by Tracy Ewens
W: No fun. Ooh, you’re almost up. The talk on meditation before you is winding down. That guy confused the hell out of me, BTW.
M: How do you know that?
Honestly, did he have a live feed of the show? Was that even possible?
W: I have connections. Now get out there, Poncho. Break a leg.
M: I’ll try.
W: Panties firmly in place. Remember the knees. Sorry I can’t be there this time.
M: Me too.
A few beats passed and Meg heard the rumbled applause of the audience. Thumb hovering over the power button, the phone vibrated again.
I love you, Megara Jeffries.
Her heart reached out from her chest. The man crawled right inside her every time.
I love you too, Westin McNaughton. Now get back to your nipples.
After a deep breath, she pushed the power button and moved back to the edge of the stage.
“Please join me in welcoming Meg Jeffries.” The audience came to life as she once again walked on stage for the animals, human and polar bear, that needed her most.
West had had some shit days on set, but this one might go down as the shittiest. Leaning against a table in his trailer while a doctor stitched up his right shoulder, he no longer knew what he was doing. It had been coming and going for a while now. But looking around at the frenzy of people dedicated to making sure he was comfortable and “had everything he needed,” made him nauseous. What were they all doing? How had he gotten so deep into something that once the cameras stopped was little more than a joke?
And now that he had Meg what he did for a living seemed even more absurd. The need to be with her, there for her, strangled him every time he hung up the phone. Last night, in between being hung from a chain in an abandoned garage and beaten within an inch of Nick Shot’s life, West watched her TED talk via a live link one of the AV guys had made possible. She was so fantastic that he’d floated back to his rental house sometime after two in the morning and watched it again. He was bruised and stained from the makeup, but she was surrounded by an audience that sat attentive, laughing at all the right parts, eventually clapping and filling the theater with all the love she deserved. All of it—she deserved all of it and all of him, the guy he was underneath all the thick makeup he’d applied over the years.
“West,” someone said, but he ignored it. He was wrapped in the memory of Meg in nothing but his sweatshirt jumping on her bed while she read through her speech with him over Skype. It was a trick he’d taught her to help with her breathing and pace, something he’d learned along the way that he could share with her. When she had finally collapsed on the bed, his heart was begging to be next to her, but he had a job to do, so as they had for almost a month now, he let her go.
“West!”
“What!” his misdirected annoyance snapped.
“Sorry, but Gary wanted me to ask you how long you think you’ll be?”
West faced the doe-eyed production assistant and prepared to release an epic actor temper tantrum, even though it wasn’t her fault. He needed somewhere to direct all his frustration.
Empty your angry bucket, he heard Aunt Margaret’s slurred and labored voice. She’d been in his head a lot lately but like a whisper in a hailstorm, he found it hard to pay attention. That wasn’t an excuse, and West managed to pull his shit together before he said something he would regret.
The doctor finished taping the dressing on his shoulder.
“Give me fifteen minutes.”
“Absolutely. Wow, quick recovery. I’ll let Gary know. Thank you. Do you need anything else? Water, a beer?”
He shook his head, pulled out his phone, and stepped from the trailer for some privacy. After trying to text Hannah with his right hand, he winced and rolled his shoulder. He’d done two cold readings for the woman casting The Messenger. It was indie but managed to get the backing of some pretty heavy-hitting production companies, so Hannah was more on board than she normally would be. West was starting to think the time was right to turn off his stint with Full Throttle. He’d proven himself already. He’d been paid enough money. Now, like the mafia, if he were being dramatic, the public and “his team” needed to let him go.
Aside from The Messenger’s brilliant script, three-quarters of it would be shot in San Francisco. The director, who West also admired, was a local to the Bay Area and wanted as much of the revenue as possible to stay in the city. The project was perfect and he was so right for the role, he could feel it. Hearing the roar of engines, West needed to get back before Gary forgot they’d almost cut off West’s arm and began barking again.
He texted Hannah one word—Well?
After waiting a couple of minutes for the little blue bubble to appear, he gave up and slid back into Nick Shot’s world. He would bide his time. He could get this part and finally hand Nick Shot off to another hungry actor who had no clue what he was getting into. Maybe he’d do something fulfilling and get to take Meg to Kite Park in broad daylight.
“West, we’re burning gasoline, man.”
There he went again with more maybes, West thought as she tossed his phone in his trailer and went back to work.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Meg all but launched herself at West when he showed up at her apartment door the following Friday morning.
“Pretty sure you didn’t check before you opened that door,” he said as he carried her back into her apartment, kicked the door closed, and locked it. Habit, Meg realized amidst the thrum of need pulsing through her body.
“How would you know if I checked?” Her lips found the warm skin of his neck. “You were on the other side of the door.”
“I sense these things.” He set her on the counter in the kitchen but stayed between her legs.
She managed to break free of her need to touch him long enough to consider his face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
West shook his head and kissed her, firm and urgent. His lips flew right by “hello” as his hand tangled in her hair and his tongue took over. The kiss was different. Meg now knew love, lust, passion, and even comfort when he touched her, but this was none of those. He was searching her mouth, running his hands along her body as if he was frantic, starving. Her body wasn’t complaining, but something was wrong.
