Not the sex, great as it was. Him.
He was nirvana.
When the pleasure finally subsided, she closed her eyes and turned her head to the side, ready to melt into the sheets, to disappear so she could savor what had just happened.
His phone rang.
Her eyes flew open.
Hank cursed. The phone was across the room on top of the bureau. “I gotta get it,” he said.
She followed him with her eyes. He didn’t take his off her either. “Hello?” he said, grinning at her.
She smiled back and imagined herself taking a bath with him. In bubbles. With wine.…
She felt herself drift off as he spoke.
“Hey,” he whispered close to her ear, what felt like a second later.
She came instantly awake. “Oops,” she said. “I’m so sorry. That was the biggest—I mean, I haven’t had something like that happen in a very long time. I mean, of that caliber. It kind of knocked me out.”
“I’m flattered,” he said. “It’s fine. I had to take that call. I have to get to the set.”
“You do?”
“Yes. In the next thirty minutes. They were able to clear the end of the Battery wall where we’re doing that nighttime shot. We’re supposed to do it tomorrow night, but it’s going to rain.”
She was still lying on her pillow. “Oh. Lucky I’m not in it.” But then she remembered it was Hank’s turn for sexual satisfaction now. He was ready. That much was clear. “We need to take care of you first,” she said, “before you go.”
“Nope.”
She sat up on her elbows again. “What? That’s crazy!” And then she looked down the length of his body and couldn’t stop looking. “That’s actually criminal. I can’t leave you like that.”
“Sure you can,” he said, and grabbed his jeans from the floor and slipped into them. “This is why they pay me the big bucks.” He was wearing no boxers. She hadn’t even noticed when he’d stripped earlier.
“You used to wear boxers,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. I packed for myself this time and forgot them.” He zipped up his jeans.
Good thing he wasn’t outside around the paparazzi in the daylight. “What a shame,” she said. Not. It wasn’t a shame at all. She wished she could witness Hank in an aroused state in a pair of jeans and no shirt on all the time. “Are you going to go commando every day you’re here?”
“Except on the set, I guess,” he said. “They dress me from the inside out. In fact, I can steal a couple of pairs of boxers there.”
“No!”
“Okay.” He shrugged and pulled on his shirt, started buttoning.
“Why are you okay with not … being satisfied?” she asked, still resting on her elbows.
“Because I’m a professional actor,” he said, “who’s got a job to do.”
“Oh, come on. I get that, but you’re not even grumbling.”
“It’s because I had a great time,” he said. “I feel lucky that I got to be with you. I’m counting my blessings. I could live off the visuals I have now in my head of you naked in this bed tonight for another ten years.”
She blushed. “And why would I grumble when I know we’re going to do this a lot this week?” he added.
“That’s right!” She got excited at the thought.
He chuckled. “Besides, it was so obvious you were through.”
She felt sheepish. “Really?”
“You were out like a light during that phone call.”
“Sorry.” She bit the edge of her thumb. “That was rude of me.”
He laughed. “That’s what happens when you interrupt a great moment to take a lousy phone call telling you to report to work.”
She couldn’t help laughing too. “Oh, Hank, I’m sorry.”
“And to be honest,” he said with a grin, “if you and I ever got back together, I’d owe you ten years’ worth of sex to make up for my absenteeism anyway.”
“Getting back together?” She swung her legs over the side of the bed. She felt light and happy. And she didn’t take him seriously. She knew what he meant.
“I didn’t say we were.” He sat next to her. “I’m just saying if we did.”
“We’ve only been in the same place together two days,” she reminded him.
“Right. And we have a week. Not even.”
“This is all rather…” She put her hands in the air, moved them up and down, palms up, not exactly sure what she was going for.
“This is all sudden.”
“Exactly.” She shook her head. “No one in their right mind—especially two people as smart as we are—”
“We know better than to—”
Neither one of them could finish the sentence. Ella didn’t mind. She got the gist of it: they were crazy. This week was going to be wild and exciting. And then it would be over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Hank went to his room to get ready to head out.
Ella started dozing off again—she really had had the wind knocked out of her, in the best way—when her phone rang from the bureau. She groaned and jumped up to get it.
“Hello?” she croaked into it.
“You’re asleep at nine thirty?” It was an English voice. Samantha.
“I had a busy day,” Ella said.
“Well, I need you.” Samantha sounded as if she wouldn’t take no for an answer. “You’re not in the shoot tonight. But I would love to run some lines with you before tomorrow morning’s scene. I figured since your handsome roommate was coming, you wouldn’t mind coming along as well.”
Oh boy. Running lines. Ella was not excited, but she should be. This was Samantha Drake, world-famous, Oscar-winning actor.
“Sure,” Ella said, and ran her hand through her hair to untangle it.
“By the way,” said Samantha, “I think you two should be together. You and Hank.”
Ella held the phone away from her ear. “What?”
“I said—”
Ella put the phone back. “No, I heard you, but it makes no sense. Why would you say that? Maybe you like him.”
“He’s not nearly good enough for me.”
“He most certainly is.” Ella huffed. “Not that I’m encouraging you to think in that direction.”
