Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Katie
Travis’s car was sexy. There was no other word for it. It was vintage, painted dusky blue with two wide, white stripes on the hood. I knew nothing about cars, but even I knew that when he turned the key and the whole thing vibrated smoothly like it was about to fly to the moon, I loved this one.
Travis watched my face for a long moment as the engine purred. “Did you just have an orgasm?” he finally asked.
I felt my cheeks heat. “This car has more charisma than any boyfriend I’ve ever had,” I admitted.
He laughed. “Until now. It’s okay—I love it, too. It’s a ’69 Camaro, in case that means anything to you. Mint condition. It’s the only thing I owned in my old life that I loved too much to sell.”
I blinked at that. I saw Travis as carefree and impulsive, not actually broke. “You sold everything?” I asked.
He listed off, counting on his fingers. “The house in Malibu. The other cars I bought—most of which I never drove. The New York apartment. The furniture was borrowed, and so was a lot of my wardrobe. It was a trip when the reps from the designers showed up to take all of their clothes back. They literally took my shoes.”
I stared at him in shock, sitting there in this car in the parking garage under his borrowed apartment building. “Sorry if this is a rude question, but—how the hell did that happen?”
Travis shrugged and put the car into gear, pulling out of the parking spot. “The record company and the managers took most of the money I ever made. I had to pay lawyers—expensive lawyers. And with all the lawsuits, I couldn’t afford to maintain the houses or the cars, anyway. It all had to go.”
“Travis, that’s terrible.”
He pulled out into traffic. “It’s life,” he said. “My parents are hippies. Sometimes we had money growing up—when they held down jobs—and sometimes we didn’t. When I was rich, they wouldn’t take my money. Now that I’m broke again, they don’t care about that, either. They’re on a camping tour right now. The last I heard, they were in British Columbia, smoking weed somewhere in the mountains. It was a weird childhood, but at least it taught me not to care about material things.” He paused. “Except for this car. I fucking love this car.”
We had pulled into traffic, and I rolled my window down to let the fresh air in. I sensed that Travis didn’t want to talk about his money problems in too much detail. “My parents won’t take my money, either,” I said. “I keep trying, but they refuse.”
“Annoying, isn’t it?” Travis said.
“So annoying. They live in Minnesota, in the same house I was born in. They’ve been married for forty years. My mom is a nurse, and my dad is a college professor. Neither of them plans to retire yet, even though I could help them do it. They say they like to keep busy.”
“They sound like nice people,” Travis said as we moved through traffic. We were only going to PDX, but it was still fun to take a ride in this car.
“They are nice.” I paused, thinking about how to word it. “But they feel…distant somehow. Like they live on another planet. My brother lives a few blocks from my parents with his wife and their daughter. We’re not as close as I wish we were.”
“Hollywood is far away from everything in every possible way,” Travis said. “It’s like living on the International Space Station.”
“Exactly.” I stared at his profile, thinking how nice it was to be understood for once. “I mean, I like it. I love my job. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted. But sometimes I go home to visit, and I think, do I know this place? I grew up there, but it feels like I don’t belong. And even though I love my life, it makes me sad. Then I don’t visit as much as I should, because of the sadness, and that just makes me sadder.”
“Ah, the sadness that makes you sadder because you feel sad about being sad. I know it well.”
My lips pressed into a smile. We stopped at a stoplight, and the guy in the car next to us did a double take. “Is the sadness why you were sitting naked by Andy Rockweller’s pool?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” Travis replied. “I thought I got clothes on before you saw me. I hope I didn’t give you a show.”
“You didn’t.” I could hear the regret in my voice. Travis laughed.
He was seeing me to the airport, where he was going to kiss me. We’d discussed it this morning on his sofa where he’d just woken up, the two of us pressed together. It had felt so comfortable that I hadn’t felt self-conscious until I realized we were talking about kissing.
Despite how strange the setup was, everything about this week had been perfect. And now I was leaving.
Damn, there was the sadness again.
