Page 2 of The Cruiser
“If it’s nothing,” he says, “then it’s time to take that monkey suit off.” He shrugs out of his Tom Ford blazer and dumps it on my side of the vanity in what feels like a punctuating gesture. We bickered over him dressing up for the event, and only when I reminded him that I bought the tux for these specific occasions did he cave. “I hope I lived up to your expectations tonight, V. Aside from the champagne overload, you were great. The queen of public relations perfect, as always.”
His smile is as thin as the compliment, and when he turns to leave, I feel the night slipping away even further. “Don’t fall asleep, ’kay?” I ask, reaching for his arm. “Let’s cuddle for a bit.”
Having never been a cuddler, Derek regards me with a peculiar look. “Might want to rinse off first,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “You smell a little ripe.”
The door bangs shut behind him, and boozy self-pity surges in my throat. If that’s his version of a rally, we’re deeper in the hole than I imagined. I’m the first to admit our once-active sex life has seen better days, and a lot of it has to do with me. But Derek also promised he would never do back-to-back films and then promptly went AWOL for eight of the past twelve months. Since he’s come home, the only action between us has been one half-hearted erection dozing against my butt.
And that didn’t amount to anything.
Absence hasn’t made either of our hearts grow fonder.
I crank on the shower, ready to wash away an evening that refused to do me any favors. Under a blast of hot water, throbbing head resting against the tiles, I decide the tonic will be a quiet weekend, just the two of us. There isn’t much going on at work tomorrow since it’s Friday, and I can leave early. I’ll cancel Saturday brunch with my besties, June and Flynn. Derek and I can be together and enjoy our morning coffees in bed. Laugh over some on-set horror stories he always comes home with and hasn’t yet told me. What I crave is sheet-gripping sex but that feels like a long shot. Step one is rekindling the spark between us.
I can do it.
Through sheer willpower, I’ll turn this around.
There is no calamity I can’t manage.
After the long shower, I bundle into a robe and find Derek still dressed and perched on the side of our California King bed. He’s usually the first one under the covers, constantly telling me to hurry up. A beam of cold, slanting light from the floor lamp hits his face at an odd angle and makes it looks like he’s frowning.
Because he is.
Hard.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
Derek sighs and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes. It’s so quiet I can hear the TV that’s still on downstairs and the gurgle of the fountain in the garden.
“We need to talk,” he says.
My legs, fingers, brain—everything starts to tingle.
In couple’s vernacular, we need to talk means only one thing.
Somewhere, in the darkest part of my mind, this conversation has always lurked. Derek works with the most beautiful women on the planet, all of them vain and vulnerable, and incredibly needy. He sees them at their most raw. And in various stages of undress.I read the script for Tangled Roots, his last project. I knew it was a starring vehicle for nubile newcomer Fiona Lynn-Meyers. Knew she’d be naked for at least ten pages. One page of script equals one minute of shooting. And if the scenes need to be reshot, as the emotional ones do…
I sit heavily beside him on the bed. “It’s Fiona, right?”
It’s a stupid, stupid thing, needing to know. But I have to. If we’re going to end things, I could at least save some face if his fling is with a busty, twenty-four-year-old ingenue and not the weird craft services girl. Or worse, a production assistant.
There can’t be anything worse, right?
Derek’s hands fall into his lap. He stares blankly at the Elizabeth Taylor Warhol print he bought me for my thirtieth birthday. You have the same eyes, he’d said. Soulful and beckoning.
“I love you, Vandana,” he says, choking up. “I need you to know that. I’ll always love you.”
With the finality of his words, my stomach pitches. “Do I know her?”
Derek looks at me straight on, the way he does when he wants to make sure I’m listening, which, truth be told, sometimes I’m not. All I see are his blurry pupils, washed with tears of pain.
And fear.
“It’s not a woman,” he says.
Yup, turns out there’s worse.
