by Lana Xavier
“Oh. Well, you’re welcome. Thank you for watching my bag so I could use the restroom,” I told him as we stepped off the escalator and he handed me my bag. A thought crossed my mind and I frowned. “Wait, you had more beer than I did. Don’t you have to piss?”
He roared with laughter at my crassness then leaned in close to whisper, “Like a fucking racehorse. So let’s find me a toilet so you can return the favor and watch my bag. Yeah?”
“Alright,” I agreed with a nod, my voice crackling with laughter.
He grinned and I noted that this time, the smile definitely reached his eyes.
* * *
Chapter Two
I was fidgeting nervously while I waited for Caleb to emerge from the restroom, shuffling around on my feet and glaring hard at anyone who got close to me. I wasn’t truly concerned that someone was going to run over and grab Caleb’s bag, but I still felt a sense of responsibility considering he had chosen to trust me with it.
He came out after a few minutes, wiping his hands dry on the front of his dark wash blue jeans. I swallowed hard as I took in his appearance from head to toe, noticing for the first time just how prominent the bulge in the front of his jeans was.
No wonder he’s so popular with women.
My cheeks were red by the time he got back to my side and picked up his bag. From the corner of my eye, I could see his inquisitive look as he realized that I was ignoring him. Then, like some sort of mind-reader, his gaze darkened and he chuckled, a knowing smirk appearing on his lips.
Thankfully, he didn’t comment on my behavior. Instead, he jerked his head towards the set of escalators we had come up to find the restroom up asked, “Ready to explore?”
“Sure,” I said, clearing my throat and falling into step beside him.
We walked together through the underground area of the airport in a companionable silence for a long while. It wasn’t the first time I had been in the Atlanta airport, but I was still amazed by how huge it was. The halls were fairly crowded everywhere we went but eventually, we found a less inhabited portion and Caleb staked his claimed on an open portion of the wall by plopping down and leaning against it.
I dropped my duffle bag against the wall and put my messenger bag beside it, shedding my jacket again before sitting down beside him and leaning my back against my bag. I let my eyes drift shut for a long moment, mentally going over how odd the day was turning out.
Caleb hadn’t spoken to me since using the restroom, but we had stayed together for a good while now. Not that I was complaining, there were plenty of worse candidates to spend time with while stuck in an airport. It just seemed… weird that he hadn’t ditched me yet. I knew I appreciated the companionship, but what was he getting out of this?
“So. Tell me about yourself.”
I cracked open my eyes and found him leaning towards me, his blue eyes watching my every move with interest.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Everything? That’s a tall order for airport chit-chat.”
“Well you should probably get started now. Who knows how much time we’ll have left to spend together?” he said dramatically.
I chuckled before throwing my hands into the air, making a helpless gesture as I said, “I have no idea where to start.”
“Well, your name would be nice.”
I frowned as I thought back over the past two hours only to realize that he was right. I had never even introduced myself. I felt a bit like a jerk as I held out my hand and said, “Sabrina Murphy.”
He looked at my hand for a long moment, like he was unsure of whether or not he wanted to touch me. I nearly pulled it away in anger when I felt his warm palm gently connect with mine, the simple touch making the hairs on my arms stand up as goosebumps prickled my flesh.
His strong hand clasped down, giving me a firm shake as he smiled and said, “Caleb Bradshaw.”
“We established that already. Remember? When you snapped at me?”
For a split second, his eyes went totally blank, devoid of any emotion as he just sat there and stared at me. But like flipping a switch, a look of remorse appeared and he said, “Sorry about that.”
“It’s alright,” I said hesitantly, wondering yet again how it was possible to tell when this man was acting and when he was being genuine.
I resigned myself to the fact that I may never really know. But I really wanted to find out.
“So… Sabrina Murphy. Are you Irish?”
“What gave it away? My last name or my hair?”
Caleb laughed lightly, his eyes lighting up with mirth as he reached over and grabbed a lock of my red hair and twisted it gently around his finger. “It’s natural then?”
“Yeah.”
His eyes met mine and I felt my smile wane as his eyes darkened with lust. They flicked between my face and my cleavage before he asked, “Is everything natural?”
I jerked away from me, yelping a little when he accidentally pulled my hair. I crossed my arms over my chest and growled out, “You’re a pig.”
“Guilty as charged. But you didn’t answer the question.”
“And I have no plans to,” I hissed, shooting him an icy glare before turning away and staring off into space.
In my peripheral vision I saw him lift his hand up and open his mouth, but eventually he lowered his hand in defeat. He ran his hands through his short brown hair before leaning back against the wall with a sigh.
After what felt like an hour of silence, he cleared his throat, my attention drawn to the noise. He looked a little bashful as he sat forward and scratched the back of his neck.
“Can we just pretend like I never said any of that?”
I wanted to say no, but one glance at his face changed my mind. Pig or not, I was totally intrigued by him and since we seemed to pair up for the storm, I figured that I might as well keep talking to him.
