I've Seen You Naked and Didn't Laugh: A Geeky Love Story

by Eden Butler

  “This is ridiculous,” Coop whispered, his eyes faced forward and a small nod moving his head as we left the service room and came outside of the funeral home. There was a crowd gathered on the other side of the stone gate and a long line of paparazzi cameras flashed in quick succession as the pallbearers slid J.J. into the back of the hearse.

  “What is?” I asked Coop, keeping my own impartial expression firmly set over my mouth.

  “This bullshit with you and Will.” His voice was even, and any photos snapped right then would have looked as if nothing were amiss, but his tone was hard and his jaw was tight. The day had taken its toll on him, too, and his emotions were ragged, which is probably why he felt the need to say something, anything, to put his world back to rights, even if it was just a tiny little corner of it. He tugged on my wrist as Jojo consoled Erik, their backs to that gate and the muttering crowd behind it. “I knew you were mad, I just had no idea that things had gotten so…stupid.”

  “What?”

  “Mwen sweet, Raine. Ou fou, the both of you!”

  “I’m not being foolish, Coop.” I pulled him back, away from the crowd, behind a large arrangement of tulips set in a concrete pillar. “You have no idea…”

  “No, you’re right, I don’t. But what I do know is that you idiots have danced around this…whatever you want to call it for a long damn time, Raine. God, anyone can see it inside of ten minutes of being around you two. I certainly can see that something’s very wrong now.” Coop stretched his neck, attention flashing toward the hearse before he focused on me. “Real friendships are a rare, mon dous. They are priceless and when they are lost, there’s no replacing them. Today of all days should teach you that.”

  Coop left me shamed and embarrassed behind that stupid pillar, gaze darting around me as I wondered if we’d been overheard. And then, quick as a snap, Coop was back at Jojo’s side, smiling at a few of the suits as he cracked a joke that had everyone laughing. Behind him, I caught Will’s eye, staring for longer than I’d intended, wondering if he meant to face me, try again to speak to me before Ellie took his elbow and directed him toward the car that would take him to the cemetery.

  “Weak,” I whispered under my breath, moving toward Erik when he called me toward the limo, unsure if the insult I muttered was meant for Will or myself.

  ***

  The reception after the internment was almost surreal. While I understood the need to bring the day’s events full circle, the idea of standing around with canapés and sparkling waters, talking memories and business was ludicrous when what I really wanted to do was go home, get comfortable, drink myself into a stupor and sleep for days. Yet here I was, munching on pâté and drinking San Pellegrino out of a clear plastic champagne flute and resisting the urge to scratch the itch under my left armpit.

  I was pretty much all talked out, all cried out. J.J. was gone, committed to the earth, and Erik was firmly ensconced with his family. He would return home to Sweden for a week to regroup, then join us back in L.A., to begin life again, this time without J.J. in it. Coop and Jojo were making the rounds still, but I had just decided to make my exit, and had taken the final bite of my pâté when I felt someone behind me.

  “We are going to talk—now,” Will said, and he moved to take the glass from my hand to place it on a nearby table. His hand was on my back, moving me from the room and I was too numb, too dull from the day to do more than let him direct me down the hall to an empty room off the main reception area.

  Suddenly my survival instincts kicked in, and I found myself backed up against a wall, with my former best friend, now visibly agitated, looming in front of me.

  “Excuse me…” I tried, but Will was bigger and louder than me. He towered over my 5’8 frame, but that didn’t keep me from pushing him back when he got too close. “You need to back up.”

  It was like he hadn’t even heard me. “I’ve been back for months Raine. Jesus.” He took to scrubbing his fingers through his hair, exhaling like he’d just run a 5k. “I don’t get you, I really don’t. You’re acting like a kid, ignoring me, not returning my texts or my phone calls, even refusing to open the door when I stood there like a fool, pleading with you to let me in.”

  “I don’t know what you’re…”

  “I watched Foo’s deliver to your place that afternoon. That means you were home.” I frowned, waving him off and Will pulled on my wrist. “Probably two #13s. I won’t even mention the fact that you only eat that shit when you’re depressed or worried or that you only eat spicy tuna rolls when you’re all blocked…”

  “Do you have a point?”

