Page 20 of Hollywood King
We’d lay like this so many times. Years of us laying side-by-side, facing each other with good happy memories. Now I could feel the distance. It stretched cavernous between us. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, and that’s all I wanted her to do.
“Will you look at me?”
She didn’t as she answered. Squeezing her eyes closed instead like it could stop her from doing something she regretted. “No.” It came out more than a whisper, less than a sob.
“Why not?” I breathed.
“You know why. I can’t look at you and not see you like you used to be.”
“I’m the same person I was then.”
“In some ways you might be, but not the ways that matter, or you wouldn’t have waited so long to come back to me.”
In this dark space, the world outside, and just us together, it felt safe to the tell the truth. Explain all the reasons I didn’t reach out sooner and hope she threw herself into my arms. But years of distance pulled me from the edge.
I couldn’t argue with her about me changing. I’d changed in fundamental ways since my family all but cut me out of their lives, and the woman I loved ran away to be with god damn Edgar.
Instead of pressing further, I scanned her face. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she was thin, too thin, but she’d always been that way. Some weird irrational part of me wanted to lock her up, drag her into my lap, and force feed her cookies and soup. In my own way, I guess I wanted take care of her like I did when we were younger.
I exhaled as soft as possible so the sound wouldn’t tremble. I couldn’t let her see what she did to me, still did to me, when I looked at her. Even more so when she was so determined to push me away.
“We need to get ready soon,” I said, trying to force myself to sit up and get out of bed.
The doorbell rang, and it was the dash of cold water I needed to pry myself away. Until she shoved off the bed and climbed across my lap. Her bare thighs curled in tight around my hips. My heart stopped, my lungs stopped, and the entire world froze as the love of my life straddled me. It took every particle not to react, not to scare her away.
She leaned so her face leveled with mine. “Maybe I should use you. Fuck you right here, right now, get you out of my system, and never see you again.”
The idea gutted me, but I didn’t move or answer her.
She scanned my features and ran her hands down from my wrists she’d pinned to my forearm, then biceps, to my chest before stopping and leaning back. “No, you aren’t the kind of man to be used. I’d end up the hurt one, and you’d go back to being a Hollywood King. You’re not the kind of man to be broken. You’re the kind of man to do the breaking and leave a trail of desperation for more damned fools to follow.”
What could I say to that? I’d cultivated my image well, so well, even she believed it. And why shouldn’t she? I’d wanted to prove myself to her, and the family, but time passed, and now it was too late to go back and undo my questionable choices. Choices made from grief and loneliness. Choices made from loss.
I carefully lifted her off my lap and sat her on the swath of covers next to me, then sat up. She watched me carefully, the little line in her forehead scrunched up like it always did when she was considering deep, unimaginable things. It used to be a sign we were about to do something stupid and get into trouble. I had no idea what it meant for grown-up Cathy. I wished it still meant the same. The heat of her body was still imprinted on my lap, and I could use some trouble right about now. But once I started, I’d never be able to stop. I knew that about myself too.
I didn’t look at her as I climbed from the bed and answered the door. The messenger got a big tip for waiting, and I returned to my room with Cathy’s clothes. She stood looking at an arrangement of items on a small shelf above my side table. A ticket stub, an all but crumbled to dust brown oak leaf, a lock of dark brown hair wrapped in a red ribbon.
I cleared my throat and put the clothes on the bed hoping to distract her. “Nelly sent over an outfit for the wake. We have to leave soon. Everything you could need will be in the bathroom. If not, call out, and I’ll get someone to bring something over.”
She shifted, tearing her eyes away from my pathetic little shrine to scan me. The line in her forehead was still there, and I tried not to fidget under her scrutiny. Not when we needed to leave, and I couldn’t possibly savor her in the time we had.
“Do people always do what you order?”
“I didn’t order you to do anything. You can wear my shirt to the wake for all I care.” She was just baiting me now, but I don’t rise as easily as I once did.
“I’ll be in the other room until you finish.” I slipped out the door while I still could.
My clothes were on a hanger near the entryway, so I grabbed the garment bag and ducked into the guest bathroom to change. Once I came out, I heard Cathy in the kitchen and went to make sure she hadn’t been looking for me.
Cathy in black devastated. All her edges magnified so you could see they aren’t jagged but tumbled to a beautiful shine. Her hair was braided from her crown to the back of her neck and then coiled into bun at the base of her skull. The simple black cap-sleeve sheath hugged her curves. Her black Louboutins clicked on the hardwood as she walked back and forth the length of my kitchen eating a chocolate chip cookie.
I had to swallow a few times to get the words out. “Did you have everything you needed? Do you need to stop at home before we go to the wake?”
She shoved the rest of the cookie in her mouth while locking eyes with me. It really shouldn’t have been so sexy. Then she did that feminine thing where they run their ring finger around the edge of their lipstick checking for crumbs and smudges at the same time.
She squared her shoulders and said, “I’m ready. Take me home.”
