Hollywood Hot Mess (19 page)

Chapter Nineteen

It seems so safe and peaceful. Cloistered in darkness
where no one can find me or hurt me. Nothing but black. Safe black. Calm black.
Peaceful black. That’s where I want to be. Wrapped so tightly in it this world
won’t matter anymore. Where no one can judge me or criticize me. Away from
cameras, deceitful mothers, inept managers, hateful gossipmongers and men who
break your heart.

The answer is there. Right outside my window. All I have to do
is jump and the darkness would swallow me before I hit the ground.

My vanity stops me. A fall like that would mangle my body too
badly for an open-casket funeral. Would rob me of a funeral where everyone
admires me one last time and makes little tearful grievances like “What a pity”
or “She could have been so great.”

I file the thought away under “last resorts” in the back of my
brain and continue my despondent stare out the open window. My body is covered
in nothing but a lace camisole and panties while I chain-smoke every cigarette I
have. The room is pitch-black, just like the night, except for a single candle
burning on the desk beside me. It’s below freezing outside. My goose bumps gave
up a long time ago, and now my skin is some sickly shade of pale, moonlit gray.
My fingers are so numb I can’t feel the cigarette clasped between them.

But I don’t care. This feels good. It feels real. It reminds me
I’m still in control and I still have the option to end it all if I want to. And
what could he do to stop me? Would he even be sorry? Would he feel guilty to
know he was the reason why I finally finished the job?

The phone rings behind me, but I don’t move to answer it. I
told the front desk to hold my calls and I never turned my cell on when I
landed. There isn’t anyone I want to talk to at this point. Not even Devon.
Because if I do? I know it will only be to say goodbye, or fuck off, or
something equally as heartbreaking that I don’t need to hear him say.

I’ll schedule my flight home in the morning. I mean why not?
There’s no way I can keep filming. Even if they don’t fire me, which they will,
I can’t face him. The happy reunion I’ve dreamed of is now a nightmare. The
studio will sue me for walking even through it saves them the headache of
getting rid of me. But joke’s on them. I ain’t got shit to give ’em.

The phone rings again. I slowly fumble a frozen hand over the
desktop until I find the chilled plastic receiver and bring it to my ear. I say
nothing.

“Miss Klein?” a young man’s voice asks in broken English on the
other end. I recognize the accent. It’s the guy from the front desk.

“Yes?” I answer in what I hope is an unaffected way. This damn
country is so dark all the time during the winter, I don’t have a clue what time
it is.

“Miss Klein, guests near you reported smoke in their rooms. Are
you having the same problem?” the disconnected voice asks.

“Smoke in the room?” My voice is distant and I inhale a deep
drag. “My room’s just fine.” I exhale and watch it pour into the night air,
mixing in a huge puffy cloud of smoke and steam.

“Okay, Miss Klein. Remember this is a smoke-free hotel.” He
tries to force authority into his pubescent voice. I laugh because he’s being a
total pussy. We both know it’s me.

“Of course it is,” I coo, and bang the phone around behind me,
searching blindly for the base. I settle back into my frozen perch on the
windowsill, staring out at nothing, soothed by the cold black calm.

My rage is gone. The anger that scorched through me disappeared
the moment I gripped the cold glass neck of a fifth of vodka because I knew my
nightmare would soon be bearable. Erased, or numbed at the very least, and
stored in the dark parts of my mind where I won’t be bothered by it anymore.

I’m actually peaceful now, slightly blissful even, my brain
numbed by the cold just as much as my body. Without even looking, I search the
desk behind me for the carton of Marlboros I packed in L.A. I’m working on my
second pack since landing in Siberia.

I like feeling so far away from everything—from Hollywood, from
tabloids, from the mess of my life—and I’m now considering running away. Into
the black night, away from all the bullshit to live life in one of these dirty
little fishing villages as some fisherman’s tired wife. I bet they’d love me. I
bet grown men would fight over getting to marry me. Ha! Wouldn’t that be nice
for a change?

There is a soft knock at my door. I turn a distracted ear
toward the intrusion, but stay focused on the black night swirling outside the
window. Immediately, I hate whoever’s outside my door, and hope this annoyance
will go away. It doesn’t. Feet rustle impatiently against the carpet, and
knuckles land against hollow metal again.

