“So, you finally getting it, Killer? You have to shack up with him.”
“How is this getting worse instead of better?” I moan and run a hand through my tangled hair. I sigh and pull out the scrunchie, tossing it on the table before putting my head in my hands.
“On that note…” I can literally hear him swallow. “They want to include Anne-Marie DuBois.”
“Oh fuck no.” Now I’m off the couch. On my feet. My blood is boiling. “How do they even know about her? I didn’t include her footage in the sizzle reel. Everyone on set signed an NDA.”
“That means you can’t talk about the footage to the public. It doesn’t mean you can’t talk about the footage to the network that bought the show,” Fisher explains calmly. Too calmly.
I stare at his face. The one I used to find handsome. The one I was charmed by. The one I considered a friend and creative ally. I point to the door, my arm shaking with the anger I can barely contain. “Get out of my house. Don’t even come back here. When we’re on set together, don’t act like we’re friends. We aren’t.”
“Come on, Killer.”
“I won’t say it again. Out.”
Fisher slinks to the door. “She’ll make the documentary better. Chick is messy as fuck and the rest of you seem to have your shit together. This is what we need. Unless you want to confess, on-camera, to a fake marriage?”
I pick up a half-empty bottle of Snapple and hold it close to my ear, ready to hurl it like an MLB pitcher. Fisher takes his last few steps to the door really quickly once he sees the bottle and my stance. “I’ll email you notes on the types of clips I want out of you and Nash tomorrow.”
He shuts the door and I throw the bottle of Snapple at the back of it anyway.
Two hours later, after I’ve cleaned up the Snapple, cried my way through a shower, and packed a couple bags I find myself buzzing Nash’s loft. He isn’t answering so I text him.
TENLEY: Hey. I’m at your place. Where are you?
It took almost five minutes but he responded.
NASH-HOLE: Why?
TENLEY: Because I’m your wife. Remember? WHERE R U?
NASH-HOLE: I’m not home.
TENLEY: Well I need you to be home.
NASH-HOLE: And I need you to not be my wife.
TENLEY: I WISH. Can you buzz me in remotely? I promise not to steal your underwear and sell it on eBay. Crew’s is worth more money anyway.
NASH-HOLE: Fine. I’ll be home soon.
I hear the door buzz and I grab it and haul it open, pulling my bags in behind me. If I recall, he’s in the penthouse. I look around the stark lobby… Does anything in this place have personality? Would a vase of flowers or a bit of color on a wall kill anyone? I get in the elevator and hit the top floor. I remember his door is the one directly across from the elevator. But… now what? I need a key to get in the apartment and I don’t have one. Then I hear a voice. Nash’s distinctive, emotionless voice.
"I'll unlock the door remotely. Head on in. Don't touch a thing."
It's his doorbell camera he's talking through and as soon as he stops talking I hear the soft click of the deadbolt unlocking. I reach for the handle and open the door. The first thing that hits me is that this loft is stunning. Huge windows cover one entire wall, from the floor to the top of the double-height ceilings. They're set into the concrete walls with thick reclaimed wood frames, which are so deep it's like every window has a built-in seat. The floors gleam they're such polished gray concrete, but the walls are also gray. So much gray, and Venice Beach has something called a marine layer almost every morning which means it looks gray and gloomy outside every day until about noon. Why on earth wouldn’t you want your inside to be brighter? Yeah, I’m judgey.
If this were my million dollar apartment I would paint the long wall that goes from the windows through the living room and dining room to the front hall a bright, bold color.
Nash's choice of furniture is slightly less expected. I think he's changed things from the last time I was here or there were just too many people at the party that I didn't notice the furnishings. There isn't an ounce of leather, which I hadn't expected, because men love their leather furniture. Instead, there's the longest sectional I've ever seen in a lush, expensive velvet. Charcoal gray velvet. And there's a corduroy reading chair in the corner with a matching ottoman with some silver fringe. But both are gray. The thick automated window coverings that are half up, half down at the moment on all the windows are also a grayish color.
"Jesus," I mutter as I pile my purse and carry-on bag on one of the stools—which are also gray— beside the kitchen island. "Robo-dude wants his apartment to look like the inside of a robot. Fitting."
I wander down the hall, back toward the front door. There's a powder room, with monochromatic wallpaper in white, and—you guessed it—gray. A black marble sink with brass fixtures and sconces on either side of the mirror. And there's a wood-framed opening to an office-type space that's lined with matte black bookshelves that contain award after award and medals in shadow boxes. The one wall without shelves has eight different jerseys in frames, all with Nash's name and number. All his Junior teams, and a couple Team Canada jerseys from when he played for them in the World Juniors. The room itself contains a small desk, a closed laptop on it, and a couch which I can only pray is a pull-out so that I have somewhere to sleep almost comfortably. Because I don't want to sleep in the living room and I sure as hell am not sharing his bed on the upstairs level. It's bad enough I'll have to go through it to get to the one full bathroom.
As I stand there bent over the couch trying to figure out if it's a pull-out, the front door opens. As I right myself Nash comes to a stop in the doorway. It's a double-wide doorway but doesn't look that way with his hulking frame in it. Nash is leaner than Crew but his shoulders are still as broad as a football field, and he's tall. Not my cousin Grady's freakish height but probably about six-two or three. His dirty blond hair is shorter than Crew's, and lighter, but he takes time to style it. He doesn't just shove on a baseball cap like most of the guys unless it's game day. Then he's always in that decrepit-looking beanie.
“I told you not to touch anything,” he growls.
