The Monday Girl (The Girl Duet #1)

by Julie Johnson

  “Sounds like a thrill.” My voice is hollow of feeling. “You know, I actually forgot to tell Harper something — would you excuse me?”

  I don’t even spare a look at Grayson as I pivot on one heel and walk away. My world has suddenly flipped on its head. I can’t fathom a universe in which he has spent all day with another girl — not when I can still feel the after-ache of him between my legs, still taste the memory of him on my tongue, still recall the warmth of his arms around me mere hours ago.

  I cannot wrap my mind around the possibility that he awoke this morning and chose to seek out her company instead of mine, after the night we shared together. And yet, as I walk unseeing toward the break tent, I am forced to confront the possibility that the moments we shared laughing and loving beneath a twilight sky meant so little to him, he could carry on with his life without a thought.

  I’ve nearly made it to the beverage table when his hand closes tightly around my forearm. I don’t even have a chance to struggle before I’m dragged by the bicep out of the cave, down the narrow trail a few yards, and into a dense grove of palm trees.

  “Grayson! What the hell!” I hiss, pulling out of his hold as soon as he stops moving. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Talking to my co-star.”

  “We have a scene to shoot. They’ll be starting any minute.”

  “Well, they can’t exactly start without us, can they?”

  Scoffing, I push past him to head back to the set, but find my progress halted again by his grip on my arm.

  “It’s rude to keep people waiting,” I say coldly.

  “Well, it’s rude to storm away from a conversation without a good reason, but that didn’t seem to stop you.”

  “Oh, I have plenty of reasons.”

  His eyes flash — in their depths, I see anger and annoyance and something else, something that calls to mind memories of waterfalls and walk-in showers. I’d call it attraction, but that’s too tame a word. This look is… animalistic .

  “And what would those be?” he asks in a dangerously soft voice. “What, exactly, did I do to make you pissed off at me again? Because, the last time I saw you, from where I stood things seemed pretty fucking great between us. But somehow, in the span of a day, you’ve turned crazy on me.”

  “Don’t call me crazy.”

  “Then tell me what this is about.”

  “Her !” I gesture toward the set. “It’s about her.”

  “Her? Who? Wait… you don’t mean Annabelle ?” He says her name in a tone of such incredulity, you’d think I’d suggested he spent the day on a date with a baboon. “That’s what this is about? You’re jealous over some other girl?”

  Of course I’m jealous! I want to scream. You made love to me in the shadows, and gave her your daylight hours. You’re mine, not Annabelle’s. I don’t want her holding your hand, or touching your arm, or brushing the messy hair back from your infinite eyes.

  Except… he’s not mine.

  That’s the problem.

  He runs both hands through his hair, a dark expression twisting his features. “Shit, Kat, this is exactly what I was worried about…Christ, this is Helena all over again…”

  I cannot stand the way he’s looking me. Like I’m a clingy, crazy girl in love with him, the kind that pokes holes in the condoms in her boyfriend’s nightstand with a needle while he sleeps soundly in bed beside her, the kind who thinks about things like baby names and biological clocks and reception venues and whether or not a full string quartet is too tacky for the wedding march. He’s staring at me like I’m just one more obsessed bimbo, trailing after him with stars in her eyes.

  It’s not fair, or right, or remotely accurate… but it hurts me all the same that he could so thoroughly misjudge my character.

  You are not this girl , I tell myself. You are not this weak, this needy, this pathetically dependent on a guy you’ve slept with once. He wants to pretend last night was just a casual lay? He wants to play it cool until the movie is wrapped? Fine by me. I’ll play it so cool, he’ll catch hypothermia and freeze to death, before I’m done with him.

  A brittle little laugh slips from my lips.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Dunn. Of course I’m not jealous.” My heart tears as I lie in a blithe tone. “It just would’ve been nice to know you had plans for the day. I texted you to see if you wanted to get lunch with me, Harper, and Wyatt. We waited for a while. It’s inconsiderate to do that to your friends. Even a heathen like you should realize that.”

