Falling into Forever (Falling into You) (18 page)

“Is this some kind of test?
Am I supposed to jump up and start packing my own clothes or something?”

“
Stay in bed, lazybones. I hear Danny Martin works his actors even harder than Alan does, so you’ll have enough work to do soon enough.”

She leans over and places
a light kiss on my forehead. I breathe in the faint smell of honey and mint and hold my breath until she laughs and tosses the hoodie at me.

“
You’ll want to wear that one, I bet.”

“Did you wash it?”

“I did. Say thank you, domestic goddess.”

“Thank you, oh heavenly domestic goddess. Now, let me get out a gigantic piece of meat and I’ll slap it on the grill.”

She laughs before
giving me a pensive look.

“
Promise me that you’re going to take care of yourself, okay?” Her tone is light, but there’s an urgency in her eyes and something else. Fear. I tread lightly.

“
You mean when I pull out that piece of meat or when I slap it on the grill? Afraid I’m going to get burned? I can handle myself. I know we’ve never used the grill in the backyard, but that doesn’t mean that I’m a novice with the barbecue.”

“That’s not what I mean.
” She bites her lip, and I can tell that she’s trying to figure out if she can say more. “I read the play, Chris. Garrett’s an alcoholic, which means that you’re going to spend the next three months trying to get into the head of someone whose whole life is dominated by alcohol. You have some history with that. We never talk about your dad.”

“Why would we want to talk about my dad?”

“Because he died.”

“I’m well aware of the fact that he died, Hals.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not so sure about that. There are times when I lose you, when you stare out the window or play in the garden or you’re reading, times that you just drift away, and I wonder where you’ve gone. The movie worries me. That’s all. Danny Martin is notorious for making his actors fall into the characters, for making them live the lives of the people that they play. I just don’t want you to…”

I tense.
“What? You don’t want me to become an alcoholic? I can assure you that it’s not going to happen.”

She stands up and backs away from the bed
. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that I want you to take care of yourself. You get so wrapped up in the characters. Remember? When we were in Prague, your nickname for me was ‘Boss,’ because James Ross went around calling everyone that. I’m not saying that you’re like some crazy method actor that only talks in tongues because he’s playing some psycho killer who thinks he’s an ancient Egyptian or something, but you just get so absorbed in the characters you play. That scares me a little bit. It’s like you can’t step out of the movie world.”

I bristle
at the presumption. “So, what you’re telling me is that you think I can’t handle myself without you. That you think I’m some kind of baby who needs protection. That playing a character who drinks a little too much is going to turn me into an alcoholic. Alcoholics are born, not made.”

She gives me a long, measured look.
“I never said that, and I don’t think you’re going to turn into an alcoholic. But playing Garrett in this movie isn’t like playing James Ross. It’s fraught with history for you, and it’s going to be personal.”

“History. Always with the history. Why can’t you understand that being in a movie is a job? I swear, people
, even you, think that the movie business is some kind of magical place where people become trapped in Neverland. Such a ridiculous notion. You’re being ridiculous.”

I’m
angry, and the words were harsher than I intended, maybe because somewhere, deep inside, there’s a tiny piece of me that thinks that maybe she’s right, that maybe taking this role isn’t such a good idea after all.

“I’m sorry
, Chris. I couldn’t let you leave without at least trying to say something. It’s not you that I’m worried about. It’s the character. And the industry.”

S
he doesn’t sound sorry. She sounds terrified, which, for some reason, makes me angry.

“
That’s all a part of me, too, you know. The me who makes movies is part of the same person who’s been sitting with you in this house for the past four months. Maybe you think that it can just be the two of us, playing house, while I watch you troop off to school every day. That just ain’t going to happen. It couldn’t last forever.”

“
I never said that. You’re being completely unfair.”

“Maybe I am.”

“I’m the one who’s been trying to talk you into getting back to work. I want you to make movies. It’s what you were born to do, and I would never try to come in the middle of that. Never. I love you. I love you so much that I worry about you, and maybe it’s not even you that I’m worried about. Maybe I’m worried about me. Maybe I’m worried that you’ll be off in Hollywood, dancing all night and making friends with your costars, and you’ll forget about me. And maybe that’s the way it should be.”

“Stop.”

I stand up and take her into my arms, putting my finger across her lips.

“I don’t want to fight with you
, Hals.”

“And I don’t want to fight with you.”

I take her chin in my hand and watch her face as the light dances across her skin.

“You’re beautiful. Did I ever tell you that?”

“About eight million times a day.”

I feel
her relax in my arms.

“I should tell you eighty million times a day, then.”

“That might be overkill.”

“I don’t have to go.”

“Yes, you do. It’s just three months. I really don’t want to hear anything else about it. You’re going. That’s that.”

“You probably won’t even
notice that I’m gone.”

“Nope. I’m planning on forgetting about you completely.”

“Well, that’s not going to work. We’ll talk every day. Twice a day. We can make plans for a summer trip around the world. Maybe we can go backpacking in Nepal.”

She scrunches
her face up. “I’m not really the backpacking type. You know, the camping, the hard ground, the making your own meals, the no showers for a week, none of that sounds very appetizing. I used to camp, back in high school, and I hated it every time. If you turn the tent into a fancy hotel in Nepal, maybe I would be more easily persuadable.”

