In the bunk bed above her, Elliot shifted in his sleep, and the springs in the twenty-year-old mattress groaned. She’d fallen asleep before him last night, if you could call what she did sleep. Elliot had tried to forge a truce by making dinner. Mona had stocked the cabinets with some basics for her weekend trips, so he pulled out an ancient-looking stockpot, croaked on the faucet in the sink, and jump-started the pilot light on the stove. He dumped in a box of penne and popped open a jar of Ragù. Birdiethought of Ian, and how he used to cook for her when she needed not just nutrition but nourishment. She should have called him when she knew it was over after Elliot’s mom’s funeral. She should have told him something rather than telling him nothing. He’d taken care of her, and she’d been selfish and squandered that, and when she met Kai, she’d convinced herself that she didn’t need taking care of, which was an easy excuse for knowing that she was compromising herself. But everyone needed taking care of from time to time, and Ian had already understood that when Birdie still had so much left to learn. Carter had taught her about kindness and generosity in his own way, but theirs was never a grand love story. So yes, she realized as Elliot dumped cold sauce on the pasta, she should have dialed up Ian and filled the silence, even if what she’d had to say was difficult and wouldn’t have been what he wanted to hear.
Elliot slid a bowl over the table, and she grunted a thank-you, but neither of them spoke, each of them waiting for the other to admit his or her wrongdoing. Birdie knew she still had some growing to do, but not now, not with Elliot.
At bedtime, which was essentially after dinner because there was nothing else to keep her occupied, Birdie slipped into the tiny bathroom and peeled off her clothes, excruciatingly aware that she was forcibly trying to stop herself from thinking of Elliot and how, if she weren’t furious with him, she wouldn’t have minded if he peeled off her clothes.
She met her eyes in the mirror.NO. NONONONONONO.
She was mad at him,she was mad at him. She studied her reflection, the hint of fine lines that she’d have to have blasted off, the purple circles under her eyes that there wasn’t much to do about now, and tried to remind herself why they had started fighting in the first place. The issue was, she suspected, that thesedays she was too frequently engaged in too many squabbles, even if they were worthy squabbles, righteous squabbles. Sebastian and the studio and the press and Nelson Pratt and her sister, and Kai if he ever thought to reach out to her, but maybe that was a one-sided battle, since he never did think of reaching out to her.
And now Elliot.
It hadn’t always been this way, the squabbling. In Barton, it was just with Andie. They were constantly at each other’s throats over sisterly things, stupid things: who stole what from whose closet, whose turn it was to drive the car on Fridays (rarely Birdie since she didn’t have much of a life unless she was doing a school play), why someone’s eyeliner was missing when she’d just bought it brand-new at the mall. Their parents—Susana and her dad—almost always took Andie’s side because she was a relatively obedient teenager who lived up to the household expectations, and Birdie was in near constant peril of academic probation, which made her grouchy and moody and misunderstood around the house. And also, she suspected, lacking the type of intelligence her parents valued. Which only furthered the sisterly complications.
In the early years of her career, she didn’t have the confidence or the power to go looking for trouble. As her star rose, she supposed that her assertiveness did too. She didn’t make petty demands, and plenty of actors did. But she did expect respect and parity, and now, despite her fame, despite her box office guarantee, none of it mattered because it was so much easier, even in this decade, to point fingers at a hysterical woman instead of asking the man to take accountability.
In the bathroom, she spun the rickety RV faucet, splashed her face with questionable water, and sighed. She thought again of Elliot taking off all her clothes, slowly, piece by piece, button bybutton, and a charge flew through her like she’d been plugged into a socket, like they could work through their issues by making out on that flimsy mattress on the bottom bunk. She lingered in the cramped bathroom until her pulse slowed, but when she emerged, flushed and looking anywhere but at him, he was down to his shorts. Which certainly did nothing to quell her racing heart, her racing mind.
“Sorry,” he said. “I run hot at night.”
