Selfie (5 page)

“Maybe if you’d just fucking eat, we could go back to those days again.” Jillian inspected her manicure.

“Sure, Jilly,” I soothed. I had a cookie leftover from our Starbucks run, and I took it out of my bag and offered her half. She took it and ate irritably, but she settled down when she was done. I offered her the other half, and she shoved it gently back to me.

“You eat it, pardnuh. You’ll be fine.”

I shrugged and put it back in the bag. I was hungry, yeah, but I needed protein.

I looked up to see what Noah thought of all of this, but the road took a few quick turns, and those sucked up his attention.

I turned my attention to the scenery—which was really quite spectacular. On the driver’s side we had Mount Olympus in the background, and her northern slope seemed filled with wild flowers. To the passenger’s side there were flatlands, heading out toward the sound. I remembered those days in Vancouver, when waking up and looking out over the sound seemed to be some sort of reward for living without Vinnie so long. Those days when I’d had Vinnie too, wrapping his arms around my waist and sharing the view—those had been the best.

I quick checked in my head, and I realized that it was early May—I’d start shooting in a week so the cast would have the rushes to tour with during convention season. I understood there was a small con here in March, but Comic-Con and Dragon Con happened later on in the summer. I used to love doing cons—being on panels, taking in the excitement from the fans.

I wasn’t sure I was up to them right now—I’d have to ask Jillian if they were in my contract or not. The thought of all those people, some of them lying in wait to ask me what the press had been trying to ask me for a year, nauseated me.

How are you taking the death of your friend, Vinnie Walker?

How did they think I was taking it? It was like my world had ended. Because it had.

Maybe going out and doing something new would make that better, right? I mean, Hollywood had the attention span of a coked-up ferret. I was a special guest star—maybe everyone would pay attention to the show and forget about me. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! He died a year ago anyway!

Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t realize the road had leveled out again until Noah started talking.

“So, what do you like most about the Pacific Northwest?” he asked, and it was such a con question I found myself slipping into con mode to answer.

“The natural beauty,” I replied promptly. “The genuine people. Being so near the ocean
and
the mountains.”

He laughed, but the eyes in the rearview were skeptical. “Sounds like you’ve been asked that before,” Noah said, putting his eyes firmly back on the road where they belonged.

I was going to laugh too, keep the moment light, but just that suddenly, I couldn’t.

“I like the fog,” I said after a thoughtful pause.

“The
fog
?” The distance was gone, replaced by surprise.

“Yeah—you know, the mist. I like that . . . that sometimes, when you’re walking on the beach, it feels like you’re the only person alive on an alien planet.” That sounded pathetic enough, but I just couldn’t seem to stop. “When I was a kid, I used to ditch out on my chores so I could walk on the beach. We lived by Monterey, so you know, six out of ten days, there’d be fog. I loved that. Those were the best days.”

We hadn’t lived so much
by
Monterey, but
below
Monterey, in one of the tiny seaside towns that were populated by the immigrant work force and the farmers who hired them. I was the son of one of each—the oldest son, and my father’s blond, blue-eyed genetics had apparently latched on to some old Spanish ancestor of my mother’s, because I had come out looking like a pretty white boy who tanned really well.

That hadn’t stopped me from chasing brown-boy tail, though—apparently the hair and the eyes weren’t the only thing I’d gotten from dear old Dad. Vinnie had been the poster boy for my favorite brand of pretty, which might explain the insta-lust on that first surprising day.

Which was, I told myself, why Noah the driver’s opinion of my answer seemed to matter so damned much to me right now. He was my type—and here I was, still desperately trying to impress the boys who’d wanted nothing to do with me until I’d gotten on my knees.

I was almost thirty—how sad could I get?

The brown eyes in the rearview flickered to the road, then flickered back again.

“I like the fog too,” he said, like it mattered.

I swallowed. “Yeah, not everybody does.” Vinnie had hated it—he’d wanted to be in the sunlight as much as possible. It was why he hadn’t moved to Vancouver when I’d lived here—he’d tried, during one of his breaks, but that had been his first lapse into depression, to drug dependency, to rehab. I’d had to leave the show after three years just to pull him out of it. The plot arc had fallen apart without me—I’d felt like shit, but the producers obviously held no grudges.

