Hollywood means more money. More recognition. Oscars and Golden Globes and Rodeo Drive shopping sprees.
I stare at the stack of scripts on the coffee table. If I get hired for one of these pilots Ira sent over and the show gets picked up? Or if I snag a role in one of these films? I could actually break out in the business. So why am I fantasizing about stage acting?
I’m still lost in thought when my phone rings. I check the screen, and for a second I think it’s Dean calling, until I do a double take and realize it’s an S, not a D. Huh. My ex-boyfriend and my one-night-stand literally have the same name with one letter replaced. I wonder if that means something…
Sean’s calling you, you idiot.
Yeah, that’s probably the more pressing issue at the moment.
My chest fills with anxiety. I shouldn’t pick up. I really, really shouldn’t pick up.
I pick up.
“Are you okay?” are the first words I hear.
Sean sounds so frantic that I’m quick to reassure him. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I came by after class yesterday and you weren’t home. And I texted you all night.”
“I know.” I gulp. “I spent the night at a friend’s. I…” Another gulp. “I told you I didn’t want to see you.”
“I was hoping you’d change your mind.” There’s no mistaking the sheer torment in his voice. “Fuck, baby. I miss you. I know it’s only been a couple days, but I miss you so much.”
My heart cracks in two.
“I messed up, okay? I see that now. I shouldn’t have given you an ultimatum, and I definitely shouldn’t have said your acting career isn’t going anywhere. I was upset and lashing out at you, and you didn’t deserve that. When I came to your opening night in Boston this summer, I was blown away. Seriously. You’re so talented, baby. I’m an ass for saying all that shit to you. I didn’t mean it.”
He’s practically pleading with me now, and another piece of my heart splinters off. “Sean—”
“You’re the most important person in my life,” he interrupts, his voice thick with emotion. “You mean the world to me, and I want to fucking strangle myself for driving you away. Please, baby, give me another chance.”
“Sean—”
“I know I can fix this. Just give me a chance to—”
“Sean.”
He stops. “Babe?” he says uncertainly.
My throat goes impossibly tight, almost like it’s trying to prevent me from saying my next words. But the guilt is eating me alive. I can’t just sit here and listen to him beg, not when I’m feeling this way. I swallow again and force my vocal cords to cooperate.
“I slept with someone last night.”
Deafening silence greets my ears. It seems to drag on forever, and with each second that ticks by, my stomach churns harder.
“Did you hear me?” I whisper.
There’s a choked noise. “Yeah…I heard you.”
We both fall silent. Pain and guilt continue to stab my insides. I involuntarily flash back to the day I met Sean. It was during freshman orientation, and I remember thinking he was the cutest boy I’d ever seen with his floppy brown hair that he’s since cropped, twinkling hazel eyes, and the cutest butt on the planet. Being the outspoken weirdo that I am, I commented on the cuteness of said butt, and his cheeks had turned redder than his Red Sox T-shirt.
We had dinner in one of the meal halls that night.
A week after that, we were a couple.
And now, three years later, we’re broken up, and I’ve just confessed to having sex with someone else. Where the hell had we gone wrong?
“Who?”
The strangled question startles me. “W-what?”
“Who was it?” Sean says flatly.
Discomfort tightens my chest. “It doesn’t matter who it was. I won’t be seeing him again. It was…” I take a breath. “It was a stupid mistake. But I thought you should know.”
He doesn’t answer.
“Sean?”
A ragged breath echoes through the line. “Thanks for telling me,” he mutters.
Then he hangs up.
It takes a while before I move the phone away from my ear. My hand shakes uncontrollably as I rake it through my hair.
God. That was…brutal. A part of me wonders why I even told him. It’s not like I cheated on him. I didn’t have to tell him. In fact, I could have spared him the pain he must be feeling right now if I’d simply kept my mouth shut. But I’ve always been honest with Sean, and some stupid, guilty part of me insisted he deserved to know.
An anguished groan flies out of my mouth. My heart hurts again. The guilt is even worse now, a tight, crushing knot in my stomach.
