Second Chance

by Willow Winters

  “Yes,” I reply hesitantly. Time is blurring past me as I go through the motions. The only time I feel in control is when I’m on set. When I’m someone else.

  “What’s it like working with your former flame?” she asks me, catching me off guard even though I knew this question would be coming.

  My lips twitch into a small smile and I let out a small laugh, although it’s rehearsed and for good reason. “It’s wonderful seeing Nathan again,” I say easily as a blush creeps into my cheeks.

  Margo cocks a brow at me and a few people whispering just outside of the green room where the interviews are conducted, catch my eyes.

  “Is he the reason you got into acting?” she asks me, her pen poised and ready to take notes. “It seems like he played a major part in getting you this role.”

  I blink away the sleep from my eyes. I couldn’t sleep last night because all I could think about was the past. It’s been years since the nightmares have haunted me. But they’ve come back with a vengeance.

  “I knew he was acting, obviously, but I never watched any of his movies.” I stumble over my words and tuck a stray hair behind my ears. Scooting up in my seat I take a moment to clear my throat before answering, “I didn’t expect him to be here, to be honest.” I glance at the floor as I answer. It’s a clean and bright walkway; nothing can hide on a floor like this. “It’s not like I sought him out if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “It’s not, but speaking of that, did you not ever reach out to him? This was all just a big surprise?”

  She asks me as though it’s not a coincidence, and it makes my heart race and my hands go numb. I never wanted to see him again when the visions of that night disappeared. I didn’t want the reminder when I thought my life was normal once again. “I didn’t. We thought it was best …”

  I swallow thickly and lick my lips, trying to pull myself together.

  “I’m sorry dear, you must be exhausted from such a long day of work. And it looks like you didn’t get much sleep,” she adds with a bit of humor and a wink. I let out an uneasy laugh although I know what she’s implying. I don’t care though, I just want to get out of here and go hide.

  “What was it like to go to school together?” Margo asks, maintaining her questioning about the relationship rather than the actual production, which is what Nancy assured me this would be about.

  “I didn’t know that was known,” I answer as I tug my dress down a little farther and cross my ankles, but keep my knees touching. It was more for me than her, but before I can respond with any more she asks, “Oh, you don’t want it out there? Is there a reason?”

  My body heats. It feels like a fucking inquisition. I simply shake my head no, keeping my lips pinned shut. There’s no way I’m giving this woman any more ammunition.

  “Do you mind if I ask what was it like the last time you saw Nathan? Before filming?” She’s seemingly sweet and unassuming in her questioning, but there’s a vulture behind her eyes, waiting for the perfect time to swoop down and claim its kill. I can see it.

  I bite the tip of my tongue for a moment before answering, “The last time I saw him was back in high school. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.” I feign a sense of easiness, but the memory of him walking away steals the small smile from my lips. I can’t help that it hurts. The emotions are etched so deeply and entrenched in my memories; they refuse to be ignored.

  I shrug and say, “He was a year older, so I had another year to go before I could leave.” I try to make it lighthearted and joking, but her next question destroys my attempt to sway the questioning.

  “What happened that drove you two apart?”

  She asks the question I didn’t want to hear. But I’m prepared for it. I open my mouth to repeat the words, the script I’ve drilled into my brain for this particular moment.

  My lips part and I take in a small breath, but the words are absent.

  Fuck. I forget the lines.

  “He did something that really hurt me.” I shake my head no, closing my eyes and trying to remember anything about our past except that night. “That’s not it, I’m sorry,” I say and press my fingers into the lines creasing my forehead. “We didn’t go well together. Always fighting and then I thought …” Damn it. I wish I could just think of something. I open my eyes and see everyone watching. What did I already say? Shit, I can’t remember.

  “We broke up because we just weren’t meant to be,” I tell her and it shatters my composure. I don’t lie. At least I try not to. But that’s the worst lie I’ve ever told.

  “Oh dear, I can tell this is hard for you,” Margo says and plucks a tissue from the box beside her chair, passing it to me. “Take your time, Harlow,” she says as she tilts her head with sympathy. Of the two of us, she’s the better actress right now.

  I was a dumbass to think this interview would be anything other than a predator prying for information to gossip about.

  I shake my head and breathe out deeply before saying, “We were oil and water back in high school. All we did was fight. I can’t remember what the last one was about.” I shrug and add, “But we didn’t get back together like we did all the times before.”

  “Oh, so you were on-again, off-again?” she asks and I nod, thankful that she’s letting the question go. “I imagine that’s the way it is dating the bad boy in high school.”

  I huff as I roll my eyes. I never thought of him that way. Not once. There was something else though. Something that crackled between us and drew me to him.

  “He wasn’t really a bad boy, to be honest. He was quiet and kept to himself,” I say as I remember the first time I looked behind me in class. I can still feel his eyes on me and how he refused to let my gaze go. “There was an air about him that told me he was bad, but he didn’t really get into trouble. He was just from the bad side of town; you know?”

  I answer as if I’m talking to a friend, and that’s a mistake.

  “He was arrested though,” she says as she places her pen down and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I would say that’s a bad thing, wouldn’t you?”

