Just Physical (13 page)

“Why?”

“Oh, come on, Crash. Don't make this harder on me than it has to be. You know why. I told you I don't do relationships.”

“Who's talking about a relationship? We could…I don't know…maybe go out on a date or something?” Even to her own ears, it sounded like a question, not a suggestion. She couldn't say what exactly it was she wanted; she just knew it involved more than friendship.

“And then?”

Crash kneaded the tense muscles in her neck. “I don't know. But—”

“No, Crash. It has no future. Let's just forget this ever happened.”

If only it were that easy. Crash didn't think she'd ever forget the feeling of Jill's lips against hers.

“We won't have many scenes to film together in San Francisco,” Jill said. “Let's take that time to get some distance, and then we'll be able to be just friends again when we're back.”

From your lips to God's ear.
“If that's what you want.”

“That's what I want,” Jill said, but somehow, there was no passionate conviction behind the words.

“All right.” Not knowing what else to do, Crash got up and walked to the door. She hesitated, not wanting to leave, but what else was there to say? “I guess I'll see you at the airport, then.”

Jill nodded, her lips compressed to a line. “See you.”

Slowly, Crash opened the door. A part of her waited for Jill to call her back, but, of course, it didn't happen. The door closing between them sounded very final.

CHAPTER 9

For once, Jill was glad
that their cast consisted of mostly B-list actors. It made traveling to a location shoot so much easier. A year ago, things would have been very different. Back then, paparazzi had followed her wherever she went, trying to get a snapshot of Grace Durand's supposed lover and shouting a barrage of intrusive questions.

Once Jill had revealed that she and Grace hadn't been caught sneaking into her trailer for a quickie, but that Grace had merely helped her up the stairs, the tabloid sharks had lost interest.

A secret lesbian affair was great gossip rag fodder; one friend helping another apparently wasn't.

Now, as she entered the terminal at LAX with Floyd, Shawn, Nikki, and their stunt doubles, the paparazzi only snapped a picture or two and then left them alone. The technical crew had driven up to San Francisco the day before, transporting the equipment, so their group didn't draw much attention.

When they reached the gate and settled down to wait for boarding to begin, Jill immediately took her battered script out of her laptop bag and started studying her lines—or at least pretending to look at them. Pins-and-needles sensations had kept her up for most of the night, so she was too tired to make conversation with her colleagues. Most of all, she was trying to avoid talking to one colleague in particular.

Every now and then, she peeked up from the script and over to Crash, who sat across from her to the left, her legs sprawled out comfortably in front of her. Sunglasses hid her dazzling blue eyes, so Jill couldn't see where she was looking. She quickly directed her attention back to her script. But she couldn't focus today. She glanced toward the large terminal window. The sun had burned away the June Gloom, and now the tarmac shimmered with heat.

She watched the planes land and take off for a while and then went back to the script. Instead of the lines she was supposed to memorize, the only thing going through her mind were the words she and Crash had said to each other right after the kiss.

The kiss. God.
What the hell had she been thinking? Okay, admittedly, there hadn't been much thinking going on as other parts of her body had taken over. Up until now, staying away from women hadn't been a problem at all. She'd spent the last two years adjusting to the MS and trying to save her career after the double outing. Romance had been the last thing on her mind.

And that isn't allowed to change,
she firmly told herself. She and Crash didn't have a future, so she had to stay away from her.

But Crash's words kept echoing through her mind:
Who's talking about a relationship? We could…I don't know…maybe go out on a date or something.

A date… Could that be an option? Just dating, without a commitment? She imagined having dinner with Crash—this time not just sharing Chinese takeout but spending the evening at a nice restaurant with low music in the background and a candle on the table. She could almost feel Crash's hand resting on hers, stroking her fingers.

With a shake of her head, she chased the image away. As nice as a date with Crash would be, it wouldn't be long before Crash would want something more meaningful. She'd want to share more of her life than just romantic dinners every now and then. But sharing Jill's life meant living with MS—and she didn't want that for Crash.

“You okay?” Lauren asked next to her.

Jill turned toward her. “Uh, yeah. Why wouldn't I be?”

“Because you have been staring at the same page of the script for the last half hour. I hope there's nothing wrong with it.” Fine lines of worry carved themselves into Lauren's forehead.

“Oh, no. No, the scene is perfectly fine. I love how Lucy is not taking shit from the male doctors.”

