Do You Do Extras? (An American in the UK Book 1)

by Nikki Ashton

  Phoebe’s head shot up. “No. You can talk about your dating history if you want to.”

  I leaned across the table and whispered. “Just not the sex part.”

  “I said you can if you want to.” Phoebe began to tuck into her cheesecake again, feigning nonchalance, but her still pink cheeks said otherwise.

  “Nope,” I replied. “I don’t want to.”

  It was true, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to talk to her about the many girls I’d slept with, because being in LA was like being a kid let loose in FAO Schwarz with unlimited credit. I didn’t regret it, but all kids grew out of wanting toys eventually. I wasn’t ashamed. What young guy wouldn’t spread the love if it was handed to him on a plate? I just didn’t talk about anything that wasn’t important to me, and call me a douchebag, but those girls weren’t important to me – just as I wasn’t to them either.

  “Okay, so how serious were your girlfriends? I didn’t see anything on Google about them.”

  “Wow, you really did do some research didn’t you?”

  “God, I’m sorry.” Phoebe blushed again. “Please don’t think I’m stalking you or anything like that.”

  She looked at me anxiously, sucking on her bottom lip, and I had a real yearning to set it free with my thumb - mainly so I could suck on it myself. Giving myself a little inward shake, I moved my eyes away from her lips and attempted to concentrate on the conversation.

  “I’m not mad, Phoebe,” I said softly. “I’m in the public eye, my story is out there for anyone to see. You just won’t find much about me before I moved to LA, being a high school baseball star aside.”

  “I guess people are only interested in your acting career.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe, I just buried it.”

  Phoebe’s mouth dropped open as she stared at me. It was written all over her face that she was wondering what had happened in my life that I’d felt the need to keep it hidden. But, when she picked up her wine glass and took a sip, it was evident that she’d decided not to ask. Maybe it was the fear of hearing my story, because there was worry etched on her pretty features. Worry that I didn’t want her to feel.

  “It was nothing horrific, Phoebe,” I said softly. “I just don’t want people knowing that my mother was probably one of the worst moms on record.”

  “Please tell me she didn’t hit you or…” Her barely audible voice trailed off, but I heard the words she didn’t say.

  “No,” I replied with a sigh. “She didn’t hit me or anything else. What she did do was neglect me. I pretty much brought myself up after my dad left.”

  Phoebe’s eyes glistened as she leaned forward to listen to me and I could feel the sympathy emanating from her.

  “I’ve never told anyone but Marcia and Barney about this,” I said, pushing away my wine glass.

  “You don’t have to tell me either. Honestly Grantley, it’s your business and I should never have brought it up.”

  I watched her carefully. Seeing the apprehension on her face and the compassion in her eyes, I knew I wanted her to hear it. She was my friend and friends shared their deepest secrets. Yeah, it didn’t escape me that I had never told my two serious girlfriends anything at all about my childhood, and I’d lived with one of them. Living with Serena had been really short-lived, just a couple of months, even though we tried real hard to make it work. Yet, I never divulged any of what I was going to tell Phoebe.

  “When my dad left, I’d like to say it was what made Sue-Ann fall apart, but it wasn’t. She was an out of control drunk way before that. I think my dad covered for her being a shit mom while he was around. He was the one who took an interest in me, and in hindsight, I realize he was the one who kept Sue-Ann together and cajoled her into behaving like a mom. Once he left though, there was no one to cover for her and it was pretty clear she was not meant for motherhood.”

  “And yet your dad still left you with her?” Phoebe took in a deep breath. “Oh my God, that’s awful. He’s as bad as her.”

  I nodded and gave her a tight smile. “Yeah, you’re right, he’s just as fucking bad.”

  “Yet you still call him dad, but she’s Sue-Ann.”

  I’d never thought about that before, but she was right. I had no idea why I did that.

  “I don’t know, maybe because he was a great dad before he left – the best in fact – that still gives him the right to be called dad. Who knows?” I shrugged. “I guess most of my memories are of her and the miserable life we had together.”

