by Nicole Snow
“Oh, yeah. I've read the entire script. The sick, repressed part of me should get an extra spring in my step when I'm tanning your sweet ass with my bare hand, Robbi.” The monster in front of me doesn't even hesitate.
He stares, waiting for my cheeks to give up the hot, red shame that used to come whenever he made these promises in the past. I can't control it, however I try. At least the dress I'm wearing is very carefully selected not to rile him up more.
“Look, we have to get through this, or we'll be replaced. That's why I'm here, Luke. Have you heard about Pierce's track record with actors who under-perform? Let him down, and you're out the door. No do-overs.”
“That's what we're doing?” Raising an eyebrow, he sips his wine while I put in an order with the waitress. As soon as she's gone, his glass comes down, and his wicked tongue moves again. “I thought you'd come by to make friends and catch up. It's been a long time, babe.”
Babe is a barb. I close my eyes a second longer than I should, recoiling from the insult. It's a miracle I recover without slamming my hand across his cheek.
Folding my hands neatly, I lean in, and smile. “I'm not your babe, jackass. We're co-workers, and the fact that we're both in this film is the only reason I'm sitting here across from you. Don't think I came here tonight for anything else. I want to work this out like professionals should.”
“This?” His smirk hits me between the eyes and makes me see red. “What exactly is this anyway? We've hobbled our way through two easy scenes. We still have a whole fucking movie that's going to take a year to finish. What do you propose? Giving ourselves a lobotomy so we don't think about what happened?”
No, you idiot, I want to say. I want you to shut up, play along, and...shit. I guess I don't have a magic solution for easing the tension between us.
I'm seething when the waitress sets my wine in front of me. I pluck it from the table, pouring half the glass down my throat in one swallow.
“That's new,” he says, his smirk becoming a thin smile. “When did you learn to hold your liquor like a pilot? Usually the only guys I see that thirsty are the ones soaking themselves in airline lounges after their shifts.”
“I'm not sure.” I pick up my glass by the stem, slowly turning it in my fingers. I look at the insufferable mischief in his handsome eyes. “Wasn't too long after you decided to walk out, leave me behind, and thought you'd come knocking five years later with both our futures on the line.”
“Please.” His smirk fades. He flattens his hands against the cool table. “I can't change what happened, and neither can you. Don't know how to make what happened between my old man and your mom right, much less everything that went sour with you and I.”
“I'm not asking to undo the past, Luke. I'm just hoping we can talk this out, come to an understanding, get on with this movie, without every scene feeling like we're drowning in our own fucking awkwardness!” I'm raising my voice. I stop, take a deep breath. He's not baiting me into making a scene.
“And how do you propose we do that?” His knuckles go white as he presses his fingers into the table, leaning forward. “We were almost engaged, once upon a time. We threw it all away for our own good. Grim survival. It's served us well, hasn't it, Robbi?”
Engaged? I grab my wine, quickly swallowing another sip, before I choke on the sudden lump forming in my throat. He's toying with me to the point where I can't hide it, and I hate it.
There's no question now. Coming here and doing this was a bad idea. I secretly promise myself I'll never let too much wine make decisions for me.
“It has, but silence doesn't fix everything,” I say. “It isn't fixing this, when we have to work together, doing the kinds of scenes coming up.”
“It's just sex.” He shrugs, motioning to our waitress for a refill. He waits until she's gone before he looks at me again, new mischief sparking in his eyes. “You've grown up. Matured. Surely, you've moved past the childish place where you think there's something magical and sweet about fucking? Hell, we're not even doing it for real. It's make believe for the cameras.”
“There's nothing magical about dealing with you!” My drunken hand slaps the table. I blink, embarrassed, pulling it back to my lap. “You're not taking this seriously. I don't know why I came here.”
I reach into my purse, digging for my credit card, ready to pay up and find the closest taxi. His hand comes down on mine as soon as it's on the table, knocking my card gently out of my hand. It goes spinning towards me.
