by Dahlia Adler
“Ally, stop.” But he made no move to actually pull my hands away as they successfully worked at the buckle.
“Why?” I stood on my toes to kiss his neck in a spot that had worked wonders the other night in my room, but he remained frozen and silent. Finally, I reached to undo the button of his jeans, and this time he pushed me away, gently but firmly.
“Ally, we’re not doing this.”
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you attracted to me?” I challenged, shame at his rejection burning my cheeks. “Or am I just some ‘cute’ friend of your hot costar girlfriend’s. You certainly don’t seem to have trouble getting it up for Van.”
“Jesus Christ, where is this coming from?” he demanded, raking a hand through his hair. “First of all, I’ve never had to get it up for Vanessa because I’ve never had sex with her, or done anything else with her that hasn’t been documented on camera. Second of all, You’re. The only. One. I want. How can you not know that?”
“Maybe if—”
“And I thought it was pretty damn obvious I find you obscenely hot,” Liam continued, refusing to let me interrupt. “Frankly, I spend a ridiculous amount of time thinking about it. Imagining that you’re the one I’m with is the only way I get through any of that stupid publicity shit, and if you don’t think I’m dying to sleep with you—when the time is right, and not when you’re standing here fuming at me with something to prove—you’re crazy.”
Well, there wasn’t really any good response to that, now was there? So I went with the worst one possible. “I was at lunch with Nate. I asked him to go.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” And I really didn’t. Yes, a part of me had wanted to make sure things were okay, but a bigger part of me had known that things weren’t going to magically normalize themselves over pancakes. And I did want to escape, but it was Liam I wanted to do that with, not Nate. I knew this morning was a mistake, but it was like the rational part of my brain had wanted to sleep a little longer before waking up in a world where it had to watch my boyfriend kiss someone else on TV. “Maybe I just wanted to feel what it was like to go out with a guy in public.”
“And how was it?” he asked, an edge creeping into his voice.
I didn’t answer. I wanted to tell him that I’d had a great time—see how he felt about me going on a “date” with someone else—but the lie wouldn’t emerge from my mouth.
He sighed. “I don’t know what you want from me. You told me to do this. You told us to do this. If we stop now, the backlash will be awful, and they might be forced to replace one, if not both, of us on the show.”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
“Pilots are recast all the time, for worse reasons than the general public thinking there’s bad blood between costars,” he pointed out. “Besides, the ‘rumor’ about you is still recent enough that you’d probably be blamed for it. Do you really want paparazzi swarming your house again?”
“I want to have a normal relationship,” I said quietly, self-loathing at my childish outburst already settling in. “I just want to be with you without worrying when you’re going to be ripped away from me.”
“Don’t you think I want that too? Do you think I like this any better than you do?” I started to respond, but he jerked his hand up to silence me. “Never mind—obviously you do think that. And I don’t really know how to get that idea out of your head short of fucking you on demand.”
“Well, that was crude.” And sort of hot.
He raised an eyebrow. “And taking off my pants five minutes after you took another guy for a boyfriend test run isn’t?”
“Touché,” I muttered, looking away.
He stepped in front of me and tilted up my chin so I had no choice but to make eye contact. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you about things we can’t change right now. Can we just start this day over or something? I’d like to spend the afternoon with you. I can’t go somewhere public, and I’m sorry for that. Apparently, you’ve already eaten, and I think we’ve established that our first time together is not going to be today. So, can I stay or would you rather be alone?”
I was still upset, but about what exactly, or even at whom, I was no longer sure. I grumbled my assent and started to walk toward the couch for yet another “date” spent watching a movie when his gentle hand on my abdomen stopped me in my tracks. He pulled me into his arms and planted a long, soft kiss on my lips.
“Hey,” he said softly, sweeping a strand of hair behind my ear. “There are still plenty of fun things to do behind closed doors.”
I could only nod before he kissed me again. It was seriously hard to stay angry when you were being kissed like that.
