How to Sleep with a Movie Star (10 page)

When it did, I was mortified.

There, in the familiar Red Sox cap, just inches away from me, was Cole Brannon. The movie star. The gorgeous, polite, perfect movie star. The sex-addicted, lying movie star.

He grinned, waiting for me to say something. Damn those twinkling blue eyes. They’d sucked me in once, but now I knew his secret. I squinted at him.
He’s a sex addict!
Wendy’s words rang in my head.

“Where’s Ivana?” I slurred. Aha! That would teach him.
The jig is up, mister. I’m on to you.

“Huh?” He looked at me closely for a moment, confusion suddenly etched across his perfect face. “Ivana? My publicist?”

He was playing dumb. How coy. Like I didn’t know.

“You know who I mean,” I said, trying to sound accusatory, but probably just sounding drunk.

“Ivana, my publicist?” he repeated. He stared at me for a moment. Then he laughed. “You know, Claire, she doesn’t go everywhere with me. I’m allowed out alone once in a while without a chaperone.”

I tried to make a face at him, but scrunching my eyes up only made me dizzy. I swayed, and he steadied me again.

“Whoa, looks like somebody’s had a little too much to drink,” he said softly, his hand still on my back. I liked it there, I realized. But only because it meant I wouldn’t fall off the bar stool, which seemed like a pretty real possibility at the moment. Why didn’t they put backs on these things?

“Not me,” I mumbled.

“No, of course not,” he said solemnly. He looked suspiciously like he was fighting back a grin. He pulled up the stool next to me, keeping his hand on my back all the while to steady me. “Is this a typical Saturday night for you, then?”

It took me a minute to realize he was kidding.

“No,” I said stiffly. “It is not.” I tried my best to sound haughty. “Is it a typical Saturday night for
you
? What are you doing at my bar?” What
was
he doing here? Of all the bars in Manhattan, why would he have to wind up at the same bar where I was trying to drink my troubles away?

“No, this is
not
a typical Saturday night for me,” Cole said, smiling with what I could have sworn was gentle pity. I was suddenly just lucid enough to feel embarrassed. “And I didn’t realize this was
your
bar.” I made a face because I was pretty sure he was teasing me.

“Jay Cash, there,” he gestured to the bartender, “is an old college buddy of mine. I usually drop in on him when I’m in New York.” The bartender waved from the other end of the bar as I looked up. Cole looked at me for a minute. “Your turn.”

“My turn what?” I asked grumpily. I’d already forgotten what we were talking about.

“Your turn to tell me what you’re doing here by yourself, getting drunk on a Saturday night,” he said. “Even if this is
your
bar.” His face was inches from mine. I squinted at him and suddenly noticed that his blue eyes were flecked with gold. How cool.

“I’m not drunk,” I said. He laughed.

“Oh yeah, I can tell,” he said. “Totally sober.” He picked up the glass of water and handed it to me. “Here, have a sip.”

I was too tired to protest. I took a long drink of the water. It actually felt good going down my throat. Better than the tequila.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Cole asked softly as I drank. I didn’t answer for a moment, too busy gulping down the water. Cole gently took the glass out of my hand when I was done, setting it back on the bar. I closed my eyes because I could feel thoughts of Tom rushing in, and I wanted to hide from them. Finally, I opened my eyes and looked at Cole. He had an expression of deep concern on that perfectly formed face that I’d seen so many times in movie theaters.

“When I got home from the office today,” I said, speaking slowly because I knew my words were all running together, “I found my boyfriend in my bed. Having sex. With another woman.” The mental image of the brunette bobbing up and down on him flooded back into my mind with all the clarity of a television show played on Tom’s precious high-definition TV that I’d bought him. But I’d never seen
that
kind of thing on Nick at Nite. If Gilligan had gotten it on with Mary Ann, he had done it off-screen. I swallowed hard.

“Oh, no,” Cole breathed. He started rubbing my back with the strong hand he had there to steady me. I closed my eyes for a moment. His touch felt good. “Claire, I’m so sorry.”

I shrugged, fighting back the tears that had suddenly welled in my eyes.

“I should have known,” I said, sniffing. I felt a single tear escape and roll down my right cheek. “I’m an idiot.”

“Don’t ever say that,” Cole said, gently leaning in. He put an arm around me. I remembered Wendy’s words again.
He’s a sex addict!
Did he think he was going to have sex with me?

I struggled to pull out of his embrace for a moment, but then I stopped. What the hell. I could use the help staying upright. I leaned in to him.

