12. Luke
LUKE
I'm wedged into a packed bar with my friends, watching the Steelers game on every screen in the place.
The room shakes every time Pittsburgh makes a play. Boots hit the floor. Fists pound tables. Beer sloshes over plastic cups. Somebody screams at the ref like the man can hear him through the television.
At halftime, Brad finally says it.
"What the fuck man, what's up with you and this chick?"
"We're dating that's what's up."
"I don't get it, man."
He pulls out his phone. Pulls up her Instagram. Slides it across the table.
"She's alright. But like — what the fuck, after Camille you go to...?"
"Her name's Anna."
"Right but before Luke Wolfe who was she?"
"My girlfriend, that’s who she is. What’s the problem?”
"I'm just saying man, you could have anyone?—"
"I'm with her." I say it flat. Final. "End of story. I'm not explaining her to you."
People yelling at touchdowns. Waitresses weaving through the crowd carrying trays of beer over their heads.
But our table goes quiet.
"I'm sorry, man," Brad says. "I thought you were fucking around, I didn't know it was serious."
"I didn't say it was serious."
"Dude, she moved in with you, before we even met her, and you guys are all over the gram."
He shows the Instagram reels of Anna kissing me in the restaurant. "You're going to lose your edge?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I mean you're Luke Wolfe, that means something," Brad says. "You're Paul fucking Rudd."
I sit there a moment.
I grab my jacket off the back of the chair.
"You're leaving?" one of them asks.
"I'm out."
"Game's not over."
But I'm already walking toward the door.
"Hey, I'm sorry man. Since when you got so fucking sensitive."
The cold air hits me the second I step outside.
The noise from the bar muffled behind the door.
I stand there for a second in the parking lot with my hands in my jacket pockets trying to figure out why that conversation pissed me off so much.
I get on the Ducati.
Just heat under my ribs and noise in my head, the kind of anger that doesn’t want justice. It wants speed. It wants something to break.
The 101 opens up in front of me, wide and ugly and alive. I lean into the throttle until the speedometer climbs past a hundred and ten.
Cars blur on either side. The engine screams beneath me. The city becomes headlights and concrete and bad decisions.
I flip my visor up and let the air hit my face hard enough to make my eyes water.
For a few seconds, I don’t have to feel anything.
I just have to hold on.
I hear Anna’s voice, Luke this is stupid. I ease of the throttle. Let the bike cruise down to seventy.
The house is dark. Mercedes is in the driveway.
Zeke meets me at the door.
I tell him to be quiet.
I rub his belly and move through the house quietly, past the kitchen, up the stairs.
Her door is open.
I stop.
I stand there too long.
I go to my room and close the door.
Turn on the TV.
I put on the end of the Steelers game.
I pick up my phone.
I scroll through Instagram without meaning to. The tagged photos from the Malibu party. Paparazzi shots from Beverly Hills. A photo someone took at the restaurant — her laughing at something I said, her head tilted back, completely unaware of the camera.
Comments everywhere. Who is she?
I put the phone down.
Pick it up again.
There's a candid someone posted from the boutique. Anna standing in the doorway of the fitting room. She doesn't know it was taken. She's just standing there, one hand on the frame, looking at something off camera.
A fan account posted it with a caption.
She's not looking at the camera. She's looking at him. And she doesn't even know she's doing it.
I read it three times.
I put the phone face down on the nightstand.
The next few days something shifts between us.
She's tense all the time now. I see it every time she checks her phone after auditions. Every time she pauses outside my bedroom door at night.
I read scripts I hate.
She goes to class. Auditions. She works out.
She's checking her phone constantly.
"Unbelievable," she slams the phone on the counter.
"You have to ignore it."
"They're not saying vile things about you."
"They say I can't act," I say.
"She looks uncomfortable in her own face, that's what it says about me."
"You shouldn't look it up."
She goes to her room. Slams the door.
Delia comes by with Elle for a strategy meeting a few days later. I've told her how Anna is taking her new popularity.
