Total quiet from Gigi.
“We’d kissed before, you know? The premiere that changed everything?” At Lamé’s nod, I go on. “We were kind of rubbing noses and, I don’t know…” I glance at them both, going hot at the memory. “Dry humping.”
“Like teenagers,” sighs Lamé.
“Just like that.” I flush. “We kissed everywhere but our mouths. And when I tried, he sort of…” Why does it feel wrong to talk about this? Like I’m giving up a piece of him? Of us? “Look, I can’t—”
“You tried to kiss him and he stopped it,” Lamé supplies and I concede, although it’s nowhere near as momentous as the whole thing felt.
“Right. Like that.” He’d groaned when he pulled away, as if it hurt, as if he didn’t want to stop, but he had to. Without looking at me at all, he’d gotten up and mumbled that he was sorry and gone to his room, leaving me alone on that big, soft, white couch. The credits had long since stopped rolling and the network was trying to convince me to watch a pseudo-documentary about a serial killer.
I remember feeling like I’d done something very, very wrong. A terrible blend of shame and embarrassment and maybe guilt, too. Like I’d pushed our working relationship in an inappropriate direction and he’d clearly not wanted that. When I’d tried to talk to him the next day, he’d already headed out someplace.
The worst part, though, was the rejection. Thehe doesn’t want mepart. The part where I was somehow not good enough or fit enough or attractive enough for the likes of him, despite the closeness I felt.
I turned the TV off and went to bed and didn’t see Zion until after his sex video came out, two days later.
Just thinking of it now makes me feel awful.
“I kept thinking… Did I somehow coerce him into making out with me?”
Lamé shakes their head. “No, honey.”
“Then what? Why’d he go and do that the next night?The video.”
“Theverynext night?” Lamé’s wide eyes narrow.
“Yep.” Gigi’s thinking. “That’s wild.”
“Curiouser and curiouser.” Lamé’s still watching me.
“I know, right?”
“What? What’s curious?” I look from one to the other.
Gigi says, “He almost kissed you…”
“That’s a hard limit for him. He never kisses.” Lamé leans in. “Ever.”
“Why, though? Why won’t he kiss?” I throw up my hands, exasperated. “He’ll do literally anything else, right? And he kisses on set.”
“That’s work. And you know the boy’s good at compartmentalizing.” Lamé examines their long, deep red nails and then looks at me. “I don’t know why he doesn’t kiss. I have an idea, but it’s not mine to tell. And I’ve found conjecture about what happens in other people’s heads to be an exercise in futility. Also, potentially destructive.”
I sigh. They’re right. It’s no one’s story but his. And there is a story there. Even without Lamé’s confirmation, I knew that. “How can a person live two such separate lives?” I’m unable to keep the sadness from my voice. “Can’t be easy.”
“He’s had a lot of practice. Been doing it his whole adult life.” Lamé shrugs. “Sex here. Work out there.”
“Except for that one time,” Gigi yells from her perch on the table. “With a woman who looks a hell of a lot like you, TT.”
“In the video?” I squint at Gigi. “She looked nothing like me.”
“You’re like twins.” Lamé nods.
“Identical.”
“Shit,” I say, sinking into a ridiculously comfortable kitchen chair.
From out front comes knocking.
