“Yeah, this is them. I don’t know, I think he’s hotter than Josh. What? Josh, are you offended that I think he’s hotter than you?”
Ben is not the kind of guy who can rate other men on their objective attractiveness, only on how attracted he is to them. He’s not exactly Queer Eye. “I’m basically your brother. You think all men are hotter than me.”
“This is true,” Ben says. “Wyatt says you’re hotter.”
“Thanks, Wyatt.”
“Josh says thanks. Wyatt says you’re welcome, and also that Shane looks like an asshole and Wyatt’s totally Team Joshamarie. Ouch, what? Oh, and I am too, but not because I think you’re hot.”
I lay my seat back and stare at the roof of my car. “Are you sure? You think I should stay?”
“Do you want to?” Ben asks.
I want to be close to her. If I missed her before, I can’t imagine how much worse it would be to tear myself away from her now. “Yes. But I’m scared.”
“I know,” Ben says. “Being in love is scary as hell.”
“God, why did you never tell me?”
“Dude. I’m pretty sure I did. You didn’t listen. And if you’re in love with her, you better stay where you are and see how it plays out, or you’re always going to wonder.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. “Yeah, I’m going to. I was thinking I might leave, but then she seemed so scared, like she couldn’t stand the idea that I might not want to be with her.”
“But you do.”
“Yeah, I do. And I told her about Dothraki and she seemed to think that was kind of cool.”
“Seriously, dude,” Ben says. “Hold on to that. No, Wyatt, I seriously don’t think he wants to ask about Ryan Lansing’s penis size.”
“I’ll ask her,” I tell him. “Anything for Team Joshamarie.”
“Thanks, man,” Ben says. “Good luck.”
And when we hang up, I stand outside my car for a moment, staring up at the stars, thousands of them, unlike the twelve you can see from my place in LA. I want to wish for luck on every single one of them that I get to keep this girl, because I’m in this so deep with her that I’m drowning, and I don’t know if she’s ever going to throw me a ring.
Twelve
Anna-Marie
The next morning, when I pad downstairs to start making some coffee to bring to Josh in the storage room, I’m shocked to find him already awake and sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through Everett’s local newspaper, The Ranchlands Record.
I am not, however, shocked to find Lily in the seat next to him, leaning close to him—ostensibly to read from the newspaper as well, but really just to show off the boobs that are all but spilling from her tube top.
“You can have the paper if you want,” Josh offers. “I’m fine waiting.”
“Oh, I’m perfectly comfortable right here,” Lily purrs. “No need for either of us to wait. We can finish together.”
Good god. She couldn’t be more obvious if she started giving him a lap dance. And I think the only reason she isn’t going for that tactic is because Uncle Joe is in the kitchen as well, making french toast at the stove.
Josh has been hit on enough—and in similarly unsubtle ways, I’m sure—that he doesn’t look particularly alarmed, but I’m happy to see his expression is one of mild disgust rather than temptation.
“How about you go finish your eyebrows, Lily?” I ask, leaning against the kitchen door frame. “Or should I help you?”
Lily glares at me, but she sits back in her chair and pretends to examine her fingernails.
“Anna-Marie, hey,” Josh says, clearly happy to see me, and hopefully for more than just extricating him from uncomfortable Lily situations.
“There’s our girl,” Uncle Joe says, looking back over his shoulder. “Up for some breakfast? Or have they got you on some kind of hoity-toity all-grass diet on that show of yours?”
“All-grass? Like pot? No, they let me have meth too, if I really nail my scenes.” I slide out the chair on the other side of Josh and sit down. He grins at me and puts his hand on my knee and squeezes. My insides flutter happily.
“Very funny.” Uncle Joe sets a plate in front of me with two slices of french toast. My stomach grumbles at the heavenly smell. “Well, we’ll make sure you eat some real food while you’re out here. There’s more toast ready on the counter if anyone comes in wanting more. And after you eat, you and your friend here can do the dishes.”
“Thanks, Uncle Joe.” I nod at him, and Joe heads out into the living room. I wish Lily would join, but she just sits at the table. Looking all too innocent.
