Selfie (39 page)

“More personality.” Noah sighed.

I nodded happily, and then sort of slumped, defeated. “Yeah.”

“Where did all the stuff go?”

I sighed and looked away. Suddenly I couldn’t even look at the island anymore. “Vinnie’s house,” I said, my voice vacant and bleak. “It was all in his house, and like . . . the day after he died, Jilly called me up and told me that because there was no will, it all went to his family. His parents got the keys, and I . . .” I shook my head, trying hard to remember. “I know I asked her if I could get my own stuff, and she . . . she was crying. She said his parents had hired a lawyer, and that if we were going to claim any of the stuff in the house, we would need for me to come out about Vinnie, and . . .”

“Oh, Con . . .”

I moved my head again, but the island was still there, and the vision of Vinnie’s house, right next to mine, untouchable, was still behind my eyes.

“She told me right before the press got to my house,” I said, remembering the torn curtains, the inarticulate rage, the rabid pain. “Can we not—”

Noah’s arms tightened around my shoulders, and he whispered into my ear. “Thank you for coming out.” I shuddered and squeezed my eyes tight. “Thank you for letting me claim you if I need to. I . . .”

“You’ve lived in the sunlight your entire life,” I said, and he snorted.

“It rains or fogs every month of the year here.”

I tried, but I couldn’t laugh. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” He nuzzled my ear. “So, the videos of you and Vinnie—”

Oh God. He was not letting this go. “See, you know all those Vines and Instagram videos he’d post—did you see those?”

“Yeah—usually stuff he was doing, sometimes with you—”

“Most of the time with me,” I corrected. “Just . . . you know, not in the versions you saw. We each had a file of the undoctored videos. Sort of, you know. History as it
really
happened. Ten years’ worth . . . He started taking videos with a little camera before every phone in the world could take video.” I thought for a moment. “There’s like, thirty-two hours of footage in that folder. Bits and pieces of me and Vinnie. Some of it’s shit—you can just hear us talking. But . . . you know . . .”

He turned me around in his arms. “It was you, and it was real.”

“It was us,” I affirmed. “And it was real.”

“Can I see it?” he asked.

I froze. “I’m not sure. Would that make the space-time continuum explode?”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing my arms. “I’m sure that’s it.”

I had no words then. My mind, my body, all of it was frozen with indecision, with pain. “This will be better in San Diego,” I told him apologetically. “I know how to be a professional. And my house— It’ll be fine.”

“Of course it will.” But he sounded so disheartened. “Your heart’s not there.”

I turned and cupped his cheek. “No,” I said, stroking it. “It’s not.”

He kissed my palm. “I . . . Con, if you think you can’t ever love me, do me a favor.”

“What?” I said.
I love you already.

“Let me go.”

“No,” I whispered. “I . . . I’ll grow up. I’ll fix myself . . . I swear . . . Don’t—”

“I’ll never give up,” he told me, his voice choked. “If you could love me just . . . just a fraction as much as you loved him—”

Oh, Noah! More. I could love you more!

I wrapped my arms around his waist and held him so tight. “Noah . . . just . . .” Oh God. “Just . . . it’ll come.”
I’ll heal. I swear. I can’t hurt forever. I want you there when I stop.
“I’ll . . .”
I’ll disintegrate without you.
“I’ll be strong for you. I will.”

“You don’t have to be strong,” he said, sounding as hurt as I felt. “Just . . . just don’t pretend for me, okay?”

“You’re asking an actor not to pretend?” I tried to sound snarky, tried bleeding the intensity out of this moment that was chipping away at the rough casing I’d built around my heart.

“Not for me.”

So unyielding. The last three weeks of obeying him in the bedroom snapped into place.

I obeyed.

“I am lost and sad,” I said at last. “And I am afraid I’m not strong enough for you. You—
you
have forced me to function like a human being, and I’m so grateful. You . . . When we’re touching like this, or in the bedroom, I feel like I can be whole, maybe. But when I think about down south, and who I was then, and the big gaping hole in my life that I can’t give you access to—I feel like I’ve sort of cheated you. I thought I was a man, but I fucked up. I’m a windup doll instead, and that’s a shitty thing to do to someone who’s given me as much as you have, and I’ve got no answer for you.”

The words hung between us, and for a moment, I tried to imagine my life if he just turned around and walked away, leaving me with my computer of memories again.

Vinnie, don’t let him go!

Connor, make him stay!

“Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“We can pack in the morning.”

“What are we doing now?”

“I’m going to hold you—just hold you. And later, when I can quit shaking, we’ll make love, and you’ll remember what it feels like to live again.”

His neck and shoulders were still so narrow. It was hard to remember he wasn’t older than me.

“Why are you shaking?”

He buried his face in the hollow of my jaw for a moment. “Baby . . . for a minute there, I was worried.”

I stroked his curls, soft and glossy, springing under my fingers. “Not anymore?” I asked, wanting him to feel better.

He shook his head. “That was honest, Con. Months, I’ve been waiting for something honest out of your mouth. But if you can be that honest about how much you hurt, I think we’ll be okay.”

We sent Vivienne down four days early so Jilly could “abuse the shit out of the poor unpaid intern,” but since I happened to know Jilly was actually paying Viv to help her out for the con, I don’t think Viv minded the abuse.

Viv must have been doing her job, because there was a driver waiting for us at the airport, a pretty, thirtyish man who greeted me with a handshake and a genial, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Montgomery, I’m a really big fan.”

