Chapter 15 #2
My heart starts racing because I know what I want to say next. “You can stay here. With me. If you want. For as long as you want.” I swallow. “And that’s not being a leech, because I’m telling you.”
He smiles. Then it fades a little. He looks down. “I have to be there for Sunny. Tamar was doing better today, but I have to be there.”
I feel a little disappointed, but I say, “I understand.” I squeeze his hand. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He looks at me.
“It is. We’ll get you a lawyer. He’s not going to get away with it.”
He smirks. “You do like me, don’t you?”
I laugh. “I might. Just a little bit.”
He smiles. “Maybe I like you a little bit too.”
I kiss that scar on his forehead. “You think you can maybe get away this weekend?”
“Away to where?”
“I don’t know. San Diego? Lake Tahoe? I’ll take care of everything.”
He pulls back a little, giving me a look. “Lake Tahoe? That’s quite a hike.”
“I just want to take you away somewhere for a bit, that’s all. Get out of LA, relax. You can get your mind off everything.”
He’s looking more like himself now. “I’ll have to see. Depends on how Tamar is feeling.” He puts a hand up to my face. “You shouldn’t do things like this for me.”
“I’d do anything for you.”
I think he’s going to say he doesn’t believe me. It looks like he doesn’t. Good God. I really can’t control myself. And I really can’t abandon him now. Fuck Phil. And Clarence too.
They don’t know, they don’t understand, what it is Harvey and I have.
We can do this. I can do this. I can really have it all.
He leans over to kiss me, stroking my face. “You hungry, angel? I’ll go see what you’ve got.”
“No.” I stand. “No, you sit here. Relax. I’ll take care of it.” I give him a quick peck on the lips.
I feel his eyes on me as I walk into the kitchen.
I feel them on me for the rest of the evening until he falls asleep next to me in bed, and I’m wide awake.
I watch him sleep and run a hand across his chest, making him stir a little, but he doesn’t wake up.
I put my hand over his heart and tap the rhythm of the beats with my finger.
His eyes slit open, and he slides his hand over mine. “What are you doing, angel?”
“That’s what your heart’s doing,” I whisper.
“Is it?” He slides over to me, his eyes half closed, and puts his head on my chest. Then he taps his fingers on it. “That’s what yours is doing.”
I slide my fingers in his hair. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“It’s okay,” he mumbles sleepily.
“Hey, um, do you remember ever hearing about your dad having an affair with, like, a producer’s wife?”
He inhales and stretches. “I dunno. But he probably did.” He moves himself so he’s face-to-face with me. “Why?”
“Just heard a rumor. People talking on the set.”
He rubs one of his eyes, a little more awake now. “He cheated on my mom with a lot of women. That’s how he got with my first stepmom.”
I swallow. “Have you?”
“What?”
“Had an affair with anybody?”
He looks away for a second. “I’m sure you heard stuff about me before. Not all of it was a lie.” He looks at me again. “But I’d never do that to you. Not in a million years.”
I study his face. “You sure about that? You’re not going to get tired of me?”
He positions himself over top of me, his gold chain dangling, and his voice gravely. “Baby, I’ll never get tired of you.”
“Never?”
“Ever.”
Nope. I can’t do it. Phil is going to have to just deal with it. I’m one of the stars of his show, and I’ll do what I want. And what I want is Harvey Laden.
He slides his hand across my jaw. “Don’t believe me?”
“I believe you. It’s the same for me too.”
He smiles, and I pull him into my arms, feeling his heart against me, his breath growing steady until I fall asleep.
Bonnie calls me and asks me to come over for dinner on Friday night. They want to celebrate the premier of the show with me and the network picking it up.
On Monday, we’re going back to the set to film the rest of the series. There will be some long days ahead. Devin wants to film one episode per week. It’ll be a time crunch. It took us a month to film the first three episodes. There were a lot of rewrites and edits that had to be done.
But I’m not going to complain. The reviews for the pilot were full of praise.
Everything’s coming together. Including Harvey and me.
With reviews that good and the network ordering a whole season, I can relax a little.
Phil would be risking the entire show if he fired me now.
Me or Brad. I’m still going to keep things low profile, but I just have to wait it out.
He won’t care once we finish the first season and the network orders another one.
He can’t control my life. He might hate Harvey and his father, but that’s not my problem.
I get to Bonnie and Floyd’s house close to eight and notice the table on the patio has been set up with seven places.
“Who else is coming?” I ask Bonnie as she helps Dorothy carry food outside.
Just then, I hear the doorbell.
“Wait and see,” Bonnie says with a smile, wiping off her hands.
Floyd opens the door and my stomach falls to my feet. I watch Dorothy take jackets and wraps from Phil and his wife. And then Arnold and his wife.
“What are they doing here?” I ask Bonnie.
“They’re here to have dinner with you.” She clasps her hands around my face. “Because you’re our little star.”
They’ve never done this before. Arnold and Phil.
