Rugged(90)

Stop. Fucking stop, Laurel.

“You’re making this harder than it has to be,” he snaps.

“Look.” I turn to him. “I don’t want to talk about Charlotte. I don’t want to work with you on another season because I don’t need the daily reminders of how blissfully happy you are. And I don’t want to be paraded around on f*cking camera anymore.”

“Why are you being so goddamn difficult?” Flint shouts. That finally sends me over the edge. In front of the garden, all the stars in the sky, and that pervy blue heron, I shout back,

“Because I love you, you jackass!”

Flint pauses, looking unsure of what to do. But I can’t stop myself, and I keep going.

“I’ve been in love with you for months. During shooting, I thought we had a chance. But you went back to Charlotte, and I went home. Then you had the f*cking audacity to play with me like this. To keep on playing. And I can’t take it anymore!”

Flint is speechless for a minute. Whatever he’s about to say gets interrupted.

“What’s going on out here?” Charlotte demands, walking onto the terrace. She is not kidding around; that is a steely-eyed lawyer’s gaze if I ever saw one. If I weren’t so worked up right now, I’d be damned intimidated.

“Laurel,” Flint manages. I’m not doing this with Charlotte here. Even I’m not that much of a glutton for punishment.

“Enjoy the premiere,” I blurt out, rushing past them both. “I can’t be here anymore.”

I run out and down the hall, past the ballroom, and into the street. Now I give myself permission to cry just a little, mascara tracking down my face. I don’t care if there are still cameramen and paparazzi outside, who’ll probably get an up close and personal look at my transformed state, from super confident producer-slash-star to makeup-smeared crazy person. I storm out, down the red carpet, and out onto the street. Finally, I have the sense to grab my phone and call for a cab, which is mercifully right nearby.

“Looks like you went to a wild party,” the driver says when I practically fall into the backseat. He looks me over, some concern on his face. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” I mumble, staring out the window at the city lights as we drive away. Well, the party’s over now.





34


When I get home, I throw my phone under my bed with a guttural scream of pure agony. If this isn’t the absolute worst day of my life, I don’t know what is, and the last thing I want are a bunch of texts from Suze or anyone else asking where the hell I ran off to. Then I go into the bathroom and scrub the makeup off my face, which almost involves taking it off with a cheese grater. Damn. Desiree seriously spackles it on. After that, I change into my comfiest, most ridiculous pajamas—hello, pink skeletons with pretty bows on top of your head—and pour myself a glass of wine.

That is, I pour almost the whole bottle of merlot into the jumbo plastic Avengers cup I got at the movies, but it’s been a hard day, dammit. I sit on the couch and flip on the TV, desperate for some mindless escapism. I will watch anything but The Big Bang Theory. That show has no respect for nerds.

The front door buzzer sounds. Instantly I flinch, and snuggle down deeper under my fleece blanket. I wait, hoping it’s just some drunk guy looking for his hookup’s number, but nope. There it is again. Groaning, I pause and go over to the speaker. “Who is it?” I say.

“Laurel. It’s me,” Flint says.

I could just ask him to go away, lose my number, hit himself with the neuralyzer from Men in Black and forget my address. But we don’t have enough high tech for this situation to work.

“So it is.” I stay there, waiting. He sighs.

“Please let me in. I need to talk to you.”

Go on, tell him to get the hell out of here. Start with some creative swearing; make f*ck a verb, noun, adjective, hell, maybe an adverb if you can swing it. But I know, deep down, that I owe it to him to talk. I did just storm out on him and his fiancée and probably left them with a hell of a conversation. Heart thumping, I buzz him up and open my door. A minute later Flint enters, his tie undone, his jacket off.

“Well. What do you—” And then he covers my mouth with a kiss.

I should be mad—no, enraged. I should be punching him in the stomach—well, patting it maybe, since I know how rock solid he is—but my arms go up around his neck as if they have a mind of their own, and we stumble into my apartment and smack into the wall, just like the first time he came here. The first night we had sex.

I’m doing it again! Oh my God, what is wrong with my hormones?

“No,” I say, forcing myself to pull away from him after returning to unblissful sanity. “Didn’t you listen to anything I said? You’re with Charlotte. I saw her with the ring on her finger. And by the way, you are going to make a terrible f*cking husband.”

“I’m not,” he says, panting. He closes the door behind him. Good idea, since Mrs. Hernandez from 1C was staring at us with her grocery bags in hand. “That is, I’m not with Charlotte, not the ‘I’ll make a terrible f*cking husband’ part.”

It’s like the floor actually drops out from under me.

“Wait. What? You’re not with Charlotte?” I go still, trying to breathe. “What do you mean you’re not with Charlotte? She’s your fiancée!”