It pisses me off to be disturbed. Don’t they see the sign on my
door? I flick my cigarette out the window and swing my legs around, jumping off
the windowsill and practically running to the door. Suddenly excited at the
prospect of unloading on whoever has been unlucky enough to get the job of
coming up here to tell me to stop smoking.

I yank the door open without even bothering to put any clothes
on, ready to let loose on the poor fool like a rabid honey badger. I’m snarling
and spitting and seething with hate when the door flies wide, banging on a piece
of furniture and hurtling back at me. Throwing a hand out to the side, I catch
it. The cold metal slaps against my palm.

The word vomit I have prepared spasms in my throat when I meet
a navy-rimmed stare. He’s barely visible in the shadow of hallway lights. My
heart stutters. My stomach plummets. Hell has found its way to my doorstep.

He runs a hand through his hair, taking me in with a look I
can’t read. I’m nothing but tangled hair, puffy eyes, mascara-stained cheeks,
and a frozen, nearly naked body. His face is pinched with anger and as empty as
the arctic night whistling by my window.

For once, I hate to see Devon Hayes, because I can imagine the
berating he’s getting ready to unleash on me. All the hateful things he’s about
to say. Not that I deserve it, but how would he know any different? The sheer
enormity of what’s happening hits me. This is it. The end of our love story.

There’s nowhere left for me to run. He owns this movie. And
he’s probably here to tell me to pack my things and get the hell off his set. I
momentarily consider slamming the door in his face to spare myself the pain, but
I don’t. I can’t.

My hand slides weakly down the door, slapping against my bare,
frozen thigh. I fumble for words, but find none. Hot, stinging, traitorous tears
scratch the back of my eyeballs, making them spasm and blink. He says nothing,
glancing to the table by the door where the bottle of vodka sits illuminated in
the sliver of hallway light.

He ignites with rage. He blows past me, knocking me back
against the door. I’m confused, but manage to grab on to the handle to catch
myself and find enough residual anger to slam it shut. The cheap pictures
decorating the room dance on their nails with the force. Now I’m pissed,
too.

With the bottle gripped in his fist he turns to me shaking his
head, so angry I have to look at the floor.

“I didn’t drink it,” I spit through gritted teeth. “You can
check the seal.” Why am I telling him this? Why does he deserve an explanation?
It’s my business what I do with my sobriety, not his.

I brush past him, bumping his shoulder back in the limited
space of the cramped hotel room, and head for the window to fire up a cigarette.
Why does he even bother? Why doesn’t he just tell me I’m off the film and get
the hell out of my life?

The vodka bottle’s seal rips open at the same moment my lighter
scratches to life, causing a weird chill to shiver up my spine.

Air bubbles burst against glass. He sucks down the clear liquor
like water. I can’t look because it’s the only thing I’ve wanted to do since I
bought the damned bottle.

The cigarette quivers when I pull it from my lips with an
unsteady hand. A breeze brushes against my back, reviving the goose bumps that I
thought were long gone. But my skin isn’t prickled by the cold. It’s prickled by
him.

“You didn’t answer your phone.” He’s at my ear. The scent of
vodka wafting over me is as intoxicating as he is. I close my eyes and drink it
in. But I don’t turn around. I can’t because I don’t know what I might do to him
at this point.

“I didn’t turn it on,” I whisper, my breath making clouds in
the darkness, tears threatening to blow my cover and let him know how desperate
I am for him. His arm reaches around me and closes the window. It lingers there,
barely touching me. The smell of his leather jacket mixes with the scents of
smoke and vodka.

Another breeze at my back tells me he’s gone. A second later he
returns, drapes a blanket over my shoulders, and leans on the sill beside me. I
continue to stare forward. His hands pull at his hair. He shrugs out of the
heavy leather jacket, tossing it over the desk chair.

“I didn’t approve that statement, Carly. My agent ran with it.
I never would have...” He rubs his eyes and I’m shocked he isn’t yelling at me.
I venture a glance at him from the corner of my eyes. He looks so tired. Like he
could actually be the old man everyone thinks he is. “Shit,” he finally mumbles
when he can’t think of anything else to say. Silence rings in my ears. I swallow
hard because I think I’ve just heard Devon Hayes’s version of an apology. But
why would he apologize to me? I’m the one who ruined everything.