“Fine.”
“Thank you. Believe it or not, I’m actually enjoying your company. I just have a knack for fucking things up. Especially with women.”
I snorted and said, “No shit.”
He sunk further down on the floor and turned on his side to face me better, propping his elbow on his carry-on bag and leaning his head against it. “Are you seeing anyone?”
I bristled at the question, not really wanting to answer it but knowing that he would just hound me if I didn’t. “No.”
“No?” he parroted back with a raised eyebrow. “But you had to think about it?”
“I just got out of a long relationship. It just… Still feels a little weird to say ‘no’.”
“How long was it?”
“Almost three years.”
He grunted in response and I could tell by the distasteful look on his face that he couldn’t even fathom the idea of spending three years with the same person.
Hell, he probably couldn’t even spend three months with the same woman.
“Why’d you break up?”
I gave him a sharp look as I asked, “Do you even care? You already look bored with this conversation.”
He shrugged. “I did say that I wanted to know everything. That includes the boring shit.”
My mouth was pressed into a thin line as I blankly stared at him, a little offended by having my previous relationships classified as ‘boring shit’. I pushed it away swiftly, knowing that he likely didn’t even understand why his words would offend me.
“Well?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m a smart guy,” he said dryly. “Try me.”
“Well… I mean, we just weren’t working. We weren’t going to work and we both just got sick of trying to force it.”
“Who broke up with who?”
“He brought it up first, but we mutually agreed that we should end it.”
Caleb laughed loudly, nearly rolling around on the floor in his hysterics. I frowned at him as I failed to see the joke in what I sai
d.
Once he finally stopped laughing, he breathed out, “Sorry, sorry… It’s just… That’s what every woman says when a guy breaks up with her. It’s usually code for ‘He got sick of me and I’m too proud to admit it’,” he explained in an annoyingly high-pitched voice.
“It wasn’t like that,” I forced out between my clenched teeth, trying very hard not to fucking snap at him. “We were best friends first and we never should have attempted to be more than that. We both fucking knew it and we both decided to end it.”
He sobered up a little as he listened to my words, some form of understanding dawning on his face. He at least had the presence of mind to look sheepish for a moment, mumbling a quick apology before he asked me another question.
“What was he like?”
“He… Well, he’s a very kind man.”
His roar of laughter made me want to slap him. I lifted my hand in the air, preparing to slap him right in his freakishly handsome face when he held up his hands in mock-surrender.
“Wait, wait, wait. Hear me out.”
I lowered my hand but kept my eyes narrowed at him.
“If the first thought you have about a lover is ‘he’s a very kind man’, then something is definitely wrong. That’s the first time I’ve heard a girl say that about a guy who’s, presumably, under sixty years old.”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s twenty-nine.”
“A very kind man in his twenties?” He paused and chuckled before blowing out a low, sad whistle as he shook his head. “Sucks to be him. Must’ve been terrible in bed.”
When I didn’t answer right away, he sat up and kneeled closer to me, his eyes lit up like he had just made an incredible discovery. “That was it, wasn’t it? That was the problem?”
My cheeks heated up and I nodded, not wanting to say it out loud.
“Wow, I’m pretty good at this. So, a terrible lay, huh? I’ve had my fair share of those. I can’t believe you stuck with him so long,” he said casually, leaning back on his bag.
I shook my head and whispered, “It wasn’t-”
Caleb could sense that something was wrong, his eyebrows drawing together with concern as he leaned back towards me. He cupped my chin in his hand and tipped my head up, forcing me to look him in the eye.
“It wasn’t what?”
“It wasn’t him,” I admitted. “It was me.”
His head tipped to the side as he mulled through the words before a disbelieving smile spread across his lips as he said, “No way. You can’t be bad in bed.”
I wiped at my eyes, frustrated with the tears that were springing up as I thought about my lack of sexual prowess. I had very little experience before hooking up with Tim and very low self-esteem as well. He spent three years trying to get me to come out of my shell, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t do it.
It didn’t help that I was never really interested in Tim in a romantic way. But we were best friends and had so much in common that, at the time, it made total sense to agree to have dinner with him in a less-platonic way.
And all it got me was three wasted years and a friendship that could never be repaired. Not to mention the incredible blow to my ego when Tim admitted that he had never been physically attracted to me.
That part definitely stung more than anything else.
“Sabrina?”
“Hmm?” I murmured, my vision snapping back to focus on Caleb’s concerned face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. Can we talk about something else?”
I could see that he was dying to say something else, but he managed to bite his tongue and nodded. “Sure. Why don’t you tell me about your screenplay?”
“Oh, this again? Here,” I said, holding up a finger and digging through my messenger bag. Once I located the papers, I pulled them out and handed them to him. “Why don’t you just read some of it? Like you said, we may be here a while.”
“Really?” he asked, looking up at me for confirmation. “You don’t mind if I read some?”
