“Good to know.” I tug on Amelia’s sleeve. “See you back at the table,” I call out to Pinkie.
As we head back to our table I say to Amelia, “What do you mean that’s why Easton called Ma Maison? What do you mean the photos of Jake Keller threw him?”
“Maybe he saw them,” she says. “Maybe he’s still so angry at you. Maybe he’s hot for you.”
“Ugh, no. I used to be in love with his brother Wyatt. I was thirteen and he was my first love, but it was love none-the-less.”
“I don’t know, Evie. I bet those photos wound him up. He figured he’d see you tonight at Jake’s gig, contacted Ma Maison, and put in a last minute request for a date.”
We pass the kitchen with the steaming pots. An hour ago when I was here with Jake, the place smelled like food porn, but now it smells like Amelia’s perfume, which for some reason never bothered me before tonight, but it does now.
“Whatever. Thanks for picking up the mail.” I tap the letter in my purse. “That letter was from Fan.”
“Get out,” Amelia says. “What did he say?”
“It was weird. He mentioned the photo with Jake, too. He mentioned the box on my bed. Called it a ‘gift.’ You know what he didn’t mention?”
“What?”
“He didn’t mention breaking into my apartment.”
“Why would he?” she asks. “He’s not going to incriminate himself. Besides, maybe he didn’t break in? Maybe he already had a key.”
“No one has keys.”
“Hazel O’Rourke has your keys. That’s how I got your mail.”
“Right,” I say and chew on my lip.
“You gave me a key to your old place two years ago. I watered your plants when you were road tripping with Dylan McAlister. Remember?”
“Right,” I say, wondering if I’ve missed something. Maybe someone really does have a key to my new place.
“You could have left your key for a workman, a delivery guy, your super,” she says. She smiles at Easton as we approach the table.
“Right,” I say. The smile she gives Easton feels like a paper cut. Thin, nearly invisible, but it stings.
“Or you gave it to the new person watering your plants when you left to go on a trip for one of these guys you’re healing,” she says.
“Right,” I say. “I’ve got a question for you.”
“What?”
“Are you going to sleep with him?”
“If he wants me to sleep with him? Yes.”
The paper cuts multiply. Ten. Fifty.”
“That going to be a problem?” She asks.
A hundred. I wonder if one can die from too many paper cuts. Jake smiles at me, leaning back in his chair.
It was so cold that day we ran over the Wolfe brothers. I’ll never forget seeing them cross the path in front of our approaching car. The screech of tires. Punching Mom’s arm because she was manic and texting and wouldn’t stop. The sounds the boys made when we ran into them. I’ll never forget walking past Easton, his seventeen-year-old body bloody and broken, lying on the side of the road on a clusterfuck of a day.
Now Easton’s eyes bore a cold hole through me. Goosebumps raise on the backs of my arms as if anger has arrived in a gust of icy wind that threatens to snap fingers off my hands like frozen twigs.
“You’re my BFF,” Amelia says. “If you have a problem with me sleeping with Easton Wolfe you need to tell me now.”
I felt so helpless when the paramedics hustled Easton into the back of that ambulance. Pain was painted all over his face, turning him into someone I almost didn’t recognize.
I remember standing in the snow while the cops interviewed Mom and I tried to apologize to Easton for the unthinkable nightmare that had just gone down. He spat out “Fuck you,” and my soul shattered into a thousand pieces.
I lean closer to Amelia and whisper, “I don’t have a problem with you sleeping with Easton Wolfe. Do whatever you want with him.”
Jake Keller lies on my bed and I straddle him. I’m wearing a bra and thin, silk panties. He’s shirtless, his six-pack abs contracting as he grinds his rock hard erection against my pelvis.
“Not yet,” I say, and pull away. I stare into his delicious eyes and remind myself how lucky I am to be here. To be the person tasked with healing this sweet man.
His eyes have that glazed over look. “No one likes a cock tease,” he says.
“No one likes an actor who doesn’t campaign to win the big award.”
“Point taken.”
“Where do you go so late at night and come home even later?”
“Where do you think I go?”
“I don’t know. The first night I was here in your house you came home drunk. The second time you knocked on my door you smelled of incense and were stone cold sober. The third time you just sat in that chair in your bungalow next to a stack of scripts. Want to tell me what’s up?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck me first and I’ll take you there you.” He snags my panties with two fingers and slides them off. He unhooks my clasp and I shrug off my bra. He palms my tits, rubbing them, pulling me to him. He takes my nipple in his mouth, and sucks, while kneading my other breast. “So good,” he says and slaps my ass. He hooks his hands on top of my pelvis and rolls on top of me.
I run a hand over his chest, enjoying the way his muscles ripple under my touch. “Take me there first,” I say, “and then I’ll fuck you.”
He kisses me on the lips then lifts my hands over my head. He pins my wrists to the mattress with one hand and lines up his hard, beautiful cock against the V between my legs. He rubs it against my clit until I squirm and moan.
“Changed my mind,” I say. “We should definitely have sex first.”