We were quiet for a while, an easy silence between us. We talked about inconsequential things, and then he was parking in the short-term parking lot. It was ending too fast. I hadn’t had the chance to say—what? I didn’t know what there was to say, only that I felt robbed of time, as if I wasn’t going to see him again.
It was in the script that I’d see him again, because we hadn’t broken up. But when?
I wasn’t finished worrying about it when we got as far as Travis could go, close to the security line. He let go of the handle of my wheeled suitcase and turned to me.
I was still trying to come up with words, but Travis didn’t need them. He lifted his hands, cupped my jaw gently, and kissed me.
I leaned up and kissed him back, drinking him in. His lips were warm and expert, familiar from the last time we’d kissed. His hands put the lightest pressure on my skin. I reached under his jacket and put my hands on his waist, rising up on my toes so I could kiss him better.
It lasted a long, sweet moment. Not long enough.
He pulled back, his mouth losing contact with mine. “No tongue,” he said softly. “Just like we agreed.”
Had he wanted to kiss me? People were staring, I was sure. Someone might have snapped a photo. But with his hands on my jaw and his body so close, I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking only that I wanted to kiss him more, and I regretted that I’d had all week to do it. I should have kissed him every day, and now I was losing my chance.
For a second, as his blue eyes looked into mine, I was sure he felt the same way.
Travis hesitated, as if he was considering kissing me again. Then he stepped back and dropped his hands.
“See you later, Katie,” he said.
“Bye,” I answered, my voice a whisper, but the crowd swirled in and he was already gone.
When I got back to my apartment in L.A., I immediately texted my part-time assistant, Gwen. I need wardrobe help, I wrote. Can you come over?
She responded immediately. I need to TALK TO YOU!!!! I’ll be there in twenty.
I washed up and unzipped my suitcase as I waited for her. I didn’t need a full-time assistant, but I often needed help, especially when I was in the middle of shooting and working long hours. When I needed it, Gwen made sure my fridge was full, my clothes were cleaned and pressed, and my hair and nail appointments were made. My parents had raised me to look after myself, and I was hard-wired not to be completely helpless. I didn’t want to be one of those Hollywood people who can’t make a doctor’s appointment or renew a driver’s license, someone who doesn’t know how much groceries cost. I did most things myself, but with Gwen’s help so it didn’t become too much.
This worked for Gwen, who was twenty-four and—in her words—“didn’t want to be tied down to only one gig.” I certainly didn’t pay her enough to live on her own in L.A., and I didn’t know what else she did to make ends meet. I had the feeling the answer to that question changed from week to week. I only knew that Gwen was experienced, discreet, trustworthy, and for some reason, she hadn’t quit.
She had stocked my fridge, because I’d given her my flight information. She also had a key to my apartment, so as I spooned yogurt and granola into a bowl, she walked in without knocking. “Travis White? ” she said.
Gwen was short and curvy, and somehow she made high-waisted jeans look like she was a 1950s movie starlet. She could also pull off a pixie cut like no one I’d ever seen. She looked me up and down from behind her thick-framed, stylish glasses, and I instantly felt judged.
I straightened my spine, remembering my role. Sex goddess , I reminded myself. “Travis White,” I affirmed, digging my spoon into my bowl. “Thanks for stocking the fridge.”
“You’re welcome,” Gwen said. “What’s this about wardrobe help?”
“I think it’s time to change it up.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You mean you’re finally ready to stop dressing like my high school math teacher?”
I lowered my bowl. “I don’t dress that bad!”
She shrugged. “You dress a little geeky. You pull it off because you’re hot.” She waved up and down, indicating me. “But it needs work. I can help.” She walked past me into my bedroom, sliding the closet door open.
I followed, eating my snack. I didn’t know what I wanted, exactly, only that I had the itch to look different after the week I’d had.
Gwen had her back to me as she rifled through my closet like someone who had been in here plenty of times, putting away my dry cleaning. “You and Travis followed each other on Instagram,” she said. “That’s basically a wedding announcement.”