Lauren grinned. “I thought you'd like that.” She sobered. “So, if it's not the script, what is it, then?”

“Nothing. I just—”

The crackling loudspeakers interrupted her. “Attention, passengers,” the gate attendant said. “Flight 2760 to San Francisco is now boarding at gate 5. We're now inviting our first-class passengers and passengers who need assistance to board.”

Glad for the interruption, Jill stood, grabbed her carry-on, and got into the queue at the boarding gate.

Lauren followed her. “Don't think you're getting rid of me that easily. What's going on?” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Is it the MS? Are you having trouble with your eyes or something?”

No, with my heart. Or at least my damn libido.
“My eyes are just fine. I'm tired and a little nervous; that's all.”

“Ah.” Lauren nodded as if she'd had a sudden realization. “Right. Grace said you hate flying.”

Jill didn't bother to correct her. It was true, after all, even though it wasn't the reason why she'd been distracted.

“So, what are you doing with Tramp while you're gone?” Lauren asked as they were walking down the Jetway.

“Susana is taking care of him. She's probably going to spoil him rotten.”

They boarded the plane and took their seats beside each other in the first-class section.

But before Jill could get comfortable next to Lauren, Floyd, who sat behind them, leaned over the back of her seat. “Would you mind switching seats with me, Jill? I need to talk to Lauren about the Lotta's Fountain scene.”

“Sure.” Jill gathered her script and her laptop bag and squeezed past Floyd in the aisle. About to slide into the seat he had vacated, she paused when she caught a glimpse of her new neighbor.

Crash stared back, looking just as startled as Jill felt. She had shoved her sunglasses up to rest on her head, so her deer-in-headlights look was quite obvious.

So much for staying away from her for the week.

“Uh, are you okay with sitting with me?” Crash asked.

“Of course,” Jill said, using her acting skills to appear at ease. “Why wouldn't it be okay? I'm used to Lauren abandoning me for another seatmate.”

Lauren squawked her protest from the seat in front of them and turned around. “Hey, you offered to switch seats with me the one and only time I was on a plane with you.”

“Yeah, because I didn't want to stand in the way of true love.”

“Please. There was nothing going on between Grace and me back then,” Lauren said. “I thought she was the very straight star of hetero romances.”

Other passengers started to board, so they fell silent.

Jill bent to stash her laptop bag under the seat in front of her. She sensed Crash's gaze on her, so intense that it felt almost like a touch. After ignoring it as long as she could, she finally straightened and turned to her.

“Grace, the very straight star of hetero romances,” Crash repeated, her voice so low that no one but Jill could hear. “She's not talking about…?”

“Grace Durand? Yes, she is. Grace is my best friend and Lauren's girlfriend. Didn't you read any of the gossip rags last year?”

Crash shook her head. “I try to stay away from all press about female stars. If the actress I'm risking my life for is a real bitch, I'd rather not know.”

That made sense. Jill tilted her head in approval.

“So Grace Durand is gay?” Crash let out a low whistle. “Wow. I had no idea.”

“Neither did she,” Jill said with a grin.

“Apparently not, or she wouldn't have given a press conference claiming she was only a straight friend helping you out,” Crash mumbled.

Jill turned her head in her direction. “I thought you stayed away from gossip rags?”

Was that a hint of red entering Crash's tan cheeks? “Uh, yeah, I just…I came across an article about your coming out.”

“Came across?” Jill repeated with a disbelieving look.

“Yeah. Completely by coincidence.”

Coincidence. Right.
Jill bit back a grin.

“Stop grinning.” Crash nudged her. “Okay, so I Googled you.”

Maybe Jill should have disliked it, but she actually found herself flattered. At least she wasn't the only one failing miserably at pretending not to be interested.

A flight attendant stopped in the aisle next to them and offered them a pre-flight drink. Many of the people around them had ordered wine, beer, or scotch, but since her diagnosis, Jill had become wary of the effects alcohol had on her. Unlike her youth, when she had been able to stay up all night, partying and drinking, now a beer or two would get her drunk and make her feel like hell the next day.

“Just a Diet Coke, please,” she told the flight attendant.

Crash ordered water. As the flight attendant handed them their beverages and moved past them down the aisle, she studied Jill over the rim of her glass. “That press conference you gave last year…”

“What about it?”

“It wasn't something you'd planned well in advance, was it?”

