Hollywood Playboy

by Natasha Madison

  “Why?” he asks, setting his cup down on the counter behind him.

  “Because I want people to see us happy and smiling together. I don’t want the only picture of us together to be the one private moment.”

  “You know that no matter what picture you put out there, the other will always be there, right?” Something I don’t need him to tell me because I know how it works. “And that the world loves a scandal, so it’s easier for them to grasp onto the gossip than on the reality.”

  “I know that whatever happens with us, even if we are together for ten years, that picture will always be there, but I want to have others there also.”

  “If that is what you want to do, I’ll stand behind you.” I’m surprised but not really; that’s the real Tyler.

  “Don’t you want to read it?” He shakes his head at the question.

  “If you want me to, I will, but I don’t need to.” He comes to me, and I turn on the stool. “If you need to do this, then do it. I stand behind you, every time.” He stands between my legs now, and I kiss him, tasting the coffee on his lips. He peels the shirt off me, then picks me up, and turns to the bedroom.

  “Wait,” I tell him, and he stops in place. “I want to post it, and then I want you to take me back to bed.” He walks back to the island and sets me back on the stool. I open my Facebook and Instagram and post it at the same time, attaching the other photo of us. The one where both of us are smiling, and his arm is over my shoulder. I close the computer, and he takes me back to bed, where we stay well into the evening. His phone goes off most of the day, no doubt because of the social media post that is now trending all over the place.

  How I fell for the Hollywood Playboy

  Jessica Hawthorn

  If someone would have told me that going on a thirty-day press tour would be life-altering, I would have laughed at them and went on with my day. What I will say is this. I fell for a man, who, at the end of the day, is just a man regardless of his job. A private and intimate picture was stolen and distributed to every single paper and online publication out there, making our secret feel dirty. And I’m done with people trying to dissect and ruin it, so this is my comment on the picture.

  I was asked . . . no, I take that back. I was ordered to go on this press tour, regardless of how I felt for Tyler. I’m not going to lie, and I have people who can confirm the two of us started off on the wrong foot. We didn’t even try to hide our animosity toward each other.

  I tried to push him to the edge of the cliff, going above and beyond his limits, and he tried to get me thrown off the press tour. I guess it really was like two kids on the playground not getting along with each other. But in the end, I had a job to do, and I would stand by my commitment.

  One day, I was running on the treadmill. It was maybe six forty-five, and he got on the one next to me. With just the two of us in the room, what was I to do? I looked over and said good morning. I think I got a grunt, I’m not even sure. But at least I got something, right?

  I guess that was the first thing we had in common because we both got up at six every day to run on the treadmill. Every morning, we would run side by side. Sometimes we would talk, sometimes I would ignore him or vice versa, and then sometime during those early morning miles, the unthinkable happened. I stopped resenting him.

  I watched him interact with others with a smile on his face the whole time. I watched him stand in line and sign autographs for hours with his fans. After I stopped resenting him, I started respecting him. It wasn’t easy to be him. The press was always there trying to catch his every moment, to catch when he stopped smiling so they could speculate as to the why, to catch the one moment they could report on, me included. He lives his life under the microscope, and I don’t know how he does it with a smile on his face.

  Ten journalists were invited on this press tour, and I expected him to interact with us only when he needed to, but I was wrong. He got on the bus just like we did, and he sometimes even carried his own bag. He took the ten of us out to eat the best ramen noodles from a small little hole in the wall. The next day, he took me for a motorcycle ride. He wasn’t Tyler the actor—he was Tyler the man—and I started to look at him differently. He wasn’t the condescending a-hole I thought he was. He is thoughtful, he is kind, he is funny, he is compassionate, he is considerate, he is courteous, and he is generous. He is all that and more, and more importantly, I get to call him mine.

  I won’t go into detail of how we started this because that is for him and me, and those moments are all ours. WE get to keep that.

