On the way back I’d glanced in the rearview at her. For some reason her silence felt different now. Like there was a new tension in the air. She was flipping through some magazine as usual, but her face looked sad. Her natural light faded.
I didn’t know what was bothering her. I’d been running interference, making sure she never saw another piece of threatening mail and nothing else had changed in the time that I was with her. But ever since that phone call she’d seemed…distant. Here but not really here.
I told myself it was fine by me, that I preferred it that way. But wasn’t a bit surprised to realize that it wasn’t true. I wanted to see that smile that she’d flashed me the day before. Wanted to hear her soft western drawl as she questioned me about my job or dug her nose in my shit in that cute unassuming way of hers.
Before that phone call they’d been a shift in our dynamic. She was still the same soft-spoken easy-going girl, but she’d seemed to open up a little and we had a few good conversations that only served to make me admire her more.
She was a smart kid with a good head on her shoulders. She saw her career as just that, the ability to do something she loved. But she had no interest in living up to the hype of the Hollywood set.
She planned to go home for some downtime after the movie wrapped before she started work on the next movie she already had lined up. She really is in high demand and I could see why.
She wasn’t my first entertainer, but she was so completely different from the norm it was hard not to anticipate the other shoe dropping. But the more we talked the more I realized that she was the real deal.
Hollywood, stardom, not even wealth had tarnished her as yet, and I found myself wishing I could snatch her up before that all changed. A thought that I had killed almost as soon as it was formed. I wasn’t quite ready even with these new developments to take that road.
I was sure that I could control my feelings and let them fade out once I went back to my life. Anything else would be too damn complicated. I decided that since her life was here and mine could never be it was best to keep a lid on whatever the fuck was growing inside of me.
Now as I watched her I wanted to ask what was on her mind, but we hadn’t got that close, not close enough for me to go digging into her life like that anyway. It was only in my mind that shit had changed, she didn’t give any signs that she was even on the same wavelength.
So I left it alone and told myself once again that I shouldn’t fucking care. She was the job, nothing more. And though I’ve never done anything the easy way in my life, getting tangled up with Hollywood’s latest darling was not my thing. As far as I was concerned the shit was dead. My dick would just have to find someone else to obsess over.
Once we got back to the place on the beach, she’d shut herself up in her room and I didn’t like the feeling of emptiness I felt when I looked at that closed door. I must’ve stood there for a good five minutes talking myself out of going after her.
4
Instead I headed outside to get some air and cool my shit. Once I had myself under control I’d headed back inside and made some calls to make sure my boys were doing what they were supposed to just for some normalcy. I was acutely aware of that closed door and what laid behind it the whole time though.
After making sure that all was as it should be, I made a few callbacks to people looking to hire our services, and then finally I’d called Zeta back. I had no idea that that phone call was going to change the course of my life.
“Oh, so you finally have time for me.” I ignored her taunting and got down to her reason for calling. We’re not in the habit of keeping in touch when I’m on a job, so this was a bit of a surprise. Plus I didn’t feel comfortable talking to her with Tara in the next room. Why that should be, I didn’t question.
And then I remembered that I hadn’t even bothered telling her that I was leaving town. It wasn’t the first time in the last year that that had happened when in the beginning I at least had the decency to do that much.
Shit just goes to show how distant we’d been getting in the last year or so. I was thinking that maybe it was time we called it quits. I’d had the thought before but never followed through because some shit always came up that needed my attention.