23. The Fallout
Hudson
“So, you and Allie, hey?”Gersh asks.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then you shouldn’t be making out with her in front of hundreds of people with smart phones,” he says.
It’s Sunday morning and I am just realizing I should not have picked up the phone when I saw his name. “Yeah, already figured that out, but thanks.”
“Seriously, dude, you might as well have just taken her up on stage and went for it right there.”
Plunking myself on the couch, I say, “Yup. Got it. Big mistake. Filled with regret. Don’t need you to make it worse.”
“You literally pay me to give you advice, which is what I’m doing.”
“Oh, so you’re talking to me as Gershwyn my manager right now?”
“Of course.”
“Because it sounded like you’re talking to me as Gersh, my big brother who wants to break my balls over an already-shit situation,” I tell him.
“Maybe it’s a bit of both. It’s hard to separate one from the other.”
“Okay, well, how about you switch to being a supportive big brother who tries to make his sibling feel better about hurting an innocent woman?” My gut tightens even more than it already was. “Seriously, she was totally blindsided. And have you looked at what people are saying about her?”
“Yeah, I saw the whole ‘send her to space and leave her there’ hashtag,” he answers. “Pretty shitty. Maybe she won’t see it.”
“She’ll see it. She’s the most curious person I’ve met. No way she just went to bed and forgot all about it last night,” I answer.
“You like this girl.”
“Of course I like her. She’s … there’s nothing not to like,” I answer, not wanting to start listing the thousand things I like about Allie to my brother who will definitely use it against me later—specifically to embarrass me if he ever meets her.
“So, if you like her and she likes you, who cares? Just go about your business starting a relationship with her and see where it goes.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s a doctor, Gersh. A literal rocket scientist. I think. Maybe being an astrophysicist isn’t the same thing, and the fact that I don’t know the answer to that means she and I aren’t going to wind up together,” I tell him, knowing it’s true. “She could spend the next year slowly explaining what she does to me like I’m a five-year-old and I still won’t fully understand it.”
“So what? Lots of perfectly happy couples don’t have an intimate knowledge of what their partner does for a living.”
“Name one.”
“Umm… Bill and Melinda Gates.”
“Okay, worst couple you could’ve brought up.”
“Why? They seem happy and there’s no way anyone understands what Bill Gates did for a living.”
“First of all, they’re divorced. Second, do you even know how they met?”
“No,” he says, sounding slightly sheepish.
“She worked in product development at Microsoft, so I have a feeling she understood exactly what Bill did for a living.”
“And see how unimportant that was? They’re divorced. If anything, not knowing what your wife does is a plus.”
“Nobody’s getting married here. It was one kiss. And when we left, we both realized it wasn’t going to go any farther.”
“Seriously? Nothing? You didn’t give her the old hot beef injection when you got in the limo?”
“Oh my God, how is it that I let you manage my money?”
“Don’t change the subject,” he says. “You clearly like this girl and so far you’ve provided no good reason not to give it a go.”
“She’s already married to her job, and since my career is teetering on the edge, I can’t exactly move up to San Jose, now can I? And don’t bother suggesting we have a fling because she’s not that type of girl.”
“Why not? She’s an adult—a highly intelligent one at that. She can make up her own mind about that, can’t she?”
I chew on my lip for a second before I answer him. “She’s not built that way. For meaningless flings.”
“How do you know? Did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t have to. I just know.” Standing up, I walk across the living room and stare out the patio doors. “She’s not exactly sophisticated when it comes to relationships. She’s been hurt before, and I can’t be just another guy to…”
“Hit it and quit it?”
“Exactly,” I say, running my hand through my hair out of pure frustration. “Which is why I never should’ve kissed her in the first place. In public or not.”
“So why did you?”
I think back to the desperation I was feeling when she asked me to read to her. Not wanting to admit that, I say, “I guess I was overcome by the moment.”
“And clearly she was too, which, if I’m not mistaken, could be the sign that you have some serious chemistry. You can at least give it a try,” he says. “And before you say it, don’t give me the ‘I’m too stupid to date someone like her’ bullshit because in case you don’t know, you bring a lot to the table yourself.”
“Yeah, like trolls and raving maniac fans who will make her life a living hell.”
“So she’ll have to delete her social media apps or learn to ignore it. Every relationship has trade-offs.”
