But there was a difference, and itdidmatter. Not wanting her to be with anyone else was not enough; it was more of a halfhearted gesture that was spurred from coveting her, not from loving her completely.
“I need—” she started.
“What do you need?” he murmured, and stepped closer, pressing his lips to her collarbone, though she was still clutching her chest and the whole thing was clumsy and awkward. Birdie didn’t think she’d live to see the day when Kai Carol was awkward at anything.
“Wait, Kai.” She pulled away, thinking of Kai’s brother andthe mess he’d mired her in. “If you had this epiphany, why didn’t you say something about Sebastian to the press? You could have spoken up, defended me. You could havehelpedme.”
His face fell. “Bird, you know that’s complicated for me.”
“Complicatedfor you? I risked everything to stand up to him on set, and I probablylosteverything by standing up to him, and it’s complicatedfor you?” Birdie suddenly thought she was going to be sick.
“He’s my family, Birdie,” Kai offered, and honestly, Birdie was ashamed to realize that years ago, that would have been explanation enough for her, that she was Kai’s second choice, but hey, it made sense when he explained it that way. But she’d tangled with Sebastian because she’d earned the right to be powerful, and she’d tried to revive her career with this stupid letter because she was tired of giving her power to everyone else: to him, to the studio, to her handlers, to the public. And it had been a dumb idea, to pitch herself as a girl out here in search of a boy, just like in one of her movies, but at least it had beenhers. At least when she fell on her face, she could own that fall.
“I need some air,” she managed, like her throat might close or like her stomach might lurch through her throat before it did so. “You can stay. Or you can go. But I need some air.”
It occurred to her that Andie might return to the room and find Kai Carol there and possibly Mace him, but she couldn’t concern herself with Kai’s well-being any longer. She reached for her shirt, throwing it over her head, then she fumbled for the door. Out in the hallway, she took deep, gasping breaths like maybe this whole thing was suffocating her.
She thought she heard Kai on the phone behind the door and stilled herself. Probably calling his own team or Galen because he still needed people to help him out of a jam. Birdie thought ofAndie and of Mona and of Elliot: she needed people, too, but in a different way than she’d thought she needed them when she fled New York four days ago for her wellness retreat and ended up in Barton.
She jabbed the elevator button down. She wasn’t sure where she was headed or how her next scene would be written, but for the first time in a very long time, she knew that she didn’t want to, absolutely couldn’t, leave it up to anyone else.
47
ELLIOT
The elevator wastaking forever, and Elliot’s stomach was in a full-on revolt, a cramp building in his side. He wished he could blame it on low blood sugar or abject hunger because he’d barely been able to eat at dinner with Simon, but he knew, because it was his actual gut, that it was much more about the story he’d just filed about Birdie. What was wrong with him? Why had he written something so counter to his own personal interests? Why wasn’t he fighting for Birdie, even if it meant going up against an admittedly magnetic movie star? Elliot had never been daunted by a thing in his life, and yet here he was, wilting.
He poked the elevator button again, then again, then stepped back to watch the numbers tick down. His fingers dug into his abdomen, trying to press the cramp away, like he used to when he got winded after a freestyle sprint in a meet. Just as his muscle blessedly relaxed, the elevator doors whooshed open.
His brain took a few seconds to catch up to what was in front of him. Who was in front of him. Like seeing Birdie alone in the elevator was a mirage. He thought he’d be better prepared to faceher. He’d had decades, literally two decades, to figure it out. To say,It’s been me all along. Don’t you want it to be us too?
He stepped into the elevator. She looked up at him, seemingly as surprised to see him there as he was to see her.
“Elliot,” she said, her voice intentionally steady, like it was taking every ounce of energy she had to keep it so.
“Why aren’t you with Kai?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”
She shook her head, then stopped herself. “I don’t—” She lifted one shoulder and let it flop down. “I don’t really know anymore.”
The doors lurched closed, and he took a step closer, but something about her face implored him to give her some space, so instead, he turned and stood in front of her even though it was awkward, with his back to her, when what he really wanted was to sweep her up in his arms, wrap her legs around his waist, and pin her against the wall.
“I need you to be honest with me,” Birdie said quietly. Maybe it was easier that way. Not facing each other. Not facing the truth or the consequences. “Did you send me the letter?”
Elliot went hot all over.
“Kai just told you that he did,” he said. “Why are you still asking me?” He considered lying, telling her what she wanted to hear, but then, he wasn’t certain what she wanted to hear.
Birdie stepped next to him, then slammed her finger on the elevator’s emergency button, and the descent came to a halt with a lurch.
“What are you—” Elliot started.
“It’s time that we did this, that we really had it out,” Birdie said.
“By holding up an elevator?”
“I don’t have the luxury of privacy,” she said. “Of anonymity. This is as good a place as any.”
“Okay, but—”
