Chapter 31
Graham
I couldn’t sleep, my mind going over the events of the evening repeatedly.
From my decision to tell Lior I thought it best we didn’t see one another for a while, to her turning up at her house looking like she was going to cry – and then actually crying.
And then she dropped the bomb that she might quit her chaotic life, giving me hope.
Only for her to then get distant and say she was tired and needed to get to bed after I perhaps seemed a little too excited that maybe there was a chance of us getting together if she dropped out of the spotlight.
“Maybe I was wrong,” I said out loud. “Maybe she’s not into me that way and it was just about sex.”
I rolled over and looked toward Bronte’s bed. But she wasn’t there to give me one of her looks of wisdom, and now I had something else sad to think about.
I slept fitfully, giving up around five and trudging downstairs to make coffee before the sun came up.
Opening my laptop, I sat and stared at the last line I’d written.
I had one, maybe two pages to go and I was done with the draft.
It was my best book yet. The critics and my readers might not agree, but I knew it.
Because this book was personal, and I’d poured my soul into it.
I took a sip of my cappuccino, and then placed my fingers on the keyboard and started to type.
Two hours later I’d finished the story, addressed the notes I’d left for myself within the manuscript, and printed it off. For Lior. I knew she was dying to read it and I wanted her to be the first person to get their eyes on it.
Checking the time on my laptop, I picked up my phone and sent her a text.
“Race you to the corner.” And then I waited.
And waited.
A half hour later she still hadn’t responded.
“Must still be sleeping,” I said, feeling empathy for her. She’d been in a state when she’d gotten home the night before. She was probably going to need a day or two to recover. I got to my feet. I’d bring her a cappuccino and coffee cake from Joe’s again. I’d be her porch fairy.
But when I arrived an hour later and rang the bell, my freshly printed manuscript in a large manilla envelope under my arm, a to-go coffee cup in my other hand with a bag hanging from my wrist, she didn’t answer.
Putting the coffee down on the stoop, I checked my phone to see if she’d texted back and I hadn’t heard.
Nope.
“What the hell,” I murmured, looking up at her windows. But all the curtains were closed as if she was still asleep.
I rang the bell a third time but after another five minutes passed, I gave up. I shoved the manuscript through the mail slot and headed back home, sipping the cappuccino as I went. As I climbed the steps to my house, my cell phone rang. Marley.
“Hey Marzipan. Shouldn’t you be in class right now?”
“I’m in-between classes, Dad.”
“Very funny. What’s up?”
“I was just curious if you were coming to Seattle too.”
“Too?” I asked, sliding the key in the deadbolt and unlocking the front door.
“With Lior.”
“Lior’s going to Seattle?”
“I’m assuming she is by the picture she posted on her socials earlier this morning.”
I dropped the bag with the coffee cake in it. The cake bounced out and landed beside the potted plants I’d shoved in the corner of the porch. With a sigh, I picked up the cake and tossed it in the bag. It definitely wasn’t edible now.
“I didn’t see the post,” I said, going inside and heading for the kitchen trash.
“Oh. So, then I guess that means you’re not coming.”
I sat down at the kitchen table and opened my laptop, clicking on a new tab and quickly typing in the website Marley was talking about and finding Lior’s most recent post, which had gone live at six this morning.
“How do you get that she’s going to Seattle from that?” I asked, looking at the image she’d taken of her legs and shoes in what was obviously an airport and then reading out loud what she’d written. “Off to see the Wither?”
“Don’t you two talk all the time? It’s a long-standing joke she has with Addie.”
“It is?”
“Oh my gawd, G. Seriously?”
“Sorry. She failed to tell me that one.”
“They dressed up as Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz when they were in like, second grade or something. And there was a kid in their class with a lisp. He kept calling Addie the Wither.”
I laughed, picturing the two of them, and then sobered. She hadn’t told me last night that she was planning to go to Seattle. What had happened between then and this morning?
“Is Addie okay?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Marley said. “Seriously. I thought you guys were friends and talked all the time now. Has something happened?”
“I… Honestly, Mars. I have no idea.”
We got off the phone a minute later when she realized she was about to be late to class and I sat at the table staring at the picture on Lior’s social media page. What the fuck was going on?
The call came several hours later, Lior’s name lighting up the screen of my phone.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. You?”
“I mean, I’m a little confused right now. Did you know you were going to Seattle today and just forgot to mention it last night?”
“No. I didn’t. At least, not while you were still there. I think I decided somewhere around midnight.”
“Okay.” I frowned. “Why?”
“I needed Addie. I… needed advice.”
“About?”
She didn’t say anything for a minute and then: “You. Us. My job. Seattle.”
“Are you still thinking of quitting modeling?”
“Not exactly.”
I was quiet.
“But what about what happened at that last shoot?” I asked.
