While he was gone, she threw another log on the fire, then pulled a blanket off the back of the couch and swaddled herself in it from the neck down.
He returned shortly, dressed in the sweatpants and nothing else. She tried not to wince at the sight of the mottled bruising and taped-up spots on his torso. But once the shock wore off, she was struck again, like she’d been from afar at upfronts and from up close at their photo shoot, by how his body had changed in the time she’d known him.
The first season, he’d told her he’d never stepped foot in a gym, like that was supposed to impress her. That his lean frame and corded arms came from his time on the road with his friend’s punk band—the one that had brought him to L.A. in the first place—loading and unloading their equipment, living off free beer and bar snacks, coasting on his youthful metabolism.
He wasn’t a twenty-five-year-old dirtbag anymore, and it was clear he’d been taking advantage of the network-sponsored personal trainer and private gym membership. He’d bulked upand filled out, no longer lean—a body that told the story of hard work, but also of indulgence. Of someone who wouldn’t—or couldn’t—completely deprive himself of the things that brought him pleasure.
She realized too late her eyes were lingering, her face starting to warm.
“You’re not getting my shirt, too, if that’s what you’re after,” she said.
He grinned. “Just getting in your pants is enough for me.”
“Technically, you got in your own pants.”
“You wish.”
“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.”
He settled next to her. “It means move over and stop hogging the blanket.”
She unwrapped herself and they negotiated their positions carefully, taking spots at either end of the couch, the blanket large enough to cover both of them. As Shane stretched his legs out toward her, Lilah tucked hers underneath herself to prevent them from touching.
She grabbed the remote and began scrolling through the cable menu, pausing on one of the movie channels, which was just startingGravy Train—Serena Montague’s breakout role, thirty years earlier. She raised her eyebrows at Shane. As expected, he shook his head, and she kept going.
“Whatever happened with you two, anyway?” she asked casually, her gaze still glued to the screen. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him shrug.
“Nothing interesting.”
“So she didn’t catch you in the hot tub with her daughter and her roommate when they were home for spring break?” she teased, racking her brain for the most outrageous of the tabloid rumors. He scoffed.
“Is that really what you think of me?”
“Well, I don’t knowwhatto think,” she said, in a faux-scandalized voice.
He watched her scroll through the cable menu for a few more seconds. Just when she thought he was going to ignore her or change the subject, he said, “We just wanted different things.”
“Like…you wanted kids?”
“Not necessarily.” She snuck a look at him and was surprised to see the serious expression creasing his features. “She was just sosettled,you know? Like, established. In her career, her life, everything. And at first, it was nice, because everything inmylife was so fucking chaotic at that point.” He glanced at her sardonically. “I mean, I guess I don’t have to tellyouthat. Being with her kind of…stabilized me. But then, after a few years—around the time I turned thirty—it started to feel suffocating. Like, she could never compromise on anything. I think that’s what she liked about me, that I was so flexible. She could just mold me into whatever she wanted. Eventually I started to feel like…like maybe I wanted to be with someone that I could actually build a life with, together, rather than someone who already had their life all figured out before I even got there, and I just got slotted into it.”
Lilah grinned. “You say that now, but I bet you’re going to end up with some flexible, unmolded twenty-two-year-old that you’ll just slot intoyourlife. The cycle continues.”
“I wasn’t twenty-two.”
“No, but she will be. Trust me.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” He sounded slightly annoyed as he held out his hand. “You’re doing a terrible job picking.”
She tossed the remote at him. He picked it up and began scrolling so fast she got dizzy. “What about you and Dick?”
“You mean Richard?” She cast a sidelong glance at him,surprised that he was instantly able to summon the name of her on-again, off-again ex—who, unlike Serena, wasn’t exactly a household icon.
Her legs were starting to cramp, so she stretched them out, one at a time, her bare skin sliding against the worn-in fabric of his sweats. He kept his eyes on the television, but she thought she saw a tendon in his neck twitch.
“Richard and I…we weren’t good at compromising, either. Mostly about where we wanted to live. He hated being in L.A. if he didn’t have to be, for work.”
“Did you ever think about moving back to New York to be with him?”