“Don’t ever say you’re an idiot, Claire,” Cole said as he hugged me. “Your boyfriend, he’s the idiot. To cheat on a woman like you . . .” Cole’s voice trailed off, and his pity somehow triggered the opening of my floodgates.

“I let him live with me, and he never wanted to have sex with me!” I was rambling now through sniffles and tears. “And he said he was writing a novel, and he never worked or anything, and he was always in bed, and he treated me like I didn’t matter, and I don’t know what I was thinking.” I wasn’t making much sense as I continued to blubber unintelligibly. I realized that I was crying, hard. Damn. I’d come into Metro to forget about Tom, not to talk about him. But somehow, it was nice to tell someone. Finally. Someone who didn’t seem like he was judging me.

Cole pulled me closer and rubbed my back as I sobbed into his shoulder. It felt good to be held. As his hand moved in small, gentle circles, I forgot that I was supposed to have a totally professional relationship with him. I forgot about Tom. I forgot that Cole Brannon was a sex addict. I forgot that he was a movie star who wasn’t supposed to remember who I was. Right now, he was just Cole. A friend. My friend who cared and wanted to listen to me.

Finally, I pulled away and tried to steady myself on the bar stool. But suddenly I didn’t feel quite right.

“Cole?” I said quietly. Shit. The room was spinning. When had the room started spinning?

“Yes?” he asked with concern, leaning forward.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

Then I threw up. All over the floor. And Cole Brannon’s shoes.

Oops.

“Sorry,” I croaked, ashamed and humiliated. It was the last thing I remember saying before I passed out.

Gossip and Vices

Drinking

S
omewhere in the distance, I could hear the phone ringing. I wished someone would make it stop. With each shrill jangle, the throbbing in my head seemed to get worse. I started to open my eyes, but even the smallest sliver of invading morning light turned out to be too much for the powerful ache in the back of my skull. Far off, the phone continued to ring.

“Tom,” I mumbled. “Tom, can you get that?” There was no reply. Finally, the ringing stopped. I groaned and sank back into the sheets. I wanted nothing more than to drift back to a place where my head didn’t throb like I’d been clubbed with a baseball bat.

I pulled the sheets up, still squeezing my eyes tightly shut in a vain effort to block out all the offending sunlight. I shivered, fought back my rising nausea, and reached for my quilted comforter. I pawed around for a moment at the foot of my bed, but I couldn’t find it.

“Tom!” I groaned, hating how my stomach swam and my head throbbed with additional force every time I spoke. “Tom, what did you do with the comforter? I’m cold!” I felt like I was yelling, but I was dimly aware that my words were coming out at a decibel just above a whisper. Any louder, and I feared my head would explode.

I knew I’d woken up from a nightmare, which might begin to account for the throbbing in my head. I couldn’t remember much of it. Tom was there, and in the dream I was angry with him. Cole Brannon had been there too, in a bar, which was strange. I couldn’t understand why I would be dreaming about him. Even if he was the hottest man I’d ever met.

“Tom!” I moaned again, a bit louder this time. He still didn’t answer, and I suddenly realized I could hear the shower running. I couldn’t remember hearing it from the bedroom in the past. But perhaps my throbbing headache had given me superhuman hearing.

Finally, I realized that if I wanted the comforter, I’d simply have to crawl out of bed and get it myself. Reluctantly, I forced my eyes open and groaned as the sunlight poured in, blinding me momentarily. Slowly, the room started to come into focus.

Then suddenly, time seemed to stop as I realized that I wasn’t in my bedroom at all.

Awe mixed with utter confusion as I slowly blinked at my surroundings, still blurry through my sleepy eyes. My drab and pale bureau, which I’d bought four years ago at a garage sale, had been replaced by a glistening black chest of drawers, topped by a massive oval mirror. Instead of my faded blue gingham curtains over tiny windows, thin white gauze did little to block the sunlight streaming in through giant panes that stretched from floor to ceiling. I was awash in white satin sheets, and the bed they covered was at least twice the size of my double. Beneath me was a seemingly endless sea of plush, snow-white carpeting that covered a floor easily bigger than my whole apartment.

I lay back for a moment, the breath knocked out of me. My head continued to throb and my stomach churned threateningly. But both were overshadowed by the mounting horror I was feeling. I had no idea where I was.

Think, Claire, think.
A quick assessment of my physical condition told me I’d gotten drunk last night. But where? With whom? I had never been here before. Had I gone home with a stranger?

