The Sweetest Star: Under the Stars Book 2

by Raleigh Ruebins

  I gave him a playful slap on the shoulder and then went to grab my French press.

  “You want coffee?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” he replied.

  I ground up some fresh coffee beans and then prepared two mugs for us.

  “I assume you take it black?” I asked, setting the mug near him.

  He sort of looked at me with shifty eyes. “Why’d you assume that?”

  “I dunno. You seem like the type.”

  “Well, you thought wrong. Sweet and milky, please.”

  I bit down a smile. He took his coffee just like I did mine. “Your wish is my command.”

  Ten minutes later we sat down at my breakfast bar, eating his delicious mushroom and herb omelettes and toast, both drinking our coffee with plenty of sugar and cream. It felt so oddly intimate, sitting with him, just the two of us in the kitchen. I was so used to other people being around when I was with him, that it almost felt luxurious having him to myself.

  In fact, I really, really was starting to like having him to myself.

  “These aren’t bad,” Dash said, finishing his omelette.

  “See?” I said, “I’m not a bad ‘food person’, as you so lovingly referred to me. I had fresh herbs and mushrooms, and good bread. Most people couldn’t say that.”

  “Okay, okay, fine. You’re a good food person.”

  “Or I’m just a person who lives really close to a fantastic farmers market. It helps.”

  When we finished, he helped me clean up, and after he went to put on his clothes, he came back out with the same look he’d had on his face the night before. The one that looked like he couldn’t figure out how to say goodbye.

  “So, uh, I’ve got a bunch of stuff I need to do at home, but…” he said, trailing off.

  “Totally. I gotcha,” I said, taking a step closer to him. “Dash… thank you again. For this. For breakfast. For coming to the party last night and… for staying over.”

  A blush set in over his cheeks, and it took everything in me not to draw him right into my arms and keep him there forever.

  And finally, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t just leave this up in the air, like we always did, waiting for the next moment we’d have to play “fake boyfriends.” Because I wanted more. And even if I wasn’t ready to come out and say that, I had to do something.

  “Okay. I’ve got a proposition for you,” I said, getting slightly nervous just at the prospect of asking him.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Okay… what is it? Should I be scared?”

  I laughed. “I don’t know, maybe? So… I propose that on Saturday, we go to the farmers market together.”

  He paused for a moment, as if expecting me to say more. “Is that it? Okay, no problem, I mean we go there all the time, there’s bound to be people who will recognize us—”

  “But,” I continued, “we should go with a specific recipe in mind, and then come back here and cook dinner together. Then maybe walk down to the water, get some dessert in town… whatever.” Adrenaline was coursing through me. It was as if I’d never asked someone to hang out before.

  “Oh,” he said finally, “So you want to actually hang out. Not just in public?”

  “Yeah. I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to—no pressure—I just… I like hanging out with you.” I said the last part way, way too fast, and I knew it.

  But the thing is, I was just so sure he was going to say no. I was sure he wouldn’t want to hang out with me in that kind of way, or that he’d decided long ago that I was a bad person to get involved with for anything other than a work relationship. Because I would agree with that, honestly. I could be unreliable. Fickle. And goddamnit, fine, at some points in my life I might have been a “player.”

  But none of that mattered to me right in that moment. Right now, hanging out on a quiet day with Dash sounded infinitely better than any party could ever be.

  “Sure,” he said, “Let’s do it. I’ll meet you at the market around 2?”

  It seemed casual on the surface, like it had been the first time we met up there. But the amount of effort it had taken just to ask him that simple question had been immense. I think I actually exhaled in relief when he finally said yes.

  “Great,” I said, smiling wide. “Great. Awesome. I’ll be there.”

  He laughed at me, making his way to the front door. “You know, Eric, you’re a lot weirder than I would have thought when I first met you.”

  I cocked my head at him, walking over to the door. “Weird how?”

  He just grinned back at me. “Weird in a good way, don’t worry. I’ll see you Saturday.” He leaned over toward me, and pressed a kiss to my cheek. After pulling back a little he seemed to reconsider, and then moved in again to kiss me on the lips. It was a surprise, but God, it was a good one, and I ghosted my hands along his hips.

  “Bye,” he said when he pulled away, and then he was out the door. I watched as he walked down the street, down toward the ocean, my heart beating hard the whole time after his kiss. Because somehow one kiss in the morning could still do that to me, even after we’d had sex the night before. Finally I closed the door and went back into my house.

  And almost immediately I felt utterly… alone.

  After a minute or two the feel of his lips on me faded, and I wandered around my house kind of aimlessly, not knowing what to do next. I felt hollow, unmoored, like the house no longer was right without him in it. Normally I’d have to go into the network on a day like today, and that would distract me—but we had a little bit of time off before the next live taping, so I was facing a bunch of free time.

  Most people liked free time. But it kind of freaked me out. I needed to feel busy, needed to be involved in something at all times. And that tended to get me into varying levels of trouble.

  I tried to play video games for about an hour, but all I could think about was Dash. I tried cooking lunch later on, but I wanted to make gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, and of course I needed butter for that, and that reminded me of him too. Dash had been right, I was a derelict cook.