  The only thing I will admit to is that I fell in love with a man, and lucky for me, he feels the same way I do. So there you have it, folks. How I fell in love with Hollywood’s Playboy. I won’t hide it anymore, and I won’t deny it. Tyler Beckett owns my heart. Cheesy, right? But hey, you do cheesy things when you fall in love.

  Sincerely,

  Jessica

  The next day, the letter is still trending, and I spend the day unpacking my stuff. Tyler sits on the bed dressed in shorts, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap on his head while he flips through the channels on the television. “When is Australia?” I ask him, sticking my head out of the closet. I’m wearing white shorts today with a gray sweater.

  “In five days,” he says, looking over at me. He tried to get out of it, but then he turned the tables around and forced his hand. He would only go if I went with him. So I glared at him, then agreed to because he deserves to go out with a bang. “The flight is fifteen hours from LA, so I was thinking we could fly into LA in the morning and take off at eleven p.m. We can sleep on the plane, and we’ll arrive there at seven a.m. two days later.”

  “I don’t think I’m comfortable in the press tour plane with Yamina and Yolanda, so I can book a flight and just meet you there.”

  He shakes his head. “I got us our own plane. I’m not doing the press tour plane.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I can catch a flight; it’s the same thing,” I tell him, walking to the bed. “It’s money wasted for nothing.”

  “Jessica, we are flying together, period.” He looks at me and then leans forward, grabbing me and pulling me onto the bed. “It has its own bedroom,” he says, pulling me on top of him. “It’s just the two of us. I asked my parents, but my father wasn’t down with wearing a monkey suit again.” I laugh at him. I try to argue with him, but five days later, we are pulling up to the private plane, and climbing up the stairs. A table with four chairs is right at the entrance, a couch set right behind it with another two chairs and their own table.

  “Welcome,” the flight attendant says. “We will be taking off as soon as we load the bags.” I smile at her and walk toward one of the chairs, setting my bag on it. “Would you care for some champagne?”

  “Yes,” Tyler says, “but we’ll be taking it in the bedroom please.” She nods her head at him, and I look down embarrassed.

  “She knows we are going to be having sex,” I hiss at him. “You don’t have to tell everyone.”

  “Who said we are having sex?” He winks at me, and I go to sit down. The plane takes off, and the minute he can unfasten the seat belt, he grabs me and pulls me to the back, pressing a button and the door slides open. I walk in, and sure enough, in the middle of the room is a queen-size bed with two chairs on either side. I guess those are for landing. He closes the door behind me, locks it, and proceeds to not have sex with me, first in the bed and then in one of the chairs. We get up in the morning and go out to have breakfast, sit on the couch a bit, and then go and lie in bed. I fall asleep again while he watches a movie. We land with no fanfare; the only thing waiting for us is the car he ordered.

  We make our way to the hotel, and there is no Yamina or Yolanda handing us our keys. “Do you want me to go check in so no one sees you?” I ask him, and he looks at me sideways.

  “No.” He gets out of the car from his side, then walks around to open my door. “Come on.” He holds out his hand, and he doesn’t let it g
o. They try to upgrade him to a three-bedroom villa, but he turns it down. “It’s just the two of us, so there’s no need to do that.” The lady behind the desk nods her head at him and calls over the bellhop, telling him what villa we are in. We walk back outside and get into the four-seater golf cart as he takes us over to the villa. Rock mountains are all around us. We pull up to the villa, and Tyler gets out and holds out his hand. I walk up the steps, and when he opens the door for us, I take in the beauty of this room. Standing in the living room, I see a rock wall on my left and on my right is floor-to-ceiling windows that open with a private pool on the side. A single white loveseat is in the living room with a huge round brown ottoman. The fireplace is already burning and faces the pool. The bellhop drops the bag in our room that is right behind the rock wall, open on both sides. I walk into the room and the rock wall is there in front of the bed with the fireplace on both sides. A four-poster bed is in the middle with drapes to close us in if we wanted to.

  “I didn’t bring my suit,” I tell him. Going back into the living room, I open the door and squat to touch the water. “It’s almost like a bath.”