They were, in fact, some of the same people who were about to pay my salary.

“Hmm . . .” Noah nonanswered, and then he turned his attention to the road in front of him.

And I sank back into my thoughts.

Vinnie, leaden-eyed after too many pills to get to sleep. Vinnie, pale and self-deprecating in rehab. Jillian, using my freedom from the show as an excuse to launch me into movies. Vinnie had liked that—if I was gone, it was for maybe six weeks at a stretch, and usually some place with lots of sunlight and some parties.

And he’d made contacts at the parties, and I’d gotten to watch him rise like a meteor.

Was it wrong that I’d been as proud of his career as I was of my own?

But I’d missed the quietude of the cold ocean—I couldn’t deny that either.

After about forty-five minutes, Noah slowed the car, and I looked up. We were close to the sound—I could tell by the foliage, by the dampness in the air, and the smell of the grasses that lived near the cold salt water—but I couldn’t see the town.

What I could see was a small steak house set back into the overgrown foliage on the side of the road—dark paneled from the outside, and surprisingly large.

Rockin’ Surf and Dockn’ Turf
.

I grimaced. “Food better than the name?”

We all sort of gasped—they were the first words spoken in a while.

But they got Noah to smile. “Yeah—the Captain isn’t so great with words, but he’s great with potatoes and
fantastic
with steak!”

“How is he with salads?” Jillian asked, properly horrified as someone who yearned to be a size two should be.

Noah grimaced, and I consoled her as we got out. “I’m sure he can do steamed veggies and some grilled fish.”

Jilly brightened, and in spite of the heels and the skinny skirt, she strode up the moss-crusted flagstones like she was cruising Rodeo Drive in search of a bargain.

Noah was grinning and tilting back his seat, looking like he was getting ready to snooze, and I felt the remorse of the privileged class smacking me in the teeth.

I tapped on the window, and he rolled it down. “Want to come eat with us?”

He grimaced, obviously waffling. “I was going to call Cappy and have him bring me takeout while I waited, but . . .”

Hey—I was a movie star, and shameless about using it. I gave him the Connor Montgomery special smile, the one with the hint of shyness and a bulldozer’s load of sex. I wasn’t sure if the sex would work—contrary to all the tropes of fanfic, not all fanbois were gay—but I was pretty sure the shyness might. He followed my career, right? Everybody wanted to know if movie stars were approachable. We played someone’s favorite buddy (or, in Vinnie’s case, someone’s favorite dickhead, thank you, typecasting) and don’t you want to see if this person is nice in real life?

Hey—it explained most of my stalker mail, right?

And Noah bit.

“Sure,” he said after a moment, shrugging. “I don’t usually see the place in the day. At night it’s sort of an after-hours dance club—and
then
the place is hopping, you know?”

A part of me wanted to fist pump, but a part of me was asking what I was doing. I didn’t have an answer to myself. I talked to Noah instead.

The inside of the steak house was as modest as the outside—stained boards on the walls and floor, and basic, solid wooden tables. But it
smelled
good inside, and not just of alcohol from the brass-fitted bar that took up the back wall. Noah led the way—his turf—and he smiled and winked at the waitress serving a family in the corner when he grabbed some menus from the hostess stand and found us a set table.

The napkins were cloth, I noticed in surprise, but every space had a small stack of those ultra-thick paper napkins as well.

“If you order something messy, they bring out a steam bath for you,” Noah explained. Like me, he stood to let Jillian sit first, and I approved. It had taken me a while to learn that manners lesson after I’d moved to Hollywood—someone had schooled this kid well.

“It’s pretty swank for the middle of nowhere.” I wasn’t sure if I was being complimentary or an asshole. I
wanted
to be complimentary—I liked the place. Along the back wall there were plaques of what
should
have been fishing trophies, but instead were ridiculous items of measurement. A length of pipe, a liter bottle, a plunger—along with a caption:
Caught a trout this big in 2010
.
Caught a rockfish this big in 2013.
(That one was under a mounted microwave oven.) Under a modest-sized bicycle were the words
The One That Got Away
. I mean, tacky fishing trophies that
didn’t
look tacky—how could I resist?