They didn’t even come to my sixteenth birthday party.
Or any other ones before or after that. I don’t think they’ve ever been over to dinner at all.
Not even for drinks. Phil and Arnold always liked to take people out.
I vaguely remember being at Phil’s home when I was little. I can’t remember what it was for.
I watch Phil walk across the living room. He looks right at me with a wide smile, one that is sending a very clear message.
“Austin, you remember Beverley?” Phil gestures to his wife beside him.
“Yeah,” I say, my mouth dry. “How are you?”
Arnold and his wife, Carol, come over to say hello. Dorothy serves everyone drinks, and we take a seat at the table. I try to take a seat on the side, but Floyd insists I sit on the end. Phil sits on the other, looking directly at me in a way that makes me feel like a shameful child.
“Austin and I had a discussion the other day,” he announces.
I grab a drink and take a gulp. Everyone turns to look at me.
“Oh, really?” Bonnie says, smiling at me.
Phil’s pause is meant to make me squirm and it works. “I was just telling him that he and Brad Vick are going to be the faces of the show.”
“We’re so proud of you, honey,” Bonnie says.
“We sure are, champ.” Floyd lays a hand on my shoulder. “You’re so good at everything you do.”
I laugh nervously. “Not everything.”
Bonnie and Floyd do not know about Harvey.
They know about the fights before, but not anything now, and definitely don’t know that he was in rehab with me.
I’ve kept that from them. I’ve kept a lot of things from them.
They have absolutely no idea I’ve ever even been with a man.
They still think Margie and me will end up married.
I never really had a plan. I suppose it’s because I never really thought I’d be with someone lasting longer than a couple of nights.
And I hate lying to them. They’ve been so good to me. Phil knows this. He knows how much they love and adore me. That man can find all my weaknesses.
They all start talking about other things that don’t really have anything to do with me. I try to eat my dinner like I normally would if it were just me and my parents. I don’t want Phil to see me anxious. I’ve got nothing to be anxious over, really. I haven’t done anything wrong.
Not that wrong.
But Phil’s eyes occasionally catch mine across the table. And there’s a look in his eyes like I’d better be careful.
I’d better watch it.
I want to leave, but I can’t. I don’t want Bonnie or Floyd asking me what’s wrong, being worried, and I can’t think of a good excuse other than I don’t feel well. Which is really the truth.
“Did I ever tell you,” Bonnie says, “how we found Austin?”
Everyone shakes their heads and Beverley says, “I don’t think so.”
“Well,” Bonnie begins. “We’d been looking all over, you know. So we went to this home out near Burbank. And we saw him over on the floor playing with those building blocks. And I so I go over to him, and I said ‘Hi, Austin.’ And you know what he said?”
“I said ‘Hi,’” I interrupt. “I just said hi.”
Everyone laughs and Bonnie says, “Yes, he did, but it was so cute the way he said it. He just looked up at me like this and said ‘Hi!’ Just like that with his little freckled face.”
“I remember that face,” Phil says, and everyone starts laughing again.
They’re all looking at me, remembering a little boy who doesn’t exist anymore.
“I knew right then,” Bonnie says. “I told Floyd, I said ‘There’s our son.’ We wanted to take him home right then and there, but there was the paperwork.”
“Home visits too,” Floyd adds. He looks over at me. “But it was all worth it.”
The mixture of the mushy trip down memory lane, with Phil sitting across from me, makes me feel dizzy.
I politely excuse myself and go inside the house.
I walk all the way upstairs to my old bedroom.
They kept the furniture, but all the surfaces and the closet are bare.
I lay down on my old bed and look up at the ceiling.
The last time I laid here, I didn’t have these problems. The last time I laid here, there were girls sending me underwear, locks of hair, and dried rose petals in the mail.
I was content. I was happy. Everything was going my way.
Except with Harvey. Because the last time I laid here, we hated each other.
Did I ever really hate him at all?
I quickly try to push Harvey from my mind as if Phil might be listening in.
I need to quit worrying. I can’t let him intimidate me.
I’m the one with leverage here. The network wanted a show with me and Brad Vick.
Phil can call me in his office and wave that fucking contract in front of my face all he wants, but he can’t do anything, and he knows it.
Maybe that’s why he’s here. This is the only thing he can do.
Not-so-subtly remind me that he knows something Bonnie and Floyd don’t.
And it’s something I don’t want them to know.
Not now.
Not yet.
Maybe someday…?
I don’t know. I return to the patio where there’s conversation about the best beaches in Hawaii.
Every time they’ve shared that little story about when they found me, I’ve just rolled my eyes and pretended to be annoyed.
It’s always the same. I could’ve sworn Bonnie or Floyd told Phil and Arnold once before.
Either way, I wouldn’t be able to handle it if they were disappointed in me.
If they thought there was something wrong with me.
Phil can find your weak spots. He’s ruthless.
But I’m not going to stop seeing Harvey.
He'd have to kill me first.