The door closes behind her, sealing us off from the rest of the world, from the family members who doubt us, want to control us. Fuck them all.
“Maybe you were right. We’re cursed.” Her smile wobbles.
Nope, she’s not okay. Instinctively, I open my arms to her.
She steps into me, so fast that the motion rocks me back, and buries her face against my chest with a muffled cry. It’s enough to make my eyes sting.
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her tight, trying to give as much comfort as I’m receiving. We’re in this together.
“It’s okay, we’re going to figure this out.” I smooth my hand over her hair, the familiar vanilla scent of her shampoo or lotion or whatever drifting up to me. It brings me immediately back to those early days on Starlight.
Home. It smells like home. Only not the giant monument to ego that my dad had built. Or even the barely-lived-in-emptiness of my condo. It’s something more than that.
“I don’t know.” Calista moves her head against the fabric of my shirt. “I think we’re just screwed.”
In spite of everything, that makes me laugh. “Hey, I’m supposed to be the cynic here, not you.”
She gives a snort but makes no move to pull away. If anything, she presses closer, drawing in and exhaling a deep breath that I feel through my shirt.
“And if we’re cursed, it’s with a fuck-ton of talent, astonishing good looks, and shitty luck with the people who are supposed to love us,” I add grimly, running my hands over her back, shoulder blades to ribs.
She gives a hiccuping laugh, then sighs. “I’m sorry about Katie,” she says after a moment. “Are you okay?” She looks up at me, resting her chin against my chest.
And it’s weird because in that moment, with her here next to me, almost like we’re slow dancing in the entryway to my condo, I do feel okay. More than that, I feel a sense of rightness that’s been missing. Which is a little scary—enough to make my heart beat too fast.
Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? This strong, overwhelming feeling, as terrifying as it is irresistible? A few years ago, when I felt this, I bolted. Straight into the arms of someone else. Okay, two someone elses. Leave it to me to mess up beyond all recovery.
But this time, I don’t want to go anywhere. Which is also scary.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s all right.” I should step back and let Calista go, especially if we’re going to have this conversation right now. But I don’t want to. I’ve made that mistake before. Actually, even worse than letting her go, I pushed her away.
“What happened?” she asks, shifting to rest her cheek right over my heart. I wonder if she can hear its new, faster rhythm.
“She asked if I was sleeping with you.”
Calista looks up in outrage, pushing back from me.
“I told her I wasn’t.”
“I’m aware,” she says dryly. “Did she believe you?”
“I think so.”
Her forehead creases with a frown. “So what’s the problem?”
“She wanted to know why I wasn’t.”
“What?” she asks, shaking her head in confusion.
I take a breath and try to find the words. “She doesn’t think I feel the same thing for her that I feel for you.”
She makes an exasperated noise. “Of course you don’t. She’s your fiancée, the woman you’re going to marry. She has her life together. She’s perfect.” Her mouth twists in a wry expression.
“She’s worried I feel more for you than for her,” I clarify.
Surprise, then wariness, floods her face, and suddenly she’s backing up a step, pulling free of me. “Oh. Well, I’m sure you set her straight,” Calista says, folding her arms across her chest, her eyes anywhere but mine. The air between us pulses with unanswered tension.
So, this is it. My pulse picks up another beat or two, and my palms are sweaty. If nothing else, another sign that I care more than I’m comfortable with. I can give Calista some generic response, basically pinning the whole thing on Katie’s suspicious nature. And then Calista and I would go back to something resembling normal, the new normal we’ve established in the last week.
“I could have,” I say. “But I started thinking about it.”
“That’s never good,” she says with a faltering smile, trying to tease, even as she takes another step back from me. She’s retreating, seemingly without even realizing it.
“And I think she’s right.”
Calista freezes.
“Callie, the night of the accident,” I begin.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says quickly, turning away from me. “It’s over and it doesn’t matter anymore.” She starts toward the living room, leaving me in the entryway. “Where’s Bitsy? I’ve heard so much about her. Will it bother her that I’m sleeping on the couch?”
In her voice, I hear her mother, desperately trying to make everything light and manageable.
She doesn’t have to pretend with me. Or she shouldn’t have to. And that’s what pushes me to keep going with the truth. “I was afraid.”
She stops, a mere shadow at the end of the hall, on the edge of the living room. “What?”
“That night. I was…” I rub my hand over my face. “I told myself you cared too much and you were going to get hurt if things went further.”
She makes a small sound of distress.
“But the truth is, you meant too much to me. I was scared shitless.” A strangled laugh emerges from my throat. “I wanted more, I wanted everything, with you. But I also knew that I would probably screw it up somehow. I couldn’t handle that. I was an idiot, a coward. It just took me until now to figure it out.”
She faces me. “But you hurt me intentionally. You made sure I would see you.”
I wince. “I know. It was stupid, and you have no idea how sorry I am. I just…” I take a breath. “It felt somehow like I would have more control if I destroyed it, destroyed us, before I really tried and then ended up messing it up anyway.” I rake my hand through my hair. “I wanted you to find out I’m a worthless piece of shit on my terms, I guess.”
