Harder We Fade (2 page)

Slowly rising out of the fog of a deep sleep, I felt Max’s hand on my shoulder.

“Do you need a Lortab?” he whispered into my ear.

I was lying on my right side, with Max spooning me. This is how we had been sleeping for the last couple of weeks. It was Max’s idea to keep me from rolling onto my left side where the broken rib was.

My eyes were slowly opening, focusing on the bedside table and the clock that read 5:42 a.m. “No, I’ll be okay.”

“You were groaning,” he said. “Does it hurt?”

“Not too bad.”

Max nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck, planting a soft kiss just below my ear. I nestled closer to him, as much as I could without irritating my damaged yet slowly healing rib. His warm naked body enveloped mine, contrasting with the cool sheets. Despite the little stab of pain I felt as we shifted on the bed, I couldn’t imagine a more comfortable place to be.

Or a safer one.

Max’s breathing grew slow and regular, and I knew he had gone back to sleep. I, however, probably wasn’t going to be able to.

I had indeed groaned in my sleep, but only somewhat from the rib pain. According to the doctors, I still had a few weeks to go until the pain would subside, and every once in a while I’d feel a quick, sharp, shooting pain in the area. If I were awake, it would make me reflexively inhale quickly. When asleep, it would sometimes wake me, but other times it would trigger a dream.

This night, I had been dreaming about the attack, the fourth such nightmare in the last couple of weeks.

They were just dreams. Nothing more. Chris had been locked up and had denied bail because he lived in Ohio and authorities in Los Angeles argued that he was a flight risk. The case was already over. There was no trial, thanks to Chris accepting a plea deal. I wasn’t all that happy about it, but I didn’t really have a choice. On the good side, though, it saved both Krystal and me from having to testify and face that monster once more.

More than once, Max had expressed guilt over the fact that he hadn’t been there that night to protect me from Chris. He’d been on his way over, but hadn’t arrived in time.

I brushed off his guilt, telling him not to think about it. What was done was done, and Chris would no longer be a threat to me. Each time, Max dropped the subject.

Not wanting to add to his guilt, I kept the dreams from him.

I woke up around 10 a.m., surprised that I’d been able to drift off to sleep again. Facing out the floor-to-ceiling window of the master bedroom, I watched the sun glint off the Pacific Ocean’s water and the tops of tall palm trees swaying in the breeze. Max had opened the sliding glass door to let some fresh air in.

I heard the shower going and briefly thought about joining Max in there, but decided instead to do something about the cottonmouth I woke up with.

I got out of bed, didn’t bother putting on any clothes, and went downstairs to Max’s kitchen.

Actually,
our
kitchen, now that I was living with him in Malibu. It was farther away from L.A. and Hollywood than my apartment had been. Depending on traffic, it could take anywhere from twenty minutes to over an hour to get back to the city.

It was modern house, set high on a hill, overlooking the Pacific. At almost 3,000 square feet on eleven acres, with five bedrooms upstairs, it was more space than anyone really needed, but as with all things in his life, Max had spared no expense for luxury and enjoyment.

The floors were dark marble, and most of the back of the house was glass, making the place virtually gleam during the day. The downstairs was one massive open space with a fireplace separating the kitchen and the den.

I would say the view over the ocean from the hilltop home was breathtaking, but that’s too cliché to cover it. Plus, recently my injured rib was doing enough to take my breath away.

I opened the stainless steel refrigerator and grabbed the bottle of orange juice. I didn’t bother getting a glass. I twisted the cap off, tilted my head back and guzzled right from the bottle as though I hadn’t had anything to drink in days.

“It’s the pills.”

I lowered the bottle and turned around to find Max standing there with a towel wrapped around his waist and a huge smile on his face. His medium-length hair was slicked back on his head, a few damp curls around the edges.

Swallowing the sip of juice, I said, “What?”

“The painkillers. They’re making you thirsty. It’s a rare side-effect.”

I closed the refrigerator door, turned around, and leaned against the counter. “Thanks, Doc.”

Max walked over to me, eyeing my naked body. “I had to take those once. I had the worst dry mouth from it. That’s how I know.”

I took another swig.

He stood inches from me, leaning closer, placing one hand on the counter next to me. He smelled of cologne, soap, and shampoo. All perfectly clean, and I wanted to dirty him up.

Max’s face got closer to mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his other arm reaching up, and I waited for his fingers to sink into my hair.

But he just looked at me for a moment, then pulled his arm back and held up a drinking glass. “Feel free to use these. They’re yours now, too.” He grinned and kissed me on my forehead.

