Red Lines

by T. A. Foster

  Some of the guys from the crew were headed out for drinks, but he passed. He wasn’t in the mood for socializing. He told them he’d catch up with them next time. One of them asked if there was an apocalypse on the way because Evan Carlson never turned down a free beer.

  He saw a folded piece of paper on his side of the bed. He sat on the edge and opened the note. He wasn’t ready for what he read.

  Evan,

  You’re like the waves, pulling me out with you every chance you get. I keep coming back, ready and willing to ride the currents no matter where you take me.

  You’ll always have me.

  Love,

  Haven

  He creased the note and tucked it in his back pocket. If he could call the jet back, he would hop on it right now and fly home to show Haven all the things he hadn’t been able to convince her of during her trip. Long distance was hard. Damn hard.

  No matter how many smiles she gave, he couldn’t shake the feeling she wasn’t happy in L.A. It didn’t help that they had to stay in the hotel for most of her visit, or that he was filming late into the night. The express schedule to shoot this movie was taxing on everyone, but he wondered if it was hardest on Haven. He swore he would never be the reason the light in her eyes dimmed, and now that was all he could think about—disappointing her. Hurting her.

  He glanced at the clock. He could probably catch the guys at the bar. He shoved his ball cap over his eyes and picked up his leather jacket. After a quick text, he was on his way. He couldn’t stand another second in this empty, cold hotel suite.

  Twenty minutes later, he walked into a dive bar off the beaten path.

  “There he is!” the group hollered from the corner. “We already ordered a beer for you.”

  Evan smiled. This is exactly what he needed.

  “Thanks, man.” Evan accepted the beer from one of the boom mic operators. “I needed this.”

  He sat at the crowded table. Before he had finished his first sip, all the heads at the table swiveled toward the door.

  “What’s going on?” He turned to catch a bombshell blonde walk through the door. “Who invited her?” He tried to keep the seething out of his voice.

  “Hey, guys.” She beamed. “Hey, Evan. I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

  He doubted that. Emmy would never be seen in a place like this. There was a clamoring to make room for the actress at the table. Somehow, she managed to snag a seat next to Evan.

  “Em.” He tipped his beer toward her and took another swallow. Might as well drink.

  “What can we get you, Emmy?” The lighting assistant was on his feet ready to fetch.

  “Do they have chardonnay here?” She looked around the assembly. “Actually, make that a beer.” She smiled at Evan. “I miss drinking with you.”

  He growled. His guys’ night had just transformed into awkward drinks with the ex. Maybe he could finish this one and head out.

  “How did you think the scenes went today?” She turned toward him.

  “Good. I think they’re going fine.”

  “Because I was thinking maybe we should work on tomorrow’s scene ahead of time.”

  He hadn’t committed the schedule to memory. He didn’t know what was slated. “All right. What scene is that?”

  “The break-up scene. It’s going to be intense. I think we should be prepared.”

  Evan chuckled. “You know, you’ve come a long way from the girl who wouldn’t take a lick of advice from me.”

  She sipped the beer, and he noticed she twitched but avoided making a bitter face. “You mean in New Orleans?”

  “Yeah, no matter how much I told you we needed to go over the lines, you refused. You said you worked better off the cuff.”

  She laughed. “Maybe I’m more seasoned now. Or maybe I know you give good advice.”

  “Oh, is that it?”

  “I’ve done a few movies since last year, and yes, you were right. I needed to focus more on my characters. I was too impatient.”

  Evan rocked back on two legs in his seat, eyeing Emmy. “You impatient? Say it isn’t so.” He laughed when she punched him in the arm, almost sending his chair to the floor. He sat forward. “I’m just kidding with you, Em.”

  “Finally.” She smiled slyly and took another sip. “I’ve been wondering where the Evan I knew had gone.”

  His eyes hit the floor. It was possible he had been treating her like a black widow spider instead of like someone he used to care about. Someone he had spent months adoring.