She’s quiet long enough that it unnerves me. “Calista?”
“Do you really think that?” she asks.
“What?” That’s not the response I was expecting.
“That you’re worthless?”
The temptation to pass it off as a joke, to make some smartass remark about my resale value being drastically lower than my sticker price, rises in me. It’s what I would have done in the past, but now everything feels different. Or I’m trying to make it feel different.
I sigh. “No … yes. I don’t know. Sometimes?”
She steps toward me. “You’re not,” she says fiercely, and her anger surprises me. “And if you don’t care about it for yourself, then you should remember that you’re insulting me and everyone else who cares about you when you say that or even think it.”
“That list is fairly short,” I say with a bark of laughter.
She starts to turn away.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” I hold my hands up in surrender, and she stops.
“Other people may see you that way,” she says sharply, “valuable only in your connections or who your dad is, but I know you better than that.”
“I know.” I swallow hard. “And that means more to me than you can imagine. I guess that’s why I freaked out that night.” I shake my head. “I didn’t realize it was supposed to feel like this. That caring about someone was supposed to be fucking terrifying.” I give a shaky laugh.
She edges closer. “But you know that now? Because of Katie?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” I say. “She ended it because she didn’t want to be the right choice on paper.”
Calista stays quiet.
“She was. I mean, she was good for me, and I cared about her. But that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted me to feel … more.” I hesitate. “And for better or worse, I’ve only eve
r felt that way about one person.” It feels like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, naked, to say that out loud.
“You didn’t look freaked out.”
I blink. It takes me a second to trace back to what she’s talking about. She’d seen me that night, I knew that, but I was never sure how much she’d seen. I was a little distracted.
“You looked like everything I wanted,” she continues, the ache of longing and hurt evident in her voice. “Only with someone who wasn’t me.”
“Callie,” I say. “I am so sorry. I was an asshole. A stupid asshole. I don’t … I can’t…” I trail off as she closes the distance between us slowly, like she’s expecting me to bolt, or perhaps she’s considering each step with the full intention of stopping or retreating.
But then she’s in front of me, her fist curling in my shirt, and a blend of fear and arousal makes my heart throb even faster.
I couldn’t turn away now if someone lit the house on fire. Again.
She licks her lips, not necessarily in a seductive manner, but more like an uncertain gesture.
But it sends a pulse through me, and I groan. “Callie.” I want her mouth on mine, on me.
I bend my head toward hers, and she rises up on her tiptoes to meet me, her hand still clutching my shirt.
Her lips are warm and smooth, and when I touch my tongue against the upper one, she makes a soft noise, her mouth opening beneath mine. I lick inside, and she moans.
I’m lost then. Sliding my hands to her hips, I pull her tightly against me. It’s less than what we’ve done in front of cameras, on demand and on cue, but this is just for us, and that makes all the difference in the world.
Her hands slip up over my chest, leaving a trail of heat in their wake, and to the back of my neck, where she sinks her fingers into my hair. Then she presses against me, arching into the hardened ridge of my cock, until a gasp escapes her mouth, the air brushing over my cheek.
“Callie,” I murmur, turning us until her back is against the hallway wall. She wraps her leg around my waist, or tries to, and when I curve my hands under that very fine ass to help her keep her balance, she pulls herself up fully against me.
And I can’t resist the urge to thrust against her, the memory of her, wet and tight around my fingers, coming through loud and clear. I want to be inside her. But more than that, there’s a driving desire to have that moment of togetherness, not just me inside her because it’ll feel good, but the two of us joined in a way that will change everything between us.
I want us to be one, Calista-and-Eric, cemented together in a way that we’ve never been before.
I bury my nose against the side of her neck, the warm scent of her flooding my senses. Trailing my mouth down her neck to her collarbone, I pause to nip at the soft skin, and she squirms against me. “Eric,” she whispers.
“I know, baby, I’ve got you.” The heat of her against me is making me kind of crazy, but I’m determined not to rush this.
Using the pressure of my body and the wall to keep her in place, I slide my hand up under her shirt to cup her breast, my thumb caressing her nipple, hard beneath the soft lace of her bra. When I tweak it gently, pinched between my thumb and forefinger, she jolts against me, and my mouth curves against hers in a smile. I cannot wait to explore every inch of her, finding all the places that make her cry out and tremble.
Then she stops, her whole body tensing up.
Concerned, I pull back. “Callie? Calista? Did I hurt you?”
Her eyes are shut, and she’s breathing hard. She pushes her hands against my chest, and I let her down, gritting my teeth against the slide of her body against mine. “What’s wrong?” I ask, the strain in my voice more evident than I’d like.
She shakes her head rapidly, her tongue darting out to her kiss-reddened lips. “This is a bad idea,” she says breathlessly. “Every time we get tangled up, we end up hurting each other. Actually, I end up getting hurt. I’m … I can’t do that right now. Not again.”
