Our Totally, Ridiculous, Made-Up Christmas Relationship (6 page)

After he pulls up to my apartment, I watch him climb out of his car, suitcase in hand, wearing that same engaging smile. He’s driving a deep blue BMW—something I can’t imagine most struggling actors would be driving. Who is this guy? Why isn’t he more weirded out by this situation? How do I know he’s not a psycho killer?

Dragging my luggage down the stoned apartment steps, I pause as Kayden strides forward to help me. “I got it…” I mutter, almost breathless. Narrowing my eyes on him, I watch as he walks with me to load my car up and I swing myself around to face him. “Hey, quick question.”

“Shoot.”

“You’re not a murderer, psychopath, or anywhere close to being a crazy person, are you?”

“Well,” he sighs, “I haven’t killed since last Thursday, which is a record for me. I didn’t pass the psych test, but really, does anyone pass those? And crazy? Well, yes. I am. But honestly, the people you should really worry about are the ones who claim to be sane.”

He’s so sarcastic and snarky that all I want to do is lick his face.

I wish I weren’t so weird sometimes.

“Okay, well just so you know, I have a black belt in karate, a certificate from a woman’s self-defense class, and pepper spray. So that pretty much means I will kill you if you need to be killed.”

“Duly noted.”

“Good.” I grab my keys and toss them toward, Kayden, “By the way…you’re driving because my mom thinks you are. Your name is Richard, we’ve been dating for seven months, and you are in accounting, but you’re looking to transfer over to business and marketing.”

The confused look on his face is almost classic comedy, and it makes me smile.

“Don’t worry; I’ll fill you in on the ride up there.”

I pause and look at him, not moving. I can’t get in a car with this stranger, and I think he knows. He smiles again and hands me my keys. “I’ll follow behind you.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course. But mainly it’s for my own safety. I haven’t been pepper sprayed in awhile, and I would rather hold on to that fact.” He extends his cell phone toward me and asks me to program my phone number into it so we can talk and learn more about our ‘acting adventures’ on the ride up north.

Why do I have the feeling this is all going to blow up in my face?

The snow isn’t falling too hard, and the drive is mostly filled with my own awkward silence with the phone against my ear and moments of me looking through my rearview mirror staring at his strikingly stunning facial structure.

“So…” he sighs into the cell phone, “what should I know about you that your family would expect me to know?”

“Oh.” I straighten up in my seat, thinking of what facts my family normally mocks me with. “I’m left-handed. I went to college for a semester before dropping out and going down the road of acting. Didn’t really lead to Hollywood for me, but that’s all right. I like being behind the scenes, hooking people up with their dreams of the big screen.”

“That’s a lie,” he says, as if he knows every fact about me already.

“What?”

“You gave up on acting. You settled.”

“You don’t even know me,” I argue, somewhat taken aback by his sudden claim that he knows I gave up on acting. Which…I kind of did.

“No, I get it. It’s a scary business not knowing where your next paycheck is coming from, and the older you get, the harder it becomes to explain to your friends that you haven’t broken into the industry yet. But you swear all you need is one chance. The right audition to get your foot in the door. Yet somewhere in your gut you hear the words ‘give up’ taking over. Those words start becoming stronger each and every day, and soon even the whiskey won’t tune them out. Then you’re sitting in another audition for another part you won’t get and you pause and wonder why you did it all. Why you missed so many birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, Sunday dinners. All for what? The love of your craft? Your passion? Let’s just say I understand why some people would walk away from all of this.”

“Story of your life?” I snicker, glancing in my rearview mirror toward him, but I stop laughing suddenly when I see his face tighten up and his cheeks hollow out.

“Story of my life.” He runs his hand over his mouth and shakes it back and forth before losing his somewhat somber expression. “But then again, this isn’t about me. It’s about Richard. So, tell me more and more about this character of mine. What’s my motivation?”

“Um, you’re a work-a-holic. Which should have been my first warning sign…” I sigh, trying to fight back yet another wave of tears. I should have realized that Richard didn’t work that late into the evenings. He was never able to hang out with me. It’s all adding up, how he probably told his girlfriend he was on business conference trips when really he was seeing his mistress. Oh my gosh, I’m the mistress. This is all becoming a bad Lifetime movie. “Can we not talk about Richard?”

“We won’t talk about Richard.”

Perfect. I wish he weren’t in his car, because talking on the phone like this is awkward. Plus, I have sweaty ear.

“Um, Jules?” he whispers into the phone.

“Yes?”

“You can put your phone on speaker, you know. Then maybe you won’t swerve all over the freeway.”

“What! I’m not…” A horn blows at me as a car sweeps past.

Speaker phone it is.

I am a fucking asshole. I can’t believe I lied about being signed to the agency, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go back to my parents and tell them that I didn’t land the agent. The smug look on Dad’s face would kill me alone. I was almost certain Jules would do some kind of background check, to make sure it were true, but she hadn’t. She just…cried.

This chick is crazy. It’s been twenty minutes on speaker phone and she’s been crying over her ex-boyfriend for the last eighteen. Plus she drives like a blind person, all over the road. Let’s just say that I’m happy I’m not in her car.

My phone’s volume has been on low for the last five minutes, because I can’t listen to her ‘Oh woe is me, I’m in my mid-twenties and single while my hot younger sister has a baby with the ex-love of my life.’ She really needs to work on her communication skills with strangers, because she has really laid out all of her life problems to me in two minutes.