Rather than pick up my script, I grab my iPod instead and shove in my earbuds. Then I yank the blanket up to my neck and put Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” on repeat because it pretty much sums up how I feel right now.
Wrecked.
*
Dean
“Awww, look at him, G, he’s so precious when he’s sleeping.”
“Like an angel.”
“A really slutty angel.”
“Wait—do angels even get laid? And if so, are heaven orgasms a million times better than earth orgasms? I bet yes.”
“Uh-doy. Where do you think rainbows come from? Whenever you see a rainbow, that means an angel just came.”
“Ah. Makes sense. Sort of like how whenever a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.”
“Exactly like that.”
I crank one eye open and direct it toward the doorway. “I can hear you, you know.”
My annoyed voice puts an end to the most bizarre conversation I’ve ever heard. “Oh good, you’re up,” Logan says.
“Of course I’m up,” I grumble, rubbing my eyes. “How am I supposed to sleep when you two fucktards are standing at the foot of my bed talking about angels blowing their loads?”
Garrett snickers. “Like I’m the first one to ever wonder about that.”
“Trust me, you are. When’d you guys get back?”
Logan props one massive shoulder against my doorframe. “About an hour ago. Gracie needed to be back early because she has a show to produce tonight.”
I nod. Logan’s girlfriend works as a producer at the campus radio station. Which reminds me… “You planning on calling in and professing your love again?” I ask mockingly.
He sighs. “You’re never gonna let me forget that, are you?”
“Nope.” Though I wish someone had recorded that radio segment so I could pull some quotes from it and torture him with them. After screwing up and nearly losing Grace last weekend, Logan had won her back by calling the advice show she produces and saying the sappiest shit imaginable. I worry about him sometimes.
I toss the covers aside and slide out of bed buck-ass naked. My roommates continue to lurk in the doorway.
I find a pair of clean boxers and tug them on. “I swear to God, if you tell me you’ve been watching me sleep for the last hour like a bunch of creepers, I’m calling the cops.”
“Coach called,” Garrett tells me. “He said he’s been trying your phone all morning but you weren’t picking up. He wants you at the arena in an hour.”
“Why?” I ask warily.
Garrett shrugs. “Fuck if I know. Maybe he found out you got wasted this weekend—I assume you got wasted, right?—and wants to ream you out.”
“How would he even know? It’s not like he’s got people tailing us.”
“Dude, Coach is like that spy master from Game of Thrones. His sources are endless.”
Shit. Hopefully I’m not in store for one of Coach Jensen’s long-winded lectures about keeping my nose clean. We’re not allowed to drink or dabble in drugs during the season, but that doesn’t stop any of us from getting plastered or smoking the occasional joint. Still, I’ve never failed a piss test or tarnished the team’s good name with my partying, so I’m not sure why Coach is constantly on my case about it.
“Hannah still here?” I ask Garrett as I hunt down some pants.
“Naah, she went home. She’s having a girl day with Allie.”
I’m glad my back is turned, because the moment he says Allie’s name, my dick actually goes half-mast. Wonderful. I’m turned on by the sound of her name now?
“You didn’t do anything stupid when she was here, did you?” Garrett’s tone is lined with suspicion.
I fucked her twice. So…yes?
I bite my tongue and throw on a T-shirt, followed by a navy-blue Briar hoodie. “I was a perfect gentleman.”
Logan snorts. “Well, that’s a first.”
“Fuck you very much. I happen to be skilled in the art of gentlemanry.”
“That’s not an art. Or a word.” Logan rolls his eyes and disappears from the room, but Garrett stays behind.
He studies my face for so long I shift in discomfort. “What?” I mutter.
“Nothing,” he says, but he still wears a suspicious expression as he ducks out of my bedroom.
When I pop into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I realize that the purple hickey on my neck is still very, very noticeable. Had Garrett seen it?
But so what if he had? Anyone could’ve sucked on my neck this weekend. There’s no reason for him to suspect it was Allie.