Playing the Perfect Boyfriend (Gone Hollywood)

by Julie Particka

  “The only problem with that argument is she didn’t ask about you. She asked what you liked about me. It wasn’t about getting in your head, Jade, it was about getting a look inside our relationship.” Her pause made an ugly possibility glaringly obvious. As much as he’d thought they actually reached a deeper understanding, a bonding, through sex, it had only been true on his side. “Shit. That’s it, isn’t it? There’s nothing about me that you’re attracted to if we remove sex from the equation. I’m just your damn boy-toy.”

  “That isn’t what I said.”

  “You didn’t say anything, but you didn’t have to. If there’s nothing besides the sex, what the hell am I? That’s probably why my stupid attempt to show you we could have a future together failed so epically. If I’m not rocking your world, you don’t think I’m worth having in it.”

  Raking her hands through her hair, she yanked on the strands, like that pain was the only outlet she had. Like she was holding herself together by attempting to tear herself apart. “Stop twisting my damn words, and what do you mean have a future together? Why can’t we just have today—right now?”

  “Because right now fucking sucks.”

  “God, you are such a child. That isn’t what I mean. You’re so worried about tomorrow and the next day and the next that you’re not here.”

  He was over making any attempt at coddling her or playing nice. If she wanted him here, then she was getting him here, completely uncensored about his feelings for her. “I’m just trying to be the kind of man you said you wanted. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? I don’t think you have a clue what you want. I think you’re just as lost as everybody else, but you’re too damn scared to admit to it. You pretend to be so sure of who you are, but you’re wearing Jade Easler like a costume, like she’s a role you play.”

  “Maybe I’m not sure what I want. But I do know what I don’t want. Someone who’s going to bail at the first sign of trouble.”

  “You mean someone like you?” He waved toward the suitcases. “Yeah. It must suck to be with someone like that.”

  “I asked you to leave with me.”

  “And you waited a whole fucking fifteen minutes for me to deal with your path of destruction.”

  Jade shook her head as tears welled in her eyes. With the way her lip trembled, part of him wanted to back off, but then she said, “I can’t wait for people to love me anymore. I did it once, and I won’t do it again.”

  That was it. He hadn’t done anything to deserve this. He wasn’t about to sit by and pay for Alfredsson’s sins. “Who? Isak?”

  “My goddamn mother!” Jade shoved past him, her face a mask of hurt and rage. In the bathroom, she braced against the vanity, her knuckles going white with how hard she was gripping the marble. The way she glared at herself in the mirror—it was like she was seeing someone else—someone she hated. Then she looked away, sucking in slow, shuddering breaths. “You want to know my past? You want in my head, Dean? Fine. Here you go.

  “I don’t keep men around because my father ditched when I was twelve. He found something shiny and new and decided Mom and I were too dull for the life he wanted. And I don’t let people inside because before he left, he’d messed with my mother’s head so much she couldn’t operate without him. He was a compulsive liar who did so much gaslighting that she was already a little crazy before the divorce. And with him gone, she blamed herself for everything that went wrong. The woman spiraled into a depression so deep that it was like living with a ghost. My father was gone, and my mother was stuck in her own private hell that didn’t even have room for me. Because living with her in her misery would have been better than being alone.”

  He hadn’t known, couldn’t have pretended to guess at the pain she was carrying. Dean reached toward her, desperate to offer comfort, but she jerked away, the expression in her eyes a mixture of anger, hurt, and most painful of all, distrust. “Kitten, I’m not them.”

  “Not today, but can you guarantee you won’t be in five years? Ten? When you’re thirty-five and your girlfriend is forty-three, is it going to excite you as much? When you’re forty and she’s pushing fifty?”

  Yes. His gut said he’d always want her, but she was asking the impossible. “I can’t promise that, no one can.”

  “At least you’re honest about it. I need to be honest, too.” She closed her eyes and blew out a shuddering breath that seemed to shake her entire frame. “I choose my future, and I’d rather have one that’s safe and boring than one where the floor could drop out from under me any minute. I can’t become like my mother, Dean. I can’t turn into that. She might have survived it, but I know me—I won’t.”

  That’s why she’d wanted Alfredsson. His fearless wildcat was terrified of the future—that’s why she didn’t want to think or talk about it. That’s why she kept insisting on today rather than what would come. “Jade…”

  “Go. Just…go.”

  When he reached out once more and she flinched again, Dean dropped his arm to his side, clenching his hand into a fist to keep from trying again. At the retreat, he’d called her unbreakable, but somehow in just a few hours today, he’d shattered something inside her. She’d never been afraid of him, but now it was like he was the enemy. She’d given a face to her demons—to her fear of abandonment—and it looked just like him.

  Nausea made his stomach twist, and his chest tightened until he thought it would crush his heart. How could he fight for what they’d had when she wanted something he couldn’t guarantee? When she saw him as the road to a future of despair? When she’d already put the great weeks they had together in her past? Based on the way she walked into the closet and shut the door behind her, she’d already put him there, too.

