“Who, me?” Cassandra says, blinking at him. I know she means to wink, but she’s never been able to do it. “Fine, I’ll go greet my adoring fans.”
The four of us head over to the table. Alexis immediately stands. “Happy birthday,” she says in her perfect British accent. “I’ve missed you, darling.”
I try to keep my eyes on her, to stop them from darting around the space, trying to see if he’s here.
“Alexis,” I say. “How are you?”
Alexis is dressed, as usual, effortlessly cool. Jeans, heels, a silk shirt, and a color-contrasting head scarf. Gold and turquoise jewelry hangs from her neck and ears. She’s tall, too—about five nine to my five feet. She used to be a model—the real kind. Fashion. She grew up all over the world—Paris, London, Portugal. I can’t hate her, though, because she’s genuinely trying to be my friend. I can’t even resent Jordan for wanting her—who wouldn’t?
I suddenly feel really, really short in my black dress. I normally like being short, but it may not have killed me to wear heels tonight instead of these low wedges.
“Wonderful. How are you? Not jet-lagged, I hope?”
“Not too bad,” I say, accepting champagne from a passing waiter. “We slept a lot on the plane.”
I wave at Jessica, and she cranes over the table to give me a hug before I feel Alexis grabbing at me. “Let me see this!” she says.
She snatches my hand and gapes at the ring Rainer just gave me.
I snuggle closer into him. “It goes with my necklace.” I pluck it off my chest.
“Gorgeous,” she says. “Rainer has impeccable taste.” And then her voice changes. She gestures behind me. “Wilder,” Alexis says over my shoulder. “You’re late.”
Instantly, I look up, and the second I do, I see him.
He’s coming down the path to the table. He’s backlit by hanging Chinese lanterns, and I’m reminded of the first time I saw him, on the beach in Hawaii, framed by the sun. That was back when I thought he was an asshole, when I was convinced he was out to ruin Rainer’s life, and by association, mine. Before I got to know him. Before I understood everything he had lost and everything he still wanted.
“Happy birthday.” He looks at me for a beat, and I swear my heart stops. I’m sure Rainer can feel the blood rushing through my body from where his hand still sits perched on my hip. I feel Jordan’s eyes drift over me. They feel like fingers, like they’re weighted, somehow.
“Thanks,” I mumble. The most we’ve said to each other in weeks.
His so-brown-it’s-black hair sits ruffled on his head, and he has on jeans and a gray blazer over a blue T-shirt. He gives Alexis a quick kiss on the cheek, and I look away.
They’re together. You have a boyfriend. You’re not allowed to feel this way anymore, I remind myself. I swing into action.
“Hey, Alexis, Jordan—these are my best friends, Cassandra and Jake. Guys, this is Jordan and this”—I gesture to the gazelle standing next to me—“is Alexis.”
Cassandra eyes Jordan way too obviously, and I see him look back at her. “We met briefly when you guys were out here for the premiere,” he says.
“It was just for a second before the screening,” Cassandra says. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” Jordan says.
“How lovely,” Alexis says, taking Jordan’s arm. “We’re all together.”
I kind of hate her.
The table is round, and she and Jordan sit, Jake and Cassandra following suit with Jessica behind them. Rainer does, too, and Alexis taps the seat next to her, so I’m in between her and Rainer. I’m just grateful I’m not seated next to Jordan, too. Being between the two of them takes all the acting I can muster, and tonight, I’m not sure I have it in me.
“Do you have to file environmental impact reports?” Jake is asking.
I hear Alexis in my ear. “So, what is the birthday girl drinking?”
Alexis and I haven’t really gotten a chance to know each other. We were a split group on tour—me and Rainer, Jordan and Alexis.
But here, at dinner, we embark on a marathon get-acquainted session. I find out that not only did Alexis grow up in and around Europe but that her mother also lives in Los Angeles, her father has a summer home in the south of France, and she attended boarding school for “one horrid year” in Switzerland. Also fun: She speaks four languages and has two albums out. But none of that compares to the way Jordan watches her—transfixed—like she’s some kind of transcendent creature.
