Confessions of a Bad Boy (18 page)

I flick through the clothes on the rack for a while and she comes up behind me slowly.

“Um…”

I turn to face her, and notice that she’s hovering nearby, flashing me an embarrassed smile.

“What’s up? Do you not like any of these?”

“It’s not that.” She clenches her hands together and twists them as if she’s wrestling with herself. “I hate asking, but I was in such a rush this morning, and there aren’t any other girls here except some of the assistants and they’re all running around for Bjorn right now and it’s kind of an emergency at this point so...do you maybe have a tampon I could borrow?”

After growing more and more nervous at her discomfort I finally break into a laugh at the last word, and put a hand on her arm to show I’m cool with it.

“Sure! Of course. God, I thought you were going to tell me you’d forgotten to wear underwear or you wanted me to run out and buy you alcohol,” I say, as I go back towards my backpack. “Or…worse.”

“Does that actually happen?”

I stare at her without any humor. “All the time. But I draw the line at illegal substances.”

She laughs and follows me back to where my bag is. “I’m sorry. I told my boyfriend to get me some last night while I was holed up working on a new song, but I guess he forgot.”

“He was probably embarrassed.”

She looks at me with a glint in her eye. “It would be a first,” she says, insinuating a whole lot.

I smile and open my bag, fishing around in the mess inside, then slowing down, then stopping, then going cold.

“What’s wrong?” Haley asks slowly.

“I don’t have tampons,” I say in the slow monotone of someone shocked out of the moment.

“That’s cool. Really. Don’t worry about it.”

“I haven’t needed them.” I put a cold hand against my suddenly hot cheek and look over at Haley slowly. Her face is confused at first, but then the penny drops and she gasps, bringing her own hand over her mouth.

“Maybe you’re just late?” she suggests.

“Maybe. But maybe not. I’m never late.”

N
othing’s
better than the fuck you shouldn’t be having. The girl you’re supposed to be professional around. The guy your parents warned you about. The one that happens in a public space, where anyone might catch you. The illicit fuck. The secret fuck. The forbidden fuck. The fuck that’s wrong on so many levels, but which is so irresistible none of that matters. My advice, loyal viewers? It’s always worth it. Even if it goes up in flames.

It’s a trendy café in a nice part of town. The kind of area in which the girls take good care of themselves, and dress every morning like it might be the day they get spotted by a talent scout. Even so, I notice Jessie a mile off, her hotness radiating on a level beyond anyone around her. Almost more than visual, so fucking sexy I can sense her. All I need to do is trace the guys taking second glances and the women green with envy.

She’s sitting outside on the café’s shade-dappled patio in jean shorts and a torn vintage rock band tee shirt, her favorite outfit. Mine too. I step past the hostess and move toward Jessie, smiling as she notices me. She leaps out of her chair and throws her slender arms around my neck, kissing me on the lips before I can stop her, hard and hungry.

I push her away quickly and start glancing around.

“What are you doing?” I whisper, quickly sliding down into a chair.

“What’s the matter?” she says, frowning as she sits opposite me.

“Someone could see us, Jessie. You know better than that. Shit. Sitting out here in the open, being as hot as you are, kissing me like that – it’s almost like you want us to be found out. Is that what you want?”

She sighs and pouts a little, playing with the straw of her frappucino so she doesn’t have to look at me. I wait for her to speak, and when she doesn’t I call over a waitress to order a coffee.

“Why did you call me to meet here anyway?” I ask, once the waitress is gone. “You know that if your apartment is occupied we can always go to mine.”

She finally looks at me but her face is still stony.

“I wanted to talk,” she says, with a little harshness in her voice.

“Okay,” I nod, sympathetically. “I’m cool with that. What did you want to talk about?”

She drops her gaze again to her straw, though this time it’s because she can’t make eye contact with me, not that she won’t.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

“No,” she mumbles. “I just…”

She trails off, leaving the unsaid hanging in the air. I smile a little and lean forward.

“Lorelei told me you were trying for the house again. Is that it? Did they turn you down a second time? She said you reapplied for a bank loan but you expected another rejection. There are other banks, though. I’m sure someone will approve you.”

Jessie sighs and brushes her hair aside.

“Trying to buy the house was a stupid idea.”

“No,” I reply instantly. “It’s sweet. It’ll be a hell of a lot of work fixing it up, but how many properties these days come with a tree house?”

