Chapter Thirty-Two
“Let’s get out of here, Vera,” Brody said as he opened the driver’s-side door and then motioned to me expectantly. “Get your shit. Get Marlon. Let’s go home. I’ll even have someone come out and drive your car back. We can talk things out on the way back to LA.”
“What?” I stood on the sidewalk, my feet so heavy they felt like they might sink into the concrete at any moment.
He slammed the car door shut and walked back over to me.
“I know you lied about the script, okay? And I don’t care.
I can explain about the restructure in the car if you’ll just give me the chance, but first come back with me.
Let’s get you out of this place. What are you even doing here with all these old people? It’s depressing as hell, honestly.”
Was this really it? The moment I’d always dreamed of when Brody wanted me. The moment when he would pick me and sweep me off my feet. And I could only describe it as . . . disappointing.
“What do you want, Brody?” My voice broke.
“Which Vera is it that you’re trying to get back?
Your assistant who saves your ass? The one who you planned on firing to trim the fat from your payroll?
Or is it the friend who keeps your secrets and never lets you feel alone?
How about the girl you’ve slept with for years but have never taken on a date? Take your pick.”
I balled my fists to stop my fingers from trembling.
Somewhere deep inside of me, I thought I’d always have Brody.
I might never have him in the way I’d wanted him for all those years, but I could always be his Vera who saved the day and remembered he was allergic to pineapple and that he liked to stock up on old iPhones from eBay because he missed the home button.
His face twisted with confusion, and that angered me even more.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Vera.
You want a raise? You want me to help circulate your script?
We can talk about all those things and .
. . and all the other stuff too. I know this feels complicated.
But it doesn’t have to be.” He pointed back and forth from me to him.
“We work, Vera. And yes, I didn’t appreciate you like I should have.
I shouldn’t have even entertained letting you go. We can talk about—”
“You need to go,” I said too softly. There was no more use in fighting.
“What?”
“You need to go,” I repeated again with assurance. Whatever we had become wasn’t worth fighting for. “You need to go back to LA, Brody.”
He pointed to the door of Eli’s apartment. “Whoever you think he is, you’re wrong. He’s always looked down on you, Vera. On both of us. You have to know that.”
“This isn’t about you or him,” I told Brody. Especially when neither of them was even capable of being what I wanted. “It’s about me.”
He paused for a long moment, then nodded to himself. “Please answer next time I call. This conversation isn’t over. It can’t be.” My heart pulsed erratically in my chest as he got into his stupid expensive car and I watched him drive away.
I hardly registered my body walking back inside until I saw Eli pacing in front of the couch.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” His voice was quiet.
Wounded. Resigned. “Just tell me and get it over with.” His hair was a mess, like he’d taken out all of his stress on it.
“I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew it was a matter of time and that you’d eventually go back.
” He continued to pace, and I think this was the closest thing to panic I’d ever seen Eli get.
I stepped into his path and wrapped my fingers around his forearms. “I’m here,” I said. “I told him to leave. I’m still here.”
He heaved in a breath, his hand lifting to me briefly before he turned back and sat down on the edge of the couch with his head in his hands.
“Hey.” I went to sit beside him.
He let out a stuttering sigh, his spine arching with every breath.
“Hey.” I nudged his arm. “What’s going on?” This couldn’t just be about Brody.
“Edmundo,” he said. “The resident that went into the hospital tonight. He had an aneurysm.” He shook his head.
“I couldn’t get a hold of his family in time.
They were too late.” He squeezed his eyes shut and a few tears fell down his cheek.
“I don’t know why this one hit me so hard.
I think—I just didn’t expect it. I thought he was fine. I told him he was fine. Fuck. Sorry.”
I pressed the palm of my hand to his back and rubbed circles just like my mom would when my head was too full of what-ifs or when Ruby had done something particularly infuriating.
“And then I got home to see Brody Turner standing in my living room and I just wanted to eviscerate him.”
“Eviscerating sounds very messy.” He didn’t laugh, so I went for what I really wanted to say. “Can you please tell me what happened between the two of you?”
