“He takes care of me too. It’s what we do.”
“I used to be the one who did that. I miss him.”
“He misses you.”
Dylan smiled. “In the interest of honesty, I thought maybe I wanted to move forward with Clare, but I never did.”
Jenna nodded. “Why not?”
“She’s engaged to someone back home.”
“Ah,” Jenna said. “That explains it.”
“What?”
“How she can keep her hands off you. She must really love her fiancé.”
Dylan’s head spun from talking about Clare while sitting with Jenna. He moved their connected hands over her leg. “Okay, enough about them. I want to know something about you.”
“We should make this more interesting,” Jenna suggested with a devilish look.
“What are you thinking?”
She pushed him away when he tried to kiss her. “Strip question-asking.”
He tried for her neck. “Strip? Strip anything, I am in.” He pulled at the straps of her tank top, rubbing her soft shoulders.
“No,” she said, slapping his hands away. “Question, answer, and then I will take something off. Then your turn.”
“Okay. Go.”
“I am going to ask the serious questions first since I won’t be able to concentrate when you are sitting naked in front of me.”
“All right,” Dylan said. “Ask me anything.”
She bit her bottom lip in concentration and asked, “How do you feel about long-distance relationships?”
Immediately he answered, “If it’s with you, I am willing to try.”
Jenna smiled. “I like that answer.”
“Then take something off,” he said greedily.
She flung off a flip-flop and giggled.
“A flip-flop? Really? Okay, my turn,” he said, thinking. “Serious questions first. Hmm. How about, are you currently sleeping with anyone else?”
Jenna shifted. “I’m not going to take offense because being here with you all weekend has been kind of slutty of me—”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that!”
“It’s a fair question. No worries. And for the record, before this weekend and you, I hadn’t had sex in a very long time. Couldn’t find the right person and wasn’t into one-night stands.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said.
“I’m so not kidding. Gosh,” she said, playfully using his word, “you couldn’t tell it had been a while? What about you, Mr. Hollywood? You getting any from the starlets on the boulevard?”
“No. Nothing. Self-imposed sexual moratorium…well, until you.”
“Now you’re kidding,” she said.
“Nope.” He told her the story of his ex, the soap opera star who’d cheated. “I’m glad you couldn’t tell how long it had been.” He scanned her body. “I answered your question.”
“You did,” she said.
“So take something off. Something good this time.”
“Nice try, Slick. That was your question. You take something off.”
He took off his watch and smiled.
“Really? That’s technically not clothes.”
“You took off a flip-flop. Fair is fair.”
“Fine,” she said, lifting her chin and crossing her arms over her chest. “I can take it if you can. Settle in, Dylan, this going to be a long game.”
Dylan scooted closer and put his nose in her hair. “I have a better idea. A plan.”
“Hmmm,” she murmured. “Plans are good.”
They stood, and he lifted her, carried her into the bedroom, and sat her on the bed. He kissed her earlobe and let her pull him down on top of her. She let out a soft moan as he kissed his way around her neck.
“That plan is,” he whispered, “let’s get naked for a while. Then let’s get dressed and you go to your rehearsal—”
Jenna sat up and groaned. “No, don’t make me. Let’s stay naked until Wednesday.”
She pouted, the sexy look he’d come to know over the weekend, and he almost backed out of his plan. “I just met Scott and he already hates me. You have your competition coming up. Go dance. I am going to call the guys and see if they want to hang out. Guys’ night out.”
Jenna wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him back down to the bed. “No,” she whined. “I don’t want to dance with Scott. I only want to dance with you. Stay with me.”
Tempted, he forced himself to power forward. “I think Alex needs attention.”
She flinched, and he knew he had convinced her.
“I guess I have dominated your time. It’s just so…” Jenna paused, looking past him to the ceiling, searching for a word.
“Fucking awesome?” he offered.
“It’s not just me, then?”