I took the glass from him as he opened the fridge, took out a bottle of water and made his way over to the sliding doors that lead to the backyard as I filled the glass with juice.

“Coming?” he asked, looking over his shoulder as he unlatched the door.

“Let me get my robe.”

His hand dropped to where the towel was tucked on his hip and he set it free, letting it drop to the floor, teasing me with his seemingly flawless body. “You don’t need to wear anything.”

I walked over to the door, juice in hand, and we went outside naked together.

Just outside was a patio that ran the width of the house. A dozen reclining lounge chairs took up most of the floor, along with several tables, and two kerosene heaters for the cooler nights spent outside.

The backyard was boxed in by ten-foot stone privacy walls to the left and right. Only the ocean side was open. The entire space — from the walls to the ground — was covered in stone, with several cutouts from which palm trees sprouted and reached for the sky.

There was a rectangular pool at the edge of the yard, backing up to what Max said was a 30-foot cliff overhanging the shoreline, with wood stairs that lead down to the beach.

The pool’s water level was flush with the ground, and if you were sitting in one of the chairs on the patio near the door to the house, you would see an optical illusion: the pool seemed to be an extension of the ocean, the only difference being the Pacific’s rough surf and the pool’s glassy surface.

I had only rarely gotten a good look in the backyard. Before moving in with Max, our time at his house had been spent mostly inside, and even being here full-time, I hadn’t felt like going outside much. I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyway, thanks to the painkillers I had been taking.

“No one can see us, right?” I asked.

Max took my hand and we walked to the edge of the pool. “The houses aren’t close enough.”

“What about from down there?” I indicated the beach by holding out my hand with the glass in it.

“Relax, Olivia.” He turned to face me, bent his neck and kissed me on the lips. “Let’s enjoy the morning.”

“It seems like you already are,” I said, looking down and seeing his growing erection between us.

He shook his head slowly. “You drive me fucking wild. Now, get in here with me.”

I followed him down the four steps into the pool. The water was brisk, almost too much so. “Guess this is as good as a cold shower.” I placed the glass on the edge of the pool.

Max held me in his arms as I wrapped my legs around his waist. He was kissing me lovingly, not lustfully, something he sometimes did but usually when we were just lying around together. Never when he was revved up, totally hard, ready to go, just like he was at that moment.

I didn’t say anything. I let myself enjoy his soft, perfect kisses.

After moving his lips to my neck, he kissed me on my shoulder, then rested his head there.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

He took a deep breath and released it, creating a few bubbles where the waterline met my shoulder.

I had my hand on the back of his head and I gently closed my fingers around a handful of hair and pulled his head back, looking into his sad eyes.

“What is it? Talk to me, Max.”

“I should have been there.”

“Where?”

He rolled his head to the side and looked past me out at the Pacific. “You know where. I can’t let it go.”

While I had been recovering physically and mentally from the attack, apparently Max was having an even more difficult time getting over his emotional scars from that night.

For my part, the physical recuperation was more difficult than the psychological one. Chris had been tormenting my mind for a long time before the night he showed up at my apartment to do…whatever it was he was going to do to me, after kidnapping my roommate Krystal.

I suppose the fact that I fought him off myself — pretty damn harshly, I might add — went a long way toward healing the mental scars he had left on me for quite a while. I had found a side of myself that I had no idea was there. An aspect of me that I had no reason to tap into until that terrible night.

I had protected myself. All on my own. My story not only surprised me, it impressed the detectives who were working the case. All of this combined to give me a sense of closure when it came to Chris.

Well, that and the fact that he had taken a plea deal and would be spending a great portion of the rest of his life in prison. Some of his time was the result of his breaking-and-entering into our apartment. Some of it was from his assault on me. But most of it was due to the aggravated charges he faced because of the way he injured Krystal and placed her in the trunk of his car. The fact that she sustained serious bodily harm that potentially threatened her life depending on how long she was left in there was the basis for the felony charge.

Anyway, the dreams were still there, but I knew I had already come a long way from that awful night to reclaiming my real self, and someday, probably sooner rather than later, the nightmares would be as much a part of the past as Chris himself was.

“Like I said in the hospital that night, you’re not Batman.” I smiled, trying to elicit one in return, but got nothing.

“It could have been so much worse.”

I kissed him on his forehead. “You have to let this go. I’m fine. I really am. He’s gone for a long, long time and I’m doing so much better. I handled it myself. And look where it got me. I’m here in this amazing place, with an amazing man. What more could I ask for?”

