Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Katie
When I woke on my first official morning as Travis White’s fake girlfriend, the apartment was quiet. I was alone in bed, of course, because my fake boyfriend wasn’t in here with me. He had slept on the sofa, as he’d promised.
He hadn’t looked put out when we went to bed last night. He’d just dug a spare sheet, pillow, and blanket out of a closet, made up the sofa, and said, “Night, Katie,” as if we’d been roommates for years. I’d climbed the stairs to the loft bedroom feeling vaguely disappointed, even though if he’d tried something, I would have said no. Probably.
My brain had no logic when it came to him. I’d been clear that I wasn’t going to sleep with him, and then I’d lain in bed in my pajamas, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the hot rock star downstairs, likely sleeping in—what, exactly? I was dying to know what he slept in, if anything. Sex with Travis White? Jeez, no thanks. I’m too stupid for that! What do you think I am, anyway? A single, straight woman with eyes? It isn’t like he’s a good kisser or anything.
Either I was being smart or I was the dumbest woman alive. I fell asleep undecided.
I could smell coffee downstairs, but I didn’t hear any sounds. When I looked at my phone on the nightstand, it was almost ten. I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept this late—I was usually working back-to-back shoots.
I walked to the top of the stairs, glancing down at my pajama shorts and matching pajama T-shirt. Both were loose-fitting, so Travis wouldn’t get too much of a show. I tried not to overthink it, and then I started down the stairs. Halfway down, I stopped.
In the loft, I could see the entire downstairs from above. There was coffee on in the kitchen. A steaming cup sat on the coffee table in the living room. And there, on the sofa, sprawled half out of the blanket, was Travis White, bathed in the golden morning light streaming in the windows.
Travis was awake, but his limbs were lazily stretched out. One bare leg had escaped the blanket, and I could see all the way to the hem of his boxer briefs. He had on a T-shirt, but one arm was bent behind his head, showing the full ink of his tattoos, all the way up his biceps. He was leaning back against the cushions, intent, his blue eyes fixed on the book he held in his other hand. As I watched, he turned the page.
The sexiest man I had ever seen was…reading. Every single part of me woke up. Even my toes were turned on.
I descended a few more steps, and Travis looked up from his book. “Morning,” he said in that smoky, deep voice. His gaze moved up and down me in an unmistakable way, and then fixed on my face. “Coffee’s on in the kitchen.”
“Ah hah,” I said stupidly, then cleared my throat. “I mean, sounds good.”
He didn’t move any part of his body except his eyes as he watched me walk to the kitchen. I self-consciously searched the unfamiliar cupboards for a mug. “Good book?” I asked to break the silence.
“Maybe,” Travis replied.
“You don’t know?” I poured my coffee, then walked to the living room. There was nowhere to sit except for the sofa. Travis slid his feet back, bending his knees and giving me room. The rest of him stayed sprawled where it was.
I sat. The blanket was warm from his body heat—or maybe that was just my lust-filled body. We were sitting on the sofa in our sleepwear, our bodies only inches apart.
I almost sipped my coffee, decided it was too hot, and put it down on the table. I had no desire to sputter hot coffee in front of him. “So. Wild night, huh?”
Those remarkably blue eyes blinked once, and then Travis grinned. He knew how crazy the situation was, innocent and hot at the same time. “Wild,” he agreed. “The best I ever had, baby.”
“I mean, wow ,” I said. “I’m sore all over.”
“You better be,” he said.
I picked up my coffee and swigged it, heat be damned.
Travis didn’t say anything else. He just watched me drink and put the cup down again. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
My gaze dropped to the book he was reading. “ A Tale of Two Cities ?” I asked him. He was reading Dickens? A classic? My ovaries couldn’t take any more of this onslaught. They cried for mercy.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “That’s why I don’t know if it’s good. It’s hard to understand. But I’m trying.”
“I haven’t read it since high school. I don’t remember it very well.”
“I only passed high school because I cheated,” Travis said. “So now I read books. It’s an attempt to improve my intellect. I have no idea if it’s working.”
I tried to hide my shock. “You cheated ?”
The grin touched the corner of his perfect mouth. “You didn’t?”
“I never even skipped a class.”
Something flared in Travis’s eyes. “Oh, baby,” he said, his voice low and smoky. “Talk dirty to me.”
