not.” He was on his feet, phone in hand, before I could argue. I heard his side of the conversation with the concierge downstairs, and then he was hanging up, reaching a hand down to help me up. “The car will be here in five minutes.”

  I shook my head. “You do realize that most normal people would have to wait a lot longer than that.”

  He winked. “I never said being a famous actor wasn’t completely awesome.”

  Jackson insisted on accompanying me back to the house. I didn’t even try to argue—I was feeling strange, like I needed his presence to ground me. It’s probably just the wine, I told myself.

  But when we pulled up to the house and he leaned over to kiss my cheek, I knew that it wasn’t just the wine. I breathed in the now familiar smell of him, felt the solidness of his body. It wasn’t the wine—it was him. I had come to rely on this man, for better or for worse. And I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I was finally starting to feel like I was settling into a routine. It helped that the schedule was fairly consistent over the following week. Every morning, I either picked Jackson up with a driver or met him at the set by eight. He shot some scenes, spent some time in his trailer. Rinse and repeat. Sam brought Beth down for lunch most days and I fed her. If Jackson happened to be free, he hung out with us in the trailer, bouncing Beth on his knee while he ate his paleo lettuce wraps one-handed.

  On Friday, he was finished by eleven thirty, so I called Sam and told him not to bother bringing Beth. I figured I’d get the chance to go home early, so I was surprised, and a little disappointed, when Jackson asked if I had time to come back to the condo.

  “I have something to show you,” he told me, his face so lit up with excitement that I couldn’t help but grin back, the disappointment fading.

  “You do, huh?”

  He nodded, tugging on my arm. “Come on.”

  A driver had picked him up that morning, so I drove us both to his condo. I felt a little bit shy about him riding in my old Chevy Caviler, but Jackson seemed to get a kick out of rolling the windows up and down manually. “I didn’t know they even made cars that did this anymore!”

  “They don’t,” I said dryly.

  He was practically bouncing on his seat by the time we pulled into the parking garage. “You need to chill out,” I laughed. “This is like having my nephew in the car.”

  He ignored my snark, urging me to hurry up and get my seat belt off.

  At the door to his condo, his excitement faltered slightly. He looked over at me, keys in his hand, and I could see the slightest amount of apprehension in his face. “You okay?” I asked.

  The apprehension faded. “Absolutely.”

  He unlocked the door, and I followed him inside. He tossed his bag haphazardly on the couch—a definite departure from his usual, meticulous ways. “Come on!” he urged when I bent to slip my shoes off. “Leave them on, it’s fine.”

  “Did I miss the announcement that Christmas was coming early this year?” I muttered, following him to the spiral staircase.

  “Up here,” he called over his shoulder, already halfway upstairs.

  I followed him, rather admiring the view of Jackson ahead of me. When I reached the second floor, I frowned. There was a couch up here that hadn’t been here before. “What…”

  “Come on,” he said. “Just look.”

  He led the way to the bedroom, and I felt, for the first time, the stirrings of something like fear. “Here you go,” he said, throwing the door open with a flourish.

  The air seemed to leave the condo very fast. I was staring at a room that had been empty last week. It wasn’t empty anymore. It was fully decorated, a queen-sized bed in the middle of the room made up in a deep purple bedspread. There was a mahogany chest of drawers against one wall, a matching dressing table on the other side. There were pictures on the previously bare walls. A vase filled with fresh-cut flowers was on the nightstand, the scent of lilies obvious in the air.

  It took me a good thirty seconds before I was able to speak. “What is this?” I finally whispered.

  “It’s for you!” he proclaimed, clearly proud of himself. “I know your parents have been driving you crazy lately. And you said the other night that you wanted your own place, so I thought—”

  “But this is your place,” I said, my voice finally coming back to me.

  The excited look on his face finally did falter a little bit. “But I’m not using this floor. You would have your own sitting room and everything.”

  He actually thought this was going to happen. That I was going to move in with him, without even discussing it.

  “Jackson.”

  “Look, if it’s about money, don’t even worry. I’m already paying rent for the whole place. It’s silly to let this space go to waste.”

  “It’s not about money,” I snapped, and his face dropped. “Jackson, I have a child.”

  “I know that.” He looked offended now.

