I was stunned. I had heard many versions of this story before, all over the internet, but had never known that Damien and Leo had been together for a year, that Leo had been in love with him.
What was Leo like when he was in love? And how could Damien have thrown something like that away? I pictured how sweet Leo had been in that video interview from years ago, long before he’d ever met Damien, just saying that he wanted to fall for someone normal. Eyes all full of hope. Instead he’d fallen for a rock star, and been burned badly.
I leaned over slowly to the voice recorder and turned it off with a click.
“Leo,” I said, my voice low, “Are you sure you want to be on the record with this?”
His gaze was hard. “Fuck it,” Leo said. “It’s the truth.”
Eleven
Leo
I had been dreading this conversation.
Obviously, Jamie was gonna ask me about Damien. It couldn’t be avoided. But I’d hoped somehow he’d forget, and skip over that chapter in my biography. But it was written in more than just countless tabloids and blogs; it was written in my fucking skin, in my bones and my stupid, sad heart. Damien had broken my heart. And I should have seen all the signs, his reluctance to ever be seen with me in public, yadda yadda. I thought he’d just been scared. But in reality he was never going to do it, never going to accept that I had fallen in love with him.
I’m not sure that he ever really loved me.
I stared out the window after unloading the story onto Jamie. Jamie got up off the other side of the couch and came to sit closer to me. For a moment I was convinced he was gonna try to hug me, and I was trying to figure out how I’d react if he did.
But he didn’t hug me, just sat next to me, staring at me with his big beautiful understanding eyes. They didn’t look like a therapist’s eyes anymore to me. Just like Jamie’s.
“What happened earlier?” he said.
“What?”
“Earlier today. You said you dealt with something bad earlier. What happened?”
“Oh,” I said, breaking eye contact again. “It’s nothing. Same bullshit as always. Two kids on this TV show I went on were assholes. Should have never gone on the show.”
“What did they do?”
I shrugged, chewing the inside of my cheek. “Well, for one thing, they brought up the tabloid scandal, which I fucking hate when people bring up.”
I fixed my eyes on him and he cringed a little, making a face.“Fuck. I’m sorry, Leo, I had no idea, I wouldn’t have—”
I shook my head. “No. This is different. I actually feel… glad to have gotten that off my chest.” His eyes met mine, still sorry, but now more relaxed. “I’d prefer if we didn’t talk about it again, though.”
He nodded, and was silent for a while. “God. I don’t know if I want herbal tea so much as straight liquor, now,” he said, looking over at the kitchen.
“Go for it. Help yourself. God knows I’ve got plenty.”
He got up and crossed to the kitchen, taking out two glasses.
“Just water for me,” I called over to him. “I’m laying off booze for a few days.”
“Oh,” he said, “I guess that’s a good thing? I don’t have to, then—”
“No, go ahead, you look like you need it more than I do anyway. And maybe if you get a drink in you you’ll finally tell me what the fuck happened to you today. Because you had a chip on your shoulder walking in here. Don’t deny it.”
He puffed out a laugh and poured himself a rather generous amount of whiskey, then came and sat back on the couch next to me, taking a sip.
“Well, now compared to your day, it seems like nothing,” he said, “But Made Contact got rejected from, like, 6 studios.”
“Oh no! Gaylien?” I said, “Shit. I’m sorry. But that definitely is to be expected. Studios are kind of assholes.” Jamie was beginning a long journey of figuring out what Hollywood is really like.
He sipped from the glass again. “I know. It’s not like I expected them all to beg at my feet for it. I just don’t understand why they even have a submission box on their website if all they do is respond 3 days later with an automated ‘No Thanks’ email.”
“They do it because they want their website to seem open and egalitarian,” I said, “But yeah, you really can’t get a script in front of someone unless you know somebody in the biz. It’ll happen for you Jamie, I’m sure of it, you’ve got spark, or whatever.” Years ago I could have recommended him to some people, but at this point in my life, I didn’t have any contacts in movies anymore.