“My mother’s a deceitful bitch.” It’s all I can think to say
right now. My arms are wrapped around my legs. I sit on the sill, my nearly bare
ass frozen against the cold metal. It registers somewhere in the back of my mind
that maybe he isn’t mad. But I’ve convinced myself for so long now that he does,
in fact, hate me, that I can’t believe what he’s saying.

“I know. My agent got the details from TMI.” His voice is low
but strained, and I’m afraid of what he still hasn’t said. So afraid, I still
can’t look at him. “She made a small fortune on it.”

“She’s always had a knack for getting rich off screwing me.” A
crazy-sounding laugh catches in my throat. The room is dark except for the
candle flickering on the desk. With the window closed I can see its reflection
and the shadowy outline of Devon’s profile beside me. Cold emanates from the
window, and the only place I want to be is in the safe warmth of Devon’s arms.
But I don’t dare move, because I know he’ll just pull away from me the moment I
move to him.

But I don’t have to. Devon’s hand slides gently down my arm,
sending chills racing all over me. He takes the cigarette in my fingers and
drops it into a half-empty coffee cup on the desk. It hisses out and now I have
nothing to distract me from the overwhelming need for him. The vodka bottle
thuds and sloshes on the windowsill beside me when he sets it down. I jump
involuntary at the familiar sound.

My chest feels heavy and weak with him so close. The piece of
me that Devon always unravels, the piece I’ve spent all night weaving back into
place, is coming loose again. With a vengeance this time. It’s no longer some
small piece that held my insides; it’s all of me now. Every cell, every fiber,
every breath, every heartbeat reaching out for him. Yearning, wanting, needing,
desperate for him and his touch; the feel of his body on mine. That’s how badly
I want him now, how badly I need him. Everything that holds me together has
frayed and I’m completely undone.

But I don’t do anything. I just sit there beside him, holding
onto myself as tightly as I can to keep it together on the outside.

“Why did you get this?” He shakes the bottle. The clear liquid
sloshes against the glass. I look at it and sigh.

“Because I wanted to.” And I still do, even more than I did
before. I’m no longer sure which addiction is stronger—Devon or the bottle.

“Carly,” he scolds, and knocks his head on the wall at his
back. “This isn’t right. I don’t want to do this to you.” His eyes are closed,
lost in thought, and I can’t help but sigh at his pained beauty.

“What are you doing to me?” My small voice sounds like someone
else’s. Of course it’s obvious to me what he’s doing, but I thought I was hiding
my feelings pretty well.

“This, Carly.” He raises the bottle and holds it in the air
between us. Our eyes meet around the shiny glass for a moment before I turn back
to the window. “These headlines, they weren’t even a big deal. They got a photo
of you on the phone and a statement from your mother who everyone knows is a
pathological liar.” He thumps a finger against the bottle and the solid thud of
its contact echoes. “It was nothing more than a blip on the radar that will be
gone tomorrow. But it drove you so close to the edge you almost fell over.” His
words are strained with the same pissed exasperation I saw in his eyes earlier.
But he’s right. And I can’t deny that.

“I wasn’t pissed about the tabloids. They’ve said worse things
about me.” And it’s true. Even though I hate TMI and all the other publications
that love to ruin my life, their lies aren’t what made me want rock bottom
again.

“Sure,” he says sarcastically, and pulls the blanket back up my
arm. I don’t look at him and I really want another cigarette.

He grabs my arm, stopping me. I freeze. His other hand grabs my
chin and yanks it up to him in a motion that should hurt but doesn’t, because I
refuse to admit to myself that his touch is anything but bliss.

“Damn it, Carly, talk to me!” he growls. “I didn’t come all
this way to put up with your bullshit.” His words spit around clenched teeth. In
the candle flicker his eyes burn a deep navy blue, daring me to cross some
imaginary line he has drawn between us. But I don’t. Instead I recoil from him
and slump under the blanket, fighting the tears that want to fall.

I hate what he does to me. I hate how weak he makes me. I hate
the self-doubt he breeds in me. For the first time ever in my life I want
something I don’t have the first clue how to get. This isn’t a fair fight. I
know nothing about love. How to get it. How to keep it. How to get over it.