  “I’m sorry, but this isn’t what I’d call a normal situation.”

  “We are in Hollywood, babe. There is no normal.” She giggled. “Stay for another round with me?”

  His beer was empty, and the crew guys had started playing pool. He hadn’t even noticed he and Emmy were alone at the table.

  “All right. One more, but then I’m out of here.” He waved his hand in the air for another round.

  “Good. I like seeing this side of you again.” A waitress delivered two cold bottles, and Emmy tapped hers against Evan’s. “To new beginnings.”

  He grinned. “All right, killer, if you say so.”

  Four beers, two rounds of pool, and three hours later, Evan emerged from the club with Emmy. Before his ball cap was snugly around his eyes, they were ambushed by a pack of paparazzi on the sidewalk. He threw an arm around Emmy and shuttled her to his car. The flashes popped liked fireworks.

  He closed the door behind him and started to face her. “Did you do this? Did you tell them we were here?”

  “No. I swear I didn’t, Evan.”

  He didn’t believe one word out of her mouth. “Dammit, Em. What in the hell?”

  She grabbed his arm. “I didn’t tip them off. It had to be someone at the bar or someone on the crew. I didn’t. I promise you.”

  He shook off her grip. “I’ll get you back to your place, but I swear…” He looked out of the window as the piranhas rolled past. “Just when I think you might be different.” It was his fault. He let his guard down. And it was just enough to give Emmy what she wanted—attention.

  “Fine. Don’t believe me, but I didn’t do it. Why would I want to be seen at that dump?” He heard her voice crack, and for a second thought, there may be sincerity in her words. Then he remembered Emmy’s tears were never genuine. She was the most beautiful crier in the business. He couldn’t trust a single tear.

  They rode in silence to Emmy’s rented Malibu house. She didn’t say a word when the car parked, but slammed the door and stormed into the house.

  Evan had no doubt he pegged all her intentions. He pulled out his phone to call Jeff, but decided it wasn’t worth it. The story would run in tomorrow’s gossip cycle, and he’d have to deal with it. The press had no idea which “Evmy” sightings were staged, but he did. Jeff and Emmy’s agent had agreed to keep most of their outings casual—lunch on the set, or maybe an early dinner at a sidewalk café. Evan insisted the events be public so there would be little room for extra interpretation. It kept Emmy in line, the PDA to a minimum, and he hoped it made Haven more comfortable. She was the reason he was doing all of it. As long as he could control it, it worked.

  His fist landed on the armrest. It made him sick to think tonight had become one more piece of evidence that “Evmy” was back together—mended hearts and all.

  HAVEN WAS in the studio with Carly this morning. He tried to call her and tell her about the bar pictures before she saw them, but she hadn’t answered her phone. As long as he was the one setting up the pictures, he could alert her ahead of time. Last night was out of his control. He knew she would be caught off guard.

  He left another voicemail for her. “Haven, call me. I’m keeping my phone with me on the set today, so just call and I’ll answer it. I don’t know if you saw the pictures from last night, but I need to explain.” He hesitated; he knew he sounded like a groveling fool. “Baby, just call me.”

  He hung up and walked onto the set. Emmy was sti
ll in makeup. They were perfecting her mascara so that it would run just enough with tears, but not so much that it made her look like a football player.

  He pulled the script pages from the table. After last night, he told her he was too tired to rehearse. They would have to wing it. He chuckled to himself. The irony was getting to him. He and Emmy had already had a break-up rehearsal. They didn’t really need time going over their lines again.

  If there were any way to speed up this makeup process, he would have been powdering Emmy’s nose for her. He was ready to get this over.

  “What do you think?” Emmy walked up behind him and batted her eyes.

  “We ready to do this?” he asked. He wasn’t in the mood for chitchat.

  “What? You’re still mad about last night?” she whispered. “I told you it wasn’t me.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He tossed the script on the table. “Can we just get this over with?”

