Cougar (Chauvinist Stories Book 2)

by Elise Faber

  Instead of asking her either of those questions, I brought us back to the previous topic, the one she’d so masterfully avoided. “So, what were you oh fucking about before?”

  She sighed. “I hate it when you’re smart.”

  “Lie.”

  Another sigh. “I also hate that you have two older sisters that are younger than me.”

  “Age is just a number.”

  “Quoting my mantra back to me doesn’t discount the fact that I slept with their baby brother and they’re younger than me.”

  My pulse picked up. We didn’t talk about our night together, didn’t even allude to it. Not ever. That she’d mentioned it—

  “Who cares that they’re younger?” I asked carefully.

  Artie shrugged. “I don’t, not really. Just that it’s the truth, and I’m a woman over forty, which means that half of society already hates me and the other half thinks that I’m a shriveled up prune.”

  My brows drew together. “I’m part of society, and I don’t think that.”

  “Okay, so one percent of society thinks I’m all right.”

  “Artie.” I touched her arm. “You’re beautiful and capable and smart—”

  She groaned, batted me away. “Don’t try to be logical when I’m having a weak moment.”

  “You’re far from weak.”

  She sighed. “And you’re too damned sweet and honest, but I’ll take the compliment anyway.” She visibly shook off her insecurity, replacing it with a mask I knew too well—calm and charming and totally superficial. “I’m just having a weird day. Must be all these hormones, you know how they flare in old age,” she added with a chuckle.

  I hated it, hated the mask, hated the way she used it to prevent her from having to present herself to the world.

  But it also wasn’t my place to push.

  She’d chosen to put the distance between us, and that was where it would stay. I didn’t have any right to barge through barriers, not when our intimacy hadn’t extended to more than one night. Plus, now that we were working together, it was even more critical that the distance stay in place. We needed to be collaborators, friends, soundboards, but we also shouldn’t be anything more than that.

  Not the right time.

  Even if I wished it was.

  “Just be happy you weren’t living here two hundred years ago,” I said, purposefully going along with the reappearance of Artie’s mask and allowing her to change the subject. Vibrant blue eyes met mine, and she proved that whatever chemistry we had that made us seem to always be on the same wavelength was still in effect.

  “Because of the dresses.”

  “Yup,” I said, reaching out for her braid and pretending to make it flap in the breeze. “The fabric would blow you and all this hair right off the cliffs.”

  She grinned. “Just in time for a dashing hero to dive to my rescue.”

  I snorted. “More like, she’d save herself.”

  Artie laughed and leaned close enough that I could smell the soft, floral scent of her shampoo. “You’re learning.” She nudged me with her shoulder. “But alas, those dresses were heavy, especially when they got wet. I think she’d need that dashing hero to swoop in and save the day.”

  “Should we test that theory?” I teased, giving her a mock-shove toward the edge. “I bet those jeans will absorb a lot of water.”

  “Don’t you dare!” she said on a gasp, darting away from me.

  “Come on,” I cajoled. “It’s not that far of a jump.”

  “Not that far?” She swept out her arm. “It’s like fifty feet!”

  “Meh.” I snagged her arm, lightly tugging her back to the cliffs. By now, we were a good ten feet from the edge, but she shrieked and yanked away from me.

  “So not funny, Pierce.”

  “From my angle, it was hilarious.” She rolled her eyes, spinning on a huff. “Careful,” I warned, seeing she was headed for some loose rocks.

  “Nice try—”

  She slipped.

  What happened next was something my mind could barely process, let alone my body ever having hope of replicating it. I lurched forward, grabbing Artie by the waist, attempting to steady her so she didn’t take a header in the sharp rocks, but she was off-balance, limbs flailing . . . which meant that her fist flew up and clocked me right in the eye. I groaned, lost my grip on her, and our feet got tangled, propelling us to a painful collision with the rocky ground.

  The only reason I was able to hold on to my man card in the clusterfuck of limbs was because I managed to grab her arm and spin us slightly, so I took the brunt of the impact, Artie landing hard on my stomach.

  We lay there for a few moments, me with a smarting eye, an aching set of butt cheeks, and her . . . thinking who knew what? Eventually, though, I managed to squeeze out. “Are you okay?”

  She groaned. “My ass.”

  I could second that notion. “Want me to pick us up a pair of those donut pillows?”

  “Hilarious,” she muttered. “This is your fault.” She started to push out of the circle of my arms then stopped, staring out at the cliffs. “Can you imagine how pissed our insurance company would have been if we fell off the fucking cliff?”

  I bit back a laugh, heart settling now that I’d managed to get us out of the situation relatively unscathed—asses and left eye aside. “Probably really pissed,” I agreed, sitting up and taking her with me. “But I don’t know why you’re blaming me. I’m not the one who decided to tap dance through some loose rocks.”

  “Oh, maybe because someone was threatening to throw me off a cliff in order to test his hero skills.”

  I snorted as Artie slowly stood, stretching out her spine with a wince. “As if you thought I was serious.”

  “Fair point,” she muttered. “Maybe I do need a hero to come in and save the day, since I can’t even walk on a flat surf—oh my God! Pierce. Your eye.”

