by Nicole Snow
It doesn't mean we're hunting second chances.
“Come on. I'll help you get strapped in,” he says, taking my hand and leading me inside. When he pushes the metal door shut and turns the heavy lock, it's just him and I, free from the rest of the world.
I've never been in a cockpit before. It's bigger than I expected, a small passenger plane with a cabin behind us, leather seats, a bar, and a very noticeable bed. Passion makes him fly the damned thing himself when he's rich enough to afford a pilot.
The décor is about as tacky as his personal style. Black designed to look textured like marble, gold flourishes cutting through the darkness, adding its color.
I'm in the co-pilot's seat, but there's nothing fancy about it. It's much closer quarters than I imagined. His hand brushes mine while he works the controls. The plane rolls smoothly down the runway, picks up speed, and brings us high into the sky.
I'm enjoying the ride so much while we rise I almost forget why I'm here. I remember as soon as he gives me his famous look, kissing the skies above Lake Michigan.
It's time, his eyes say, before he speaks. “You hate me for what happened, and you should.”
Ouch. So much for easing into it. I clear my throat, taking an extra second to think before I ruin the wild blue yonder up here with a shit storm.
“Luke, it's not like that. I don't know if I hate you. There were times when I was sure I did. But if I really hated you, deep down, we wouldn't be taking this flight. I wouldn't be doing this movie.”
“Five years to sort it out, and you still don't know?” He sounds incredulous.
“It's not like we had sex scenes the whole time to figure it out! We kept our distance. We forgot. Before this movie, forgetting was just fine. Wounds healed and formed scars. Ideally, I'd have kept it that way.”
“I ripped them open, didn't I?” He puts his hands on the yoke in front of him, slowly executing a turn. I look down, avoiding his eyes, watching the sunlight glisten on the lake below. “Believe me, babe, I know how it feels. There are a few things you tore to hell, too.”
“Me?” It comes out harsher than it should. God, if he's brought me up here to dump the blame on my head, I swear I'm going to use his skin as a parachute. “Like what?”
“Discipline. Control. Sanity. I'm losing them one-by-one every day we're on the set, Robbi. You've got me so hot and bothered I should be a steamed fucking clam. I told you in the letter, someone's going to walk if we can't get the tension in check. We need to keep it professional if we're finishing this film.”
“Well, excuse me, Mr. Sensitive. I'm sorry I got you so twisted up you went peeping tom on my dressing room the other day.”
His smirk is showing. I think I'm about to prove to the F.A.A. spontaneous human combustion can bring down a plane. “Technically, it's not peeping if I only used my ears. I never set foot in your room once, Robbi.”
“Technically, I think you're a huge asshole. You're not helping anything. Why are we even here?”
He doesn't say anything. Then he reaches for one of the levers on the plane, pulls it hard, and sends us careening toward the spotty clouds covering the sparkling water.
I'm screaming. “Are you out of your mind?!”
The plane turns. I'm not sure why the sky looks so different until I realize we're upside-fucking-down.
“Why are we here, Robbi?” he asks, repeating my question with an eerie calm. “Because I'm done playing games. I'm done pretending there isn't this insane love-hate spark between us that's more exasperating than this stupid trick I learned at an air show will ever be. I'm sick – sick to my gut – acting all the damned time, even when I'm not reading off a script. I can't stand not knowing what's real, where our character's lines end and the truth between us begins.”
I'm hyperventilating. His heavy hand comes down on my arm and squeezes. Then he moves it down along my forearm, pushing his fingers through mine. “Open your eyes,” he says.
I do, and everything is right with the world. The sky is where it should be, and so is the water. Now that my life isn't flashing before my eyes anymore, I'm pissed.
“Asshole, why?” I say, tightening the grip I have on his hand, digging my fingernails into his palm so hard I hope they cut.
“Because I want you mad. Anger means honesty. Every time we sit down and try to sort this out, we end up papering over it until it all boils over next time. We both walk away in a rage, and that can't continue. It's not doing us any favors. Up here, there's no walking away.”