  “That was after we broke up,” I say defensively.

  It was months later that he started doing stupid shit. It was one fight after another once we split up. He was expelled after a fight that ended with the other kid’s nose being broken. I found out later it was because Matt was talking shit about me. I thought maybe I could approach him then, but he’d never been colder to me than that day I showed up at his house.

  Even worse, he got caught for stealing, not once but twice and the second time was when they locked him up. When I first saw him being arrested, I thought the cops had found out the truth, but turns out it was just petty theft and we’d gotten away with everything. It didn’t make anything feel better; it didn’t make anything right.

  “Oh, is that so? Do you think the breakup had anything to do with his outbursts?” she asks and I don’t have an answer.

  Again, my mouth parts but the words just hang there, refusing to leave me. I never thought about it like that. I remember thinking he wasn’t the boy I loved. That he was someone else.

  I never thought it was all an act.

  Blinking away the memories and confusion, I start to tell her that we were just two young and dumb high school kids, to try and blow off her questioning, but when I raise my eyes I catch sight of him watching me.

  The cold in his gaze is back and it sends a chill down my spine.

  With that look, I know I’ve said something I shouldn’t have, but I don’t know what.

  Chapter 13

  Nathan

  * * *

  All I keep thinking about is Hally implying I wasn’t a bad guy until I left her. You do stupid shit when you blame yourself and you’re convinced you aren’t worth a damn thing.

  I think I wanted to get caught. I wanted to go to prison like the criminal I was. It made it easier to forgive myself for leaving her the way I did.

  Fuck, some nig
hts I prayed that she would tell someone so it could all just end. But she never did. That was the worst torture of them all.

  Everyone around me, walking through the hall of dressing rooms, must know I’m pissed and I don’t care. My hands are shoved in the pockets of the suit pants I’m wearing for the scene I just did, and my tie is loose around my neck. I pace back and forth outside of her room waiting for her agent to leave.

  The oxford shoes I got from the set stomp the floor as I walk, ignoring how everyone passes by me, each of them tearing their stare away from me as I look up from watching my feet hit the ground. Stomp, stomp, stomp. The steps are only dulled by the thick carpeting.

  I’m sure Nancy is telling her that she needs to go into an interview more prepared than she was. Maybe it’s Nancy’s fault. She should have prepared her.

  What’s done is done, but the information she gave Margo is going to give me a fucking PR nightmare. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I check the name.

  Mark.

  To hell with that, I’m not taking it. There’s only one person I want to talk to about that interview.

  The sound of her door opening stops my feet right where they are and I turn to see Nancy taking a step down from the makeshift dressing room and easily closing the door behind her. She sees me when she lifts her head, simultaneously searching for something in her oversized bag. She gives me a smile as if everything’s just fine and says, “Mr. Hart.”

  I watch her leave, knowing there’s more going on behind the scenes and very much aware that she’s a better actress than I gave her credit for.

  I don’t knock and I don’t ask to come in, I barge in and catch Hally by surprise. She jumps at her seat on the vanity, putting a hand to her heart as I close the door behind me.

  “Nathan,” she says with bit of shock in her voice, but she doesn’t look me in the eyes.

  “What were you thinking?” I ask her, letting the anger out little by little, like the edge of an over boiled pot of water, climbing higher and higher until it’s spilling and uncontainable.

  “Excuse me?” she says with indignation.

  “You made me look like an asshole,” I tell her.

  “I only told the truth,” she says and narrows her eyes to watch me stalk closer to her. She’s defensive right off the bat, ready to fight. Maybe it’s a bad habit, maybe she really doesn’t think there’s a damn thing wrong with the impression she gave the papers.

  “Is that what you want? You want them to hate me? Is this your way of getting back at me?” I ask her and it hurts to say it. I wouldn’t blame her if she was trying to punish me for leaving her. What I did was wrong. There’s no denying that.

  “What was I supposed to do?” she asks as if it was all an innocent accident.

  “Easy,” I tell her as I grip the vanity and lean over her, “You keep talking, don’t acknowledge the question.” I’m very aware of how intimidating I look right now. If someone came in, they’d see I’m angry, hovering over her. But I don’t care. I want to protect her, and us and what we had. And she’s destroying any chance at that by being stupid.

  “Maybe that works for you and your asshole persona but that wouldn’t work for me,” she practically spits at me. “I don’t hide behind a smirk and bullshit.”

  “Is that what I do?” I ask her and cock a brow.

  “You act like you’re some hotshot who’s made it and doesn’t have to deal with the shit problems he creates and then gets mad when they come back and you finally have to deal with them.” Her voice rises as she talks, filling with more and more emotion.

  “Go ahead and get it all off your chest,” I tell her, egging her on when I know I shouldn’t. “Tell me what you really think,” I scoff.

  “You left me because you were a coward,” she sneers at me and then seems to realize what she said. She instantly backs down as she steadies her breathing, her shoulders rising and falling. She doesn’t look me in the eyes.

  If I was a lesser man, I’d flinch from the venom in her tone.

  “Is that really what you think of me?” I ask her, but I don’t wait for an answer. She just said it to hurt me.

