by A. B. Wilson
I held back from flippantly suggesting delivery and nodded in sympathy. My nod turned into a full-body shiver as Markus abruptly slammed the Fernet, slid the glass aside and downed half the wine. Looking up, he made eye contact with the bartender and held up his glass to request a refill. “Bring the bottle, please,” he called over to the bar.
He took a deep breath and slowly fanned his fingers out on the table, cracking each individual knuckle like he was preparing for a prize fight while we waited for the bartender to refill our glasses. “I know I’ve still got some things to process, but I feel free for the first time in ages.”
I looked at him, not completely sure he was being honest with himself. “I don’t know, Markus, it usually takes a while to work through this kind of emotional trauma.”
“Yeah, but isn’t admitting you have a problem the first step on the way to recovery? I’m ready to leave that behind. And watch this.” He pulled out his phone, swiped to the message screen for Kate’s string and tapped on her contact info. Then, with me watching and a theatrical flourish, he tapped ‘Block Contact’ decisively. “There, done.”
I clapped while he grinned proudly at me. He was finally taking control and I knew how that felt. That first step was liberating. “Congrats, Markus, that’s fantastic. Really proud of you.”
He shrugged bashfully under my gaze and started dragging his fingers through the condensation droplets from our waterglasses on the table. “Thanks. I kind of don’t want to think about it or her anymore tonight—she’s not worth the energy.” He paused to finish his second glass of wine and looked me dead in the eye. “I sort of want to celebrate being out of that relationship. Can we do that?”
“Hmm. Yes, I suppose.” I attempted a straight face, but he was starting to slur as the alcohol kicked in and his accent made him sound like the Terminator. He grinned sloppily back at me and the room seemed to brighten with his excitement.
“More wine? And maybe we should order some food. What do you feel like? Can I get really drunk now, or is that frowned upon?” He was so full of questions.
I laughed. “Yes, yes and yes, we should totally order food.”
Things got kind of blurry once we left Forse. There was a lot of stumbling into each other, a kind of loose, casual intimacy growing between us that was beyond the usual touchy-feeliness of intoxication. I had to keep reminding myself who he was, why he was with me and that we weren’t a couple. We were friendly blips on each other’s radars. I was ‘there for him’, as the saying goes. Nothing more or less.
Still, we drank soju and sang karaoke at a dive bar in Koreatown. We danced on the table in the tiny private room we were assigned and shouted the words to Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now with our sweaty foreheads mashed together, centimeters away from kissing as he stopped the chorus and stared transfixed at my mouth. The air between us felt electrified, the moment only broken when the lights flickered to let us know that it was last call.
We weren’t terribly far from my house at the time, so I pulled Markus into my cab, ignoring his demands to be taken to a hotel. There was no way he was going to be able to get a hotel room in his current state without the paparazzi finding out, and I was honestly shocked that we hadn’t already been discovered.
Too drunk to do more than pout about me ignoring him during the car ride home, he slouched down in his seat and dropped his head to my shoulder. When we got to my house he was barely awake and I had to haul him inside. He made it up the narrow staircase on his own, though, and careened into the bathroom attached to the master bedroom.
I pulled out the futon for him in my tiny spare room and made it up with a mismatched set of sheets. Maybe if he passed out on the diagonal, his six-three frame would fit. Mentally shrugging and washing my hands of the sleeping situation, I wandered across the hall into my room and found him sitting on the edge of my bed, head starting to droop.
“The bed is ready for you. I’m sure you’re tired.”
“I am. Thank you for everything tonight, Alina. That was the best celebratory end of a relationship… Ever.” His voice was gritty with put-off sleep, his accent making his words almost unintelligible now that he was drunk and tired. He tugged me closer and kissed my head. “Goodnight,” he said as he heaved himself to his feet then staggered away with a heavy list to the right.