Elle sets up in the living room with her laptop and a ring light and pulls up two weeks of social media analytics.
The numbers are good. Better than good. The Malibu party content performed. The boutique photo performed. The restaurant video performed. Luke Wolfe has a girlfriend, and the internet has decided it approves.
"We need more organic content," Elle says. "Candid. In the house. Something that feels real."
"It is real," I say.
Elle looks at Delia.
Delia looks at the pool.
"Get in the water," she says.
"I don't want to get in the water," Anna says.
"Okay, I won't tell you the really good news if you don't get in the water."
"You're lying."
"I'm not lying. Get in the water."
"If you're lying, I'm going to be pissed."
"Oh, yeah. I'm scared."
Anna stomps upstairs.
Delia shakes her head. "Actresses."
I get my trunks from the bathroom.
Anna comes down.
Delia looks at Anna. "You've lost weight."
"Six pounds."
"GLP-1 you would have lost ten by now," Delia says. "Get in."
"I haven't had bread in two weeks."
"Is that what's pissing you off?"
The pool is warm.
Anna surfaces beside me pushing her hair back off her face and I have to look somewhere else for a second.
Elle is on the terrace with her camera. Delia is beside her saying something I can't hear.
"Why don't you guys hug and stuff. Kiss," Elle says.
I splash Anna.
She goes underwater and comes up right in front of me and pushes both hands into my face and I grab her wrists and we're both laughing before either of us decides to.
Elle's camera is going the whole time.
I kiss her. This is for the camera. Tame.
"Can you lighten up a little? Pretend you're having fun," Elle says.
"Hey, Anna, you got the Private Paradise part," Delia says.
Anna goes completely still.
"Are you serious?"
"Yes! You got it."
Anna screams.
Water goes everywhere.
She grabs my shoulders like she needs something solid to hold on to.
"Holy shit," Anna says.
She splashes water.
"Oh my God."
Elle's laughing behind the camera. "This is incredible content."
I pull her into a hug that lifts her off the water slightly.
She lets out this surprised breath against my shoulder, half laugh half something else, and her arms come around my neck hard.
"I told you," I say into her hair.
Her fingers tighten behind my neck.
When I put her down, I don't let go right away.
We kiss.
Her hands slide into my hair. Mine pull her closer.
We don’t stop.
We sink under the water kissing.
We come up for air. Laughing.
"Wow. That was… Wow. These are amazing," Elle says. "That was brilliant Delia."
Delia isn't smiling.
Anna climbs out of the pool and wraps a towel around herself. She's still laughing at something Elle said, her wet hair pushed back, completely unguarded.
She looks over at me.
I look back.
Delia sees it.
I walk Delia and Elle outside.
Delia hangs back while Elle drives off.
She leans against her car.
Anna is inside calling her mother.
"You slept with her," Delia says.
I don't say anything.
"Why? Why?"
"It just happened."
"The agreement has a clause. No sex. You had sex. The agreement is now void."
"We both wanted to."
"It's void. Doesn't matter if she got on her hands and knees and begged you."
"Do you want to know how it happened?"
"No, I don't want to know. It's void. I hope it was worth it because you are now vulnerable."
"I don't think she's thinking about that."
"She's a fucking lawyer. Her mother's a lawyer. You see where I’m going with this?
I look at the house above me up the hills.
"Which means whatever this is now, it's not PR." She stands. "She can sue the pants off of you and take this house. Sell this to TMZ.
“She’s not like that.”
“I understand Eliza Doolittle getting caught up in this little fantasy. But you have no excuse?”
"We only did it once."
"I'm trying to help you."
"I'm aware of that."
"It goes without saying but I will say it because I didn't think I had to say it before. Do not sleep with her again."
“If I can’t sleep with my fake girlfriend who can I sleep with?”
"I need a verbal so I'm clear you understand."
"I will not sleep with Anna again."
"Thank you."
"Do you think this whole fake dating thing is going to cause people to see me as soft?"
She ignores me. Gets in her car.
“You look good by the way.”
She gives me the finger and drives away.