  He blinks, startled by my words. “Oh. Damn. Now I feel like an ass.” His grin is sheepish. “I didn’t have my phone with me. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. It was just lunch. Not the end of the world.”

  “Good. God, you really had me worried there for a moment. After everything that went down with Helena, the drama she caused for the project after we got involved… let’s just say I’m not eager to repeat that.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not Helena.” I smile weakly.

  “Man, I think Sloan might’ve actually killed me if I fucked up his movie twice , especially when we’re this close to wrapping up.”

  My heart hurts. Physical pain radiates from each of its chambers. I’m well-practiced at keeping it buried far below the surface, but it still kills me to know his main concern is about fucking with the movie, not fucking with my head.

  “I’m so glad you’re not like her,” he murmurs, moving in a bit closer. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met, Kat. Just being around you makes me feel…” He trails off with a sigh.

  My eyebrows lift. “Feel… what?”

  His lips twitch. “There’s a reason I’m an actor, not a writer. I’m no good with flowery words.”

  I tilt my head. “Okay…”

  “I guess I just want to say, I’m glad you get it . Our situation… it’s not normal. And some girls probably couldn’t handle it. But you’re not just any girl.”

  “Well—”

  He steps closer, cutting me off. “You realize how important this movie is to me, because it’s just as important to you. And you’re not willing to let petty personal shit mess everything up.”

  I swallow down my own words as his wash over me.

  I don’t know how, but in the space of a few sentences he’s twisted it all around, so I’m left thinking I’m the one who’s made a mistake here. So I’m left feeling like I really am crazy or irrational or blowing things out of proportion.

  His smooth talk makes me second guess myself until all the righteous anger and jealousy simmering within me are so tangled up with insecurity and embarrassment, there’s no way to tell what’s real from what’s fake. Before I can begin to sort it out, he steps closer and puts his hands on my hips. When he leans down into my space so our lips are a fraction of an inch apart, my whole mind goes alarmingly blank.

  “You and me…” he whispers, his mouth practically on mine. “We’re good, right?”

  I nod. “Yes, we’re good, but—”

  “Good,” he mutters, cutting me off with a kiss.

  I float away on a cloud of lust, letting him soothe away my worries with each stroke of his tongue, telling myself that maybe I was overreacting about the Annabelle situation, reminding myself that Grayson doesn’t know how to have a relationship that’s anything other than casual.

  Of course he’s throwing up walls, after the intimacy of last night. He’s just as freaked out as I am about this thing between us, whatever it is.

  Petty personal shit.

  As I walk back toward set, lips swollen from his kisses and eyes watching the spot between his broad shoulder blades, I’m barely able to recall why I was so upset with him five minutes prior.

  I suppose that’s the thing about being the fly in a web.

  You don’t know you’re caught until it’s far, far too late.

  * * *

  T he cave scenes take all night to film.

  By dawn, I’ve been pushed to the breaking
point of both exhaustion and embarrassment. I’ve never been much of a sexual exhibitionist — I’ve never had the urge to get it on in an airplane bathroom, haven’t once been tempted to do it in a dingy bar stall. Hell, I hate to even pee in front of other people. So, I can’t say I particularly enjoy stripping down to the skin and simulating sex in front of an entire film crew.

  The only silver lining is Sloan’s announcement that he got everything he needed, so Grayson and I won’t have to spend a second night running our hands over each other’s bodies for take after take after take, until I’m so turned on it’s damn near painful to even look at him or breathe his air without exploding into pieces.

  As soon as the final “Cut!” is called, Wyatt appears in front of me, wrapping a large fluffy robe around my body to conceal my nudity from the eyes of the crew. I pull it close and look up at him, noting the slight flush on his chiseled cheekbones.

  “Why, Wyatt Hastings, are you blushing?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man. I’ve seen my fair share of boobs before, baby.”

  I narrow my eyes. “But you’ve never seen my boobs before. Is it going to affect our friendship?”

  He grins devilishly. “I think it can only enhance our friendship, if we’re being honest. Boobs are the foundation of any solid partnership. More boobs, I say.”

