Falling into Forever (Falling into You) (17 page)

Her voice catches and I can hear the sharp intake of
breath from across the lobby.

“What?”

“I didn’t realize that I was living in a fairy tale. The jackhole broke my heart.”

Her voice is
suddenly filled with naked emotion and I lean back. I want to disappear.

“
Every girl’s got one of those in her past. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Hallie’s voice is teasing again, but the barely concealed hurt is still audible. “And bad breakups are the best diet ever. They need to put that one in the magazines.”

“Unless your break-up strategies involve a lot of Ben and Jerry’s.”

“Fair enough.”

There’s a bit more teasing bac
k and forth and then I hear the rustling of chairs and I know that they’re leaving. As they pass our hiding spot, I take a deep breath and move closer to the pillar, even as my eyes follow the pair of them. I’m not alone. A number of interested onlookers watch as Hallie bends down to rustle in her purse for the key card.

I hide my face as
she glances in my direction. She can’t know that I was listening to that. Marcus lets out a long, low whistle as the elevator doors close on them.

“Damn.
Hallie Caldwell, all grown up. I take back what I said, Jensen. If I knew she was going to look that good, I wouldn’t have tried to talk you out of your machinations. I would have helped more.” He shoots me a sympathetic look. “But look on the bright side. She called you a jackhole. Means that there are still strong emotional feelings there.”

“You
’re the jackhole, you know that?”

“
I would let Hallie Caldwell call me a jackhole any day, but I’m not taking that kind of abuse from you. Listen, I have to meet with one of the set design guys at the restaurant in a few minutes. You think you’ll be able to make it to your room without assistance? Or, do I need to come along to wipe your ass for you?”

“That’s really funny, Marcus.
Original, too. Go.”

“Eight o’clock. On the dot, man.”

“Got it.”

With a quick wave, Mar
cus darts off to the restaurant. The sounds of him barking orders at some hapless assistant over the phone echo throughout the lobby. Voice modulation has never been his strong suit. I shake my head and yank the cap down over my face as I join the crowd that’s waiting at the elevator bay. When the bell dings, I move towards the open doors and take a sideways step to avoid the rush of people tumbling out.

The elevator is nearly emptied
when a woman and her a half-asleep Pomeranian careen into me in a rush to squeeze themselves on. The dog lets out a sharp bark as the woman’s arms loosen and instinctively, I reach out to catch him. I put him safely back into her arms with a little smile.

“Thank you. I don’t know why I’m so clumsy to
day. Buster says thank you, too.”

The woman’s arm flutters over mine in a gesture of appreciation, and I smile at both her and Buster
, although hearing the dog’s name rips a tiny little hole in my gut.

“No problem, ma’am.”

When I try to get on, I realize the elevator filled to capacity while I was busy rescuing the damn dog. I wave off the woman’s protests.

“I’ll catch the next one.”

“Oh, you’re such a dear thing. Say goodbye to the nice man, Buster.”

I’m still watching Buster when I feel a pair of eyes on my face. Great. It’s probably a fan. I quickly pull up the collar of my shirt in the hope that I can remain incognito, but
the heat of the stare is still there a moment later.

Hesitantly,
I look up. It’s not a fan.

Hallie Caldwell, in the flesh.

“Of course, that dog would be named Buster,” she says eventually. “The universe sure has a great sense of humor.”

“Or a lack of one.”

“Or that. I can’t figure out why anyone would want to call a Pomeranian Buster. I can’t figure out why anyone would want a Pomeranian, period. A yellow lab, a pug, maybe. But a Pomeranian? Named Buster?”

She chuckles nervously and when she meets my eyes, I smile at her.

We say the next words at the same time.

“Buster’s a good name for a beagle.”

*
* *

Atlanta

6 Years Earlier

Her voice, full of unbridled enthusiasm, rings through the tiny house.

“I found him. The most perfect Buster ever to walk this earth. I saw him at the shelter when I went to drop off the donations from the fundraiser and I almost just got him and put a little red bow on his neck and brought him home, but then I thought, a dog is a big grown-up move and I
shouldn’t be making these kinds of decisions on my own. But he’s Buster. There’s no doubt about it. We need him. I mean, he has the name Buster written all over him. Buster’s a good name for a beagle. A beagle is a real dog, not like one of those…”

Her talk
abruptly stops when she finds me in our little kitchen. I tap my foot on the stone floor and glance up at her.

“What’s wrong, Chris?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” I quickly try to assuage her worry, but a line crosses her brow anyways.

“I know that look. That’s a ‘Marcus
just called me’ look.” She sighs and places her hand over mine and moves to sit across from me at the rattan table. “Just tell me.”

“No. Finish the Buster story first.”

“No way. Out with it. Marcus said what exactly?”

I sigh.
“There’s a part that I wanted, and I didn’t tell you, because I knew it was going to go to someone else. And it did, of course. Go to someone else, I mean. Except…”

She kn
ows what I’m going to say before I say it. She tries to cover her disappointment, but it’s written all over her face.

“
The actor they cast had to drop out and the movie starts shooting in a week. They need someone to step in.”

“And they want you.” It’s not
a question.

“Yes.”

“What’s the movie?”

“It’s an adaptation of a play that was on Broadway a few years back. About club kids from New York.”

“
Ecstasy
.”