“I'm paying, and we're not done,” he growls. “Sure, I'm being a little standoffish, but I'm not here to antagonize. It doesn't give me the rise it used to. Let's figure this out, Robbi. Seriously.” I know that tone.
It's softer, almost caring. The same one he used to take when he'd pushed my buttons to overload. Frozen, I look up, locking eyes with a man who seems destined to torment me in new ways I haven't imagined, regardless what happens here.
“How do we make this work?” he asks.
Finally, the million dollar question. It's actually worth at least eight figures in this case for both of us, knowing what the film will gross. It doesn't have any easy answers.
I try to give it one. “Come clean. Apologize. Tell me you're able to see a professional who deserves your respect, instead of the clueless little girl you abandoned when everything went haywire.”
“Abandoned? That's really what you think?” Luke leans back, picking up his glass, studying the liquid inside as it swirls a dozen shades of red in the light. “I cut contact to save you from the quicksand, Robbi. I'm not defending it, and I damned sure won't sit here and apologize. I did the hard thing, the right thing, the only thing that kept us from making a nasty situation ten times worse. I couldn't fix our fucked up families. You wouldn't hear me out, much less forgive me. What else was there to do except walk away, and get on with our lives?”
He's full of himself, but it's the most honesty I've had in years. It reminds me what I've forgotten about these kinds of frank, brutal words. They hurt, yet the pain fixes nothing.
“I waited for you to make it right. I thought we'd find our way through, however bad it hurt. Believed in all that 'love conquers all' crap because I lost my faith in everything else, especially my parents. You let me down.” I look at him slowly.
Luke doesn't look at me for several seconds. He's staring at the black tabletop, a mirror for a graveyard of regrets that can't be taken back.
“If you don't understand why it went down the way it did, you never will,” he says, shifting in his chair. When his hands come up, he's holding his wallet. “I'll work with you, Robbi. We'll be professionals. We'll be good together. And then we'll walk the fuck away like we never had to do this. I'll ease off the teasing, if you'll stop putting me on trial every damned time we're on the set. I left scars I can't erase. If you think I'm here to smooth them out with therapy, you're asking for the impossible, and we're both wasting our time.”
I can't meet his eyes. It hurts too much. Plus he's left me no room to maneuver when he's led me headfirst into a wall.
“I'll see you in Chicago,” he says, standing up. He throws down a crisp hundred dollar bill, more than enough to cover our drinks and a generous tip. “Have a nice flight.”
Yeah, I'll get right on that. I'm sure I totally won't need to use the plane's barf bag when I'm holding in this venom, not to mention the ache pulsing from our failure tonight, new pain seeping into my blood from old wounds picked open.
“I won't, you bastard, and I haven't had a nice life either!” I'm on my feet, echoing the eerily similar words he said when he left me last time after him.
Have a nice life, he said, before I hung up the phone forever. I never imagined he'd turn his variation tonight into a weapon, proving he's gotten crueler with age.
Swearing after him is useless. I can't even see him anymore. I haven't noticed how much the place has filled up, and he's conveniently disappeared through the crowd loitering in the front, waiting for their spots
.
So much for the three simple guidelines I told myself I'd stick to for protection. Luke tore them all to shreds with just his glance and a few harsh, honest sentences.
Let him get to me? He's ruined my poise. Left me crying and ashamed, pushing through a crowd of strangers to the door.
Wet? Yes, I fucking am. All the hate in the world can't extinguish the shameful flame in my belly. It crept between my legs while his eyes were on me, spotlights beaming dangerous sex. The cool night breeze reminds me it's there when it sweeps through my dress, and there's nothing I can do.
And as for thinking about the past...it's all I think about on the cab ride back to my apartment. I can't stop obsessing over how he told me we would've been engaged if things hadn't gone to shit.
What ifs hit me again and again, hard as they are relentless. If he hadn't left me behind, we might've had a completely different life – an existence where we're still lovers, instead of exes who can barely hold it together long enough to keep our dreams alive.