  She stood with her hands on her hips. “I hope you can pull it together.”

  He spun around. “Excuse me, darlin’?”

  “Today, I’m the one breaking up with you, remember? And you’re supposed to be so in love with me that you can’t see straight. You beg me to stay. You beg me to give you another chance. I’m the air you breathe, the stars in your sky, the reason you wake up each morning. You’ll die if you don’t kiss me again. You’ll die if I say no. If you thought for even one single second that I would walk away from you, you know you’d be lost. I am not someone you can barely stand to look at.” She huffed and breezed past him. “Get it together, Evan.”

  He stood speechless.

  “Are you coming?”

  “Yep.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and followed her. She had proven in front of everyone that he wasn’t the professional on the set.

  He wandered to his spot. The penthouse apartment that had been constructed was remarkable. The floors were slick marble, and if he didn’t know he was actually on the ground floor, Evan would have looked out of the windows and believed they were thirty floors up. The construction team was talented.

  “Hey, Em.” He watched the last touchups being applied to her cheeks.

  “What?”

  “You’re right.”

  She shooed the makeup artist to the side. “About what?”

  “I’m not staying focused. No matter what happens out there, we have a job to do once we walk through those doors, and I’m not doing the best job of keeping that separate.”

  Her full lips turned upward in a smile. “It’s not entirely your fault, but thank you for the apology.”

  For a second, he wondered if he had wrongly accused her of setting up the paparazzi ambush. The Emmy innocent look was in full effect. He had to remind himself that she had lured in more than one victim that way.

  “Now that that’s out of the way, you better get ready, because I’m about to break your heart.” She slinked to the bed and lay across the satin sheets, grinning her canary-eating grin.

  Evan shook his head. Nothing would ever be simple with this girl.

  HAVEN COULDN’T remember the last time she had seen so much rain—probably during the hurricane. She ran her fingers through her hair, tangling it at the ends. The hurricane. The night she and Evan claimed each other like they would never come back from the place they found together. They didn’t want to come back.

  She gripped her guitar and watched the rain splash in the puddles. She wondered if this kind of rain would flood the pond.

  “You ready to write?” Carly stepped through the studio doors.

  Haven turned from the window. “Sure. Where do you want to start?”

  “How about with that sad frown on your face? What’s wrong?” Carly slid a cup of coffee into Haven’s free hand. “You look like you should be writing a your-dog-just-died kind of song.”

  Haven giggled. “That sounds a little dramatic.”

  “Haven’t you heard I’m extremely dramatic?” Carly laughed. “Seriously, what’s wrong? We can’t write if there’s something bothering you.”

  Haven felt the tension ease out of her shoulders. She hadn’t shared her insecurities with anyone. “It’s ‘Evmy.’ Every time I turn around, there’s a picture or a clip of them.”

  “Oh.” Carly nodded her head. “I can see how that would get a girl down.”

  “And it’s not like I’m actually jealous, because I know he’s with me.” Haven laid her guitar on the empty end of the couch, propped by pillows. “But, dammit. I don’t know how much more of it I can take.”

  “What does Evan say about it?”

  “He tries to prepare me for anything that’s going to be released so I have a heads up, but it doesn’t mean I like it any more. And then last night I guess a bunch of people from the set went out together and Emmy was there, and then they got caught by the press when they left the bar.”

  “Kind of like how they got us?” Carly asked.

  “Yes¸ I guess it was like that.” Haven sipped the vanilla latte. “I know it doesn’t mean anything to him and he’s just trying to protect me, but I hate it.” She stared at Carly. “I hate it. I think I hate her too.”

  Carly leaned closer. “I’ve known Evan for a while.” Haven bristled at the reference—she still didn’t know how close their past was. There never seemed to be a good way to ask either of them. “And he’s the kind of guy who likes to take charge; he likes to call the shots. I guarantee you he doesn’t like this situation any more than you do.”