She laughs a little, her lips widening into a deep smile that starts to fade instantly. Something about her is different. Jessie could never hide her emotions, they come to the surface of her smooth skin in flickers and shades, like smooth stones beneath the rippled surface of a pond. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve spent so long staring at her, studying her, appreciating every inch of her, but it’s obvious that she’s troubled.

“It’ll happen,” I continue. “Even if I need to arm wrestle Kyle into co-signing.”

“No…” she says, back to playing with her straw. “It’s not that.”

I ignore her protests. “Maybe you could talk to him about it when he gets back. He might really be into the idea. You know he’s always after what’s best for you.”

Suddenly her eyes immediately lock onto mine, this time with a little narrowed steel.

“So it’s okay for me to lie to him
and
have him help me buy a house?”

“Whoa,” I say, leaning back in my chair as if blown back by the comment. I wait a moment for the waitress to set my coffee on the table, and as soon as she’s gone I lean in again. “Is this really not about the house? What else is going on?”

“Nothing,” Jessie says, looking down again.

“You can’t lie to me, Jessie,” I say soothingly. “Tell me.”

“I…I don’t know. Maybe we should just tell Kyle, get it all out in the open. I think maybe it’s time to come clean.”

I try not to look like I’ve just witnessed something horrific, and only half succeed.

“Are you serious?”

“Nate—” she says, leaning forward to stop me from losing my shit.

“Come clean about what?” I say, struggling to keep my voice down. “That we’re jumping each other at every opportunity? How? ‘Hey Kyle, we just wanted to tell you that we’ve been fucking like rabbits on Viagra while you’ve been away, okay? See ya’. How exactly do you see that conversation going, Jessie? ’Cause I have a pretty clear idea of what will happen, and it’s not pretty for anybody.”

She folds her arms and sits back. I turn away from her and gaze out onto the street, where people are passing to and fro, engaged in their own conversations, laughing and smiling. Eventually I feel Jessie take my hand. She’s holding it gently. I turn back toward her, knowing it’s a gesture supposed to calm me, to remind me of who we are and the closeness we’ve built, but all it does is make me realize how different we are.

“I just don’t see how we’re supposed to go forward,” Jessie says, softly. “How can we if we’re constantly sneaking around like this?”

I pull my hand away slowly from her grasp. Panic rises in me, fast and all-encompassing. This feels like it’s coming out of nowhere, and for no reason that I can fathom. We’ve been clear with each other since day one that this was never going to be serious, and now I’m getting blindsided by committed relationship talk.

I preface what I say with a consciously light-hearted laugh, hoping it’ll bring us back to friendly terms, but when the words come out they still sound heavy and hard. “
Go forward?
Jessie, there is no forward. I don’t think about the ‘forward’ – not when it comes to sex. I think about the now, that’s it. About what’s going to happen here, today, at this—”

“Stop!” Jessie interrupts so loudly virtually everyone else on the patio steals a quick glance at us. She takes a breath and leans in, projecting her voice. “Don’t give me another one of your ‘big man’ speeches. I’m not in the mood for it, and this isn’t the time.”

I try to steady my emotions. It feels like all the lust and passion between us is going sour, turning into a kind of resentment, a sense of dislike. This is exactly why I don’t do relationships. This kind of ugliness is inevitable. I pull back, stop myself from letting the anger rise to the top, from letting whatever the weird turn our relationship took the moment I arrived take me somewhere we can’t return from.

“Look, Jessie,” I say, my voice as gentle as I can make it, “I don’t get it. One minute you’re telling me that we can do this. That we’re two adults who can be responsible for themselves. I thought we were on the same page. Now you’re talking like we’re a long-term couple, like we should be thinking about the future.”

“Things change.” Jessie presses her lips into a thin, hard line, and I can tell I’m not getting through to her, that my words are falling on deaf ears.

“
What
changed? Tell me. What?”

She looks away, and I see her shiver. She folds her arms again, but this time it’s less a defiant gesture, and more a self-comforting one. I wait for her to talk, but instead she seems to go still, to fall inside herself, until I feel like all I’m looking at is a lifeless shell.

“Jessie,” I say, after a while, and she slowly turns to face me, as if coming awake from a thousand-year sleep. A soft, tragic smile plays itself upon her lips.

“Nate. I always knew you were good at bullshitting, but I never realized you were so good at lying to yourself, too.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that you don’t even understand your own feelings.”