  He watched me then, the muscles around his mouth and on his brow relaxing as though I’d asked him to fly me to Mars. The soft decent of his expression twisted something deep inside my chest and just for a second I forgot that he’d betrayed me. I forgot that no matter how much I loved him, he’d never feel the same.

  “A point? Yeah, I have a damn point.” He took another step into me, until my back met with the wall and my low yelp sounded against the marble floor. “One of my best friends died. And you…Jojo told me you knew about it before any of us. Erik called you first, but I had to hear about it from some damn kid on Twitter.”

  “It wasn’t my fault…”

  “I’ve been your best friend for ten years,” he cut me off, voice shaking nearly as much as his fingers that trembled as he kept fanning them through his mussed hair. “J.J. was like a brother to me and for whatever reason you won’t share with me, you were so pissed at me that you didn’t bother to tell me he died on the tennis courts at some prissy Santa Barbra country club?”

  “Will…”

  "I can take you being a whiny little shit, Raine. Whatever I did to make you so mad, whatever it was that had you acting like I didn't exist, I could handle. But this? Acting like how I might feel when J.J. died meant nothing? That I didn't even deserve to know? That is low, even for you. That... that hurt, Raine. I can't tell you how hurt I was, how terrible I felt, on losing J.J., and being kept on the outside looking in when I lost someone so dear to me."

  He shook his head, stepping back and a few feet away as though he couldn’t look at me just then. I felt gut punched. But I deserved it. It was true - I hadn't stopped to think of how he must have felt. It hadn't even occurred to me. I had been a shit and selfish and damn hurt, but I still should have been able to see what it would have meant to him, as well.

  And now here he was, all his defenses down, the real Will, hurting and lost. Will never let anyone see him like this. Not the real him. Not the Will raised around Vegas show girls, who spent the first ten years of his life traveling wherever his mother had a standing gig. Not the Will who never met his elderly father or any of the half-sisters who tried kicking him out of his inheritance. Not the Will who valued friendship over loyalty and who didn’t believe much in monogamy. Not the Will who drank himself stupid every year on the anniversary of his father’s death because he said he felt like something inside him needed to be filled up.

  But just then, with Will shaking his head, tousling his already mussed hair, he showed me something I’d never seen from him before: how deeply he had been hurt, by someone he had been led to believe cared about him. The very least I owed him was an explanation.

  “I was with Erik. The whole time.” He didn’t back away from me when I stepped closer and I thought, just maybe, it would be possible to move past everything that had happened, past J.J.’s death, past that night... “He didn’t know what to do and I didn’t either. My God, I can’t even…I wasn't even able to look in the coffin until... because…I…I…” Something thick and weighted lodged itself in my throat and whatever that sound was that left my mouth got Will’s attention. He turned, tugging on my arm to get him close enough to brush away the tears that were flowing yet again.

  “Pinkie…”

  “I’m…Will, I didn’t…”

  What could I say? He didn’t know we’d been together, and about how denying that
had caused my heart to break. He didn’t know I was in love with him. Will Callahan was more than my friend. Always had been. It had started that first night, quoting Star Wars as we toasted our future, hopeful of what would happen to us. In those brief moments, he’d settled himself dead center in my heart, and despite all my attempts, he was still lodged there.

  He let me rest my forehead against his shoulder and I let him hug me close. For a moment there was no worry or upset. There had never been a night that ruined our friendship. There had never been Ellie and the relationship Will had with her. Just then, with the sweet tang of nutmeg on his breath, there was nothing but the warmth of his sigh against my neck as he pulled me close. I wanted that moment, oh, how I needed that moment. I wanted to be there with my best friend and forget that patch of upturned earth, and this horrible day, and everything that had gone before, and just be with him.

  It might have lasted seconds. Maybe hours but for the first time in months, I had Will back and he had me and despite the heartache filling up our chests and clogging our minds, there was only the two of us.