He took another sip of whiskey. “Thanks. Spark and a whole lot of nothing else. Oh, and also, I found out that my ex cheated on me, so that’s good.”
A flash of anger rolled through me. Fresh anger—not like the anger I felt toward Damien, but something much more territorial. “The fuck?” I said. “You just found out today?”
He nodded. “Yup. Picture of them sucking each other’s faces off from this past St. Patrick’s Day. We didn’t break up until weeks afterward.”
“Wow,” I said, “Well, then you’re actually doing really well today, considering. Jesus. I had no idea.”
His face looked tired, but not devastated. “For the better. Glad it’s over.”
“Yeah. You’re better off without him,” Leo said, “Anyone who’d cheat on you is a fucking… I don’t know, a fucking stupid person.” What I’d really thought was anyone who’d cheat on you is a fucking fool who doesn’t realize how incredible you are.
“Apparently he wanted the type of guy who will take him to Dubai and the Taj Mahal.”
“Meh. Who needs those? I’m glad you broke up with him, honestly,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because if you didn’t then you wouldn’t be sitting here complaining on my couch. And I like when you get all complainy.”
He puffed out a laugh. “And why is that?”
“Makes me feel like at least I’m not the only one who is full of grumbling and rage.”
“No. You’re just the only one who embraces the lifestyle so fully.”
I relaxed back into the couch, turning my body lengthwise so that my feet rested up on the couch. Then I scooted forward and put my calves onto his lap and crossed my legs, resting them on top of his thighs.
It was a dumb move, and I shouldn’t have—but I’d had a long day, and it was either the whiskey bottle or lying across Jamie. I chose Jamie.
He looked at me, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure you wanna sit like that?”
“It’s comfy.”
“Yeah, but like, is that how a normal interviewer and interviewee sit?”
“I dunno. Maybe they do. This is the longest relationship I’ve ever had with an interviewer, to be honest.”
He nodded, looking down at his legs and shifting slightly.
“I’m pretty sure we’ve already done shit that not all writers do with their subjects,” I said, keeping my voice low and steady. “But really, I’m just comfortable. If you want me to move, I’ll move.”
Jamie shook his head quickly.
“Nope. You’re good there. But we’re still working tonight. Otherwise this fucking book is never gonna get written.”
I nodded, smiling a little. Jamie stared at me for a minute, grinning back, before turning to his laptop again.
“Okay. Do you want to continue? I promise, no more hard questions tonight.”
“I don’t think there are any harder questions than that one, so yeah. Let’s do it.”
For the next few hours we sat like that, my legs on him for a while, and then my head in his lap, when I turned and claimed to be uncomfortable in any other position. I was looser than usual, finally willing to answer all of his questions, even if I was answering them from on top of him. I was fairly sure I’d be okay staying that way forever.
Eventually I got up and made us dinner, a simple pasta dish that I must say somehow turned out goddamn delicious, and after eating we sat on the couc
h, him getting progressively more drunk and me getting progressively more tired.
I laid my head on his lap again as we watched a mindless show on TV, and he tucked a hand into my hair, stroking through it gently as we both faded fast. I was enjoying it too much to stop him, but neither of us talked about it. It seemed like a silent agreement between us: yes, if we were together I would need to be touching him, and yes, he was going to touch me back.
The next thing I knew we had both passed out on the couch after binge watching some Netflix show. He woke up after dozing, still clearly drunk, and pushed me awake. I woke up sort of half-laying on his chest, trapping one of his arms against the couch. As I woke I found that one of my hands was clutching the fabric on the open front of his hoodie, its grey cotton soft in my hand. He smelled intoxicating, like laundry and his skin.
“Can I jus’ crash on the couch?” he said, looking at me drunk and bleary-eyed.
I was heavy with sleep too, blinking hard. “Of course,” I said, my voice coming out hoarse. In my head it went different: my bed is much more comfortable, and you should come back with me.
Instead I went to the spare closet and returned in a minute with some sheets and pillows, and left him to his own devices.
I had been so tired, so dead tired, there on the couch with him, as if I’d never again be able to open my eyes.