I stripped down to my underwear, braided my hair back and grabbed a ratty college basketball T-shirt with cut-off sleeves. The fatigue and emotional overload of the day started to hit at that point and I slid into bed, grateful for the silence and reflecting on the warmth in his stare as he’d said goodnight. The attraction was there, for both of us, but I wasn’t sure if either of us would ever be ready to act on it. As I was starting to doze off, I heard quiet footsteps padding into my room toward the bed.
“Alina. Psst. Are you awake?” a tired voice slurred. “You weren’t kidding. That futon is a death trap. Let me in.” A bony finger poked my shoulder.
I scooted over and felt the mattress depress on the other side as a long, lean body slid in and under the covers. “Mmmhm, so much nicer. So cozy,” he murmured.
Two seconds later, I heard light snoring from the lump behind me and I reached back to pat him awkwardly on the shoulder as my own eyelids shuttered.
* * * *
I woke up hot and starving, with the hangover from hell beating into my brain. As a minimal level of clarity set in, I recalled that I was definitely not alone in my bed. A tall, mostly naked, sculpted-from-granite German actor was wrapped around me. The man felt like he had at least eight appendages, all trying to snuggle me to death. Or maybe five, given the hard-on I felt throbbing against my ass. Fuck, that feels good.
I bit my lip, trying to hold back a moan as his arms tightened around me, eliminating the millimeters of space between our bodies. I could feel every minute movement, every hitch of our increasingly ragged breathing. His very large, very warm hand slid from my stomach over my ribs to stroke the side of my breast through the gap in my shirt as he groaned, and I swore I could feel the individual ridges on his fingertips.
“So soft,” he murmured faintly.
I rolled my hips in response and, as light as a butterfly, he skimmed over my nipple with his thumb, circling it gently as he dropped his mouth to my neck and jawline, where he nuzzled in. My headache seemed to subside with each nip of his teeth on my neck. I arched back harder against him and he growled something in German. While I’d never found that phlegmy language sexy before, I’d also never heard Markus’ hoarse bedroom voice or imagined him talking dirty to me. Because that was what I was convinced it was—a whole lot of
He pressed his hand against me and slid from my breast back to my hip with increasing pressure to pull me flush against his erection. The soft cotton of our minimal clothes was almost too rough against my skin—my nerves and senses all felt like they were on high alert, like my fight or flight mechanism had been activated. Only, there was a third option screaming at me to fuck it all. He ground against me while sliding his fingers beneath the waistband of my underwear to stroke through the tantalizing wetness of my arousal. The rough touch of his callused fingers on that sensitive skin shocked me fully awake.
I flipped over to face him. His eyes were already open, pupils blown wide. Slowly, so slowly, our heads inclined toward each other, our eyes closed and our lips pressed together. I teased his lower lip with my tongue and he pulled back abruptly. We considered each other for a heartbeat. “How long have you been awake?” I asked breathlessly, trying to keep my mouth covered.
“Hmm. Not very long. I was having the most incredible dreams. Your bed is very comfortable.” He stretched his arms over his head and blinked at me. “That was a lovely wake-up call, too.”
“Yes, lovely,” I said in distraction as I glanced at the clock and realized that I was going to be late if I wasn’t in my car racing toward the studio within the next five minutes. “Shit, I’m going to be late. You don’t have to be on set till later. What are
your plans?”
“Mmmhmm,” he hummed as his eyes shuttered again. “If you don’t mind, could I crash here for a bit? I don’t have anywhere to be and I still need to get my car back from the bar.”
I gave him a long look as he lay there super innocently with his eyes purposefully closed, little tufts of his hair messily scrawling jagged little notes on my pillow. “Uh. Huh. Sure. You’re welcome to invade my space for the morning. But you better be on set on time today, and we are talking about this very friendly wake-up later. Don’t forget my keys.”
“’Kay. See ya later.” He turned and burrowed back under my covers, effectively ending the conversation.
I crept into the shower, embarrassed that I could still feel his soft kiss tingling on my lips. What was there even to say? If we allowed this fire between us to burn, I was the one who’d get hurt. He’d walk away unscathed, the typical Hollywood stud who notched off yet another grasping crew member. That was the last thing I needed.