  He moved back, hand slowly rising to my cheek and I inhaled, trying like hell to memorize every curve of his palm against my skin and the just how warm his fingers felt as he moved them over my face.

  “Will…”

  “I’ve missed you, Pinkie. There’ so much…now isn’t the time but soon. I want to tell you…” If I wasn’t careful, so careful, those eyes would pull me back in. I’d be lost and the time I’d spent away from him, the walls I’d carefully constructed to guard my heart from the man I loved, the man that would never return that love, would crumble in a second. But, God, how tempted I was; to touch him, to go back again and again just to circle in his orbit.

  “Will?”

  I hadn’t heard the clack of heels on the marble hallway, but the hint of that strong, obnoxious perfume was a warning my mind chose to block out. Will stepped away from me like he’d touched a livewire and I moved my gaze where he stared, my back straightening and my fists clenching tighter the closer Ellie came toward us.

  “Oh. Raine…”

  “Ellie, I was...” Will stuttered, not acting like himself at all as he took another step back. “Rainey and I…” but the woman didn’t even bother to glare at me, though that was generally her custom anytime we’d ventured too close to each other over the past ten years.

  Her quick nod in my direction was unfriendly and bored, but then she seemed to get a hold of herself, and for just a moment, Ellie dropped her bitchy façade. “Raine, I’m... I’m sorry about J.J.” There was a pause and time seemed suspended between us. I was just about to let go of my own resentment and maybe allow a crack to open where even the rift between us could heal, but then Ellie turned her back on me and stepped between us, pulling on Will’s hand and adopting a soft, pathetic tone I knew she didn’t mean. “You okay, sugar?” Her words were for Will. I had been dismissed.

  “Fine…”

  My stomach felt queasy and the longer she held his hand and fussed about him, the more my guts twisted around like I’d become some sort of Prada wearing, washer-woman ready to upchuck the fancy canapés I had wolfed down a few moments ago.

  “Let’s go, sweetie,” she crooned, and led him by the hand towards the door. Ellie made no backwards glance towards me, but Will did. One glance, quick and guilty, one full of shame, and then he was gone. Without a word, the man I loved with all my heart, the best friend I had ever known, disappeared, leaving me completely and utterly alone in that cold, empty room with nothing but a big, gaping hole in my heart for company, and knowing full well it was all my damned fault.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Eight Years Ago

  San Diego Comic-Con

  “No, Ellie, I didn’t ask him yet.”

  “Why the hell not?” My friend was having a fit and it showed itself in the loud shriek elevating her tone. I was only too happy that I was thundering through the San Diego Convention Center trying to meet Will after the AURA panel and not stuck at Frank ‘N Hank’s waiting on Ellie to finish her shift. Hearing her irritation on the phone was bad enough. I held onto the cell, weaving through the crowd without disconnecting because of guilt. Stupid, pointless guilt.

  Ellie had auditioned for the low-budget web series I’d landed. That’s what happened when you had the look and age range of your best friend. Sometimes you both ended up at the same auditions. Sometimes you land the role your friend wants. I felt bad about it, but in my defense, Ellie hadn’t told me she was going in for the call. Still, she had been livid when she found out. She’d only just started speaking to me again after the silent treatment for two weeks. Now Ellie seemed to be counting on my guilt to bend Will or Coop’s ear for her. I battled between rolling my eyes and keeping my attention on the storm with long mutton chop sideburns and several gold chains working a fierce Elvis Judo chop that blocked the wide double doors leading back stage. My guess? The pseudo Storm Trooper King was putting in the effort to impress the gender-swapped Vader with the “I Break for Wookiees” bumper sticker strategically located somewhere near her…um…bumper.

  “I haven’t talked to him,” I offered, tugging up my Disney Villains backpack as I maneuvered around a crowd of DC superheroes. Wonder Woman and Superman were having an argument as they milled near the line for the fraking Battlestar Galactica panel. “Because Coop has been working on some other projects and he isn’t doing the casting for next season. His brother is.”

