Ghosted

by J. M. Darhower

  “Then come with me,” he says. “Both of you.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Why not? We can be together.”

  “I gave up everything to follow you once. I can’t do that again.”

  Groaning, he runs his hands down his face. “I don’t know what you want from me, Kennedy.”

  “I want you to be the man she needs you to be,” I say. “Because when you tell her you’re coming back, she’s going to believe you.”

  He stares at me for a moment before asking, “What about you? Do you believe me?”

  “Yes.”

  He looks surprised by that.

  “That’s not the question, though,” I say. “I don’t doubt you’ll be back. The question is whether you’ll still want to be here.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because the real world could never compete with what awaited you out there. And maybe you love me—”

  “I do.”

  “But love doesn’t give you a free pass to come and go. I can’t live somewhere with a revolving door.”

  He sits down on the couch, his shoulders slumping as he covers his face with his hands. “Do you want me to quit acting? Is that what you want?”

  “Of course not,” I say. “I’m not asking you to give up your dream. I’m asking you to share it. Your work, it’s important, I know, but she’s important, too. You can’t get caught up and forget she’s sitting at home waiting for you. Because you live in a big, big world now, but hers is very small. A day without you is going to be like a day without the sun. Don’t let her days go dark.”

  I get up, because I don’t want to do this right now.

  “Is that how I made you feel?” he asks.

  “It is.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I say. “It taught me something important.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Never make someone else the main character in your own story.”

  “I’m gonna go to work.”

  Jonathan eyes me peculiarly when I say that, stalling in the doorway of the bedroom as he slips on his jacket. “Work.”

  “Well, I mean, what used to be my work,” I mumble as I fold the freshly washed uniforms. I woke up this morning to a brand new washer and dryer installed in the apartment, courtesy of the guy currently looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. I told him he didn't need to do that, but they were fancy, with their buttons and sounds and settings, so naturally, I spent all day playing with my new toys. Ugh, I’m getting old. “I need to turn these uniforms back in.”

  “I can drop them off for you,” he says, glancing at his watch. “I’ve got some time before getting Maddie from school.”

  He comes toward me and tries to grab the uniforms, but I yank them away, clutching them protectively. “No.”

  He laughs, holding up his hands. “Fine, I won’t.”

  “It’s just… ugh, I haven’t seen the outside world in a long time. I’m starting to forget what sunshine feels like.”

  “You’re being dramatic.”

  “Am not.”

  “It’s been two days.”

  He’s right. It’s only been about forty-eight hours, but I’m antsy doing nothing. “Still, I can take them myself.”

  Jonathan is trying not to laugh. “Kennedy, baby, I think you might be a workaholic.”

  “Am not.”

  “There are meetings for that, you know,” he says, ignoring my denial. “It helps to channel your energy into something else—reading, maybe writing.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Come here,” he says, reaching for me, pulling me toward the doorway. “Walk outside with me.”

  I don’t resist, because that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Go outside. I carry the uniforms along, following him out the front door of the apartment. Just as I’m about to ask him where we’re going, he pulls a set of keys from his jacket pocket and presses a button, making something beep, lights flashing in the parking lot.

  I look past him, nearly tripping over my own feet when I see a blue Porsche parked right beside my Toyota. “Holy shit.”

  Jonathan smirks, putting his arm around me as he steers me toward it. “Must be one hell of a surprise if it has you cursing.”

  “It’s exactly like your old car.”

  “Well, it's a bit newer, but yeah…” He shoves the keys at me, dropping them on top of the uniforms. “You do know how to drive a stick, right?”

  “I, uh, what?” I grab the keys when they start to fall. “I mean, I can, but I can’t drive your car.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a freaking Porsche! What if I scratch it? Dent it? What if I wreck it? I can’t fix it!”

  He laughs. Again. He’s been laughing a lot this afternoon. “I rarely drive, so you might as well use it. Otherwise, it’s just going to sit in a garage in the city. Besides, no offense, but I’m not sure how much longer your piece of junk is gonna keep running.”

  I glance at my car, scowling, before I look at Jonathan. He means well, I know he does, and I’m grateful. But he’s worrying me with this. “This is too much, Jonathan. You just gave me a washer and dryer this morning. Now you’re handing me the keys to your car. I mean, what’s next?”

  “A dishwasher,” he says. “It’s supposed to be delivered tomorrow morning.”

  I blink at him. “You know I don’t need stuff, right?”

  “I know,” he says before pushing me toward the car. “Now go, turn your uniforms in. And make sure you put the top down, you know, so you can feel the sunshine.”

  He goes back inside, leaving me there.

  I stare at the car for far too long before giving in. It’s not mine, but it is a new toy, and it’s a little hard to resist when I’m overcome with a sense of nostalgia. It reminds me so much of when our dreams still felt beautiful.

  So I get behind the wheel and I drive to the store. Or well, I drive past the store, circling the block a few times, before gathering the nerve to park and go inside, heading for the front office.

  “Kennedy.” Marcus’s voice is all business as he sits behind his desk, greeting me as soon as I walk in. “What can I do for you?”

