by Ava McKnight
We collected our wineglasses and sat on one of the many white sofas scattered throughout the room.
“You have a point with what you said earlier,” I told her. “About love. But people do create melodrama and they do hurt others, sometimes to keep from getting hurt themselves.”
“I get that,” Biel said. “I mean, I’ve lived with that very concept with Piper for five years. What I’m saying is, if I gave her no reason for the first four years of our relationship to doubt me or feel I’d hurt her, why’d she suddenly go off the deep end in year five? Seriously, I literally cannot even remember why she left me the first time, but she started this argument about something completely irrelevant and then just threw her hands up in the air and walked out. Moved out.” She bit into a crostini and chewed vigorously, then said, “Who does that? Like what we had meant so little to her she could just throw a few barbs and then go back to Hollywood?”
This choked her up. She set her plate on the coffee table and reached for her wine. After a few sips, she seemed to fight back tears and squared her shoulders again.
“Until six months ago,” she continued, “when I got pissed off at Piper for screwing with me, I never gave her a reason to doubt how much I loved her. I swear,” Biel said with conviction in her eyes. “I lavished her with gifts. I told her every day how much she meant to me. I made her laugh. I listened to every word she had to say and I shared with her everything I felt and everything I wanted for our future. And what?” Biel asked with a shrug. “Did I just make it too easy for her?”
That was a very interesting angle coming from her. If anything, one would think Piper would have gone to the ends of the earth to stay with someone like Biel. But maybe she had a point…
“Did you ever insist she return the favor?” I asked, treading on territory that wasn’t just personal for her, but for me as well. “Did you ask her to tell you exactly how she felt about you and what she wanted for your future together as a couple?”
Biel shook her head. “No, she doesn’t like to talk about her feelings. She’ll tell me about her day or something kooky or upsetting about a job, but she never really says what’s on her mind when it comes to me. Except, of course, when she’s jealous. Then—look out! She has plenty to say.”
She was quiet a moment as I digested this. Then Biel asked, “Aren’t I boring you with all of this? Why on earth would you want to hear about me and Piper?”
“Because I’m Piper,” I admitted in a low voice. “And like you, Mike deserves so much more.”
“Ah, the super-hunk.” She took another drink, then said, “Your eyes light up when you mention him. But I’m sure everyone tells you that.”
“Actually, I never talk about him,” I told her. “We’ve been friends for a long time and just recently ventured into…different territory.”
She seemed to get my drift. “So, if in fact you are like Piper, what’s your reason for keeping him at arm’s length?”
I cleared my throat as I put my plate next to hers. “The thing is, I don’t know how to tell him how I feel about him. Or to tell him how he makes me feel. I can connect with him sexually, that clearly is not an issue for us. But the emotional intimacy…” I shook my head. “I can’t seem to step off the cliff and tell him how absolutely nuts I am about him, despite the fact he himself jumped without a chute. It’s selfish and I need to…not be.”
Biel stared at me, the supermodel now the one to wear the incredulous look on her face. Finally, she recovered enough to ask, “And you came here for advice?”
I nodded. “At twenty-one, you are so much smarter about love than I am.”
“Well, I’ve been in a committed relationship since I was sixteen.”
“And my first real relationship was when I was twenty-five and I’d just moved here. Back-to-back, I fell for two guys who were all bad and wrong for me. Both of whom completely devastated me.”
“So you’re scared. Christ, Lacey, who isn’t? Even I’ve got relationship jitters. I’m just saying, why torment someone you supposedly care about—who cares about you?”
“You’re right. You’re exactly right,” I insisted, feeling two feet tall for being the villain, especially when she was being victimized in her own relationship. But the truth was, when it came to Mike, I wasn’t trying to be a control freak. I was trying to be smart. That, of course, did not excuse the fact that he had said some very personal things and I had not fully reciprocated.
I sipped my wine, then told her, “I don’t know how to tell Mike how I feel about him. He’s so wonderful and he… He should be with a woman who tells him that every single day.”
Unexpectedly, tears pooled in my eyes and I couldn’t hold them back. They crested the rims and slid down my cheeks as I continuously brushed them away.
Biel shot to her feet and said, “I have an idea.”
“Okay,” I muttered in a tentative voice that made her laugh as I sniffled.
“You came to me, remember?”
“Yes. Right.” I used my napkin to dab at the rest of the water on my skin. “What’s your plan?”
Chapter Eight
Never Judge This Supermodel by Her Cover. Ev-ah.
Biel opened a cabinet door at the bottom of one of the many bookcases and pulled out another digital camera.
She snapped a few test shots of the living room, apparently checking the lighting and background. Then she said, “You need to do more than experience your feelings for Mike. You need to see them.”
This time, I didn’t quite get where she was coming from. “Wanna explain that?”
“Sure,” she said in her casual tone. “It’s like what I was saying earlier, when I told you your eyes light up when you mention Mike. You have no idea how much your expression reveals. When you talk about him, you don’t really have to tell me you’re nuts about him. I can see it. And I bet he can too, which is totally a step in the right direction. But maybe,” she said as she clicked off several shots, “you need to see it for yourself.”