“Happy?” Rainer whispers into my ear as I twirl some spaghetti onto my fork.
I blink and look at him. His lashes are so long, and with his face this close to me I can almost feel them. My skin instantly pricks up with goose bumps. “Mmhmm,” I whisper. “Thank you. Tonight is perfect.”
I feel his hand on my neck. “It’s not over,” he whispers.
I pull back and look at him, and my face must reveal some kind of surprise because he laughs—a soft, twinkling laugh—and says, “We’re just going out after dinner. If you want to?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I want to.”
Rainer turns his attention to the table. He sets his knife against his glass, and everyone hushes. “I’d like to make a toast,” he says.
My stomach starts fluttering. I catch Cassandra’s eye across the table, and she tries to wink at me.
“Happy birthday, PG.” He looks at me, and I feel his hand graze mine underneath the table. I thread our fingers together. I need something to hold on to. “I’m so goddamn lucky you were born today. Thank you for trying out for this movie and for being my August.” He raises his glass up and then he kisses me. I lean into him and taste the champagne on his mouth, and even though I know everyone is watching—Alexis and Jessica and Cassandra and Jake and Jordan—I tell myself not to care. He’s my boyfriend. He’s kissing me on my birthday. This is the life I chose. All I’m doing is living it.
We go to a club close by—or it could be far away, I’m not sure. All I know is that I’m caught up in the night: in the limo that appears out of nowhere, in the champagne, in Rainer’s cool fingers on my thigh, just above my knee.
The club is dark when we enter. Jordan is fastened to Alexis’s side, and she air-kisses a group of girls as soon as we get in and pulls Jordan with her—over to a booth. I see him glance back at us, briefly, but then he’s lost in the darkness.
I would have had a hard time keeping track of Cassandra and Jake, but Sandy dropped them back off at the house. They claimed exhaustion, but I know dancing isn’t really Jake’s thing. I also suspect they’re excited to spend an unsupervised night alone together. Cassandra’s parents are pretty strict.
“Enjoy it,” Cassandra said into my ear as she went, and I just smiled because I knew what she meant. Tonight, on my birthday, we can just be Rainer and Paige. We’re not at a press event. We’re not on a carpet. We’re just us. And if being us means we get into private parties at clubs—then so be it.
I feel Rainer’s hand on my wrist and then his fingers at my hip as he’s moving me toward the dance floor. The music blares around us—a techno version of some pop song I have been hearing on the radio constantly. It’s so loud it vibrates through me—like my muscle fibers are a sound system—inputting every beat.
The crowd doesn’t seem to notice us as we move through the pulsing bodies. I feel anonymous in this mass, and it’s delicious, heady, like I could be anyone and do anything. By the time we get to the center of the dance floor, I’ve forgotten we’re famous.
I pull Rainer close and loop my arms around his neck. He drops his lips down until they hover over mine. I dig my fingers into his shoulders. I feel the muscles there move as he presses his hands flat against my back and draws me in closer.
My heart is hammering—trying to keep up with the music and his hands as they trace over me like stencils, creating patterns and shapes in their wake.
I can hear Rainer’s breath in my ear, and his hand finds mine. He makes an impati
ent sound, and then he’s dragging me back out the way we came. I don’t bother to look back—to see where Jordan is, whether he’s found Alexis in that dark mass the way Rainer has found me.
The paparazzi have evidently found all of us because when we leave, there is a sea of photographers—so many flashes it feels like daylight. Rainer tucks me to his side, and two bodyguards usher us into a waiting town car. I bury my face in Rainer’s shoulder and let his arms circle around me.
“Drive,” I hear him say. His tone is tense, frayed around the edges with what we’ve taken with us from that dance floor.
We speed away, but I keep myself fastened to Rainer’s side. We find each other in the back of that town car the way we did in the dark club. I’m so caught up in Rainer, in what it feels like to be this close to him, that I’m barely aware of coming home and Rainer carrying me through the door.
When we get into the bedroom, he hesitates. We’ve slept in the same bed before—here, and on tour—but never exactly like this. Never with the air crackling between us like it’s something live—something with a heartbeat and pulse all its own.
