Jack drops his head. “You’re wiped out.”
“You’re exhausted,” I answer, and it feels like a pressure valve in my chest has been released.
“We’ve been burning the candle at both ends.”
“I read once that sleep deprivation mimics drunkenness. Bad decisions, you know?” My lips are dry. I can’t muster enough energy to take in as much air as I need. “What I said last night. It still applies.”
Jack tenses. “Yeah, don’t sweat it,” he says, his tone mild. He rolls away from me and sits on the side of the bed for a few seconds before launching himself up and out of the room, his impressive erection leading the way through his tented shorts like a phallic dousing rod.
I grab for his pillow and press it atop my face, breathing his scent in, shouting silently.What fresh hell…?
The faucet in Jack’s bathroom runs for a long while. He never comes back to bed.
And I never get back to sleep.
The guy in the cubicle next to mine drops something, and I recoil.
It’s been that way all morning. My brain and my body are treating all sudden sounds like pouncing rooftop assassins, temporarily yanking me from my shock-induced stupor.
My phone vibrates: Mom.
You didn’t call Brian. I texted him to ask.
Heat floods my body. She won’t stop. She doesn’t listen. I throw my phone on my desk, returning to the report I was running.
My phone rings. I barely glance at it, expecting it to be one of my mother’s famed technological double-taps. It is not.
Lucas Webb.
Butt-dial? Diatribe? Wondering why I, a peon who is friends with one of his costars, keeps reaching out as if we’re bosom buddies? Why is he calling me? I worry at my lip and sit back in my chair, debating whether or not to let him go to voicemail.
The ringing stops.
Another incoming call. Lucas Webb.
Mom isn’t the only one who won’t take no for an answer.
“Hello?” I half stand, looking around my cubicle to make sure there’s no one nearby to eavesdrop.
“Penelope,” Lucas says. My name comes out in three hard-fought syllables. His voice sounds like he’s talking through a mouthful of cotton balls.
“Lucas… H-how are you? How are you feeling?”
“Better. Listen, my agent didn’t grab the goddamn script when I was carted out of there. I think it’s still at your place. Can I come by?”
All of that, and he didn’t even get his script? Oof. “Oh. Wow… I haven’t seen it, but… Of course. Is after work okay?”
He agrees.
I rush out to meet Margie in the park for lunch, grateful she was free for a couple of hours, since she’s been so occupied with the commercial grind. And she’s prompt for once, carrying two gigantic iced coffees in her hands. I notice the people she passes noticing her. People always give her an extra glance or two because she’s so incredibly stunning, but now I detect recognition in their gazes. This show,Glass and Carter, is putting her on the map.
And I’ve ruined it.
I stand and hug her tightly. She squeezes me back, at first with one arm and then with both, her hands still clutching our coffees.
“I’ve said it before, but it’s been a minute since the last time: I’m so so so so so sorry about the show.”
I say all of this pressed into Margie’s bosom because she’s taller than me and practically on stilts. I don’t try to hide the tears lodged in my throat.