That's it. I'm trapped in the sky with a manipulative lunatic. I hate how he's right, even when his sanity is questionable. I shove his hand away, balling my hands together on my lap. Fine, I'll play along because there's nothing else that'll make him land this stupid plane.
“Okay, okay. You want mad?” My fists clench, digging into my thighs. “I'm tired of being jerked around after what you and your fucked up family did to mine, Lucus. What your father did to my mom, it wasn't your fault, but you let it ruin us. You walked away. You decided I wasn't good enough, or I was too much trouble after you'd had your fun. You tossed me away. How the fuck am I supposed to ever get over it? I mean, really? Especially when I have to re-live the best of us acting in this stupid movie?”
When my voice dies and the echo stops, I realize I'm shouting. Good God.
It's outrageous what he does to me. No man should call to my baser senses, slip beneath my skin, and stir rage and want in equal measure. No man should throw them together, amuse himself with the chemical reactions I can't hide storming in my blood.
I tell myself I'm not his toy. I'm not here for his amusement. I wish I knew why I decided to take him up on this stupid offer.
“I tried to protect you, Robbi. Pushed you away because you deserved better than being tied down to the fucked up drama.” He speaks slowly, his eerie calm holding. “Hurt like hell, if you want to know the truth. So did confronting my old man. I went to him as soon as we got off the phone. I was ready to kill him if he really did what your mom said.”
I don't even know what to say to that. My eyes study him, trying to figure out what he's after, but I think I'm actually getting the truth. Can I handle it?
“My father was no saint. I'm not defending his bullshit. The man drank himself stupid, he went through women like expensive scotch, and he almost wrote off our whole family fortune to a huge gold digger before he left this planet. But he told me he never blackmailed her, never forced Ericka into doing those things. He said she came willingly. There was no arrangement he trapped her in.”
There it is. The biggest question of my life, reaching up and slapping me across the face. I want to rush to my mom's defense, but remembering how dad reacted, refusing to speak to her after the divorce, leaves just enough doubt.
“That's crap!” I'm shaking when I spit it out. “You can't tell me it's that easy, believing what he said after all these years? You said it yourself – the man was nuts. Both our fathers were. Both unreliable.”
Luke doesn't say anything for about a minute. “I don't know what to believe. I just regret the damage it's done. Whatever happened between our folks, we're the ones who suffered.”
I'm about to sink my teeth into him again, but the bastard has a point. “So? It's not like it could've gone down any other way. There's no coming back from everything that happened. We suffered for them, sure, and they hurt us both. But you're the one who ruined us. You let me go for good.”
“Did I?” he says, pausing just long enough to roil my thoughts. “I let you go, true, which was a huge fucking mistake. Nobody ever told me it was for good.”
“No!” I say it so quickly I almost bite my tongue. “No, Luke. This isn't happening again. It's impossible. We're done. No mending fences.”
“If you're so sure it's impossible, then you're right to ask why we're wasting our time sailing the skies. I might as well turn this thing around and take us down. I'm better off hashing out how I'll tell Pierce to find a replacement for M
r. Black.”
My heart catches in my throat. He can't be serious about quitting...can he? “Come on. This shouldn't mess with your career, or mine. You're right about one thing – we don't need to be enemies.”
I don't know why, but thinking about getting naked for a new actor playing Miles fills me with dread. Much more than the fear welling up when I think about doing those scenes with the man next to me.
“I'm a Shaw, Robbi. You're forgetting I've got the greatest consolation prize in the world if I walk. I blow my chance at fame, at art, at anything, I'm still living out the rest of my days as a no name billionaire. That's nothing to whine about. It also gives me a whole hell of a lot of freedom.”
“No. It isn't fair. Money or not, you've worked just as hard as me to get here. These chances only come up once in a lifetime if you blow them. You know how unforgiving this industry can be. Besides, our faces are already showing up all over the place. If you quit, we'll have half a million of Frieze's fanatics beating down the studio doors tomorrow. You're their Miles. They love you.”