“
Okay, so no backpacking. I’ll let you plan the trip.”

“I’m a very good trip planner.”
She hesitates. “You’ll tell me if anything is wrong while you’re on set, right? If there’s anything that you need. I can be in LA in a matter of hours. It’s not like I have to take the Pony Express.”

I
try my best Darth Vader voice in an effort to lighten the mood. “I promise. I will tell you if I think I’m crossing over to the dark side.”

It’s apparently a poor approximation
, because she bursts out laughing before her face turns grave again.

“
It’s only three months, right?”

“Three months, and I’ll be right back here with you. Or on a mountaintop with you. Or on a beach with you. It doesn’t matter where. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?
”

“Right.”

Still, she doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

* * *

Chicago

6 Years Later

“Jinx, Hallie.”

She’s staring off into the distance and she doesn’t hear me.

So, Buster wasn’t meant to be.

When she turns to me with a wistful smile, I allow myself to hope that she and I don’t have to share that fate.

Hallie

I’m only able to find my voice once the shock of seeing him wears off slightly. I smile and clutch my purse to my side.

“Buster is certainly not a go
od name for a Pomeranian.”

He’s wearing a ratty old hat that covers his mass of black hair, but it doesn’t manage to dim his attractiveness. I’m melting. Crap.

“Hey. To each his own. Or her own. And I think you’re ignoring the fact that I called jinx. You owe me a cup of coffee.”

I must have missed that. It’s p
robably because I was staring at the way his taut muscles ripple under his t-shirt. The reflection of his insanely green eyes. The way his body leans slightly to the right when he starts talking. The little quirk of his eyebrows when he’s trying not to laugh at me.

I toss my head to the side and scowl at him
, which only makes him lift his eyebrows further. Ugh. I suck at life. What did he say? Something about coffee? Hell no. There’s no way I’ll make it out of that coffee shop without pouncing on him. I scramble to find an excuse.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I just came down
to the lobby because I forgot my jacket. I have very important things to do. Like getting ready for this dinner tonight. I mean, meeting. Dinner meeting. I have a meeting. It’s a meeting about things. Movie things. And I need my jacket. To do those movie things. It might take a long time for me to find it. My jacket. Not movie things.”

I think I just said that.
I could crawl into a hole and die. Right now. Movie things?

He has to turn his head
to the side and he doesn’t make any noise, but his whole body is racked with laughter. Oh no. He’s definitely laughing at me. Not with me. At me. To his credit, he manages to keep a straight face when he turns back to me. He points to the table where Eva and I had been sitting with a victorious little grin.

“
So, you grab your jacket, and I’ll ask the concierge if there’s a coffee shop around here.”

I follow the directio
n of his finger, and he’s right about the location of my jacket. But…

“How did you know that?”

Now, he’s the one who’s caught by surprise.

“Um,
isn’t that the same one that you were wearing in New York?”

“No, it certainly
isn’t.” I stare at him, my eyes narrowing as I realize what happened. “You were eavesdropping. You…you…sneak!”

He rears his head back and laughs. “Really? Sneak? I know you can do better than that.”

“Now, you’re making fun of me. A sneak and a…a laugher.”

I am going to find that hole and die right now. A sneak and a laugher. I don’t think
either of those are real words. I try to recover what’s left of my dignity by shooting him a haughty glare just before I stomp off across the lobby to retrieve my jacket. He follows me, catching my hand just as I reach for it. He takes it and holds it out with the arms open.

“I’m sorry, Hals. I shouldn’t have
listened to your conversation. I heard you talking about Marcus and figured I should get some recon in. It was a favor for a friend. You can’t begrudge me that.”

“Oh, yes I can.”

I snatch the jacket back from him and struggle with it for a minute. He takes it back silently and holds it out again.

“Hallie. Stop. Let me help you.”

People are starting to stare at us. There’s a guy at a table in the corner who’s adjusting the lens on an expensive-looking camera. He stares a bit longer than the others, and I give him a quick once-over. He looks fairly normal, like a regular person, but my brief stint as the most pitiful person in America taught me that the paparazzi come in all shapes and sizes. I can’t take the chance. Muttering obscenities under my breath, I slide my arms into the jacket, and Chris’s hands briefly touch my uncovered skin. I think I manage to squeak out a thank you as the little tremble in my spine starts. Turning abruptly from him, I march across the lobby and press the button over and over again, praying that this is the one time that I don’t get stuck with the slowest elevator in the history of mankind.

I feel him behind me, or at least I think I do.

I don’t wait long for confirmation. When he spins me around to face him, his eyes are filled with good-natured laughter, and I’m torn between wanting to smack him and wanting to fling myself into his arms. He draws me close and whispers into my ear, his lips brushing against my hair.

“You know, coffee is really good for doing movie t
hings. It helps with the things. And I’ll even let you cheat on the jinx, as long as you forgive me for the eavesdropping. It wasn’t even really eavesdropping. I would call it overhearing. Definitely overhearing.”

I push back, giving him my best angry face before crossing my arms and turning in the opposite direction
. I’ve apparently become a pouty four-year-old. What’s worse, I can tell that he’s still doing the silent laughter thing and stubbornly refusing to move out of my way.

The elevator door dings and mercifully, it’s empty. I step inside, but before the doors can close, he steps right beside me.