19. Anna
ANNA
We sit in the tub. The water goes still.
"It's over. You got the Sentinel. Mission accomplished, right?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"The contract was void the day we slept together. We have no contract."
"Uh huh."
"You know I would never hurt you."
"So we don't have to fake it anymore," he says.
"I was never faking it. Not even eight years ago." I look at him across the water. "I wanted you to be my first."
"When was this?"
"There was a night in my room. A Sunday. We ordered pizza, and we were rehearsing Act Five. And instead of kissing me you left."
"I remember."
"So I will make myself very clear."
I hold his gaze.
"Take off your shirt."
He takes it off. Drops it wet on the floor.
"Take off your pants."
He does. Drops his underwear on the floor.
We're facing each other. Nothing between us.
"I'm going to make love to you," I say.
I move toward him slowly. My hand at the side of his face. My thumb tracing his jaw.
I kiss him.
Not the kind we do for cameras. Not fast or performed. Slow and certain, his mouth on mine while the water holds us both.
I pull back just enough to look at him.
I close the distance between us and kiss him again, deeper this time, my hands in his hair, his hands finding my waist under the water and pulling me closer until there's nothing left between us but heat and the soft sound of the water moving.
I settle over him slowly. His hands gripping my hips. His breath catching.
His body swallowing me.
I take my time.
I move above him with my hands on his chest and his eyes open on mine and the water shifting around us in slow waves. His jaw is tight. His hands grip harder.
"Look at me," I say.
He does.
I keep his gaze and keep moving and watch everything he's been holding back move across his face.
I move faster. Deliberate. Watching his face.
His jaw tightens. His hands grip my hips harder. His breath comes in short and he tries to hold it together and I don't let him.
I keep moving.
His head falls back.
I feel it happening. I hold on and wait for him.
A sound low in his throat, raw and unguarded, nothing performed about it. His whole body tenses beneath me and then releases, his arms coming around me hard, pulling me down against him as he goes, the water rising around us both.
I hold him through it. And we release together. The way I've dreamt it a hundred times.
My face in his neck. My hands on his back. Feeling every wave move through him until it's done.
His heart slamming against mine. Slowing down.
My body still humming.
After, I stay where I am.
His hand moving slow through my wet hair.
The water going still around us.
"Oh my God… Anna… Anna…"
"Say it, say it Luke. It's okay, you can say it."
"I love you."
I kiss the lips that just said it.
Morning comes with light. I wake up.
I hear Luke coming back with Zeke barking.
I go to my room and dress.
My bathroom is spotless. Nina has already been here.
I go downstairs.
Nina has egg whites and avocado ready.
"Morning," she says.
"Morning."
"Did you have a pool party in your bathroom?"
"Sorry, I would have cleaned it." I make coffee.
"Must have been fun."
Zeke crosses the kitchen and leans his whole weight against my legs. I rub his head.
"He's at the gym," Nina says, before I ask.
I take my coffee to the chair by the window and open my book and read the same line four times.
Through the glass I can see him on the pull-up bar.
He comes in. Sweat through his shirt. He drinks half a bottle of water.
"Morning," he says with a knowing smile.
"Morning."
My phone buzzes.
Text from Delia. Come in at eleven. We should talk.
I'm almost relieved to have somewhere to be.
On the way to Delia's office I drive past my old diner. But now I'm in a Mercedes convertible. Dating a movie star.
Delia's assistant offers me still or sparkling.
I say still.
Elle walks me into the conference room. "You and Luke crushed this. Over five million views across all platforms in the last three months. And overwhelmingly positive. People really bought this love affair."
We sit. She walks me through the numbers and some of the best performing images. "You look amazing by the way. You really learned how to turn it on for the camera and your angles."
Delia comes in with two coffees and sits across from me like we're about to negotiate something, which I suppose we are.
"Luke's deal is signed," she says. "Morocco. Six months. Production starts in eight weeks."
"Great."
"Which brings me to you." She sets her coffee down. "The agreement is done. What do you want to do?"
I look at my coffee cup.
Three months ago that question had a simple answer.
"Are you dropping me?"
Delia studies me.
"I asked what you want to do."
"I want to stay," I say. "In LA. Acting. I have some momentum. I want to keep going."
