He started to walk away but I caught his wrist. He looked back, confused.
“Trust me, you don’t want to go out the front.”
The paparazzi were there for Angelina, of course, but I had no doubt that if Leo crossed their path in his drunken state, they would have a field day snapping photos of him. Then tomorrow all the blogs would be speculating about whether he was having a breakdown, or succumbing to alcoholism, when in reality it was just complimentary wine, and my idiotic inability to keep my mouth shut.
I had to find another way to get him out.
“Just stay here for a second.” I couldn’t believe it, but he actually listened to me, just staring at the ground as I gathered my stuff. I grabbed my voice recorder and my bag, tossing it over my shoulder. At the last minute I handed him his water glass.
“Drink,” I said, putting it near his mouth.
He took it and sipped a tiny amount.
“That was like, three molecules of water, Leo. More,” I said, my voice firm. “A lot more.”
He acquiesced, taking a few more gulps before putting it back down. I picked it up and chugged the rest.
I found the hostess, for the third time, knowing she’d be sympathetic. I told her the situation and she led us through the kitchen and out the back door. The kitchen was frenetic, the cooks yelling over their stainless steel worktops and sauté pans with flames trailing into the air. It was hotter than hell back there, but the brief glimpse of a world so different from the serene restaurant outside was fascinating.
The hostess wished us the best and then we were out the back door, in a side alley, shrouded in darkness and calm.
I took a few steps forward toward the nearest street when I saw a bright camera flash.
One man made his way around the corner and started snapping photos. “Angelina? Is that you, Angelina? Do you still talk to Brad?”
I shielded my eyes from the flash, putting my body between Leo and the paparazzo. “Fuck off,” I said, “It’s not Angelina. It’s just my friend Benny, okay, and we’re going home, right Benny?”
Leo grunted from behind me.
The photographer looked disappointed, and put down his camera. “Whatever,” he said, and then pulled out a cigarette. My little charade had been stupid as hell, but it worked.
I turned back to Leo, who was almost swaying. “Come on,” I muttered to him, my voice low, and we took off down the alleyway and toward the street.
“Yep, okay, thanks, Jamie, my car’s just down this way....”
“Very funny. You’re not driving anywhere.”
Leo groaned. “No. Fuck no. Me? Drive like this? I meant you. Can you drive me home?”
I shook my head at him. “I’m in no state to drive, either.” I looked up at the names of the cross streets when we reached an intersection. I knew we were close to my apartment, I just didn’t remember which direction I needed to go. I’d only been in town a few weeks, and didn’t have the streets fully memorized yet.
“Uhhh… hang on,” I said, pulling out Google Maps on my phone.
“Where do you need to go?” Leo asked.
“We’re in Silver Lake, Leo, I highly doubt you know where my apartment is.”
“Pretty fuckin’ sure I would. What’s the address?”
I told him.
He immediately swiveled to the left, and pointed ahead of him. “Three blocks that way,” he said, and started off.
I hurried to join his side. “How’d you know that?”
“Silver Lake was the first place I lived when I moved here.”
He stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk and I grabbed his arm, holding him steady. “Come on. Let’s just get back there in one piece.”
Three more long blocks later, we arrived at my place, and I helped Leo up the steps to the second floor. I got the front door open and set down my laptop bag.
Leo stepped in and looked around, taking the small space in. He looked so different, here in my tiny piece of crap apartment. He seemed very tall under the low ceiling.
“Nice place,” Leo said.
I puffed out a laugh. “Yeah right. Sit on the couch.”
It was freaking me out a little bit, having him here, in my apartment. I’d only been living there for a few weeks, so it was really more Chelsea’s space, but I was buzzing, and a little nervous, as he sat down on my couch. It was a far cry from his modern house in the Hollywood Hills.
I went straight to the kitchen and got us both big glasses of water. I threw some bread in the toaster and slathered it with butter when it was finished—Leo needed something other than gummy bears and wine in his stomach. When I was heading back to the couch, the door to Chelsea’s room opened and she came out.