“Good, because I’m not. But he’s still quite the catch for someone else. So go jump his bones, or whatever you Americans call shagging.”
“We’re already halfway there,” Ella said, “but you can’t tell anyone.”
“You are?” said Samantha.
Ella couldn’t believe she’d admitted that. Maybe it was the wine, or the sex euphoria, lowering her inhibitions. Or maybe she wanted to lord it over Samantha, who only that afternoon had reminded Ella of all the sex scenes and kissing she’d do with Hank. “Yes, we are.”
“Good for you. Is that why you sound … sleepy? Is that a post-coital drowsiness I’m sensing?”
“Please, Samantha,” Ella said. “Let’s not talk about it.”
“If you insist.”
“It doesn’t mean anything anyway.”
“It doesn’t?” Samantha sounded doubtful.
“No.”
“Then why do you sound like it does? You sound like it means the world. Which is quite a feat, considering you’re rather out of it. I can hear your smile.”
“You can’t hear a smile.” But it was true. Ella didn’t even realize it. She was smiling.
“Have you been drinking?”
“A little. But that’s not why I’m sleepy.”
“I’ve heard of women like you. I’m the opposite. After a good shag, I’m rarin’ to go.”
“We didn’t—”
“Oh, right. You didn’t quite get there. Well, halfway is still not bad. It actually must have been damn good.”
Ella didn’t know what to say.
“More details, darling. I know you’d love to spill.”
“We’ve only got a week together, but we’re going to try to make the
best of it,” Ella confessed.
Samantha laughed. “Meaning you’re hoping to shag all week long. Good luck. You two will be working, my dear. Grueling hours. And you’re going to fall into bed each night exhausted. You’ll be lucky to get five hours of sleep a night.”
“Maybe we can rendezvous in his trailer,” Ella said, “during the day.”
“That’s a pipe dream,” Samantha replied. “People go in and out of there all day. Makeup, costumes, agents, producers. The caterer.”
“We live together. Surely we can find time.”
“Ella, have you ever been in a movie?”
“No.”
“I promise you that the last thing on your mind when you get home will be making love. You’ll collapse in bed.”
“But he’s so hot, Samantha.” The truth must be spoken. “That won’t happen.”
“I hope not, too, for your sake, darling. He won’t be here long. You must gather ye rosebuds while ye may, and so forth and so on.”
Some old English poet had said that, Ella knew from high school.
The truth of Samantha’s observations—and the poet’s—hit Ella hard. Something twisted in her throat, made her eyes burn. “So I’ll see you tonight,” she said, her voice cracking only a little.
Samantha sighed. “You don’t want him to go on Saturday. Your heart is already involved.”
“No,” Ella insisted, “it’s not.”
“You might as well come to the set as often as possible,” said Samantha, more gently. “It’s Tuesday. The clock is ticking on Hank’s departure. Mine too, for that matter, not that you care.”
“Sure I care,” said Ella, pinching the skin between her eyebrows as hard as she could. It helped her buck up. “You’re a very interesting woman.”
“Thank you. As are you.”
There was a short silence on the line. Ella didn’t know what to say. It was almost intimate, how they were speaking—formal, but as if they were veering toward becoming friends.
And they weren’t. How could they be already? But look at what had happened with Hank already! Anything was possible.
“Okay, see you in thirty minutes,” Ella said in a rush.
“Goodbye, Ella,” Samantha said in her famous honeyed tones.
They hung up at the same time.
* * *
It was a bright, moonlit night when Ella and Hank started to walk to the Battery, only two blocks away from the carriage house. He grabbed her hand.
Ella let him. She savored the feel of her palm against his. Yet she couldn’t relax into it. Not quite. “What does it mean, us holding hands?”
“That I like you,” he said right away. “That we had fun tonight.… Didn’t we?” He smiled down at her.
“We did.” But she felt stiff for some reason. Unable to relax or to smile.
“I want to hold your hand,” he explained further, “because you’re coming with me when you didn’t have to.”
“I’m helping Samantha with her lines,” she reminded him.
“I know.” They walked on another ten feet before he added, “But this is how I see it: You’re a generous person, and people don’t tell you that enough. I didn’t tell you that enough. I didn’t want to leave the house on my own, and you came with me. Bada-bing. I’m a lucky guy.”
Ella loved hearing those words. She loved feeling his fingers wrapped around hers. But she was worried, nonetheless. “Hank?”
“Yes?”
She kept walking. Somehow he sensed that she wanted to free her hand at the same time she took it back. There was no awkward pulling or grasping to hang on.
And then they were apart.
She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She felt sad. And mixed up. She needed to explain further, not only for him but for her. “I don’t mind spending the rest of the week in bed with you,” she said, feeling out her words as she walked. “It’s private. But there’s something very public, something very sweet, about holding hands. It means two people love each other. If someone saw us, they’d assume we were together.”
“True,” he said. “It’s an awkward situation.”
“It is. But I’m okay with it. As long as we keep talking about what’s going on. I just don’t want any surprises this time.”
This time. The end was inevitable. Again.
