Fallen star, p.20
Fallen Star, page 20
Infuriatingly, Scott seemed to take it in stride, like it was no big deal to flip his sleep schedule one hundred eighty degrees on a dime. When she asked him about it, he simply shrugged and said he was used to dealing with insomnia, and it didn’t much matter whether he was having it at night or during the day. She couldn’t even be jealous of him, because that really sucked for him, but it was still annoying how revoltingly cheerful he managed to be on set.
Meanwhile, Grace spent the week in a zombie-like daze of exhaustion. The hours from five p.m. to seven a.m. were spent desperately mainlining coffee and trying to keep her eyes open at whatever unpleasant outdoor location they were occupying for the night, and the rest of her time was spent in bed, tossing and turning and trying to will herself to fall asleep.
Scott generously offered to tire her out, but on top of everything else, she’d started her period, and honestly? Even if she hadn’t, she probably wouldn’t be in the mood. Insomnia made her too tired for sex. PMS plus insomnia made her unfit for human company entirely.
Basically the only times she and Scott were together all week were on set, where they had to keep their distance and act like nothing was going on. Which wasn’t doing anything to improve her mood, because she missed being close to him. She missed the smell of him, and the warm solidness of his body, and how safe and secure she felt in his arms.
She was suffering from Scott withdrawal—although again, probably not an analogy she should use around him—and the only solution was to grit her teeth and get through it. To make it to Saturday, when they were done with night shoots, and they’d have the whole rest of the weekend to spend together.
Thursday night they were shooting on a hotel rooftop in the Central Business District, which was at least an upgrade from all the gloomy industrial sites they’d been at this week. It was about two hours before dawn when Scott came up beside Grace as she was staring out vacantly at the cityscape.
“Hanging in there?” he asked, his arm brushing against hers as he joined her at the railing. He was dressed in a suit for the scene, and he reached up to loosen his tie.
She nodded half-heartedly, suppressing a yawn. “I really hate night shoots.”
“Me too.” His gaze drifted to the wide, dark river snaking through the city below them. “There’s something kind of magical about being awake this time of night though. It feels otherworldly.”
“It’s a liminal space,” Grace murmured.
Scott’s eyes swung to hers. “What’s that?”
“A place of transition. Reality feels altered because you’re leaving the familiar behind and waiting for something new to begin, but you don’t know what it’s going to be yet. The hours before dawn are like that—yesterday’s over, but tomorrow hasn’t started yet, so you’re hovering in this moment of ambiguity.” She shook her head. “Or something like that, anyway.”
Clearly, she was half delirious from throwing too much caffeine on top of too little sleep, otherwise she wouldn’t be babbling at Scott about liminal spaces, of all things. But he just smiled at her fondly and said, “I never thought of it that way.”
“It can be a trigger for anxiety. Not everyone’s good at existing in ambiguity.”
His hand closed over hers, squeezing gently. They shouldn’t be holding hands like this where everyone could see, but she’d missed his touch so much she couldn’t bring herself to pull away.
“You have to trust that the next step is going to be one you can handle,” Scott said. “The program taught me that.”
Grace leaned into him a little, and they watched the eastern horizon for the first glimmer of the new day’s light.
By the time Saturday morning rolled around, and they were freed from the living hell of night shoots, Grace was so dead she actually slept for ten hours straight.
She woke at six in the evening to a text from Scott.
Scott: Going to dinner with Poppy c u later
So. Okay. Great.
It was only their first night off all week. And he’d decided to spend it with Poppy.
That was…fine.
Wasn’t it?
They were being casual, right? That was what Grace had said. All sex and no feelings. Which meant Scott was free to spend his time however he wanted, with whomever he wanted.
So what if they hadn’t been alone in days? That had been Grace’s choice, not his. He wasn’t obligated to spend time with her any more than she was obligated to spend time with him. It wasn’t like they were actually dating or anything. Were they?
Grace stayed in her pajamas all night and ate a pint of ice cream for dinner while she waited for Scott to come home. Sometime after one a.m. she finally gave up on him and went to bed.
He texted her the next morning at ten o’clock.
Scott: U up?
When she opened the door to him, he stepped straight into her arms, bending her back a little when he kissed her. “I missed you,” he murmured, burying his face in her hair.
Grace had missed him too, so she didn’t ask what he’d been doing with Poppy last night, and she didn’t object when he took her hand and led her upstairs to his bed.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Scott said later, nuzzling the back of her neck as they were basking in post-coital contentment.
Grace couldn’t help stiffening slightly. “It’s fine.” She was aiming for a breezy tone but it fell a little short of the mark.
His arms tightened around her, and his lips pressed against her shoulder. “It’s not fine. I wanted to be with you.”
She turned in his arms so she could look at him. “Then why did you go out with Poppy?”
He sighed, his palm skimming up the outside of her thigh and over her hipbone. “Because she needed me.”
“What does that mean?”