I decide the best course is just to ignore her completely. I run my fingers up Josh’s arm. It’s surreal, having him here in my kitchen, the local paper spread out on the table, one of my dad’s coffee mugs sitting in front of him, nearly empty. “You’re up early,” I say.
“I guess I started to get used to your insane call times,” he says. But I can see the dark circles under his eyes, and I wonder if the reason isn’t more that he never really got to sleep at all. I get that—I didn’t sleep all that great either, and I wasn’t trying to do so on an air mattress on top of a bunch of canned peaches.
Guilt gnaws at me. He said I wasn’t messing this up, that he wasn’t mad about the Shane thing, but clearly this is stressful for him. And I’m still not sure he’s going to think I’m worth that for much longer.
Josh folds the paper back and slides it my direction. “The Halsey family reunion is a bigger deal than I thought—you guys got a mention in the paper.”
I look down to see it there, a small blurb about our yearly reunion, right there between Pearl’s Gardening Corner and the Weekly Cattle Count. “This is Everett. Anything happening is a big deal.”
“There’s also an obituary for an Ida Halsey.” Josh frowns. “I’m guessing she was related?”
“To Satan, maybe.” I glance up to make sure Patrice didn’t hear. Lily appears like she’s about to genuinely laugh, but then catches me looking at her and purses her lips.
“That bad, huh?”
“Depends on who you ask. But I’m fairly certain there was a celebratory tailgating party held outside the funeral home.” I smile. I should feel bad talking about the dead this way, but honestly, part of me thinks Ida would approve.
Josh is clearly going to ask another question, but Lily leans forward again.
“I bet Shane went to that party,” she says, pressing her boobs against the table so her cleavage is practically spilling into the maple syrup on Josh’s plate. “He’s always up for a good time, isn’t he, Anna-Marie? Josh, have you met Shane?”
And there it is. I can see that little bit of hurt again on Josh’s face, and it makes my chest tighten.
I’m about to snap at her, but Josh squeezes my knee. “I have,” he says, and I see that Professional Agent is back, all cool charm and Teflon-like resistance to anyone’s shit. One thing about Josh is, he knows when someone’s trying to mess with him or his clients, and I can see he’s not oblivious to mean girl tactics. “Nice guy. We’re all thinking about going to get drinks later.”
Lily blinks, completely taken aback. “Oh. Well, then. That’s . . . nice.” Then she scoots back the chair and leaves the room.
I groan as soon as she’s out of sight. “I’m sorry. For her to bring that up—”
“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, and he’s back to being my Josh again, all caring and—
Did I just think of him as my Josh? My nerves skitter, even as my heart seems to swell. Regardless of whether I can or should call him that, I don’t want to keep hurting him.
“Thanks for shutting her up.” I squeeze his hand, and feel my skin prickle as his thumb rubs gently over my knuckle.
“Not that you don’t seem capable of that on your own, but I really didn’t like that she t
ried to play me against you like that. Does she do that often?”
“Not as often as she tries to sleep with whoever I’m dating. Or did you not notice her incredibly subtle come-ons?”
Josh laughs and is about to respond when Patrice comes in from the backyard. The screen door bangs shut behind her. The strong scent of her perfume—which today I assume is called “Mugged by an Entire Field of Wildflowers”—hits us with an almost visible wave. Josh coughs into his fist.
“Well, hello you two!” she says. “I hope you slept well last night, Joe’s Way?”
I groan again. This has to stop. “His name is Josh, Aunt Patrice.”
Patrice clucks at me, but doesn’t otherwise address what I said. “I called UPS, and they said they had a little problem with their driver in Lander. He had a heart attack or something. Big fellow, I suppose. Drove the truck into some fencing, let a whole bunch of goats out of a pasture. But they assured me the reunion shirts were not among the boxes the goats started eating, and will be here before the competition tomorrow!”
“Oh good,” I say. “For a second there, I thought this man’s heart attack was actually going to inconvenience us.” Patrice ignores my heavy sarcasm.