  This is why we don’t work together.

  We push each other further and further just because we can. Driving each other into a darkness we’re desperate to be pulled out of. The worst part is that we each want the other to save us, yet we’re so damn willing to shove each other deeper into the abyss.

  The realization takes the edge off my anger and I push from the desk, turning my back to her and running my hands through my hair as I stare at the ceiling. We were toxic for each other back then. This is toxic.

  “Don’t turn your back on me,” Hally says with feigned strength and anger, but the underlying emotion is fear. Fear of loss.

  “I don’t deserve this, Nathan,” she says and again, the anger has waned substantially, leaving vulnerability left in its place.

  She’s afraid I’ll leave, but that’s never fucking happening again. I can deal with the anger. I’ll take it out on her a different way.

  She grips my elbow and pulls me to face her and I let her. Staring down at her and containing everything I feel in this moment, all I can do is tell her, “You put a target on our past; you know that, don’t you? You put a target on me and my background.”

  My voice is low and even and she wasn’t expecting it.

  “I didn’t,” she says and her voice croaks and she swallows instead of finishing.

  “You did,” I tell her as my anger raises, since she’s smart enough to know better. I won’t let her lie to me.

  “I didn’t mean to,” she says as she stares back at me with contempt. “I didn’t mean to, Nathan,” she repeats and tries to calm herself down. She’s a whirlwind of emotion, chaotic and unsure of herself. That’s the Hally I know.

  “I know you didn’t,” I tell her easily and it snaps her out of wherever she was in her head. I want to admonish her, tell her what she should have done and how she’s better than that, but it’s not what she needs. Not right now as her eyes get glossy with tears.

  I don’t hesitate, I wrap my arms around her small body and pull her into me. Her fight is gone, and it’s my fault.

  It’s all my fault.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers and then slowly, ever so slowly, wraps her hands around my waist and rests her head against my chest. Why does it feel so good to hold her close and know that my touch can soothe her?

  It’s not fair. We’re set up to fail.

  “Forgive me?” she asks weakly, and I can’t take it. I’m the one who needs to be forgiven. I reach up and brush my fingers along her throat before cupping her chin in my hand.

  My thumb brushes along her bottom lip as I let the words fade in the space between us. I’m the one who needs to be forgiven. For everything.

  I’m slow as I lower my lips to hers, but she’s quicker, desperate. And I love it. I love her when she does this. When she acts like she needs me more than she does her next breath.

  “Lie down,” I whisper against her lips, and she falls easily onto the bed, her hands still in my hair and her thighs parting for me. The heat crackles between us.

  I watch as her eyes close and her lips part just slightly, her chest rising and falling in a frantic rhythm. This is how she’s always given herself to me, with everything she has and full of vulnerability.

  She’s perfect.

  I leave an open-mouth kiss on her throat, feeling her body move beneath me, pushing against me and wanting more. My hands move of their own accord, knowing every inch as if she’d never left. As if she’s always belonged to me.

  I unbutton her blouse slowly, my deft fingers slipping the buttons free one by one. Her hands trace along my knuckles as I do, her eyes glancing between my heated gaze and where my hands travel, slowly inching lower and lower. Her skin is soft and warm against my hands as I push the shirt aside and plant a small kiss and then another, lower and lower.

  She writhes under me,
arching her back and squirming and it makes me smile against her stomach.

  “Nathan,” she pleads with me, her neck bowed as her nails dig into my shoulders. It cracks my composure. I can try to do slow with Hally. Every chance in the past, I tried. But it’s still impossible.

  I’m quick to pull down her leggings and then take my shirt off, not caring when I hear the telltale sign of a button popping off from being too reckless. It doesn’t matter. I’ll be reckless so long as I can have her.

  Her hands travel to her inner thighs and she whimpers with need. I love that sound; I’ve missed it more than I ever knew.

  “Spread your legs wider,” I tell her in a deep, rough voice, one I hardly recognize and it takes me back to when we were younger. When I felt like she was mine in every way.

  Her eyes slowly open, pale blue and crystal clear and piercing through me as I unzip my pants and push them down, quickly stroking my hard cock.

  It’s the little things she does that drive me crazy. Like how she stares at my length and licks her lips. I rub the bead of precum over the tip of my dick and stroke myself again, wanting so badly to tell her to lick it off, but I’m too desperate to be inside her.

  I need her more than anything.

  Hovering over her, and bracing a forearm by her head, I move my cock between her slick folds, my head brushing against her opening and then up to her swollen nub.

  “You’re so fucking wet for me,” I whisper in a calm voice. How? I don’t know.

  The moment she looks back at me, intent on answering, I slam all the way into her. I keep my eyes on her, watching how her mouth hangs open and a silent, strangled scream accompanies her pussy spasming around my dick.

  I want to keep my eyes on her, to watch every movement and worship every small touch and desperate scratch she gives me, but I can’t. It feels too good. I close my eyes and groan as I pull out quickly and then slam myself all the way back in, buried to the hilt and desperate for more, but afraid it will be over before I’m ready. I don’t give her tight walls any time to accommodate me; I can’t. I need her just like this. Rough and raw and completely at my mercy.