  He laid a hand on the door, wanting desperately to shove it open, to find a way to make things right again. But he couldn’t see a path to that, didn’t have a script showing him how to repair the damage he’d done, much less the damage that had already been there.

  Maybe if he’d never tried to prove he could be like Alfredsson, if he’d just trusted her to embrace what they had rather than slipping into the role of husband like he had a clue what he was doing… Maybe then there would have been a way back from this, but everything he’d done only reinforced what she’d said. She couldn’t trust him because he’d shown her firsthand that he’d step into whatever role she needed him to fill—until he decided to stop. He’d toyed with her damn emotions like she was his audience rather than his co-star. He’d acted like everything between them was transitory, ready to shift—or even disappear—at a moment’s notice.

  He wasn’t stable. He wasn’t trustworthy. When it came right down to it—he wasn’t Jade-worthy.

  His fingers slid down the door as his hand dropped to his side. He didn’t have the right to fight for her—not when he was the reason she’d finally broken.

  Dean didn’t bother collecting his things. He grabbed his keys and was out the door before he made an idiot of himself trying to convince her she was wrong…and wound up destroying her even more.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jade didn’t want to get out of bed Sunday morning. If she was completely honest, she didn’t want to do anything. Sleep sounded good—maybe she could sleep through the whole day and just get up for work on Monday. But when she rolled over, she was forced to confront the empty space next to her.

  A painful lump formed in her throat, choking her as she ran her hand along the too-cold sheets. For seven weeks, Dean had been there. Even when he’d had to leave early for work, she’d been able to roll over and suck in the scent of him from his pillow, gather the remnants of his body heat.

  For a stupid, short while, she’d actually thought she could have it all—have forever with a guy who seemed a perfect fit for her.

  She should have known better. If there was one thing her parents’ divorce had taught her, it was that fairy tales were for kids. There was no happily ever after with Prince Charming, and no warrior knight was going to rush in
on his steed to save the day and slay her demons.

  Nope. She needed to figure out a way to kill the damn things herself, or at a minimum, insulate against them.

  Lying there, she could already feel the tendrils of depression sneaking in, making her question every decision, every word, every thought she’d ever had with regard to their relationship. She had to stop wallowing and do something before it took hold of her like it had when her mother died. And right now, that meant she needed distance from anything reminding her of Dean.

  She rolled out of bed and staggered to the bathroom. After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she watched the water run down the drain. Circling…circling…but there would always be those couple drops that went nowhere, clinging to the side of the bowl until they evaporated or she wiped them away.

  Turning into nothing. Just like her mom had. Living like a ghost in a world of emptiness for years, until some stupid twist of fate finally took her from the world.

  She wasn’t going to do that. One way or another, she was getting out of this condo and shoving on with her life. If she wanted to survive this, she had no choice.

  With nothing scheduled for the day, though, that meant figuring out a plan on the fly.

  “Fuck, flying sounds good.” Wind through her hair, blowing her worries away.

  Turning toward the closet, she spied her black and silver New Balance sneakers. She’d spent many days bemoaning the evils of running and how people would be a lot more into cardio if they knew sex counted. Sadly, sex wasn’t on her list of options today—running was.

  It didn’t take much to throw on her long-unused workout clothes, lace up her shoes, and drive to the hills. The hike and run, on the other hand, took every ounce of energy—physical and emotional—she had in her. She’d barely made it halfway up the trail before the thought of trekking the rest of the way had her almost in tears, and she turned around.

  What the hell was she doing?

  Avoiding turning one bad decision into a whole string of them.

  But she didn’t think sleeping with Dean had been a bad decision, not really. Not the first time. The mistake was in letting him get close enough to make her believe she could keep him. And if she chased after him now, they’d keep coming to this point. Again and again. He’d break her heart, they’d try to make it work. She’d break his. Relationships built on love and sex… Those things faded and changed, and she couldn’t go through that mess with him. It would destroy them both.

  She was so fixated on Dean and how things had gone wrong that she didn’t realize she had started picking up speed, the path’s decline making it far too easy to go too fast, to lose control. To fly just like she had wanted.

  Someone shouted, and she snapped out of her reverie, realizing she had been obliviously heading right for the edge of the path and the steep slope beyond. She tried desperately to put on the brakes, but her right foot hit a low spot and twisted. The momentum threw her forward, and she had just enough time to curl herself into a ball and roll.

  A mountain bike drew to a stop alongside where she landed. As she pushed herself to sitting, the guy pulled out his cell phone. “Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?”

  Jade shook her head and choked back a sob that probably sounded like a laugh. Who the hell was she going to call? She didn’t want anyone to see her like this. No wonder her mother had disappeared into depression—there was nothing about today that Jade wanted to share with anyone. This was her stupid mess.

  “No. I’m good.” Her voice cracked with the words.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Whatever.” The guy stuffed his cell in his pocket and rode on.

  Jade gave herself sixty seconds to wallow in her pain and stupidity. She’d traded one mess for a whole different one, only to find herself still hanging on to the original crap, too. It was like her own version of the life that had driven her mother to stop living.

  No way. There had to be something she could do to avoid that fate. She just needed to stop being an ass and find it.

