Chapter 20
20
“W e agree, right?” I asked David once we were out of the Biltmore and had bid our goodbyes to the film crew. Marky had decided to stay at the hotel and harass Gary and the rest of the cast of the movie for a while, but I managed to scare him enough that he’d promised me he’d leave within an hour.
David raised an eyebrow. “Probably. Care to specify what we agree on, though?”
“Better to leave the police out of this. They can find Marky themselves,” I said.
“Definitely. Let’s stay as far from them as possible.”
“Even if a chat with Marky could help them realize you really didn’t lure Henry to the Eastern Columbia the night he died but the other way around?” We had to cover all the angles.
“I don’t know about that. I still feel there’s a way of using Fitzsimmons’s testimony against me,” David reasoned, which sounded plausible to me. “Plus, they specifically warned us to stay away from this. I don’t want them more pissed off at us than they already are.”
“And we’re always on time to let them know if we change our mind,” I said.
David made a humming noise. “You never replied to my ask, by the way.”
“What ask?” I was tired, still shaken, and hungry. It was noon and I was drunk . I couldn’t remember what he was talking about.
“No more fights, no more misunderstandings,” he said, recalling the words he’d said to me when we were both running from Marky—zee, ess, and two ems—Fitzsimmons.
“When has there been a misunderstanding?” I asked.
“Apparently when you left me because you thought I was seeing someone else.”
“I didn’t leave you because of that!” I protested. “I didn’t leave you. We came to an agreement.”
“Really? And what would that agreement be?”
“That it was better to part ways considering I was going through some stuff, and being the girlfriend of LA’s hottest investigative journalist wasn’t exactly helping me overcome my insecurity issues.”
“Since when have you been insecure?” David asked me, baffled. And he was right. I’d always been blindly self-assured, until I wasn’t. And he still hadn’t realized why that had changed.
As I didn’t want to have that conversation—our two-hour relationship conversation that had been interrupted by a celebrity-adoring man-child—I picked up the pace, making my way to my car on Broadway. I had a slight premonition.
“The reprobate, revenue-hungry beasts!” I yelled when we finally made it to my car. The meter had run out exactly two minutes before, and I’d already been ticketed.
“Elena, we were finally having a conversation.” David looked at me with disillusionment painted all over his features.
“I know, I’m sorry,” I said. “But I just got a parking ticket when I wasn’t even a minute late!”
I wanted him to understand my frustration. But he didn’t.
“Can’t you just tell your mom about it?”
“And what, make it go away?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t do that, and the fact that you believe I’d do such a thing is part of the problem.” I see now that it wasn’t exactly me talking, but the fact that I was equal parts tired and hungry. But, on the other hand, I was right.
“Is it too late?” he asked. “Are we too different now?”
Are we incapable of being together again, of loving each other again, of mending things? I added my own questions to David’s words in my mind. But I didn’t say them out loud.
“Can we perhaps leave this conversation until after we’ve been fed?” I seriously thought that was the best way of proceeding and not getting ourselves hurt permanently. “Will you have lunch with me?”
“Of course,” he said, graciously. But I could see the disappointment in his eyes.
…
Only after I had devoured half a falafel plate did I finally feel human enough to say something. We were seated at one of the picnic-like outdoor tables from Z falafel, and David was giving me the silent treatment.
“Okay, I’m able to talk now,” I said and again, I know, sometimes my lines are lacking. But I’m more of a polisher than a solid first draft writer. So I was giving him a poor first version of what I really wanted to say.
“Really?” David answered with a mocking tone. “And what are you willing to talk about? The murder? Your career? Even better... the weather?”
“Us, Scribe. Let’s talk about us ,” I said. “I’m even happy to save you the hassle of having to ask the uncomfortable questions yourself, not that that’s ever been a deterrent for you.”
“What uncomfortable questions?” He was feigning disinterest but the sharp line of his jaw indicated that he was engaged.
“The ones you’re dying to ask about my relationship with Victor, which I’m only discussing with you because you and I have more of a relationship right now than him and me.” There, I said it.
“Meaning?” Of course he wasn’t happy with a simple insinuation. He wanted the full uncensored account.
“What me and Victor share is a relationship of convenience, and not much more than that.”
“Still not clear,” he said. The roguish grin tugging at his lips wasn’t helping me feel more at ease.
“Do I really need to spell it out for you?”
“Only if you feel like doing it,” he said. Of course, he was big on the journalistic principles of stating facts and being clear and precise. He was also extremely nosey.
“Only because it’s you , and I hope my honesty is appreciated,” I said. By then, I was hot and blushing.
“It is,” he said.
“What I meant is that it’s not like we’re still fucking or anything.”
“Really?” David said in a tone of half surprise, half pretended indifference, and all smugness.
“I’ve got that covered with you,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. Your turn, Scribe.
“Not just with me.” Was he deflecting? “Judging by your frequent use of toys.”
He was just playing.
“You caught me a couple of times,” I admitted, referring to some of those night visits between the two of us.
It could have been that we were still tipsy or that the sex talk was turning us on, but our stares alone could have ignited the place on fire.
“I’d say I caught you more than a couple of times ,” he said. “But never with him. Which forces me to ask, why are you still with him?”
His question was received with the same shock as a bucket of iced water thrown over my head.
“None of your fucking business,” I said, teeth gritted. If a second ago we were this close to ripping each other’s clothes off in plain daylight in the middle of Hill Street, right now I was about to murder him with complete disregard for the number of witnesses present.
“Sorry. Sometimes the reporter gets the better part of me. You’re right. It’s none of my fucking business. Are we back at being friends?”
“Have we ever been friends? Just friends, I mean.” I may have been a bit bothered by his use of the f-word.
“Weren’t we just friends when we were at college?” he asked.
“I was pining for you for like two years, so definitely not just friends .” Why I had decided that was the right moment to admit something I’d never before told him, I don’t know.
“My pining was longer and more anguished than that,” he said, and my heart skipped a beat. Who knew this conversation would turn into something so revealing?
We were staring at each other again with a unique intensity.
I saw what looked like a father and his two small children coming our way, carrying loaded trays, but the adult in the group changed his mind midway to the table next to us and chose to sit with the kids at the farthest corner from us in the restaurant’s tiny patio. The Motion Picture Association would have ranked the gazes between me and David NC-17 even if we were both fully clothed.
“Do you want to ask me anything else about the affair I never had or wanted to have with Gloria Kingsley?” I truly appreciated how definitive those words sounded.
“Nope, I’m good,” I said and, for the first time in a long time, I was perfectly content.