“The drinking alone thing, though, you’d have to work hard to spin,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and eyeing him critically. “You’d have to say you’re immersing yourself in an unsavory character for an upcoming project. That you’re method acting. And even then, there’ll probably be backlash. But you probably have a good publicist.”
“Maybe I’ll just hire you,” he suggested. “You seem to know a lot about Hollywood.”
I shrugged. “I read a lot.”
“And you watch my movies.”
I thought I’d been able to move past the embarrassed stage, but there I was, flushing all over again.
“I watched the latest one. The one where you’re an idiot for half the movie, but you get the girl in the end.”
Devon snorted. “You’re going to have to be more specific. That’s about half my lexicon.”
“It sounds like you’re not very excited about being one of the biggest actors in the game right now,” I observed. Celebrities—they’re just like us. Disenfranchised.
“Just tired right now. That’s all.”
He didn’t look tired to me. Devon Ray was probably incapable of looking anything except for hot and hotter. The skin beneath his eyes had probably never bruised into circles after a sleepless night, never bagged after having too much to drink.
“Why are you in Dallas?” I asked him again. “And why are you hiding from the paparazzi?”
“I’m not hiding,” he said, grimacing as he sipped again from the glass, moving across the room to a tray with an ice bucket and bottle of vodka. I took the moment, away from his beauty and fame, to breathe again. Looking around the room for the first time, I noted the piles of clothes, the sheaves of paper spread out across one of the beds. This wasn’t even one of the nicer rooms in this hotel.
“It looks like you’re hiding,” I told him.
His drink refreshed, he turned back to me. “I’m just going through some stupid shit right now. Can’t a guy lie low?”
“So you are hiding.”
“I’m going through a breakup,” he said, shrugging. “There it is. Breaking news. Post it online, if you want.”
“I don’t have social media,” I said, peering at him. “Nobody knows yet?”
“Just her and me.”
I racked my brain, wondering if Nana had talked about it, but couldn’t come up with a face or name of an actress last seen attached to Devon Ray.
“Well, sorry if you’re having a rough time of it,” I said. “I didn’t know Dallas was a place you come when you get your heart broken.”
He laughed at me again, rubbing his face. “I had some business to take care of here. A couple of appearances. I’m not hiding.”
He kept saying that like he was trying to convince himself it was truth. I decided not to call him out on it.
“Where are your appearances?” I asked him, out of politeness.
“Why? Are you going to come?” He stepped closer to me, and I suddenly found myself considering all of the possible definitions of the word come. From what I could tell, Devon Ray definitely wasn’t letting himself go. I could see the faint outline of washboard abs beneath his thin cotton T-shirt. My eyes traveled downward, drawn to the zipper of his jeans, the way the pants clung to him, the value of having a tailor apparent.
“See something you like?” he crooned, and I jumped, ashamed of myself.
“Uh…sorry,” I stuttered. “I…you’re my first celebrity sighting. That’s stupid. I mean, I’ve seen Cowboys players downtown before, but I only knew because other people around me were freaking out. I’m…not myself right now.”
“That’s okay,” Devon said. “I’d like to be someone else right now, too. Can you help me do that?”
He’d set his drink down on the table, beside the pizza box, and before my brain could even process it, I was in his arms.
“Um, Devon?” I was afraid to move. I was afraid to even speak—I’d squeaked out his name. I didn’t know what I was more afraid of: staying in his arms or him letting go of me. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” His face was very close to me, and I could smell the vodka now. His breath was probably flammable.
“It looks like you’re trying to kiss me.”
“Mm-hm.” He leaned even closer.
“Devon.”
“Yeah.” His lips were mere inches from mine, his strong hands on my back, searing. I…I wanted him. I didn’t want him. I was attracted to him. He repulsed me. I was so damn confused in this moment, filled with conflicting feelings, warring desires. I wanted him to get away from me. I wanted him even closer.
“You don’t even know my name,” I said, our lips perilously close even as I arched my back, trying to get away from him, unsure of what I wanted, what my next words would be.
“All you have to do is tell me.” It was apparently as simple as that.
“June,” I said. “June Clark.”
“I’m Devon Ray,” he replied.
“I know who you are.”
“Well, now that we’re properly introduced, I think we can get on with it.” He puckered up again, leaning closer, but something about that turn of phrase turned me right off. It was almost as if he expected this to happen. As if he’d called delivery places until someone fuckable turned up. I didn’t want to be that girl. I wasn’t going to be.
“You can have anyone you want,” I said, slipping my hand between our mouths just in time to make contact with his tongue. “Why me?”
“Because I want you.”
“No.” I shook my head exaggeratedly, making sure he understood just what that no meant. “You want something that I’m not so sure I want to give you.”
“June, I’m probably the most famous person you would ever be with,” he said, his eyes glittering with something much less charming now. “Just think of the stories you could tell…if you just let this happen.”
“I’m never going to just ‘let’ anything happen to me unless I want it to happen,” I said, shoving him away. “And I definitely don’t want this.” Even as hot as he was. Even if my body still thrummed from where he’d been holding me. Even if the air continued to crackle between us in spite of my rejection.