  “I stopped by to turn in my uniforms,” I say, holding the pile of clothes up to show him.

  “You can put them over there,” he says, waving toward me. “Thanks.”

  “Of course,” I say, setting them down on top of a box by the door. I linger there, watching him sort through paperwork, feeling guilty because I know he’s doing my job.

  “Did you need something else?” he asks, raising an eyebrow as he looks at me.

  “No,” I say, hesitating. “Well, I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry enough to want your job back?”

  “Not quite.”

  He laughs, turning back to the paperwork. “Had to try.”

  “Anyway,” I say. “Thanks for taking a chance on me when you did.”

  I walk out of the office, not wanting things to get too sentimental. The store is pretty busy, not unusual for a Friday.

  I’m heading for the exit as the delivery guy switches out the magazines by the registers. Instinctively, my eyes turn toward them, drawn to a certain one—Hollywood Chronicles. My footsteps stall as I inhale sharply. It feels like I’ve been punched.

  I snatch up the top copy. The world around me is trying to tilt. My heart pounds hard. As panic floods my system, my hands start to shake.

  Turning away, I walk out of the store, taking it with me as I drive straight home. The apartment is quiet. Jonathan is walking Maddie home from school, so I’m alone for the moment.

  I go straight to my bedroom.

  Sitting down on the bed, I stare at the front page of the tabloid.

  JOHNNY CUNNING'S DOUBLE LIFE

  Along the top, there’s a picture of us—me, and Jonathan, and our daughter. Our faces are plastered on the front of Hollywood Chronicles. It’s un
avoidable, I know. He lives his life beneath a scorching spotlight. We’d inevitably get drawn into it.

  And it’s strange, but he looks happy.

  It’s one of the only times they’ve ever printed a picture of him smiling.

  Beneath that, though, tells a different story.

  There’s a picture of him in a bar, the caption claiming it was a few days ago. He’s standing beside Serena, and she’s holding her drink out, offering it to him.

  I flip through it, finding more pictures. More of us. More of them. Close to midnight on Monday—the day of his appointment. It says they met up at a hotel in the city, when hours before, he finally broke his silence about their relationship while walking his daughter to school.

  Closing the tabloid, I toss it aside.

  A few minutes pass before I hear the front door, Maddie’s laughter filtering through. She runs through the apartment, into the hall, yelling, “Hi, Mommy! Bye, Mommy!’ before disappearing into her bedroom.

  Jonathan comes to the bedroom, asking, “So, how’d it go at the store?”

  I look at him in silence for a moment before saying, “It went about like I thought.”

  “Good? Bad?”

  I shrug.

  His brow furrows as he steps closer, noticing the tabloid on the bed. Grabbing it, he groans and sits down beside me. “You bought this shit?”

  “No, I kind of just took it.”

  “You took it.”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes scan the cover before he flips through it, going straight to the article. He skims it, scowling, before tossing it aside.

  “Since when do you shoplift?”

  “I don’t,” I say. “It was a mistake.”

  “A mistake,” he says. “I’ve made my fair share of those.”

  “You make any lately?”

  “Maybe a few.”

  “Like?”

  “Well, for one, that article I just read.”

  “Which part of it was the mistake?”

  “The part where I wasted brain cells reading it,” he says. “For the record, I didn’t drink that night. I know it looks bad, but I was waiting for my car and she happened to be there. There’s nothing going on between us, which is what I told that asshole when he claimed I broke my silence.”

  “Good to know.”

  Reaching over, Jonathan grabs my hands, placing his over mine. I’m fidgeting, I realize.

  “Don’t do that,” he says. “Please. Don’t ever doubt me over something they print.”

  “It’s just, you know… the photos.”

  “It’s a split second snapshot,” he says. “Anything can be made to look bad if taken out of context. And they’ll do it, every chance they get.”

  “I know.”

  “But back to the subject. Another mistake is spending even an ounce of energy entertaining their bullshit when there are much better things we could be doing.”

  I close my eyes as he pushes me back onto the bed. His mouth meets mine, and he kisses me, tongues mingling together. His hands roam, stroking my side, one slipping beneath my shirt. He palms a breast, squeezing it, sliding beneath my bra. I moan when his fingertips brush against the nipple, sending sparks through my body, but it’s gone again, drifting south.

  His fingertips trail along my stomach before slipping past the waistband of my pants. I inhale sharply when he starts rubbing, stroking me through the soft cotton of my underwear. Heat rushes through me. Tingles consume me. Just a touch from this man sets my world on fire.

  “Oh god,” I whisper, arching my back as his fingers work their magic, sparks flowing down my spine. I’m getting close already. I can feel it building up, tightening in my gut. I bite my lip to keep from making too much noise.

  So close…

  So close…

  Oh god, so—

  “Daddy!”

  Maddie’s voice shouts down the hallway as footsteps head our direction. At once, Jonathan pulls away, standing up. “What?”

  She bursts in as I force myself to sit up, still breathing heavily. I feel my face heating. I’m shaking, aching… clenching my thighs together to try to make it stop.

  “I’m ready to do some lines!” she says, grinning, again wearing her Breezeo costume.