“I’m sorry,” I offered when we parted. “Going out with Nate was stupid. I just…after last night…”
“I get it.” He stroked my lower lip gently with his thumb. “I mean, I don’t like it, but I get it. I’m sorry about last night too. For what it’s worth, the whole thing sucked. I missed you like crazy, and we got into a fight with an asshole reporter about whether making Bailey Korean-American was Hollywood ‘bowing to the demands of the PC police.’”
“Seriously? What a prick.”
“Exactly.” His lips brushed my forehead. “I can think of much better ways to spend my time.”
“Is that so?” I clasped my arms around his waist to pull him close and looked up into his eyes, the sparkling blue-green of the Pacific at sunset. “Anything I can help with, maybe?”
“Maybe.” That dimple was probably going to be the death of me. Totally worth it. “Let’s see what we can do about turning this into a date with your actual boyfriend.”
* * * * *
In the end, we semi-compromised by ordering takeout from the Mongolian barbecue place and eating it picnic-style in the backyard. I offered to help Liam with his audition, but he insisted that he’d gone over it plenty of times and didn’t want to take any time away from our date. I forced him to run his lines with me for twenty minutes anyway, just in case, and before I knew it, four o’clock had come and he was kissing me goodbye.
“Text me and let me know how it went?”
“Of course.” He squeezed my hand as I walked him to the door. “I’ve got to pack after my audition, and then my flight to Berlin is really early in the morning, so I probably won’t see you until we’re back on set on Monday.” Cupping my face in his warm palms, he planted a slow, sweet kiss on my lips that spread through my body like fire. Good thing, since apparently it had to keep me warm for almost a week. “I’ll call you when I land.”
I just nodded; I didn’t trust myself to do anything else, given all the stupid things I’d already said that day. And then he was gone, and I was alone with the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Then I remembered what Liam had said about the night before with Vanessa, and I pulled out my phone to call her. She answered on the fourth ring. “Hey,” she whispered. “I’m at yoga. What’s up?”
“Answering your phone during yoga isn’t very zen, but I appreciate it. You wanna hang out afterward?”
“Oh God, yes. I will pay you a billion dollars to get me Pinkberry and bring it back to your house for a movie night. Bonus points if you let me sleep over so I can avoid the billionth ‘Perils of Life Without a College Degree’ conversation with my parents this week.”
I laughed. “I’m your assistant, Van. I already get paid to get you Pinkberry. But I’m on it; just do me a favor and shower before you get here.”
“Deal. Eep, gotta go! Namasté!”
She hung up, and I shoved my phone in my back pocket, then grabbed my keys. The thought of going on a fro-yo run was oddly rejuvenating.
Van was at my house before I even returned from Pinkberry, standing on the front porch, furiously typing something on her phone. “I left yoga a minute after we hung up,” she explained without looking up. “Fro-yo just sounds so much better than downward-facing dog.”
She hit send on whatever she
was typing and shoved her bedazzled phone back into her purse. “Just warning you now, Jade will probably text me four hundred thousand times.” We air-kissed hello, and I passed her her usual kiwi strawberry yogurt before pulling out my keys and letting us both inside. “Did Liam tell you about the psycho last night?”
“Barely.” We dropped our bags on the living room floor and took up our usual spots on the couch with yogurt in hand. “Just that the reporter was a racist asshole.”
Vanessa rolled her thickly lined eyes and took a long, slow lick of the glob of yogurt on her spoon. “Beyond. The jerk had the nerve to ask if he could interview me for an article on ‘Affirmative Action in Hollywood.’ Because everyone’s just throwing parts at Asian-American actresses, you know? Those poor, poor skinny blondes.”
“As if they didn’t get to audition for the same part, either,” I added, rolling my eyes. This type of garbage was so typical and exactly why I wanted to get out of this place ASAP. “Like it’s your fault Zoe can’t emote through that nose job.”
