The Girlfriend Stage

by Janci Patterson

  Maybe he’s wishing he could have fallen in love with someone else.

  Josh sighs and runs a hand through his hair, which flops right back over his eye. I want to brush it back, but I’m suddenly feeling all kinds of exposed and touching him even more than I already am doesn’t feel like a smart idea.

  Maybe none of this is a smart idea.

  “I seriously don’t want to admit to this,” he says, which doesn’t help my nerves any. I chew on my lips, waiting for him to just get it over with:

  I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. You’re too much of a mess, Anna-Marie, and even love isn’t worth this.

  “I meant it when I said it’s okay if you can’t say it back,” he says slowly. “But it’s—it scares me, being in this deeper than you are. And Ben, he told me once that sex is different when you’re in love with someone. Like it means more.” He rolls his eyes up to the sky. “God, this is not something I’m supposed to worry about as a guy. Which is probably sexist to even say. But whatever.” He blurts out the next bit as if he’s confessing to burning passion for knitting and wishes he could spend his life outside of the post office with the two old ladies and their eternally-growing scarves: “I’m worried it’s going to be different for me, like even better, but it won’t be for you.”

  Well, that was not what I expected.

  I’m not sure exactly what he reads on my face, but he groans and flops onto his back, his head on the pillow. “It’s ridiculous, right? Feel free to mock me. In fact, I think I’d feel better if you did.”

  I get the feeling he’s actually serious about that last part. “Well, I believe you now that Ben doesn’t watch Southern Heat. Because no regular viewer of my soap opera actually believes that sex in love is better than sex with your boyfriend’s evil twin brother.”

  Josh laughs, and tugs me closer again, and my heart flutters like I’ve possibly done something right.

  “Yeah, okay,” he says. “Evil twin sex sounds pretty hard to beat.”

  I decide to continue in the teasing vein. I think we both need a little of that, after all the heavy emotions of today. “Or maybe all that agent and client sex you mentioned before? Does that generally happen right there on the conference table, on top of contracts about volumizer?”

  Josh laughs and groans simultaneously. “I knew saying that was going to bite me in the ass one day.”

  I raise my eyebrows and smile wickedly. “Is ass-biting also involved?”

  “How many clients do you think I’ve actually slept with?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. ‘It’s No Big Deal’,” I say, and I find it really doesn’t feel like so much of a big deal. Now I know that since we’ve been dating, he wasn’t banging Macy or Asia or anyone else. “Maybe all the hot, straight, twenty-something female ones? How many of those do you have?”

  He groans again. “You make me sound like a real stand-up guy, Halsey.” But he’s still smiling. “Do you want to know the number?”

  “I kind of think I need to, now.”

  “Zero. I don’t sleep with my clients, as a general rule.”

  “What?” I laugh and pinch his side, and he pinches my ass in retribution, making me squeal and laugh even harder. “Then why did you—”

  “Because I wanted to sign you. Because you’re good. And I also wanted to keep sleeping with you. Because you’re very, very good.” Now his smile is the wicked one, and I want to lean down and kiss him and show him how even better than very, very good I can be when I put my mind to it.

  But I can’t help but ask something instead.

  “Would it be a problem, then? If I were to be your client someday?”

  And I know I don’t just mean the sleeping together part. But all the feelings and the possible falling apart—and I also realize suddenly that was why I really turned him down the first time. Yes, I wanted to avoid awkwardness after some future expiration date on our dating, but it was so much more than that.

  I already had feelings for him, even then. Before I knew about his geeky side. Before I knew how much I’d miss him after being in a different state from him for even a day.

  And now . . .

  “You’ve made it clear that’s not going to happen,” he says, interrupting whatever conclusion I might have drawn from that.

  A conclusion I don’t think I’m ready for. But this . . .

  I suck my lips inward. “Maybe it could. If you still want it.”

  He sits up so fast I almost roll out of his arms. “You want to be my client?”