He laid her back gently and kissed her. “I don’t know how I am going to get on that damn plane.”
“I got you to postpone once, maybe I’ll try again,” Jenna teased.
“Gosh, no. It would be too easy. Have mercy on me. I have to get back.”
Jenna kissed his neck.
“Meetings,” he murmured as she nibbled his earlobe, “scripts…reshoots…gladiators…” Her mouth finally found his, and he lost his train of thought.
An hour or so later, they made their separate plans for the night. Jenna would rehearse with Scott, who yelled at her over the phone and told her she “better damn well be coming to the studio.” Afterward, Scott, Penny, and Jenna arranged to meet for dinner. Dylan, Steve, and Alex, who had no Monday night game, decided on a Portuguese restaurant in the Village.
Despite his excitement about his plans to hang with the guys, Dylan found it hard to leave Jenna. She looked incredibly adorable when she’d showered and changed into her dance clothes, twisting her hair up into a knot on her head. He helped her pick a dress for dinner that he couldn’t wait to peel off her afterward. When he told her about his peeling plans, she called him “insatiable.”
“Don’t tell me you are satiated,” he said. “Because that would be really disappointing, given my ideas for later.”
“I think, Dylan, that with you, I am incapable of satiation. And if you keep teasing me, I am going to do my best to get you to cancel and stay right here with me.”
He kissed her on the cheek.
“He wants me to go dance,” she whispered. “As if I need exercise after this weekend. I should probably sit in a bubble bath. I’m sore all over, for Christ’s sake.”
“Stop. I’m picturing you in a tub now. Let’s just go or we’ll never get out of here.”
Dylan held Jenna’s dance bag as she locked the door behind them. They walked to the elevator, where she put on her sunglasses and hit the Down button.
“Alex is in 805,” she said as the doors opened. She stepped onto the elevator and turned to kiss him. The doors almost decapitated them, and she yelled, “Have fun,” as they shut and she disappeared.
Dylan stood staring at the closed elevator doors. “Whew,” he said, missing her already.
He took the stairs two at a time, up the two flights to the eighth floor, and despite not working out for three days, his thighs burned with every step. Worth every second of pain.
Dylan knocked on the half-open door for apartment 805 and pushed the door open.
Alex sat on a stool in his kitchen, popping open two beers. “Hey, what’s up, D? What did you do all day?” Dylan joined him, raising his eyebrows, unsure if Alex was joking. “Forget it,” Alex said. “I’m kidding.”
They talked about baseball and Long Island and California, until the conversation came back to Jenna. Alex told Dylan about Jenna’s job, her charity work with the dance students, how she volunteered at his games to help out with fundraisers, how’d she’d been working so hard to prepare for nationals.
“She’s pretty damn incredible,” Dylan said.
“Yeah, she is. Unstoppable.”
They drank and toasted Jenna. Dylan couldn’t figure out wh
y Alex hadn’t told him about her. He thought they told each other everything. He had to know, so he said, “She told me she asked you out and you said no.”
Alex gagged on his beer. “What? Why would she tell you that?”
“We were sharing.”
“No wonder the chicks love you,” Alex said. “Sharing? Only you would spend your limited time with Jenna sharing.”
“Why’d you say no? Not that I’m complaining, but it’s obvious you care about her.”
“We’re just friends,” Alex said.
“How come you didn’t tell me about her?”
Alex shrugged. “Because we’re just friends. Nothing to tell. Do you tell me about every friend you make in Cali?”
Thoughts of Clare crept into Dylan’s head. “Fair enough. Even though I can’t imagine how you were able to say no to her.”
“It wasn’t right.”
Dylan studied his friend. Will he ever trust another woman? He could have turned the same question on himself before he met Clare. “Jenna told me she loves you and I’ll have to deal. I think her words were ‘it is what it is.’”
“We care about each other. We’ve grown close the past few months.” Alex gulped his beer. “Did you two figure out what you’re going to do?”