“You know, most fans would pay me just to kiss them, even,” he said, alternating a scowl with pursed lips. He looked like an idiot, and I realized that I was an idiot to tolerate this as long as I had.
“Well, I’m not a fan,” I said.
“Don’t lie,” he scoffed. “You’re the one who wanted an autograph.”
“I only asked for it for my grandmother,” I spat at him. “She’s your biggest fan. But now I don’t even think I want to get your autograph for her. I think she’d be disappointed by the person you really are. I’d like to keep her in love with the characters you play in your stupid movies.”
I elbowed my way around Devon, stumbling and nearly falling over a pile of clothes on the carpet as I fumbled in my jeans pocket for my keys and phone.
“Careful,” he warned, catching my elbow, but I flailed out of his grasp.
“You’re a slob!” I exclaimed. “How can you even live like this?”
“You think I choose to?” he demanded.
“I think you’re rich enough and famous enough and entitled enough to choose whatever the hell you want to choose,” I said. “Enjoy your pizza.”
“June, wait.”
It was a shock to hear my name on his lips—my name uttered straight from Devon Ray’s mouth—even though I knew what an ass he was in real life. It stopped me in my tracks just long enough to allow him to take me by the shoulder and turn me around, to make him think he had a chance with me after all.
“Fuck off, Devon.” I snapped a quick photo of his face with my phone as I whirled around.
“What the hell was that?” he said, blinking at the flash and staggering backward. I hadn’t realized just how drunk he was, which made the entire encounter even worse. A drunken Devon R
ay had made a pass at me. He’d probably try to bang anything that moved at this point.
“Evidence,” I said briskly. “So my nana believes me when I tell her what a jerk you are in real life.”
“Delete that photo,” he barked.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I snapped, charging out the door. He recoiled from the afternoon sunlight like a vampire might’ve, retreating into the clutter and darkness of his hotel room. I slammed the door shut behind me and charged down the stairwell, seething, my mind playing one thought on loop.
Celebrities—they’re just like us. Fucking assholes.
Chapter 2
My shift was nowhere near over, and now I had a cold pizza in my car that wouldn’t get delivered to the location I was supposed to go to next, but I wasn’t in the mood anymore. Paycheck and tips be damned. What had just transpired between Devon Ray and me was the only thing I could think of.
I let out a string of profanities, beating my fist against the steering wheel, when I realized the jerk hadn’t even paid for the pizza I’d left there. I was going to have to play dumb to get out of this, and I wasn’t dumb. I was underemployed, sure, but I wasn’t stupid. This was going to come out of my paycheck.
I sighed and dialed my work number before peeling out of the hotel parking lot.
“This is June,” I said. “I’m sick. I’m not coming back in today.”
I hung up before the manager could argue with me. There was no arguing with this. Reality had just shifted. I’d just delivered pizza to Devon Ray, and argued with him about his charmed life, topping the entire experience with refusing his drunken come-on.
Was I an idiot? He was probably right—it was the closest I’d ever get to a celebrity hookup. I’d squandered it, but I wasn’t so sure I was upset about that fact.
I didn’t care how famous the guy was. I wasn’t going to give my body to an asshole to do as he pleased with it. It was a story that I knew no one would ever believe—until I remembered that I’d snapped a photo of him.
I wheeled into a shopping center immediately, earning a horn blast from the truck behind me when I failed to signal my sudden desire, and pulled into a parking spot. Peering at my phone’s screen, I sucked in a lungful of air and burst out laughing.
This was priceless. I was in possession of probably the one and only shitty picture of Devon Ray, Hollywood heartthrob. It was probably worth my weight in gold.
He was scowling and flinching at the same time, giving him a double chin I would’ve never believed to be possible. I briefly considered downloading a social media app for the sole purpose of sharing it, though I doubted anyone would think it was genuine.
In this photo, Devon Ray looked like an ordinary, angry man. It evaporated nearly all of the sexual tension I’d had with him, the helpless attraction that had trapped me in that messy hotel room for so long.
I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat and pulled out of my parking spot.
Driving aimlessly was one of my favorite ways to digest things. I’d done it so often when I first got my driver’s license that I’d become intimately acquainted with the sprawling metropolis. I was an ideal pizza delivery person, really. I knew all the best shortcuts, the streets and intersections to avoid at certain points of the day. If only I hadn’t gotten my college education, I would’ve been perfectly satisfied with my current job.
Nana had pushed me to complete my degree. I didn’t understand why it was so important to her, but I couldn’t tell her no. For my tiny grandmother, dependent on an oxygen tank to breathe and so diminutive in her wheelchair that she looked like a child, no was never an acceptable answer. The woman had raised me, and she demanded a college education. I remembered the fight we’d had about it very well.
“I’ll just go to college later,” I’d said, exasperated, throwing my hands up in the air at her. It wasn’t a week after my high school graduation, and Nana was pushing me to at least enroll in a nearby community college to get some requirements out of the way if I wasn’t keen on selecting a major yet.
“You’ll go to college now,” she insisted, her voice reedy but firm. She never had to raise it to get what she wanted. She was implacable. “There isn’t a ‘later’ for your education.”
