Chapter 9
NINE
Katie
The woman next to me on the plane was around sixty. She wore a soft gray cardigan over a cotton shirt, and pinned to the cardigan was a flower brooch. She gave me a polite look that said please don’t talk to me , and then she faced forward and didn’t look at me again.
Not talking was fine with me. Still, I made up a story for the woman in my head. I decided that her name was Mrs. Cooper, and she had retired from a long career as a high school guidance counselor. Her husband had retired too, and he was driving her nuts around the house, so she was taking a trip to see her sister in Portland. Mrs. Cooper was wise and gave great advice, and if I told her what I was doing, she would probably tell me to turn around and go home.
I couldn’t do that once we had taken off, so I scarfed six pretzels the size of my thumbnail and second guessed my life choices.
My confidence had fled. This was stupid. I barely knew Travis White, and he was probably a jerk. I should find a real boyfriend instead of going to all the trouble of setting up a fake one. What was wrong with a real man, one who would take me on dates? I could find one of those. I had done it before, and I could do it again. Everything about this was crazy. No one was going to notice if I was fake dating Travis White, and Edgar Pinsent wouldn’t care. I should tell Stella I’d take the mom role. I’d take the role with the shirtless plumber. Everything had been going just fine. Why had I thought I should upend my career? What had I been thinking?
It got dark outside the window, even though it was noon. The seat belt light went on, and the captain made an announcement that was incomprehensible except for the words storm and a little turbulence. As if on cue, the plane jerked.
No big deal. It was a short flight—just over two hours. What could go wrong on a flight this short?
Forty-five minutes later, I was gripping the arms of my seat with white-knuckled, sweaty hands as the plane jerked harder and harder. The flight crew were pasty-faced, kids were crying, and at least one person near the back was definitely throwing up. Next to me, Mrs. Cooper was crouched in her seat with her hands up as if she expected us to drop from the sky. I thought she might be right.
I thought about my parents. My friends. Stella, whose texts I hadn’t answered before we took off. I thought of High School Reunion , which would be the last film I made if I died right now. Netflix would release it with a special dedication to me in the opening credits. People would shake their heads and say it was sad. My fan pages would mourn. KatieWatch would have to shut down.
If I died right now, that would be my mark on the world—Netflix romcoms. I would never have made something really, really good. I would never have made something that challenged me.
I would never have been sexy and unpredictable and hot. I would never have kissed the bad boy rock star with the gorgeous blue eyes. I would never have done anything fun.
“Oh, dear Jesus,” Mrs. Cooper said as the plane jerked again. Her cheeks were wet. She was crying.
I was going to die here on this flight with strangers. I wasn’t going to go peacefully in my deathbed fifty years from now, full of great memories of sleeping bag sex with Travis White.
It was the last thought I had before we dropped like a roller coaster and everyone screamed.
Two hours later, I knocked on Travis’s apartment door. I was wet from the thunderstorm still happening outside. My knees were rubbery, and I was lightheaded. I remembered almost nothing about getting here from the airport, about the concierge letting me up because Travis had given him my name. I was still shaky, and my skin was clammy.
The door swung open. Travis was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and dark gray sweatpants, and even though he was no longer poolside in California, he still looked golden. His hair was clean and tousled. His eyes were vivid blue. He wore a thin silver chain that disappeared into the neckline of his shirt. He smiled like he was happy to see me, and the sight was so beautiful it made me crazy.
I let go of the handle of my roller suitcase, and before Travis could speak, I stepped forward, put my arms around his neck, and kissed him.
He hesitated for only the briefest second, and then he kissed me back. His arms came around my waist, and he pulled me to him and leaned in. He shifted his weight to one foot, and I heard the apartment door bang shut behind me as he kicked it closed.
Then I was kissing Travis White, and it was even better than I had thought it would be.
He tasted decadent and satisfying, like a buttery pastry. His skin was warm, his mouth expert as it explored mine. He teased my lips apart, then relished me like I was a gourmet meal, his palms sliding up my back. He smelled like soap and a primal man-smell that made me feral. I kissed him with everything I had, my body fused to his, my arms wound around him, my hands in his hair. My brain shut down as I soaked him in, and the only thing I knew was that I wanted what I wanted, and I wanted it now.
When the kiss finally broke with the slow cooling of a glacier melting, Travis’s skin was flushed and his pupils were dark. He didn’t let me go.
“Hi,” he rasped.
“Hi,” I whispered. I didn’t let him go, either. We stared at each other for a long second.
“That was quite a greeting,” Travis said.
It occurred to me, dimly, that I might be giving him the wrong idea. I had showed up on his doorstep and flung myself at him. I should probably do something to get some distance, appear more businesslike.
I cleared my throat. “I, um, thought we should probably kiss. You know, for the script.”
“Yeah?” he said.
God, he smelled so good. Why were my arms still around his neck? I would remove them any minute now. “Yes. If we’re going to give the impression that we’re…doing things, then we should be…comfortable with each other, by which I mean—oh, my God, Travis.”