  “I know I have a bad relationship with my parents,” Phoebe replied. “But they did at least care for me and kept me safe.”

  “Well Sue-Ann was all kinds of shit.” I laughed emptily. “She would leave me for days at a time, alone in the house without much food, while she went off and got stoned or drunk with whatever guy she was lusting after at the time. I always knew when she was going to do a disappearing act, because she’d give me ten dollars before I went to school. She’d always say ‘just in case you need anything, baby boy’ and then that night I’d get home and she’d be gone.”

  “Oh my God,” Phoebe gasped. “Did no one help you? Did your neighbours not see what was going on?”

  “I was pretty good at hiding it. For as much as I hated her and the life we led, I knew it would be a lot worse if I was put in the system. I learned to do laundry and how to make that ten dollars last. I ate a lot of ramen noodles and bought a hell of a lot of bruised fruit. No one, not even my teachers realized what was going on. I even kept up my school work, doing my homework after I’d washed and dried my clothes and cleaned up the house. Anything not to bring attention to the situation.”

  “How old were you when your dad left?” Phoebe pushed away her half-eaten dessert and clutched a hand to her chest.

  “I was almost six.”

  “The same age as the boys,” she whispered. Her head shot up as she looked at me with understanding. “That’s why you took to them.”

  I smiled and nodded. “That and they’re pretty cool kids.”

  “I can’t imagine Callum and Mack having any clue how to look after themselves.”

  “I can’t imagine them ever having to. If Beth weren’t around, they’d have you.”

  Phoebe’s head dropped and she took in a long breath. Twisting her napkin in her hands she nodded.

  “They’ll always have me,” she replied.

  She sniffed and swiped at her cheek; she was crying. The thought of the boys being in my position had really got to her.

  “It won’t happen,” I said, reaching over to touch her cheek. “Beth is a fantastic mother and would never do that.”

  She lifted her gaze and gave me a small nod.

  “You’re right, she wouldn’t. I just can’t believe your mother put you through that, Grantley.” She sniffed again. “I can’t stop thinking about how scared you must have been.”

  “The first couple of times.” I shrugged. “But after that I got used to it. She didn’t do it all the time, but she went missing at least a couple of times a year. And to be honest, when she was at home she was pretty absent. I was more like the parent than she was. At first I made sure she ate, and actually got out of bed each day – I think I thought that she was heartbroken about my dad. But after a few months I realized the way she was and knew that was why he left in the first place. When I was about eight or nine, I started to look forward to her going. My life was easier for those peaceful few days that she was gone.”

  “She never remarried?” Phoebe asked.

  “God no, she was getting too much child support from my dad. I’ll give him that, he paid for me right up until the day I turned eighteen. Plus, I think most of the men she went after realized pretty quick what a loser she was. She was never one of those women that went for deadbeat men who I’d feel threatened by. Oh no, she always went for the guys with good jobs and money. The couple that she actually brought home were pretty cool guys – one was a dentist. Brian Turnblatt was his name. A balding
guy with more than a few extra inches on his waistline. He was nice, always scruffed my hair and asked me how I was doing. She was actually normal while she was with him. She cooked and cleaned and even made sure I showered.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She stole from him.” I raised my eyebrows and shrugged one shoulder. “It was inevitable. She had a good thing going and fucked it up. She took money from his wallet and the keys to his practice and gave them to a drug dealer ex-boyfriend who she owed money to. He got in and stole a load of prescription pain meds. Sue-Ann had no idea that the practice had a silent alarm that went straight through to the cops. Of course her ex snitched on her, but Brian being the good guy that he was decided not to press charges. We just never saw him again.”

  I reached for my glass, which was still half full, but after looking at it, I pushed it away again. We hadn’t even opened the second bottle, what with things getting so serious so quickly.

  “I’m sorry, Phoebe,” I finally said. “I wanted us to have a nice dinner, not talk about my shitty childhood.”

