“I think we should’ve talked about it before you put in gray carpet,” she said quickly.
“I’m confused.” He lifted his hands, and did not enjoy the way his skin felt too tight. “Because we agreed to be exclusive. We’ve been going at it like it’s our job. And you’re going on tour with me. I figured I’d make you comfortable.”
“Okay, um…” She sat on the cuddle chair in the reading nook he’d added to the side of the room by her closet. The one he figured she could lounge on to read her scripts. She ran her hands through her hair. She’d dyed it brown for the role of Persephone.
He didn’t like the direction of this conversation. Didn’t enjoy the way his ears had that odd rushing sound and he wanted to go outside, find a busy street, and count cars.
“You know how we agreed to tell each other when something important happens?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I got an offer.” Her eyes were a little red when she said this. “I want to take it. It’s uh…a big one. I’m a key actress. They’ll put my name on the poster at the theaters. Right in the middle next to Chris Hemsworth. Only a tiny bit smaller.” Her words got breathier as she spoke. Her chest raising and falling like she was about to cry.
She didn’t need to cry. Because… “That’s amazing. Fantastic. Champagne fountain worthy.”
She nodded. “Yeah, uh…”
A tear fell out of the corner of her eye.
Nope, he didn’t like that. He crouched in front of her at the cuddle chair. “Irina, talk to me.”
“Filming’s during the tour,” she whispered like she didn’t really want him to hear.
“Okay, so you can’t make the whole thing.” The tour lasted like six months, so she’d have time to do both. “You’ll work around it.”
She did not have the expression of a woman ready to work around anything.
“I can’t come, Knox,” she said. “I’m going to be filming and then the press junket for the Clooney movie. I can’t come.” The words seemed to stick in her throat as she spoke, which was apt because they also stuck funny in his ears.
“So you can’t come. We’ll see each other sometimes. I’ll come to you when we’ve got a break. We get breaks.” Not long breaks, and they’d be in Europe so he couldn’t just drive over.
She nodded. “I…uh…how are we going to do this?”
“Do you want to keep going forward?” he asked, numbness taking over.
She gulped. “I can’t ask you to wait for me.”
“What if we wait for each other? It’s not always going to be tours and filming. We can find time to be together.” Unless they couldn’t, but he wasn’t ready to accept that yet.
“You really want to keep going?” she asked, and he swore to fuck her words sounded like hope felt.
He nodded. “I’m not done. Are you kidding? I haven’t even showed you what I can do with Twizzlers and few glow sticks.”
That was some seriously next-level epic. He didn’t think she’d be ready for it yet.
She laughed out a breath, but she didn’t smile. Wasn’t her sunshine self. “I think you’re pretty awesome, Knox.”
He reached for her jaw. “I also think you are awesome, Noodle Cup.”
She laughed again.
He dug the laugh, didn’t love the spark that’d left her eyes.
Didn’t enjoy the boulder on his chest or the way the world seemed to have started spinning the other direction.
“Tell me about the movie,” he said, hoping the excitement of the job would make her smile again, put things to right.
So she did. She sat there on the snuggly chair he’d picked out for her, and told him all about her starring role and what it meant for her. What it meant for her future. Her career. How things were looking up for her.
