“Yoga would be perfect, you know?”
“Really? Damn, I wish I knew a good yoga instructor,” I say, smiling.
Brit beams back. “Well, I’m not a professional, but I could definitely get you started. My fee is one hundred bucks a minute.”
“How about zero a minute for as many minutes as it takes for me to do that cool thing where I put my legs over my head?” I counteroffer. Brit sticks her hand out and I take it.
“Deal. Tate would love that, by the way,” she adds gleefully. I gasp at her blatant sexual suggestion and chase after her as she dances away, laughing.
Let’s see if she can still teach me yoga after I kick her in the ass.
Chapter Fifteen
I expected Tate’s house to be a giant mansion, with marble floors dipped in gold, giant columns and fountains at every turn, but when I pull up to Tate’s address, I see a nice but modest California bungalow-style house, with light gray paneling and a red door. The front lawn is small, but meticulously cared for, and I notice at least two chimneys sticking out of the roof, which means fireplaces inside. Instead of a fancy security system, his gate is wide open, as if visitors can just drop on by whenever they want to.
I park in the driveway and clamber out of the Vegan Fart truck. I’m not even five feet from the truck when Tate swings the door open and gives me a big grin.
“Hey, you found it okay?”
“Yep, your directions were very thorough. Almost too thorough. Do you think I’m kind of ditzy?” I joke as I step up on the small front porch.
“Yes. Kidding. Of course not. I just know my first couple of months here I got lost all day, every day.” Tate holds the door wide open and waves me in. “So now I always make it a point to give directions that are overly descriptive. It’s my thing.”
Tate pauses and looks over my shoulder at his driveway. “Does your truck say Vegan Fart?”
“Yep, but it’s a long story. But if that story was turned into a movie, the tagline would be: stupid kids with spray paint.”
“Ah, got it,” he says as he closes the door behind us.
I set my purse down and take in my surroundings. “Wow, it’s so . . .”
“Cluttered?” Tate offers.
“No. Cozy.”
And it is. From the foyer I can see into the living room, which is mostly made up of overstuffed couches, along with tall shelves of DVDs crammed on either side of a giant and very fancy-looking TV. Double doors to my right lead into a library or office space, and books are shoved sloppily on the bookcases lining the walls. A laptop, still glowing, is perched on a small and banged-up desk. Tate has already pulled up a second chair behind the desk, presumably for me while he teaches me the new software.
The walls are warm shades of gold, mauve, and brown. Light streams in from two giant windows at the front of the house, and the hallway leading directly to the kitchen still has boxes that are marked with words like “scripts,” “winter,” and “donate.”
“Did you just move in?” I ask with a nod to the boxes. Tate follows my gaze and shrugs sheepishly.
“Um, six months ago. I haven’t had time to unpack everything. It’s a mess, I know.”
“It’s a beautiful mess,” I say, not caring how lame I sound.
“Thank you. If you think the décor is beautiful, you should really thank Tierney.”
“Tierney?”
The pretty blonde woman who I saw at the show talking to Tate emerges from the kitchen holding the biggest cat I have ever seen. I stop and swallow a horrified, soap-opera worthy gasp. Another woman? There is another woman?!
I can feel my heart breaking into two jagged pieces for two different reasons: I now see that Tate is cheating on my best friend, which means that Tate isn’t the man I thought he was. The fact that I was wrong about Tate hurts the most.
Neither Tate nor the beautiful woman seem too concerned over my frozen stature. I focus on the enormous size of the fluffy orange cat she’s petting as I try and formulate what to say next. I don’t get a chance to say anything, however, because the mystery woman is giving me a friendly smile and puts the cat down. She brushes the cat fur from the arms of her black sweater and shakes my hand.
“Hi, I’m Tierney Lawrence.” I let out a relieved laugh and pump her hand harder. The last name and the way her eyes are giant blue marbles, the exact same as Tate’s, tell me everything I need to know.
“Oh, you’re his sister.”
