Chapter 6
Six
CAMILLO
“Are you sure—”
“Yes.”
“What if you?—”
“Mother.” Normally I could slip off the grounds without anyone noticing, but as one of the valets drove my car up to the curb, my mother had chosen that moment to head out for one of her many, many charity meetings.
“I would feel better if you took a driver.”
I couldn’t help a sarcastic snort. “Considering I was with a driver when this happened”—I waved my hand at my legs—“shouldn’t you feel better if it was me behind the wheel?”
“Don’t be smart,” she said, clicking her tongue. “You know what I mean.”
I didn’t, to tell the truth. I never knew what she was all twisted up about. “I’m going to be forty before you know it. If you can’t loosen the strings now, you never will. And we both know that’s unhealthy.”
“Don’t therapize me, Camillo.”
I just smiled at her before grabbing my keys and moving to the driver’s side of the car. The transfer was smooth, which was a relief because the last thing I needed was to fumble in front of my mother’s gaze. When the valet reached for my chair, I waved him off. “I’ve got it.”
“That’s their job, Camillo.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like people touching my stuff.” God, I sounded like a five-year-old. I ignored her pursed lips, and I detached my wheels, stowing them behind my seat before folding up the chair, shoving it in the car, then pulling my legs inside. I shut the door, then leaned out the open window. “Don’t wait up.”
“You’re not as funny as you think you are. At least tell someone where you’re going.”
“My people know.” I rolled the window up and revved the engine as she began to speak again, and under her fierce glower, I peeled away from the curb and rolled over the cobbled driveway toward the gate.
The moment I was on the main road, I used my voice commands to start music and lost myself a little in melody and rhythm as I wove in and out of traffic. The place Aleric had chosen was just outside of town, a little hole-in-the-wall spot I’d never heard of. Their online menu was quaint. It reminded me of a little French countryside café, nestled in the forest in some village near Versailles.
It made me want to take a long vacation somewhere to forget about everything going on. Not that I was going to shirk my responsibilities, but not for the first time, I wished my responsibilities were different. I wished I didn’t always have to think of “the people.” I wished that I could live my life for myself and no one else without people watching my every move.
Without anyone giving a shit what I ate for breakfast or where I was going for a fucking coffee.
I squeezed my hands a little too tight, revving the gas before remembering to let up. Several fortifying breaths later and my frustration had settled into its usual manageable state, resting at the base of my spine. It was a heavy weight, but at least there, I couldn’t feel it.
The drive only took half an hour, but it felt like a lot longer as the café came into view. There was only street parking and nowhere with a ramp. I could get up curbs—it was one of the first things I learned in PT because, as my therapist had reminded me over and over, the world was no longer built for me.
But it was irritating.
My only saving grace was that I was outside of the city, far enough that I wasn’t going to be recognized on sight. At least, not by car. By chair, maybe. Or by my face. But so far, I couldn’t see anyone with a camera lurking around any corners.
I found a spot not too far from the café’s front stoop and parked, swinging my legs out of the door before I started assembling my chair. Before I transferred in, I reached over and grabbed my largest pair of shades, knowing I was probably making myself more obvious than less.
But somehow, it helped ease the anxiety as I settled my feet in the footrests, then locked my car and headed for the café…where I came to an abrupt stop because there were two steps in and an old, heavy wooden door.
I rolled back, then peered through the window, but I couldn’t see in past the hedges, so I had no idea if Aleric was in there waiting for me.
Snagging my phone out of my pocket, I opened up his text thread, then changed my mind and called him. It rang twice, and when he picked up, I could hear the chatter of the café in the background.
“Running late?”
“Nope. I’m here. Just wondering how I’m supposed to get inside.”
“The front door?”
“Right. And the steps?”
“I—oh fuck. Oh fuck .”
I couldn’t help the tiny self-satisfied smirk that settled over my lips.
“I didn’t think.”
“Of course you didn’t. Which is obviously why you’re perfect for the role to play me.”