“Jamie, you have to fucking see this video. There’s a monkey in a little coat in Ikea—oh, shit—” she looked up from her phone and saw that it wasn’t just me in the room.
I set down the water glasses & toast on the coffee table.
“Hi Chels. Uh, Chelsea, this is Leo, Leo, this is my roommate and longtime friend Chelsea. Who apparently hadn’t seen the Ikea monkey video until just now.”
Leo tottered up from the couch and walked over to her, giving her a handshake and a lazy smile.
“Nice t’meet you,” he said. “Normally I’m much less drunk than this.”
Chelsea laughed, hard. “Very nice to meet you, Leo. And don’t worry, as long as you’re still standing, you’re not as drunk as I was orientation week of college.”
Leo nodded. “I never went to college, so, making up for lost time,” he said. “I’m sorry to be rude like this, ‘cause you seem great, Chelsea, but I’m… gonna go eat some buttered toast.”
She laughed again. “Enjoy. I’ll stay out of your guys’ way.” She winked at me, and I rolled my eyes at her before sitting back onto the couch. I chugged water and waited next to Leo as he slowly and methodically ate his buttered toast, staring into the distance and drinking sips of water.
“Is your name James?”
I looked at him. “James?”
He nodded slowly, swallowing toast. “Yeah. Jamie. Short for James.”
“Oh. Nope, just Jamie, actually.”
He nodded once more, staring back out at nothing.
“Is your name Leonardo?”
“Nope. Just Leo,” he said. “But I was named after my grandfather, Leandro.”
“Were you close with him?” I asked, my voice soft.
He turned to me with a grin, one eyebrow raised. “Is now really the best time for an interview, Jamie?” he hiccupped once, as if he was proving his point.
“I’m not interviewing you. I’m just curious.”
He held out his pinky toward me. “Promise?”
I linked pinkies with him and snorted a laugh. “Promise.”
His smile made me feel like everything was okay. He hadn’t even brought up the stupid thing I’d said at the restaurant—maybe he was too drunk to care. Leo dropped his hand back down onto the couch.
“My grandpa Leandro—Leo—was the best. My mom’s dad. He died when I was thirteen, but growing up I used to love when we visited his house. He’s the one who first taught me ‘Chopsticks’ on the piano. And I used to watch Cheers with him on his ancient clunker of a TV.”
“Did you get to see him often?”
He shook his head. “No. Maybe two, three times a year. He lived in Illinois.”
I finished the rest of my water and leaned back onto the couch.
“Anyway, he was a great guy. Told me I should pursue music, even when I was a sniveling thirteen-year-old.”
“He believed in you,” I said.
Leo nodded, growing silent for a few moments. “Jesus, I’m fucking drunk.”
I smiled a little. “Well, at least you’re aware of it. That counts for something, huh?”
He nodded. “Actually, it really does.” He turned to me, and looked at me strangely, hesitantly, like he might be deciding what to say next.
I still
couldn’t quite believe what he did next.
He sank back into the couch, slouching more and more, until he hitched his feet up onto it. I hadn’t even realized he’d taken off his shoes. He laid down, sort of curling himself into a comfortable position, and he rested his head in my lap.
In my fucking lap.
Thank God he avoided my cock, and was positioned further forward on my thighs—because even that small act of him lying down onto me stirred me slightly, and I was half hard in a matter of seconds.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice low and soft. “So comfy.”
I caught my breath and tried to keep it steady. I looked down at the back of his head, and felt as his chest and shoulders rose and fell with each of his breaths.
I was about to tell him it was alright, and it was fine, as if I wasn’t nervous as all hell and partially erect underneath my jeans, but he spoke again first.
“Is it gonna be good?”
Another long pause. “What?” I finally said.
“My book. Your book. Do you think it’ll be good? It’ll work?”
I swallowed. “Oh. Yes, Leo, I think it’s gonna be really good.”
