Chapter Eleven
“YOU SURE ABOUT this?” J.J. asks. We’re in my West Hollywood studio, with her on her stomach on the bed beside my open suitcase.
“It’s a job,” I say, tossing every black sweater I own (four) into the bag.
“Bullshit.” J.J. sits up. “You have your pick of productions. You’re going to Alaska for him.”
I let the last sweater fall. “No. Not exactly. But…maybe—”
“Maybe?” J.J. quirks a brow. “We’re at maybe, already. Big step.”
“Isn’t that a good thing? Aren’t you always telling me to stop hooking up with losers?”
“Yes, and Zach Butler is the exact opposite of a loser.”
“So, what’s the problem now?”
“I don’t know,” J.J. says, her voice soft. “It feels like a lot all at once. Sudden. I don’t think you’ve processed your grief about Josh. This feels like…proving something.”
I nearly flinch at how close J.J. comes to the truth. But what the hell can I do?
“I’m trying, J.J.,” I say. “I’m trying for something different. Maybe nothing will come of it. Probably nothing will come of it, but this is the best I can do right now.”
My friend is quiet for a moment, then gets off the bed and hugs me. “I’m proud of you for that.” She pulls away to hold me at arm’s length. “I just worry that it’s still all there underneath. And if you don’t deal with it, hon, it’s going to deal with you.”
That conversation with J.J. from a week ago flashes through my head as Zachary Butler asks me to dinner. I stare at him stupidly, the old fear, guilt, and regret telling me I don’t deserve even that. Dinner with a nice guy. But for once in my life, I fight back.
“I could eat.”
It’s the most unromantic response in the history of dating, but later that night, after a shower and a change of clothes at the dingy hotel, Zach’s knocking on my door.
“Hi,” I say. It’s all I can manage after I open it to him filling the space with his tall, ruggedly handsome frame. He’s grown a slight beard for the role, his hair is longer, and he’s dressed in boots, jacket, and jeans—all durable but top of the line. Like the world’s most elegant lumberjack.
He’s beautiful.
I’m in the only non-black outfit I brought: jeans, boots, and a heavy sweater under a puffy jacket. Nothing that screams sexy, but Zach’s hazel eyes seem to fill with me.
“You look—”
“Bulky?” I say and clear my throat. “I hope this place doesn’t have a dress code.”
He grins. “I think we’re safe. Hey, you’re only two doors down from me,” he says as I follow him out into the hallway. Fluorescent lights flicker over the industrial carpeted floor. Zach nods his head at #3 on our way out. “That’s me. We’re neighbors.”
“Did you get the presidential suite?” I ask as we make our way through the tiny lobby and into the night. It’s eight o’clock and the sun has been gone for two hours.
“I got the closest-to-the-elevators-suite,” Zach says.
“Perks of being the boss.”
“Don’t know if that’s a perk. The guy between us is a mountain man who apparently lives here. From the sound of it, he sleeps during the day and practices dropping heavy shit all night.”
“I’ve heard him,” I say. “Professional bowler?”
“My money’s on amateur weightlifter.”
We step out into the cold and cross the street to Glenallen’s lone restaurant. Except for a long, polished bar at one end, The Orca is an old family-style restaurant, dimly lit and smelling strongly of fish. Zach and I sit across from each other at an upholstered booth. The window reveals a parking lot cleared of snowdrifts and a night that feels deeper and blacker than at home. There are a handful of patrons and none of them pay Zach any attention. Either they’ve gotten used to the film production’s presence, or they’re not impressed by celebrity. Or both.
We give our orders to the waitress who takes our menus, leaving me no place to hide. Zach’s hazel eyes find mine intently, and I wonder if this was a bad idea.
“So, this movie, my God,” I say. “It makes Covet look like a rom-com. Why do you put yourself through that?”
Zach shrugs. “I love the art of it. The challenge. Taking someone else’s words and making them my experience. Besides, it’s good to purge out hard feelings. My version of therapy.”
“You don’t act the feelings? They’re real?”
“They’re real,” he says, nodding. “This role is all about pain, guilt, regret. We all have that inside us, I think. An accumulation of a lifetime.”
You can say that again.
“Isn’t it scary? To go that deep?”
“Yes,” Zach says bluntly. “But it’s worth it. Not just for the performance but for me. I feel better when it’s done. Cleansed.”
I nod and take a pull from my water. I feel him watching me and glance up. “Yes?”
“You didn’t come all the way up here to talk to me about method acting.”
I arch a brow. “How do you know? Maybe I did.”
Maybe I need to know how to purge, too.
Zach grins. “Okay, I know you like to play hardball when it comes to our moments, so I’ll make it easy for you.” He rests his forearms on the table and leans in. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
Our moments…
A smartass remark that why I’m here might not be all about him rises to my lips, but who am I kidding? It’s all about him.