“It’s okay,” I say.
His eyes float over me—like the blue in them has turned from ice to water. It swims around his pupils—liquid velvet. He lays me down on the bed. “I’m so glad we’re here,” he says. He tucks my hair behind my ear, and then we’re kissing. My fingers find the edge of his shirt, and I’m inching it up his torso and then taking it off. I see his chest—his golden muscles working. I’ve seen him without a shirt on so many times before—countless shoots, the beach, for months, and the familiarity of it, of the little indent he has on the right side of his rib cage and the birthmark right above his belly button, fills me with a joy I can’t quite describe. I know him, now, and he knows me—in a way no one else does or ever will. Because he’s in this with me. It’s just the two of us. And it’s this that makes me kiss him back harder, fiercer.
His hands are in my hair, and then they slide down my body. I feel his fingers on my waist then down to my hips, and I arch up against his lips. He moves to the zipper on my dress, and I realize I don’t have a bra on underneath. I didn’t wear one. The straps showed.
The realization makes me edge back, just a tiny bit, but it’s enough for Rainer’s hands to stop what they’re doing.
“Are you okay?” he asks me. His voice is ragged, and I can feel his heartbeat through his skin—as haphazard as my own.
I nod, except I’m not sure. If my dress is opened then so is this whole new dimension, and I don’t know if I’m ready for that. It’s like I’m seeing myself outside of myself—watching me. The way everyone else is. And I don’t want them to see this. I don’t want them to know. Suddenly something Jessica showed me months ago on set comes flashing back to me—she read me some fan fiction about us. Not August and Noah—me and Rainer. It was meant to be silly, but now it all comes hurling back. The paragraphs of us together, just like this. The remembered sentences come one after the other—they pile on top of my chest until I can feel their weight physically. It’s like we’re in somebody else’s fantasy. I thought we were alone tonight, but we’re not. The whole universe is in bed with us.
“What is it?” Rainer asks. I can see the concern in his eyes, and it lessens the pressure, just a little. “What’s wrong?” His palm finds my cheek, and he holds it there. “Talk to me.”
But I don’t know what to say. How can I explain that being with him right now, like this, feels like we’re fulfilling some public wish?
“I’m scared,” I say, because it’s true.
“Of me?”
I shake my head. I can feel my face get hot, am sure his hand on my cheek feels it, too. My eyes fill with tears, and I bite my lip to keep them from spilling over. I feel so stupid in this bed with him, so small—I don’t know why I can’t just be here. Turn my brain off and stop thinking.
“Hey,” he says. “It’s okay.” He moves his hand from my cheek to my temple and rubs his thumb back and forth there. “We have plenty of time. There is no rush here.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“Good,” he says. He slides us down so we’re lying against the pillows. He tucks an arm around me and holds my hand against his chest. “Just relax,” he says. “Get some sleep.” He threads a hand through my hair, and I feel his heartbeat slow along with mine.
CHAPTER 4
The next morning we go to breakfast at the Beverly Glen. The Beverly Glen is a little shopping center close to the Bel Air house that celebrities often frequent because no one seems to care that you’re there. It’s hidden up in the hills—just a few boutiques, a restaurant, a salon, and a Starbucks.
Cassandra is chattering about how amazing last night was while Rainer is in line to get us all coffees and eggs and muffins and French toast. “I’m glad there are no paps here,” Cassandra says. “My hair is having a day.”
Jake rolls his eyes at me. I laugh. “What time is your flight?”
“Too soon.” Cassandra pouts. She shuffles some papers around in the booth and then squeals. I see a story about us. There is a photo of us from last night, leaving the club, and my left hand is circled in red. The headline reads: RAINER GIVES PAIGE A PROMISE RING.
I look down at my hand. How do they know he gave me that ring? I make a move to grab for the paper, but Cassandra is already reading. “For her birthday, Rainer gave his beloved Paige, or ‘PG,’ as he affectionately calls her, a promise ring. ‘They’re too young to get engaged,’ a source tells us. ‘But Rainer wanted Paige to know he’s in it for the long haul. He adores her.’”
