Funny You Should Ask(24)

I also know the answer to my question. About what he remembers. How much he remembers.

Amber, meet mosquito.

We sit, and he takes off his hat.

He’s had a beard before—a while back, seen briefly in the grainy photos of him being escorted into rehab. The first time. The tabloids had made a point to focus on his weight gain and the loss of the Bond six-pack, but plenty of people complained about the beard or the scruffy way he was wearing his hair. His hair has far more gray than I would have expected, far more than I saw in pictures. Contradictory bitch that I am, I prefer this look.

I don’t mind that he’s gained weight. Don’t mind that I can see a curl of chest hair peering out from the undone top button of his shirt. Don’t mind that he’s gotten older.

I’d seen a hint of what it had cost to look the way he did on the big screen back then. Starving himself, waxing his chest, getting things plucked and shined and oiled. It had been part of the job and even then, he hadn’t complained.

I like this version of him better.

I don’t want to like him. Not the way I liked him back then—that starry-eyed girl who had fallen head—and heart—first into what turned out to be the generic trap of celebrity. Gabe is a movie star. An actor. It’s his job to make people fall in love with him.

At least I hadn’t fallen in love with him.

I hadn’t.

Because that would have been truly ridiculous.

For years, I’ve been trying—in my way—to escape this magnetic pull he’s had over my life and my career. And today I’m stepping right back into its force field.

Part of me wants to get up and run.

I don’t like how my heart is racing. Don’t like that my palms are sweaty. Don’t like that I’m having almost the exact same reaction to him that I had ten years ago. I’d been so sure that I knew better by now.

Maybe my mind does, but my body sure as hell hasn’t gotten the memo.

Gabe looks up and smiles.

And dammit if my heart doesn’t skip a beat.

Fuck.

He sits there, across from me, and people are staring. He is, after all, impossible to ignore.

I smooth my hands down the front of my shirt, my fingers checking that button one last time. His eyes follow the gesture and they linger there for a moment.

At first, I think he might be staring at my boobs, but then I realize he’s looking at my fingers. Specifically, at my ring finger.

The last time he did that, I’d been wearing my wedding band.

But I stopped wearing it after the party with Jeremy in Brooklyn. When I knew my marriage was over, even if we still managed to draw it out for almost a year with therapy and promises to change.

I pointedly return the gaze, staring at Gabe’s hands. No ring.

Still, he holds them up, like a magician pretending he has nothing to hide.

But ten years ago, that hadn’t been the case.

Gabe had lied to me about Jacinda.

When he flew to Vegas days after the interview went viral, he’d made me feel like a fool.

Not just because I’d repeated that lie about them to the whole world in my article, but because I’d believed him. If I had known…

I’d felt a lot of things when I heard the news, but mostly I felt angry and humiliated. It’s what I allowed myself to feel. Because those emotions were powerful and protective. They helped keep Gabe and my memories of him at arm’s length. It was easier to be angry at him.

I summon that anger again.

Gabe, of course, has no idea what is going on in my head. He’s looking at me, studying me, but I’m doing everything I can to keep my expression neutral.

“It’s you,” he says.

As if he hadn’t just had his hand on my elbow. As if he hadn’t come across the room to get me. As if we haven’t just walked over to this table and sat down together. As if it hasn’t been ten years since I walked out of his rental house in Laurel Canyon, blinking in the sunlight, the ground beneath me somehow farther away than it had been the day before.

If I’m not careful, I’ll crack. I’ll smile at him. I’ll melt.

It will be as if I’ve learned nothing.

Instead, I lean into my anger.

“Mr. Parker,” I say.

He frowns.

“That bad, huh?” he asks.

I take out my phone. Set it to record.

“Shall we begin?”





THE RUMOR MILL


GABCINDA CONFIRMED…AND WED


Just days after a Broad Sheets profile championed the newest Bond, Gabe Parker surprised fans by leaving set to marry co-star Jacinda Lockwood in Las Vegas. The now viral article refuted any involvement between the two, but it’s clear that reporter Chani Horowitz didn’t get the whole story.

The marriage was confirmed by both Parker’s and Lockwood’s management, who then released a statement saying “Gabe and Jacinda’s relationship—and their marriage—will remain private, but they appreciate the outpouring of love and support from their fans.”

It’s quite a reversal from their recent claims that they were just friends.

As for Lockwood, she’s gained herself a reputation for being a heartbreaker and home-wrecker, having been linked to Parker’s former co-star Oliver Matthias and more than one married director. She’s continued to deny all rumors, even after she was named in a particularly scandalous divorce settlement.