That triggered a foggy memory. One-night stands. There was something about one-night stands. . . . My God. The article for
Mod
. Had I done it? Had I taken my own misguided advice and had a one-night stand? No, that wouldn’t be right. I would never do that to Tom.

Tom. Oh God. Tom.

I closed my eyes, trying to block out the images that suddenly flooded my brain, but it was too late. Tom with the leggy brunette from the Christmas party. Tom
inside
the leggy brunette. That damned Bruce Springsteen singing like nothing was wrong. Me, storming out of the apartment. The bottle of merlot, Metro, the tequila shots, the Coronas.

And Cole Brannon.

Oh no. Cole Brannon.

With rising horror, I remembered seeing him at the bar. Crying on his shoulder about Tom. Letting him hold me and comfort me . . .

Vomiting on his shoes.

Suddenly, I had a very bad feeling about all of this.

As if a director from one of his movies had suddenly yelled, “Action!” the bathroom door far across the massive bedroom swung open dramatically and Cole Brannon stood in the doorway, clad only in a skimpy white towel wrapped around his waist. His darkly tanned upper body, filled with perfectly toned muscles bulging to get out, gleamed with droplets of water. His perfect washboard stomach drew my stunned eyes tantalizingly toward the top of the low-slung towel, which seemed mere inches away from exposing what it was supposed to be hiding. As our eyes met, Cole grinned and quickly adjusted his towel for more coverage.

“Well hello, sunshine,” he said cheerfully. “You’re awake.” I couldn’t move. I just stared. I desperately tried to recall the events of the previous evening. It was hard to think with my head pounding like the bass on a bad rap album. Hard as I strained to remember, though, everything after vomiting was blank.

“I threw up on you last night,” I moaned finally. I was completely humiliated and dimly aware that I was processing my thoughts very slowly. I had puked on the biggest star in Hollywood. This was not how journalists were supposed to behave. I felt sure I’d read that in the
AP Stylebook.

But instead of looking at me in righteous fury, he laughed.

“Why yes, you did,” he said, the corners of his eyes wrinkling with amusement. He took a few steps closer. “I must say, that’s the first time that’s happened. I’m used to journalists kissing my feet, not throwing up on them.”

“Oh my God,” I moaned. I sank back into the pillows and pulled the sheets over my head, wondering if it would be possible to disappear and wake up in my own bed instead.

“I was just kidding,” said Cole’s voice with sudden concern, muffled by the covers over my head. “I really don’t mind. . . .” I groaned and emerged from the covers. Evidently, it was not possible to teleport home from beneath his sheets.

“No, it’s not what you said,” I said finally. “I just can’t believe . . . Oh my God, I have never done anything like this before. Never. And especially not with someone like you.”

“Someone like me, eh?” Cole grinned again. “And exactly what do you mean by that?” I would have blushed if all the blood in my body hadn’t been coursing in throbbing currents through the back of my skull.

“Someone I’ve interviewed,” I mumbled. “I don’t even know what to say. I’m always so careful to be completely professional. And look at me now.” I groaned. As I spoke, something nagging at the back of my mind came closer to the surface, and I scrunched up my nose in concentration, trying to remember what it was.

“Claire, no worries,” Cole said gently. He crossed the room in a few long strides and sat down beside me on the massive bed. My embarrassment was momentarily overshadowed by the realization that the most attractive man I’d ever seen was mere inches away from me, nearly naked, in a silk-covered bed. Unfortunately, before I had a chance to process that realization, the hyperprofessional-journalist portion of my brain kicked back in.

“I’ll lose my job,” I moaned.

“Claire,” Cole began, his voice gentle and soothing. He put a hand on my shoulder and looked so deeply into my eyes that it set my heart pounding. “I told you. No one has to know. This is between you and me, okay? No one’s going to lose their job.”

I glanced down at my lap and received another shock I hadn’t been prepared for.

Instead of the pencil skirt and pink blouse I had on last night, I was clothed in a massive gray Boston College T-shirt that certainly didn’t belong to me. Before I had time to freak out about the fact that I was no longer wearing my own clothes, the thought that had been nagging me suddenly came into full focus. I could hear Wendy’s voice replaying in my head.

“Cole Brannon is a sex addict,”
her disembodied voice chirped, suddenly loud and clear.

I stared at Cole for a moment in horror, my heart pounding. He was still grinning at me, which made me even more afraid. His grin suddenly looked knowing, almost smug and lascivious.