He met my words with silence. Then, “Are you going to hate me for that forever? It’s not like I went out of my way to beat out disabled actors.”
“You shouldn’t have auditioned at all.” Those were the words I’d been thinking for a good, long while now. I just hadn’t been brave enough to say them. “I shouldn’t have had to remind you about the steps.”
“You’re right.”
Once again, I felt a little thrown by his easy acquiescence. He was a dick sometimes, but too often, he folded like a wet paper towel. It was almost like he was trained to obey, which did things to my insides. Things I didn’t want to think about right now when I was busy being pissed off.
“How can I fix it?” he asked.
I was also not expecting him to ask that. “I don’t know. I’m not familiar with this café.” Or this suburb. If I’d had my driver with me, he would have known where to go, but on my own, I was lost.
“If you’re willing to still see me, give me three minutes. Please.”
I could do three minutes. I felt like a chump, sitting out there in front of the café like this, but he was willing to try, so the least I could give him was five hundred seconds of my life. I’d given a lot more to people who deserved a lot less.
“Fine. But I’m keeping an eye on the time. If you’re not out here by then?—”
“I promise.” He sounded like he meant it, and I detested it. I wanted more reasons to hate him. I didn’t want to soften.
Hanging up, I shoved my phone back into my pocket, then rocked onto my back wheels until my back touched the brick wall. A few people stared at me, several doing double and triple takes. Part of me wanted to nod and smile, to tell them to move along, nothing to see here.
Another part of me wanted to be angry. To ask them who the fuck taught them to stare like that. The little ones, I didn’t mind so much. But the grown adults?
“Sorry, sorry.” I glanced to my right and found Aleric with his hand pressed to the wall, half bent over, panting. “Shit. Sorry. I came from around back, and I didn’t want to miss you.”
“How long has it been since you’ve gone for a run?”
He wheeze-laughed as he attempted to straighten up. “Uh, never? I don’t run. I probably could have done the whole comeback thing with a superhero movie, but I’m not committing to six months of eating celery and raw-dogging protein powder and running six miles a day.”
I choked on a laugh. “I…fair enough. That was shorter than three minutes though. Good job.”
He flushed a deep, rich red along the apples of his cheeks. He looked stunned for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Right. So. There’s a park?”
“Is that a question?”
“You sound like my elocution coach,” he said, wrinkling his nose.
My left eyebrow rose. “You have an elocution coach?” The very idea was absurd. He spoke so…I didn’t even know the word. Pointed? Careful?
“I had a speech impediment when I was a kid,” he told me. His hand flew to the back of his neck like a nervous habit, and his gaze fell toward his feet like he was afraid to make eye contact. Shit. It was obvious I’d touched a tender nerve. “It was cute when I was little, but it got less cute the older I got. Speech therapy was…a lot. And then I had a dictation coach, and an accent coach, and elocution coach.” He trailed off with a laugh, but he didn’t sound very amused. “It was like spending nine hours a week telling me what a shitty job I did at speaking. Which was kind of my whole job, so…yeah.” He breathed out, then clapped his hands, making me jump. “Anyway…”
His eyes didn’t quite meet mine when he looked up.
“So, a park,” I said.
“A park,” he repeated. This time, his tone was more sure. “You don’t mind the walk?”
I shook my head.
“Do you prefer someone call it a walk?”
“Let’s go for a roll sounds ridiculous,” I told him. I was grateful he didn’t fumble over his words this time when addressing my chair. I turned and gave my wheels a push. “Lead the way.”
“Uh. Well. It’s in this direction,” he called after me.
I corrected my mistake and caught up to him in three long pushes. The walk was silent most of the way there, but as we approached the roundabout intersection and stopped, I caught him staring at me.
“Ask.”
He flushed. “People stare. A lot.”
“That wasn’t a question.” He wasn’t wrong either.
“Does it feel like you’re on display?”