  “The fat one or the skinny one?” There was a little too much hope behind her words and I fought back a sigh. My best friend was nothing if not strategic.

  “The gay one that your flirting would be wasted on, friend.”

  Ellie’s exhale was long and labored and I didn’t have to see her face to know what expression she wore. She always slumped when she was disappointed, nearly always pushed her eyebrows together without really thinking about the wrinkles she created when she did that or the fact that she couldn’t afford Botox to get rid of them. “Bullshit.” Her voice was loud and her tone was nearing a shout, but that was due to her working the early shift at the quaint dive bar because the tips were great when you pour stiff, cheap drinks, though she had instructed me to tell her mom that she was still working as an intern at WME. Her mom wouldn’t ask but that didn’t stop Ellie from making me pinky swear to cover for her if she did. She even had given me a pinkie ring to seal the deal. “Well, what about Will? Can’t he…”

  “Will has zero pull with casting and you know it, Ellie.” I nodded a greeting at a couple donning matching Captain Jack Sparrow outfits when they recognized me and called my name.

  “He got you that guest star spot on AURA.”

  “No,” I said, trying to keep the irritation out of my tone, “Coop made me audition for that role. Will had nothing to do with it.”

  I’d hadn’t leveled up to absolute celebrity notoriety yet—the web series, my walk-on roles on AURA and a few background spots in sitcoms and crime dramas - most of which Cooper had his fingers on—hadn’t made me famous. Still, I had a face that fans found familiar. That was likely because Will made me tag along to every premiere and social event to keep him company - the fans sometimes wigged him out a little and he needed the distraction.

  Will had stuck to his offer made that night back at J.J.'s karaoke bar. We were friends who quoted Star Wars, texting or emailing each other even during the rare jobs I got, or while he shot AURA either in town or on location.

  Will: FYI: I’m not saying Natasha Flint wears a Wonder Bra, but, she totally does, he’d texted me just two months after we met when his AURA work took the entire crew to Nevada to shoot exterior alien planet scenes.

  Raine: And why do I want to know this?

  Will: Because you were suspicious of those famous 40 C cups. You shouldn’t be. Yours are real.

  Raine: How do you know that?

  Will: Sometimes I peek.

  Ellie’s whiny voice was irritating, but I kept silent as I made i
t through the double doors leading to the back stage area, stopping only once when a green Con intern asked for my badge. He came a little too close to tugging on my lanyard so I adjusted my bag, propping my cell on my shoulder to pull it out for him to glance at, never forgetting that I had a restless, desperate best friend on the line.

  “Why didn’t you go for that Western? JoJo had her casting friend pull some favors for you.” It was the first time I’d worked up the nerve to ask Ellie about the audition she had blown off. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d burned a bridge with Jo who’d asked me to stop hinting at favors for my best friend. They never panned out because Ellie was unreliable.

  “It would have only been two lines. I told Millie I’ve been on AURA, featured as a guest star.”

  “Ellie.” I stopped in the middle of an empty hallway, too shocked by my friend’s confession to pay attention to where I was walking. “You got killed off after three scenes. That’s not a feature.”

  “My name was on the credits.”

  “Because you insisted. Coop didn’t have to do that.”

  Ellie really was impossible sometimes, a thought I kept to myself as I moved forward, looking around the entrances for the sign that marked the AURA panel. Will would be annoyed if I was late bringing his mask. He had mentioned something about a Han Solo desk and didn’t want to send anyone out into the crowd to buy it for him. We were going to head out into the swarming masses incognito.

  “Rainey, come on. I’m struggling here. You can mention something to Will or Cooper. Maybe J.J. can get me an audition for the Broadway show his friend is producing.” Ellie was missing the point and I was still too much a chicken to break it to her. She wasn’t good enough for a lead role, but convinced herself that she didn’t need to work with the acting coach J.J. recommended. She also was a little full of herself, hadn’t been able to fully realize that L.A. wasn’t Waco, and that she was no longer going to be a shoo-in for the top prize. That beauty pageant entitlement attitude had put off several casting agents, and often kept her from auditioning for parts that she would have been perfect for.