Page 96 of Seeking Stars
"Okay. I'll go make us breakfast," she told him, getting up and putting on pants— discarded after they'd had sex again before sleep— leaving him to write the email in bed.
While they were eating at the breakfast bar, he got a new email from Coulton. Liam checked it as they had coffee.
"Sorry I'm distracted. I just want to get rid of him. I'll send this email and be done."
Liam typed a response email while she checked her social media accounts. She had hundreds of messages unread. She scrolled through them, tracing it all back to posts made by friends and friends of friends; she also had many messages from random people reaching out upon seeing those stories, hoping to get in touch with her and, potentially, Liam.
It was a good thing that her general group of friends weren't the kind to have great reach online. If they had, she'd probably had a lot more to deal with. Yet someone had had a public profile, and the pictures had been used elsewhere… with or without their permission.
She also had a few emails from reporters for small local newspapers, asking for an interview. One of them assured Ana the interview aimed to discuss her work; the others only mentioned Liam. She stared at the emails and did nothing, just like she had done nothing with the messages on social media.
"Done," he said, putting his phone to the side. "He wanted to know when I'm going back, becauseLethal Whispers— the new movie— is starting in a few days and that I have to prep before that."
She put her phone away as well. "Does he think you'd disappear and not fulfill your contracts?"
"I think he's terrified one day I might. It doesn't help that I shocked him by coming here."
"You're still leaving tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah. Early in the morning, as I have to meet with Brad— my trainer— in the afternoon."
"Where are you filming?"
"Vancouver for exteriors, LA sets for everything else. It's the good thing about how much CGI goes into a movie like this."
She nodded. "Do you have any decent breaks during filming? Any number of days where we could visit?"
"I was thinking about that." He took a sip of his coffee. "Shooting can take so long each day that a lot of the time I prefer to sleep in my trailer. If I'm filming in LA, though, I like to go home on the weekends. I was thinking you could come stay with me for as many weekends as you can."
She smiled. Calm settled within her, at learning that he'd been thinking about it too and, while his idea made sense, she wasn't sure she could make it happen. It had nothing to do with how exhausting it could be to travel so much, which she was willing to do for this relationship. For quality time with Liam. No, the problem was her bank account.
"That's a lot of flying," she finally said.
"I hope that doesn't mean you're okay with not seeing me much," he half joked, "because I want to see you as much as I can."
She squeezed his hand. "No, that's not it. Of course I want to see you as much as I can. This weekend has been…"
"Wonderful."
"Wonderful," she agreed. "I just don't have the money to cover all those flights."
"Oh." He scratched his eyebrow. "That should be fine. I have the money."
"I don't know. I don't want you to feel like you have to pay to get us together every time. I also want to contribute… but we can keep it proportional."
"I don't mind, Ana. I don't care about the differences between our bank accounts, unless you do?"
"Not in itself, but I don't like the idea of you being the only one using your money. "
"I care a lot more about seeing you sooner rather than later. I would rather use the money and give us a real chance at being together— really together. We have a lot of challenges as it is— my fame, our agents— distance is something we can do something about."
She squeezed his hand. "Is there any sort of middle ground? You can pay for most of it, but I'd like us to see if there's a way to minimize distance and money spent."
She stared at Liam's eyes and he did the same, trying to come up with ideas.
"What about this," he said. "Maybe you can come stay in my place for a while. You can live there while I'm away, doing your editing and such. I'll come see you on the weekends. You can come back home and back to LA as often as you'd like. And I'll help pay for the tickets. That would minimize the amount of travel while giving us a few weekends."
She remained silent for a beat, her stomach fluttering at what he implied with his generous offer.