Josh just gapes. It’s almost like he’s not accustomed to goats breaking into crashed delivery trucks for a snack.
“Speaking of the competition,” Patrice says, opening the fridge and peering in. “I need to go to the store today and pick up some supplies for Joe.” She pulls out a bottle of honey Dijon and pulls off the lid, sniffing at it. “Should I pick anything up for you, Joe’s Way? Something that will make you feel at home here?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” he says.
“Nonsense.” Patrice shuts the refrigerator door like she’s punctuating with it. “Why don’t you enter the Halsey Grillmaster Competition?”
“He doesn’t grill,” I say quickly. Then I pause and look at him. I suppose after yesterday, I’m realizing there’s lots I didn’t know about him. “Right?”
“Right,” he says with a smile. “I don’t cook much.”
Patrice clucks again. “No need to be humble with us. You’re a man. You can grill.”
“Hey, are you saying I can’t because I’m a woman?” I frown.
“No, you can’t because the one time we let you make the stuffing for Thanksgiving, you turned it into a solid black brick. We had to air out the house for three days.” She looks at Josh. “And it wasn’t like she was cooking from scratch, either. This was out of the box.”
She’s not wrong. I blame our faulty stove. And maybe Stouffers, just because.
“Anyway, Joe’s Way, it would mean so much to us if you could introduce us to the food of your people,” Patrice says, then taps her finger on the counter. “I did a quick search online for Bel-Airia, but I must have spelled it wrong, because I couldn’t find anything on that region. But Puerto Rico sounds like it has a rich culinary history. I read all about it on Wikipedia.”
“I don’t really—” Josh starts, but Patrice grips his shoulder and squeezes it.
“Then it’s settled! I’ll let you know when I’m going to the store, and you can join me to pick up whatever ingredients you need. Foster’s Food and Feed has a whole shelf full of ethnic foods.”
“A whole shelf, huh?” he says weakly.
I shake my head. “Josh, you don’t have to do this. Patrice, he doesn’t have to—”
“No, it’s okay,” he says. He smiles up at Patrice. “I’d be happy to grill . . . something.”
“I like this boy, Anna-Marie,” Patrice says to me. “Hold on to him. Have either of you seen Grandpa? Dad!” she shouts out towards the living room. “Dad, have you eaten breakfast yet?”
And without a backward glance, she sweeps out.
“You’d be happy to grill something?” I raise my eyebrow. “A food of your people?”
He holds up his phone. “There’s recipes on here. I’m sure I can find something. It’s not like my parents will be here to tell me if it’s authentic or not. Besides it sounds fun. Maybe I’ll take home the Big Weiner. You know, start my own trophy shelf to compete with yours.”
I laugh. “The Golden Weiner. But I’m all up for watching you try.” I stand up, and pick up my plate of french toast, which I’ve only eaten a single slice of. My director will be pissed if I come back to LA and can’t wiggle my way into Maeve’s skin-tight cocktail dresses.
Josh swipes his phone and opens his text messages. “By the way, I’m going to forward you some very invasive questions from Wyatt about Ryan Lansing’s penis. You don’t have to answer them if you don’t want to, but if you do, you’ll make his day. Or maybe his whole month.” He cringes. “And you should know that I tell Ben and by extension Wyatt an unhealthy amount about my sex life, and I know an unhealthy amount about theirs. Is that, like, a problem?”
I shrug. “Gabby knows a frightening number of details about my sex life. And you should know I own an unhealthy number of shoes.”
Josh laughs. “That sounds like an even trade, then.”
I scrape off my plate, breathing through a brief panic that we’re somehow talking about deal breakers as if there’s some kind of deal. I start filling the sink, and without me even saying anything, Josh is at my side, pulling a drying towel out of a nearby drawer. And I start washing the dishes, and handing them to him to dry, and we’re smiling at each other and I’m taken aback by how normal this all feels—even though I’ve never so much as loaded the dishwasher at Josh’s place.
As I’m scrubbing a spatula, I flick some soap bubbles at him. They land squarely on his cheek and stick there, and I giggle.