“Maybe,” he says, “And maybe not.”
“Oh come on. Now who’s the tease.” I arch my pelvis. He’d have to be a eunuch not to want to be inside me right now.
“So demanding,” he says, and pushes his beautiful cock inside me. I shiver. He feels so good. He kisses me on my lips as he rocks into me slowly at first, then harder. I close my eyes and enjoy the Jake Keller ride.
We come.
Me first with his dick inside me, his fingers playing with my clit, my legs on his shoulders. A minute later he explodes. He closes his eyes and bites his fleshy lower lip. He thrusts into me harder and harder. I feel him deep in my center.
He collapses on top of me and I wrap my arms around him, rubbing his shoulders, caressing his back.
“Wow,” he says.
“Wow,” I say. “Time to show me where you sneak away to at night.”
13
Crown of Thorns
CROWN OF THORNS
Half an hour later, Jake parks his motorcycle in the lot across from a Spanish-style church in front of mountainous foothills. We make our way toward St. Agnes Basilica.
“Is this your church?” I ask.
“I haven’t belonged to a church in decades,” he says, and holds out his hand.
I take it and we follow the Spanish pavers punctuating the scrubby short grass to the entrance.
“Except for filming the movie, I hadn’t even stepped inside a real church until I came here with Nikki six months ago,” he says.
“Is this Nikki’s church?”
“I have no idea. Nikki came here for a Women in Film talk that I was giving with one of her friends.”
We walk past gnarled old rose bushes. A worn statue of St. Agnes stands outside the steps leading to the church’s vestibule. Agnes looks kind-hearted. She reminds me a little of Nikki.
It’s surprisingly airy inside the sanctuary with its arched ceilings. Gilded paintings of saints in jewel tones line the walls. Jake pauses at the font, dips his fingers in the holy water, and crosses himself. I follow suit.
“You’re Catholic?” he asks.
“Raised,” I say. “I don’t practice much anymore but it’s in my blood.”
&n
bsp; “Me too. I left in high school.” He walks up a side aisle and takes a seat midway from the front. An older priest is conducting a late afternoon mass, a modest number of parishioners gathered in the front of the church. Jake pats the seat open next to him.
I sit. “The art in this church is gorgeous.”
“My new movie has a scene about the crown of thorns story,” Jake says. “The painting of the crown being pressed onto Jesus’s head weirds me out.”
“Why?” I ask as telltale goosebumps erupt on the backs of my arms.
“If you set aside the faith part Jesus of Nazareth’s story is pretty epic. Similar to Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., he was a peaceful rebel. He bucked the system and suffered the ultimate punishment.”
“I’ll say.”
“His captors crushed that crown of thorns into his skull right before he was crucified to taunt him. ‘Oh, so you’re a Prince? The Son of God? Here’s your crown, dude. Who’s a prince, now?’”
‘This is dark,’ Queasy says, wiggling his hairy toes deep into my stomach.
‘Maybe you should talk about this over a glass of wine back at Jake’s house.’ Hope says.
“I’m the last person to suffer a God complex,” Jake continues, “but sometimes I feel that scorn, you know? ‘Oh, you’re Jake Keller, the movie star? The guy who stars in all the popcorn carjack movies with the stupid plots. Not a real actor. You suck and your acting sucks too.’”
“People can be assholes,” I say. My head hurts.
“I want them to believe the words I say. I want them to take me seriously. I need my words to be taken seriously.” Jake points to the sanctuary at the front of the church. “See that painting?”
“Yes.” Pain throbs harsher behind my left eye and I wince.
“Jesus bears the cross on his shoulders on his way to be crucified. He knows they’re making him haul the instrument of his execution. He knows they were dicking him around in this of all moments. And then he stumbles. Did he know he’d get back up? Or did he wonder if he should just lay on the dirt and let them end it there?”
‘Ground yourself, Evie,’ Hope says.
I pinch the thick web of flesh between my thumb and forefinger, searching for the sharpness of that acupuncture spot to stop me from slipping into a full-blown empathic reaction. But Jake’s burden lies heavy on my shoulders and I am already crumpling inside from its weight. My breath comes quicker, more shallow.
‘Pinch harder,’ Queasy says. ‘Stomp your feet. Shake your fingers. Get a grip.’
‘She’s inside his wound,’ Hope says. ‘She can identify it. Diagnose it.’
I grit my teeth. Jake’s injury is dull and heavy. The anguish, heavy like a mantle on my shoulders, spreads to my throat. It’s thick with bottled-up guilt and unspoken words. Confusion creeps into my brain like a cancer that has metastasized. The cross that Jake bears is almost too much. His sadness makes me want to scream. He carries his own version of the weight of the world and it’s too much. I fear I can’t help him.
“And yet Jesus gets up and moves forward,” Jake says. “Through the pain, through the unfairness, through the shittiness of his messed up situation. He was targeted and taken out because of politics. His arrest was a thuggish power play. And yet he bears that damn cross, moves on, and just gets it done. I don’t think I’d be able to do that. I don’t think I’d have the grace or the dignity or the strength.”