That's what hurts most when I'm alone, staring at the script and nursing my impending hangover on mineral water.
There's a world out there where our love never died, and we're living our happily ever after. I see it every time I close my eyes. Luke's strong arms wrapped around me in our big house, two and a half kids, the third coming along nicely in my second trimester.
I push my fingers into his while my wedding ring glows underneath the perfect light in our dining room. And when I turn around to plant a kiss on his lips before we sit down to eat, I see my best friend.
Not my enemy.
Not the man I'll never come to terms with.
Not the cruel, teasing motherfucker who's pretending to make peace after letting me know what we could've had, if only I'd been able to forgive him.
There wasn't much chance before. Now? I never will.
I'm going to get through this movie hating him. Even when the script says we're supposed to be naked, or tearfully confessing our love at the climactic end.
Movies like Bare have easy, storybook endings made to look like they're hard fought victories for the masses.
Real life? That's fucking complicated.
More than anything, I hate how I'll never find the happiness I could've had with him, and I'm never going to get over what we've lost.
Our talk tonight showed me the truth. Unfortunately, it's worthless, and love is just one more what if crushed under its wheel.
6
Unleashed (Luke)
Robbi Plomb is murdering me.
I'm coasting along in my plane several days after our talk over wine. What should be a long, relaxing flight in the helm from L.A. to Chicago makes my guts churn instead.
I can't stop thinking about the way I walked out on her at the bar.
Walked out for the second time.
Shit, I haven't ever stopped thinking about the day I decided to walk out of her life.
There's a storm building over Nebraska. Dense, thick clouds with thunderheads lighting up the underbelly of my plane every time the wind whistles below. My hand tightens on the controls, and I clench my jaw, trying to make myself focus at a time when a pilot needs his wits most.
Too bad they're a million miles away in another time and place. Every time I blink, I hear our last argument over the phone again, where I told her to have a nice life without me.
I remember marching up to my old man's office after the crap she said about him blackmailing her mom. If he really did something to Ericka against her will, then I vowed I'd make him pay. My fists were hungry for pain already because he made me lose her.
I remember like it was yesterday, as vivid and monstrous as seeing her explode in rage the other night.
I kick down the door. He's lying on the floor alone with his blazer open, an almost empty bottle of scotch at his side. Surprise, surprise. I expected to find him with the new girl, the tart half his age he's already replaced Ericka with.
The door swinging off its hinges doesn't get a reaction. Neither does walking up to him. Dad doesn't even open his eyes until I press the toe of my shoe into his ribs, hard enough to make him squirm.
“Lucus?” he groans, lifts his hand, trying to block the dim light like it's a desert sun.
“Up.” I don't wait. I knock his hand away with mine, grab him by the wrist, and pull him to his feet. He wobbles. Growling, I shove him into an overstuffed leather chair in the corner, standing over him so he doesn't think he's going anywhere before we're done.
He's sickeningly light. The strong, smug man I remember as a kid has probably lost at least five pounds every year since the bottle became his ritual. Booze and melancholy atrophy his muscles and his heart one day at a time. The shit eats down to his soul, too, I'm sure.
I should feel sympathy, but today I can't. There's no room for anything except the raw, angry need for answers. And then violent revenge if I don't like what I hear.
“Really, boy? You're resorting to common hooliganism to push me around now?” He sneers, turning up his face, angling it so I get a perfect view of the bruise I left on his jaw the other day. “What is it this time? The girl, she's left you, hasn't she? You'll realize in the years to come how big a bullet you just dodged when you're done mourning.”
I reach down, grab him by his lapels, and shake the miserable old fart until his lips stop moving in protest. “Shut the fuck up. I'm here to talk about Ericka, asshole, and you will answer my questions.”
“Or what?” he whispers, his eyes going wide and lucid. “You'll finish the job you started on me last week? I'd like you to explain it to your brothers, boy. How you beat your poor father, crippled him, or worse. I'll cut you out of the inheritance, and your grandparents' trust! You can spend your days in jail. Probably an improvement over your flights to the ends of the earth.”