“You weren’t supposed to be back until—”
His mouth pulled her back in while his hands lifted and carried her to the bedroom. He undressed them both, his eyes barely meeting hers.
“Hey,” she said, putting her hand on his chest. When his gaze, thick with need and heavy with something he couldn’t manage to put into words, met hers, her heart stopped.
“West.” She touched his face.
He swallowed and it looked like he might say something, but he held her face instead, asking with his eyes if he could have her without explanation, sink into her until the words stopped spinning through his mind and made their way to his mouth. She slid her hands over the plane of his chest, hoping that answered the question she knew he’d ask but never needed to. His weary eyes fell closed and his body collapsed onto the bed, taking her with him.
“I’ve missed you,” she said. Putting her worry away for the time being, Meg welcomed him into her body. Moving over him, every stroke seemed to chase away whatever had brought him to her door. West leaned up and pulled her closer, burying his face in her neck as if he could somehow breathe her into his lungs. Despite the sadness blooming in her chest, the rhythm of their bodies shut her brain off and threatened to take her breath. He met her eyes and she clutched his hands intertwined with hers as they both broke apart and collapsed onto her bed.
“Have you been to the Tobin House?” West asked as they lay together, bodies straining for steady air.
Meg kept her face to his chest, stayed wrapped around him, but managed to shake her head as if they were having conversation over morning coffee.
“It’s half a house. The guy built it for his daughters, but one of them didn’t w
ant it. Can you imagine? She wanted to live in the country, so she walked away from half of this mansion in the middle of the city. No one does that.”
“People walk away all the time,” she said.
“You did. Reinvented yourself. Flawless TED, by the way.”
She kissed his chest, still not sure where this was going. “Thank you.”
They lay in silence and Meg slowly slid off his body. He rolled to his side and held her close. They lay face-to-face and she waited for him to tell her why his eyes were rimmed in red.
“Did I ever tell you about Aunt Margaret?”
Meg shook her head.
“She was…” He broke eye contact as if he couldn’t look at her and share at the same time. “She was my mom’s younger sister. They were a few years apart and when she was seventeen, she was hit by a drunk driver. T-boned, so the story goes.”
Meg tried not to gasp but failed. West rolled onto his back as if his own pain was all he could manage.
“I was four, so I don’t remember the accident. My first memory of her wasn’t until I was six or seven. I mean I knew something happened to her, her brain, but short of my parents visiting her, I didn’t know her.”
“Did they catch the person who hit her?”
“He died at the scene,” West said with a chill reserved for deep injustice. “Got off easy.”
A couple of minutes passed in silence before he quickly stood and pulled on his jeans. “Are you hungry?” he asked and walked out to the kitchen before she had a chance to respond.
Once, on assignment in the Daintree Rainforest in Australia, Meg got turned around and eventually realized she was lost. She’d been embarrassed at the time. She prided herself on a good sense of direction and in the male-dominated world of nature photography, the last thing a woman wanted was to call in for a rescue. She didn’t call for help. Instead she sat down and, for about an hour, took things apart, retraced her steps, and slowly found her way back to camp.
Climbing from the bed, she put on some sweatpants and a T-shirt. She was lost again. He was all over the place and she was afraid if she touched him, stopped him, that he might crumble right in front of her. She couldn’t let that happen, but at the same time, she wasn’t sure how to help him. Slowly walking out to the kitchen, she remembered he was on set last night.
He normally called, but it wasn’t unusual for the shoot to run late after she’d fallen asleep. There were stunts and something about a warehouse, but those were all the pieces she had. When he’d first taken off his shirt, she noticed the bandage on his shoulder, the bruise across his thigh when he took off his jeans, but none of that was out of his ordinary. She’d learned that the first time she flinched at a scrape that took up half his back. None of it led to West at her front door for sex and breakfast. Meg leaned against the wall of her tiny kitchen and hoped he’d fill in the details.
The toaster popped and he threw both halves of a bagel on a plate. “So, Tobin House? Are you up for that?” He was looking back and forth as if he’d forgotten where he put something.
“Cream cheese is in the fridge,” she offered.
He pulled open the door. “Happy cows at this”—he turned the container in his hand—“Organic Valley Farm?”
“Yes. Happy cows.”
“Good. I don’t eat dairy unless it’s sourced from a small and ethical farm.”
Meg managed a smile. He still wasn’t meeting her eyes. Instead, he was intent on the bagel. It looked as if the simple task of smearing cream cheese was all he could handle.
“No filming today?” she asked carefully.
West turned, half a bagel in his mouth, and shook his head. He seemed to be riding the wave of caffeine or adrenaline. Meg recognized both—she’d seen them staring back at her in the mirror more times than she could count in her life.
“Did Gary cancel?”
“Oh, come on.” He took another bite and set the plate down. “I did not drive all the way up here to talk about Gary.”