“Oh my God, did we . . . ?” My voice trailed off. I couldn’t even complete the sentence. My heart pounded hard and fast.

“What?” asked Cole, tilting his head to the side and looking at me in confusion.

“Did we . . . ?” I still couldn’t say the words. I looked down again at my body, wrapped in one of his T-shirts. Surely we had. I would have to quit the magazine. I had slept with someone I’d interviewed.

And I didn’t even remember it.

“What’s wrong?” asked Cole, concern now mixing with the confusion splashed across his face. “Do you need to throw up again? Are you okay?”

I just stared, the little voice in my head squeaking in horror.
Am I okay? What, did you think that I wanted you just because you were able to drag my unconscious body home?

I realized suddenly that he was still looking at me in bewilderment. I had to know how it had happened.

“Did we . . . Did we . . .” I couldn’t complete the sentence. I looked at him with a mixture of exasperation and shame. “Did we . . . ? You know!” And suddenly, he did. Realization dawned, and he laughed. He actually
laughed
at me. Had it been that bad?

“Are you asking me if we had sex?” he asked incredulously. It hurt to hear the words, but I nodded anyhow, then squeezed my eyes shut. I braced myself for the words I knew would end my career, my whole professional life as I knew it. He paused, then spoke.

“Claire, you were unconscious all night!”

“What?” As much as I’d braced myself, those were not the words I’d been prepared to hear. He had sex with my unconscious body? What kind of a guy was he? I needed to start taking the tabloid rumors more seriously. I shuddered involuntarily.

“So we . . . ?” I began. I just needed to hear him say it. So I knew that my life was over. He squinted at me.

“No, Claire!” he said finally, looking distressed. “Of course not!” I blinked and tried to process what he’d said. “I slept over there,” he added, gesturing to a small love seat near the window that still had a blanket, a sheet, and a pillow strewn across it.

“What?” I asked, confused. It wasn’t adding up. I looked down at the T-shirt and suspiciously back at him. “But where are my clothes?”

He sighed in exasperation and gave a kind of half laugh.

“You were, um, covered in your own vomit,” he said uncomfortably. I just stared at him. “I didn’t know what to do, so I called the front desk, and they had someone from housekeeping come up and help you change.”

“And you . . . ?” My voice trailed off as I had a sudden mental image of Cole watching my vomit-encrusted clothes being stripped from my jiggly body.

“I stepped outside,” Cole said softly. “I had the woman come get me when she was done.”

I looked at him for a moment. He was blushing. A new wave of humiliation coursed through me.

“Oh,” I said finally. I didn’t know what else to say. “Thank you.”

“Hey, no problem,” he said breezily. He squinted at me. “Although I haven’t yet decided whether I should be offended by your line of questioning.” This time I could physically feel the blood rushing to my face, which must have meant my headache was starting to subside.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean . . . It’s just that . . . Well, I mean, I’m not dressed, and I’m in your bed, and . . .” Suddenly it dawned on me. He didn’t want to sleep with me. Maybe he
was
a sex addict and I was just too repulsive. My heart sank.

“I prefer my partners to be conscious,” Cole said, as if reading my mind. He winked. “I try to keep that as at least a minimum standard.”

“Oh,” I said stupidly.

“I’m kidding, Claire,” he said, nudging me gently in the shoulder. “I’m just giving you a hard time.”

“Oh,” I repeated. I felt like such an idiot. I groaned, closed my eyes, and leaned back into the pillows. I wished I could go back to sleep, wake up, and realize this had all been a bad dream.

“I hope it’s okay that I brought you here,” said Cole, sounding almost shy. I cracked my eyes open and looked at him. “I didn’t know what else to do, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Thank you,” I said finally. “I am so embarrassed.”

“No need to be,” Cole said with a dismissive wave of his hand. But he wasn’t making me feel much better.

I shuddered. This was horrible. This was more than just a step over the line of professional ethics. This was a pole vault into the next time zone. What was I doing?

“I have to go,” I blurted out suddenly. Cole, still perched on the edge of the bed, looked surprised.

“What?” he asked. “Where?”

“I just have to go,” I repeated, trying to sound firm.

“Oh, okay,” Cole said. He looked a bit hurt, I thought, but perhaps that was my imagination. “Well, listen. I had your clothes sent out to be dry-cleaned.” My jaw dropped. “They should be ready any minute now. Why don’t you hop in the shower while I call down to the front desk and see if they can bring them up, okay?”

“I can just shower at home,” I protested weakly.

“You have vomit in your hair,” Cole pointed out wisely.