Selfie (22 page)

But you wake up the next day anyway, and if you’re lucky like me, you have a friend in the next room to help you get dressed and to pass the time with.

And then you wake up the next day—alone maybe—but your friend is still on the phone, texting to make sure you’re getting your lame ass out of bed and asking if you want to go swimming later, even though it’s his day off and he has no obligation whatsoever to haul you anywhere.

He does it because he’s your friend.

And then you wake up the next day and it’s easier to walk, but he takes you swimming before work anyway, and you have a pretty awesome day.

That night, you get a call from your agent saying you can keep having days like that—hell, you’re even invited to Comic-Con next month with all your new friends for a panel—and she wants to know if your special friend is going to come along.

“Uh,” I said, feeling stupid.

“He’s welcome to,” she said delicately. “I mean, you’ve got guest rooms in the beach house—in fact, I’ll get someone to air the place out and stock it for you. You can have anybody you want there for the weekend before and drive down early that morning. Ask around—see who wants to. But Noah is definitely invited.”

I almost laughed. “He is, is he?”

“Are you saying you don’t want him to come?” she needled, and I gave it up.

“Of course I do.” Awkward blushing. “He’s . . . he’s been awesome this last month. I . . .” I brightened. It didn’t have to be intimate—and it didn’t have to be all Hollywood, either. “I’ll ask his sister and her boyfriend—can we get passes for them for the week? And we can go for the week too—”

“You’re gonna get mobbed,” she said frankly.

“You think? Because I’m not—”

“Baby, I’ll get your friends passes, I will. But if you’re going to try to cruise the vending rooms and go to the panels, you’re going to need at least six Noah’s to block for you. You’re doing two panels—one for
Jupiter Seven
and one for
Wolf’s Landing
. How are you not seeing this?”

“
Jupiter Seven
?” I had to scramble for a moment. Oh God, yeah. I’d just come back from filming the day before Vinnie had gone to that party. “Oh Jesus. Jillian—haven’t I had all sorts of promo shit I’m supposed to do?”

“I put it off a little,” she conceded. “You have an interview the week before Comic-Con—they’re flying up there. But the interview is in
Vogue—
do you hear what I’m saying? Sugar britches, you’re too big to go be a kid there again.”

I swallowed. “Well, you know, Vinnie and I—” From my first role in
Warlock Tea
, we’d gotten passes to Comic-Con. That had been his birthday week, and we’d bought the shit out of vendors to indulge him, and talked to the fans up close and personal to indulge
me—
God, we’d loved that shit.

“Yeah.” Jilly knew. “It’s tradition. But some traditions you lose because they’re bad, and some you lose because it’s no longer their time.”

I shrugged, and like that, I gave in. “I guess I just got used to up here,” I said, remembering that one sweet little clerk’s admission that the chamber of commerce had worked out some sort of agreement about not bothering the Hollywood people. “It’s nice—even the press is low octane.”

“Well, that’s why you should spend as much time as possible on your own turf,” she cautioned. “But I’ll set your friends up with passes anyway.”

“I’m going to spend time in the signing room after the panel, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

There was a pause, because really, that’s all the business we had to talk about, and then she said, “So, is he still just a friend?”

I sighed. “Jilly—”

“Yeah. Hasn’t been long enough.”

“No.”

“But don’t write him off, okay?” She sounded anxious, and I hoped my laugh reassured her.

“Jilly, the minute I am ready, he’s going to be the first to know.”

“Really?” she cooed, like it was a foregone conclusion.

I realized it wasn’t. Not at all. Noah was gruff and impatient and sarcastic—and he was also kind and capable and sexy as all hell. If he didn’t have men banging down his door, then he was hanging out with the wrong men.

Or the wrong
man
.

Oh God. If I wanted to be fair to him, I had to say something. Tell him . . .

What?

That it would be all right if he dated while I waited for my heart to put itself back together? That I was just fine with him going out and fucking half the known universe while I pined after my dead lover? Yeah, that’s good. Way to be a man, Connor—just give the guy up—

Don’t be an asshole, Connor. Jesus, can’t you fucking hope?

Way to talk, Vinnie. You’re
gone
if you hadn’t noticed. You get no say,
none
in how I conduct my love life.

Be real, Con. I mean, seriously—I am
totally
dictating your love life right now. If I grabbed you by the balls and hauled you to that dance place and forced you to get drunk and fuck strangers, you’d totally let me do that!

I actually recoiled, physically and mentally, from that idea.

“What?” Jilly was saying on the phone line, while I had this mental knock-down, drag-out with a ghost. “What is going on in your head?”

“I should talk to Noah,” I said from a long ways away. “I should tell him not to wait for—”

“Don’t you dare,” she snarled, so vehemently I flipped Vinnie off and concentrated on her voice over the phone. “Don’t you go and break that boy’s heart and ruin your chance at having a good guy at your side and—”

“I wouldn’t be breaking his heart.” I believed that. “Jilly—he doesn’t need me. I am
such
a liability—”

“Shut up,” she said thickly. “Please. Connor, I scraped you off your floor; I begged, bribed, and blew people in the press to leave you the fuck alone; and I’d do it again, I’d do it twice—and I haven’t asked for anything but your happiness. Now do me a fucking favor and give the happiness time to take, okay?”

I sighed. “Yeah. Sure. I don’t know what you think he’s—”

“He’s everything Vinnie wasn’t,” she said, and I sucked in a razor-blade breath.

“What did you—”

“You know it’s true,” she retorted. “He’s strong, he’s self-sufficient, there’s not a vain bone in his body. He would make you first, and honey, Vinnie couldn’t do that. Not ever.”

I thought of Simon Conklin and closed my eyes.

“Vinnie slept with my director,” I admitted like it was dragged out of me with a tow truck and a chain.