  I started to wonder what I would normally do on a day off—what would I have done before Dash had come into my life and taken up residence in my brain?

  I certainly wouldn’t have sat around moping. Wouldn’t have wasted away alone in my house. What did I usually do when I was lonely, bored, restless, with nothing else to do?

  It dawned on me, clear as day, and so obvious I could hardly believe it: I’d have a party.

  Not a little get together, like I’d had on the beach. A real party, at my house, which I hadn’t done in months. A plan began to concoct in my head. I’d invite all the most fun, crazy people I knew. I’d tell them to bring plenty of booze. And that way, I could make the days pass a little quicker before I saw Dash next. Planning a party always kept me busy and happy, and this one would require much more effort, seeing as how it was totally fucking last-minute, and no one in their right mind would decide to plan a party for three days in the future.

  But I was going to do it. I knew enough people who would always be down to come.

  And it would ensure that I wouldn’t freak out about Dash and end up cancelling the date I was already so nervous about.

  Was it a rash decision? Yes.

  But I was absolutely going to do it.

  Fourteen

  Dash

  Well, it wasn’t the best day to go to the farmers market.

  The clouds had started to roll in around 11 am, and by 1:45, when I started walking to the market, a light misty drizzle had begun to fall. When I got to the entrance of the market I saw that some of the stands had already started to pack up to leave, but a whole lot of them were still open for business, trusting that their tarps and awnings would keep them safe from the imminent rain.

  It had been four days since I’d seen Eric last. Four whole days was probably the longest we’d been apart since the show started—of course, it had felt like longer, a
lot of the time, because even when we were together, we’d only be doing promo for the show, or pretending to be boyfriends at some event.

  Pretending to be his boyfriend didn’t really feel like being with him at all. It was an act, an extension of our characters on the show, and that was how I’d been treating it the whole time.

  But the other day had been surreal. I really had connected with Eric—and he hadn’t even balked when he found out about my idiotic stunt, failed proposal, and brief arrest.

  I’d almost say he could be good boyfriend material, if I didn’t know better than that. I told myself that no matter how sweet, and tender he was, at the end of the day, he was still Eric Ronson. He was still a bad bet. I couldn’t let him get to me, and I couldn’t get attached to him.

  I wouldn’t.

  I had to know better than to get into another relationship that would only hurt me. What I had with Eric was a good, fake relationship for publicity, and that’s how it would stay—no matter how mind blowing the sex could be.

  The misty drizzle turned into a light rain, and around 2 o’clock I checked my phone to see if I had a text from Eric. He was perennially early, but I’d been standing outside the market for 10 minutes and he hadn’t shown up.

  Ten minutes after that, I started to worry that I had the wrong day in my head, but I was sure we’d said Saturday. I’d specifically remembered because I thought it was so odd that he’d even wanted to hang out.

  After twenty minutes I decided to just head up to his house. It was close by and I thought he may have just forgotten about today’s date altogether.

  I sauntered up the hill, taking my time, half-expecting him to show up along the way, but nobody else was on the street. The rain started coming down in earnest as I walked, and I got soaked through—I didn’t even bring an umbrella to San Diego and hadn’t needed one yet.

  I got to his house and rapped on the front door. He didn’t answer and after a minute I gave him a call—still nothing.

  After another minute of solid pounding I finally heard the lock turning in the door, and slowly it swung open.

  “What the fuck? Are you okay?”

  Eric looked completely wrecked. His eyes were bleary and red, he was hunched over, and his hair was sticking in a million different directions.

  He mumbled a response.

  “What?” I asked. I started to worry that he’d gotten really sick.

  “Fuck,” he said, a little louder, finally stepping aside to let me in. He slumped down onto the couch in his living room. “What time is it?”

  And I realized then that the inside of his house looked just as bad as he did. Cups and bottles littered every open surface. A plant was knocked over, and a little scrawled note beside it read “I’m sorry.” It looked like there may have even been a fucking piñata at some point, and it was now shreds of colored paper with candy strewn nearby.

  It was ridiculous, and looked like the aftermath of a college frat party.

  “Okay,” I said, “So… you had a party?” I said.

  He groaned in response.

  It dawned on me all at once that the farmers market was out of the question. Because apparently, Eric was so hungover he could barely speak. Disappointment rolled through me but before I could even process my anger I went into a kind of autopilot. There was a mess around me—both in the form of the house, and the form of Eric—and I needed to do something about it.

  And I shouldn’t have been disappointed anyway. Because he wasn’t my boyfriend. He didn’t owe me anything. And so I forced myself to remain aloof and detached, pushing any irritation I felt down deep.

  I took a deep breath and looked around the room. Eric’s eyes were squeezed shut, like he couldn’t bear the agony of seeing any light. “Alright,” I said. I headed to the bathroom in his hallway and rummaged around in the medicine cabinet until I found aspirin. I shook out two pills, then went to the kitchen and got a glass of water—after meandering through a pile of clothing that had somehow made its way to the inside of the fridge. I also grabbed a big empty garbage bag from under the sink. Eric was still in the same position when I got to the living room and I pressed the glass against his hand.

