He really should be a model or something, I thought. My manager would be drooling over him. I wondered how he’d gone his whole life without being discovered.
"It's no big deal. It's a prosthetic," he said.
“I wasn’t looking at your leg,” I said. “I didn’t even notice it until you just showed me right now.”
“Seriously," he said, his tone patronizing. "Let it go. It's not a big deal, but you're making it one. You were staring; people do all the time."
“I wasn’t.” I said, this time more emphatically. “I’m not an asshole." Why am I even bothering to defend myself to this guy? Who cares what he thinks?
“No,” he said. “But most people love freak shows. Isn’t that the basis for most reality television?”
I felt heat on my chest, radiating down my arms. I could feel it on my skin. I always got this rash when I was upset, all red and prickly like hives. My mother used to say it was because I was allergic to emotion. It wasn’t a good quality to have in an actress, but hardly anyone knew about it, at least when I was on set. I managed it.
“You do know who I am,” I said.
“What the hell are you talking about?” He seemed genuinely confused.
“Reality show?” I asked. I realized I was standing closer to him now, pointing my finger at his chest. “Is that some kind of snide comment about my wedding?”
"Wedding?" Elias asked. He made a noise, and I couldn’t tell if it was a cough or a laugh. "What are you, some kind of runaway bride?"
“No.” I paused, forgetting for a minute that I was angry. I guess I am, aren't I? “Sort of.”
“So, you're what, some kind of reality star getting married?" he asked. The corners of his mouth were turned up at the edges and he crossed his arms across his chest. He was fucking smirking at me. What a smug asshole.
I didn’t know why I was so pissed off. It was something about that cocky smile on his face, like he was so much better than me.
He knows nothing about me.
"Screw you," I said, turning on my heel and walking into the store. Inside the bathroom, I splashed water on my cheeks. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, at the flush that covered my cheeks and the pink splotches across my chest. I put my hands on the sink and took a few deep breaths.
It was his attitude that got me, that I'm-better-than-you-are thing that cut through me like a knife. I had put my past behind me. I wasn’t that white trash girl anymore. The darkness from my past, it was filed away, boxed up like the shit of mine my mother kept as reminders, like the tattered stuffed bear I used to cry myself to sleep with at night.
It was funny how life worked...you did everything you could to change who you were, to become the person you wanted to become, the person you thought you were. And then it just took one comment from someone to make you feel like that stupid little girl again.
Always thought you were better than the rest of us, River. You're my child, you hear me? You'll never be better than me. No matter where you go, how much money you make, how many fans you have, you'll always be my child.
What she said wasn't meant to be comforting.
It wasn’t true, I told myself. But my heart was still racing. I reached inside my purse and pulled out the small box. As soon as my fingers brushed the leather case, I felt a rush of warmth flood my body. My heart rate started to fall.
I'm just looking, I told myself.
It had been six months since I've done it. I didn't even do it after I walked in on Viper and my sister. I ran my fingertips over the leather of the case, but I didn't open it. Instead, I slid it the kit containing my razor blade back into my bag.
I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palm. The pain was a distraction, not even near the same as cutting. But I focused on it instead.
I took a deep breath, and walked out the door.
And into Elias.
He was standing in front of the bathroom door, not even bothering to be fucking polite about it, his hands on either side of the door frame. Like he owned the space.
The way he was looking at me made me shiver.
The way this girl was looking up at me, her lips slightly parted, this flush on her cheeks that made them all rosy, like she had just gone running or something... I couldn’t fucking think about anything else except being inside her. I didn't move from where I was standing in the door frame, not to touch her. But I felt her inch closer to me.
"Following me?" she asked. Her voice was soft.
"I want to know what you were really looking at back in the parking lot," I said. "If it wasn't my leg, what was it?"
She exhaled forcefully, and I didn't know if she was pissed off or not. Until she answered. "Your ass."
"Excuse me?" I heard her, but I wanted to hear her say it again. I felt this thrill rush through me, and I swear to God all the blood in my body went straight to my cock.
"Your." She took a breath, punctuating the word. "Ass. I was looking at your ass while you were walking in front of me."
I felt myself grin. I couldn't help it.
"What?" she asked. Her lips were so goddamned pouty I couldn't think straight.
