See, if being let go from my job had thrown me down a bottomless pit of depression, it was losing Dorian Fisher that kept me there for months. I ate ramen noodles in bed—oily splatters all over my sheets—refused to see or talk to anyone, and felt debilitating nausea every time I saw any news about him.
I realize that I’m making it sound like I “had” Dorian Fisher to begin with. I understand what it looks like now, the towering height of my delusion.
But then things took a turn. Dorian posted a picture of a terrace in a narrow alley, away from the crowds, and I double-tapped the post to like it. I didn’t mean to do it. It was pure instinct, the way you say “You too!” to someone who wishes you a happy birthday.
I stared at my phone, fingers gripped in panic. I’d spent the last few months pleading with my brain to erase what had happened in that hotel room. The way Carly found me. The fact that my dream boss in my dream job had fired me for “the worst behavior she’d ever seen.” For something Idefinitelydid.
But that was then. If I saw Dorian now, I’d do better. I’dbebetter. I needed a second chance. Didn’t everybody deserve one?
I left my emails unanswered, slipped on my shoes, and rushed down the streets of Cannes until I arrived at the little bistro. Dorian had shared its location. It meant something.
He wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t; he’d probably left a while ago. I sat at the terrace, maybe even at the same table he’d picked earlier. I ordered an Aperol spritz and leaned back in the wicker chair, letting the late afternoon sun warm my face. It felt wrong, but I did it anyway: I posted a selfie. I even wrote something similar to what Dorian had said in his own photo, about escaping the glitz of Cannes.
I’m not sure how much time passed. I spent most of it convincing myself that I was allowed to have a drink on any terrace in the world. Dorian didn’t own Cannes. He was here for work;Iwas here for work. I’d recovered from the worst day of my life. And now I was in control again.
My mind kept spinning, boosting my confidence. I ordered a second Aperol spritz. I was halfway through it when a shadow passed over my table. A man stood there, backlit against the fading sun. He could have been a hallucination.
“May I join you?”
I shrugged, like either way it didn’t matter to me. Dorian sat down and gestured for the server to come over. He asked for pastis, a popular liquor in the South of France, which tastes of anis and licorice. It was the cream-colored apéritif grandpas drank in huddles at the counter of local bars, but when Dorian ordered it, it seemed like the height of sophistication.
Dorian Fisher was here. With me. Again.
So whathadhappened between us? It wasn’t an affair. We hadn’t slept together. Hadn’t even kissed. It was so much worse than that.
Neither of us spoke until the server went and came back with Dorian’sdrink. She threw a glance my way, wondering who I was. In that moment I had no idea, either.
Dorian took a sip, then locked eyes with me. “Look at you now.”
It had only been a few months since we’d last seen each other, but Dorian had a way of making any statement sound loaded with sexual tension.
The first time we’d had a drink together was much like this, at the bar of a New York hotel, over a year ago. We were working on a press tour for his new action flick. It was my first business trip with Carly, and I’d been ecstatic, learning so much and making strides at work. Something—a pair of Ferragamo brogues, I think—had been delivered late, and I was sent to bring the package to Dorian’s hotel.
I expected to leave it at reception but, after calling up to his suite, the receptionist asked me to wait. A few minutes later, Dorian came down, wearing jeans and a navy polo shirt.
Do you have anywhere to be?Dorian had asked in his famous husky voice.
Before then, I’d noticed lingering looks, his sparkly eyes drilling a little too deeply into me during styling sessions. He’d asked personal questions: which neighborhood I lived in—Silver Lake—and for how long—three years. Did I have roommates—yes. Did I like it—no. But those moments were fleeting, the questions always brief, innocent. This one, if I had anywhere to be, felt different.
We sat at the back of the hotel bar. The lighting was dim, the leather seats deep. Still, a lot of people could see us. They could see me, with Dorian Fisher.
Talk to me, Dorian had said.I want to know all about you.
I’d let out a nervous laugh. And then I did what he asked.
I told him about my college days in New York City, followed by myearly twenties living with five roommates in a Bushwick loft, no peace ever. My fashion education had led me to the styling team at Ralph Lauren, a job I loved. I’d been so close to a promotion when my boyfriend of several years had announced he was done with New York. The weather was bad half the year, the crowds were too much, you could barely afford to breathe. He wanted to move back to Southern California, where he was from. He’d gotten a job offer out of the blue. It was a done deal.
Make fun of me if you’d like, because I didn’t see it. Even when he suggested living in his parents’ basement at the start. I didn’t get that he wasn’t really asking me to go with him. We were in love, in a long-term committed relationship. Of course I would stand by my man. Besides, it sounded like an adventure.
Dorian’s attention never wavered.So where’s the boyfriend tonight?
My whole body had burned up. I’d somehow steered myself toward telling him the most humiliating thing that had happened to me. At that point, anyway.
Back in LA, I’d answered.With the “love of his life.”
I’d made air quotes around the phrase, the sting of it still so raw. Turned out there was a girl in LA who wasn’t quite in his past.
In fact, I’m pretty sure they’d been in touch long before we moved there. She was the reason for the sudden urge to go back. I didn’t know that, of course. About a month after we moved in with his parents, he made up a story about randomly bumping into his high school girlfriend. That’s how he realized he’d never gotten over her.