Chapter Eight
Markus
The door slammed shut behind her and a few minutes later her car’s tires crunched over the gravel driveway as she left for the set. I had no idea what my dick had been thinking, but messing around with my new best friend in her bed with the hangover from hell and the worst breath on the planet had not been my most suave move. But for fuck’s sake, her skin was the smoothest and softest that I had ever touched. Every one of her curves had fit seamlessly against the harder edges of my own body.
I wrapped my hand around my cock and stroked myself idly, getting harder and harder, imagining a whole scenario where morning sex was an actual option. If we could actually be together. How she would look beneath me, my hands holding her wrists above her head, begging her to open her eyes and watch me, watch us… So lost in this erotic vision, I wasn’t ready when I started to come uncontrollably hard, her face fading from my mind’s eye and into oblivion.
I threw off the covers and shook myself like a dog getting out of a lake. What the fuck am I doing? Without dressing, I strode into the bathroom to shower. As the water heated, I considered whether I was still drunk or delusional, fantasizing about Alina when I had ten times the usual amount of pressure on me. I’d only recently been dumped, that wound still smarted, and my ex was possibly stalking me. I was persona non grata in my industry and relying on a tiny role on a failing TV show to re-up my image.
My attraction to her was easy to explain—she was beautiful, smart, tenacious and hilarious. But I wasn’t sure I was ready for anything serious. Plus, other than this morning, she hadn’t seemed interested in acting on any attraction she might have felt, and I couldn’t ever see her wanting to try something with me—an actor on her show. I had a feeling she wasn’t into the whole workplace romance thing. Romance? Shit.
The steam billowed into the bathroom when I opened the stall door to step in. The tiny fan worked overtime above the sink, attempting to dispel it. Alina’s shower had a window facing the beach, and I watched little groups of people wander around the water’s edge as I cleaned myself up. Getting out, I wrapped a towel around my waist and grabbed my jeans. The smell of stale smoke and cheap booze emanating off my clothes made me want to vomit, so I brought them down to the laundry room, threw them into the wash with the bedding and started a cycle.
I glanced at the clock on the stove and saw that it was still early, before eight o’clock. Time to get caught up with my team. I’d been deliberately dodging everyone but Will, and I’d managed to keep that to one or two calls. Pretending things were normal. Super healthy. A conference call would be easier, so I shot Will, Roger and Claire—my manager, lawyer and P.R. rep, respectively—a group text scheduling a call in the next hour. We needed to make final plans for announcing the break-up with Kate and managing any fallout. The initial messaging we’d put out about us being on the rocks had gone smoothly, but it turned out that breaking up with one of America’s Sweethearts was complicated.
As I curiously rifled through Alina’s pantry to scavenge for breakfast, I smiled when I hit jackpot and discovered the four varieties of kids’ cereal hidden away at the back of the very top shelf. I tried to eat healthy, but sugary cereal was my Achilles’ heel. We simply hadn’t had that kind of thing when I was growing up in Germany, and eating it made me feel like I was getting away with some sort of crime.
After eating, I put my dish in the sink, moved the laundry to the dryer then got on the phone with my team. Claire promised a full media plan, which was ridiculous since our break-up was really no one’s business but mine and Kate’s. Will gave me shit for not talking to Michael yet about making my role more permanent and Roger received the green light to start assembling the legal documentation to supplement the potential new contract.
After we all had our marching orders, we signed off the call. I took a last look around Alina’s house before leaving, touching the homey little objects she’d picked up for no other reason than they had meaning to her—a collection of geodes and crystals on her desk, the 1970s-style chunky weavings in blues and greens on her wall. I scribbled a fast thank-you note and headed out to track down my car.
* * * *
The lot was humming as I drove in, parked and headed to the set with an eye and ear out for both Michael and Alina, hoping to corner him with my pitch to make my role permanent and her to back me up. I didn’t see either of them immediately and checked in with one of the production assistants before stepping into my trailer, where a semi-familiar makeup artist was waiting.