“Feelings? What feelings? Why are you making something that was so simple and clear-cut into something messy?”

“This was messy from the beginning, Nate. All relationships are messy, you just can’t handle that.”

“This isn’t a relationship!” I say a little too loudly, before smiling myself back to earth. I take a moment and laugh a little, shaking my head, the way bad sitcom actors do at the end of a show. Only this time a credit roll isn’t going to save me. “This is not a relationship. We just happen to be old friends –
good
friends, who started fucking each other and enjoyed it enough to keep doing it. That’s all.”

Jessie laughs derisively. “That’s pretty much a relationship, Nate. We’ve spent every possible moment together for the past few months.”

“That’s not a relationship,” I insist, feeling my blood run hot. “You know why? Because a relationship has a future. A relationship turns into a commitment, turns into a marriage, turns into
kids
. Turns into misery, obligation, and all the other XYZ. And that is not somewhere I ever want to be in danger of heading. What did you really think this was?”

Suddenly Jessie drops her face into her hands, her body shaking with emotions. All of my anger immediately goes cold, turning into the uncomfortable chill of regret and guilt.

“Jessie…” I say, moving towards her.

“Get off me,” she hisses, as I put my hand on her shoulder, causing me to flinch backwards. She pulls her head up out of her hands, and though she has the trembling lips and redness around the eyes of someone on the verge of crying, her face is stern and confrontational. The face of someone whose pride is bigger than their distress. “You’re an asshole, Nate. You’ve always been an asshole. And my problem is that I’m too forgiving when it comes to assholes.”

“Jessie…”

“You know,” she starts, as if breaking down and losing control is finally allowing her to find the words to express all her pent-up anger, “I had such a crush on you when I was a kid. For so long you were the guy I wanted, the guy I dreamed about. But that’s all you are – a dream. I should have kept it that way. Because none of this is real.”

“Wait,” I say, as she stands up quickly and roughly shoves her backpack over her shoulder, “Jessie…”

“Don’t worry,” she says, pausing only for a second as she steps past me towards the street, “I won’t tell Kyle. God! My brother was right, I really do have terrible taste in men.”

I reach out to grasp her hand and pull her back but she’s already gone, striding away into the street on her long legs, fast and determined, as if a second longer with me would kill her. I watch her, and with every step she seems to grow more confident that she’s right, that she deserves better than what I could ever give her.

And the truth is, I agree.

I
’m
no stranger to conflict, to being the villain. Working in the entertainment industry, you learn to develop a thick skin and a cool head. You develop the ability to keep on going even when you get screwed over, and you figure out how to bounce back even stronger.

But it’s been a week since Jessie walked out on me, and the feeling that I’ve just fucked things up doesn’t seem to be going anyway. If anything, it feels even more like I might have made a huge mistake. I guess that’s what they mean when they talk about hindsight being twenty-twenty.

I get to work and try to throw myself into the stack of projects on my desk, pulling out a script that I was supposed to choose a lead for, but the words on the page look like bricks in an impenetrable wall, blank and imposing. Within seconds I’ve spun my chair around to look out the window and wonder why the fuck Jessie hasn’t called or even texted me yet, even just to yell. I think about where I’ll go after work, tell myself that all I need is an amazing blonde and something a little kinky to blow the cobwebs off, to clear my head. The second I start thinking about it, however, the blonde transforms into Jessie, and the kinkiness into the soft warmth of waking up beside her. I shake the idea out of my head like a wet dog.

I take out my phone and check it, even though I’m sure Jessie still hasn’t messaged me. Somehow it makes me smile, a brief remembrance of how stubborn she is that makes me feel close to her for a split second. Then again, I’m just as stubborn. This isn’t so much a waiting game, where both of us hope for the other to break first – we both know we aren’t going to change our minds. There’s no chance at reconciling this.

I log into my Bad Boy e-mail account and my phone starts blowing up with messages. I’ve gone on another unintentional hiatus and haven’t posted a video for over a week now, so the fans are restless. I skim through the messages: Requests for certain topics, words of encouragement, people wondering if they’ve met me in real life, death threats from jealous boyfriends and girlfriends. It’s the same old thing, just more of it.