The depression deep in my shoulders will squat there for a few hours. I’ll become smaller on the inside, and let his cross take the outer circle of my being while I occupy the inner circle. We’ll cohabitate like roommates who politely despise each other. Eventually his crucifix will realize I’m not the person that needs to be nailed to it. Eventually it will relinquish its nails and leave.
The priest is giving communion to the handful of parishioners gathered in the front. “The body of Christ,” he says, placing a wafer on a women’s tongue.
“You want to take Communion?” I ask Jake.
“I don’t do that anymore,” he says.
“Why not?”
“It never worked out all that well for me in the past.”
14
Killing Time
KILLING TIME
I sit across from Adam on a low settee at Henri’s boutique department store waiting for Jake to finish up his alterations. “I’m kind of surprised the tailor doesn’t come to him,” I say.
“Salvatore normally does,” Adam says. “But he’s out of the country.”
Ping-ping-ping.
I check my texts.
Mom: When are you coming home?
I sigh.
Evie: I’m at work.
Mom: You’re always at work.
Evie: Someone has to pay the bills.
Mom: I can leave this place you know. I can get a little studio apartment in the city.
Mom: Close to you.
Mom: Or Ruby.
Mom: To be honest with you, I’m not really sure how much good this place is doing for me anymore.
I frown.
Evie: Don’t say that.
Evie: You’ve been doing great.
Mom: I don’t feel so great.
Evie: Are you taking your meds?
Mom: Yes.
Evie: Are you sure?
Mom: Yes.
Evie: Do you have pain anywhere?
Evie: Like back pain. Stomach pain. Heart pain?
Mom: Not really.
Evie: Did you talk to the doctor or nurses about this?
Mom: Yes. Kind of. Not really.
I tap my shoe on the plush carpet embroidered with Henri’s gold and crimson logo.
Evie: Which is it, Mom?
Evie: You either talked to the docs and caretakers at the Institute or you didn’t.
Evie: Yes or no?
Mom: I don’t know!
Evie: Why don’t I call you later today?
Mom: Fine. Call whenever you want.
Mom: I’ll hold my breath.
Evie: Work with me on this, please.
Mom: Fine. I’ve got nothing else to do.
Mom: Just hanging around.
Mom: Waiting for my busy, talented daughters to visit me.
Evie: Call you later.
Evie: Promise.
“Rrr,” I say and shove the phone in my purse.
“A mom text?” Adam asks.
“Yes.” I say.
“I know the exasperated tone well,” he says. “I think it’s universal.”
Jake walks out of the dressing room dressed in charcoal pants, a fitted T-shirt and a casual, cashmere jacket. “What do you think?”
“Hot,” Adam says. “If you weren’t my best friend I’d bang you.”
“The tailor checked my file. He said I gained five pounds,” Jake says.
“The potato chips,” I say. “Still hot. I’d bang you too.”
Jake cracks a smile in my direction. “Yes, please. I thought you’d never ask.”
“Yeah, yeah, get a room.” Adam grabs his phone from his pocket and walks away from the dressing room into the thick of the menswear department. “We’ve got a meeting with Howard from Tru Blue. We can’t be late.”
“This casual, but stunning ensemble works for the premiere right?” Jake asks, striking an affected pose. “The critics usually say I dress like a hobo.”
“You look good to me,” I say, smiling.
“Do you want to check it out thoroughly? You know, in the dressing room?” He pulls me to him. His dick is waking up, insistent, throbbing, against my pelvis.
Lust rises in me and whispers dirty things in my ear. Goosebumps erupt on the backs of my arms. My nipples grow hard. “Tempting.”
He kisses me, and places his hand on my neck, gradually making his way down to my shoulder before landing on the small of my back. This man is making me wet in the men’s department of an upscale Beverly Hills department store, which is a first for me. “But you’ve got a meeting, right?”
�
��Screw the meeting,” he says, nuzzling my ear. “I’d rather screw you.”
“Damn it.” Adam says. “Tru Blue’s pushed back the meeting a couple of hours. No reason to go back home. We’d just have to turn around and come back. Hey, I’ve got an idea to kill some time.” He waggles his eyebrows at us suggestively.
“Nope,” I say. “Not up for that.”
“Me either,” Jake says.
“Stop it, you freakazoid sex-crazed weirdos,” Adam says. “That’s the last thing I want to do with you two. Come with me.”
15
Venice Beach Boardwalk
VENICE BEACH BOARDWALK
“That’s the dress,” Jake says, watching me check it out in the full length mirror at Henri’s Evening Dress department. “Elegant. Pretty.”
“I’d fuck you in that dress,” Adam says.
“No,” Jake says. “You will not.”
“I just mean… never mind,” Adam says.
It fits me perfectly. The fabric is a shimmery silk concoction with metallic threads. I could almost pass for one of those golden statues they give out at the movie and TV awards.
MOVIE STAR Page 8