“Hi, Markus. Let’s get you going. You’ve got kind of a busy afternoon ahead of you.”
“I’m sorry. What is your name again?”
“Candace! We’ve met before? Alina and I were roommates in Savannah. She’s the best. You guys are friends—right?”
“Sorry, Candace, I’m terrible with names. Yeah, I remember seeing you at the house briefly after I rescued your friend from that natural disaster of her own making.” I smirked at her and she laughed.
“Oh, yeah. Alina is fantastic at crafting her own disasters. Thank god you were there to save her,” she joked.
“Hey! What are you two saying about me?” Alina’s offended cry preceded her as she made her way over to the vanity where Candace was working on me and leaned up against the edge.
“You know, reviewing your capacity for boneheaded decisions when venturing out into the world. I’m still pissed at you for that rock-climbing stunt. No one knew where you were and you could have been—” She cut herself off as she frantically started rifling through her toolbox, muttering about butterfly brushes.
Alina sighed and reached over to pull a brush out from behind Candace’s ear. “Here, I think you’re looking for this. Promise it won’t happen again. Markus, you’re needed in ten on stage three. I’ve got to run, craft services fucked up big-time and Michael doesn’t have his green M&Ms to pacify him. We may have a monster on our hands.” She winked at me in the mirror and I watched as she whirled around and bustled away, face already buried back in her ubiquitous clipboard.
Candace nodded decisively and finished dusting me with powder. “Anyways, I’m about done with you too, and then you can throw on the clothes over there and head out to find Michael. Good luck, no green M&Ms are a bad sign.”
The door closed as I moved over to the couch where a few things were laid out for me. I quickly sent Alina a text.
Didn’t get to thank you for the Cocoa Puffs this morning. They’re my favorite, thanks for the three bowls. Also, I left your house intact and locked up.
Then I waited for her response, hoping that she’d tracked down those green M&Ms. A few minutes later, I saw the dancing dots of a reply and smiled happily, imagining her staring at the phone, fingers flying over the keyboard.
THREE BOWLS OF MY CEREAL??? You bastard. Hope you’re not as hungover as me.
I grinned at my phone like an idiot and responded.
Yeah, do I have time to grab coffee before I need to be on stage three?
&n
bsp; Yeah, Michael’s pushing back the call time by 30 min, was going to text you anyways. I’m in craft services attempting to caffeinate. Come over if you’re bored.
I headed over to the craft services setup, where I found Alina deep in conversation with one of the casting agents.
As I approached, I overheard the agent say to her in a frustrated whisper, “Girl, you’ve got to get your shit together and pick someone. I know that Michael is giving you hell over this, but I can’t keep pulling in talent for one measly scene without breaking the budget here.”
“Yes. I’m aware,” Alina muttered. “You know who my top three are so far. I’ll have a decision made before we leave.”
The casting agent spun around and flounced off, her hand going up to tap her headset to make a call.
“Fun times?” I asked in my best Michael impression, then enjoyed watching her jump about three feet in the air. She whipped around, realized it was me then deflated. She leaned toward me, butting her head against my shoulder.
“This has been my morning—nonstop bitching from Michael and Casting trying to find a woman for the dumbest extra role that his royal bitchiness somehow thinks is important,” she complained, her voice muffled by my shirt.
I looked around. We were attracting curious glances from everyone in the vicinity, so I stepped away abruptly and jerked my head in the direction of the smoking area. “People were staring, not that I really care, but people talk and the last thing you probably need is to be linked to me.”
“Oh! Shit. You don’t care? Huh, I mean, I guess I don’t either. They’re complete idiots if they think you’d be into me.” She was trying to be self-deprecating, but I immediately bristled at her put-down.
“They wouldn’t be wrong,” I muttered as I patted my pockets in search of a lighter. She gaped at me and I rushed to change the subject. “Why the epic quest for an extra?” I tried to joke as I lit a cigarette that I truly had no interest in smoking.