“No, that’s my wife,” Tate corrects me solemnly. I whip my face in his direction.
“What?!”
Tierney scoffs and gives Tate the finger. “Gross, Tate. He’s kidding. You have to stop saying that to people.”
“But I just love the reaction. It’s priceless!”
“I’d prefer we go back to the look of relief most girls have when they see that I’m your sister and not a secret girlfriend,” Tierney drolls as she saunters back to the kitchen. I do my best to not look relieved, which I hope doesn’t make me look like a crazy person. “It’s nice to meet you, Dani. We can talk more when I’m done with dinner.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I say to her retreating back. I turn toward her brother. “You’re the worst.”
“You said the word ‘best’ wrong,” he shoots back before swooping down to scoop up the orange cat-beast. “Right, Glenn?”
Tate nuzzles Glenn with his face while the cat squirms and lets out a meow of protest. He kisses his head a couple of times before finally putting him down. Instead of scampering away like I thought he would after putting up the fight he did in Tate’s arms, Glenn circles his owner’s legs and rubs against him.
“That is a fat cat,” I say.
Glenn just blinks at me, but Tate draws in a deep breath dramatically. “How dare you? Glenn is not fat. He’s just fluffy!”
I laugh as he leads me into the office with Glenn padding after us. We sit down at the desk and I notice he has Avid already opened up, along with a list of bullet points on a Post-it next to his elbow. I’m touched by his preparation. He clicks around for a bit before he gets up again to head to the kitchen.
“Do you want anything to drink? Water? Soda? Wine? Tequila?”
“Can you combine all of those things?”
“Now who’s being the worst?”
“Water is fine, thank you.”
I can hear Tate and Tierney talking and laughing together in the kitchen. I study the spines of some of the books he has on his shelves and wonder if Elise has ever met Tate’s sister.
I actually don’t know much about Tate and Elise’s relationship, besides the fact that she likes him but doesn’t really trust him. Am I closer to Tate than his own girlfriend? That’s a dangerous thought.
Thinking about Elise brings up that guilty feeling I had back at home with Brit, so I’m glad Tate returns when he does, handing me a bottle of water and then popping open a can of Coke for himself.
“I thought all celebrities drank Diet Coke?” I ask as he takes a big swig.
“I allow myself three cans a week. I’d rather have fewer cans of real Coke than limitless amounts of Diet Coke.”
“Wow, you are very passionate about pop, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m passionate about soda. Not pop. Where you are from?”
“Chicago. Where are you from?”
“That explains it. I’m from up north, near San Francisco. We say soda,” Tate explains. “But it’s okay, you’ll learn the lingo. Like, did you know most people call Los Angeles LA for short?”
“Did you know that people call you ‘King Douche’ behind your back?”
“Do they really?”
Tate looks so genuinely worried that I have to laugh at him. “No, they don’t,” I say, earning a sigh of relief from Tate’s side of the desk. “They call you ‘Prince Douche’ because you have not yet earned the king title.”
“Oh, Danika. You aren’t afraid to bust my chops.”
“I’m a chop-buster. And you can call me Da
ni. I’d actually prefer you don’t use my full name.”
“Really? I’ll keep that in mind, Danika,” Tate says with an evil stroke of his chin. “Also, I guess this means we’re friends.”
I groan. “Damn it, now you’re gonna call me Danika when you want to piss me off—and you piss me off about fifty percent of the time we’re together already.”
“Just wait until I find out your middle name, Danika!”
“Now it’s upped to sixty percent,” I scold. “Can we please just go over the software? That’s the reason I’m here, right?”
Tate acts hurt for a moment, but then he must realize he’s not fooling me because he starts talking me through the new features of Avid. I’m so anxious to get started that I barely have time to notice how close Tate is sitting to me and how good he smells. Like Irish Spring soap . . . or snowflakes, in my case.
He seems to have just taken a shower, because the ends of his hair are wet and curling up a bit at the edges. As it air-dries, it’s much wavier than he keeps it for the show. I actually prefer the waves to the straight, tousled look he usually rocks, but there is no way I would tell him that.