“She won’t have to because there is no relationship. I’m only here for another couple of weeks, then I’m leaving and she’s staying here to do her important work and probably marry a fellow genius so they can eventually populate Mars.”
“Wanker.”
“Asshat.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Fine, but do you know what the saddest two words in the English language are?”
“You’re fired?”
“Haha, very funny,” he says. “What if?”
“As in, what if I get so sick of your shit, I fire you? Huh, not that sad, actually.”
“As in, what if she’s the love of your life and you just let her slip away and end up growing old alone?”
“I’m sure you’ll still be squatting in my house when I’m ninety.”
“Sad.”
“Yeah, it is. Goodbye.”
“Bye bro. Think about it. It’s not too late.”
“It’s not going to happen.” I hang up on him before he can say anything else. A second later, my phone buzzes and I see a text from him.
Gershwyn
What if?
He follows that with a gif of a toddler who looks like he’s about to cry.
That’s the son you’ll never have because you’re being a stubborn idiot.
Me
You just made my point for me, so thank you.
I stare at our exchange for a second, then shake my head. I don’t have to ask ‘what if’ because I already know. She and I are not meant to be, but only because she can do much, much better.
Instagram Reel: Hollywood Dish with Ferris Biltmore
The video starts with Ferris sitting outside at a coffee shop sipping a large drink in a to-go cup. When he lowers the cup, his upper lip has a frothy mustache. “Hello, beotches, I’ve been up all night to get you intel on what happened with our sexy sex god, Hudson, and his date who I’m dubbing Miss Match, as in she’s a total mismatch for a man that fine. Hence the Americano with a double espresso shot topped with an espresso foam. I’ve been sucking these babies back all day and I have no intention to stop now, so if you want to buy me a coffee for all the sacrifices I make on your behalf, hit the button below. Pulease and thank you.”
He has another sip, then says, “It took me until nearly six this morning, but I finally heard back from my landlord’s nephew’s girlfriend whose brother is a limo driver. No, not the limo from the now-infamous video of Hudson and Miss Match fleeing the opera at half-time. But someone who knows someone at that company and who managed to get a peek at the records for the night. Apparently, Hudson the Hottie dropped her off at home, and left immediately. And get this, it turns out Miss Match still lives with her parents!” Ferris bursts out laughing. “Even though, all signs point to the fact that she’s 35-years-old. OLD, people! Far too old for Hudson, who should be just about ready to settle down with some 24-year-old temptress who can make lots of perfect babies without worrying about her aging eggs. I’m too tired and wired to do a bunch of segments but because you bitches are so desperate, I’m going to do one, but it’ll be a good one.”
The words: Run, Hudson, Run! appear on the screen.
“Run, Hudson, run like hell! You have got to get away from this walking disaster. This, this queen of the geeks. This!” The words disappear only to be replaced by the photo of Allie after her Sour Puss shot. “Look, I don’t know what came over you last night. I don’t know if she went all Cosby on your ass and you didn’t know what you were doing, or maybe you were swept up in a whole Pretty Woman at the opera thing, or if this was some sort of Make-a-Wish thing, only for terminally pathetic women, but Hudson, honey, this has to stop. Now. Before she kills your reputation completely and you never get to pork another supermodel again in your life. Think it through, Hudson, and run. Seriously. Run like hell.”
The Next Day
Well, this blows. Allie has completely gone into professional astrophysicist-mode. She can barely look at me, and when she does, the pain in her eyes is a clear indicator that she spent way too many hours reading all the shitty things people said about her on the internet. She’s given Frank a quarter of a million recording snippets to analyze and the two of us have been sitting next to each other for the last hour as she goes over the highlights in her Astronomy 101 textbook for me. It’s awkward and uncomfortable and hard as hell to be so close to her without getting to touch her. I’ve been doing my best to focus on what she’s saying because I know it’s important and I owe it to her, but I just can’t concentrate. Not with this whole shitstorm happening.
The rest of the people on her team aren’t exactly helping either. There’s been a lot of winking and giggling and ‘Hey, you two certainly seemed to be having a good time on Saturday,’ and honestly, each comment makes me feel a little smaller. Not because I don’t want people to know I’m attracted to her, but because this whole thing blew up in her face before we could even figure out what was going on between us. And I wound up doing the last thing I meant to do—hurting her.