The crosswalk began to chirp, and I kept my gaze on the lines that crisscrossed over the roundabout. “Yes, but there’s also the whole royal thing. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if they stare more because I’m a prince or because I’m a prince in a wheelchair. I have nothing to compare it to. Before my accident, I spent a lot of years being trained to not notice when I was being watched or photographed or followed.”
“That seems…invasive.”
I couldn’t help a laugh as I rolled up over the curb. I could see the park just ahead. It was small, but there was a paved path that went around the fountain in the center. I understood why he picked it now. I could roll over grass easily, but I appreciated he’d kept me in mind.
That was…something.
“I was born into it.”
“So you just don’t notice?”
“I pretend I don’t notice. I feel it,” I confessed. It was weird to tell him all of this. It was like giving him all of my weak spots, and I did not like being vulnerable. Especially with strangers. “I’ve always felt their eyes on me. I used to cry when I was really little. I’d have these huge meltdowns after events. It was all so…overwhelming.”
“And as an adult?”
“Are you asking how I have tantrums now?”
He flushed again and shrugged, looking away as we passed the entrance gates. I immediately noticed a thick smell of blooming wildflowers, which were growing all over. It was wild and incredibly beautiful.
“I don’t think those should be called tantrums. I, uh…I get it, you know. How it feels.”
I was about to tell him to fuck off because how could he, and then I remembered he wasn’t just a child actor but a child star, and yeah, he did get it.
As much as anyone could, I suppose.
“How do you deal with it?”
“I used to drink,” he said with a tense laugh. “But being an addict, that’s pretty frowned upon.”
I halted my chair in front of him and spun so he was forced to stop and look at me. “Are you an addict?”
For a long beat, he just met my gaze. Then, after a heavy breath, he shook his head. “Not really. I mean, not in the traditional sense. I didn’t want to take drugs. I didn’t want to drink. People realized all that crap calmed me down and got me to show up on time and recite all the lines they gave me. It was easier to keep me complacent that way.”
“I guess it makes sense that you just kept going as an adult,” I told him.
He looked shattered as he shook his head. “No. I didn’t . Okay, I did drink a lot for a while. Right after I turned twenty-five and realized it was going to take a miracle for me to get my life back. I had a couple of dark years. But, um…it didn’t happen the way everyone thinks it did.”
My insides squirmed. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him. I didn’t want to feel anything for him. But he was charming. Good-looking, sure, but there was something else about him. Something a little lonely and hurt and lost. It was too familiar.
“Let’s keep walking,” I suggested.
His sadness melted as his smirk appeared. “You’re the one who stopped.”
I turned and gave my chair a hard push, forcing him to jog to keep up with me. “Ask me whatever else was on your mind. I know you didn’t just realize people stared at me.”
He coughed out a laugh as he finally matched my pace, and to take pity on him, I slowed. A little. “I have a sex scene in the third episode. We’re filming that right after we reshoot episode one.”
I knew this topic was going to come up. “Do they always shoot out of order?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes. I mean, it depends on how long each season is and the availability of the people who aren’t in the main cast. Every studio I’ve worked with reshoots the pilot if they don’t need to wait for ratings—which we don’t anymore. Something I still need to get used to, but it’s a little nuts. You’ll realize how different it is when you sit down to actually watch it.”
I almost choked on my own tongue. “I’m not going to watch it.”
He stopped and turned to stare at me. “Really?”
Lifting a brow, I gave him a challenging stare. “Would you, if you were me?”
Our gazes were locked for several breaths, and then his shoulders sagged a little, and he shrugged, resuming his pace. “I guess not. I don’t really like watching myself as it is. It would be kind of awful if I was acting out my own life.”
“So my answer makes sense.”
He laughed again, and it annoyed me just how much I liked the sound. “Yeah. It does.”
I took a breath. “So, back to what you were saying. The sex.”
“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Obviously, you have sex.”
“ Is that obvious?”
“Apart from the fact that you’re one of the best-looking men I’ve ever seen,” he said, then flushed almost like he hadn’t meant to say that aloud, “I also read your book. You have had sex. You just…didn’t go into a lot of detail.”