  I brought my hand up, gently palpated the skin around it. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s already purple! Oh shit, I hurt you.” Her hands began flapping over my chest and face. “Oh my God. It’s already bruising, and I—”

  “It’s fine.” I captured her hands. “Bonus is I’m going to have a hell of a story to lord over you the next few years.”

  She froze and for the first time in the five-plus years I’d known her, Artie’s eyes filled with tears that weren’t because of a film or a book or a script. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hurt you and—” She sniffed as one glistening tear escaped. “I—fuck.” Jerking her hands back, she put them over her face. “I can’t believe I-I did that.”

  “Hey. Hey,” I repeated, tugging at her hands when she wouldn’t look at me. “Artie.”

  She shoved me back and strode away.

  I stared after her for a few seconds, trying to figure out why she was so upset. It was clearly an accident, and one I’d thought we’d laugh about for years to come. But she wasn’t laughing. In fact, she was so close to distraught that my stomach was twisting itself into knots. There was something else going on here. I moved, pushing up to my feet, and crossing over to her.

  “Artemis,” I said softly.

  Her chin dropped to her chest for several seconds. Then she almost seemed to force herself to look at me.

  The bottom fell out of my heart at the tear tracks on her cheeks, the reddened eyes, the remorse in her expression. “I didn’t mean to hit you,” she said. “I swear I didn’t. It was an a-accident.”

  I dropped my hands to her shoulders, lightly squeezing. “I know that,” I murmured. “It’s just . . . you don’t seem to.”

  Her lids closed. “I hurt you.”

  “Babe. It was an accident.”

  “That doesn’t make it right,” she snapped.

  “And beating yourself up until your insides are black and blue for something you didn’t mean to do is?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

  “Then tell me, sweetheart,” I said. “Explain
to me why you accidentally hitting me as you tripped and fell is something that’s horrible and—”

  “Because my dad did it, okay?” She pulled out of my hold and paced away, this time without the flailing and subsequent black eye. “He’d say it was an accident. He’d pretend that my mom or I fell or that something stupid and innocuous happened and we were just . . . too fucking klutzy to not get hurt and”—her voice dropped—“it would always be an accident.”

  Her chest was rising and falling like she’d run a marathon.

  And I was standing there, shocked by the revelation and unable to say a fucking thing.

  “I ran into doorknobs, slipped and fell in the tub, tripped at the park.” She shook her head, voice dropping so it was almost inaudible. “So many fucking accidents.”

  Finally, I got my shit together. “It’s not your fault.”

  She scoffed. “It was my hand that hit you.”

  “Not that, Artie,” I said gently. “What your dad did is not your fault.”

  Her face crumpled and for a horrible few seconds, I thought that I’d said the wrong thing. But then she closed the distance between us and buried her face in my throat. Instinctively, my arms wrapped around her, holding her close.

  I thought she’d cry, that tears would soak through my shirt, cooling the skin of my chest. Instead, I held her as her breaths rattled through her chest, as hot puffs of air beat against my neck, as she shuddered and vibrated and then finally, finally relaxed in my arms.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, forehead to my collarbone, tone beyond fragile.

  “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about.”

  Her shoulders rose and fell as she took one more deep inhale then let it out. “Normally, I’m not like this.”

  “Artie.” I pulled back, crouched a little to meet her gaze. “You don’t owe me an explanation just because I’m here and saw . . .”

  Whatever the fuck I’d just witnessed.

  “Today is the day I lost her.” She turned away, spine stiff, braid I’d put in her hair less than fifteen minutes before disheveled and flopping over her shoulder.

  I hesitated, took Artie’s hand. “Lost who, sweetheart?”

  “My mom.”

  Seven

  Artie

  What the fuck was I doing?

  “We should go,” I declared, starting to run a hand through my hair and stopping when I remembered it was braided.

  That Pierce had braided it.

  What the fuck was that?

  He’d braided my—

  Not the point. What was critically important at this juncture was that I pulled my shit together and we got back to making a fucking movie.

  “I had a word with Frank about budget,” I said, hightailing it to the car, not even checking that Pierce was following me. Thankfully, though, I heard his footsteps crunching along behind me when I paused for breath. “He thinks we’d be better off going with Rhonda for cinematography, even though that would put us a bit over. She’s one of the best, and a spot just opened up in her schedule.”

  Silence.

  Don’t look behind me, don’t look behind—

  I looked behind me.

  Pierce had stopped about five feet back, crossing his arms over his chest. I opened my mouth, readying a deflection, attempting to draw us down into movie talk and not toward my blurt on the cliffside.

  I should have known better than to think I’d be able to work him.

  Too smart, too quick, too fucking perfect.

  So much so that he’d stuck in my head over the last five years, not staying shut in the locked box of my brain. I’d be in Australia and think, he’d love to see the waves breaking on the shore, know that he’d compare them to his time spent shooting in Hawaii. Then I’d be in Italy and imagine him hanging off a crane to capture just the right angle of a crumbling building. Or at an award’s show and think that he’d fit in way better if he could just understand that he was the most talented guy in the room.

  But then I’d tuck it all down, lock it all safely away . . . and I’d move on.