“Stop it,” I said, laughing and turned on at the same time. “Or I’ll tell the world that you’re secretly a nerd. How do rock stars have time to read classics, anyway?”
“Lots of hours on planes, in airports, in hotels, and backstage,” he replied. “The high points are high, but a lot of it is boring.”
I nodded. “So it’s like being on set between takes.”
“Probably. What do you read on set between takes, Katie?”
Did he really want to know? Yes, he did. It was a question no other boyfriend had asked me, just like no other boyfriend had watched my movies. “I’d like to read more novels, but usually I read scripts,” I answered him. “I’m always lining up the next job.”
“You need work that bad?” he asked. “You seem successful to me.”
“I am, but it could end any minute,” I said. “Nothing is guaranteed. The industry could change. The market could change. I’m in my thirties, and women have an expiry date. If I’m being offered work, I have to take it before it all goes away. That’s the acting business.”
Travis rested the book on his chest and looked thoughtful. Before he could speak, I plunged on.
“The music business is the same in some ways, I guess,” I said. “But you’re a man. You can make music and get laid into your seventies.”
“The fuck,” he protested softly. “That sounds horrible. I’m way too lazy to work that long.”
“Maybe, but you have the option. I don’t. So I work.”
He was watching me, his gaze calm, and I felt like he could see straight into my head. “So it’s like you said yesterday,” he said. “You’ve never taken a break before.”
I shook my head. “I’ve never been able to afford it.”
“And can you afford it now?”
“Financially, yes,” I replied. “But this break is a gamble, Travis. I need Edgar Pinsent. He liked my auditions. Now he’s refinancing the project and rewriting the script, so I have another chance. If I land Edgar Pinsent—if I work with one of Hollywood’s most prestigious directors on a movie that will win Oscars—then I don’t have to worry all the time. My career will be made.”
Travis scratched his jaw, thinking. His hand moved slowly. I watched. Even his fingers were beautiful, long and graceful, the nails clean and trim.
“Got it,” he said. “Get dressed, babe. Let’s get this done.”
We started by going for coffee at the hipster coffee shop downstairs. When Travis saw what I was wearing—jeans and a button-down shirt with a belt—he not only sent me back to change, he came up to the loft’s bedroom and went through my suitcase himself.
He made no comment on my underwear or my pack of birth control pills. I breathed silently through the embarrassment, reminding myself that if this was my actual boyfriend, nothing in my suitcase would shock him. Finally, Travis pulled out a cotton camisole and held it up. “Wear this,” he said.
“That’s underwear,” I argued.
He frowned in confusion. “It’s a top.”
“It’s an indoor top,” I insisted. “It’s called lounge wear.”
“You can’t lounge outside?” His eyebrows went up. “Seems to me that you can. Keep the jeans, but change your shirt. We’ll add another layer.”
I snatched the camisole from his hand. “Fine, but turn your back. You’re not getting a free show.”
He turned his back, and I unbuttoned my shirt, slid it off, and put the camisole on. “This is too revealing,” I complained. “I’m not going to dress slutty all of a sudden. Also, it’s March.”
“You have no faith in my vision,” Travis said, turning around. His gaze zeroed in on my breasts for a second, even though I wore a bra under the camisole. Then he wrenched his eyes up to my face. “I am the Edgar Pinsent of sluttiness, Katie,” he proclaimed. “I’m an artist.”
That was charming, I had to admit. “But sluttiness isn’t my style,” I still protested as he turned to my suitcase again.
“Silence,” he ordered as he looked through my clothes. He held out a cream-colored cardigan, made of soft cashmere, one of my favorite things in my wardrobe. “Put this on.” He found a necklace. “And this.”
Once I had all of it on, I had to admit that I liked what I saw in the bedroom’s full-length mirror. The camisole was sexy where it peeked from the sweater, enough to be evocative but not over the top. It emphasized my throat and just enough cleavage while not revealing too much. My only makeup was mascara and lip gloss.
Travis stood behind me as I looked in the mirror. He wore jeans, a tee, and a plaid shirt unbuttoned over it, the cuffs rolled up his forearms, and he effortlessly looked like the sexiest man who had ever lived. He hadn’t shaved this morning to perfect the sex-marathon look. I wanted to lick him, but he didn’t notice. “Your hair,” he said.
“There’s nothing wrong with my hair.”
He shook his head and tutted. “Babe, you’ve never had sex hair? Come on.”