  Jonathan laughs. “Ready to run lines, you mean.”

  Her brow furrows. “That’s what I said.”

  “No, you said…” He trails off. “Never mind.”

  “You’re running lines again?” I glance between them as Jonathan goes to the duffel bag he lives out of and starts digging through it. “That’ll take, what... five minutes? Ten?”

  I’m trying to gauge how long he’s going to leave me hanging.

  Jonathan pulls out a thick stack of papers, waving them at me. “Probably a bit longer than that.”

  The Breezeo script. Ghosted.

  “Whoa,” I say, reaching for it, but he yanks it back, away from my grasp.

  “No touching,” he says before handing it to Maddie. “It’s top secret material.”

  “What?” I scowl at him. “How come she gets to read it?”

  “Because I’m Breezeo, duh,” she says before running off with the script, not letting me near it.

  “Yeah,” Jonathan says, leaning down to kiss me—just a brush against my lips. “Duh.”

  He tries to move, but I’m not done with him, yanking him down on top of me.

  Laughing, he kisses me some more, real kisses this time, and presses himself into me. He’s hard. “Is that what you want, baby?”

  Baby. Hearing him call me that makes me shiver in his arms. “Oh god, yes…”

  “Daddy!” Maddie whines from the living room. “Hurry up!”

  “Pity,” Jonathan says, biting my bottom lip before he pulls away. “Guess we’ll have to reschedule.”

  I gape at him as he heads for the door. “You son of a…”

  “Bitch?”

  He laughs.

  “This is cruel,” I say. “Cruel and unusual punishment!”

  “Don’t be mad, Mommy!” Maddie yells across the apartment. “Maybe Daddy will give it to you later.”

  She’s talking about the script, I know, but dang it, I blush when Jonathan glances back at me from the hallway, cocking an eyebrow. “Maybe Daddy will.”

  I give him the middle finger.

  He laughs again.

  I’m flustered, no doubt about it, and parts of me still ache, but when I hear Maddie’s excitement as they start reading, I’m overcome with this sense of peace.

  I can’t help but smile.

  It’s all I’ve wanted for years.

  Getting up, I go to the kitchen and cook dinner. When it’s finished, they take a break. The three of us eat together at the table. Afterward, they jump back into it, and I make my way to my bedroom.

  Picking up the discarded copy of Hollywood Chronicles, I tear out a photo from the cover, the one where Jonathan is smiling. The rest of the paper, I throw in the trash. Pulling out my broken box of old mementos, I set the photo in. As strange as it may seem to keep, it’s our first real picture together as a family.

  “You want to run some lines with me?”

  It’s after dark when Jonathan reappears in the doorway to the bedroom, leaning against the doorframe, holding the script. I’m sitting in bed, propped against the headboard, knees pulled up and notebook in my lap. “Don’t you have a daughter for that?”

  “She fell asleep,” he says. “Must’ve bored her unconscious.”

  “Must’ve,” I agree. “So, what, you think you can just come crawling back to me? Think I’ll welcome you back with open arms? Give you yet another chance?”

  “Was damn sure hoping so. I’m banking on the fact that some part of you actually likes me.”

  “Most parts of me like you.”

  “What part doesn’t?

  “My brain, usually.”

  He laughs, strolling closer, his brow furrowing when he sees what I’m holding. “Are you writing?�
��

  “Just thinking,” I say, closing the notebook when he sits down beside me on the bed. I take the script from him, and he doesn’t resist this time, letting me flip through it.

  “I used to wonder what could possibly be worse than being invisible,” he says, and I know he’s reciting a line, because it’s word-for-word from the comic. “What could be lonelier than always being by yourself?”

  “I think I know now,” I whisper, turning a few pages until I come to the scene.

  “Worse is loving someone who disappears and never knowing if they’ll come back. Because how do you move on if you’re not even sure they’re gone? The answer is—you don’t. When you spend most of your life chasing ghosts, eventually, you become one.”

  I smile. “I always liked that part.”

  “I know,” he says as he moves closer, grabbing my legs. I yelp as he tugs me down the bed, climbing on top of me once I’m lying flat on my back. “That’s the part we’re filming Monday.”

  I want to ask him questions about that, but then he starts taking off my pants and I can’t think of much other than his hands. They’re all over me, followed by his lips as he kisses and touches and loves, going lower and lower and—

  “Oh god,” I gasp, tossing everything aside to fist handfuls of his hair when his mouth finds its way between my thighs. He doesn’t tease. He’s not playing around. He gets right down to the nitty-gritty, almost aggressive about it.

  I’m writhing, gasping, moaning his name, feeling the tension building, gripping hard as I try to pull him closer. He hits that spot, the one I desperately need, and I feel the sudden rush of pleasure.

  Back arching, my breath catches as orgasm tears through me. He doesn’t stop until I relax against the bed, the sensation fading.

  Sitting back, he pulls off his shirt, stripping. In a blink, he crawls between my legs, hiking my knees up, his lips crashing into mine as he pushes inside. I cry out into his mouth, his kisses swallowing the noise as he thrusts deep, hitting hard, over and over.