I leaned into him and kissed him, hard, to keep him from saying anything more.

Six weeks later, I was feeling much better and had been working at Max’s film production company, an independent venture he had decided to rekindle over the last several weeks.

He no longer wanted to enter into development deals with the studios. The freedom associated with independently producing and distributing his own movies was something he had wanted for a while now. Back when he confessed to me that all he wanted to do was write, what he really wanted was independence from corporate filmmaking.

A development deal meant producing scripts that fulfilled the wishes of a focus group rather than Max’s own creative whims. He was established enough to tell the studios he was going independent and if they liked what he was doing they could discuss a price.

So, six weeks after moving in with him, I was settling into an office down the hall from Max’s.

The company was in Century City, a little more than halfway between Malibu and L.A., about thirty minutes from our house. It was a one-story brick building, and the walls inside were also brick, with thick oak rafters and wood floors in the open space. Max had decorated the place with movie posters — not just the ones he’d worked on, but some of his favorite movies as well — giving it a real studio feel, even though he was glad to get away from the confined nature of that part of the business.

There were four full-time employees whose responsibilities ranged from finance to talent acquisition to procurement of equipment to travel for location scouting and all other travel needs. Max had hired them away from the studio, grabbing the best people on his way out.

I was Max’s manager, which meant I pretty much ran the place, doing everything Max couldn’t do himself and didn’t want to hand off to just anyone. There was a definite learning curve, and Max, true to form, was a magnificent teacher.

My job was far different than that of an agent, so I wasn’t replacing Lyle Ridge, who had been Max’s agent for years. Lyle had a huge client list, but always took Max’s call or mine in a timely fashion. He was a soft-spoken man, and way more easy-going than any agent I’d ever been around, but he was sharp and had connections to everyone in town.

Max came into my office one day and said, “Let’s talk about money.”

I was sitting in my black leather chair behind the glass and chrome desk. Max sat down in one of the visitor’s chair, smiling.

“Money…as in the budget for the new film?”

He shook his head. “Your money. Your salary.”

We had touched on the topic previously, but hadn’t settled the issue.

“I’ve made up my mind, and since I’m the boss, you have to accept whatever I offer you or you are of course free to resign.”

I pushed my chair back and put my feet up on the desk, crossing my legs. “Shoot.”

“You’re distracting me,” he said. “Such a tease.”

His eyes started their journey at my bare feet and traveled up my legs. I was wearing a black pencil skirt and a caramel tank. I had slipped out of my heels shortly before he walked in.

“
Me
?” I said, feigning ignorance. “When do I ever tease you?”

“Just by being alive, you tease me. So how about you put those pretty legs down and let’s get on with business.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, swinging my legs back under the desk and slipping my feet back into my shoes.

“I’ll get right to the point. I’m going to pay you exactly what I pay myself,” he said. “That way, if you decide to leave, you won’t be a financial hostage to me.”

I sat there surprised. “I’m not going anywhere. Why — ”

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere, Liv, but if you do…well, you can. I need to know that you’re staying with me because you want to, not because you have to.”

I stood and walked around my desk over to Max, sat on is lap, put my arms around his neck, and kissed his forehead.

As gently as I could, I said, “Honestly, it feels like some kind of test. A while back you told me you felt like so many people wanted to be close to you because they could get something from you. And maybe that’s the case. But you told me I was nothing like that.”

He shook his head. “You’re not, and I know that. Just trust my reasoning. And, by the way…I’m not testing you, I’m making you rich.”

I did trust Max’s reasoning. I trusted everything about him. Completely. And the rich thing sounded pretty damn good.

He looked at me intensely, reached up and put his hand on the side of my face, pulling my head down, and he sealed his lips around mine.

Ever since Max told me how he came to be in California, I had wanted to meet his mother. Leaving home and coming out here was an intriguing and defining moment in his life, and I wanted to meet the woman who had raised him to be the man he was today.

Paula Dalton lived in Thousand Oaks, about 30 minutes away from our house. Max drove us in his BMW X5 SUV, opting for that instead of his Porsche, saying, “I don’t drive this as fast and I want you to see the scenery.”

It was a gorgeous sunny day, and we had the top down. I had to hold my hair in place as the Pacific breeze whipped through it. We didn’t talk, but instead listened to the songs on my iPhone as we rode up.

Max’s mother lived in a one-story ranch home. The lawn was perfectly manicured, and I made a comment to Max about it as we pulled into the driveway.

“Don’t get out just yet,” he said, looking over at me as he put the car in Park.