“No. The press forced my hand. I wasn't in a hurry to tell anyone about the MS.”

Crash wiped a bit of water from her bottom lip and nodded thoughtfully. “Yet you stepped in front of the press and told them anyway. You did it for Ms. Durand, didn't you?”

Jill shrugged. “The gossip rags kept reporting that Grace and I had something going on, just because they'd seen her help me to my trailer. I couldn't allow my MS to hurt her career.”

“So you sacrificed yourself, just the way you're sacrificing your own happiness so you won't burden a potential partner down the road,” Crash commented.

Jill reached out and trailed a bead of condensation down the side of her Coke before looking back at Crash. “What else could I do?”

“I don't know. It was a damn brave thing to do, but then Ms. Durand turned out to be gay after all, so you basically risked your career for nothing. Doesn't that make you angry?”

Jill thought about it for a moment. It was a valid question. Amazing that no one had ever asked her about it before. “No, not really,” she finally answered.

“Not really?” Crash drawled, her Texas accent becoming more pronounced.

“In the end, she probably did me a favor by forcing me to reveal it to the public. Trying to hide my symptoms was getting pretty exhausting.”

“I can imagine. Then why did you do it? Hide that you have MS, I mean.”

Jill shrugged. “I didn't even tell my family or most of my friends until nine months after the diagnosis, so the public certainly didn't deserve to know either.”

Crash's eyes widened. “Wow. I can't imagine keeping something like that from my family. Didn't you need…or want their support during a time like that?”

“No,” Jill said immediately. It hadn't even occurred to her to ask anyone for help or comfort. Her family had never been a source of either. “I was fine on my own. There wasn't much they could have done anyway.”

Instead of accepting that answer, as her parents had done when she'd finally told them, Crash continued to look at her.

Jill struggled not to avert her gaze. She felt as if she'd given Crash some access into her heart and mind last week, and now that door was still ajar, enabling Crash to see much too deep.

“They could have been there for you,” Crash finally said. “Held your hand in the waiting room or something.”

Jill tried to imagine her mother holding her hand but couldn't. The two times in her life when she'd asked her parents for help, they'd been too busy struggling with their own emotions, adding to her stress instead of relieving some of it. “They live in Ohio.”

“So? I know for a fact that there are planes in Ohio too.” Crash gestured at the plane they were in, which was slowly pulling away from the terminal.

Jill's throat went dry. She fumbled for her seat belt, making sure it was buckled. “Yeah,” she said, trying to focus on the conversation and not on the moving plane. “But I didn't want them there. I couldn't deal with them on top of everything else.”

Crash opened her mouth, but then she closed it again. She squinted over at Jill. “Are you okay?”

Their plane taxied down the runway, quickly picking up speed.

Jill nodded, staring straight ahead, not to the small window, where the ground was flying by.

“Are you sure? You're a bit pale.”

Jill couldn't answer. Her stomach lurched when the plane lifted off the tarmac. She swallowed hard and grabbed the armrests with both hands.

“Here,” Crash said gently. “Maybe this will help.”

Expecting some medication to settle her stomach, Jill glanced over.

Crash was holding out her hand.

Jill hesitated, wanting to tough it out, but then, as the plane climbed at a steep angle that took her breath away, she latched on to Crash's hand. Her fingers were warm and strong, not damp and trembling like Jill's. After that kiss three days ago, the touch should have felt awkward, but it didn't. It felt safe.

“I'm not afraid of flying,” she told Crash but didn't let go of her hand.

The corners of Crash's mouth twitched. “Of course not.”

“No, really. I'm not. It's just the takeoffs and the landings that I don't like.”

Finally, the plane was safely off the ground and no longer rising so steeply. The knots of tension in Jill's stomach eased, and she exhaled slowly. “Okay. You can let go now.”

But Crash didn't seem in a hurry to withdraw her hand. “It's fine. I don't mind.”

Truthfully, Jill didn't either. Quite the opposite. She tightened her grip for a moment, soaking up the warmth of Crash's skin, then forced herself to let go. Her hand felt strangely cold and empty now. She curled her fingers into a fist. “What about you?” she asked to distract herself and looked past Crash to the grid of tiny buildings below them.

“Me?”

“Yeah. I guess as a stuntwoman, you're not afraid of any of this.” She waved her hand in a vague gesture that could just as well mean this thing between them rather than flying.