  She looked up at me and smiled. “I’m just sorry you had a shitty childhood.”

  “Don’t be. I survived and I never got hurt. Well, not really.”

  “What does that mean, not really?”

  I stuck out my left arm and pointed at the scar on it. It was raised and jagged, a silver line against my tanned skin.

  “She did that when she was drunk and high one night.”

  Phoebe gasped. “No.”

  “Yeah. She didn’t mean to, but she still never said sorry.”

  “What happened?”

  “It happened when I was around eleven. She was dancing around the room with a bottle of vodka in her hand and she tripped and caught it on the side of the coffee table. The bottle smashed and so she was lurching around holding onto the neck of it, and I was worried she was going to cut herself. I didn’t care about her too much, but I didn’t want her cutting her own throat by accident and me having to go into foster care. I made a grab for her arm but she struggled and the jagged glass ripped my skin. It was pretty deep and wouldn’t stop bleeding.”

  “Oh my God, what did you do?”

  “I bandaged it up and put the broken bottle into my school bag. The next morning when I got to school, I dropped the bottle in the school yard, stuffed the bloody bandage into the bottom of my bag and then made a big show of falling over. I knew the school would take me to the ER and no one would ask as many questions as if I’d gone in with my drunk mom the night before. They stitched me up and I was fine.”

  “And no one guessed?” Phoebe asked incredulously.

  “Nope. Although my teacher, Miss Kingston, couldn’t understand how from falling over I’d managed to get the bottle into the top of my arm, or for that matter, how the bottle got there. I remember our janitor getting into real shit with the Principal for that. Miss Kingston asked a lot of questions, but I stuck to my story.” I grinned at her. “Even then I was a fucking good actor.”

  Phoebe smiled. “You evidently were.”

  We fell silent again and I decided that we’d had enough talk of Sue-Ann Miller and her amazing mothering skills.

  “So,” I said with a grin. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me all about your sex life.”

  Phoebe groaned, screwed up her napkin and threw it at me before starting to laugh.

  “You are so rude.”

  “Yep, I know,” I sighed. “But you still think I’m amazing.”

  She didn’t answer, she just looked down at the table and I knew that I’d never before wanted anyone to think I was amazing as much as I did at that moment.

  Phoebe

  It was almost ten and I knew I should get going. My last train home was at eleven-thirty, but I didn’t want to travel on that one. It was usually full of drunken people scarfing down stinking burgers and trying to engage me in their inebriated conversations that made little or no sense. I wasn’t averse to that when I was drunk myself, but when I was sober it wasn’t much fun.

  “Grantley,” I called through to the kitchen area. “Is it okay if I call reception to get me a taxi?”

  Grantley appeared around the corner, sucking something off the end of this thumb and looking extremely gorgeous.

  “A taxi?”

  “Yes, I need to get up to the railway station. I’d like to catch the ten-thirty train.”

  He glanced down at his watch. “I’ll get Barney to come back. I don’t want you getting on a train at this time of night.”

  “God, no,” I cried, shaking my head and walking towards the desk where the phone was. “Don’t do that, he’s out enjoying himself. Honestly, I’ll be fine.”

  “Shit,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, I never thought about you getting home. I’d drive you, but I’ve had too much to drink and of course, Barney has the car.”

  “Don’t be silly, I’ll be fine on the train.”

  Grantley shook his head. “No. You’re not doing that.”

  “Well how else do I get home?”

  Grantley’s eyes glittered with a hundred possibilities and there wasn’t one of them that I wanted to say no to – come on, I remembered that anaconda he hid in his sweat pants on the first day of filming. Unfortunately though, I had to say no.

  “Grantley-.” I started.

  “Nope, it’s not happening. I know what you can do -.”

  It was my turn to interrupt him. “No, I’m not staying. You don’t have a spare bedroom and I wouldn’t feel comfortable with you sleeping on the couch.”