But back in my cold, big bed, I was more awake every second.
It had been so wildly inappropriate, what we’d been doing—essentially cuddling like lovers while we were supposed to be on the job. But why did it feel like such a boundary, such a line drawn in the sand, to just say fuck it and tell him to come back to bed with me?
I knew why—because if I invited him back to bed, it would be a verbal acknowledgement of everything we’d been doing. After he’d momentarily commented on my legs being on his lap earlier, the rest had happened wordlessly. I’d wedged my way in, laying on him, and he’d stroked through my hair, and eventually I’d fallen asleep essentially on top of him. If I’d turned just a little bit, he would have felt how hard I became when I woke up and realized the position we’d gotten into.
But it was like a spell was broken, when he actually asked if he could spend the night. I couldn’t just accidentally get him into my bed, like I could “accidentally” end up with my head in his lap, while we were otherwise preoccupied with the pretense of an interview.
So I lay in bed alone, in silence, wide awake.
Twelve
Jamie
Drunk.
Drunk, drunk, drunk. How much whiskey had I even had? I’d stopped counting, after a while, but I know that Leo’s bottle had been half-full at the beginning of the night, and by the end it was… less full.
But it’s not because I was drunk that I let him lay all over me. Because I know I would have let him if I were sober, too. Of course, it went against everything he’d said a few days ago, all that shit about “no, we can’t” and “business only, from now on.” But I wasn’t about to bring that up, not when he felt so good across me, or when I woke up to find him clinging to me like he needed me or something, like he was desperate to keep me close to him. I’d wanted to pull him even closer, I wanted his mouth on me, inside me, I wanted him fucking everywhere. So, yeah, I didn’t mind that he had laid on top of me.
But the fact remained that I was drunk. Alcohol, a stimulant and a depressant. No wonder I was tired as fuck but now couldn’t sleep at all.
And it didn’t help that his couch was uncomfortable. It was fine, all midcentury modern and cool, but it had been a whole lot cozier when he’d been there with me, making it all nice and warm.
I tucked myself into the sheet, propping a pillow behind my head, and waited for sleep. I realized with a wave of agony that Leo’s huge modern art wall-piece of a clock was ticking incredibly loudly, like deafening, really, and I had to stop myself from getting up and chucking the damn thing out the window.
But it’s a good thing I didn’t chuck it out the window, because guess what? Two minutes later, right when I thought I’d gotten the hang of ignoring the clock, I heard an incessant tap and scratch sound from outside, in the backyard. At first I was alarmed—clearly, it was a murderer who’s signature move was to tap and scratch at a door before brutally stabbing his victims—but then I heard a shrill meow and realized it must be Leo’s cat. Not his cat, but Mr. Ginger Guy, the neighborhood cat.
I heard the cat stumbling outside, probably batting around at leaves or ghosts or something. Leo’s windows were big and didn’t even seem to have curtains, so I could see the faint silhouette of the cat jumping onto the wall outside.
And that’s when the huge, blinding lights came through the window. It was coming from the neighbor’s house—it seemed like they had automatic motion-detecting lights set up, so when the cat jumped over the fence, the lights were set off.
God, they seemed to have positioned them with the precise thought, “Oh, I know where the lights should point—if Leo next door ever has a drunken idiot staying the night on his couch, we’ll really get him with these!”
The cat must have found an adversary next door, because next, the cacophony of shrieking sounds was joined by at least one or two other cats. Which in turn set off a chain reaction that seemed to reverberate the neighborhood—hell, I don’t know, maybe it spread throughout the entire globe—in which dogs started to bark and then more dogs barked back at the first dogs, so on and so on forever. I swear a fucking bird got in the mix there, too.
It wasn’t gonna work. I couldn’t sleep here.
I was utterly unable to drive, but I could take a taxi home, or something.