He hesitated, like he was…not guilty, exactly, but definitely hiding something. “Poppy’s not…” He paused, considering his words. “I know she struts around all the time like she’s fine, but she’s not.”
“Okay,” Grace said slowly. That wasn’t what she’d expected to hear, and she wasn’t sure what it even meant.
“Remember how I told you Poppy and I were a lot alike? Well…” He stopped, waiting for her to make the inference.
“Oh!” Grace said as she finally realized what Scott was hinting at. “Oh.” Poppy had an addiction problem too. Only clearly she was not in recovery, because Grace had seen her drinking at Scott’s party.
He ducked his head so Grace couldn’t see his eyes. “I’m not saying she’s—she’s nowhere near as bad as I was, but…she’s struggling with some things. Things I can understand better than most people.”
Grace tried to reconcile her idea of perfect Poppy Carpenter with what Scott was telling her. It wasn’t all that hard to do, especially after Poppy’s comment on location last week. She could see how someone like Poppy, who’d found fame at a young age, might be just as damaged as Scott, even if she was better at hiding it. The industry was brutal on its young stars, and very few made it through the gristmill without scar tissue.
“Is she okay?” Grace asked.
Scott let out a breath, nodding. “She and Sareh had a fight yesterday. Hopefully, it’ll blow over.” He looked so relieved that Grace wasn’t mad. She felt like a first-class jerk for being upset with him last night.
She ran her fingers through his hair and over the stubble on his cheek. “I’m sorry to hear that, and I hope they work it out. I think it’s really great that you’re such a good friend to her.”
Scott propped himself up on one arm and pushed Grace onto her back, kissing her. She sighed against his mouth, and he sucked her lower lip between his teeth before shifting his weight and curling his body around hers again.
“I’d rather have been with you,” he murmured, resting his head between her breasts. “I’d always rather be with you.”
Grace blinked, barely able to breathe around the lump in her throat.
Maybe what they had was real. She hadn’t let herself think about what would happen after the shoot ended, because the idea of losing Scott terrified her. But maybe she didn’t have to lose him. Maybe things could stay the way they were, even after they went back to LA.
He shifted, nuzzling his face into her breasts. “Oh! I haven’t had a chance to tell you the good news yet: I might do a play in New York. Off Broadway, but it’s real meaty stuff. I’m going to fly out there and take some meetings after I wrap here.”
Or maybe not.
A play. That was like a six-month commitment or something, wasn’t it? Maybe more.
In New York. The opposite side of the country from where Grace lived.
“That’s fantastic,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m really happy for you.”
She had to be happy for him. He was excited about it, and he needed this. He’d been so down about his future prospects. This was great news for him, even if it wasn’t so great for them.
Working on a film—especially on location—was like going away to camp. The relationships you forged on set could feel more intense because of the stressful schedule and the separation from friends and family. But more often than not, they were only temporary. Not many people kept in touch with their camp besties. Occasionally the odd relationship would last beyond the production, but usually people dropped right back out of your life again as soon as everyone went home.
Grace had always known there was a chance Scott would lose interest in her as soon as he went back to his regular life. More than a chance. A likelihood.
She’d been down this road before, and she knew how it usually turned out.
“Do you want me to make you mac and cheese for dinner?” Scott asked.
“Always,” she said, holding him tighter.
17
“I went to the gym with Nate this morning,” Scott told Grace on Monday night.
It was raining, and they were curled up together on his couch watching a basketball game. Well, he was watching a basketball game. Grace was only pretending to watch the game.
Her sleep schedule was still recovering from last week, so mostly she was trying to stay awake until they got to the sex portion of the evening. Honestly, what she really wanted to do was put on her pajamas and crawl into bed, but they only had so many nights left together, and Scott had wanted to watch basketball, so here she was.
“There’s nothing like watching someone warm up with your max to make you question your manhood,” he complained.
She hummed noncommittally in response, and he dug a finger in her ribs, homing in right on her ticklish spot.
“This is the part where you’re supposed to reassure me that my manhood is unmatched, regardless of how much I can bench.”
Grace pushed his hand away. “Your manhood is perfectly adequate.” She meant it as a joke, but it didn’t have quite the lighthearted zing she’d been going for.
Scott went quiet for a moment before he said, “Something wrong?”
“I’m just tired. Today was a long day.” A long day of watching Scott and Poppy hang all over each other. Which might also have had something to do with Grace’s mood.
They’d been shooting the emotional reunion scene where Scott finds Poppy after believing she’s dead, and there’d been a lot of crying and hugging and kissing all day. Grace was still trying to shake the bad taste it had left in her mouth—and the guilt over letting it get to her in the first place. At least he’d taken a shower when he got home, so she didn’t have to smell Poppy’s perfume on him anymore.
“Is it the basketball? Because you said you didn’t mind watching the game, but I’m happy to turn it off if you—”
“I don’t care about the basketball,” Grace said, more snappishly than she’d intended. Oops.