Adores her. I grit my teeth. Another private moment made public, and then twisted. A promise ring? I shiver thinking about last night, about what almost happened but didn’t because of this ungranted access.
I grab the paper from Cassandra and toss it into the empty booth behind us. Avoidance is key. “Not before coffee,” I say.
“Too young to get engaged, huh?” Cassandra says, swishing her lips at me.
“Stop it,” I tell her, kicking her under the table. “This stuff is insane.”
“Yeah, but they were right,” Cassandra says. “Rainer does adore you.”
Jake leans forward. “You okay, PG?”
“Of course,” I say, smiling at him. “I’m just letting stupid BS get to me.”
Jake shrugs, and Rainer comes over with our food. We eat, but I feel Jake’s eyes on me. Something about the way he’s looking at me makes me feel like he can see something. Like he knows that in some ways I am decidedly not okay. The thing that freaks me out the most is: If he can see it, who else can?
We have breakfast, and then we have to go back to the house so Cassandra and Jake can pack up. “I wish you were staying,” I tell Cassandra. The four of us are outside. The boys are loading luggage into the waiting town car.
“Some of us still have to attend school,” she says, her arms around me. “But I’ll call you as soon as I land.”
“You better.”
“You sure you don’t want me to drive you?” Rainer asks.
“I’d rather not have a camera in my face while I take off my shoes for security,” Jake says.
“What’s the deal with not springing for a jet on the way back?” Cassandra says. She pokes Rainer with her elbow. I love watching them interact. I can tell Cassandra really likes him.
“She’s demanding,” Rainer says to Jake.
“Dude, you have no idea.”
Rainer goes to say something to the driver, and Jake cocks his head to me. “C’mere,” he says.
I follow him a few paces over so we’re out of earshot. I’m hoping he’s not going to ask me any more questions. “Thank you for coming,” I say. “It really meant a lot to me.”
“We didn’t get much time to talk,” he says.
“I know. I’m sorry, but your girlfriend is kind of a hog.”
He laughs. “I know all of this can’t be easy. I just want to tell you that I’m here for
you. Whenever you need me, okay, Pat?”
I see his face fall into his droopy grin, and then I’m smiling, too. Patrick has always been Jake’s nickname for me, but I haven’t heard him use it since before I left Portland.
He pulls me into a hug. I have to roll up onto my tiptoes to reach.
“You grew,” I say.
He laughs. “I guess some things have changed on our end, too.”
I watch their car until it has pulled out of the driveway, and then head back inside. The phone is ringing.
“You going to get that?” I ask Rainer.
He’s in the refrigerator, and he pokes his head back to look at me. “I didn’t even know we had a home line,” he says.
I find the phone on the counter. Some Bang & Olufsen model that has the weight of a penny and an impossible-to-determine mouthpiece. Which end do you talk into?
“Darling,” Alexis says when I answer. Her accent pours through the phone like honey.
“Hey,” I say. Is Jordan there? Is he lounging on her couch shirtless as she talks to me?
“Fabulous time last night. Please tell Rain.”
I glance at him. He’s raising his eyebrows at me as if to ask who it is. “Thanks, Alexis. I will.”
“I’m calling to see if you want to come to Georgina’s.”
Georgina is Alexis’s best friend. She plays the lead on that hit CW show about aliens. Elsewhere. She’s dating her costar, Blake, in real life, but their characters are just secretly in love on the show for now. It’s actually kind of addicting. I marathoned all of season one on the plane while we were on tour.
“Today?” I glance at Rainer. He smiles encouragingly. “Sure,” I say. “Yeah. That works.”
“I’ll pick you up in an hour,” she says. “Bel Air, right? Looking forward to it.”
I hang up and look at Rainer. He’s coming toward me, an apple in one hand.
“I thought we could spend some time alone this afternoon,” I say. “Just the two of us.”
“I’d love to,” he says. “But I can’t. I have to deal with stuff.”
“Stuff.” I nod. He means his dad. “You know you can talk to me about stuff,” I say.
Truly Madly Famously Page 3