I stare at her, the shock taking a second to sink in, like the pain of a slap. I might not be able to turn away, but she can, even though she can barely look at me when she says it. It’s that scar tissue showing through, from the damage I did before. She doesn’t trust me. And I probably—no, definitely—deserve that. “Calista, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
But she stares down at her hands, locking her fingers together. “If you need me to leave, I understand completely, and I’ll—”
I exhale sharply, trying to get myself under control. “Christ, Callie, no. You don’t need to go. Even if it’s not like that. Even if we’re not like that. I will always want you around.”
She searches my face for a long second, and then nods, evidently assured by whatever she sees there. “Okay.”
Which is good because it’s the truth. I just have to talk my dick down long enough to believe it.
The silence is awkward with the lingering heat between us and our still-accelerated breathing.
I inhale through my nose, trying to slow it all down. “Okay, so, uh, let me just get sheets for the couch. I have some around here somewhere. You can take my room. I cleaned it up yesterday.” Basically when I moved back in. “But let me get Bitsy out of there first. She kind of gets territorial over my pillows.”
Calista shakes her head. “I’m not kicking you out of your bed. The couch is fine.”
“Callie.”
“Eric. It’s fine.”
And there’s enough steel in her voice that I know better than to argue.
I give up with a shrug. “Whatever.” It comes out sounding angrier than I mean it to. But I’m not angry with her, just myself. We can’t seem to figure this out between us, and maybe we’re not meant to. Maybe I blew the one chance we were ever going to have. If so, I have to live with it—another mistake. But this one hurts so much more than the others.
21
CALISTA
Eric’s couch is uncomfortable. The cushions are too … soft. It’s like sinking into marshmallows. Or maybe it’s that the leather beneath the sheet is too slippery, or that the entire thing is tipped too much, so I keep rolling into the crevice between the cushions and the back.
Or maybe it’s just me.
I let out a slow breath, staring up at the darkened ceiling. Eric left on the stove light in the kitchen—“In case you need to find the bathroom in the dark,” he said gruffly—so I can just make out the decorative swirls in the ceiling above me. Some kind of imitation-Art Deco design that’s probably expensive.
It’s quiet in the condo. My phone is silent because I shut it off after the barrage of texts my mother sent in response to my message that I was fine, with a friend, and she should NOT call the police. With my issues, I’m sure she was already imagining me facedown in the gutter with a needle in my arm.
After Eric took Bitsy out for the last time, an hour or so ago, he went to bed with a barely audible, “Night” in my general direction.
There’s no sound from his bedroom. I strain for the sound of him moving beneath his covers, the rustle of fabric or a soft inhale or exhale. But there’s nothing beyond the occasional faint jingle of Bitsy’s tags as she moves or adjusts. For all our closeness over the years, Eric and I have never slept together, literally slept. I used to fall asleep sometimes during movie nights—there’s really only so many Michael Bay-orchestrated explosions one can endure before numbness sets in—but I’d wake up to Eric gently shaking my shoulder or tickling my feet until I screamed with laughter or begged for mercy.
Turning over, I stare at the coffee table, where my clothes are folded. With the sheets, Eric had handed me one of his old T-shirts. A Starlight shirt for a charity event we’d both supported back in the day. It’s worn—probably one of his workout shirts—and far too big on me, enough so that I can pull my knees up beneath it, curling into myself. But it’s little comfort.
I hurt him tonight. Eric. I saw it in his face. And maybe he deserves it for some of the crap
he’s pulled. How am I supposed to trust him with my heart—or anything else—after what we’ve been through? What he’s put me through.
A tear slips down the side of my face, dampening the pillow case.
But I love him. I’ve loved him … it feels like forever. Corny as it sounds, it’s like my life had one of those photo filters that dulls everything and makes it look bleached out until the day I walked into the Starlight auditions.
Until he stepped between my mother and me like she didn’t exist. Treated me like a person instead of an object. I would love him forever for that alone.
But love doesn’t fix anything or solve your problems. In my experience, it just makes things worse. Gives someone another way to hurt you. A better grip to cause you pain or bend you to their will.
And yet I’m lying here, trying to listen for the sound of him breathing. Wishing I was in there with him, curled up at his side. Wishing I’d had the courage to say yes instead of no.
Yes, odds are, we would mess each other up, break and bend each other. His relationship with Katie just ended, and there are bound to be repercussions from that. I couldn’t figure out how to sever myself from my family, or if I even should. I hate his father and would have zero hope of disguising that, and yet, he probably should have a connection with the only parent who hasn’t essentially abandoned him.
But worst of all, I’m realizing that I don’t trust myself to make good decisions, and if Eric is one of those decisions, how is that supposed to work?
More tears trickle down to the pillow, and I draw in a quiet breath, trying not to sniffle.
The problem is, none of that changes the essential nature of what I feel. I am … empty out here without him. I miss him when he’s only thirty feet away. And no, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but that doesn’t change tonight.