I suck in a breath. “Me too.”
His smile steals my air right back. “See? Wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Yeah, well…” I clear my throat. “Since we’re being honest, and before we get… I mean, before things…”
“Progress?”
“I feel like I should explain myself.”
Zach’s expression grows serious. “Okay.”
I turn my water glass in circles. “I had a…hard time when I was younger and it kind of messed me up.”
To say the least.
The waitress returns with two beers.
“I’m listening,” Zach says after she’s gone. His face is open, waiting. Ready to hear whatever I have to say.
I take a fortifying pull of beer from the bottle. “I wanted to make costumes for Hollywood. That had always been my dream. But…a bad thing happened, and I haven’t been able to make my way back to it. I work as a PA to stay close to the action, so to speak.” I heave a breath. “And I don’t really do relationships. Or more like, I don’t know how to do relationships.”
There. Being a tiny bit honest wasn’t so terrible. No need to dive into the abyss of Josh’s death, even as some part of me is screaming to. I meet Zach’s eyes that are soft and intent on mine.
“So anyway,” I continue, “when you ask why I came…I don’t know. Without wanting to sound presumptuous, I’m pretty sure I’ll fuck anything up that could possibly happen…here.” I gesture vaguely at the space between us. “And the last thing I want is to jeopardize your work. Or be a distraction.”
Zach is quiet for a moment, his eyes impossibly soft. “First off, thank you for saying all that. Secondly, you’re not a distraction, Rowan, and you’re most definitely not being presumptuous.”
Oh damn.
I have no idea what to do with that, or that his gaze now holds some heat. But a thought overtakes him, and his expression darkens with what looks like anger. “I might be overstepping, so feel free to tell me to fuck off, but this bad thing that happened to you… It wasn’t what we talked about in the hot tub all those weeks ago? Some asshole with nefarious intentions…?”
“No,” I say, and his concern nearly pulls the truth out of me. I nearly tell him. I nearly let it all out, knowing that once I start, I might not stop. The floodgates will open, and Zach will have to pull me off the floor of this restaurant while I wail about my dead boyfriend.
Classic first date maneuver.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, the waitress chooses that moment to appear with our burgers. Zach is still looking at me.
“It wasn’t that and I’m fine,” I say and put my napkin in my lap. “Eat, please. It’ll get cold.”
I dig into my burger and Zach does the same. I can’t help but feel warm at the idea he’d been angry at the phantom villain in my backstory.
“So can I ask a question?” he asks after a minute.
“Is this another hot tub lightning round of questions?”
“We’re way past that. This is a first date question.”
I roll my eyes with a smirk. “Don’t push it.”
He chuckles. “There’s not one romantic bone in your body, is there?”
“Is that your question?”
“No. My question is, do you think you’ll go back to costumes?”
My smile slips. “I don’t know. It feels like that dream belonged to another life.”
“That’d be a shame, Rowan,” Zach says. “I haven’t seen anything but a few sketches, but what I did see was really fucking incredible.”
Old instincts to protest, to deflect, deny, rise up. But Zachary Butler is making it impossible for me to be anything other than myself.
“Thank you. That’s…nice to hear.” I clear my throat. “My turn.”
“You have a first date question to ask me?” Zach says, grinning.
Yes, how are you this impossibly good?
But before I can say a word, his phone on the table beside his plate buzzes with an incoming call. He flips it over, looks at the name, and makes a face. No sooner has he silenced the call than it vibrates again. And again. And again, with incoming texts.
“Fucking hell, Eva,” he mutters and shoves the phone into the pocket of his coat. “Haven’t heard from her in weeks.” He smiles grimly. “Almost got used to the quiet.”
“Maybe I should be asking about her?” I say slowly. “No pressure, but I mean…what’s happening there?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why she’s calling or what she wants.”
I dip a French fry in a small pool of ketchup. “What do you want?”
Zach sighs and pushes his plate away. “I want this bullshit to be over with. It’s hard enough to mourn what you thought was going to be your life. It’s a lot harder without a clean break.” His phone buzzes, this time with a ringtone. Taylor Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down” emits from his jacket pocket. “It’s my publicist. I should probably…” He jabs a button. “Hey, Courtney. What’d I do wrong now?”
I watch as Zach listens, his face falling, brows coming together.
“Shit. Okay, yeah, send the link. Thanks.” He hangs up and studies his phone until a text chimes. He hits a button, and from upside down, I can see a blog post open. Zach scrolls warily until he comes to a photo, and then his hard expression all but melts off his face.
“Care to share?” I ask.
He glances up. “It seems as if someone at your party kept their cell phone after all.”