It’s a cheap kick though, a pathetic kind of satisfaction. Nonetheless, I grasp it, desperate for any kind of positivity or fulfilment to distract me from Jessie. I spend a few minutes reading messages and soon find myself feeling the pull of making a new vlog. It’s a strange kind of desire, almost like sex, a build-up of tension, the desire for some sense of release, and then the sense of contented relief that comes after.

I open the video camera app and point the lens at myself. Just my shirt, tie, and the well-cut lapels of my suit in frame, my office window glaring bright light behind me – it’s less sexy than wearing nothing but my boxers, but it still says enough.

“Sometimes you wanna go back…sometimes a one-night stand was so good that it sticks in your mind, your body still reacting to it. Sometimes it feels half-finished, like you only tasted the edge of what that person could give you. And you just don’t want to go out and find someone new, ’cause you know you’ll compare them, and you know they won’t stack up to what you had. So the question of the day is: Do you – should you ever go back?”

There’s a loud knock on the door and I immediately drop my phone as I spin towards it. There’s only one person who knocks that loud, and it’s the one person who I can’t be mad at for entering without permission.

“Nate!” Robinson booms as he strides across the office, his creased slacks flapping around his long legs. “We need to talk.”

“Uh…yeah,” I say, stumbling off my chair to find where I dropped my phone. I eventually grab it from under the chair leg and wave it at Robinson as explanation, then pull myself back up to my seat. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

Robinson lowers his head and glares at me with what, to him, probably feels like fatherly caution, but in reality looks more like he’s about to beat you to death with his pipe.

“You haven’t forgotten, have you?” he says menacingly. “The Carra—”

“The Carragher list!” I say, slapping my forehead. “Shit! Sorry. I…I know. I was supposed to get the list of actresses to her days ago.”

“You’ve not done it. Her father just left a message with me, and he’s anxious.”

Serena Carragher is the daughter of one of our biggest clients, and is about to direct her feature film debut. I was supposed to give her a list of our best female actresses to audition, and retain wonderful nepotistic relations all around. I didn’t. Mainly because I’ve spent the past week in a daze, and work doesn’t complete itself no matter how much you stare at a whiskey glass or out of a window.

“I…I’m sorry. I’ll do it now…right now…I promise,” I say, already shuffling papers as if every second counts – which at this point is almost true.

“Nate,” Robinson commands, the rigidity in his voice telling me he’s got more to say about it. “Is something wrong? I wouldn’t expect that sort of negligence from an intern – let alone my top performer.”

I look up at him and let my shoulders sink a little before looking aside out of the window and shaking my head slowly.

“It’s…it’s Tessa.”

“Mm-hmm,” Robinson nods, as if he knew it already.

“We’re…we broke up.”

Robinson’s face is steely, before suddenly breaking into a frustrated “Damnit!” If we weren’t talking about something so difficult for me I’d find it funny how he reacts as if he’s affected himself. “Can’t you fix things up? How bad is it?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I…it’ll just take some time, I suppose, to find out if there’s a chance for us to patch things up. For now I’m at a loss.” As I say the words, I know they’re true. And it surprises me how much I want to believe in them.

“Mm-hmm. Well, in the meantime I can give the Carragher list to—”

“No. I can handle that. I have half of it done already. It’ll be sent by lunchtime. I promise.”

“Okay,” Robinson nods, skeptical but trusting. “But I’d strongly advise you to take a few days off. Samuel has plenty of time to take on extra work, and he’s keen to prove himself. You need to focus on what’s important, right now. Tessa’s the kind of woman you find once in a lifetime. Believe me, I’d know.”

“I know,” I say, wondering how what was once a funny, goofy charade turned into something genuinely troubling. Surprised that I’m at a point now where Robinson’s advice is actually kind of welcome. “I’ll try to get it together.”

W
ill
’s already at the bar when I get there, and as I step through the doors I suddenly remember it’s the same one Jessie met us in. Wearing those tight gym clothes, her skin shiny with sweat…even memories like that come with a stinging aftertaste where they once felt so sweet. I move toward Will, who somehow notices me despite the winks and smiles he’s shooting across the room to a brunette in a miniskirt.

“Nate!” he says, patting me on the back as I take the stool beside him. “I’ve already bought you a drink, and there is plenty more where that came from. For tonight, everything you partake of shall be bought by me.”

“You seem like you’re in a good mood,” I mumble as I down the glass and immediately gesture to the bartender for another.