"Good." She picks up her pen. "I want to keep working with you. You're talented and you're not difficult and you're smart." She clicks the pen.
Something loosens in my chest.
"Thank you," I say.
"Don't thank me. Book the jobs." She looks at me over her reading glasses. "And Anna."
"Yeah."
"I'm telling you this as your manager. You've got seventy-five thousand dollars coming to you. I'd get your own place."
I nod.
"He's leaving in eight weeks," she says.
"I never told you this. But I waited on you a few times in my diner."
"I remember. You used to write little hearts on your checks."
"I thought you were such a bitch."
"She is," Elle says.
"But now I'm your bitch."
I drive home with the top down.
Eight weeks.
The number sits in the passenger seat the whole way up the canyon. I keep doing the math like the answer will change. It doesn't.
Eight weeks in his house. Then six months in it without him.
Or I get my own place, like Delia said.
I have to talk to Luke about what's next.
Luke is in the kitchen when I get home.
There's a duffel bag on the counter.
I look at it.
I look at him.
"It's yours," he says.
I open the zipper.
Seventy-five thousand dollars in cash, bundled and stacked, exactly as agreed.
It's laying there like a bank heist.
"I signed the Sentinel deal," he says.
"That's great. It worked."
I zip it closed.
"You want to count it?"
"No, I trust you."
We stand there a while.
"You're not saying anything," I say.
"Like what?"
"There's an elephant in the room."
"Which is?"
"I'm still here. Do you want me to leave? Should I be going online and looking for a place?"
"After last night, hell no."
"Nina was pissed. We made a mess."
"You made a mess."
"We're dating. For real now."
"I guess so."
I look at him across the kitchen.
"And when you get back, I'll move out."
"We'll see…"
It should feel like less than what I need.
It doesn't.
"Okay," I say.
I pick up the duffel bag and carry it to my room.
I put it in the closet.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
Seventy-five thousand dollars. And eight weeks left before Morocco.
I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling.
I get a text from Priya. Lunch. West Hollywood. Her and Jade.
The cafe is one of those places where everyone is eating a salad they don't want and watching the door to see who walks in.
Priya does the talking. She bombed an audition this morning. Forgot her lines. Went up in the middle and couldn't find her way back.
"I sat there," she says. "Like an idiot. Staring at the reader."
"It happens to everyone," Jade says.
"It happened to me last week," I say.
"It does not happen to you," Priya says.
We order. We talk. Jade has her laughing by the time the food comes.
My phone buzzes.
Delia. About the audition I did last week. The cable drama. They want me.
A second text.
FYI they added a scene. Topless. In bed with the lead. Read it before you say anything.
I read the scene a few times.
In the original, he picks my character up in a bar. End of scene. I liked it. Decent writing.
Now he takes her home. They sleep together. My chest is exposed on camera for the whole world to see. Including Montana.
I put the phone face down.
"What?" Jade says.
I tell them.
"Hell yeah," Priya says. "Do it."
"It's more money," Jade says. "And it's nothing. I stripped for four months before I booked my first job. Four months of drunk men in New Jersey throwing singles at me. This is a closed set with an intimacy coordinator and a paycheck. It's not even in the same universe."
"It's really not," Priya says. Not surprised. Just confirming. "The funny thing is she's had two auditions to play a stripper and never booked one."
"Not even a callback," Jade says.
"It means they think you're sexy," Priya says. "You have nice tits. Do it while you're young."
"Is there an intimacy coordinator?" Jade asks.
"It says there is."
"Then it's fine. They're in the room the whole time. The whole thing is awkward and professional and over in an hour." She looks at me. "Anna. Compared to what some of us have done to get here, this is nothing. Say yes."
I look at the table.
I call Delia from the sidewalk after lunch.
"There's an intimacy coordinator," she says before I can ask. "Closed set. It's standard now."
"Okay."
"It's a good role, Anna. It's more than three lines."
I hear my mother's voice.
"I'm going to think about it," I say.
"I need an answer now. Or it's gone."
I look down the boulevard. The billboards. The faces twenty feet tall.
The city that told me a few months ago I wasn't sexy enough to play the best friend now wants me naked.
There's a huge poster of Sydney Sweeney.
"Fuck it," I say. "Yes."