Zach hands me his phone so I can read a Scandal Sheet article. The Scandal Sheet is a Hollywood blog written by an anonymous someone or someones. Our very own Lady Whistledown, who seems to have a million contacts and sources. I try never to read that garbage, and now I’m on it.
Zachary Butler has been caught in a “intimate moment” with a mystery woman who happens to be me. I scroll down and there are photos of Zach, his back mostly to the camera but still obviously him, putting his Tom Ford jacket over my shoulders. Six photos in all: us talking, smiling, and the last one…
“Shit.”
The last one is me staring up at Zach, my face open, my smile easy, and my eyes drinking him in as if there were no one else in the world.
“It’s Dana,” I snap, returning his phone. “Dana took those pics and sold them.” Humiliation burns my cheeks. “I’m sorry, Zach. I don’t even know what to say. I’m mortified. Not to mention, professionally ruined. I’ll never be hired again.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Zach says, smiling gently. “You’re not ruined. Every producer in LA has seen this shit before and they don’t care. You’re too good at your job, anyway.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why are you so calm? This is probably why Eva’s calling you. You came here to work and now you have to deal with more drama.”
“I knew what I was getting into when I came to your party,” Zach says, and that same soft look comes over his face with an added pinch of mischief in his hazel eyes. “And besides, it’s kind of worth it.”
“How?” I demand. “How is it worth it?”
He turns the phone to show me the pic of me gazing up at him like a lovesick dope.
“Oh my God.” I shove his hand away. “That is not… That is one moment…”
A satisfied smile spreads over his luscious mouth as he studies the photo again. “I agree. That’s a moment.”
“Fucking hell…”
“Hey, don’t be embarrassed,” he says, putting his phone away. “If the camera had been pointing at me, they’d all see I was looking at you the same way.”
The air between us seems to heat up, and my heart is beating faster than necessary. I clear my throat. “I wasn’t looking like…anything. Just up. You’re so damn tall.”
He grins and takes up his burger, looking smug and triumphant. “Sure. That must be it.”
I toss a fry at him. “Oh, hush up.”
After dinner, Zachary pays the bill and we head back out into a cold, black night.
“Damn, look at the sky,” I say, forgetting to be clever, my breath stolen by awe. “I’ve never seen so many stars.”
Zach looks up, and for a moment, we both just watch the Milky Way swirl above us—a million stars scattered across the endless black like spilled diamonds.
“You never see this in LA,” he says. “Too much of our light trying to compete. But it can’t compete. Not with this.”
That he appreciates what we’re witnessing as much as I do tears down another wall somewhere in me. I want to turn and look at him, but I’m too scared of what might happen. A kiss, maybe. And then what?
Then you fall…
Just at that moment, one star—one diamond—loses its hold on the black velvet canopy and arcs down in a streak of silver before winking out like a firework.
“Did you see…?”
I turn just as Zachary tears his eyes from above. Now his gaze is filled only with me. “I see,” he says, his breath pluming in the cold. “Beautiful.”
A silence falls, a roaring silence that is the rest of the world going quiet. All I can hear is my heart pounding in my chest, and then Zach steps closer to me.
“Rowan.”
“Y-yes?”
“Thank you for coming all this way.”
His hands slip to my waist and then he’s pulling me to him, angling his head, that beautiful full mouth of his moving toward mine. I have a stray thought that I’m not going to survive this, followed by another that I don’t care.
“Zachary!”
The sound—a woman’s voice—cuts through us and we jump apart. Jesus, Eva is here. She saw the photos and came all the way to Alaska just to fuck with him…
But no, it’s the second AD, Carla.
“There you are, thank God.” She comes running up, bundled head to toe, breath coming in white gusts. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but we have a problem. You’re needed in Gakona.”
Zach sighs. “Sure, yep. On it.” He turns to me, apologetic but with dark eyes simmering with want.
“Perks of being a producer,” I say lightly.
“Remind me to never do it again.” He heaves a breath. “So…I’ll see you later?”
I read his meaning. Later. My room. I nod, conscious that Carla is waiting, shifting from foot to foot with urgency. “Yep. I still have your jacket.”
Silent understanding passes between us, and then Zach’s swallowed up by the night. But back in my room, the hours drag on until I can’t keep my eyes open. I drift on currents of maybe until I’m woken by a text at one a.m.
Broken generator. Couldn’t proceed until we got it handled. You’re probably asleep and I hope this doesn’t wake you but I’m sending it anyway because I hate that we were interrupted.
It’s fine, I type. That’s show biz.
I bite my lip, waiting as the rolling dots of his reply appear. Does he still want to come over? At this hour, that’s a booty call. Maybe that’s all he wants. Hell, that’s all I know.