“Yeah.”

“The Danny Mills project.”

I look at her in surprise. “How did you know that?”

“Marcus and I talked about it a few months ago. He sent me the script, and I read it for him, because I’m still not convinced that Marcus even knows how to read. I guess this was probably when they were casting it the first time.”

“I’m fairly certain that Marcus does not know how to read.”

“Maybe not. His taste in scripts isn’t much better than yours.” She gives me a wicked look. “Hmmm…a movie about rich, bored kids who party too much. What’s the tagline? ‘If you live life in the fast lane…you learn to live life in the fast lane.’ There’s your deep thought for the day.”

“Yeah.
The tagline sucks. But the movie should be good.”

“I don’t know why they would ever think of you. It’s not like you have any f
irsthand experience with being a bored rich kid on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.”

“
I’m from the Upper West Side. Get your facts straight.”

“Oh, that’s
right. You have East Side envy when you’re not pretending to be just like the rest of us. Tell me about that again.” She raises her hands to shield herself before I can even throw the napkin that I have waiting. “I surrender. You once bought a shirt at Goodwill. You’re a regular guy. I totally believe you.”

“
You’re such a reverse snob. What do you think of the play?”

“The writing’s great
, except for the tagline. Story’s fine, I suppose, but I think the characterization is really what made the play. I’m guessing you’d be Garrett.”

“You guessed right.”

“Are you going to take it?”

“I don’t know. I thought the plan was to hide out here for the rest of the year and then to see if I could
find a movie this summer before we have to come back to Atlanta next year.”

“
Before I have to come back to Atlanta, you mean. I still haven’t decided whether or not I’m letting you come with me. But that’s a conversation for another time. You should take the part, Chris.”

“But what about Buster?”

“We can’t actually get a dog. You travel too much, and I’m trying to take this overload so that I can finish school early. I’ll be at school for about twelve hours every day for the whole semester. I wouldn’t be here to train him, so it would be highly irresponsible to get Buster now. Maybe next year.”

It’s a rational ar
gument, but her disappointment is palpable.

“I don’t have to take the part
. I can stay here and I can train him.”

“Come on. You’re bored out of your mind
here, sitting around and waiting for me to come home from school. All you do is read scripts and putter around the garden. And honestly, I’ve been meaning to tell you this, but you’re not a very good gardener. I can’t have you killing another one of my rosebushes.”

She’s
right. My thumb is the color of ink. Besides that, I really hate gardening. But I refuse to let her win on that one.

“Like you could do better. It would take a ninja to keep those things alive. A gardening ninja.”

“Which you are not.” She smiles. “We both know that you should take the part. Besides, James Ross comes out in a few months, so it’s not like we could waste away in our little haven forever. You have to think about the rosebushes. Maybe another one can avoid death. Take it.”

I reach out to t
ouch her hair, which is coming out of its messy bun and making tiny curls all around her face.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now, are you going to take the part willingly, or am I going to have to kick you out of our house?”

“I’m going to take it. But that doesn’t mean that I have to
like leaving.”

She stands up and nestles herself into my lap.
I take her face into my hands, crushing my lips over hers.

“
When do you leave?” she whispers into my ear.

I stiffen slightly and look up to meet her eyes.

“When, Chris?”

She runs her fingers through my hair, mindlessly curling it between her fingers
, a vague expression dancing across her features.

“Tonight. I have to be in LA by tomorrow morning to go through the contracts with Marcus.”

She breathes in once and gives me a rueful smile. “If this is going to be the last time I’m going to see you for months, then I better ravage you good, then.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“I thought you might.”

She laughs and thro
ws her head back. I try to capture her in my mind, just like that, but all I can concentrate on is her touch on my skin and the fire that’s building deep in my gut. I lift her and carry her into our sunny bedroom, watching her face with every step.

She pushes me back onto the bed and places
feathery kisses over my torso and abdomen, moving lower and lower until she slides her body over mine and I move into her. I let her set the pace, slowly at first, until the slowness starts to drown everything out of me and I push her urgently beneath me.

My lips
meet hers for a long, deep kiss. Our tongues tangle together, harder, deeper, until we are consumed. I try to put all of my fears about leaving and coming back to find that she’s changed without me, that she’s left me behind, into that kiss, because I can’t say them aloud. I feel her entire body tense and I slide more deeply into her, letting her warmth envelop me and pull me under.

We stay
just like that, locked together, pretending that the rest of the world never existed, until the sun dips below the horizon.

An hour later,
I’m still lounging against the pillows as she carefully folds clothes and stacks them neatly into my suitcase.

“Are you really packing for me?”

“You don’t like it when your clothes are wrinkled.” She grins. “But you never learned how to fold your own clothes, and I don’t see an army of personal assistants around here, so I guess you’re stuck with me.”

“I thought it went against your feminist principles to play housewife.”

“When did I ever say that I was a feminist?”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?”

She grabs an old hoodie from the closet and places it gently on top of the second suitcase.

“I guess.
If we’re talking equal rights, equal pay, I’m all about it. Give me my sign and I’ll show up for the march. But honestly, I think you should take care of the people you love. And if that means doing some cooking and some cleaning and some packing, then I’ll do those things, whether they’re excluded from some feminist manifesto or not. I don’t think ideologies should be an excuse for getting out of chores.”