She remembered. How sweaty he’d gotten when they holed up together because she’d just bought the apartment and the central air wasn’t yet installed. How slick his skin had been against hers, how she’d liked it because she took it as a compliment, as if she were setting him on fire.
This morning, at 6:53, she grabbed a black hoodie off the table and threw it over her head. She’d thought it was hers, but it smelled like Elliot, it felt like Elliot, and though she knew both feet were firmly planted on the Winnebago floor, it felt like the world was spinning again for a moment. When she collected herself, she slipped outside. It was just daybreak, and the air was chilly and clear.
She punched in Imani’s number. It rang once and went to voicemail. Probably still asleep, which was just as well because Birdie needed coffee before talking her publicist down from another emergency. She didn’t know exactly what that emergency was, but she assumed her publicist hadn’t called her five times in the early hours of the morning to discuss the Nordstrom half-yearly sale. Birdie clomped back up the steps to the RV, making no effort to be quiet for Elliot, still asleep in the top bunk. If she was awake, he was awake, she resolved as she slammed a cabinet door in search of instant coffee. Like many things of late, Birdie didn’t consider the outcome of her actions, which was why whenElliot moaned from the top bunk to please keep it down, she wondered why on earth she’d woken him in the first place.
“Birdie,” he groaned. “Shhhhhhhhhhhh.”
She opened another door just to close it loudly again.
“Birdie,” he grumbled again. She saw him roll over in the top bunk and fling an arm off the side. Then he stilled, like he had fallen back asleep again. Which was so audacious. So rich. So exactly like Elliot. She was infuriated all over again. In her business, you felt first, thought later. You leanedintoevery emotion, not away from it. So she was leaning in, so far in, she nearly tipped over.
She marched back to the bunk beds and planted herself right in front of Elliot’s (annoyingly beautiful) resting face. He really was asleep. In less than a fraction of a second, he was asleep while she nearly died from lack of coffee.
She jabbed his shoulder. He let out a little whimper.
She jabbed his shoulder again. He growled.
She jabbed it one more time, and his eyes flew open, just a few inches from hers.
“What?”
“We have a problem,” she said because it was the first thing that came to mind. “We have a very serious problem.”
Elliot blinked twice, then a third time, and his gaze moved to her lips.
Then before she even knew what she was doing—she always did act first and think second—she leaned in, grabbed his face in her palms, and kissed him.
25
ELLIOT
All Elliot knewwas that Birdie had woken him up and suddenly she was kissing him, and he didn’t know what happened between last night and now, but Jesus Christ, he wasn’t about to stop and ask. Then his brain caught up with his desire, and he pulled back and stared at her.
Birdie returned his gaze unblinking. He could feel his pulse in his neck, his breath turning jagged. Then, either she lurched back toward him or he lurched back toward her, the gap between them flattened into nothing. His lips were on hers, his hands in her hair like he wanted to swallow her. He did. He hoisted Birdie up to the top bunk, and then she was straddling him, and his brain was white noise and fuzzy electricity and heady desire that he didn’t think he’d felt in, well, seven years.
Elliot sat up to meet her, as if he couldn’t tolerate even a slip of air between their bodies, then he pulled her down on top of him, his hands making their way under her hoodie. He wanted to take his time but simply could not. His fingers danced along theflesh of her waist, then over her rib cage, and, oh god, her skin felt perfect, like a goddamn miracle, and then he went to unclasp her bra but discovered she wasn’t wearing one, and that made him absolutely frantic, just completely crazy, something rising in him like he’d been hungry for Birdie for seven long years and now he was more ravenous than he’d realized.
Birdie let out a little moan as he swung the hoodie over her head and threw it to the floor, then she repositioned herself right on his extremely obvious hard-on.Hard-onwasn’t even the right word for it, he thought. He felt like he was armed with a fucking torpedo. Had he ever wanted something more, someone more? She eased back, then up, over him, and both of their breaths hitched, and then she was atop him, skin to skin, his tongue exploring her mouth, his hands exploring her breasts. Her hips were still moving in a perfect rhythm, like they were made for each other, like she couldn’t stop herself any more than he could.