“Not at all.”
“I’m a harsh critic.”
“You couldn’t tell that from some of the stinkers I’ve seen you in in.”
His eyes widened with surprise and delight as he put a hand over his heart and exclaimed, “Ouch! The girl can bite!”
I grinned slyly and said, “You have no idea.”
His smile faded and he slowly licked his lips, his eyes darting down to stare at my lips as he whispered, “Oh, I’d love to find out.”
I inhaled sharply, not surprised that he had taken my playful comment in a sexual way and I was torn between being totally mortified and completely aroused.
Turns out, you can totally be both of those things at once.
He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and gently bit down, taking a deep breath as his eyes scanned my frame one more time before he finally looked away. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he focused his attention on the screenplay instead of me.
The way he had looked at me was… Well, disarming to say the least.
He scanned through the first few pages before glancing back at me to ask, “You mind if I read it all?”
“Go right ahead.”
He smiled and began reading it again— slower this time as he really took in the words as he had done many times over the course of his career. The man had a filmography that most actors would kill for. Of course he’d been in a number of less-than-great films, but he’d also been in some of the biggest blockbusters of the decade and still made the time to do a ton of powerful indie films on the side.
But it was no secret that he sacrificed having a personal life in order to work as much as he did.
Maybe that’s why he just sleeps with women and moves along.
I scoffed at myself for attempting to justify his womanizing behavior. Using people wasn’t okay in my book, no matter what kind of excuse they may have had.
I dug around in my messenger bag again for a book to read while Caleb was otherwise engaged, knowing that I had packed three novels just in case I wound up with nothing else to do.
Or, if I was being honest, because I knew that I wasn’t going to be out dancing in a city like Los Angeles. My self-esteem was shaky enough as it was and I certainly wasn’t up for standing beside a bunch of perfect bikini bodies and making myself feel even worse by comparison.
I cracked open the book I had grabbed and started reading, but it was harder to focus than normal. I couldn’t concentrate on the paragraphs, my eyes constantly shifting to the side to look for a reaction on Caleb’s stoic face.
I didn’t really know why his opinion mattered to me, but it did. Maybe it was because he would be the first actor to read it or maybe it was just because I wanted to impress him.
Be serious. It’s both.
Acknowledging that fact didn’t make it any easier for me to sit patiently and wait for him to finish reading.
* * *
Almost an hour later, I had finally managed to become engrossed in the novel, long since given up looking for a response from Caleb until after he finished. I was just getting sucked into the mystery of the story when my screenplay was plopped down right on top of the book I was trying to read.
“Done,” he needlessly announced.
I marked the page in my book and put it back in my bag along with the script. Then I turned to him, my nervousness surely showing as I asked, “And?”
“It’s alright,” he responded with a half-shrug.
I felt my heart drop into my stomach. It wasn’t the reaction I wanted— not even close. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that my script was a special snowflake but… Was it really just ‘alright’?
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked with a frown.
Caleb turned back to look at me, his eyes slightly dazed like he had been zoning out into space. “Oh! Nothing really. I just liked a lot of the lines that were crossed out. The rewritten stuff wasn’t as good. And you’r
e not even done with the rewrites yet, are you?”
My face fell and I dropped my gaze, staring at my hands as I twisted them in my lap. “No, I’ve still got a few more things to change.”
“Are you changing the ending?”
“No,” I said quickly, almost defensively. “No, they liked the ending. That’ll stay the same.”
“That’s good to hear. The ending was awesome.”
“Thanks. And for the record… I didn’t want to change anything. I liked it the way it was. But the studio-”
“Fuck the studio!”
I reared back at his abruptness, a little startled by the intensity he put behind his words. “I would love nothing more than to be able to say that, but without them, it’s not going to get made at all. It’s either do what they say or don’t do it at all.”
Caleb gave me a hard look with an underlying expression that I was struggling to decipher. By the time I thought I was starting to understand it, the storm in his eyes had cleared, replaced now by understanding.
“Well… Your writing is good.”
“Thank you.”
“Would’ve been better with a sex scene.”
I didn’t even bother to resist the urge to roll my eyes and he chuckled at the sight. Afterwards, we sat together in silence again, looking between each other and the floor as we waited for the other to start up a conversation. I could tell by looking at his face and at the small smile there that he was waiting for me to start it this time.
“So are you seeing anyone? I mean, you asked me but-”
He waved a hand through the air and I snapped my mouth closed automatically.
“I’m seeing everyone and no one,” he said vaguely. “The better question is… Does it really matter?”
“I… I guess not,” I answered, totally puzzled by his response to such a simple question.
Nothing about him is simple.
“Good.”
I didn’t know how to continue from such a weird point, so I didn’t even bother to try. I watched as he pulled his cell from his pocket and checked the time and a weather app. He sighed loudly at what he read before he turned back to look at me.
“You want to take a nap?”