I hear his voice coming from the bedroom—unexpectedly animated, and angry. He’s standing by the window holding his phone to his ear, and before I can announce myself, he barks into it.
“You’re not listening to me, so let me be very clear: I know I once did your bidding, but not now. That’s not what this is about anymore.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Through the crackling silence, I hear a voice on the other end of the line. His father. I’m not sure if I should walk away; our privacy is such a precious commodity these days… even Rainer is entitled to it. But I’m glued to the door. My breath is trapped in my lungs.
“I swear, if you even come within a mile of her, so help me God, I’ll kill you.”
He hangs up the phone, slamming it against the desk so hard it makes me jump out of my flip-flops. My gasp gives me away, and Rainer looks up, his face immediately retreating from rage to surprise.
“Sorry,” I blurt out, shifting my weight in the doorway. “I couldn’t find you, and by the time I got here—”
He freezes for a moment. Even his hand doesn’t move. But his eyes quickly dart away from me. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
I want to go to him, to hug him, but he seems closed off somehow. This stuff with his family is bigger than I thought, and for the first time I consider that maybe it is powerful enough to come between us. “That’s okay,” I say. “Is he threatening your mom?” I ask.
“What?”
“You said if you come within a mile of her…” My voice trails off.
Rainer is looking at the floor. “Oh, yeah.”
I pause for a moment, deciding whether to press the issue. “I didn’t realize it had gotten that bad.” I didn’t realize we were keeping things from each other, is what I want to say, but I hold back.
He doesn’t answer, and when he slumps into his chair, I instinctively thrust my bags at him. “I went shopping,” I say, trying a different tactic. Maybe distracting him will help. “With Alexis. Want to check out my loot?”
He glances at me absentmindedly. “Maybe in a bit.”
I look down at the desk and realize there are papers strewn all over it. “What are you doing?”
He exhales then, long. “I was trying to read through my mom’s divorce papers.”
“Oh, Rainer.” I go over to him. I rub his neck.
He shakes his head. “People are coming out of the woodwork now. His old assistant, one studio exec.” He runs a hand over his eyes. “It’s too much. I can’t blame her.”
“When did she decide?”
He shrugs. “The last few days? I don’t know, Paige. I’ve been distracted.” I feel him flinch away from my fingertips. Rainer never gets short with me.
I think about tour, my birthday last night. “We’ve been working,” I say, unsure of the words, whether they’re true. Have I been distracting him?
“Yeah, but this is my family.”
I can feel the skin under my eyes burning, and I turn to leave when I feel his hands reach for me. In the next breath he’s pulling me down into his lap.
“I’m sorry,” he says, the side of his face pressed to mine. “I just…”
“It’s okay,” I say. “You don’t need to apologize.”
“I love you,” he says, suddenly.
I know he does. I’ve known it since the premiere, maybe longer, but hearing it now, like this, is new. We’ve never said it. Not directly. Not with nothing standing in between the words.
He runs a hand up and down my back. “You don’t have to say anything,” he says. “I just… I just needed you to know.”
“I love you, too,” I say. Automatically, without thought.
“You do?”