My problem was that my dad and his family had money while my mom’s family had not. A lot of times I mentioned stuff—class stuff like, oh gee, what a nice place you have here in what used to be a little fishing town—that made me sound like a snob. Vinnie used to say that I had social problems that teleported in like a cow into a nail salon.
You’ll be sailing along, tap dancing the small-talk boogie, and BOOM, that cow will show up, thrash around, and destroy everything in its path, and then leave the charming Connor to clean up the mess.
Jillian claimed that was an apt description too—I’d once ranted about women with skull-cap perms in front of Vinnie’s mom who’d worn her hair like that for twenty years.

But Noah seemed destined not to take exception.

“Yeah—it
is
pretty nice. Cappy did a twenty-year stint in the armed forces.
His
dad had been a fry cook, so when Cappy realized there was more to dining than a burger in a paper basket, he started to dream about a place that was comfy to eat at but classy too.” Noah laughed a little. “He must have been a hell-raiser overseas, because he
also
added the dance floor. After ten there’s only bar food—and usually live bands.”

Jillian and I laughed appreciatively. I could see how a place like this would be a staple in a small town—especially once the small town did a tourist boom. This would be a locals-only sort of place—a secret.

“It was nice of you to bring us,” I said sincerely.

A charming, self-deprecating grin made an appearance. “Well, you know. Not every day you get to meet one of your favorite actors in the course of your job. Had to make a good impression.”

I felt an unexpected heat on my face and hoped that stupid cow would stay out of my conversation this time. “You mean Carter Samuels and Levi Pritchard didn’t get the surf-and-turf treatment?”

Noah grinned wider, his cheekbones staining a darker red. “No, sir—but then, I haven’t had a chance to drive for them.”

“You’re new to the company?” I looked over the menu and for the first time ever got excited about the choices. A small sirloin steak with mushrooms—that actually sounded
really
good right now.

“Well, yeah, but they usually drive themselves,” Noah admitted. “I was hired for special occasions and gofering.”

I cringed. “Oh God. I’m the only idiot who can’t find my way around Washington, aren’t I?”

He winked, which made me feel better. “Hey, you’re keeping me employed, so as far as I’m concerned, you’re brilliant. Besides, this job is sort of the answer to the age-old question, you know?”

I looked up from my mortification and took the bait. “What age-old question?”

“What kind of job can you get with a master’s degree in philosophy?”

I laughed politely, but inside I quailed. I knew myself—the odds of the psycho cow popping up in conversation were inversely proportional to how embarrassed I was at being “amiable beefcake” in front of someone. Vinnie’s parents were a cop and a nurse—psycho cow showed up
occasionally
. Jillian had three MAs. It had taken me five years as her top-grossing client to stop insulting her, her family, and her family’s family at every turn.

“What are you having?” Jillian asked me, sotto voce, like she didn’t want to interrupt my conversation.

“Baked potato, plain,” I muttered, because the steak didn’t sound as good anymore.

“Bullshit,” she replied. The waitress showed up right then, and Jillian summoned her attention with an imperious click of her nails on the vinyl cover of the menu. “Yeah, we’ll have the fried pickles as an appetizer, I’ll have the low-cal chicken Caesar, and my friend here will have the twenty-two–ounce porter with mushrooms and bleu cheese on top, the loaded baked potato, the vegetable selection, and the small baby green salad after the app.”

I stared at her. “Jesus, Jillian, that meal would feed half of Hollywood.”

She ignored me and smiled warmly at Noah. “And what would you like, young man? Our treat since you took us to your favorite watering hole.”

Noah blinked in surprise. “Uh, Char, I guess I’ll have my regular—”

“How about your
favorite
,” Char hinted, looking at Jillian meaningfully.

“His favorite,” I said, winking at the waitress. She blushed and grinned and made the notation in her book.

“And to drink?”

Noah ordered lemonade, so I ordered that too—apparently fresh squeezed by the pitcher—and Jillian ordered a lemon
drop
. Well, that was usually
all
she had for lunch, so it was a banner day in the health department for both of us, wasn’t it?