“I like him,” I said, which was true.
“I did you a favor,” she said without looking back at me. “I asked around about him. I figured someone should, since apparently you decided to get on a plane just to sleep with him. You date so rarely, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“What do you mean, you asked around?”
That got me an amused glance over her shoulder. “Assistants know everything, Katie. My neighbor’s roommate’s sister works for Sabrina Lowe. He says that when Sabrina and Travis were together, they weren’t hot and heavy. They saw each other maybe once a week, if that, and he never spent the night.”
I shoved a spoonful of yogurt and granola into my mouth, not wanting to admit how relieved I was that Travis hadn’t been hot and heavy with the most beautiful woman in pop music. That he might not be heartbroken over her.
“My roommate’s GrubHub driver’s sister is Andy Rockweller’s cleaning lady,” Gwen went on, pulling clothes on hangers from my closet and laying them on the bed. “She says that since Travis has been staying in Andy’s house, he hasn’t been partying and he hasn’t had any women over. At all.”
“That’s personal information,” I protested.
“You think we don’t know what’s going on?” Gwen said. “You think we don’t know who’s in bed with who, who’s drunk, who’s about to get a divorce? We know who’s cheating, who’s gay, and who’s so awful that no one will work for them anymore. And we talk. Not to exchange gossip, but for survival. It’s a whisper network.”
That was a lot to process. I should probably worry about what Gwen told the whisper network about me, but my brain was stuck on the fact that Travis hadn’t been lying when he told me he hadn’t been sleeping around. I felt myself let go of worry I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying. Travis was famous and he was freaking beautiful. He could have anyone. The fact that he hadn’t—I didn’t know why I cared, but I did.
Then I wondered why he’d been so alone. We had talked about sadness on the way to the airport. How depressed had he been?
“What else did you learn about Travis?” I asked, leaving my morals behind and deciding I didn’t actually want to know what Gwen said about me. Ever.
Gwen looked down at the clothes she’d spread on the bed, her hands on her hips. “No drugs at the moment, no weird sexual habits, no prescriptions, and no personality disorders,” she replied.
“What? How do you know his psychiatric diagnosis?”
Gwen held up a hand. “Trust,” was her only explanation. “The negatives are that he’s definitely broke, or close to it, so he might be using you for money. Also, he went off the rails when his band broke up. Drinking and punching people and wrecking things. But my sources say that behavior has cleared up. He hasn’t been drinking at Andy Rockweller’s or using any drugs. Andy Rockweller has been sober for decades. Also, my sources know other sources who know who scores what in this town, and Travis’s name isn’t on any of those lists.”
“You’re terrifying me right now,” I said. “Are Hollywood assistants part of the mafia?”
“No, we’re just not oblivious. So give me the scoop, Katie. Is he good in bed, or what?”
My face went red-hot. “I’m not telling you that. Sabrina Lowe’s second cousin’s Uber driver will know before you leave this apartment.”
Gwen looked me up and down again. “I can’t decide. Considering you just spent a week in that snack’s bed, you don’t look orgasmed out.”
“I am . I am orgasmed out. But I’m going back to work, so I need to be professional again.”
“Okay.” Gwen motioned to the clothes she’d laid out—tops, dresses, sweaters, blazers, skirts. “What are we doing with your clothes?”
I stared at the clothes, and suddenly I didn’t want to put any of them on ever again. I thought of how I had looked in Travis’s mirror, with my camisole and sex hair. I felt an ache low in my belly at the thought of being orgasmed out , but I ignored it. My chance had passed.
“I want to look sexy, but in a way that’s still me,” I said, the words coming out raw and almost sad. “I don’t feel the same as I did before. It isn’t about dressing for him. It’s about dressing for me. I want to look at myself and think I’m hot. Not smart and responsible and hardworking. Hot .”
Behind the lenses of her glasses, Gwen’s gaze softened, and she lost some of her attitude. Then she nodded as if she understood. “Yeah, Katie,” she said. “We can do that.”