Method(16)

“I know. Lucas felt the same.”

“What happened to our guys? They were so close. We all were. What happened to us?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I tell her the truth. “I don’t know.”

“This is so fucked up.”

An image of Blake flashes through my head and the guilt begins to feed. “I know.”

“I just want to get this over with, leave LA for a while. I need to get out of here.” Her tearful voice lifts. “Okay, so I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yes,” I assure her. “I’ll be there. I swear it.”

“Thank you, Mila, for calling, for everything because I know you mean it. I’m so disgusted with these assholes acting like family with their words of comfort after the fact. Like where the fuck were they when Blake needed a friend?” Realization dawns tangling my gut in knots, and it occurs to me then that we hadn’t seen Blake in several months before he died, maybe longer. Lucas probably doesn’t feel like he’s allowed to grieve. He’ll feel like a hypocrite calling himself a friend.

I can’t help but think my husband might be the very person Amanda’s just described and that’s why he refuses to release a statement.

“Shit,” I whisper.

“What?” Amanda asks anxiously. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just worried.”

“About Lucas?”

“Yes, and you. Text me when you get to Blake’s, and I’ll head over, okay?”

“I will.”





Mila



“Baby, where are you?”

He doesn’t know about the results of Blake’s autopsy.

I can tell by his tone. He’s optimistic which means he had a good meeting, which also means things are about to change for us.

I don’t know why I’m so wary, but I’m sure it’s largely in part to the fact that it’s too soon. We’d just buried Blake. I needed to have more faith and trust his judgment.

“In the kitchen,” I call out, folding egg whites into my mixture. He walks in and sees the evidence of my labor as I drink him in. A thin cream V-neck sweater outlines his muscular frame and hangs over a pair of dark jeans. His thick, black hair is swept away from his face and styled carelessly, his sunglasses perched on top. Tiny laugh lines crease around amused eyes that roam me. My hair is loosely tied up and I know I’m covered in powdered sugar. I’m a messy baker, but I’ve run out of carpet to pace in our expansive beach house, and I needed something to do to keep busy. The whole situation is exhausting, and I hate that I’m a slave to indecisiveness when it comes to Lucas for the time being and even more so, I hate feeling useless.

So, you bake a fucking cake, Mila?

Inwardly, I roll my eyes at my own efforts. He doesn’t miss it.

“What’s that look for?” he asks, dipping his finger into the dark chocolate batter before sucking it into his mouth.

“How did your meeting go?”

“Don’t change the subject,” he scorns. “Tell me.”

I wipe my hands on a towel. “This is no occasion for cake,” I say, defeated.

He circles the island and puts his chin on my shoulder. “Did you do it to make me happy?”

I nod.

“Then it’s an occasion for cake.”

“I’m selfish. I just want you to be okay. A cake won’t help that.”

“You’re appreciated, Dame.” He slides his arms around me and squeezes before stepping away to grab some water from the fridge. The oven sounds letting me know it’s pre-heated just as I pour the batter into the waiting pan. “How did it go?”

“Good, we’re on the same page. I see what he sees.” He pokes his head out from behind the stainless-steel door. “Did you read it?”

I tense because I haven’t. A part of me doesn’t want to and thinks I’m better off not knowing. In the past, I’d been intrigued as he got into character. Slowly and subtly while he immersed himself, I began to pick up on the tics, the new habits, the character change, and was fascinated by his brilliance.

“Not yet.” Pulling the oven open, I slide the cake in.

When we first got together, I had no idea what to expect daily. I assumed we’d live our lives jet-setting, and some of the time, we did. I didn’t care much for it because I’d already been to most of the places on my bucket list. But our life as of late has been a lot of the opposite. Lucas said one of his biggest turn-ons about me was that I cooked and that I was a homebody. He enjoyed the routine of having a dinnertime when he wasn’t filming and loved eating on our patio overlooking the ocean. And I know I’m right to assume it’s because he never had that kind of family atmosphere growing up. We do attend the necessary parties—the Oscars, the Globes, and the film festivals. For the most part, we have a pretty mundane home life that I’m more comfortable with and that he seems to thrive in. Often, his work can be grueling, his schedule exasperating which at times made us threadbare. I stopped working three years after we got married only taking local odd jobs to be at his side, knowing I could resume it at any point when I got bored, and I was getting there. My sense of self could never come second to his career and I’ve made that clear, but I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed the extended vacation.