Tate uses the music video his friend shot, the one he’s supposed to be editing, to walk me through what Avid has changed since their last version. At first, he simply explains how to maneuver the new features and demonstrates shortcuts he’s already discovered. But before long, we’re editing the music video. Together.
I’m not sure how it’s happening, but I do know I’m having a little too much fun dissecting the footage with him and stitching the moments back together to give the biggest impact with minimal effort.
Our editing styles are clearly different. He wants a cleaner, no-fuss version, while I reason that a little cinematic drama can add to the video without dragging it down. We argue a bit, but in a way that only makes the editing process more exciting. Tate’s ideas are thoughtful, if not a bit too timid for the tone I envision. But when I voice my concerns about some of his decisions, he listens intently.
We’re about to dive into a performance scene that looks like it takes place in the attic of an old church when Tierney knocks on the doorway.
“You hungry? Dinner’s ready.”
“Awesome, thanks,” Tate gets up and turns toward me. “Want something to eat?”
I’m about to politely decline, but then my stomach grumbles and I remember I haven’t had dinner yet. I pray that Tate didn’t hear the gurgling noise and follow him to the kitchen.
“Sorry that I kind of took over the video. You don’t have to use what I’ve done so far,” I offer as we head toward the smell of something wonderful and probably delicious.
“No need to apologize. It’s good to have a legit film student giving me her expert opinion.”
“I’m flattered you think so highly of me,” I say jokingly, but deep down I know it’s very true. My stomach turns—I hope it’s because I’m hungry, not because of Tate.
Dinner with Tierney and Tate is a riot. They are clearly very close, and they spend the entire meal trying to one up each other with embarrassing childhood stories. Over the course of an hour, I find out that Tate cried after he found out Hogwarts wasn’t a real place, Tierney used to stuff her bra with their father’s gym socks, and both of them have gotten in trouble in school for very elaborate pranks, one involving a giant inflatable penis tied to the roof of their principal’s car.
My phone buzzes on the table and I yank it off, offering a sheepish smile toward Tate and Tierney. It’s Camden.
Hey baby. What are you doing?
Just hanging out. What are you up to?
Wishing you were here. Wanna know where I’m at?
Where?
In bed.
I cringe slightly at Camden’s text. I guess it’s supposed to be sexy, but it comes off a bit crude. What happened to the romance and the roses? I’m trying to figure out what to text back when my phone buzzes again.
What are you wearing?
Okay, I get the hint, Camden. And I don’t like the hint very much.
I’m wearing clothes because I’m at dinner with some friends. Sorry I can’t talk now! I’ll text you later.
☺
I add the smiley face to make my message seem less like a rejection and more like a subject change. Camden doesn’t text back.
Tierney waves off my offer to help her clean up and orders us outside to the backyard. “The sun is about to set,” she says as she starts clearing the table. “And you HAVE to see how pink the yard gets.”
I follow Tate outside to a big fire pit surrounded by benches and lounge chairs. I unceremoniously plop myself down on the closest chair and put my feet up, while Tate goes back inside to get some supplies.
I look up and see that Tierney is right. The sky is an impossible shade of bright pink. I study the clouds; they look like rips in fabric, as if someone clawed their way across the heavens. It would be the perfect backdrop to a break-up scene. I start to mentally write a scene in my head when Tate returns with a bag of marshmallows.
We chitchat about the video while he works on building a fire in the fire pit, a habit he’s “probably dangerously obsessed with.” As the logs go from burning embers to crackling flames, I realize that this is the most comfortable and calm I’ve been in a long time.
“Can I ask you a question?” I blurt out. It’s a question that’s been on my mind since I went to the Vamp Camp party at the club. Tate sits down across from me.
“Shoot.”
“A couple of people have mentioned that you were involved with some kind of tarantula incident. What are they talking about?”