I’ve dated girls like her—or well, I’ve at least slept with them. The cling-aholics. They do just about anything to keep a guy from leaving them, which makes us want to run even faster. I noticed the look of desperation when I kissed her. Don’t get me wrong—surprisingly she has to be one of the top three best kisses of my life. Her lips are gentle and full and they taste like strawberries. But the look in her eyes after we pulled away is what scared me shitless. She looked at me as if we were an item. A
real
item—not this made-up relationship thing.

I don’t even know why I agreed to this. I guess I want an opportunity to shove it in my dad’s face. To say I booked a job, to say I’m on the right path. For me not giving a damn what he thinks of me, I hate how I try so damn hard to prove him wrong.

Hitting the volume up, I hear Jules still whining. Great. Back into my acting role… “Look, Jules. I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. You deserve better than these guys. You need to set rules for yourself.”

I can already tell that she hops into bed with any guy who looks at her for more than a minute while already planning the wedding. For someone who’s in her twenties, she sure acts like a teenager. But truth be told, most chicks do. I blame Disney and their fake Prince Charmings.

If I’ve learned anything from watching movies with Hailey, it’s pretty clear Prince Charming is gay. He’s definitely more interested in Cinderella’s high heels than he is in sleeping with her. And if he isn’t gay, all of his sweet talk is just to get her out of that dress and into his bed. The only dude I have any respect for is the guy who tried to get Belle to marry him by threatening to send her dad to the psych ward. At least he was up front with what he was after. He pretty much said, 'Listen, I’m hot as hell. You’re hot as hell. I have great hair. Your hair is all right. Let’s shack up, make some babies, and then call it a day.’

“You think so? You think I need rules?” Her voice pulls me out of my thoughts and back into the conversation—a conversation I’m sure is pointless. Most girls never listen to advice, even when they ask for it.

“I know so.”

“Like what kind of rules?” Her voice is timid, cute even, because the idea of setting guidelines for dating makes her so nervous.

“For example, maybe you shouldn’t sleep with the guy just because he calls you beautiful. Or because he winks at you. Or because he buys you a drink.”

There’s a short gasp heard through the phone line. “How did you know about the winking?”

“Sweetheart, we all know about the winking. And it’s clear that you’re beautiful, but that doesn’t mean you’re cheap.”

Another short gasp. “You think I’m beautiful?”

“Don’t do that,” I warn, actually lifting the phone to my ear. “Don’t get that excited tone in your voice.”

“There’s no excitement in my tone.”

“Jules, you’re beautiful, you’re intelligent, and you’re the woman of my dreams. I want to have mind-blowing, intimate sex with you,” I whisper. Then I snicker when her car swerves, knowing my words struck a nerve and threw her off kilter.

I can almost feel the warmth in her blushing cheeks and see her smile through the receiver. I wasn’t lying—she
is
beautiful. She has these kind-hearted blue eyes that smile all on their own, without instruction. Her wild, crazy blond curls bounce when she walks, and gently sway when she’s still. Her hair actually reminds me of the sun, the way the room lights up when those curls walk in. Her cheeks are high, her ass looks great in a pair of jeans, and she doesn’t overdo the makeup. Not to mention, she has a handful up top that any man would be lucky to hold.

When it comes to physical traits, on a scale of one to ten, Jules Stone is a solid fifty. It’s no surprise that guys are instantly attracted to her in the first place—she’s hot as hell. I’m disappointed that she’s so sensitive and a little crazy, too. If she weren’t, I’m pretty sure more guys might have been interested in taking her out, instead of just wanting to bang her.

“What else should I know?” She wonders out loud, but I’m not quite sold on the fact that she’s speaking to me. “What would make a guy want to stay with me?”

I sigh, a bit annoyed with how needy she sounds. “Why do you need a guy in the first place?”

“A girl spends her whole life wanting to be in love. I grew up with these ideas, and I see others having what I wish I had. A hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, a prince to save me. I just want to be saved. I want to be somebody’s princess.”

I know this is Disney’s fault. “Can I be frank with you?” I ask but don’t wait for her reply. “There’s no castle. There’s no one galloping in on a white horse. There’s no prince who’s going to show up and save you. What you need to do is save yourself.”

“How do I do that?”

“Simple. You realize you don’t need saving.”

“Ugh. It must be
so
easy being a guy, never falling head over heels, never putting down your shield of protection from heartbreak.”

I chuckle at her comment, noticing that it’s all too wrong. “We fall and have heartbreaks, too. We just don’t spend the next few years reliving those days on repeat wondering what we could have done differently. We simply get drunk, have meaningless sex, and move on.”

“Ha! See that’s the problem! When you guys are having meaningless sex, we girls are having
hopeful
sex! Hoping for a second date, a second call, and a second everything. You guys are making us hopefuls meaningless.”

“Which takes us back to rule number one—don’t sleep with us because we call you beautiful.”

I can almost see her smile through the cell phone. “Touché.”

“All right, Jules. I’m gonna hang up. The snow’s coming down faster, and I would feel more comfortable getting you to your personal hell in one piece.”

“Okay, but Kayden?” Her voice jumps an octave in a question mark and I wait for her thoughts. “Thank you. For doing this.”

Before I can reply, she hangs up. I look at the back of her head in the driver’s seat in the car in front of me and I let a sigh move though my lungs. She’s tousling her hair around, running her fingers through the locks, and for a second I want to be running my hands through it, finding the gentle spots behind her ear, licking her body from the tip of her toes to the curve of her neck. She’s weird as fuck, but I bet she can transform that weirdness into some awesome sex moves…