“Sex hair?” I said, worried, but he was already touching my hair where I’d put it neatly up, loosening strands. He placed a few wisps across my forehead and arranged more at the back of my neck.
When he had finished, I nearly gasped at the sight of myself. The effect was subtle, but it was hot . I was hot.
Was this what I was supposed to look like after sleeping with a man? I had never looked like this, even after falling into bed with someone. For me, sex—even good sex—had always been followed by proper sleep hygiene and a tidy look the next day. Then again, even good sex had always been over by eleven p.m. This look said that we’d gone until at least three, then woken up at seven to go again.
Was this what all of Travis’s girlfriends had looked like? His real ones?
I wasn’t going to think about that.
Before leaving, I put on my trench and Travis slid on a beat-up leather jacket. He added Ray-Bans, the pricey sunglasses contrasting with his low-cost outfit. He looked exactly like what he was—a rock star between gigs, getting coffee late on a weekday morning after (fictionally) having sex all night. He was irresistible.
People noticed. Heads turned in the coffee shop to follow us to the counter. Most of them stared at Travis, but a few of them stared at me. I put my own sunglasses on as we walked out into the sunny spring morning, cups in hand.
We started walking, our route aimless as we drank. It felt awkward only for half a minute, and then it…wasn’t. We started talking.
Travis was easy to talk to. He was interesting, funny, and smarter than he let on. He asked me questions, and when I when I talked his ear off in reply, he listened. An hour passed as if it were a few minutes as we took in the early-spring sunshine, the brisk air, and the bracing chill of Portland in March. Travis was stopped twice by fans asking for selfies, but other than a lot of looks, no one else bothered us, and I quickly forgot that we were supposed to be putting on a show.
When our coffees were empty and we had tossed the cups into a nearby trashcan, Travis took my hand in his. I stuttered as I felt his fingers gently clasp me. “Keep talking,” he prompted when I was quiet too long.
We were holding hands in public. It was strange and awkward only for a moment, and then it was nice. I curled my fingers around him and felt myself relax. I didn’t care about whether anyone noticed us. I was simply enjoying this.
It turned out that Travis White and I agreed on some very serious issues. One: Why anyone would scuba dive was beyond us, because the ocean was mostly unexplored and full of monsters, and humans didn’t belong in it. Two: Caramel didn’t need sea salt; it was good on its own. Three: Neither of us had ever eaten a piece of fruit from a fruit basket and would not do so even under duress, because you don’t know who has touched that thing. Four: Almost Famous was the greatest movie of all time.
The important things.
As we walked the final block back to the apartment, Travis switched it up. He let go of my hand and slung his arm over my shoulders, tugging me gently against him. By instinct, and to keep my balance, my arm slid around his waist. It should have been stiff, with us bumping against each other, but it wasn’t. We were in sync, and I knew we looked convincing. We looked like two lovers out for a post-coital stroll.
This was going to work.
I ignored the fact that he smelled good, that his body fit like a puzzle piece into mine. He was only a few inches taller than me, and his lean arm rested easily on my shoulders, his hand dangling. This was a man who didn’t need to grip or grab a woman to claim her; he knew exactly what he was doing with minimal body language. I might be the actor of the two of us, but Travis White had been using his body onstage for years, in front of crowds of thousands, and he was fully in command of every part of it.
I had kissed and put my hands on a lot of very attractive men, but this was different. Travis’s body under my arm was lithe and firm, and up close I could feel the inimitable way his hips moved. My skin prickled and I could suddenly feel my nipples under my clothes.
As I tried not to obsess over his sexy walk, Travis said casually, “We’ll make some ground rules up front. No kissing in public unless we discuss it first.”
I couldn’t speak.
“We don’t need to overdo it,” Travis continued, oblivious. “We can look hot without crossing lines. Trust me. I’ll sell it, but don’t worry that I’m going to grab your ass.”
It took a second for me to answer, because I was suddenly picturing his hand curving over me, taking its slow time, those fingers curling and squeezing. “Good to know,” I said.
“However,” Travis continued, “Feel free to grab mine anytime you like.”
I sputtered a laugh. “Travis!”
“I’m just saying. I consent.”
“I’m not going to grab your ass.”
“Even if you’re a woman breaking the rules on a wild fling?” he asked.
My face was burning. “Even then.”
“Sure,” he said skeptically. “We’ll see.”