  “Do you think I’m going to leave her with her grandparents so I can move in with you?” He had to see how insane that sounded.

  “
No. Don’t be silly. I haven’t shown you the best part yet.”

  He walked to a door that I assumed was a closet. When he opened it, I saw that it was bigger than my room at home. It may have been a closet at one point, but it wasn’t anymore. It was a nursery

  I took a step back, feeling like I had to be dreaming. “This is too much,” I whispered, backing up another step. “This is… This is crazy.”

  I could see the hurt on his face, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was too much, way too much. Completely overwhelming and too fast, and I just wanted to get out of there. So I spun around and sprinted down the stairs, ignoring his pleading voice calling after me.

  ***

  “Lizzie?” I asked, the moment she answered the phone. “Is it too late there? You know what, I don’t even care. I need to talk to you.”

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, worried. “Is Beth okay?”

  “Oh, she’s fine,” I said, my voice practically hysterical. “In fact, she has a brand new nursery. At Jackson Coles’s house.”

  “What? Sof, you aren’t making any sense.”

  I took deep breaths, knowing I needed to get it together. Sam would be dropping Beth off soon, my parents would be home, and I didn’t need them to hear any of this. “Look, I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye when it comes to Jackson. But I need to talk to someone about this, and you’re the only one I trust. Please don’t say I told you so.”

  “I would never say that. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “He made her a nursery,” I said, the words sounding crazy in my own ears. “In his condo. Next to a room he had done up for me.”

  “He…wants you to move in?”

  “Yes! But he didn’t even talk to me about it! He just…showed me this room!” I ran my free hand through my hair. “This is crazy, right? It’s not just me?”

  “I’m honestly not sure I understand what’s happening. Why did he think you wanted to move in?”

  I took a deep breath and told her about the fight with my parents and my subsequent flight to Jackson’s. “I mentioned that I wanted a place of my own, and I guess he thought he would just run with it. How does he not see how inappropriate this is? Did he think I would just say thanks and start packing my bags?”

  “He probably did,” Lizzie said. “Sofie, he’s the master of grand gestures. That’s what he does.”

  I shook my head. “This isn’t cool.”

  “He probably thought he was doing something really romantic. This is a guy who lives and breathes movies. His understanding of reality is slightly different from yours.”

  Even in my annoyance, I still bristled at her assessment of him.

  “Look, just relax,” she told me, her voice reassuring. “I bet he shows up to apologize any minute.”

  Of course she was right. No sooner had she finished talking did I see his car pull up outside the house. “You can say that again,” I muttered. “I have to go.”

  “Call me back,” she ordered, but I was already hitting the end button.

  I watched through the window as Jackson approached the door. He kept running his hands through his hair in a way that I associated with nerves. When he got to the porch, he paused, as if he needed to gather his courage to come in. A moment later, he knocked on the front door.

  Taking a deep breath, I opened it. “We need to talk,” I said, my voice flat. He nodded, looking miserable, and followed me inside.

  I sat on the couch, gesturing for him to do the same, but he paced in front of me instead. “I’m starting to realize I may have made a mistake back there.”

  “Really?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “What might have tipped you off?”

  He sighed, hands once again running through his hair. It was practically flat against his head now, nothing like the tousled movie-star locks the entire world knew and loved.

  Suddenly, the absurdity of the situation hit me. An international superstar had just custom-made a bedroom for my daughter and me to move into. And now he was standing in my parents’ living room. What in the hell was going on in my life?

  “I need a drink of water,” I muttered, standing up and stalking to the kitchen. He followed me, his movements timid. I poured a glass from the pitcher in the fridge before settling myself at the dining table. I sighed, pointing to the seat opposite. “Sit down, please.”

  He did, looking like he thought I might smack him.

  “Sofie, I’m really sorry.”

  “Why did you think I would want that, Jackson?”

  “You seemed so upset about your parents the other night. And you said you wanted a place of your own. I started thinking how nice that would be for you, to be able to come and go as you pleased. To be able to stay away when they did something that bothered you.” He looked down at his hands, his fingers clenching. “Like if they invited that bastard here again, you’d be able to just go.”

  I felt the grimace on my face soften. “That’s sweet, Jackson. But…God, it’s too much. You have to see that.”