"So you're some kind of reality star or what?" I opened my mouth, and that was the question that came out. It wasn’t the question I wanted to ask. The question I wanted to ask was the one about whether she was getting married.
River sighed, loudly this time. "No," she said. "But my wedding was supposed to be televised. Live. Last night. To Viper Gabriel."
"Shit." Viper Gabriel. "You're dating Viper Gabriel?" Now I recognized her. I had seen her on the cover of magazines.
Fuck. She wasn’t just a little bit famous. She was really fucking famous.
And she was telling me she had been checking out my ass.
"Was," she said.
"Was what?" I was confused. I was preoccupied with the fact that I couldn't seem to get the blood flowing back in the right direction - toward my brain.
"Was getting married," she explained. "Past tense. Until I walked in on him and my sister going at it."
"Shit," I said, shaking my head. I couldn’t imagine why a guy who was with her would want to put his cock anywhere else but inside her.
River shrugged. "So now you know why I am where I am," she said. "So why are you here?"
I didn’t know why I did what I did next. I hadn't wanted anyone in a long time, much less someone like this, someone way out of my league.
I kissed her. Hard. Her lips parted as my mouth pressed against hers, and her tongue found mine. Kissing her lit some kind of fire inside me.
I pushed her against the nearby wall, hard- too hard, I thought. I had to tell myself to slow down, but River moaned, and it made me fucking crazy. I grabbed a handful of hair at the base of her neck, and pulled her toward me.
"Remember when you used to kiss me like that?"
River jumped and turned her head at the sound of the voice that cut through the moment between us. The older couple watching us had to be in their eighties. The man looked at us and winked before he spoke.
"Used to?" he asked. "I kissed you like that this morning."
"Oh, I know you did, honey," she said, patting her husband on his sweater-clad arm. "I'm talking about up against a wall like this, not against the wall at home." She lowered her voice, adopted a conspiratorial tone. "He used to be a lot more wild. An exhibitionist."
"I can change that if you brought my pills with you," he said.
River stifled a giggle, and I cleared my throat. "Excuse us," River said, taking my hand in hers and pulling me out of the storefront and back toward the car. When she reached the car, she paused, backed up against the passenger side door, her hands on my waist. She laughed as she touched me, her palms on my chest, smoothing the fabric of my shirt. The gesture felt familiar and unknown, all at the same time. It was a strange mixture.
"I didn't know we had an audience back there," she said.
I kissed her again, needing to feel her against me. As soon as I touched her, I was hard again, and for a minute I was convinced she was going to think I was some kind of sex obsessed pervert. But she arched her back, and I could feel her pressing into my hardness, instead of pulling away.
I can't fucking believe someone like her wants me.
Then she pulled back. I could taste her lips on mine, even after she pulled away. "We should probably get out of here before we have an even bigger audience," she whispered.
I cleared my throat again, reached behind her for the car door handle, purposely not moving away from her. My hand was against her ass, and the movement pulled her toward me. "Still sure you want to come with me?" I asked. The question immediately made me think of sex, and I could imagine being inside her.
Come with me.
When she answered, her voice was breathy. "Yes."
Elias put the top up on the convertible. It made it cozier than before, when we were riding with the top down and the wind blowing.
It was more intimate somehow. There was less space between us, and it was quiet. Still, for a little while, neither of us made any attempt at small talk.
It sounded silly, but I was still reeling from that kiss. All I could think about was the way I felt when he kissed me, my heart racing, my body on edge. I knew I should be sad about my relationship. I should be sad I wasn’t getting married.
Except instead, I felt this huge sense of relief, the weight of a burden lifted from my shoulders.
I felt positively giddy.
I giggled, the sound erupting out of nowhere, this weird release of the tension and stress of the past twenty-four hours. Elias had to think I was a crazy person.
"What?" he asked. "Is it that couple? They were a fucking trip, huh? You think they went in the bathroom and got it on?"
I let out a louder laugh, covering my mouth. Calm your shit down, River. "Yes." I nodded. "Definitely."
"I'll still be like that when I'm eighty," Elias said. "With a fucking hard on for my old lady."
I laughed at his bluntness. Elias just seemed to have no problem saying whatever popped into his head. He was the first person I'd hung out with in years who didn't seem to have an agenda, wasn't working an angle to get something from me.