  “Are you hungry?” He picks up a room service menu to order us some food.

  He smiles at me, and his phone rings. He answers it right away, and from his side of the conversation, it’s Yamina telling him what time the car will be picking us up. He hangs up after a couple of minutes. “The screening is at seven, so the car will be here at six fifteen.”

  “Are you ever going to hire a new PA?” I sit on the couch next to him, and his arms open for me to lie beside him.

  “I have time.” He kisses my lips when I look up at him. “Are you tired?”

  “No, I’m good. When do we leave again?” I didn’t ask him any details about the trip; I’m just going along with him. I overpacked, so I’m not worried about running out of clothes.

  “We leave the day after tomorrow unless you want to stay and sightsee. I just want to go back home and hibernate for the next two weeks.”

  “That sounds like a plan.” I look out the window. “I really have to start looking for work.”

  “Can you take a couple of weeks off?” he asks me, and I nod. With no rent to pay and only a car payment, I should be good for the next six months. Seven, if I’m really stingy. “Good,” he says, looking out the window while we wait for room service.

  “Are you almost ready?” I hear him say from the bedroom. After room service, he ordered us a couple’s massage, knowing I was a wreck about our first red carpet event since I published my letter. A letter that went viral and was on every single magazine and entertainment show. The intimate picture of us is nowhere now, and it’s just the two of us in a boat smiling for the cameras with the cherry blossoms as our backdrop.

  I stand and look in the mirror. I’m wearing a blush pink dress with a thin light gray belt around my waist. The dress goes high to my neck, the neckline sheer. Little light pink delicate flowers are sewn all over the dress along with sequins and pearls. I put on my light nude Louboutins. “Jess.” I hear him again, and he walks in. He’s wearing a light gray suit with a white shirt underneath and a dark blue tie. He stops in his tracks when he sees me. “You look . . .” His voice trails off.

  “Is it okay?” I smooth down the front, the bangles on my arm clinking. “I mean, it’s not too much, right?”

  He shakes his head, coming closer to me. “No.” He grabs my hand, bringing it to his mouth and kissing it. “Let’s go before I change my mind and take this dress right off you.” He pulls me toward the door. We take the golf cart back to the lobby and get into the black town car, making our way over to the red carpet. We pull up, and I hear the fans chanting outside. “This is it.” He turns and leans in to kiss me. “You ready?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.” The nerves in my stomach are making me nauseated. “Go and be the superstar. I’ll be here.” He gets out of the car, waving to the fans across the street, and then he reaches in the car to take my hand. “I’m not going anywhere without you.” With his hand in mine, we walk the red carpet. His arm goes around my waist while we smile at the cameras. I look over at him, and he gives the paparazzi what they want when he leans in and kisses me.

  When we wake up the next day, another picture of us is all over the magazines. This time, the headline makes me throw my head back and laugh.

  Hollywood Playboy no more.

  EPILOGUE ONE

  Jessica

  Six months later

  “I just don’t know why you are in such a rush to sell the LA house.” I look over at Tyler as he puts another log into the fire. We are back in Montana, sitting outside on the round circle couch he had delivered while we were in LA. I didn’t have to go back to LA with him. I could have stayed here, but when I told him I would be staying in Montana, he was like a child and pouted for a whole hour.

  I look at the outside fire pit in all brown brick, matching the stones around the pool. The deck sits above the pool right next to the bubbling jacuzzi. He turns around and comes back to me. Sitting down next to me, he takes me in his arms as we watch the orange flames. “I’m in a rush because I’ve always hated that house, and I don’t want it anymore.”

  I shake my head. “Shouldn’t you think about it before you do this?”