The “later” I meant was troubling even to me. I couldn’t imagine going to college full time while holding down my crappy pizza delivery job and taking care of Nana. That “later” I’d mentioned to her? That was the inevitable “later” of not having to take care of her anymore.
“I’m just scared that I won’t have enough time for everything, Nana,” I told her.
“There is always time for everything if you put enough importance on it,” she responded. “You don’t worry about me. You have to think about your future.”
There was that troubling thing again. The “future” Nana was talking about was the future without her in it.
“Maybe I’ll quit the pizza place,” I suggested hopefully. “That’ll give me more time for my studies.” I didn’t mind the work, and I loved driving. But a job was a job—an obligation that put me in occasionally crappy situations, like naked people opening the door.
“You need your job to help pay for your books,” Nana said. “You won’t be quitting the pizza place.”
There was no arguing with her. She’d always been like that, before the oxygen tank, before the wheelchair. I couldn’t get away with anything under her watch. As I got older, beginning in high school, it was so troubling to me to start becoming the one who watched over her.
Nana’s health was deteriorating quickly. The only mother—and grandmother—I’d ever known, she’d brought me into her home before I had memories of my other home, the one with my mother and father.
Nana had been brief and as vague as she thought was necessary when explaining that situation the moment I was old enough to ask about it.
“Your mother and father had you a little too young,” she said. “They fell in together a little too young, too, and they both have a lot of growing up to do.”
I grew up, too, and I didn’t ask about them again. They never came calling, Nana never mentioned them, and life was just dandy.
Except that I had a college degree and still worked as a pizza delivery person.
“Get a job to suit your skills,” Nana had urged me, as I dabbed Vaseline ointment on her nostrils, which tended to chafe because of the oxygen she had to use. “You’re not living up to your full potential, June.”
“The job market’s really tough right now, Nana,” I said pleasantly, counting out her pills before setting them on a saucer beside a glass of water. “I know that something will come along.”
“Something’s not just going to come along if you don’t go out there and seize it,” she said irritably, her small hands fluttering at me, trying to shoo me away. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself, girl, before you lose your momentum.”
Nana was angry at herself, angry that her waning health forced me into the position of caretaker when she’d been so good at taking care of me growing up. And she was angry that this responsibility limited my potential in the job market.
She was right. I couldn’t fathom getting a full-time office job. It would take me away from her, and she depended on me. We got by on a stipend I got paid for being her full-time caretaker. It also helped that we were involved in a home nurse program at a local hospital, meaning that a healthcare professional visited Nana at the house every day, usually when I was delivering pizzas. The money from the pizza delivery job helped make things more comfortable around our snug house.
Our lives were far from perfect, but we were used to things the way they were. I treasured Nana, and I was grateful for the fact that I was in a position to provide for her, especially after the way she had once provided for me. She could’ve left me to my fate with my hapless parents, or perhaps to the foster system. Instead, she’d given up her retirement and relaxation to raise me as if I’d been her own child.
I coul
dn’t resent her now for our current circumstances. I was unable of feeling that way about Nana. She was precious to me.
That was also why I wasn’t going to tell her how big of a jerk Devon Ray was in real life.
Nana had enough to worry about, what with her failing health and her concerns that I was wasting my life. I didn’t want to tread on her fantasies about her favorite movie star of the moment.
It was funny. She liked newly popular actors like Devon, and I preferred stars of past eras—the Humphrey Bogarts, Jimmy Stewarts, Fred Astaires. To me, today’s actors were more focused on appearances than real talent. I’d taken Nana to see Devon’s last movie, the one I’d awkwardly mentioned to him before he’d revealed the ugliness inside of himself to me. She had been transfixed the entire time, gushing afterward about how talented Devon was.
“That young man is going places,” she told me as I helped her into the passenger seat of my car in the movie theater parking lot.
“Who, Devon Ray?” I’d scoffed. “He looks and acts just like anyone else right now.”
“No, no. This one’s different.”
“Different how?” I was of the opinion that you could get a dozen Devon Rays sold in a box—each with different names and hair colors, maybe, but practically the same model.
“Different…I don’t know,” Nana mused as I turned on the car. “Like there’s something special about him. Like he’s hungry for it. Like he’s going places.”
Going places. Sure. Like in my cheap, oil-splattered khakis.
Today wasn’t even a good appearance day for me. I didn’t have bad hair days or bad pimple days or bad makeup days. My bad days came in full-on attack. Try as I might, I couldn’t brush out a lump from my ponytail this morning, and I had a big fat pimple appear on my cheek sometime overnight, necessitating a glob of concealer. Being in my 20s had done nothing to stem the occasional blemish. I’d even tried to distract from it by pulling some of my hair out of my ponytail and letting it hang down over my ears, which just made me look vaguely sloppy. My makeup hadn’t looked right, and I somehow got to the end of my clean work clothes and was forced to wear both my polo shirt and khakis from the time the deep fryer in the kitchen at the pizza place spat hot oil on me.
KYLE: A Mafia Romance (The Callahans Book 4) Page 35