  “Well, I did tell my dad you’re the best,” I say, with a teasing tone. “And I know Brent sure as hell isn’t. He would never fight my hair-care battles. So yeah. I would love it if you’d represent me, Josh Rios, super-agent.”

  Josh grins, and kisses me deeply enough I’m left breathless. “I’d be happy to be your agent, Anna-Marie Halsey, super-actress.” Then he raises an eyebrow. “Clearly, that was your end goal all along, wasn’t it?”

  “No way.” I lean in, lowering my voice seductively. “My end goal is to see what’s in your basement.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you got that secret out of me soon, at the rate I’ve been confessing everything else.” He tucks a strand of my hair back behind my ear, his fingers lingering there. “What kind of magic power do you have over me, Halsey?”

  “It’s not magic. It’s the shadows,” I say in this mysterious voice. And then before I can talk myself out of this—or before the Gabby voice in my head can do so, because she sure as hell would try—I put my hand over my mouth and do my truly terrible (but in my mind hilarious) impression of Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. “The shadows betray you, because they belong to me!”

  His mouth drops open. He blinks. “Is that Bane? Did you just do a Bane impression?” He turns his head back and forth, looking from one side of the clearing to the other. “Am I on TV? Are you real? Oh my god, you are the perfect woman. Did you hear that, Wyoming?” he shouts, and I start giggling, despite myself. “Anna-Marie Halsey is the perfect woman!”

  God, the thought that Josh Rios would think I’m the perfect woman because of my Bane impression . . . It’s like he said about the lobster joke, this feeling that he gets me in a way no one else does. But part of me still needs to make sure he really does.

  “Even though I’m kind of a geek, I’m not just a geek, you know?” I say. “I’m still the girl who has too many shoes and reads fashion blogs and probably cares way too much about what kind of hair products I use—though clearly not as much as some of your other clients, and—”

  “I know.” He presses his forehead against mine. “And I’m a geek, but I’m also the guy who actually likes the industry parties and clubs, and only wears suits by my three favorite designers, and who hired a decorator to put together my living room, which means I paid like six hundred dollars for a set of mason jars full of beans. So yeah. I get it. And I never thought I’d find someone who would get both sides of me like you do.”

  I never thought I’d find that either. I’d so carefully compartmentalized my life, keeping certain guys in one part and certain guys in the other, and it never really occurred to me that one day I could have a guy who fit it all.

  “We are a bit ridiculously perfect for each other, aren’t we?” I say softly. And before he can answer, because I just can’t take being so close to those lips anymore without doing something about it, I kiss him with all the longing that’s been building ever since we crawled into these sleeping bags.

  And I don’t know if it’s that he’s no longer worried about whether or not the sex will mean more to him than to me, or whether my Bane impression was just so hot it pushed him over the edge of caring, but the hesitance from before is long gone. His hands are under my clothes, burning along my skin, making me gasp and arch against him.

  We kiss like we need each other’s breath to surv
ive, and I think maybe we do. Even with him, I’ve never felt this kind of raw need to have his skin pressed against mine, to feel him all around me and inside me. My hands betray my desperation, tugging off his shirt, and then his pants, digging my fingers into his back. He moans, even as his lips work their way down my neck, past my collarbone, and further and further south.

  My legs spread and my hands are in his hair and the world is all heat and the most delicious aching I’ve ever felt. And though I’ve had lots and lots of really incredible sex with Josh, being with him now is somehow different than anything before and better than everything I’ve ever known. And I think he’s feeling the same intensity I am, because we barely remember the condom in time—thankfully I brought several of those with the camping supplies—and then we’re together again, our bodies moving in this perfect, delirious tandem. He whispers in my ear that he loves me, god how he loves me, and I’m lost in the pure ecstatic sensation of those words, of just being with him.

  We shudder apart against each other, gasping, clinging tight, and I wish I never, never had to leave these arms.

  And that’s when I know.