He turned in my lap, so that his face was pointing upward, looking at me from below. “You really think so?”
I nodded. “Yeah, you fucker, I really do,” I said, allowing a small smile onto my face.
“Gonna make people give a shit again, elicit sympathy for me, make them see I’m not just that guy from the infomercial or tabloids?”
His face was serious, not a trace of joking to be seen like there usually was. He seemed genuinely scared, genuinely hopeful. It kind of made me feel like I was breaking into a million pieces, and I couldn’t tell if I loved that feeling or was terrified.
So I did it, I couldn’t not do it: I put my hand down onto his head, lightly touching his hair, and started to run my fingers through it gently. His eyes fluttered shut, and he moaned slightly, low and quiet. It wasn’t sexual, it was something different; like he was finally relaxing, and his brain wasn’t getting in his way anymore.
I kept waiting for him to protest or to break away in revulsion, but the moment never came. He just settled onto my lap, and I kept stroking over and over again, downward and traveling onto the soft back of his neck.
When I thought it had been too much, and I was wearing out my welcome, I trailed my finger down and onto his collarbone, keeping my touch light.
“Mmm,” he finally moaned, slowly opening his eyes to look into mine. When he spoke, his voice was just a whisper. “Just ‘cause you make me feel good doesn’t mean I forgot about all my ‘troubles,’” he said, lazily bringing up his fingers to make air quotes around the final word.
It was enough to break me slightly from the trance I’d been in, and I smiled softly. “The book will do great. Just trust me.”
That elicited a deep sigh from him. “I do trust you. Too much, actually. I barely just met you, and I already….”
His sentence trailed off, and I didn’t push him to continue it. My heart slammed in my chest. He made a good point—we had just met, and already we’d ended up in this position? I mean, sure, tons of folks had one-night stands and all that, but honestly, what he and I were doing just then felt more intimate than anonymous sex.
Maybe the wine and the forced intimacy of the interview questions had contributed, but really, I just felt like the world was spinning under my feet and I had no control. I wanted him. Wanted him to feel better, to be successful, to be happy. Wanted him on my lap just like he was, staring up at me like that, like he was thinking the same damn things that were screaming through my mind.
Was he thinking the same things?
“Jamie,” he said, his voice so low.
I couldn’t answer. I swallowed roughly, my hand still against his chest, pressing into him.
He pushed himself up, leaning upward and turning towards me, placing a hand against my thigh. A sound came from his throat—something like helplessness, or resignation.
“Can I do a bad thing?” His voice was hoarse, quiet, broken.
I nodded, and thought: you can do anything. I met his eyes. His face was so close to mine, eyes half-lidded and pupils wide.
“Fuck,” he whispered, before putting a hand on my hip and pressing his lips to mine. It was dry at first, and he smelled of wine, but I kissed back into him, lightly trailing my tongue against his lips. His hand tightened against my hip, gripping it hard like he thought I might disappear.
And I really might have. Because I couldn’t believe it, not any of it, sitting in my living room in Los Angeles, wine-drunk and kissing Leo Stone.
Seven
Leo
I did what I shouldn’t have done because that’s what I always do, and because Jamie made me feel something again. I was drunk and he was beautiful, and telling me that things were going to be okay.
I didn’t believe it when most people said it. But Jamie wasn’t like that.
His lips were so soft, so yielding, and he tasted like wine and a trace of chocolate mousse. I kept my lips on his, and he parted for me gently, deepening the kiss and making the tiniest moan. That sound coming out of him when I had my mouth on his went straight through me. My cock throbbed in my jeans, and I had to hold myself back from moaning louder than he had.
Kissing him was the best thing I had felt in as long as I could remember, and I started to think I didn’t ever want to stop—no thank you, that’s fine, I’ll just stay here forever, please.
And that realization was terrifying.
So I pulled away. Met his eyes, released my grip on his hip, and sank into the couch next to him. I felt thrown, dizzy, like I was teetering at the edge of a cliff.