Noah cast me an unfriendly look. “You only get to sleep with one fanboi driver at a time.”

I held up my hands, feeling innocent and virtuous. “I didn’t even think about it! Jesus, Noah, give the guy a break!”

The driver—Cliff, by his name tag—looked between the two of us and then started to laugh. “Uhm, I’m a big fan and so is my
wife
, if that helps things a little.”

“I certainly hope so,” I said, casting Noah a squinty-eyed look. “I swear, picking up my driver was a one-time thing.”

The guy laughed and took my bag—and I turned to grab Noah’s carry-on, but he batted my hand away.

“What the—”

“You’re Connor fucking Montgomery,” he said, scowling. “No, you do not carry my bags.”

“Don’t be a douche. You’ve seen me use the potty—we’re not doing the fanboi thing anymore.”

“Connor!” he snapped, and it was getting so the sound of his voice, saying my name like that, made me hard, even in public.

“Yessss?” I barely refrained from saying “sir.”

“This is your turf; you’re in charge. It’s my
job
to be the flunky. Now let go of my bag and let’s boogie.”

I let go of his bag, stung, and I just may have pouted my way through the airport, but as we neared baggage claim, I heard a high-pitched squeal, sounding my name.

And spent the next half an hour surrounded by pens and autograph books, just like in the movies, while Noah and Cliff fetched the rest of our luggage.

Oh yeah. Right. Movie star.

I remembered now.

Finally—
finally—
Cliff dropped us off in Malibu. The drive from LAX takes an hour and a half in traffic, and by the time we got there, I was slouched against my seat dozing, my head on Noah’s shoulder while he read from his Kindle.

He woke me with a kiss at my temple. “C’mon baby. You go inside and open shit up, Cliff and I will get the luggage.”

“Noah!” I whined, and all I got in return was rolled eyes.

“Shut up and go fix us dinner or something, okay? Me and Clifford have got to have us a conversation about how we’re going to manage you while you’re here.”

“Manage me?
Manage
me?”

“Yes, manage you. I don’t know how you managed your life
before
Vinnie died, but you have got a major picture coming out this week, you just joined the cast of an up-and-coming show, and, hey, besides the whole YouTube thing, which people are
still
talking about, you also came out. Do you know there’s a whole forum of people trying to lip-read that YouTube thing to see if you’re saying anything like ‘I miss Vinnie’s cock’?”

I stared at him, appalled. “I thought you were reading a
book
!” I reached for his Kindle to see exactly what he had called up there.

“Me, Viv, Jilly, we’ve been doing damage control for the last week,” he said bluntly, holding the Kindle behind his head. “And I was reading porn because I want you tonight, because I
always
want you, so you’re going to need to get lots of protein for that, okay?”

I squinted. “Damage control? I wasn’t malfunctioning— Why would you need to do—”

“Not malfunctioning? Are you kidding me? You did the
Vogue
thing and checked the fuck out of your head. I saw the real you on the soundstage and in the bedroom, and . . .” His confidence fell away, and he bit his lip. “And the other night, when you were honest.”

My face heated. “Uh . . .”

“You needed us to see what was out there if you couldn’t. So don’t worry about the luggage, Con. We’re on top of it.”

He kissed me hard and fast and then shooed me out of the car. Cliff had already unlocked the door from the carport through the laundry room, and I headed into the place, wondering if it looked any different.

Not so much, no. The curtains were still white, the windows were big and sparkling, particularly the ones on the west side, and the place had been aired out and dusted. I went from window to door, opening them up and filling the place with the ocean roar, before I hit the kitchen.

My favorites were well represented, including the ingredients for a garlic alfredo that I used to make for Jilly and Vinnie all the time. I pulled out the noodle pot and filled it, suddenly lost in the easy domesticity of cooking in the place I’d once thought of as home.

I paused after turning off the tap, and looked around for a moment. Did I still think of it as home?

Huh.

I put the pot on to boil and opened the blinds, looking straight at Vinnie’s house.

Vinnie had kept it bright blue with yellow trim—not really up to neighborhood code, but people forgave him because he was Vinnie and I was his best friend—and of course I had adored it. It was the sort of thing that had worked on
his
house, but would have been a crime on mine because mine had so many big windows.

Vinnie’s house had been painted.

“Cliff’s gone—he’ll be back tomorrow afternoon to take us to the movie premiere. What’s for dinner?” Noah asked, coming behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist.

“Brown,” I said, trying to get my head around it.

“Brown what? Brown rice?”

“Brown. Vinnie’s house is brown.”

“Uh-oh,” Noah muttered, face against my shoulder. “Is this going to be a thing?”

I stared at it for a moment, and tried to place it on my pain scale. It didn’t seem to have a slot, and for a moment, I had the weirdest, most dissociative feeling.

“I’ll put it on the island,” I said, as though that made any sense at all.

“Oh damn.”

“No . . . no, seriously. It’ll go on the island, and I’ll worry about it when we go there.”

“On a boat?” Noah said suspiciously.

“Sure.” The house was on the island now, and I wasn’t going to worry about it. We’d swim there someday. I could swim. Noah would take a boat. Whatever.

“Connor . . .” But he wasn’t commanding me, he was asking me, so I didn’t worry about it.

“Do you want salad or steamed veggies with your garlic alfredo?”