  “Take these. And drink the water,” I said. He hesitantly opened his eyes and took them from me, and I watched and waited until he’d swallowed both and drank half the glass.

  “Good. Okay,” I said. I started to collect the bottles and throw them into the bag.

  “Stop,” Eric said, his voice raspy. “Christ, you don’t have to do that. It’s my shit, I should clean it up.”

  “Eric. Just relax for a bit until the painkillers kick in.” I kept gathering stuff from the floor, but after a few seconds, he stood up and grabbed the bag from my hands, slightly swaying on his feet.

  “I’m not gonna let you do this.”

  “You seriously think I’ve never cleaned up after a party before? There’s no puke or old food, so by party measures, it’s actually okay. It was too rainy at the farmers market anyway. Just let me clean this up and get out of your way.”

  I was so angry, but it was like a compulsion—I’d seen the state he was in and felt like I had to do something to fix it.

  God, why did I care so much that he’d done this? I should have expected it.

  “Fuck,” Eric said again, dropping the garbage bag to the floor with a clatter. “The fucking farmers market? Is it seriously already 2?”

  “I mean… by now it’s more like 2:30, but yeah.”

  He ran his hands through his hair, squeezing his head. “Oh my God, I am such a fuck up.”

  So he hadn’t even known what time it was. I turned my head to the side, glancing at him. “Well… you did fuck up, but you’re not a fuck up. It’s whatever, Eric.”

  “No,” he said, looking at me, his eyes pained. “It’s really not okay. I’m so sorry. I passed out on the damn couch late and didn’t have an alarm set….”

  “It happens,” I said, and started in again at the trash. I paused for a minute though, looking back up at him. “I do have a question though,” I said, meeting his eyes.

  “Sure. Anything,” he responded.

  “Howcome you didn’t invite me?”

  He looked down at the floor, as if it was too difficult to keep looking at me. My mind ran through different options of what his reasoning could be. For a second I thought that maybe he hadn’t invited me because he wanted to hook up with other people. But that didn’t seem right, because that would kind of blow the whole “fake boyfriend” bit that we were trying so hard to preserve.

  “It’s just…” I said, “you’re usually trying so hard to get me to go to parties with you. Why not this time?”

  “I’m going to be honest,” he said, cutting his eyes up at me with a kind of ominous look.

  “Yeah…?”

  “You weren’t even supposed to know about the party. And God, I realize now how awful that sounds. But I just… wanted to distract myself with something. And a fucking party seemed like the best way to do that.”

  “Distract yourself? From what?”

  He buried his face in his hands. “From you.”

  I looked to the side. “Um… you’re gonna have to explain what you mean by that.”

  He met my eyes, resting his head on his chin. “Dash, don’t you get it?”

  “Get what?”

  “I just don’t know if this is fake for me anymore.”

  My eyes widened. Holy shit.

  “And that’s quite frankly scary as fuck, because I sure as hell wasn’t looking for a relationship, even though I wanted the whole world to think I was in one. And I know you wouldn’t want one with me anyway. And I was sitting around, counting down the fucking hours until we could go on a stupid date together, and then of course I fucked that up too and missed the date, because that’s what I do.”

  “Eric—Jesus—”

  “I am so sorry, Dash. God, I’m such an idiot,” he said, following it with a long sigh.

&nb
sp; Holy shit.

  He’d just told me that he also had… real feelings for me. So I hadn’t been imagining it. Hearing him confirm it was a shock to my system: I’d partially convinced myself that he couldn’t possibly feel that way, that Eric Ronson didn’t do long-term relationships, and why the hell would he ever want me anyway?

  But apparently he did.

  And somehow the shock of that was enough to make me momentarily forget that I’d just been furious at him.

  “Okay,” he said, gathering his thoughts. He seemed slightly more alive, all of a sudden. “Okay. Fuck. I’ll… I’ll be right back.”

  He disappeared from the room, and I heard the sound of the shower running from down the hall.

  And I was left in the living room, staring around at the garbage, wondering what the hell he had just told me.

  He “didn’t think it was fake for him” anymore? What did that mean? Did it mean he actually wanted a relationship with me, or just that he had feelings he couldn’t pin down? It was obvious that there was something there—but I’d just thought it was good sex.

  It was so goddamn confusing.

  A little while later he emerged looking far more human, showered and dressed and holding an umbrella.

  “You’re insisting on being a saint and doing this for me, so I’m gonna at least repay you. I’ll be back in 20 minutes.”

  I didn’t ask what he was going to do. I just nodded, let him leave, and kept cleaning up his house. I was oddly compelled to do it—something about cleaning other people’s houses was always so much more tolerable than cleaning up my own, and Eric clearly hadn’t been in any state to handle it.

  And it was what any friend would do. I kept telling myself that it didn’t mean anything deeper than that—a friend helping another friend clean up after a party.

  He came back a while later when I had already tackled the living room, and I was arms deep in the kitchen sink, cleaning up a bunch of dishes. He dropped a bunch of bags down onto the counter.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’m making us dijon steak sandwiches.”