“Okay,” Scott said slowly, recoiling a bit.
She pushed herself to her feet. “I think I’m just going to go back to my place and sleep in my own bed tonight.”
“Hey, Grace! Hey!” He propelled himself off the couch and made it to the door at the same time she did, blocking her exit with an arm stretched across the doorway. “Will you please tell me what’s going on? Did I do something?”
“No.” She shook her head, feeling tears prick her eyes and not knowing where they’d come from. “It’s nothing.”
He cupped her face in his hand, tilting it up toward his as his eyes raked over her. “It doesn’t seem like nothing.”
“What are we doing?” she blurted out, defenseless in the crosshairs of his bottomless gaze.
Scott’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What?”
“You and me.” She hadn’t planned to have this conversation tonight, but now that she’d started it she might as well finish. “Is this just a hookup? Or is it something more?”
His face went blank, so she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “What do you want it to be?”
“I’m asking you.”
He gave her one of his smarmy movie star smiles. “I want whatever you want,” he said, trying to use his charm on her.
It was the wrong move, because she wasn’t in the mood for his games.
“Right,” she gritted out and ducked under his arm, done with this conversation.
“Wait.” He caught her by the wrist. “Please.” His voice broke a little on the please, which was enough to make her turn around.
“I’m tired of not knowing what we are,” Grace admitted with a sigh. “I don’t know if we’re dating. Or if you even date.”
“I date,” Scott said a little defensively.
“Are you dating me?”
“I kind of thought so, yeah.” He sounded annoyed, like she was magically supposed to have known that somehow.
“It’s a little hard to tell, since we’ve never actually gone anywhere together.”
“You’re the one who wanted to keep it a secret,” he shot back resentfully, which was totally unfair.
“Because I didn’t want to be judged at work for who I’m sleeping with! We’re not at work twenty-four seven.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have the luxury of living my life incognito. If we go out in public, we’ll get spotted together.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“You will when your picture ends up on TMZ and blows your cover at work.”
“Wait,” Grace said, as it finally sunk in what he’d just said. “So, we are dating?”
The defensiveness drained out of him, and in its absence his expression betrayed a heart-twisting uncertainty. “I mean…yeah? Assuming you want to be.”
“I want to be.” Finally saying it out loud left her a thousand pounds lighter. Grace hadn’t realized how much it had been weighing her down, trying to keep her feelings for Scott to herself.
Scott let out a long exhale. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
His eyebrows scrunched in adorable befuddlement. “Why are we fighting?”
“We’re not.”
“Good.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her neck. “I don’t want to fight.”
Grace held on to him as tight as she could. “Me neither.”
He sighed against her, and she felt the tension in his muscles release.
“Scott?”
“Hmmm?”
“Are you going to keep dating me after we wrap?”
He lifted his head, and his eyes crinkled as he smiled at her. “I sure as hell hope so.”
“What about the play?”
His smile faded. “I don’t know.” He pressed his lips against her forehead. “We’ll figure it out though, okay?”
Grace reached for his face and ran her fingers over his stubble. She loved his stubble. She wanted to pet it always.
“Okay,” she said, and kissed him.
Most of Scott’s last week on set was devoted to shooting the big climactic action sequence that took place on the train the film got its name from. Shooting inside the out-of-commission passenger car set up in front of green screens was cramped, difficult work. Scott spent his days covered in fake blood, performing grueling stunt sequences that left him bruised and exhausted at the end of every day.
Not so exhausted they couldn’t make the most of their remaining few nights together though. Scott had been more amorous and attentive than ever, and Grace was having a harder time keeping her hands off him at work, which meant they got a little less discreet about their relationship.
“You’ve got something in your hair,” Tamika said, reaching up to touch it. “Is that prop blood?” she asked, rubbing her fingers together
“What?” Grace grabbed the lock of hair in question and pulled it in front of her face. “Uh…oops?” She and Scott had been making out in his trailer at lunch, and she’d tried to be careful not to get any of the sticky red goo on her, but apparently she had not been entirely successful.
Tamika gave her a knowing smile and reached for her makeup remover. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”
Even though Grace was trying to savor every moment, the days seemed to pass at hyperspeed. Before she knew it, Friday was upon them and they’d called a wrap on Scott. There was a cake big enough for the whole crew, and a lot of hugging and picture taking, and it was all Grace could do to keep the tears at bay.
She had to stay in New Orleans for another few days of pick-ups next week, but Scott was leaving for LA on Sunday. What was worse was by the time Grace got back to Los Angeles at the end of next week, Scott would already be gone. He was flying to New York on Wednesday to take some meetings and do a photo shoot for a short Esquire profile, immediately followed by two weeks in Tokyo to shoot a commercial.
They were going to be apart for almost a month, which was longer than they’d been a couple. A separation that length would be a trial for even an established, solid relationship. Grace was terrified of what it would do to her and Scott.