  This is different. It means more.

  We lie there, after, still pressed together in the sleeping bag. I press my forehead into the curve of his neck, and before my fears can take over, I say, “I love you, Josh.”

  He pulls back enough to search my eyes. “You don’t have to—”

  “I do, because it’s true. I’m in love with you.” I let out a small, shaky breath. “I’m still scared, and I don’t think I’m ready for the girlfriend thing yet, and not because I want to be with anyone else, but just because. I know it doesn’t make sense. But I love you.”

  Josh smiles in an adorably stunned way, and then kisses my forehead, his lips lingering on my skin. “It doesn’t have to make sense. I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

  Our breathing grows slower as we lie there in each other’s arms, watching the stars above. A handful more slide across the sky.

  “You know,” he says. “If it’s just the word ‘girlfriend’ that’s the problem, we can always skip that part.”

  And even though there’s a definite teasing note in his voice, my heart squeezes tight, in a combination of pure happiness and panic that seems to be all too common around Josh of late.

  I look up at him, and even though I’m scared—terrified—of everything that has changed in just this night alone, I can’t help but grin. Because Josh is in love with me, and I’m in love with him, and that’s reason enough to spend the rest of my life smiling.

  “Don’t push your luck, Rios,” I say.

  Fifteen

  Anna-Marie

  The next morning when we get back to my house, and after we take showers and get dressed—separately, sadly, because Patrice is eyeing us judgmentally—I go outside to call Brent and tell him the bad news. I’ve got a whole speech prepared, in which I thank him for all he’s done for me as an agent, for taking a chance on me, blah blah blah. It’s important not to burn bridges, and really, I am grateful.

  I don’t get a chance to deliver it, because I’ve barely gotten out the words “I’ve decided to sign with Josh Rios,” when Brent cuts off the rest with a harsh laugh.

  “Yeah, I saw that coming.” He sounds like he’s eating something, his lips smacking wetly together. This is not new—during my first meeting with him, he ate two foot-long meatball sandwiches and left marinara-smudged fingerprints on my contract.

  “Oh,” I say, not sure how to respond. “That’s good, I suppose. And Brent, I want you to know I’m so grateful—”

  “I figured it’d happen as soon as I saw that picture of you two in that club. He’s a slick one, Rios. Knows how to use what the good lord gave him.”

  I bristle. “Josh isn’t dating me to sign me.” I’m actually surprised Brent doesn’t think it went the other way around—everyone else in Hollywood will, no doubt.

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night, sweetheart,” Brent says. “Just remember who was here for you from the beginning. When he’s done screwing you, and is working on his next poach, I’d be happy to—”

  I don’t bother hearing what he’d be happy to do. I hang up on his pompous ass and stand there fuming on the front lawn.

  When he’s done screwing you . . .

  It sounds so much like something my mom would say that I can practically hear her echo the words in my head.

  I’m spared from reliving a full memory of my mom’s litany of reasons to distrust men by a UPS truck pulling up in the driveway. A heavyset woman in the brown uniform emerges with a large, battered-looking package in hand.

  “Are you Patrice?” the delivery woman asks. “Because we at UPS are officially sorry about the lateness of the package, but really, we’d appreciate it if you’d stop leaving long messages threatening to report us to the Bureau of Land Management, and even if your brother does work there, I don’t think they—”

  “Oh my god, did she seriously . . . never mind.” I shake my head. “I’ll make sure she gets the package. And the message. I’m sorry. On behalf of . . . humanity.”

  The UPS driver gives me a look, and has me sign for the package. Then she peals off down the street, probably vowing never to return to Everett again.

  I should follow the woman’s stellar example. Instead, I heft the package, wondering briefly if that tear on the bottom is from being chewed on by a goat, and bring it in the house.

  “Patrice, your t-shirts are here,” I call.