“I thought Liam was gonna punch him in the face when he asked about our relationship.” She took another lick of the spoon. Van was the slowest eater on the planet. “He tried to get him to admit he had some sort of Asian fetish. Because of course, what white guy would want a Korean girl unless he had some sort of obsession with my daintiness and slanty eyes, right?” She shook her head. “Anyway, I had to hold Liam back and make us walk away, but I might’ve uttered a few choice words first. Jade is…not pleased.”
“With you?” My jaw dropped open. “The guy was a racist prick! You should’ve let Liam punch him. Though, honestly, I can’t even really imagine what Liam punching someone looks like.”
Vanessa laughed. “It’s true. It was actually interesting seeing him go a little nuts to defend my honor. He’s usually so chill.”
A tiny twinge of jealousy that Liam had broken said chill exterior for Vanessa squeezed my gut, but I instantly tamped it down, recognizing it for the stupid pettiness it was. Of course he should’ve defended her; Lord knew if I’d been the one at her side last night, the way I used to be, I probably would’ve let my fists fly.
“Yeah, I’m glad he was there,” I managed. A half-truth, but better than nothing.
“I’m actually surprised you wanted to hang out with me tonight. Isn’t Liam going to Germany in the morning?”
“I always want to hang out with you,” I teased, “but he has an audition. That James Gallagher movie. He actually left here just before I called you.”
“Ohhh, no wonder you had time for little ol’ me,” she said with another lick. Her voice was teasing, but I suspected she wasn’t; it took all the self-control I possessed not to point out how much more time she spent with my boyfriend than I did. “You know, you haven’t said a word about…things.” She waggled her perfectly threaded eyebrows. “Are you really gonna leave a girl hangin’ on that front? I need details, obviously. Especially since living under ‘Park house rules’ means I have absolutely nothing of my own to report.”
I laughed. “I thought you didn’t want to know anything because it’d be impossible to look him in the eye on set.”
“I changed my mind. I need to know things. I assume I’d know if you’d given him your ladyflower…?”
“Not if you insist on calling it a ladyflower, à la Mama Park.” I tossed a throw pillow at her head, taking care to avoid the yogurt spoon she was still holding up like a lollipop. “And yes, you’d know, and no, I haven’t.” I thought about earlier that afternoon, when I almost had, and I could feel a blush creeping up my cheeks in response. I jammed a spoon of yogurt into my mouth, hoping it’d cool down my skin before Van noticed.
No such luck. “Alexandra Mabel Duncan, you are keeping something from me! What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I assured her. “I just may have…come on a little strong today. Possibly thrown myself at him a little bit.”
Van’s eyes widened and her spoon froze halfway to her mouth. “And he wasn’t into it?”
“They were unusual circumstances,” I admitted wryly, wishing I hadn’t said a word. I took another bite of yogurt. “Anyway, things are fine, and I can tell you he’s a great kisser and fabulous with his hands, but that’s all I can tell you right now.”
“You don’t sound very happy about that, young lady.”
I couldn’t even meet her eyes, and I dug into my cup instead. The truth was, I hadn’t really been thinking when I’d come on to Liam earlier; I’d just acted on impulse. But now that it was over, I was left wondering what it would’ve been like if we’d gone through with it. Considering how he kissed and touched me, I suspected I would’ve been floating around on a cloud of bliss right about now.
Vanessa burst out laughing. “You wanna bang him so hard. God, I wish you could see yourself blushing right now.”
I reached for a throw pillow, but I’d already thrown the only one within reach. “Oh, shut up.”
“You guys are super-gross.”
“Thanks so much for your thoughts on my sex life,” I replied dryly, as if her approval didn’t mean the world to me, even though it actually did. Both Vanessa and I happened to be virgins, but of the two of us, she was definitely the “Save it all for The One” type. If she thought he was my One… The thought admittedly made me a little mushy.
“Ugh, stop it. I’m sorry I said anything.” Vanessa threw the pillow back at me, and it landed smack in my cup of yogurt. We both stared it for a few seconds and then lost it completely.
