“What would you do if you quit? Would you take that job for your friend in Seattle? Have you been looking at houses still?”
I hadn’t been. To be honest, there had been a glimmer of hope after we’d had sex that first time that maybe we could figure this thing out between us. Maybe we could actually trust one another. Maybe he wasn’t someone who would ever try and make me be what he wanted and use my fame to gain something for himself. And maybe he’d learn that there were upsides to my fame as well as the chaotic downsides. It wasn’t all bad. And if I’d learned to live with it, he could too. But the way he looked now, I had a feeling for him there was only one answer. If we were ever going to make a go at something more than friends, I’d have to step away from the limelight. And while I was pissed over what had happened at this most recent shoot, was I really ready to give it all up?
Chapter 31
Graham
I couldn’t sleep, my mind going over the events of the evening repeatedly. From my decision to tell Lior I thought it best we didn’t see one another for a while, to her turning up at her house looking like she was going to cry – and then actually crying. And then she dropped the bomb that she might quit her chaotic life, giving me hope. Only for her to then get distant and say she was tired and needed to get to bed after I perhaps seemed a little too excited that maybe there was a chance of us getting together if she dropped out of the spotlight.
“Maybe I was wrong,” I said out loud. “Maybe she’s not into me that way and it was just about sex.”
I rolled over and looked toward Brontë’s bed. But she wasn’t there to give me one of her looks of wisdom, and now I had something else sad to think about.
I slept fitfully, giving up around five and trudging downstairs to make coffee before the sun came up. Opening my laptop, I sat and stared at the last line I’d written. I had one, maybe two pages to go and I was done with the draft. It was my best book yet. The critics and my readers might not agree, but I knew it. Because this book was personal, and I’d poured my soul into it.
I took a sip of my cappuccino, and then placed my fingers on the keyboard and started to type.
Two hours later I’d finished the story, addressed the notes I’d left for myself within the manuscript, and printed it off. For Lior. I knew she was dying to read it and I wanted her to be the first person to get their eyes on it.
Checking the time on my laptop, I picked up my phone and sent her a text.
“Race you to the corner.” And then I waited.
And waited.
A half hour later she still hadn’t responded.
“Must still be sleeping,” I said, feeling empathy for her. She’d been in a state when she’d gotten home the night before. She was probably going to need a day or two to recover. I got to my feet. I’d bring her a cappuccino and coffee cake from Joe’s again. I’d be her porch fairy.
But when I arrived an hour later and rang the bell, my freshly printed manuscript in a large manilla envelope under my arm, a to-go coffee cup in my other hand with a bag hanging from my wrist, she didn’t answer.
Putting the coffee down on the stoop, I checked my phone to see if she’d texted back and I hadn’t heard.
Nope.
“What the hell,” I murmured, looking up at her windows. But all the curtains were closed as if she was still asleep.
I rang the bell a third time but after another five minutes passed, I gave up. I shoved the manuscript through the mail slot and headed back home, sipping the cappuccino as I went. As I climbed the steps to my house, my cell phone rang. Marley.
“Hey Marzipan. Shouldn’t you be in class right now?”
“I’m in-between classes, Dad.”
“Very funny. What’s up?”
“I was just curious if you were coming to Seattle too.”
“Too?” I asked, sliding the key in the deadbolt and unlocking the front door.
“With Lior.”
“Lior’s going to Seattle?”
“I’m assuming she is by the picture she posted on her socials earlier this morning.”
I dropped the bag with the coffee cake in it. The cake bounced out and landed beside the potted plants I’d shoved in the corner of the porch. With a sigh, I picked up the cake and tossed it in the bag. It definitely wasn’t edible now.
“I didn’t see the post,” I said, going inside and heading for the kitchen trash.