“It wasn’t the first time.”
“Right but…. you said you were sick of it. And rightly so.”
My text alert sounded but I ignored it.
“This job has also been a part of my life for a very long time. It has a lot of perks I enjoy. Travel—”
“You said you never even see the cities you’re working in.”
“Clothes,” she continued as if she hasn’t heard me.
“You hardly wear anything but sweats.”
My text alert sounded again.
“Money.”
“Don’t you have a fortune by now?”
She was silent again and I knew I’d overstepped.
“Sorry,” I said, ignoring two more text alerts. “I’m just… well, I’m confused too. You were so upset last night. Why would you keep doing something that makes you so miserable? Besides the travel, clothes, and money. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me.”
She sighed. “Graham, why were you at my house when I got home yesterday?”
An uncomfortable feeling washed over me.
“What do you mean? I thought it would be nice to see you and bring you a treat after your flight.”
“No. There was another reason. I could see it in your eyes. Tell me the truth.”
I got up from my chair and started up the stairs to my bedroom as several more texts came in. I glanced at the screen. Fran. She could wait. I had a feeling I was going to need to lie down for the rest of this phone conversation.
“Fine,” I said. “I was going to tell you I thought it would be best if we didn’t see each other for a while.
Your job breeds drama and chaos. I’m always on edge when we go anywhere, even though you’re a pro at blending in.
But it wouldn’t always be like that. I know that the moment we get dressed up and you aren’t covered by a hat and sunglasses, people will start hounding us and I just can’t live a life like that again.
It’s intrusive and crazy-making.” I paused, my heart beating hard in my chest. “I like you, Lior. I—”
I cut myself off, afraid to say more.
“You what?”
I ran a hand through my hair and sat on the edge of my bed as my phone went off again.
“I have real feelings for you,” I said. “I’m sure that’s obvious.
And I’m sure on paper we’re a great match.
But the fact is, I hate what your job brings.
And I know you’re still hurting from past relationships and don’t trust yourself to be in a real one because of how you’ve been treated before.
Which is understandable, but also hurtful to be put in a category with those guys.
I’m a good person and would never do what other men have done to you.
I just think that neither of us is in any condition to be in a relationship right now.
And while I love being your friend, we’ve veered more than once into more-than-friend territory.
I think it’s a recipe for one or both of us to get really hurt. ”
I stopped talking. No sound came from the other end. Had she hung up? I looked at the phone but the counter was still adding seconds.
“You may not be a user,” she said, her voice low.
“But you want to change me. Or— maybe you don’t want to change me, but you want something about me to change.
And I get it. The lifestyle is a lot. But I’ve been in so many relationships where the guy tried shoving me into a perfect-partner-shaped-box so that they felt comfortable.
Pushing me down, trying to make me conform to rules they thought I should live by until I couldn’t breathe.
” She paused and I heard her sniff. When she spoke again, there were tears in her voice.
“I’m so tired, Graham. I’m tired of trying to be what everyone else wants so that everyone else feels secure.
I’m tired of having to do the thing that makes others feel good and safe and happy.
Yes, I am sick of certain aspects of this job, but it’s also the only thing I’ve done for years and I’m really good at it.
I have status and success and a career I can be proud of.
It’s not easy to just let that go. Even for someone I have feelings for.
And I do have feelings for you. Great big ones.
But I’m not going to overhaul my life just because you were married to some snotty little twat who abused your kindness.
That’s not fair to me, and I would never ask that of you.
I too am a good person. And I’m furious that you refuse to even try giving me a real chance. ”
She hung up then and I stared down at my phone, her profile picture staring up at me, along with a dozen or more text alerts I continued to ignore. I’d taken the photo of her at the bistro table in front of Mornin’ Joe’s. She was sporting a jaunty foam mustache and winking into the camera.
I looked over to Bronte’s bed.
“Well. I fucked that up,” I said, and then startled at a clatter downstairs.
Shoving my phone in my pocket, I hurried down the stairs, stopping on the last step when I saw the mail had come and was sitting on the doormat.
There was the usual bills and ads, and then something thick in a padded manilla envelope.
Probably a manuscript I was waiting on, for an author hoping for a blurb.
I scooped up the pile and took it to the kitchen, ripping open the large envelope and pouring the contents out onto the table.
And there it was. Vogue magazine.
On the cover for all the world to see was me and Lior Flynn. I was bare-chested with only a pair of black jeans on, and she was standing in front of me in a sheer pink dress, her hands gripping my thighs, my arms were wrapped around her torso, covering her breasts.
We looked sexy as fuck, and my soul ached for her.
My phone pinged with another text alert. And then another.
And then another.
Now I understood what the commotion was about. I set my phone on the table and went upstairs, closed my bedroom door, and got under the covers.