  He looked uncomfortable. “I’m starting to think I might have overwhelmed you.”

  “Yeah, just a tad.”

  He winced at the sarcasm in my voice.

  “Look. I’m not going to just move in with you. First of all, the point of wanting my own place was to be independent. Not to go from relying on my parents to relying on my boss.”

  “It wouldn’t be relying on me.”

  “Jackson. I have lived in this house since the day my parents brought me home from the hospital, minus the few months I lived at Lizzie’s. I never went to college. I never left town. When I move out, I want it to mean something.”

  He hung his head. “I didn’t think of it that way.”

  I sighed. “I know.”

  “I just… I saw a way to help you. And I wanted to do that.”

  “That’s really sweet. But that doesn’t make it okay.” I paused, thinking about what Lizzie had said. “If you thought this was such a good idea, why didn’t you talk to me about it first?”

  “I guess… I thought it would be a chance to show you how much you mean to me. To make you feel special.”

  “A grand gesture.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Yeah. A grand gesture.”

  I shook my head. “That’s what Lizzie said.”

  His head snapped up. “You talked to Lizzie?”

  “She said you spend so much time in and around movies that you might have lost some perspective on how a normal person would react to something like that.” I swallowed. “You know this isn’t a romantic comedy, right?”

  He looked annoyed for the first time. “Of course I do.”

  “Then I need you to not act like it. That was completely overwhelming. It freaked me out.”

  “I never meant to do that.”

  We stared at each other across the table, neither speaking. Finally, Jackson stood, resuming his pacing across the floor. “I guess Lizzie is right. My…uh…usual method of showing someone that I care is to do something over the top. Honestly, it usually works out pretty well. I thought girls… I thought people liked that kind of stuff.”

  I thought of the usual models and actresses that he had dated and wondered what grand, romantic gestures he had made for them. Oh crap, I thought. He probably had Sonja arrange these things. Would that be something I would have to do someday?

  “You know what I liked?” I asked, running my fingers across the grain in the wood so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “I liked when I called you the other night and you came right over. That showed me that I could rely on you. That showed me that you cared. Because it felt real.”

  “Sofie.”

  I looked up to see that he had stopped pacing, his face a mixture of emotions I couldn’t decipher.

  “It needs to be real, for me. If we’re going to be friends, I don’t want grand gestures. I just want real.”

  There was a beat of silence. “I’ve been more real with you than anyone else in my life.” Befo
re I could respond to the massiveness of that statement, he went on, his voice soft. “And I want us to be more than friends.”

  I stared at him, my mouth gaping.

  “Do you… Do you think that’s something you might want, too?” He looked so vulnerable, standing there in his designer clothes on the faded linoleum in my parents’ kitchen.

  I was having trouble locating my voice to answer. Was he asking me to…what? Start a relationship? More than friends. I wanted, with nearly my entire heart, to throw myself into his arms, to feel his lips against mine again, to erase the fear and vulnerability in his eyes. I’ve been more real with you than anyone else in my life.

  And I would have done it, too. If I had only myself to consider, I would have done it in an instant.

  But I didn’t have only myself to consider. And I knew, as much as I could feel it breaking my heart, that the other person in my life meant I couldn’t do it.

  “Come and sit down,” I said, my voice hoarse. He stared at me for several seconds, blinking rapidly, before he sat back down in the chair across from me.

  “You can just say no.”

  There was so much bitterness in his voice. It made my chest ache.

  “Jackson, I wish I could say yes. I wish I could say it more than I’ve ever wished for anything.”

  His eyes searched mine. “Then why don’t you?”

  “Because I have a daughter. And I’ve already gotten her into enough problems by being reckless when it comes to men.” My mind flashed to Jim’s angry face the night he asked me if I was sleeping with Jackson. What would he do, I wondered, if he found out I was dating the man? “I…have to be careful. I have to take my time. Can you understand that?”

  There was something like hope in his eyes. “That doesn’t really sound like a flat out no to me, Sofie.”

  “It’s not a yes, either.”

  He smiled for the first time since I fled his condo. It wasn’t quite the famous, cocky Jackson smile I knew so well, but it was definitely in the same family. “I can live with that. So long as it’s not a never, I can live with it.”