It’s not fine, he texts. I was enjoying our date. Your eyes under all that starlight... That was a moment. Not debatable.
My fingers tremble slightly as I type back. If you insist.
Glad we agree, he sends, and I can practically see his boyish smile. You’re only two doors down but it’s late. If I come over now…that’s not very romantic.
A small laugh bursts out of me. It feels like joy. And they say chivalry is dead.
Not on my watch. See you tomorrow, Rowan.
Goodnight, Zach.
“Change of plans.” The script supervisor who also doubles as the camera operator on the small production thrusts a new sheet of sides at me.
I scan it quickly and a little, “Oh,” drops out of my mouth. My cheeks suddenly feel hot in the cold Alaska air.
The scene that was supposed to be shot this morning has been replaced by one in which Meg, the tavern owner’s daughter, and Jacob—Zachary’s character—finally have a confrontation about his plans to take the Long Walk into the snow. Meg has fallen in love with Jacob and vice versa (though he can’t admit it), and she refuses to let him go. She knows his grief is eating him alive and seduces him into a catharsis.
In short, Zachary is going to simulate sex with another woman today.
I examine my thoughts for any kind of jealousy and find there’s none. This is his job. And watching him purge his guilt and regret is almost more provocative to my heavy heart that yearns for the same thing.
The crew prepares and Zachary keeps his distance. Or maybe it’s me giving him space as much as I can in the tiny cabin. The director calls “Action,” and I watch with awe as the sweet, considerate Zachary I know is consumed by his character. His handsome face is somehow haggard by grief and haunted by the memories of his dead children.
Marilyn Vega, the actress playing Meg, rings her arms around his neck and forces him to look at her.
“Stay,” she whispers, planting kisses on his neck, his jaw, his chin. “Stay with me.”
Stay on this earth, is what she’s really telling him. Zach-as-Jacob resists at first and then finally allows his mouth to be drawn to hers. Over and over again, they shoot this kiss, this surrender. My own mouth parts each time hers does and my imagination is fraught with what it must feel like to be kissed by him, what he must taste like…
“Cut!”
I startle so hard the boom operator gives me a look. The intimacy coordinator appears. A brief discussion is held between her, Zach, and Meg. Then they go again. This time, the kiss morphs, builds, until Jacob turns Meg around, hauls up her skirt and takes her from behind. The simulation looks completely real, and I can’t tear my eyes away. Heat rushes through every particle of me even as I’m riveted at the performance. Jealousy for Jacob purging his pain mixes with red hot desire for Zachary who is showing me what he’s capable of.
The scene is harrowing, emotional, and sure to win both actors a slew of awards. When it’s over, the actors go to their separate corners, wash their faces, drink water, put on warmer clothing—like a reverse metamorphosis from nearly naked and raw to bundled up and casual. Marilyn and Zach hug, their intimacy vanished and replaced by the easy comradery of coworkers. They drink coffee and watch the playback with the director, analyzing that scene of brokenness and salvation as if it were a football play that might need tweaking before the big game.
I’m not needed so I leave the small cabin and step around the corner to cool my cheeks. Green trees trimmed with white surround me on all sides, like my own cabin if it ever snowed in LA. The wind has picked up and the cold air is beginning to freeze my face, and yet I still feel as if my blood is on fire.
I take several steadying breaths and am about to go back in when I hear a crunch of steps in the snow. Zachary appears. He’s left all vestiges of Jacob behind, as if they were two separate men. He’s bundled against the cold in a jacket and beanie that somehow makes him look endearing and ruggedly masculine at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his breath coming in white plumes. “I mean…I don’t know what I’m saying but…”
I stare, stunned. He’s apologetic. As if he’d cheated on me.
“That was incredible,” I blurt.
He blinks, uncertain. “Okay. In what way…exactly?”
I start to laugh at his boyish expression, but the memory of him, his hips moving, his hands gripping, his body thrusting…nothing boyish about that. I give my head a shake and step closer.
“All of it. The way you revealed his pain and how you made it look so terrible and horrible but also heartbreaking and necessary and so…so…”
My words fail as I realize I’m making fists in Zachary’s coat with both hands, pulling him to me. He glances down to where I’m clutching him, a smile dancing over his lips. But his eyes darken when they find mine again.
“You’re not upset?”
“No.” My chin is tilting up. My mouth wanting his. “It’s your job.”
Zachary’s hands come up to touch my cheeks. He’s wearing warm gloves but it’s not enough. I need heat. I need his skin. I need his mouth on mine…
“Rowan.” My name is steam off his lips. “Thank you.”
“For what?” I’m pulling him tight to me, but I can’t get him close enough.
“For being how you are…with me.”
His words are just starting to sink into my chest when Zach closes the final distance between us and kisses me.