He had dipped his head and was kissing the side of my neck, trailing his lips over my skin. I felt that touch all the way down my body. Even my shoulders and the backs of my legs were tingling. It was incredible.
He lifted his lips from my neck and rumbled his sexy voice in my ear. “It’s a good idea. For the script.” Then he lowered his mouth again, tasting my skin.
I tried to keep focus as he made my body light up. “It needs to be believable,” I managed. “It isn’t believable if we look like we barely know each other. Body language, and all that. We want to sell the relationship.”
“You taste like vanilla,” Travis said. “I don’t know how that’s possible.”
“Also, I almost died on the flight here,” I said.
He lifted his head and frowned in concern. “What? Are you all right?”
I let out a breath. “I’m fine, except that I’m going to make sure my will is up to date. Okay, maybe it wasn’t actually that close to death. But it felt like it. The turbulence was so bad even Mrs. Cooper couldn’t handle it, and she was a high school guidance counselor.”
He looked confused, and I didn’t blame him. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. Are you hungry? I stocked the kitchen. You probably want to freshen up. Oh, and I want to show you something. Be right back.”
He let me go, and just like that, he was heading up the staircase to the upstairs bedroom. Sobriety hit me, and I realized several things at the same time.
First, I was disappointed that Travis wasn’t touching me anymore.
Second, I was hungry and I needed to pee.
And third, I wasn’t embarrassed about jumping Travis. At all.
I waited for the anxiety to hit, waited for my brain to start second- and third-guessing what I had just done. Waited for the certainty that it was crazy, that I didn’t know Travis, that I should apologize, that I needed to take control of the situation and set it right. And I didn’t feel…any of it.
I didn’t feel weird that I was staying here with him. In fact, now that I looked around, it was a nice place. I went to the bathroom and washed up, and when I came out, Travis had pulled a chair up to the bar-height kitchen island. In front of him was a cheap spiral notebook and a pen.
“Okay?” he asked me.
“Yeah.” I opened the fridge—which was indeed stocked—and took out a bottled fruit smoothie. “How did you get this place?” I asked as I looked for a glass.
Travis flipped open his notebook. “I borrowed it from Finn Wiley.”
I put the bottle down in shock. “Finn Wiley ? As in, ‘Ice Cream Girlfriend’ Finn Wiley?”
Travis rolled his eyes at my mention of the huge hit song from years ago. “That’s him.”
“I love that song. I listen to it on repeat sometimes when I need to get in a mood for a scene. He’s a friend of yours?”
Travis shrugged, as if this was unimportant. His friends included Andy Rockweller and Finn Wiley, and it wasn’t a big deal to him. I’d met many celebrities—or I’d been in their orbit at parties, which counted as the same thing—but I hadn’t stayed at their houses. Maybe the music business was different. Maybe it was just Travis.
“Sit and look at this,” he said, already moved on from the topic of the apartment. “I want to know what you think.”
I brought my drink to the island and sat down across from him, and for a second I was distracted again by how gorgeous he was and that a minute ago he’d been kissing me. Really kissing me, and his body had been against mine, and I had felt?—
“The kiss was a good idea,” he said, as if reading my mind. “I see what you’re getting at if we want to sell this. We can’t look like middle school kids at the school dance when we’re out in public. We have to look like we’re doing it.”
“Uh, right.” I couldn’t help it when my gaze darted up toward the bedroom upstairs. Business. He was talking business.
“Like really doing it,” Travis said. “You’ve got this good girl reputation, right? And you want to get rid of it. You want it to look like you dropped your panties for me. Like you’re having this wild fling, and everyone thinks you’ve gone crazy, but the sex is so good that you’ve stopped caring what anyone thinks.”
I nodded, mute. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, because that suddenly sounded like a really good idea. The near-death experience had rewired my brain.
“I googled you, but I didn’t see that you’ve done anything like that before,” Travis continued as I stared at him in lust-filled silence. “There was something about a boyfriend, but that’s it.”
I cringed. “That was a few years ago. He’s a producer. We dated for a while.” It had actually been a year, and we broke up because he wanted me to quit acting and have his babies instead of a successful career. Far from feeling heartbroken, I was only annoyed that he had sucked up an entire year of my life.
“You’ve never hooked up with a co-star?” Travis asked.
“What? No. ” I thought of Charlie Mackle, his tongue in my mouth, and recoiled in horror. Even Jimson Greer and his six-pack did nothing for me. “They’re coworkers, not friends or boyfriends. It would be unprofessional. Acting is my job, not a dating app.”
A smile touched the corner of Travis’s perfect mouth. “I can see why you need a little rock n’ roll to juice up your image. But I can work with this. We’ll get you sexier roles.”
“I don’t want sexier roles. I want the role. The Holy Grail of roles. In Edgar Pinsent’s next film.”