Josh shakes his head. “So immature, Halsey.”
Then he takes one of the spoons he’s just dried and puts it under the running faucet at just the right angle. Water sprays all down the front of my shirt and I shriek and start laughing even harder, and grab the faucet hose to spray him, which he only partially blocks with his hand. We both get blasted in the face with water, and we’re both laughing and dripping wet.
And then I can’t resist, and I step in to kiss him—or maybe he steps in to kiss me, but somehow we’re pressed together in our wet clothes and making out and his hands are in my hair, and mine are up his shirt, pressed against the tight muscles of his back, and—
A throat clears. Loudly.
We jump apart to see my dad standing there with Tanya. I hastily fold my arms across my chest, even though it’s clearly too late to hide that I appear to have just come from a wet t-shirt contest. “Hey, Daddy,” I say.
He blinks. “Hey, Pumpkin. Interesting way you have of doing dishes.”
Tanya makes a snorting noise. “Come on, Bill. It’s not like you and I haven’t done our share of dishes that way.”
I stifle my gag reflex. I appreciate her defense and all, but I really don’t need to picture my dad and her engaged in dishwashing-related foreplay.
“Josh,” Dad says, nodding to him.
Josh dries his hands off on the dishtowel and reaches out to shake his hand. “Mr. Halsey. I didn’t get a chance to talk with you yesterday, but it’s really nice to meet you.”
If I didn’t know better—that Josh interacts with movie producers and huge A-list stars and directors on a first name basis—I would say that Josh sounded . . . nervous.
My dad shakes Josh’s hand, and then returns to folding his arms across his chest. Which I notice is covered with a too-tight t-shirt, in addition to yesterday’s skinny jeans.
I do not agree with Tanya’s choice of fashion for him.
“So Josh, that’s a nice car you’re driving out there.”
“Thanks,” Josh says.
“You must do well to afford that kind of thing. You’re an agent, right?”
“That’s right.”
I’m used to Josh responding to people in more than
one or two words, so I’m starting to think my guess about his nervousness was actually right. I put my hand on the small of Josh’s back, so he doesn’t feel like he’s some high school kid, going up against the big scary dad (who would be scarier in looser clothes, I imagine) alone. “He’s one of the best. Really highly respected in the industry.”
Dad frowns. “So how come you’re not representing Anna-Marie, then?”
I choke and cover it with a cough, but my dad plows ahead.
“If you’re the best and all. Seems like you’d be able to recognize talent. She’s going to win an Oscar one of these days.”
Josh opens his mouth, but I beat him to it. “I have an agent already, Daddy. Brent. He’s pretty good.”
Now my dad turns his frown to me. “Pretty good? Why aren’t you with the best? I mean, if you’re in this, you want to be—”
“Bill,” Tanya says. “I’m sure Anna-Marie knows how to manage her career without your help.”
I smile at her, but I can feel how weak it is. The truth is, he’s not wrong. If I want to really succeed, I should be with the best. I should, like Josh said back when he first offered to rep me, be out auditioning, putting myself out there for more and better roles.
But I don’t honestly know if I have what it takes to do better than Southern Heat. I love what I do, and I know I’m attractive and at least reasonably talented, but there’s a shit-ton of girls in LA that fit that description. And now I really don’t want Josh to take that kind of chance on me and watch me fail, over and over and over again.
I can’t help but wonder if he’d regret all the other chances he’s taken on me.
Dad’s expression softens. “Well, she has been doing pretty well at that. We’ll get one of those Oscars on that trophy shelf yet.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him that if I were ever to win an Oscar, I am sure as hell not keeping it with my pie-eating medal in Everett. That sucker’s going to have its own shelf and dedicated lighting system with fanfare sound effects. Probably along with some of my more prized designer shoes. “Sure thing, Daddy.”
Josh eyes me, and there’s an awkward pause where my dad just stands there, in which we are thankfully saved by Patrice. Whose arrival I am generally not so grateful for.
The Girlfriend Stage Page 13