"That's funny?" he asked.
"No," I said. "It's cute how they were all over each other. I hope I still have the hots for someone when I'm older."
"You'll be a hot old lady," he said. "No doubt."
"Well, in Hollywood terms, that's like ten years away."
"I don't get that bullshit," Elias said.
"Which part?" I asked. "The obsession with staying young?"
"All that crazy shit in general," he said. "It seems like it would fuck with your head. I mean - no offense, you seem pretty normal and all. For an actress, I mean."
I laughed. "Give it a while," I said. "I'll impress you with my brand of crazy."
"Hah." He paused, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove. "Go for it."
"Go for what?"
"Impress me," he said. "What's your brand of crazy?"
I was silent for a minute. My crazy was too much for someone like Elias - someone who seemed like a normal guy, if there was such a thing - to deal with. "Well, I can't give away all my secrets," I said. "But this is probably already on the internet anyway, so I might as well say it here. I took a baseball bat to all of Viper's shit, all his memorabilia and stuff."
"Yeah?" he asked. "So you smashed the shit out of a bunch of his collectibles, because he was fucking your sister? That's like, nothing."
"It was some really priceless stuff," I said, sheepishly. "Like a Heisman Trophy he acquired. And the bat was Mickey Mantle's."
"The asshole deserved it, didn't he?" he asked. "He's lucky you didn't take the bat to his ass. I'm only slightly impressed by the fact that you destroyed a bunch of collectibles."
"Only slightly?" I asked. "I'm not sure if I should be disappointed or scared that you don't think that's crazy."
"Eh," he said. "I wouldn't call it crazy. More like redneck justice."
"Redneck justice, huh?" I asked, my face coloring. All this time and effort trying to get away from my past and my behavior always betrayed me.
Elias looked over at me and winked. "Don't worry, darlin'," he said. "It's a compliment, not an insult. Where I come from, it means you've got some balls."
I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes, and I turned to look out the window, trying furiously to blink them away. Not now. Not here, in front of him, this guy I just met. I was not going to cry. I didn't even know why I was upset.
"Shit," Elias said. "I didn't mean anything by it."
I didn't know why I was crying, just that I felt like I'd been running on an adrenaline high for the last twenty-four hours and now I was crashing hard. I wiped a tear from my cheek.
Elias reached over and touched me. His hand on my leg was warm, the heat radiating through my body. Even through the haze of tears, his touch was electric.
"I wasn't saying you were crazy or anything," Elias said, sounding confused.
"I'm not a crier," I said, sniffling. "I'm really not. I don't know what my problem is."
"It's all right," he said. "I have that effect on women."
"Making them cry?" I asked. I couldn't help but smile.
"Well, sometimes it's hard to be in the presence of someone this good looking," he said, gesturing to himself.
I couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, I can see how that would make them cry."
"Hey," he said. "You know what you need?"
"What?" I wiped the corner of my eye. At least he didn't think I was a total baby. Or was polite enough not to say so to my face, anyway.
"You like drive ins?"
Shit. I stole a glance at her. At least she wasn't crying anymore. I couldn't help but get a little panicked at the sight of a girl crying - what guy didn't feel that way? But I guess she had just broken up with her fiancé and shit. Most girls would be wallowing in a pint of Ben and Jerry's and listening to sappy music - that's how they did it on the movies, right? At least this chick wasn't like most girls- shit, she'd beat her fiancé's collectibles into pieces with a baseball bat.
That was fucking cool.
I could respect shit like that, even if it was crazy.
So, if she was shedding a few tears in the car now, who was I to judge?
"Do I like drive ins?" she asked. "That's kind of random. But okay. You mean like a movie theater?”
“Nope,” I said. “Like a restaurant. Up ahead. I’m starving.”
“Oh,” she said. “You mean a Sonic.”
I rolled my eyes. “While I appreciate the fact that you even know what a Sonic is, being a big movie star and all, no. It’s not a chain. It’s an old place. It's been here since the fifties.” I squinted, watching for it to come into view. “At least, it used to be here. It’s been a few years.”
“Since you’ve been back home?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?” she asked.
“You’re awful nosy,” I said. I squinted as Linda’s Drive In came into view.