  I was sure I would regret not staying with the possibility of petting his snake, but I’d undoubtedly regret staying even more. While I chastised my own stupid decisions, Grantley cleared his throat. When I looked up at him, he gave me a smirk as he crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I was going to suggest that I pay for a taxi to bring you all the way home.”

  I closed my eyes and groaned. What a stupid, bloody idiot. I wanted to crawl up into a tiny ball and disappear. Or maybe invent a time-machine so I could erase my stupid ramblings. As neither were going happen, I opened my eyes, only to see Grantley now had a full on grin. The smug bastard.

  “I just…shit…I.”

  “I know what you thought, Phoebe. You thought I was some sort of douche, who would persuade you to stay the night on our first date…”

  Grantley’s voice trailed off, and now it was his turn to colour up as he scrubbed a hand over his face and laughed.

  “You never said that this was a date.” I fluttered my eyelashes and lay a hand over my heart. “Well, Mr. James, aren’t you just the romantic one.”

  Grantley rolled his eyes, but was still smiling.

  “I was making a point about the sort of person you think I am. You know, a ladies’ man.”

  “Now who’s using my words back at me?”

  Grantley laughed and came to stand in front of me. “Whatever, but I’m neither a douche nor a ladies’ man, so I would never suggest you stay over.” His gaze roamed lazily down my body and then back up again. “Unless of course you want to.”

  Of course I wanted to. My nipples and vagina were most definitely up for a sleepover.

  “No, you idiot.” I slapped at his arm and turned back to the phone. “A taxi to the station is fine, thank you.”

  “Nope. A taxi all the way home otherwise you get the couch, and I have to warn you, I walk around naked in the mornings.”

  Shit, I’d get to see his mammoth weapon. Then again, sweat pants could be very deceiving.

  He watched me as I contemplated his offer.

  “Okay, fine,” I sighed out. “But you do know it’s going to cost you a fortune.”

  “It’ll be worth it to be sure you get home safe.”

  Then without warning, he leaned forward and kissed my cheek while stroking a hand down my hair. His touch and his kiss were both gentle, but took my breath away and made my heart thump wildly. Grantley pulled away slowly and as he did, he gave my
nose a little rub with his own. Our lips were now inches apart and I held my breath; he was going to kiss me. This time however, there would be no interruptions and I knew he would blow not only my socks off, but my knickers too, because I had no willpower whatsoever.

  As Grantley’s lips hovered over mine, I looked up at his eyes and then back to his mouth. His top lip was a little fuller than his bottom one, but both looked enticing and I was desperate to capture them with my own. Grantley swallowed and threaded the fingers of one hand into my hair, while the other rested against my neck, the metal of his rings cooling my heated skin.

  “So pretty,” he whispered. “So damn pretty.”

  I lifted onto my tiptoes and let out a small breath, opening my lips for him – inviting him in. Grantley’s hand moved from my hair to the small of my back, and pulled me against him. The minute our bodies slammed together we became a tangle of arms, pulling at each other, as our tongues played and our lips explored. Our breathing got heavy amidst the moans of enjoyment and satisfaction. My body was thrumming in time with the waves of electricity rushing through my veins. I’d never been kissed like this before. I’d never felt such dizzy heights of pleasure, simply through having a man’s lips on mine.

  He was amazing, and from what I could feel, those sweat pants had not been deceiving at all.

  Grantley hooked his hands under my thighs and lifted me from my feet. Turning around, he walked us back to the dining table and put me down on it, using his tall, sculpted body to force my legs apart and position himself between them. I edged forward, needing to feel some sort of friction, and groaned when the buckle of his belt rubbed in just the right place.

  “Grantley.”

  “Oh fuck.”

  Evidently we’d said enough because we stopped talking and continued kissing, with Grantley’s hand snaking up my side and under my shirt. The trail of his fingers caused my skin to pebble and a shiver of delight to ripple through me. Grantley’s mouth left mine and started to land warm kisses down my neck, sending me onto a higher plane of need. Moving my hands from around his neck, I put them behind me, leaning back to give him better access to my heated skin.