He shook his head. “He’s a user, Vera.”
“What did he do to you?” I asked. “Was it something to do with your family? Some kind of connection he took advantage of? I don’t get it.”
His green eyes searched mine. “What did he want from you?”
“He wanted me to come back.”
“As his employee?” His voice was low enough to graze the floor.
“What else would I be to him?”
He swallowed slowly as his gaze lingered on my lips. “You loved him.”
I couldn’t find the words to say he was wrong.
“You always did, Vera. You loved him. He needed you. And maybe you loved to be needed by him. Whether you were helping him study or coaching him through family drama or giving him a pep talk before an audition. He would always do whatever it took to keep you around. Whatever it took.”
My chest flushed with shame. “Whatever it took? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Tell me you didn’t love him. Through all those years. Tell me and I’ll shut the hell up right now.”
“Why would that be any of your business, Eli?”
“It’s not. It stopped being my business the moment the annulment was finalized. Trust me. I know that. But let’s just say you did love him. What were you to him? Were you ever more than an employee and a friendly fuck?”
I couldn’t open my mouth without telling him the truth. A friendly fuck. It sounded so vulgar. So insignificant. It sounded nothing like how I felt for Brody and everything like how he treated me.
He went on, his tone softer. “Did it ever occur to you that he gave you just enough of what you desired to keep you around? That he’d been stringing you along for twenty years with no plans for the future?”
I shot up from the couch, my balance unsure as the pain of what he said rocked through me. Eli could play the nice guy all he wanted, but he always found a way to make what he thought of me crystal clear. My head was full of angry static. “Is that how you see me? Just a pity fuck?”
“No,” he said firmly as he stood to meet me. His eyes were wild and begging me to understand. “God, no, Vera. I see a boy—because that’s what Brody is. A boy. A boy who got used to needing you and knew that he could keep you around if he gave you a small taste of what you wanted in return.”
“And is it so incredibly impossible that someone like Brody could just want me? No strings attached. Is my presence—my body, my homely personality—such a nuisance? Am I that grotesque?”
He lunged forward then, his warm, trembling fingers curled firmly around my upper arms. “Don’t you ever—ever—refer to yourself that way again.
For fuck’s sake, Vera. Don’t you get it?
Brody’s been keeping you like a fucking houseplant.
Giving you just enough light to stay alive, but not enough to grow. ”
A few slow tears began to brim at the corners of my eyes as he pulled me in closer so that we were nearly pressed together.
The angry heat I’d felt just moments ago took root in my gut and turned into something hungrier.
It was the first time we’d intentionally touched since that morning in my room.
Not that he’d even really touched me then, and yet it still felt impossibly intimate and vulnerable.
“Vera Stein, you deserve all the light.”
I sucked in a breath as he traced a finger across my forehead and then pushed my overgrown bangs behind my ear.
He curled an arm around my waist, breath hot as his lips found mine. It was tentative at first. Exploratory. A soft, dragging touch.
Every time his mouth left mine—however briefly—I went in search of him so that whatever he did, my lips were there waiting to be found. “Please,” I said on a whisper.
He nodded against my neck as his lips danced across my jawline and nipped at the lobe of my ear. His hands began to move frantically, like he was trying to memorize me by touch. And then his mouth found mine again.
My nails scraped up the back of his neck and into his hair as his tongue moved against mine, and our kiss grew deeper and wider.
My brain didn’t even have a moment to metabolize what my body would feel like to him and the rolls at my hips that so many others politely referred to as curves and the way some of my stretch marks were purple and angry instead of faint and translucent.
Blistering need spread through my chest and into my abdomen as I sighed into his greedy mouth. I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t.
The feel of him made Brody’s touch just moments ago feel clinical. Eli left no room for questions as he directed us to the couch. The backs of my calves hit the sofa and I fell back into the cushions.
He sunk to his knees in front of me so that we were eye to eye and then with his hands wrapped around the backs of my thighs, he pulled me to the edge of my seat.
My center pressed against the fly of his jeans, where he was already hard.
For a moment, he pulled back and my lips followed him as though we were tethered. Like he was baiting me.