I thought he meant that he was going to open my door for me, but just as I was about to ask why, the answer was provided by the yelping of two white West Highland Terriers who were circling the car, checking it out, and barking a warning to their owner.

“They have free run of the place,” Max said, “but they have those electronic fence collars.”

He got out and the two dogs gathered at his feet. I opened the door and before my shoe hit the driveway, the little guys had lost all interest in Max and greeted me, the newcomer, instead.

I knelt down to pet them.

Max came around to my side of the car and said, “Meet Zeke and Dolly. Don’t ask me which is which.”

Just then I heard his mother’s voice. “Max, you can tell them apart by their collars.”

“The way they move so fast, it’s hard to tell.”

I looked up and saw Max hug his mom and kiss her on the cheek.

I stood from my crouching position, as the dogs yelped their disapproval of not having my full attention anymore.

Max’s mother was in her late fifties, but didn’t look it. The old pictures Max had showed me led me to believe she just might answer her door wearing an apron, with her hair up in a bun, and sporting glasses with a beaded chain. I guess maybe I was expecting someone who looked more like Alice the housekeeper from
The Brady Bunch
than a woman who looked like she could have been a character actress who stepped off the set of a soap opera.

She had blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and perfectly straight, white teeth. She was in as good a shape as any fifty-something-year-old woman I had ever seen.

She took a step toward me and opened her arms to hug me. “Olivia, it’s so nice to finally meet you.”

We hugged and I said, “You, too, Mrs. Dalton.”

“Call me Paula, I insist.”

She kept her hands on my shoulder as she pulled back to look at Max, then back at me. “He’s so secretive, I thought I’d never get to meet you.”

“I told you about Olivia months ago,” Max said.

“Well, when you’re this serious about a lady, you shouldn’t hide her from your mother.”

That’s when she looked at me, saying, “Don’t ever think you have to get his permission to visit me,” and then immediately asked if I wanted a “pop.” Ah, yes. “Pop.” Despite her newfound California style, Paula Dalton was still a Midwesterner at heart.

We spent a good portion of that Sunday afternoon at his mother’s house, eating roasted chicken with carrots and green beans and big helpings of rice. Paula, in true mom mode, showed me pictures of Max as a child, mostly school pictures, but also some from holidays. My favorite was one of him when he was seven years old, lying next to the Christmas tree, surrounded by wrapping paper. Paula said she had snapped that photo in the mid-afternoon, when Max had fallen asleep, exhausted from playing with his new toys for hours on end.

As she flipped through the pages of the photo album, I noticed that there were no pictures of his father. On the way home, I wanted to ask him about that, but decided not to. It was obvious why his mother had purged the albums of pictures of his father. And it wasn’t worth bringing up because the scars his father left on his life — and on his mother’s life — were of the kind that probably never fully healed, and I erred on the side of caution and let it go.

Over the next several weeks, I noticed a change in Max. There was a solemn mood about him almost all the time.

Sometimes I would watch him as he worked with a pen and notebook on the den couch, scrawling out ideas for a script he was working on, I supposed. I didn’t ask because as his manager, I’d be reading the first draft of his scripts when he was done. He liked my suggestions, but only after he got the whole story down first.

Occasionally, I would lie next to him, putting my head in his lap as he worked. We usually had the TV streaming something from Netflix or Hulu or playing a DVD. Neither of us liked much of what TV programming had to offer, except for a few shows on HBO and AMC, but that was about it.

One night, as I was lying there with my head on his thigh, drifting off to sleep and missing most of the end of a movie, he put the notebook in front of my face.

“What do you think?” he asked.

I had to blink a few times to clear my eyes.

Max had sketched a logo for his production company. For weeks, he’d been toying around with different names and couldn’t settle on one, even any that I suggested. It was important that he come up with something that would stand out, something recognizable, if not to the general movie-going audience then at least within the industry.

My eyes focused on the paper he held in front of me. The name of the company was in a simple, clear font with a curved line over the top of the name that ended in what looked like a flash — a shooting star of sorts.

“You aren’t serious,” I said, looking from the sketch up to his face.

His eyebrows rose on his forehead as his expression stayed serious.

I sat up, looked back at the paper, back at him, and said, “I love that.”

The name of the company would be: OliviMax.

“But,” I said, “doesn’t that sound too much like Miramax?”

He shrugged. “Who cares? This is what we’re going with.”

To think that my name — minus the “a” — would be part of a major film production company was as mind-blowing as anything that had happened to me since I arrived in L.A.

Well, almost anything.