“I didn’t want my book to become the topic of some devotee book club.”
“Devotee?” I looked at him. “Sorry, I only understood like two-thirds of that sentence.”
I snorted and spied a bench as we rounded the path near the fountain. I gestured to the seat, and he shot me a grateful smile as I rolled up next to it. He sat, leaving me space, which almost made me laugh.
“You know I come with a built-in place to sit, right?”
His blush darkened, this time his ears going pink. “Sorry. Uh…I thought. Well. Some stuff I read said sometimes people like to get out of their wheelchairs when they’re hanging out with friends. Or, you know, random actors they don’t like very much.”
I almost chuckled. His self-deprecating humor was obviously a defense mechanism, but he was funny. “It’s easier for me not to move. My core strength sucks.” I patted my stomach, which was and always would be soft and squishy. My injury was too high for me to ever have abs.
“Okay, so,” he said, drawing me back to the topic. I appreciated he didn’t want to talk about the disability fetish weirdos who were always in my periphery. “Sex is…different now, right?”
I shrugged. “I don’t have a lot to compare it to. Before my accident, I had four crappy handjobs by a closeted jock and maybe a year and a half of furious masturbating under my belt. I have orgasms now, but they don’t feel the same as they used to. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
“Like a slightly more satisfying sneeze?” Aleric asked.
I couldn’t help but raise my brow again. “You’ve had terrible partners if that’s what coming feels like for you.”
He cleared his throat, and something about his silence spoke novels. “I, uh. Never mind.” There was a story there, but I wasn’t going to ask him to tell it to me. “I don’t know what the intimacy coordinator is going to be like on set, but I want to make sure I can be myself.”
“You’re supposed to be my self,” I reminded him.
He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I don’t. I’m not an actor. I’ve never even tried to be one.”
Blowing out a puff of air, he tilted his gaze up toward the sky in thought. His slightly prominent front teeth sank into his bottom lip, and for a very brief, very wild moment, I wanted to pull his lip away from that bite and soothe it with my tongue.
Fuck. No. No, no, absolutely not. I was just horny, and like Erik said, I needed to get laid ASAP. I needed to call Roget, like, yesterday.
“I just mean, I want it to look natural, and if I know how it works for you, then I won’t have to use as much direction.”
That made sense…sort of. But it was hard to explain. “It’s emotional for me now. The brain is clever. It rewires a lot when you lose sensation, but I think it’s still the same concept.”
He frowned. “How?”
“I mean, if I were to reach over right now and grab your dick, you wouldn’t get turned on, right? It would just feel like a random person rubbing your crotch.”
His eyes went a little hazy and distant. He didn’t answer me. The silence stretched on and on, and I was starting to worry.
“Aleric?”
He blinked. He still wasn’t entirely with it.
“You good, dude? Or are you overwhelmed with too much information? I mean, I figured you weren’t a virgin, but you can tell me where I lost you.”
He bristled. “I’m not stupid, you know. I—I know what I’m doing. Just because I’m not as experienced as people think I am doesn’t mean I don’t get it.” His tone was sharp and angry, and it immediately crawled under my skin.
How dare he speak to me like that?
“You’re so damn sensitive .” Fuck. Why did I say that? Why did he crawl under my skin like this? “Nobody likes a prude.”
His eyes went wide, and he stiffened like I’d slapped him. “I should go. Thanks for your help.”
He stood up and walked off without looking back, and I settled deeper into my chair. Christ, I’d fucked up badly. I should have read his tone. I knew it too well—the feeling when someone’s getting too close to tender scars.
But instead of backing off the way I wanted people to do with me, instead, I dug in with sharp nails and made sure it hurt. I wasn’t sure of many things, but one thing was always for certain: I was amazing at sabotage. It was why I would never marry. It was why no relationship had ever lasted more than a few months after…well. After the first disaster.
I knew I should call him back. Or at least text to apologize. Instead, I waited until I was sure I wouldn’t meet him on the path, then gripped my wheels and headed back to my car.
Alone.
The way I always would be.