“I don’t either,” he said.
Their footsteps alternated among loud, hollow, and gritty, depending on the sidewalk, the plant debris that had fallen onto it, the occasional steel gratings, the asphalt streets. But at least those footsteps were going somewhere.
While we wander, thought Ella. Theirs was a love that was doomed to haunt them—aimless, without form—not unlike the ghosts Charlestonians claimed roamed many of the historic mansions they were passing on their walk.
* * *
When they arrived at the Battery, Ella saw a small hospitality tent had been set up on the park grounds for the cast and crew who had to report so late to work, as well as for the police who had cordoned off the area and stood guard.
The residents of the Battery were putting up with the inconvenience of the filming, probably because Samantha Drake commanded a lot of respect in Hollywood and among American moviegoers. In fact, at the edge of the cordoned area, a contingent of fans stood waiting for both Samantha and Hank to notice them. Some carried signs to attract attention.
Samantha was already there, doing her thing, speaking to fans and winning them over by bringing her best Dame Samantha persona: lots of hair tossing, along with her distinctive, droll voice and witty comments. But Ella was more focused on Hank. She watched as he patiently signed a lot of autographs with little fanfare. He had such a beautiful smile. He stayed very busy. His fans adored him. One young woman was a visitor from China and didn’t speak English, but her American friend told Hank that they both loved his movies, and her friend had seen almost all of them in Beijing.
He belongs to the whole world, Ella thought, and her heart ached. He could never belong to her. Holding his hand had been excruciatingly painful because she wanted him back, and he couldn’t be hers.
How could she feel that way after only two days?
All she knew was that she did. She simply had to come to terms with it. It wasn’t realistic. There was something in her, obviously, that craved a happily ever after. Nothing wrong with that. But it couldn’t be with Hank Rogers.
After the fans got their autographs, the police sent them home, and it was time to film the scene. It started with Hank driving up to the Battery wall in a blue Mustang. Samantha was a passenger in a black SUV behind him. He braked swiftly. Ran out of the Mustang, left the door open, and swiftly climbed the stairs to the sidewalk and steel railing fronting the harbor. Samantha exited the SUV, pulled a gun out of her purse, then ran up the steps after him. She pointed the gun at Hank, and that was when he jumped over the wall into the Atlantic.
Ella watched from afar as Hank leaped across the railing, over and over, to escape the character Samantha played. He insisted on doing the stunt himself. Every time, he landed on a hidden raft and had to crawl back over the wall again. Once he landed on the raft and then slid off into the water, and for a minute there was a lot of shouting.
Ella’s heart was in her throat when that happened. Hank was an excellent swimmer, but it was close to midnight, and the water was black. The wind was starting to blow too, so a mild chop was forming on the harbor’s glassy surface. Soon they’d have to pull the raft out of the water. Too much lifting and sinking on the waves.
In the movie, the scene would take less than thirty seconds. But it took the cast and crew until two a.m. to film it. They had to get Hank new clothes several times. Dry his hair. Redo his makeup. Isabel had him approach the Battery wall from two different directions, too, in his car. A few takes they played around with Samantha’s approach as well. Should she pull the gun out as she was exiting the taxi? Or when she was climbing the stairs to the sidewalk and railing?
In between takes
, Samantha, whose role in the scene wasn’t nearly as taxing as Hank’s, would call Ella over, and they’d run through Samantha’s lines for the next day. One scene involved Ella. She had four lines in it. Of course, four lines—all of them easy enough—weren’t enough to gain any sort of traction professionally. But they were satisfying to say, nonetheless.
“It’s a small part, but you’re good,” Samantha said. “You’ve a liveliness about you that’s compelling.”
“Thanks,” Ella said. Those were huge words, coming from such an acclaimed actor. But she didn’t care as much as she cared about Hank.
She was doing it again. What was wrong with her? She should be holding Samantha’s words close to her heart, writing them down in her journal when she got home, calling up an agent and getting work in commercials, or moving back to New York and trying again. She was young enough. Even if she got one juicy role to live on for the rest of her life, wouldn’t that be reason enough to pull up roots in Charleston and try again on Broadway?
“See you,” Samantha said at the end of the night. She sounded exhausted.
“Bye,” Ella replied. She wasn’t nearly as tired and Samantha and Hank. She was only depressed. Screwed up. And she’d been doing so well.…
Until Hank came to Charleston.
She was mad. Really mad. No man could or would control her life. No man would throw her off-balance, especially in such a short time.
No man …
But when Hank walked up, a tired grin on his face, she lit up inside, despite all her self-talk. She couldn’t help thinking how life could change so much in only a few days, how she could go from being strong, confident Ella with no real worries to this emotionally distraught, confused person—
Who was also walking on air.
She was happy when she was with Hank. That was the bottom line. How was she supposed to resolve the push-pull on her heart that she was feeling? Their intimacy, as wonderful as it was, had only made things more complicated.
“Ready?” she asked him.
“Am I ever,” he said in a warm tone that made her blood hum and took her right back to their time in bed. “Thanks for waiting.”
Second Chance At Two Love Lane Page 21