“I am in a
fantastic
mood, Nate. And I owe all of it to you. In this past week I have not only begun shooting on a film which will relaunch my career, but I also received a rather lucrative advertising contract too. The narrative of the teen drama star reinvigorating his career as a serious actor has begun – and it’s all your fault.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Seriously, Nate, I cannot express how much I love you right now. It’s bordering on the homoerotic.”

I raise an eyebrow in his direction. He laughs and slaps another hand on my back.

“Don’t worry. I heard that your life is changing as dramatically as mine. A little birdie tells me that you’ve gone and got yourself a girlfriend – or should I say, a girl has gone and
got
you.”

Will raises a glass and a smile. Reluctantly I grab my whiskey and clink it against his.

“You heard wrong.”

“Hm?” Will says, his attention already taken again by the brunette. “Your boss told me you’d brought that Jessie girl to the retreat, and seemed rather close. I didn’t think for a second you’d actually go and have a relationship with the girl, but she was certainly something special. And considering you persistently refused my requests to play wingman on my bombing runs the past few weeks, I thought it was a done deal.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” I say, draining the second whiskey and exhaling up at the ceiling as it starts to numb the pain inside.

“How so?” Will says, giving up on the brunette entirely now to focus on me.

“I don’t even know the answer to that myself. It just got real messy. It’s over now, anyway.”

“I see,” Will says, before asking the barman for some beer chasers. “You were friends, you said? Childhood friends?”

“Yeah,” I shrug. “She’s probably the only girl I’ve known that long. The only girl I’ve actually spent a lot of time with, the only one I actually care about.”

“Okay, so you care about her, you’re friends, and you’ve known her quite awhile,” Will says, as if ticking off a checklist. “And you liked the…how to put this…‘carnal’ aspects of the relationship, yes?”

I turn to look him in the eye, and nod in a way that lets him know all he needs to.

“Very good. Right. And did you have sex with any other woman at any point during this not-relationship? Did you even
want
to?”

I take a few seconds to consider it before answering.

“No. Not really. I haven’t even thought about fucking anyone else since we started.” Once it’s out of my mouth, my response seems to shock me more than it does Will, who just nods.

“Okay. So again – just to clarify – this is a girl with whom you have a strong emotional relationship, which you’ve had for many years now, and with whom you have a wonderful sexual relationship, and who satisfies you sufficiently that you haven’t even considered looking anywhere else. And this thing you have, which is not a relationship, is somehow now ‘over’ and you’ve just gone and given up? Forgive me if I’ve missed something there.”

“It’s not that simple,” I say, a little frustrated at how simple it actually sounds. “Her brother is my best friend. He’d kill both of us if he found out about us.”

“Ah! A disapproving brother,” Will says, nodding sarcastically. “How romantic! It’s like Romeo and Juliet, only with less ruffles. And hopefully less suicide.”

“Do you have to wisecrack your way through my fucking problems?”

Will laughs and shakes his head.

“If I’m wisecracking it’s because I don’t see the problem! If he’s a good brother and a good friend, how can he not understand? You two obviously care about each other – you wouldn’t give up the promiscuous life you lead for anything less than something wonderful, and she evidently cares about you enough to forgive you your past sins, which are many and great. Whether this ominous-sounding brother is upset or ecstatic at the idea of you two together, it shouldn’t really matter, should it?”

I let the question hang in the air, falling somewhere deep into my own thoughts, and the new ones planted there by Will. He rubs a hand on my shoulder as I stare into the bottom of my empty glass as if the answers are sitting down in there.

“Maybe you’re right,” I mumble eventually. “I just…it feels like a hell of a commitment. I like my freedom. I don’t know how much I’m willing to give it up.”

Will smiles and shakes his head before speaking.

“From my perspective, Nate, it looks like you’ve got your freedom, and you don’t know what to do with it anymore.”

I allow myself a little smile.

“I don’t know that she’d even take me back now. Even if she did, it’s a big change. I just don’t know if I’m ready.”

“See that brunette that’s been casting her enticing eyes at me? There’s a lovely blonde sitting right next to her that you’d have been all over a couple of months ago,” Will says, slowly and deliberately. “You gonna go over there and get her, or should I do it for you?”

I look over at the blonde and shrug, uninterested.

“That’s what I thought.” Will smirks. “I don’t think you need to figure anything out, Nate. That change you don’t think you’re ready for? It’s already happened.”