“I'd rather face a mob of angry women than more shit between you and me. I know how to deal with pissing people off. Rarely did anything else growing up. Fixing deep hurt, putting a muzzle on this desire we're pretending doesn't exist...that's a hell of a lot more complicated. Where the fuck do I begin?”
Damn you, I think. I'm softening the longer I stare at his tragic face. He's trying so hard to keep it in, to betray nothing, but the mask of calm he's wearing tells too much. “By knowing this helped.”
He looks at me intently. “What do you mean?”
“This talk. It felt...good, I guess, to let it all out. We don't have to hate each other or die inside every time Pierce tells us to perform some new torture. I can't deny there's a part of me that's still attracted to you, Luke.” I pause, knowing full well I'm risking inflating his ego bigger than it already is. “But I can deal with that. It's the other tension surrounding the past that's so fucking difficult, but believe it or not, I think we've made some progress today. I understand where you're coming from, and maybe you get me a little better, too.”
He smiles, pulling the shades down over his eyes. “You're right. If we keep this up, we'll get by without more awkward moments where I hear what you do in the shower.
My cheeks burn. “Can we please stop talking about that?”
“Sure. I'd much rather find out what's real, anyway, if I'm going to be honest.” He takes us lower, around the Chicago skyline's edge. I see the Shaw Glass Tower below, the one Hayden owns, another landmark in the city's imperial majesty.
“What do you mean, what's real?” I ask. “You're so vague.”
“Don't worry about it, little bird. We figured ourselves out a long time ago, when we had something. By the time this movie's done, I think we'll do it again. We'll both walk away wiser when we find out where we really stand.” Hearing him use the old nickname makes tears nip at the corners of my eyes, and they're not all sad ones.
“Luke, what are you talking about? Where we stand on what?” I turn away, suppressing the outburst, looking out over the place that's promising me a second chance.
“Everything,” he says. “Everything that matters.”
Second chances. If that's what he's offering in his own cryptic way, then I've got a lot of thinking to do.
Later, at my apartment, I'm decompressing from the fucked up flight.
I left the ground convinced I hated his guts. Now...I'm not sure what I believe.
It doesn't get any easier when my phone lights up while I'm drifting off on the couch, thoroughly exhausted after today's insanity. It's mom. I almost let it go to voicemail before I take the call at the last second.
We had a quick late night dinner at a place downtown the other evening. She said she was going to get around to checking out the promos for the movie this week. I guess she's calling to give me her opinion. Part of me is actually curious what she thinks.
“Robin, what the hell do you think you're doing?” Her voice is hurt. Angry, and trying not to show it.
So much for sleep. “What's wrong?” I say, a weight in my stomach telling me I already know.
“I saw the posters. The trailer today. God. Lucus Shaw, baby? Have you lost your mind?”
Shit. Panic takes the floor out under me. I scoot to the edge of the couch and double over slightly, trying to clear my head, come up with answers I don't have myself.
“It's purely professional,” I say weakly. “Look, when I took the part, I didn't know he'd been cast to play Miles Black. He's been...okay to me. So far.”
At least if I can call 'okay' being lifted above Lake Michigan for a brutal self reflection.
“It's too late to turn back anyway, mom. We're almost halfway through.” I sniff, trying not to let my nerves weaken me. She's staying eerily silent on the other end. “I can't back out without ruining my career.”
“I want to talk to your agent,” she says, shifting into the no nonsense tone I heard as a little girl.
“Excuse me?”
“Bebe, isn't it? Put her on the phone. I'm getting you out of this. I don't care how much time or money it takes.”
“No, you're not,” I say, standing as anger's heats my blood. “I'm not a kid anymore, mom. You don't have to tell me for the millionth time about all the evil things that went down between you and Frank Shaw.”
“You think this is about that evil bastard and me? Like I don't remember how I pulled you away from him the day we left that horrible house? I know you two had sex.”