“Are you sure you don’t want to write some of this down?” she asks.
“No, keep going and I’ll read through it on my own later, and take notes then,” I answer. “I don’t want to waste your time.”
“Okay, well, I get the feeling you’re having trouble concentrating. Do you need a break?” She finally looks at me, her beautiful brown eyes killing me.
“I think we need to talk about what happened,” I say. “I have a terrible feeling you went down the rabbit hole after I dropped you off.”
Shrugging, she looks back down at the book. “I couldn’t care less what a bunch of idiots hiding behind their keyboards have to say about me. What I do care about is my project and getting you ready for your movie. And I’m going to lose an entire day going up to Black Creek on Thursday, so let’s stay focused on the matter at hand, okay?”
Ugh. Being in a vehicle alone together for a total of ten hours is going to suck hard if I can’t fix this. “Allie?—”
Holding up one hand, she says, “Nope. None of that matters and dwelling on it won’t fix anything. It’ll just rob us of time we don’t have.”
“Can I at least ask if your family has been giving you a hard time?”
“They’ve been surprisingly supportive. Except my idiot brother-in-law who thinks the whole thing is hilarious. And my dad, who threw out the pepper mill.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, supper was on the bland side last night, but it doesn’t matter. We need to get this done.”
“Allie, I’m really sorry?—”
“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault that some thimble-headed douche decided to record what should have been a private moment and posted it for the world to see.”
“But it is my fault. I know people are watching me. I just … momentarily forgot.”
“Who would think someone at the opera would do something so low?” she asks, looking completely disgusted. “The opera?”
“There are assholes literally everywhere.”
“Yeah, well they can suck it,” she says. “And so can all those trolls and half your fans who very clearly have an unhealthy obsession with you.”
“Yes, they can. They can all suck it,” I answer, glad to see her looking angry instead of hurt.
“And I take back what I said about Ferris Biltmore being hilarious, because he’s actually really awful. And I feel bad that I ever watched his videos to begin with because I now realize that every time he’s doing that, a real human being is getting hurt.”
“I wish he would stop. Or at least move on to someone else. And I’m sorry that you got caught up in this whole thing because the last thing I intended was for you to get hurt. I wanted to take you out and give you the kind of night you deserve.”
She tilts her head, then says, “It really started out that way. Things just kind of … spun out of control in a very big way.”
“They really did.”
We stare at each other for a second too long, then she clears her throat and looks away. “Okay, good. Now that we got that out of the way, let’s get back to stellar evolution because there’s no way I can let you leave here without knowing that.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m not sorry I kissed you. I’m just sorry that it all blew up.”
Her cheeks turn pink and she looks back down at the book. “So, stars are formed from clouds of dust and gas as they collapse.”
“It’s kind of disappointing, isn’t it?”
“That things blew up?” she asks, scrunching up her nose a little. “Yes, I mean, obviously it’s not how I thought the night would end.”
“I was talking about the stars,” I answer. “But out of curiosity, how did you think the night would end?”
Her entire face turns red and she glances at the ceiling. “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds of trying to salvage a professional relationship.”
Grinning, I say, “Come on, you can’t just leave me hanging like that.”
Clearing her throat, she says, “I most certainly can. Now, what exactly is so disappointing about stars?”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” I ask, two parts turned on and one part horribly disappointed that whatever she had in that beautiful mind of hers is never going to happen.
“Definitely not.” She taps her textbook with her index finger. “Back to stellar evolution. You were talking about how disappointing the billions of stars are, which, quite frankly is unimaginable to me.”
“It’s just that all those bright, twinkly stars are just big balls of dust and gas.”
She gives me a hint of a wry smile. “Yeah, kind of like the ones from Hollywood.”
“You are mad.”
“I’m not mad. Well, not at you.”
“But you just compared me to a ball of gas.”
“Don’t forget the dust.”
“That too.”
“I kind of had to. You set me up so perfectly,” she says with a tiny grin.
I smile back as relief washes over me. Maybe the next couple of weeks won’t be as awful as I imagined. It’s not going to go back to what it was before, with the incredible sexual tension and the lusty thoughts. Well, the thoughts will be there, but the potential for acting on them is totally gone. I’ve already pushed things way farther than I should have. It’s time to get smart and do the right thing. Even if it kills me.