  “Thought about it, babe.” His hand rubs up and down my arm. “I don’t want to be in that house. I want this to be my house.” Over the past six months, this has been our home. Yes, ours. He made that clear when he had my storage locker shipped to Montana, and now pieces of my home are mixed with his. I’ve been lucky to be a freelance journalist now. I decide what I want to write about and who gets the story. The fact that I’m Tyler’s girlfriend doesn’t matter anymore. It’s old news; we’re old news. I mean, there are times I’ll be at the grocery store and see a picture of us on the cover. A picture captured when we are out and about, which always stuns me since we never see the photographers. I’ve even been on the red carpet with him last week. We smiled, and he waved at his fans. What we weren’t expecting was to come face-to-face with Cassie. She saw us coming down the red carpet and hightailed it out of there. Word is she’s the assistant for some B-list actor.

  “When do you leave to go to Washington?” I ask him about his next movie that is set to film there. He made me read the script, and I think it’s going to be huge, bigger than Adrenaline Rush, and that crushed the box office.

  “You mean when do we leave?” I look up at him, glaring. “Jessica, I don’t want to come back to my house at night and be without you,” he says, bringing me closer to him. “You can work from the house. You know you can’t sleep without me either. The last time I went away for three days, neither of us slept, and you wore my sweater the whole time.”

  I glare at him. “I didn’t wear the sweater the whole time.” He laughs at me. “You’re lucky I love you.” He pulls me closer to him. Fine, I hate being apart from him. I mean, in six months, we’ve been away from each other for three days, max. It was supposed to be seven, but he went postal and came back home. He also got a new PA, this time a guy named Joshua. He’s twenty-three and straight out of college. He’s amazing and also has the best-looking boyfriend I’ve ever laid eyes on.

  “Joshua got us a house with three bedrooms in case my parents come and visit or your friends come.” I can only imagine the house Joshua got. The last time we asked him to book us a hotel, he booked us the penthouse suite with two floors. “I’m filming for three weeks, and then we can come back home.”

  “Fine,” I huff, knowing full well I would not be able to last three weeks without him. It’s come so easy to the both of us; it’s just us. We sit and watch way too many episodes of Dateline and have even expanded our TV repertoire by streaming Law & Order episodes. We cook together, and we hold hands and go hiking. We are rather boring, but it suits us. We’d rather be in front of a fire together than walking down a red carpet, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the whole w
orld.

  “I love you,” he says to me. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” I ask him, my arms around his waist and my leg over his. The fire crackles in front of us, and the crickets chirp in the distance.

  “For showing me what I was missing this whole time.” He kisses me without letting me tell him the same thing. He is always telling me he loves me, as if I could forget. I feel it all the way down to my soul, every touch, every kiss, every word he whispers to me is all done with his whole heart. I don’t get to tell him that I’m the lucky one. I don’t get to tell him anything because once again, he shows me just how much he loves me.

  EPILOGUE TWO

  Tyler

  Two years later

  “No matter what happens . . .” Jessica whispers from her seat next to me. I’m sitting in the front row at the Oscars, and I look over at her. The woman who makes all my dreams come true just by being here. She sits next to me with her hand in mine, wearing a beautiful champagne-colored dress that goes way too low in the front for my liking. The dress hugs her every curve, and kicks off at the knees, the back of the dress has a train with even more material. She looks more beautiful than anyone I’ve ever seen. She walked the red carpet holding my hand, and the press calls her name more than mine. She has a way with them that takes all the attention from me, and she knows I needed that tonight.

  “Here are the outstanding nominees for performance by an actor in a leading role.” I hear the woman talk.

  I watch it happen in slow motion, my eyes on hers as the past two years play out in slow motion. The movie pushing me to the edge, but knowing I had to do it. Her being there holding my hand the whole way, giving me pep talks when I wanted to give up. The way she smiles at me, the way she holds my hand, and the way she loves me. “And the Oscar goes to . . .” I don’t hear anything because Jessica jumps up and starts clapping, her eyes filled with pride and tears, and I get up in shock. It must be shock. I grab her face and kiss it, turning and walking up the stairs. This moment right here is a moment I will remember for the rest of my life. The black stairs are shiny as I walk over to the woman holding the Oscar in one hand as she hands it to me. I thank her, kissing her on the cheek, and then turn to look out into the audience.