“
See
!” she crowed. “I knew he did that—I knew he wasn’t faithful. But
you—
not once did I walk into your trailer and think, ‘Someone else has been here blowing Connor.’ Your heart is just too fucking true for this business. You need someone who gets that about you, okay?”

I thought of the hurt on Noah’s face if I did what ghost-Vinnie had said and charged down to the bar to get drunk, to get laid, to break his heart.

“Okay,” I said, just to make that image of hurt and betrayal go away. I knew what that felt like—I wouldn’t inflict it on Noah for the world. “I’ll wait,” I agreed after a moment. “I’ll wait and see how it goes.”

She let out a breath that did
not
sound like it had smoke in it, and we spent the next fifteen minutes talking about her kids—who were doing better, actually. When she rang off, I looked outside at the bright nine o’clock over the sound, and wondered again about that island.

And enjoyed the feeling of the ocean in my lungs, of giant trees, and of the breeze that cycled through them.

See, Vinnie. I don’t have to do everything you say. I don’t have to go out and be a destructive douche-monkey because you said so.

Yeah, Con. You’re a real saint.

No, Vinnie, that was your department.

I stood and stretched and decided to go upstairs and turn on the television. I wasn’t sure when my conversations with Vinnie had taken on the tincture of the sulks before a fight, but one of the only good things about his departure was that I didn’t have to live through those silences anymore.

I could walk away, eat some ice cream, and shotgun
Daredevil
on Netflix.

And ignore the acid building up in my chest just waiting to be spit out.

That weekend, after we were done swimming two hours’ worth of laps side by side, Noah asked me to his family’s house a week from Sunday—and I was stunned.

“You want me there?” I asked for the umpteenth time, smoothing my wet hair back from my forehead. The Global had an Olympic-sized pool, but since we went there so very early, it was pretty deserted. “For . . . you know. For real?”

“Yeah, Connor. My sister and I talk about you all the time—you think Dad and Gran and the girls don’t want to meet you?”

“Ky and Trina,” I said, because I had gathered in pretty much all he’d had to say about his family. “Your father is Samuel and your grandma is Helena and your dad has added on to your little family shack about six times so everyone has a room and it’s practically a mansion. And next door”—my voice dropped respectfully—“is where your friend Sharra lived, the one who broke your heart and taught you how to be kind, and—”

He shut me up with a splash. “Jesus, you’re a sap. I’ve got a family, and yes, they’re up in my business and that means up in your business. It’s Gran’s birthday, and I didn’t want to leave you alone Sunday. I thought you might like to come.”

Well, on the one hand it was pity, which was sort of embarrassing.

On the other hand, who cared?

I was going to go meet someone’s family. I hadn’t been so excited since the last Christmas Vinnie’s family had come to visit, and I had pretended to be part of
them
for a few weeks.

“Yeah, sure.” I sounded pathetically grateful, but I didn’t care.

Of course, Noah waited until we were in the locker rooms, coming out of the showers, and I was vulnerable and embarrassed and trying so hard not to check out his naked body when he wasn’t looking, to drop the other shoe.

“So,” he said to my turned back, “there’s something I didn’t mention.”

“What?” I was surprised enough to turn around and face him.
He
was in cargo shorts and a hoodie. I, uh, was not.

He didn’t reply. Instead, he took a deep breath, widened his eyes, and raked my naked body up and down with his eyes, a slow hungry smile subtly lighting up his face.

I was unprepared for the blush that swept up—and
down—
my body.

That smile turned not so subtle.

“That sight never gets old,” he said, and I covered my face with my hands.

His chuckle told me that now he had an excuse not to look me in the eyes. My cock started to wake up, as though aware it was the center of attention for the first time in a while. “I should get dressed,” I mumbled and turned to get my boxers.

I dropped them, because I
am
a walking porn movie, and as I bent down I heard Noah’s strangled voice.

“No, don’t.” He took a deep breath. “It’ll just make it worse.”

Very slowly I stood up, and I felt his warmth at my back, and the roughness of laundered cotton. He shifted, crouching down, and his hands appeared in front of my feet as he grabbed the offending boxers and offered them to me to step into.

“Is this really—” My voice froze. His cheek, barely stubbled, grazed my backside, and I felt a puff of air. “
Necessary
?” I squeaked.

My cock was well and truly getting hard, and I reached down and tapped it with a finger to make sure it was, well,
mine
.

Behind me, Noah said, “Step into the boxer shorts, or I will take you right here.”

Me, face forward against the locker, Noah spreading my ass cheeks, tongue up my hole, then thrusting into me sweet, so sweet, thick and long and huge as I screamed in release . . .

I took a painful step into my underwear, and then another. Noah’s lips grazed my left cheek purposefully and trailed up, up, as he adjusted my underwear into place. He ended with a kiss to the back of my neck, beneath my hair, and his arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me against that long body.

“Good choice,” he murmured in my ear.

“They’d . . . they’d never let us in the pool again,” I said weakly and was rewarded by his gruff chuckle.

“It would be worth it.” He traced my ear with his mouth as he spoke. “But you’re not ready.”

We both heard someone coming into the hotel changing rooms, and he released me so quickly I stumbled forward. I used the move to grab my shorts, and I dressed in mortified silence, aware that two of the hotel’s occupants were using another bank of lockers to dress.

I turned to Noah as soon as I could, a child’s smile on my face because I was so desperate to please.

He covered his eyes with his hand.

“Pit stop, Connor. And a comb. And product. And a razor if you’re going into makeup today. Any of this ring a bell?”

I blinked slowly. “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Of course.”

Of course I’d forgotten all of those things because Noah Dakers had put his mouth on my skin, had caressed me intimately, and my sex drive, which had been the slumbering giant in my loins, was suddenly looking around and ready to play.