  It’s what I did.

  Pierce knew that.

  He just wasn’t going to let it slide today. “Rhonda would be amazing,” he said before I could make some comment dragging us further from my meltdown. “But that’s not what we should be talking about, is it?”

  “It’s the only pertinent conversation we’ll be having for the time being.”

  “You mean discussing the movie as a way to avoid whatever the fuck all that just was.”

  “Yes.”

  His mouth was parted, an argument to press further, no doubt already on the tip of his tongue. At my answer, his teeth clicked closed.

  I sighed. “Should I reiterate that you just stated I don’t owe you an explanation?”

  He closed the distance between us. “That’s right,” he said, surprising me.

  I’d expected an argument about how things change and how I need to lay all my troubles with the big, bad man so I don’t have to worry my pretty little head.

  “Your past is your past. It’s yours.” He sighed. “However, maybe the fucking courteous thing to do would be to explain why your past is playing so hard into today. We’re friends, Artie. That means I’m here for you.”

  So easy.

  It would be so easy to just tell him everything, to confide in him about my past, my dead mother, my incarcerated father, the years I’d spent in Canada with them, hiding from our troubles.

  But I didn’t talk about it.

  And most especially, I couldn’t talk about it today. Not when this day made the loss of my mom all that fresher.

  So, I lifted my chin and reached for the passenger’s side door. “If we’re really friends,” I said, pulling it open and plunking myself into the seat, “then we’ll get back to what’s really important, what’s the only important thing, and that’s filming this movie.”

  Pierce bent, studying me through the window on the driver’s side for several awkward seconds before his face went blank and he opened his own door, plunking into his own seat. “The movie,” he murmured, buckling in. “You want to just focus on making the film. Got it.” A nod. “I can shut up and just fucking work.”

  Guilt warred with self-preservation. “Pierce—”

  He stuck the key in the ignition, turned on the car, and drove us to the next location.

  In silence.

  I tried to convince myself it was better this way.

  It was after midnight, the grasping talons of the past finally relenting, the painful memories finally releasing their hold on my heart and mind.

  Twenty years since I’d lost her.

  Twenty fucking years.

  Sighing, I slipped on a sweatshirt, shoved my feet into my UGGs, and wrestled my hair into a lopsided bun that was a hell of a lot messier than the braid Pierce had woven earlier that day.

  Or yesterday, I supposed.

  Either way, I was this close—cue mental fingers held just a pinch apart—to a hot mess, but felt so raw inside that I didn’t give a damn how I looked. I needed a drink. I needed to forget for another three hundred and sixty-five days.

  I needed to compartmentalize away what I’d told Pierce.

  How I’d acted.

  How critically embarrassed I was.

  Sighing, I slipped out of the hotel room and padded down the hall to the stairs. The bar should still be open. I’d get a drink or two, liquor my brain up enough that I could sleep, and then everything would look better after eight horizontal hours.

  Two flights of stairs down led me to the lobby, and I walked through, glad that it was deserted and that the bar was nearly so, only a couple of patrons at a table on the far side. I chose the corner furthest from them and sat, ordering a whiskey sour.

  Because that was my mom’s drink.

  And because it seemed like an appropriate end to the day.

  Thankfully, the bartender seemed to recognize I wasn’t fit for human consump
tion and poured the drink quickly, setting it on the bar top, and retreating to the other end, giving me my space.

  There was a big tip coming her way.

  Sighing, I took a big swig, letting the alcohol burn a trail down my esophagus, warming me slowly from the inside out, and waiting for the pleasant buzz to trail across my mind, dulling the final throb of my childhood.

  I always thought I was so together and recovered from the trauma of my upbringing. Then this day would come, and I would feel flayed to the core all over again. Lifting the glass, I took another sip, the burn less this time, the lovely numbing fog more encompassing.

  This day.

  I usually didn’t work on this day.

  Or if I did, I worked alone.

  I slurped down the final drops, barely signaled to the bartender before she’d dropped the refill in front of me and disappeared again.

  Definitely a big tip. Huge, even.

  I crossed my arms on the bar top, resting my cheek against one as I ran a finger from the other around and around the smoothed ring at the top of the glass.

  So, why hadn’t I forced the issue today? Why hadn’t I insisted on being alone?

  Pierce.

  I figured he’d be a good distraction and with our film moving forward in rapid succession, shooting just on the horizon, we’d needed to take advantage of having a few days of clear schedules to lock in the final details.

  No. Not it.

  Or not all of it.

  I’d wanted to see him. I liked him. He was funny and charming and . . . I’d given in to my inner idiotic desires for him. I’d had a weak moment in allowing it to happen and an even weaker moment when disclosing all I’d disclosed.

  Fuck.

  There was a reason I’d taken a hiatus from the industry for several years. To distance myself from the news reports, from the media trailing me during the trial. Yes, the truth was out there, never completely hidden, and I’d had to address it a lot, especially when I’d first become successful. Hell, it was right there under the ‘Personal Life’ section on my Wikipedia page. But I’d also found that when something was common knowledge for a while in Hollywood, it tended to become less sensationalized and more old news.