  I smack him on the arm. “I’m pretty sure that’s a load of—”

  “Kat.”

  The intensity of Grayson’s voice makes my words dry up mid-sentence. I turn away from Wyatt to look at him. He’s got a black towel slung low around his waist, but he’s still essentially naked. His eyes are full of so much heat they practically melt me on the spot. I can tell, from one look at him, that he’s just as sexually charged after the past few hours as I am. That, given a single word of encouragement from me, he’d throw me down on the floor right here, in front of the whole damn crew, and fuck me for real. He’s that far gone.

  I gulp, but it does nothing to dislodge the lump of passion in my throat.

  “Dunn,” Wyatt says in a cool tone that sounds nothing like the one he was just using with me. “Did you need something?”

  “I need Kat.” Grayson’s eyes never waver from mine. “To talk to her, that is.”

  “She’s talking to me, at the moment.” Wyatt sounds pissed. I want to ask him why, but I find myself incapable of speech, drowning in the ocean of desire inside a set of steady green eyes.

  “I can see that,” Grayson growls back.

  I am standing between two distinct storm fronts. The air rolling off Grayson is so heated, it makes me shiver; from Wyatt, there’s nothing but frosty, freezing silence.

  “Kat,” Grayson says lowly. “Can I walk you home?”

  “Um.” I swallow. My eyes dart to Wyatt, watching as he crosses his muscular arms over his chest, biceps bulging as his hands curl into fists. “Do you need anything else from me, or can I go?”

  His light blue eyes flash with an emotion I can’t read, before it’s shuttered away. His expression goes blank. “Of course. I’ll see you later.”

  “Are you sure—” I start, but he’s already walking toward Sloan. Before I can move to go after him, I find my hand wrapped tight in Grayson’s grip.

  “Come on,” he murmurs against my ear, pulling me away from the set so fast we’re practically sprinting. “I’ve spent the past seven hours fucking you for the cameras. I think it’s past time I did it for real.”

  My grin is brighter than the sunrise peeking up over the horizon as we dash inside my bungalow and slam the door behind us.

  Fourteen

  “ W hat biological clock ? I don’t want babies until I’m thirty-five.”

  - A twenty-nine-year-old single woman trying desperately not to freak out her date.

  O ur last stretch of time on the island is bittersweet.

  I spend my days falling in love with Grayson on screen, and my nights trying not to fall in love with him in his bed. He doesn’t spend any more free days with Annabelle, and I don’t ask him what happened between them, though I see her staring coldly at me from across the set on several occasions. We never talk about feelings or labels, never discuss what will happen when the final scenes have been filmed and our time in Hawaii runs out. There is a part of me that realizes things will not be the same once we get back to Los Angeles. That we are living in a state of suspended animation, acting like the world is made of nothing more than orgasms and room service and awkward dance moves. Morning walks as the sun rises over the water, afternoon hikes up to our hidden waterfall, lost hours making love under the stars.

  I ignore the rational side of my brain that insists my seconds here are numbered. I forget the past, shut out the future, and focus only on the moments with him.

  Harper tells me this isn’t healthy. That I’m asking to get my heart broken, by refusing to demand a spoken commitment from him. That fabulous sex is all well and good… but it’s not going to make him stick around when the sets break down and our suitcases are packed.

  I tell her maybe if more people focused on actually falling in love instead of defining it to death, the divorce rate would be a hell of a lot lower in our country.

  Even her eye-roll cannot mask the worry in her gaze.

  I’m not sure whether it’s human nature or simply female inclination to put labels on things. All I know is, as a species, we like things neat.

  Orderly.

  Categorized into classes and easily defined.

  Even our art — we break it down into periods, classify it by mood and theme and color scheme.

  The blue period. The red period. Impressionist, watercolor, oil, abstract.

  We can’t let our art be messy, let alone our relationships.

  We do it with literature, too. Segregate our books into genres and sub-sections. Start every horror story with “it was a dark and stormy night” and every fairy tale with “once upon a time” just to make it clear that things are going a certain way. We crave the safety of archetypes and stereotypes because it takes the guesswork out of things.