After we cleaned up, Vanessa picked out a movie—indie, she insisted, since she didn’t feel like watching anything where she knew any of the actors personally—and we popped some popcorn and settled back in for the night. We even let Lucy join us when she got back from her ballet lessons.
It was exactly what I needed to forget that stupid brunch, forget that Liam was leaving for a week, and even forget about everything with my dad for a bit, though the latter was made much easier by the fact that my mom was visiting him for the night. Van had promised to make my spring break better, and truly, she had never broken a promise.
16
THE NEXT DAY, THOUGH, was entirely about my dad. I showed up at the hospital bright and early—well, relatively bright, considering I was still pre-coffee, and relatively early, given that Van and I had both passed out on the couch and overslept—and parked myself in the chair right next to his hospital bed with a bag full of textbooks.
“You’re looking cheerful,” he observed as he watched me settle in, his own eyes tired. Then he hiccupped.
“Still doing that, huh?”
“Unfor-hic-tunately. Not as frequent. How’s your break going?”
“Not bad. Van actually came over last night to watch a movie. Well, sort of watch a movie. Lucy kept asking her questions every five seconds, including a zillion about Liam.”
He laughed weakly, which brought on another round of hiccups. It was his fifth day of that stretch in the hospital, which meant he’d had a crap-ton of drugs pumped into his system. His body was always shot by this point, and it was harder to pretend everything was normal. “How is your sister?”
“She’s good. She misses you a lot.” I felt a twinge in my gut when I thought of my last real one-on-one conversation with her; I’d never actually answered her question, and I still didn’t know how. But I did know that keeping her fully in the dark while he was in the hospital didn’t help. “I wish you and Mom would let her visit.”
There was a rasping sound in response, and I quickly brought him some water. “I’ll probably be home tomorrow,” he said after taking a sip. “My creatinine levels are high. I’m not sure I’ll get another dose today.”
The defeat in his voice broke my heart, the way it always did when he was nearing the end of a course of treatment. It was for his own good that the stopping point in each cycle was dependent on his kidney function, and I knew from reading up on statistics that he tolerated more than most, but he st
ill seemed to take it as a personal failing every time his levels hit the magic number that had him packing up his hospital pajamas.
“You did great,” I assured him, even though I knew it was falling on deaf ears, on top of the fact that he was drifting off to sleep.
He waved a hand dismissively, just as I knew he would.
I sighed. There was no point in fighting that battle, but I still wanted to fight Lucy’s. “You need to let her visit during your next round. It drives her crazy, sitting at home and wondering what you look like in here. I’ll bring her and stay with her the whole time, I promise.”
“I’ll talk it—hic—over with your mother,” he mumbled, but he was already half-asleep. I settled back into the reclining chair my mother had slept in the night before and pulled out my Calculus textbook.
I got no more than a few pages in when I drifted off right along with him; apparently my night on the couch with Van hadn’t been all that restful, and Calculus wasn’t exactly mind-whirling. At least not in a good way. When I awoke, it was to the sound of my phone ringing, and I immediately grabbed it and answered before it could wake up my dad too, even though the number didn’t look familiar.
“Hello?” I whispered as I quickly dashed out of the room and into the waiting area.
“Al? You okay?”
Liam’s concerned voice washed over me. “I’m fine,” I replied at normal volume. “I’m in the hospital. I mean, with my dad. He was sleeping. I’m fine.”
He laughed. “So, you’re fine, is what you’re saying.”
“More than fine, now,” I said with a smile as I curled up in a chair, rubbing the sleep from my eyes with my free hand. “Glad you landed safely.”
“Me too. How’s your dad?”
“Same old. I’m trying to talk him into letting Lucy come visit next time. I’m…sort of making headway.”
“How sort of?”
“The ‘I’ll talk about it with your mother’ kind of sort of. Which I hate, because I know this is the right thing for Lucy. She feels so left out, and if these really are his last couple of months—” I broke off to take a deep breath. “I just want to do what’s right for her.”
