Porn Star(98)

I’m already shaking my head. “It’s not me, Logan. I can’t share the man I’m in love with. That’s never going to change.”

“Oh, Cass. You’re so young. You—“

I pull out of his grasp, my voice sharp when I cut him off. “Don’t say that. Don’t say that to me right now. It’s not fair. Yes, I’m young. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how I feel. It doesn’t mean I don’t know myself well enough to know that this isn’t working for me.”

In the darkness, it’s difficult to make out the details of Logan’s features, but I can tell when it finally sinks in. “Devi, are you breaking up with me?”

I can’t say it. I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to mean it, but it’s the only answer. I see that now.

So I fold my arms across my chest and break up with Logan O’Toole with just a nod of my head.

His breath catches like I’ve knocked the wind out of him. It’s the single most heartbreaking sound I’ve ever heard in my life, and I have a feeling that no matter how long I live, I’ll never forget it. It’s the kind of sound that makes me want to be a different person than I am, makes me want to forsake my own happiness. Makes me want to step forward and press my mouth against his so I can kiss away the sound and the pain.

But I don’t move except to wipe a stray tear off my cheek. “I’m going to go back to school. I’d planned to tell you that today. I’m not sure what I’ll study, and I’m not even sure what school I’m going to go to. I’ve been looking at a few. UCLA is still a possibility, but I’m starting to think I need to get out of California. UT Austin, maybe. I was accepted there when I applied in the past.”

“You don’t have to break up with me to go to school, Devi. I’ll support you in that, if that’s what you want. You don’t have to stay in the business for me to love you. And I don’t have to live in L.A. to do my job. I can go wherever you need to go.”

My knees buckle. “Don’t say that, Logan.”

“Don’t say what? That I love you? That I’ll support you?”

All of it. “If you loved me at all you wouldn’t say any of it. You’d let me go.”

“No, I’d fight for you. I love you, and I’m fighting for you. And if you loved me, you’d let me.”

“Have you considered that maybe the problem is I love you too much?” With that, I’ve exposed my greatest fear—that the real reason I can’t handle our jobs and he can is because I love him more than he loves me.

Before he can respond, I go on. “This is pointless, Logan. We’re just dragging this out, and it’s already painful for both of us. I’m so grateful for the opportunity you gave me with Star-Crossed. I’m so inspired by your work and your passion. And I’m so very honored to have had the chance to—” My voice cracks, and I go to clear my throat.

But then Logan is on me, a hand behind my neck, another tangled in my hair, and it doesn’t matter if my voice is working because he’s captured my mouth with his. His kiss is searing and aggressive. With his lips and his tongue, he demands, and I want to give into him so I do. For the space of our kiss, I do.

When he breaks away, we’re both panting. “You don’t want to leave me. You couldn’t kiss me like that and want to leave me.”

“I don’t want to leave you.” My voice is barely more than a whisper. “But I can’t live in your universe, Logan. If there was any way I could, I promise I would.”

He leans his forehead against mine and shuts his eyes tight. “Don’t do this, Devi. What can I say or do to make you not do this?”

It rips me up inside because it feels like he’s asking me to answer honestly, and I want to. So much. I want to tell him the solution that’s already staring him in the face. In the same way he asked me to “make porn” with him all those weeks ago, I want to plead, “Don’t make porn with me.” Don’t make porn. Just be with me.

But I know better than anyone that if he doesn’t see that answer, it’s because he doesn’t want to. And it’s not something I’m ever going to ask him to do. I’m not as vain as Cassiopeia to believe I would give Logan a more beautiful life than the one that he has, no matter how much I wish it were true.

“I have to go,” I say, pushing out of his arms. Don’t look back, I tell myself as I head through the open gate of the pool area to my car.

“Devi?”

Despite my self-coaching, I turn. Because I can’t not turn when he says my name.

“You should study stars.”

For a second I think he’s being sarcastic. Like he’s referring to himself—a porn star. That he’s suggesting I study another porn celebrity the way I studied him.

But he glances up, gesturing to the sky with his eyes.

Oh. Stars. “Yeah. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.”

This time when I turn to go, I don’t look back. I don’t stop. I step blindly off the cliff into darkness like the fool, and hope, eventually, I’ll land on solid ground.





21





I almost do it. I almost let her walk away from me. Because I’m so stunned. Because I’m so hurt. Because I can still taste the fire and heat of her kiss, and how could she kiss me like that and then just walk away?