“I think try the long-distance thing.”
“That’s going to suck,” Alex said.
“Tell me about it.”
***
Later, Dylan, Steve, and Alex sat at a small table in the crowded restaurant eating paella and drinking pitchers of sangria. After a handful of fans approached Dylan, they convinced the waiter to move their table to the back of the restaurant in a hidden alcove near the kitchen.
Besides Steve’s recap of his weekend with Penny, they didn’t talk about women at all. Mostly, they talked about high school. About where they had imagined they’d be ten years out, and where they ended up. Steve and Alex gushed about their careers, while Dylan complained.
“You are in California, dude, surrounded by beautiful women,” Steve said. “You’re famous.”
“The money. You make so much goddamned money,” Alex said.
“I’m grateful, I am. I hate the whole Hollywood system. All anyone really cares about is how I look. I’m not a real actor.”
“Do you want to be a real actor? Go take some classes. Get your agent to get you different roles,” Steve said.
“I can’t picture myself doing this for very long.”
“Why don’t you do it for your fifteen minutes of fame until you get old and fat and ugly, then do something else?” Alex suggested.
“My sisters depend on the money.” Dylan had supported his sisters since his parents died. They never asked him for help, but he gave it nonetheless. He didn’t know what to do with all the money, anyway.
“They can learn to support themselves, Dyl. They are grown-ups,” Alex said.
“What do you want to do long-term?” Steve asked. “You want to get out of Cali and go live on a farm in Nebraska or something?”
Dylan’s eyes bolted to Steve, and he reminded himself that Steve knew nothing about Clare or Nebraska. Still, his stomach flipped. Now that he had a little physical space from Jenna, he thought about Clare, wondering if she was mad. She hadn’t called or texted, not that he’d been calling her. He couldn’t blame her if she was pissed about sitting around the airport waiting for him.
“Funny you should mention Nebraska,” Dylan said. The men looked confused as he excused himself. He went outside and called Clare.
She didn’t answer. He sent her a text—
Miss you, NE.
The more he thought about her, the greater the urge to hear her voice. On a mission, he called the bookstore.
One of the employees picked up. He asked for Clare, and when the employee asked for his name, he said, “Mr. Lusty.” He heard the intercom in the background as the employee said over the loudspeaker, “Clare? Mr. Lusty, line two.” Dylan smiled, knowing she would be rolling her eyes and shaking her head.
A few seconds later, she picked up. “My Lord, Dylan. Are you trying to get me fired? Mr. Lusty sounds like another one of your porn characters.”
Dylan grinned. “I needed to hear your voice.”
“I talked to you yesterday. Hey, I’m glad you called, though. Thank you so much for the book. I love it. New York is officially on the top of my list of places I need to see.”
He had forgotten he’d sent the book from the hotel when he checked in. “You’re welcome. I want to look through it with you and tell you about all the photos. How are you?”
“Busy at the store tonight. You? How are things with Jenna? I saw your pictures. She’s…really…she looks like a model.”
“She’s great. You know, I was sitting here at dinner with the guys, and one of them by coincidence mentioned Nebraska.”
“Stop! Why? Nobody mentions Nebraska.”
“He asked me if I wanted to move there. I thought of you.”
The line was silent for a moment.
Dylan continued, “I’m really sorry about yesterday and the airport.”
“It’s all right. I’m just glad you were okay,” she said quietly. “You’re coming home Wednesday?”
“Yes.”
“For sure?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll see you soon then, right?”
“I’ll try and call tomorrow. I miss you,” Dylan said.
When he hung up, he realized he had wandered to the corner. He stood for a minute and watched the city move around him. Everyone had someplace to be. They all knew where they wanted to go. Dylan wished he knew that feeling himself.
He spotted a gift shop nearby and wandered in, looking for something for Jenna.
Chapter 14
Alex
Alex and Steve finished another pitcher of sangria while they waited for Dylan.