I really should hate her for being so freakin’ brilliant on top of being so beautiful, but I couldn’t. She was just too damn wonderful.
“Mike said the same thing, about being able to read how much I want him in my expressions. But that’s not actually telling him how I feel. That’s just him seeing that I’ve lusted after him for three years.” With a nod, I added, “You actually have a really great idea.”
“I know, right?” she gave me one of her sassy smirks that wasn’t the least bit smug.
What I saw in Biel’s expression was the desire to pull from Piper what she was about to attempt to pull from me. And if Biel believed this was a way she could have a better understanding of her partner’s feelings and wanted me to employ the tactic before my actions truly did reflect Piper’s, I was more than willing to experiment.
“So what do I do?” I asked. “I’m not particularly photogenic.”
“I beg to differ.” She showed me the images she’d candidly shot. “Not bad, huh?”
I was pleasantly surprised. “You have a gift.”
“Just be yourself. Talk. Tell me what’s so special about this guy.”
With a dreamy sigh I couldn’t contain if I’d tried, I admitted, “Everything.” But that was the easy, simple answer. So I stood and did some pacing as I mulled over my truest, deepest, darkest feelings. Then I pulled the band from my ponytail and fluffed my hair as Biel snapped her shots. I wandered the living room, letting my emotions take over.
Biel didn’t prompt me further, instead allowing me the opportunity to really dig into her “assignment”.
Finally, I said, “When I first came to New York, I was determined to not be the person I’d been in Phoenix. Not that I disliked myself, but I’d turned out to be a bit of a pushover. I’d vowed to not let anything or anyone railroad me again. I immersed myself in corporate fraud and abuse, learning everything I could about the field. Oddly, I’d felt compelled to focus primarily on my career, rather than my personal
relationships because I thought I had the latter under control. Turns out, my career came along nicely. It was my love life that sucked.”
I trailed my fingers over the back of a sofa I strolled behind as I continued. “The day I met Mike, my boyfriend of nearly a year, Brandon, had a ménage at a wedding in which I was the maid of honor. I’d caught him in the act and was utterly speechless and totally heartbroken—and mortified because many other guests witnessed the debauchery and word spread like wildfire at the reception. Mike happened to come around the corner as I stood there in shock and he put two and two together. Then he punched Brandon in the face.”
“What a guy,” Biel said with a grin.
“Yeah, well, he did more than break Brandon’s nose. He took me by the arm and pulled me out of there. Fast. He grabbed a cab that dropped us off at a lively Irish pub. I was still shell-shocked. I literally could not form a coherent thought in my head or say a single word. He sat me at the bar, wiped the tears from my face with a napkin and told me, ‘We’re going to get drunk here where nobody knows us and no one knows what just happened to you.’ And we did.”
I smiled at the memory. It’d been bold of him to whisk me away like that, since we’d only just met at the wedding. But had I stayed, the humiliation and pain would have swallowed me whole. Instead, the cold beer, the laughter and the upbeat music surrounding us at the pub helped me to get a grip on my anger and my agony.
And then there was Mike…
“He was my knight in shining armor that day,” I told Biel as I rounded a chaise lounge with a rolled arm and plump cushions. “He didn’t hit on me. Not that night, anyway,” I added with a laugh. Settling on the chaise, I said, “He listened when I finally needed to talk about Brandon and he dabbed at my tears and then assured me I was much better off without the schmuck boyfriend. Though I’d told him I was now thoroughly screwed because I’d just moved in with Brandon. Luckily, there was a vacant apartment in Mike’s building, next door to his. I thought it was fated that I’d met him.”
I was quiet for a moment as I considered this. I’d forgotten how I’d felt, sitting on that barstool, staring into his mesmerizing blue eyes as he’d grinned at me and said, “There’s nothing a couple hours at an Irish pub can’t cure. Learned that when my horse died.”
I’d been ensnared and had asked him all kinds of questions, until I’d realized he’d distracted me long enough that I could see the situation with Brandon more clearly and knew I had to pick up the pieces of my shattered life.
“He gave me back my dignity that night,” I told my new friend as she moved in close to snap a photo of me. I’d pulled a pillow into my lap and clutched the top of it with my hands, while resting my chin on my fingers as they curled around the plush material.
She asked, “How’d you feel the first time he kissed you?”
I smiled, likely sappily, as I recalled Thursday night’s adventure in my dressing room. “Like nothing else existed in the world except the two of us.”
“Mm, that’s nice. And how would you feel if he never kissed you again?”
My heart constricted and my stomach twisted. I searched for the right words. To say I’d shrivel up and die was, of course, much too dramatic. But I knew a huge part of me would be torn to shreds.
Swallowing a lump of emotion, I told her, “I can honestly say I’ve never been so swept away by a kiss. And each one he gives me is like jumpstarting a dead battery. I feel electric. I feel energized. I feel sensational. And if he never kissed me again, I would feel as though I were missing out on something magical and significant. I’d feel a void in my life. He truly is amazing.”
A tear pooled in my eye and Biel caught it on camera. My teeth sank into my lower lip as I pushed my feelings to the absolute limits. “I’ve known him for three years. It seems like a lifetime. He knows me so well. He’s my best friend, and if he were no longer in my life, I really would be devastated.”