Even after all these years, lying about the obvious, the shameful truth heats my face. Burns it hotter than ever because sex with him has been on my mind more than it should be.
“That's all in the past, mom. You don't have to come running to protect me. I'm a grown woman. I know what I'm doing in my industry. There's no way I'm ever letting Luke do anything you'd have to worry –“
“The past is the present if you're telling me you're not stepping down. Every day you're with him, you're in danger, honey. Has he touched you? How many head games has he already played?” She's frantic.
A sickening knot pulls tight in my stomach. I regret what happened in the plane today, when I almost decided to shake the past. Whenever I hear mom's voice, I'm reminded what kind of evil stamp the Shaws left on our lives, a monstrous shadow she'll never get to leave.
“It's kind of a romance film,” I say, downplaying the erotic part. “Obviously, there's physical contact. We work off the script. We're professionals. I never let him do anything that isn't written down. Our director, Pierce, has the highest standards. He'd never allow any funny business either, mom.” The last part is a lie – probably. But I don't know what else to say to win her trust.
“I don't care about his damned standards, Robbi. What about mine? I want you out of this, before it's too late. There just has to be another way you can make your mark in Hollywood.”
I pause, trying and failing to find words to make her understand, that won't piss her off. There are none. “Well, there isn't, mom. I'm finishing what I've started. I'm not backing down because we're supposed to consider every minute with a Shaw a dance with the devil. I'll wrap up my scenes with Luke, see him at the award ceremonies if we're that lucky, and never deal with him again. Easy.”
“Easy?” She pauses, sniffing back what have to be angry tears. Way to make me feel guiltier. “Easy was how your father and I had it before we ever took jobs with the Shaws. I'm telling you, that place was cursed. Not with black magic, but with human evil I've tried my entire life to keep away from you.”
She pauses. I should take advantage of the gap in the conversation to reassure her, tell her the past isn't repeating itself, but I have no proof.
I have no fucking proof...do I? For all I know, Luke could be setting me up for my next great fall, especially if he's even half as bad as his father.
“Keep working with him, then. Don't listen to me. I'll let you get burned, Ro
bin Marie, and if you continue on with a man like him, you absolutely will.”
The phone clicks dead. I throw it on the couch, crashing down on the opposite side with my face in my hands.
There's no winning this. No understanding it. No truce, and no peace.
Every time I've found my escape from being hopelessly fucked, I'm hurled back into the same battlefield. Caught between the love, the hate, and the man who leaves me a broken mess over ninety percent of the times we interact.
I don't know when the stalemate will ever end, but it has to be soon.
“I never should've sent you alone, Ali. I'm going to kill him.” Miles Black scoops me up in his strong, heavily inked arms. His fingers gingerly touch the fake bruises and scratches on my skin, injuries my character sustained running from Senator Bluhd's guards with the files from his office.
“I never should've sent you alone,” he says again.
“I had to,” I say tearfully. “Please, sir, don't blame yourself.”
He stops just before we're in the bathroom with the massive windows overlooking the summer beauty outside. His eyes bore into mine, but it's not a fictional billionaire looking at me. It's the real one, the man I loved. “Miles. No more of that sir and sado crap tonight. I'm cleaning you up, baby, and then we're making love. What you've deserved from the start.”
No, not Miles Black, but Luke. There's a heart wrenching note to his tone far greater than the script calls for. For a second, I'm worried Pierce is going to butt in, and make us re-do it.
It's like I can feel his inner anguish as he carries me into the bathroom, unclasps my robe, and guides me gently into the shower. My face heats against the wall. I'm grateful Ali doesn't have to watch him undress because I think right now I'd blow it.
I don't look at him until he steps into the shower, naked with me, reaching to turn the nozzle while his other arm goes around me. “This ends here. No more pulling you into my world, my danger, my pain. You're not my secretary anymore, Ali. You were never meant to be my spy. You're going to be my wife and the mother of our children.”