  My aunt pops out of the kitchen to snatch the package from my hands with the speed and aggressiveness of a blazer zombie in Death Arsenal. I might have reflexively punched her if I hadn’t smelled her cloud of perfume a second before. I’d think we’d be back to the lilacs in the rotation by now, but this one could only be called “Suffocation by Tangerine.”

  “Thank heavens!” Patrice says. “And not a moment too soon! I have your dad and Tanya already getting the grills set up for the competition.” She lowers her voice and leans in conspiratorially. “Did you know Tanya is entering this year?”

  “Really? That’s . . . kind of cool, actually.”

  “Is it?” Patrice twists her lips. “I’m not one to put stock in traditional gender roles, but grilling really is a man’s domain.”

  “So true. I can’t count the number of times I’ve wanted to make a burger but remembered I didn’t have a penis.”

  Patrice frowns at me. “Why don’t you go downstairs and tell everyone the shirts are here,” she suggests. “And tell Joe and Joe’s Way they need to get started prepping their food.”

  I don’t bother reminding her that really, he wants to be called Josh; it’s wasted air once Patrice has her mind set on something. Instead I head down to the basement, where I see Grandpa in his usual armchair, and Joe and Josh on opposite ends of the couch. Uncle Joe appears to be sleeping. Byron is sunk low into an old red bean bag chair that lost half its beans when Shane and I had sex on it back in high school and it popped. Ginnie is splayed out on her stomach on the floor, petting Buckley, who is lying on his back, his long mop-like hair spread out in every direction.

  They’re all staring at the TV—except Josh, who gives me a wide grin when I enter the room. I think maybe he’s just happy to see me. And then I see what they’re all watching.

  It’s on old episode of Southern Heat, from like three or four months ago. And there I am on screen, in a bright blue bikini, making out with Matt Kearn, the actor who plays Bruce, on the deck chair of his backyard pool set.

  I remember that shoot—I’d gotten a spray tan specially for it, and seeing how long my legs look wrapped around Matt’s torso, I decide it was definitely worth it.

  “Turn this off,” my grandpa says, gesturing at snoring Uncle Joe. “I don’t need to see my granddaughter gyrating around on national television.” />
  Both Byron and Ginnie protest, though Byron catches my eye as he does so and flushes the shade of the bean bag chair. Josh just raises an eyebrow, and pats the seat next to him, which I gladly take, happy to curl up with him. He puts his arm over my shoulders, and we smile at each other and I know we’re both thinking of last night.

  Which is something I’d much rather be thinking of than what that asshole Brent said.

  Josh doesn’t get the mental memo on that, though, because he says, “So, did you call Brent?”

  I sigh. “Yeah, I did. And he was kind of a jerk about it, but whatever. It just makes me feel better about—”

  “Shhhh!” Ginnie says, glaring at us. “They’re talking now.”

  “Does your mom know you’re watching this?” I ask. “And how did you find this old episode, anyway?”

  “SoapNet’s running an all-day marathon,” Josh says, with a little shrug.

  “Great. Just what I want to watch with my family for twenty­four hours.” But I find myself watching anyway, even though I’m supposed to be telling them about t-shirts and food prep.

  Here’s the thing about watching myself on TV. I don’t know if this is how most actors feel or if it’s just me, but even though I know before we shot that scene, Matt probably told me some story about his two-year-old son stress-vomiting at Disneyland, and also Matt kisses like he’s trying to run my tongue through the spin-cycle at a cheap laundromat, I forget about that when I’m watching. It’s not Matt and me; it’s Bruce and Maeve up there.

  “I can’t, Bruce,” Maeve says, pushing him away. “I told you before, I—”

  “You told me you love me.” Bruce takes her hand and presses it to his chest. “And I know you mean it. So why can’t you be with me?”

  My throat goes dry. Damn, couldn’t they be watching one of the stolen baby episodes?

  Josh gives me a look, his eyebrows raised. Like, yeah, why, Maeve? He’s clearly teasing me, but I know there’s still some hurt under there.