No amount of time in an Irish pub could cure that particular feeling.
This revelation caused a very poignant thought to occur to me. Tossing aside the pillow, I told Biel, “I wasn’t in love with Chase or with Brandon. I thought I was, but… How could I have been? I never felt half the things for either of them that I feel for Mike. I’d thought I was heartbroken and devastated when both relationships tanked, but the truth is, I wasn’t really heartbroken—I was angry I’d given them a part of myself and they hadn’t respected me or cared enough about me to not cheat on me. They so easily threw away what we had. That’s what has really tormented me all this time and has made me feel—” I shook my head as more tears crested the rims of my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. “Maybe you should stop taking pictures now.”
She placed the camera on a coffee table and sat on the cushion next to me. “You felt abused, didn’t you? Like everything had been stripped from you, because you’d had something to offer someone who didn’t treat it as a gift, the way it was meant to be treated.”
“Bingo,” I whispered, choked up, but also continually astounded by how astute this woman was. But then I realized she was more than perceptive. She was a kindred spirit. “You know the feeling.”
“I do.” She covered one of my hands with hers. “Still, you let Mike into your life, even though you’d been kicked around twice and knew better. Why?”
“I did mention he’s a super-hunk, right?”
She smiled, though her eyes were a bit misty too, from her own emotional dilemma. “Yes. A time or two.”
Letting out a long breath, I said, “I don’t have an answer to your question.”
With a nod, she said, “When you do, I think you’ll solve your problem.”
I stared at her, thinking Piper Levine was an absolute bitch for putting Biel through hell. But Biel kept coming back for more, didn’t she?
“Maybe you shouldn’t make it so easy for Piper when she returns,” I boldly said.
Biel gave this some thought, then told me, “This is going to sound stupid and immature, but I honestly don’t know how to live without her.”
That sentiment struck a curious chord with me. “I don’t think it’s stupid or immature. Aren’t you supposed to love someone so much you’d be lost without them?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve only ever loved Piper. And lately, all I can think is this can’t be healthy. This can’t be a normal relationship if one person can so easily destroy the other and keep calling it love.”
Girlfriend had a point.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to let her off the hook this time.”
I wasn’t just saying that for Biel’s benefit, but—in spirit—for Mike’s as well.
Brushing away her own tears, Biel said, “In my head, I know you’re right. In my heart…” She let out a hollow laugh. “Let’s just say I wish she’d put as much effort into working on our relationship as you are with Mike. It proves you care about him, Lacey. And that you’re strong enough to cut the ties on your past and move forward. With him.”
“God, I hope you’re right,” I told her on a heavy breath.
She squeezed my hand. “I think I am.” Then she moved away and reached for the camera again. Focusing it on me, she said, “Just say his name for me.”
I pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I couldn’t hold back my smile as I said, “Mike.” The mere thought of him made my heart swell.
“Lovely,” Biel said as she handed me the camera. “Keep it. I have dozens.”
“What am I supposed to do with all these photos?”
Biel sipped her wine, then told me, “Send a few of them to Mike via email. Print out a couple of them and slip them under his door or mail them to him. Surprise him by writing something on the front. Like ‘thinking of you’ or ‘you make me smile’. Doesn’t have to be anything complicated. Simple works just as well.”
“Jesus, you’re brilliant.”
“I know, right?” Her sassy smirk returned. I swear the woman had more cha
risma in her pinky than I had in my entire body. And the way she overcame adversity. Someone should give her a medal for being so resilient.
As she polished off her wine and then popped the cork on the champagne, I said, “You’re pretty much a hopeless romantic, aren’t you?”
“Most definitely hopeless,” she said as she brought me a crystal flute full of Cristal. “But yeah, I’m a big fan of romance.”
“So…got any more tips for me?”
She considered this as she drank her champagne and then mused, “Love letters.”
My brow lifted. “Excuse me?”
“Does anyone write them anymore? Or is it all texting and emailing? I bet the fine art of a handwritten love letter is obsolete in today’s world.”
I suspected she might be right. “What would I say?”
“That’s easy,” said the woman who had all the answers for me this afternoon. “Just tell the super-hunk what you told me.”
“Yeah, I was so eloquent.”
She giggled. “You were great. And I bet he’d like to know exactly what you think of him—and your relationship.”
It was certainly one way to express my feelings without tripping all over myself.
“Just make sure it’s handwritten,” she warned me. “Not a printout from your computer. That’s too effortless and it’s not nearly as personal. Put some heart and soul into it.”
“You’re stretching my boundaries, Biel.”
With a contemplative look, she said, “Isn’t it about time I started doing that—particularly with Piper?”
What had I said before? The woman was a freakin’ force of nature with which to be reckoned.
And I was damn glad to know her.
* * * * *
I returned to my apartment, downloaded a few photos to my laptop and sent them to Mike via email, taking the supermodel’s advice and keeping my comment simple. “This is what I look like when I say your name.” Yes, I looked deliriously happy in those pictures and I wanted to share them with him.