“Do it. I don't give a shit.” I slam him back against the chair, digging my hands into his shoulders, letting him know I mean business. “Robbi told me some things. She said you forced yourself on her mother.”
“Forced?” He snorts, a vile frown twisting his lips. “One drink was all it took before the bitch was all over me. Typical star struck gold digger. As soon as I brought her up to my private balcony overlooking the gardens for an evening nightcap to talk bonuses, she had her tongue down my throat. My, that woman could work it, but I guess you know a thing or two about that with the younger, hotter daughter.”
My hands move like lightning. I slam him deep into the chair again, baring my teeth. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
“You're after the truth, aren't you? This is it.”
“Stop lying, old man. You blackmailed her. You made her suck your drunken cock. Told her you'd throw her out on the streets, just like she fucking said. You –“
“Of course, Lucus. It was me. I'm the lone monster in this. Not the woman who laughed when I warned her about her husband on my payroll, before she opened my belt. Not the woman who showed me utter lust in her eyes when I took her in the library, rough like she wanted, and told her I'd fuck her in front of that sad, weak prick she married.”
Fuck.
I close my eyes, remembering the day I learned the awful truth about them, before everything went to hell. I don't trust anything he says, normally, but now he's reminding me what I heard with my own ears.
No. No, damn it, I'm not letting him off this easy.
One hand grabs his shoulder, and the other goes around his throat. I start squeezing into his Adam's apple while he looks at me with the same sad, eerie calm. “You better not be lying. I'm only going to let up once when I let you speak again. Tell me the truth, the whole truth, all the fucking truth. Tell me you forced her into it and come clean, if that's what happened. Dad, I need to know.”
When I let go, I see the scariest thing in my life since cutting Robbi loose. Hot tears stream down the lines in his cheeks, and his face dips to the ground while he chokes for air.
“You've got me, boy. Guilty as charged. Yes,
I seduced her. I made a play, knowing she was a married woman. She took the bait, sure, but she cast the first glance the day I hired her. She gladly took the money I offered after every trip to my bed. Took it with a smile on her lips and a kiss to my cheek, told me it was for her little girl's college. Just a classless, willing whore – the kind I always jump at.” He lifts his head, all his inner turmoil boiling in his eyes. I take a step backward. “Let's be straight – you're not here for the truth, boy. You've come to watch me suffer, to witness a break in the wall, and now you've fucking got it. Are you happy?”
I'm disgusted. I just don't want to throttle this asshole until he stops breathing anymore because I know he's telling me the truth about Ericka.
I turn my back and start walking away when I hear the thud on the wooden floor. Stopping near the door, I turn around, see him shuffling toward me, crawling on his knees. He grabs my trousers, pulls on them with his hands.
“Forgive me, son. I'm a terrible man, and I live every damn day of my life knowing it. I miss her, you know.”
“Who?” I whisper the question, shaking my head, even though I know the answer.
“Helene. She reigned me in. She made me happy. Made me better than the pussy chasing maggot I've become, who can't go three months without new skin sharing his bed.” He lowers his head again, mumbling the part that causes my heart to drop like a deadweight. “And there's so much of her in you it makes me want to puke. That's the real reason I can't stand the fact you won't follow in my footsteps, and can't form a normal goddamned business like your brothers. Hayden and Grant are too much like me, minus the flaws. You...you're her blood, her spirit. I'm ashamed I've let her down every time I look at you.”
It's hell giving him the stern look, showing none of the emotion ripping through me while he quivers and sniffles. I pull his hand off my leg and reach for the doorknob, clenching the cold metal in my palm.
“Forget this ever happened,” I say, looking past him to the old picture of mom and her plane. He keeps it on his desk, a piece of his humanity lingering like an idle ghost. “Get some fucking help, dad. Rehab. Counseling. Whatever it takes. If you don't learn to control it, whatever your malfunction is, you're going to destroy yourself one day with too much booze or the wrong woman.”