“You drove?” How was that even possible?
“I did, so let’s get some breakfast in you and—” West’s arm clipped the plate and sent it crashing to the ground. He stood, frozen, and rubbed his tired eyes.
Meg pushed off the wall and went to him, sliding her arms around his chest. Anger or frustration, she couldn’t be sure, seethed beneath his surface. Pressing her lips to his back, she held on.
“I’m fine.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“It’s okay if you’re not.”
“I didn’t go to work today,” he said after a beat.
“Called in sick?”
“Didn’t call at all. I’m sure they’ll send me the bill.”
“Okay.”
He turned in her arms and brought her body in under his chin. Meg kept holding him.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Meg pulled back so she could see his face. “You have come to the right place.”
“Hannah texted me.”
Meg had never known Hannah to text. Since West had been in her life, Hannah was a phone call, often two or three times if she didn’t get an answer, kind of woman. West often commented on the piranhas that followed him around hoping to catch a glimpse of him “doing something exciting like grocery shopping or leaving the gym,” but she wondered if he realized Hannah had teeth too.
“They gave the lead in that indie film to someone else.” Sensing he needed space, she let him go and picked up the pieces of the plate.
“I can get that,” he said.
Meg held up her hand and finished cleaning. She wanted him to keep talking. “The Messenger?”
“Yeah. How do you remember these things?” he asked, walking into the living room.
“I—”
“Pay attention, right. I know.” She heard him from the other room.
Meg wanted to tell him she was sorry, that he deserved the part, but he didn’t want pity and this felt deeper than one missed role. West had been in his business for a long time. She found it hard to believe he’d gotten as far as he had without a fair share of disappointment. Tossing the broken plate in the trash, she dried her hands and joined him in the living room.
“My Aunt Margaret was the one who said I should go into acting. Her speech was pretty bad after her brain injury, so we would practice different voices while she served tea. She was special and she saw me in the shadow of my brothers. I was her favorite.”
“Smart woman.” Meg sat next to him on the couch.
“She was, but in a way completely misunderstood by most people. She had a way of seeing things.”
“Did she get to see you on stage or in your movies?”
“She came to two of my high school productions. Standing ovation and one time with a huge flower hat and her cowboy boots.”
“My kind of woman. I’ll bet she would have appreciated the poncho.”
“No doubt.” He flashed her the first real smile since he’d walked through her door, and the vise of tension seemed to loosen.
Thank you, Aunt Margaret, Meg offered up and felt the threat of tears. This was his pain, not hers, so she swallowed and stood to get them some coffee.
“Aunt Margaret is the reason I became an actor. She died my senior year and I guess I thought I could honor her that way. I guess I thought if I got that part it might bring me back to what I set out to do. After the text last night, I tried to finish. I’ve never not been one hundred percent on a set, but I walked right off,” West managed around strangled laughter.
Meg handed him a cup of coffee and curled on the couch next to him.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about the movie Hollis mentioned at the wedding? Careful Consideration. From what I saw, you were incredible.”
“You watched it? How did you…”
“Not the whole thing, but there are clips on YouTube. Did you know you’re all over YouTube?”
“I do not want to know.”
“If Careful Consider
ation is the type of film you want to do, then do that.”
He scoffed as if what she was asking was not only naïve, but impossible. “It doesn’t exactly work that way.”
“Well, then how does it work? You can’t keep doing something that makes you miserable.”
The expression on his face turned to annoyance, and Meg wondered if West was truly trapped. Or was he bound by things he simply needed to find the strength to let go of? She knew that feeling, that leap into the uncomfortable, but she had no idea what kind of baggage his level of celebrity carried.
West had ignored his phone so far. Now the damn thing was going nonstop in the pocket of his jacket. Gary must have finally reached Hannah and Regis and anyone else who would listen to him rant about the tens of millions of dollars he was wasting. West could practically hear him, see the vein pulsing in Hannah’s head while she listened to him. The fury born of what seemed unfair last night and emboldened him to walk away from the set now seemed impulsive and childlike in the clear light of morning.
It was possible West was finally having a breakdown. It wasn’t exactly his style. He’d worked since he was fifteen years old. And in far worse jobs than the one he’d turned his back on. As the minutes and hours ticked by, he could tell Meg was doing her best to understand, but by the time the battery of his phone died and he was finally left in peace, West felt like an obnoxious and privileged whiner. He wondered if the tabloids would wait even twenty-four hours before plastering—Westin Drake Loses His Shit—all over the stands of local grocery stories.
“My job, my life for that matter, isn’t exactly a hardship,” he said, refocusing on Meg since he had no answers for how he was going to undo what he’d done yet.
“I know, but it might be for someone like you.”
“Like me?”
“You’re tender and kind. You’re so far from ‘get your sweet ass over here.’”
West scratched his head and glanced around out of habit. “I know you’ve been out in the fresh air for a while, but tender and kind are not exactly words guys relish hearing. Besides, it’s called acting for a reason. If I were like Nick Shot, there’d be less challenge than there is now.”