“Holy shit, with Dylan and Jenna,” Steve said. “How are you handling everything?”
Alex groaned. “They’re both so fucking happy. I had breakfast with them this morning and thought I would throw up. They’re like teenagers making eyes at each other.”
“How can you watch?”
“The whole thing makes me angry, but I know I don’t have a right to be.”
“You’re angry because you’re jealous, you jackass. Because you love her.”
“She told Dylan, you know,” Alex said.
“Told him what? That you’re a jackass?”
“Ha. No. That she loved me.”
“She did? Is she nuts?”
“She told him, ‘It is what it is’ and asked him if he could handle it.”
Steve shook his head. “She’s something.”
“Yeah, something,” Alex agreed. “Anyway, he’ll be gone in a couple of days. Dylan says they are going to try the long-distance relationship thing, but I can’t imagine that working. This has to fizzle out, right?”
“Do you want it to? At least with Dyl, you know he’s not some wacko guy she met online. He’s not the worst person she could be with,” Steve said, then grimaced as he sipped the last of the sangria. “Ah, this is so sweet. I feel my teeth rotting. Anyway, Dylan’s never around, which means you get her to yourself. If you’re not ready to deal with your shit and tell her how you really feel and you’re willing to give her up, at least it’s to Dylan.”
“Like I could compete with D-Barnes. There’s no way she’d want me after being with him.”
“You’re wrong,” Steve said. “If it’s a competition, you already won. You forfeited, though.”
Alex leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. A blonde woman at the table next to him smiled his way. All he could think about was Jenna. “Yeah, I guess I forfeited. Why’d I do that again?”
“Because you’re fucked up.”
***
They settled the tab and tracked down Dylan in the gift shop. Together they walked the streets, weaving their way through the foot traffic, stopping at their
favorite bars. At the end of the night, they stumbled to the nearest subway entrance but couldn’t figure out the trains, so Dylan and Alex took a cab to Brooklyn, and Steve Uber-ed his way uptown.
Dylan shut his eyes as he slumped in the backseat of the cab. “I love you, man. I miss you. I wish you lived in Cali. You and Steve are my brothers.”
“Brothers forever,” Alex slurred. “No matter what.”
At the apartment building, Alex and Dylan leaned on each other, climbing the stairs one slow step at a time. By the time they reached the sixth floor, they were practically crawling.
“I want to say hi to Jenna,” Alex said.
“Shh. I don’t know if she’s back yet,” Dylan whispered and burped. “Fuck. Excuse me.”
“You are a mess,” Alex said. “I have a key. Let’s see.”
They zigzagged to Jenna’s door, banging into the hallway walls and laughing.
Dylan knocked. “Jen?” he tried to whisper.
Alex laughed and fumbled with his keys until they fell into the apartment.
Inside, Alex peeked into the bedroom and sighed at the sight of Jenna sleeping. Dylan gave him a hand signal, and understanding the plan, they tiptoed in and then jumped into bed with her.
“What the—?” Jenna sat up straight. “You idiots,” she said, lying back down between them as they laughed. Dylan put his arms around Jenna as she faced Alex. It felt like forever since he’d lain down with her. I can do this. I can share her with Dylan.
“You both smell like whiskey,” she said. “Alex, you have a game tomorrow and you’re drinking? You’re going to be so hungover.”
“No, Stecs. I didn’t mix. I’ll be fine. I’m fine, right, D?”
“You’re fucked, man,” Dylan said.
“Are you two coming to my game tomorrow, or are you going to be too busy getting it on?” Alex joked.
“We’ll come to your stupid game,” Jenna said, eyes shut.
“Jenna,” Dylan said seriously, rolling on top of her. She opened her eyes to look at him. “Baseball is not stupid.”
Alex laughed as Jenna shook her head and wiggled down to the foot of the bed. She disappeared into the bathroom.
The Love Square Page 14
