23. Will
WILL
During dinner, Theo bombarded Ryan with an unending stream of questions, as if he were a prisoner of war. To his credit, Ryan answered each one earnestly, even when Theo asked him stupid shit like why he’d created a pit bull rescue and not a polar bear sanctuary.
When Theo finally came up for air, I pushed my chair back and said, “I’ll go get more wine.”
“I’ll help.” James set his hand on my hip, his thumb slipping under my shirt to stroke the skin there, even though no one would see that.
“Actually, James”—my mother’s voice was honey-sweet, which was never a good sign—“I was hoping you could start a fire. And, Theo, while he’s doing that, why don’t you fetch your guitar? We’ll have a sing-along.”
James’s hand fell away, and I could breathe again. But Jesus, this was why I hated tight pants. I tried to think of sad things—dead puppies, lonely old ladies in nursing homes—but it wasn’t working, so I just turned and walked off, hoping nobody noticed the erection tenting my jeans.
I should’ve known something like this was coming. Not the erection—that part was unavoidable—but the sing-along. Mom might have moved behind the camera, but she still loved being the center of attention.
There wasn’t enough wine in the world to make this night okay.
Theo was acting more ridiculously than ever.
Ryan refused to do or say anything I could hate him for, even going so far as to claim I’d inspired him to become an actor.
Derek kept staring, trying to figure out what a thirst trap like James was doing with a loser like me.
And James kept touching me—my hip, my back, the nape of my neck.
Once, he even traced my bottom lip with his finger, scooping up a speck of aioli I’d missed with my napkin.
Inside, I grabbed a bottle of chardonnay from the wine fridge and a bottle of pinot from the rack. It wouldn’t be enough, but it was a start.
Footsteps approached, and I turned, expecting to find James grinning back at me, pleased with himself for his tour-de-force performance as my handsy boyfriend. But it was Derek.
“Oh, hey.”
“Your boyfriend seems cool.” Derek sat on a barstool at the kitchen island.
I tightened my grip on the wine. “Yeah, he is.”
Derek plucked a lemon from the center of Theo’s pyramid, and by some miracle the structure held. “I just hope he appreciates you.”
“He does.” It wasn’t a total lie. At least James asked me to do things with him—cliff jumping, boating, ping-pong. That was more than I could say for anyone else, besides Miles and Tiffany.
“You deserve more than just a pretty face. You know that, right?” Derek set the lemon back on top of the pyramid like he was playing Jenga.
“He’s not just a pretty face.”
And he wasn’t just a dog-sitter either. The other day, he built an arbor in the garden by hand. He didn’t even watch a YouTube video first.
Derek ran a finger across his eyebrow, as if checking the scar was still there. It was. “I’m glad to hear that. You deserve a prince.”
“I deserve prison time.”
“That’s not true.” Derek’s deep voice dropped the words like an anvil, but I still couldn’t believe them.
I looked down at Derek’s hands and remembered the night we shot the scene where his character, Oliver, slices his palm open and my character, Chase, has to stitch it up without anesthetic.
“What were we fighting about?” I asked.
Derek sighed, like he’d known this question was coming. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all in the past now.”
Easy for him to say. He’d walked away with a scar—and an Oscar. I, on the other hand, still lived in the fallout zone of that drunken night.
“It matters to me.”
He sighed again and stood. “Can I give you a hug?” Without waiting for an answer, he wrapped his strong arms around me and squeezed. “I need you to trust me on this, Will. You’re better off not knowing.”