  “I know, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  “You’re right. It doesn’t, but you’ve got to give him some slack. At least he’s trying. I know he’d rather be here in Texas with you than out there. He hates L.A. He loves you.”

  “Maybe our timing is off. We shouldn’t have met yet.”

  “Don’t say that. You met exactly when you were supposed to.”

  Haven sighed into her latte. Riding off into the sunset with her movie star was turning into more of an eclipse.

  Carly stood up. “You know what we need to do?”

  “What?”

  “We need a girls’ day.”

  “But we have to finish the album.” Haven suddenly felt guilty for sabotaging their writing session. She knew Carly’s time was precious.

  “Whatever. We can do that later. We have to get you out of this funk. Heartbreak is one thing—that you can at least channel into music. Funk is the wasteland for creativity. We can’t have that.” She tugged on Haven’s arm. “Spa day on me—nails, hair, facials—the whole works. Come on!”

  Haven reluctantly stood from the couch. “I guess.”

  “I promise, by the end of the day, you’ll feel ten times better and will have a whole new outlook on this relationship crisis. Let’s go.”

  Carly turned off the lights behind them and pointed Haven toward the elevators.

  HAVEN LOOKED at her reflection in the salon mirror.

  “So what do you want to do with it?” The stylist dumped her auburn strands on her shoulder.

  “You know I think you should do something completely different.” Carly piped in from the chair next to hers.

  “Like what?” Her hair had always looked the same.

  “Oh, I know what would be a cute. You should do a chin-length bob.” Carly flipped through a hair magazine and pointed to a picture with a similar style.

  “I can even add in some bangs,” the woman offered. She swooped the front of Haven’s hair over her forehead to show her the effect of the look.

  “Really? That sounds drastic.” She studied her hair. It already seemed like her highlights from the summer sun were fading. Her locks were drab, just like this depressing rain. Maybe they were right.

  “Definitely.” Carly smiled. “I change my hair all the time. Keeps things interesting.”

  “Ok, let’s do it.” Haven nodded at the stylist. “Give me a whole new look.”

  “You got it.” She swiveled Haven in the chair, taking the mirror out of h
er view.

  Two hours later, Haven admired the change in her appearance. She almost didn’t recognize the girl in the mirror. She looked older. Sophisticated. Glamorous.

  “Holy shit, girl.” Carly whistled. “That is the perfect hairstyle for you. I need that look next time.”

  “You think?” Haven cupped the ends in her palm. They reached just below her chin. She shook her head feeling the new weightlessness. The bangs were shaggy and chunky.

  “Absolutely. Now, come on. We have pedicures next. And there are cocktails.” She winked and bounced toward the next room in the spa.

  Haven climbed out of the salon chair. Her rainy-day funk was starting to evaporate.

  HAVEN THREW her bag into the recliner in the great room and turned on the TV. As soon as she saw the latest “Evmy” pictures, she turned to ESPN. Football coverage was welcome after all of that crap. She didn’t want anything spoiling her good mood. It had taken a full day of pampering to achieve.

  Her phone rang and she fished it out of her bag, turning the college football rundown on low volume.

  “Travis! Hey.” She smiled and settled back into the leather chair. It had been weeks since she had talked to him.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” His voice sounded tense.

  “Something’s wrong. I can tell.” She realized it was odd he was calling at all. Things had been better between them, but they would never be the same. She missed the way it used to be, when they were friends, before they had crossed a line. She just thanked God they hadn’t slept together. There may have been no recovering from that.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  “Just spit it out. Is everyone ok?” She was sure her parents would call if someone were sick.

  “Yes and no.” There was a long pause before he continued. “There’s no easy way to say this. Everyone knows, Haven.”

  “Knows? Knows what?” There was no way he was talking about this morning’s headline with Evan. No one on Perry Island cared what happened in Hollywood.

  “They know about Betra and your dad.”