Travis’s eyebrows went up. “Really? I saw his last one, the World War Two one. It was intense.”
“I’ve auditioned three times,” I said. “I’m close, so close. But his assistant told my agent that Edgar says I’m too sweet to cast.”
“Fuck him,” Travis said. “Didn’t he see Party of Two , where you’re trying to seduce the guy with the bad haircut? You cut the hem off your dress to make it shorter, and you tugged the shoulder down to show your bra strap, and you did this sexy walk in heels. It was straight-up fucking hot.”
My brain went blank. “You watched one of my movies?”
“I watched all of your movies,” Travis said. “I think I liked Sweet Summer Vacation best, because the speedboat scene was so funny. Your comedy skills are killer. But then there’s the scene where you’re helping your mom after your dad died, and you made it bittersweet, happy and sad at the same time. I teared up, and it wasn’t just because of the weed gummy.”
I wasn’t computing much of what he was saying. My brain was stuttering.
I was a successful actress. I had steady work. I had fans. I even had KatieWatch.
But I had never dated a man who had watched any of my movies.
Not ever.
Not even the producer I’d dated for a year.
Because even when a man liked me enough to date me, it was beneath him to sit all the way through one of my silly romcom movies. Every time.
And this man—Travis White, the freaking rock star—had watched all of them. It was suddenly very difficult not to crawl over this kitchen island and tackle him to the floor.
He hadn’t noticed that he had just blown my mind. He was still talking business.
“Okay, so we get Edgar Pinsent to cast you,” he was saying. “What’s the role?”
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know. No one has read the script yet. I only know that whatever the role is, I want it.”
Travis didn’t question this. He nodded. “I wrecked the script you wrote for us, and I feel bad about that. You worked hard on it.”
We should do more kissing, was all I could think. Starting as soon as possible. “Um, that’s okay. The script had some problems. I realize that now.” Breakfast? Had I actually thought that going for breakfast with Travis would change my image?
“I came up with other things, as an apology,” Travis said. He pointed to the page in his notebook. “I listed ideas.”
I tore my gaze from his face and squinted at the page. Travis’s handwriting looked like someone had attempted to murder him while he wrote the list. “I can’t read that.”
Travis pointed to one of the indecipherable blobs. “This says that you get a tattoo,” he suggested.
I shook my head, but my gaze wandered to the edge of the snake tattoo coming out of his sleeve. So sexy. “No tattoos,” I said.
He waggled his brows. “You would look hot with ink.” But when I shook my head again, he moved on and pointed to another blob. “Fine. We’ll see some local bands. That one’s not negotiable. Portland has a rocking music scene.”
“I’ll do it.” Being seen at a concert with my hot rock star boyfriend was perfect. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it. Also, it sounded fun. “What else?”
“We hang around town like normal people.” He leaned back in his chair, gesturing expansively. “The way I see it, you’ve left L.A. for a getaway. A vacation. You left the pressure and the bullshit behind, and you’re hanging out here, enjoying life while I fuck you every night. And every morning, too. Change up your wardrobe a bit—not a lot, but a little. Looser stuff, layers, not much makeup, your hair natural like you just rolled out of bed with me. And every time we’re out, I’m all over you. Like I’m obsessed, right? Everyone will think that not only are you having this fling, you’re completely rocking my world. People will love it.”
I was nearly speechless again. “I’m rocking your world?”
“Oh yeah.” Travis warmed to the topic, his blue eyes lit up with mischief. “Katie, you’re not only owning it, you’re a sex goddess. Confident. You take no shit. You get what you want, when you want it, and you don’t apologize for it. I’m addicted. I’m completely whipped, and I’m loving it, and I don’t care who knows. If we can pull it off, it’ll be hot. You won’t be romcom girl anymore.”
I swigged my smoothie, because I was suddenly so turned on it was embarrassing. I had come up with dinner at Nobu, and Travis had come back with sex goddess. Me, a sex goddess.
I could do it. I could be that woman—the one who brought Travis White to his knees and made him drool for her. I could play her. I wanted to play her. Part of me also wanted to be her, for real.
“Well?” Travis asked, because I had been silent too long. “What do you think?”
I put my empty drink down and said the thought that crowded my mind, no matter how I tried to distract myself from it. “There’s only one bed in this apartment.”
He waved that away. “Oh, right. I’ll sleep on the sofa, don’t worry. It’s just pretend.”
I nodded. That made sense. When I impulsively came to Portland, it wasn’t because I wanted to share a bed with Travis. I wasn’t actually having an ill-advised fling with him. It was just pretend.
My gaze darted to the sofa. It looked large and comfortable. “I’m your guest, though. I could?—”
“No, Katie.” He shook his head. “Not happening. I’ve slept in worse places than that sofa. I’ll be fine.”
Were we really doing this? It looked like we were.
“Show me your notes,” I said, motioning for his messy notebook. “And tell me your ideas. I’m listening.”