  Beginning, middle, end.

  Rising action, climax, resolution.

  Meet-cute, conflict, happily-ever-after.

  This is all well and good, except for one thing: real life rarely follows any discernible pattern. There is no rhyme or reason for most of what happens to us, no explanation as to why we must endure half the shit we go through before we finally stroke out and die.

  People like to look back with 20-20 hindsight and say things like “all’s well that ends well” and “the ends always justify the means.” But what if they don’t? What if the ending you get isn’t some grand, sweeping victory? What if your tale concludes in a whimper instead of the high note you were promised? What if you live your life expecting a romance novel, and get a tragedy instead?

  Preparing, labeling, classifying… it rarely changes the outcome. If I’m the heroine of a horror story, if my endgame is nothing but heartache and harrowing loss… well, the way I see it, there’s not much I can do to prevent that.

  Fate may be determined to fuck me over, but I’m going to have some fun before she does.

  So, I make love. I skinny dip. I learn to surf. I eat poke and kalua pig under tiki torches with Wyatt on one side and Harper on the other, laughing until I snort rum out my nose. I hula-dance in a skirt made of grass with locals who teach me how to swivel my hips and shake my coconut-bra like a native Hawaiian. I spend more instants than I can count staring into green eyes that seem to contain the entire universe.

  And, for a while, I’m happy .

  Obnoxiously happy.

  Disgustingly happy.

  Fall-asleep-with-a-grin-on-my-face happy.

  And then, quite abruptly… I’m not.

  * * *

  “ L ook ! I think it’s a ship!”

  His shout once would’ve been a blessing. Now, I wrap my arms around my stomach and wonder what I did to deserve such a curse.

/>   “Come on, Vi. Quick, grab a torch — we have to light the fire to signal them or they’ll pass without seeing us.” He snatches a torch from its stake in the sand and starts running down the beach, toward the massive pile of driftwood we built up on the rocky cliff’s edge ages ago, back before we’d given up hope of ever being rescued. If a ship ever passed, we weren’t going to be left scrambling for timber. We wanted to be prepared.

  Wanted to be saved .

  I watch him run. The farther away he gets, the more acute my pain becomes. When he realizes I’m not beside him, he whirls around and screams in my direction.

  “What the hell are you doing, Violet? Let’s go!”

  I don’t move an inch.

  Shaking his head like he can’t believe what he’s doing, he runs back, closing the distance between us. Up close, I see his eyes are half-crazed with hope and passion as he grabs me in his arms.

  “What’s wrong with you? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  Hurt .

  What an inconsequential word to describe such a feeling.

  “No, I’m not hurt,” I murmur.

  “Then what are you waiting for? We have to go!” He sounds desperate. “Don’t you see? This is what we’ve been waiting for! Praying for!”

  “I can’t,” I whisper brokenly.

  “What?” He looks at me like I’m a stranger. “What do you mean you can’t? You’re not thinking clearly. They’re going to pass by— this is our only chance, Vi.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  His voice drops in disbelief. “What did you say?”

  “I said I don’t want to go!” I reach up and dash the tears from my eyes. “I don’t want to leave. This is my home now. You’re my home. And as soon as we go back…” My voice breaks. “As soon as we leave, it’ll all be over. You’ll go back to her. And I’ll be alone.”

  “You’re not thinking clearly,” he says, taking me by the shoulders and giving me a shake. “You’re being crazy! Nothing will change.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Beck!” I yell. “Don’t you dare! Not after everything!”

  He grabs my face between his hands. “Listen to me. I will never leave you. I love you, you madwoman. You crazy, stubborn, complicated, awful, wonderful, beautiful girl. You lovely, charming, horrid, funny, sweet, strong woman. I love you . And I will keep loving you until I take my last breath, whether that’s here on a deserted island with only sea turtles to witness it, or back home in civilization, with the rest of humanity. We may’ve been lost on this island, but I found myself in you. And I’m never letting you go. Not now. Not ever.”