I pulled out my phone and shot off a quick text to Leo. It had been about an hour since he’d gone to bed, and he’d been so tired that I’m sure he was out cold by now. He’d receive the text in the morning:
>>JAMIE: getting a taxi home. too many epic battles waging outside between Mr. Ginger Guy and all other members of the animal kingdom, and your neighbors’ auto-lights are personally attacking my retinas. ill see you later
I attached a photo of the glaringly bright lights, hoping he at least found it semi-funny when he woke up in the morning.
I slipped into the bathroom really quick, just to use it before I went outside and called a cab. But when I stepped back into the hallway, I looked and saw Leo there, standing in the hall, outside of his room.
“It’s Mr. Ginger Boots,” he said. “Not Mr. Ginger Guy.”
“Oh.”
He paused, looking at me, in the faintly dark hallway. Finally, he sighed. “Just get in here. I have a California king bed, it doesn’t have to be… weird. I’ll chuck one of my many body pillows in between us.”
I paused for a moment. “You can’t even hear the cats and dogs from in there?”
“Not really. Unless I’m so old that I’ve gone deaf. I did perform in a lot of concerts back in the day.”
I sighed, but continued forward toward his room. He went back in, and I hesitated slightly at the door, in disbelief that this was really going to happen.
But then I strode in, took off my jeans, and sank into the bed.
“Mmhh, God, this is so fucking comfy. Thank you, Leo.”
“You stole my side,” he said.
“Oh. Sorry. We can switch?”
“No, I don’t give a shit. It’s yours.”
I settled into the plush bedding, content in the knowledge that I was on his side.
True to his word, he put one of those very long, very comfortable body pillows in between us. I held back a laugh. It was ridiculous, how we’d gone from cuddling to acting like skittish closeted teenagers at a sleepover.
“Y’know, you don’t have to put the pillow there if you don’t want to,” I said, smiling as he got in on the other side of the bed. “I’m not gonna try to jump you or anything.”
“I… normally sleep with it there anyway,” he said, and I heard him rolling over in the sheets.
“So fucking cute,�
�� I muttered under my breath, rolling onto my side and feeling myself pulled to sleep already.
“What?”
“Hm?” I said.
“What did you say? Did you just call me—”
“Yeah. I did. S’what you get for inviting a drunk idiot into your bed, Leo.”
A few moments passed, and I must have nearly fallen asleep completely, because when Leo spoke, I jumped slightly.
“Jamie?”
“Hnngh?” I groaned.
“Stupid question.”
I moaned sleepily, signaling him to continue.
“Have you ever… uh, would you mind if…”
“Spit it out,” I said.
“Um… do you ever use sleep sounds apps?”
I puffed out a laugh. “Yeah,” I said, my voice tinged with sleep. “They’re alright.”
“Do you mind if I put one on? Ella sent me one, and now I’m addicted, and I kinda can’t fall asleep unless I use it. If it’s alright with you.”
“Sure. Yes. Wonderful. Love it.”
“Awesome,” he said, and I heard him turning in the bed, probably setting up his phone. “Thanks.”
A little while longer and I heard the faint sound of fake thunder and rain starting up. He must have had some sort of nice speaker system to plug his phone into, because it sounded gorgeous, lulling, perfect. I was out cold moments later, sleeping in the most comfortable bed I’d probably ever been in.
I woke up only once in the middle of the night, and I moved the body pillow away, to the other side of my body, to see if Leo was really still next to me, or if it had all been a dream.
He was there, fast asleep. I wiggled slightly closer to him, moving toward the heat of his body. I didn’t touch him, but I wanted to be close, to feel him near me. He stirred only slightly but didn’t wake up, and soon enough I was gone again into the dreamless dark.
In the morning I woke to the exact same sounds of rain pattering against the window. I was warm, cozy, and entirely content. It still seemed fairly dark, as I slowly opened my eyes and saw faint light peeking through the curtains. All at once I realized that it wasn’t the sleep sounds app at all—it was real, actual rain, rain in Los Angeles, a total rarity and an occasion for celebration. It sounded beautiful, and the grey light cast a faint haze throughout Leo’s room.
Your Fallen Star: Under the Stars Book 1 Page 10