“So, you’ve been asking around about me?” Tate asks playfully, which I know is an attempt to inject some humor into the conversation we’re about to have. I get the feeling that it’s not something he likes to talk about, but I press on.
“Your publicist brought it up the night at Laurel Hardware. And a couple of other people have said it in passing.”
“Like who?” he asks. Is that an edge in his voice?
“Camden,” I blurt out. His face darkens and he looks back toward the fire. I need to say something else, and fast. “Did you get attacked by a spider or something?”
“I wish that were the story,” he says, dramatically flopping back in his chair like someone had pushed roughly on his chest. “Actually, wait. No, I don’t. Those things are terrifying. I hate spiders. That’s why I got a cat. So she can hunt those bastards down.”
Tate stares into the flames for a couple of seconds before meeting my gaze. The sun has almost completely set now, which means the fire light dancing across his handsome face is picking up every change in his expression. In a span of five seconds, his face goes from hesitant to firm to resolute.
“It’s so stupid,” he says with a sigh. “Halfway through our first season, we were a really hot up-and-coming show. We had magazine covers and online news channels were covering us like crazy. We were just starting to be followed by paparazzi. It was crazy. I wasn’t ready for it, but I didn’t exactly run away from it like I should have.
“So one night I was out at this bar called Tarantula. It’s this really popular celeb bar, and by that I mean celebs go there to get photographed. If you want to be on the blogs the next day, go to Tarantula. Anyway, I went with some friends and I had a bit too much to drink.”
I take in a deep breath, waiting for him to spill the rest.
“I wasn’t hammered, but I was definitely tipsy. And there were fans everywhere. Let me rephrase. There were girls who wanted to sleep with me everywhere. And as a nerdy boy from a small town in Northern California, that was a change.”
I hope my face isn’t showing what I’m currently screaming inside my own head, which is: “How many girls are trying to sleep with you?!”
Tate continues, “These two girls were all over me and my friend, and they were beyond trashed. Like, I would have been surprised if they knew their own names. My friend wanted to take
them both back here, but there’s no way my sister would ever let me bring back a one-night stand.”
I decide right then and there that Tierney is probably the best thing in Tate’s life right now. No doubt about it.
“And I didn’t really want to,” he adds. “So we decided to just all go our separate ways, but like I said, these girls were messed up. I called a car and I offered to walk them outside. I was worried that they would fall and hurt themselves if I didn’t. I went out the door with my arms around both of them, and what is waiting for me?
“Paps?”
“Tons of them. They took photos of the whole thing. From my exit with these girls to me putting them into a car to me getting into a separate car. They documented it all. Second question: guess which photos are the only ones that ran the next day?”
“I’m guessing not the ones of you helping them into a cab.”
“Bingo,” Tate says bitterly. “The only photos that ran were the ones that look like I’m drunkenly dragging two girls from the club. I am instantly labeled a party boy, a player, a man about town, another young actor who is out of control. So that was my introduction to the real Hollywood.”
Tate sits forward and pokes at the fire while I think about his take on the “real” Hollywood. It makes me think of my Tower script. A log pops, making us both jump a bit. Tate gets back to his story.
“At first my publicist was mad, but then all of a sudden the media was interested in me. But not in the way I wanted them to be. So they were following me everywhere, trying to catch me doing something bad. This is the part of the story that’s my fault. I should have ignored all of the attention and waited for it to die down. But I didn’t. I flipped off the paps any chance I got. I had a shitty attitude during interviews, even when the questions weren’t related to my personal life. I handled it very badly, and my reputation became true.”
“Tate, you’re not like that. I wouldn’t be friends with an asshole,” I insist gently. Tate gives me a little smile.
“Thanks. I know I’m not that guy. Between seasons one and two I really got my shit together. I stayed home more, which is how I fell in love with editing. I would mess around with some footage I shot, or I would talk on the phone with the Vamp Camp editor, Shannon, about how her brain works. I lay low, basically.
Rules of Seduction Page 17