  “Get up, stupid.” She shoved to her feet, and her right ankle protested violently. Great. One more challenge to add to the list. In the first bit of luck she’d had today, she found a broken branch that was long enough for a makeshift walking stick. One glance at the trail had her wishing she’d stayed in bed all day instead. She started hobbling downhill.

  Every step hurt—her ankle and her heart.

  Mom had been a devout Christian before Dad left. Jade remembered all the times she’d been reminded that God has a purpose and Everything happens for a reason. Mom had failed to find that purpose or figure out how Dad ditching had fit into God’s grand plan. And now Jade was struggling with why God would bring Dean into her life at the very time she was thinking about starting over. Why would a loving deity put her through the ups and downs of the last seven weeks?

  “Jade? Are you okay?”

  She’d just taken yet another agonizing step when the voice hit her like a slap to the face. “Isak?”

  He stopped next to her, kneeling, his own T-shirt barely damp with sweat even though he was clearly here for the same reason she was. “What happened?”

  The trails here were famous for celebrity sightings. She should have considered the possibility of running into him…or Dean. Then again, maybe subconsciously she had. “I tripped.”

  The look he gave her as he checked her injury spoke volumes about her ability to state the obvious. “It’s swollen already. We need to get you off this and have it looked at. Do you want me to call Dean for you?”

  Hello, extra reminder I didn’t need. She bit her lip until the coppery tang of blood hit her tongue. “No. That work-in-progress is done.”

  “Oh.” Not a question. His reaction just one more thing she didn’t have it in her to deal with right now.

  “Maybe a cab, though? One that will come out here to take me to my car?”

  “Still the same black beauty you were driving before?” At her nod, he held out a hand. “Keys. The fire road isn’t far from here. I’ll be back with your car as quickly as I can, and then I’ll help you get to it. You sit down and wait for me—don’t put any more pressure on that ankle.”

  He didn’t even let her sit down on her own. He eased her to the ground, making sure she was situated before he took off at a run down the hill. Jade watched him leave, wondering if he was supposed to be her knight in shining armor. But, if this was really some higher power’s plan, shouldn’t there have been lightning bolts or maybe a bit of a spark?

  Shouldn’t she have felt something other than relief?

  …

  On Dean’s first day back with his roommates, Todrick dropped a bombshell on them. Contrary to all their assumptions, he hadn’t been secretly gambling his meager savings away on poker—he’d gambled on a slim lead about his sister. He’d been disappearing to follow it and had found her. With their parents out of the picture, the two of them reconciled, and he was moving to St. Louis to be with what little family he had left.

  At first, Dean had decided he and Chaz could make it work in the house, just the two of them. Even if Jade fired Chaz—which there hadn’t been any sign of yet—he’d already made contacts that would enable him to find something to make decent money. But after four nights together, Dean realized he had no choice but to get a place of his own.

  He’d hoped being back with the guys would help keep him from dwelling on Jade and how things had gone so wrong so fucking fast. And Saturday night, they’d done just that. Sunday and Monday, they’d tried to do the same thing, by staying up, drinking, and playing cards until one or two in the morning.

  When the makeup artist had commented on the dark circles under his eyes Tuesday, Dean had vowed to go to bed earlier. Of course, true to form, his roommates just stayed up without him, which meant he still didn’t sleep.

  He got home from the studio on Wednesday to the guys arguing about whether or not to have a party that
weekend to snap him out of his funk.

  “There’s nothing to snap me out of,” Dean lied. “I just need sleep so I can do my damn job. No party.” Todrick threw up his hands and stormed out, like he was personally offended. Apparently his grand plan had been to party the last few months of their lease away before moving. Dean rolled his eyes toward Chaz. “He’s really not happy I’m back, is he?”

  Chaz shrugged. “He’s the one with the new life plan. He’ll get over it.” The room fell silent until Dean sank onto one of the bar stools, dinner fresh from the microwave in front of him. “There’s a couple things you might not be happy about, either.”

  “A herd of hyperactive Chihuahuas is moving in? And they hate doorbells?”

  “You might take that better.”

  “Great.” He shoveled a bite of chicken and steamed veggies into his mouth, and it turned to ash on his tongue. No matter how he acted around the guys, he wasn’t dealing well. Life without Jade was life without color. Whatever bad news Chaz had to deliver was unlikely to have any effect at all. “Give me the least bad news first.”

  “How about the least upsetting news first? You left your phone and your agent called. They need a decision on that movie or they’re going with their backup guy. They want to start casting for the female lead next week.”

  “Fuck. I can’t do readings during the week.” He grabbed his phone and called his agent’s number.

  “Pretty sure right now they just need a yes or no from you,” Chaz added. “Something about working around your schedule for final screen tests.”

  At least that was good news. With no Jade in the picture and the need to move out weighing on him, the last thing he wanted was downtime. When the call went to voicemail, he left a brief message saying he’d take the role. “Done. Next.”

  “Since the lease is up soon, this might be good news, but I’m not sure.” Chaz’s gaze shifted toward the window like some fascinating bird had just flown by.