And my brain felt like it had taken a dive into a wading pool full of alcohol. I pressed my eyes shut as a stabbing pain raked through my forehead, and I brought my hands to my temples, pressing my fingers into my skull.
“Are you okay?” Jamie asked, his voice slightly broken.
I grunted a little. “Water.”
I peeled my eyes open as he quickly moved to scoop up the two empty glasses on the table and fill them again.
How good, how perfect, how right everything had felt a minute ago? That’s how wrong it felt now. Jamie was still perfect, but my own brain had caught up with me and reminded me how not at all I should have kissed him.
Jamie returned with the water. I chugged the entire thing in one go, and then pressed the cold glass to my forehead.
“Could you call me a taxi or an Uber or something?”
He looked at me like I’d suggested we eat a plate of worms. “Leo, I’m sorry, but fuck no. You can sleep here. I’ll take the couch, you can have my bed. It’s not that comfy, but—”
I took the glass away from my forehead and put it on the table. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”
Devastation was too strong a word for the look on his face, but distress seemed fitting.
“Leo, please,” he said, putting a hand on my upper arm. It was warm, and kind of made me want to cry. “At least take the couch. It’s comfortable. Then you can leave in the morning.”
He was too good a person. As if I needed more reminders of why I shouldn’t have fucking kissed him, and how much I didn’t deserve to.
“Okay,” I said, to get him to stop pleading with me. Against my better judgment I looked at his eyes again for a second, then I looked back at the ground. “If it’s alright I really think I should go to sleep now.”
I saw him nodding out of the corner of my eye. He walked over down the hallway and then returned a minute later with two pillows, two aspirin, more water, and a big soft blanket.
“If you go in the morning, just latch the front gate when you go. Otherwise high school students sneak into the apartment courtyard and smoke cigarettes down there. Makes my room stink like shit.”
I’d have laughed if I was up to it, but instead I just gave him a nod.
“Thank you, fuck, thank you, Jamie,” I sa
id, lightly catching his wrist, and letting myself look at him standing above me. “I’m sorry.”
He waved me off, gently prying my hand off of his wrist. “Just sleep. You need it.”
Truer words had never been spoken.
He left the room, turning off the light, so that the room was only illuminated by the faint blue glow of the streetlights outside.
I drifted off slowly, and with difficulty, roused every dozen minutes by the sound of loud groups of people walking on the sidewalk or motorcycles rumbling outside.
I tried drinking more water, relaxation techniques, even fucking counting sheep. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and let myself think about the one thing I knew would let me fall asleep: I pictured a world in which I could just kiss Jamie, like I had earlier, without any of the consequences or second thoughts that had hit me like a cinderblock to the head.
No. In my perfect, cozy little fairy-tale that I used to soothe myself to sleep, I could just kiss him, be with him, feel his skin on mine again. And nothing bad would come of it, and I wouldn’t be ruining anything.
That impossible world calmed me. My body grew warmer under the blanket, my headache seeming to disappear into the pillow, and I finally fell asleep.
I should have gotten up early and left the apartment. I woke up a handful of times in the night: 3am, 5am, 6am. But Jamie’s couch really was comfortable, and the next thing I new I was waking up to sun streaming through the window and the smell of food.
Oh, and a pounding in my head so fierce that I wanted to search for the nearest marble slab and beat my skull against it. I reached out to the aspirin instead, quickly swallowing them down with lukewarm water.
Before even sitting up, I catalogued the mistakes I had made: leaving the house yesterday, not eating, drinking too much, and good God, what had happened with Jamie.
Damage control. I needed to do damage control.
From where I laid on the couch, I couldn’t even remember which direction the bathroom was. But I had to get there, preferably without running into Jamie or his roommate.
I got up, pushing the warm heavy blanket to the side. I was still in my jeans, which had become unbearably uncomfortable overnight.
Your Fallen Star: Under the Stars Book 1 Page 6
