Harder We Fade (6 page)

I didn’t have to wait long to find out what he had in store for me. It reminded me of the way he told me months ago, shortly after first meeting him, that the next time we saw each other he would make it a surprise. And did he ever.

After leaving our offices that day a little early, we went home to get ready to have some friends over for a cookout.

These were Max’s friends who he hadn’t spent much time with over the last several months, and I had encouraged him to get in touch with them. He’d been spending nearly all of his free time with me, first nursing me back to health, then getting into the swing of the new production company.

I didn’t want him to keep doing that at the expense of not spending time with his friends. Plus, I hadn’t met anyone socially since moving to LA and I was eager to have something like that in my life as well.

Max had two best friends. Anthony, a reality TV producer who, from afar, could pass for a young Jack Nicholson, complete with the omnipresent sunglasses. And then there was Carl, an entertainment lawyer, and the type of guy you might not be surprised to find out that he ironed his socks.

Each was married, and I immediately took a liking to their wives.

Anthony’s wife Monica was a booker for
The Tonight Show
. If Lisa Rinna ever needed a body double, Monica would be perfect. Carl’s wife Loralei was an immigration attorney, and someone who could never sneak up on you thanks to the fact that her wrists were always heavily festooned with loud, jangling bracelets.

These were real powerhouse couples, and for a short time I was a bit unnerved by that fact, but had to keep reminding myself that Max and I were very much the same, only without the married part.

Max and the guys did the cooking on the large built-in brick BBQ grill in our yard, while Monica, Loralei and I sipped appletinis by the pool. Doing something like this in December back home in Ohio would be impossible, but southern California gave us relatively comfortable nights, and on this night Max had also fired up the outdoor heaters just in case.

Loralei and Monica didn’t exactly cross-examine me, but they were very interested in getting to know the woman who was taking up so much of Max’s time these days.

I had a moment of worry when I started to talk about the night Chris came to my apartment and attacked me. They didn’t know anything about it, so obviously Max hadn’t told anyone. After filling them in on the details I asked them to keep it to themselves that I had told them.

“Of course,” Monica said, touching my arm to reassure me.

Loralei nodded in agreement. “Carl tells me everything, and he hasn’t said the first word about all of that so I guess he doesn’t know, either.”

“Same with Anthony,” Monica added.

I said, “Thanks, I really appreciate it,” but didn’t go into why I was grateful for their discretion.

Max undoubtedly didn’t want anyone to know that he hadn’t been there to protect me. The only person he’d talked to about it was me. I felt badly for him again, even though it had been a while since he had even hinted at the episode and I was pretty sure he was over it.

As we ate around the large marble table that was built into the patio under the overhang, Anthony and Carl shared some stories about Max, clearly one of those “guy things” meant to embarrass their friend in front of his new girlfriend.

Carl was more of a quiet type, while Anthony was the real talker, and Carl simply filled in a few details along the way.

Anthony told of the time Max was casting for a film and almost decided to hire an actress who wasn’t an actress at all, but rather an actor who had undergone an extremely convincing sex change.

“Not that I wouldn’t have hired her,” Max said. “She was good. It’s just that when the story broke, I knew everyone would focus on that instead of the film, and we just couldn’t do that.”

“Where is she now?” I asked.

Anthony said, “Doing Internet porn.”

Monica shot her eyes at him. “And you know this…how?”

“Research.” He shrugged. “It might make for a good reality show. And, I should add in my defense, if it does sell, you’ll have that house in Acapulco you always wanted.”

Monica said, “Good answer,” then she laughed, giving everyone else the green light to join in, and I followed hesitantly, a stark reminder that I was the new member of this group of longtime friends. It would clearly take some getting used to, but I liked all of them, and most of all I liked that they provided a new lens through which I saw Max.

He was a great conversationalist, that much I knew, but he was the same with a group of people. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that he was a writer and therefore, a natural storyteller.

Throughout the evening, I noticed Max looking at me the same way he’d been looking at me lately in the office.

I would catch him staring. He would have a look of intense concentration in his facial expression, especially in his eyes, the way they were virtually scanning my body from head to toe.

There was an unmistakable possessiveness to his gaze. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that from time to time I felt like a gazelle being watched by a lion. The only difference: I had no intention of being the type of prey that runs. I wanted him to catch me.

Later that night, after everyone had left, that’s exactly what happened.

And the next day, too. I’m not sure why I hadn’t been expecting it, considering the way Max had eyed me all night, and especially in light of how aggressive he had been in the bed later on.

While Max had rocked my world that night, it was nothing like how things progressed the next day at the office.

Two people, both members of the production team, were busily handling their work. We sometimes had upwards of ten people there, but it was getting close to lunch and all but the remaining two had left.

Max came into my office and closed the door behind him.

“Are we ordering in?” I asked.

Earlier, we had discussed going out to eat, but it looked like he wanted to stay in. I just had no idea why, at the moment.

“I already have,” he said. “It should be here shortly.”

“Good. I’m starving.” I was looking down at my desk again, going over the storyboards. “Some of these don’t match up with the script.”

He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t look up to see why.

“Did you change some of these?” I asked.

“You don’t have to do that, Liv.”

“I know, but I started to look at them and the changes…I don’t know. They’re not right.”

Max was the epitome of perfectionism when it came to making sure the script was right and all the actors had the final shooting version. But he didn’t seem to care at the moment, which I found strange.

I looked up.

As he came around to my side of the desk, it was one of those times when the sight of his physique struck me as though I were seeing him for the first time. The way his casual, untucked, dark blue shirt clung to his shoulders and muscular arms. The way the buttons begged to be unfastened to reveal his smooth, firm chest. The way his beige linen slacks hung perfectly from his waist….

Max held out a hand and I took it, rising at his urging.

He pulled me into his arms, kissing me in a teasing way, nipping at my lips and finally taking my tongue into his mouth and sucking on it.

When his lips moved to my neck, I said, “I thought last night would have been enough to tide you over until at least tonight.”

“Not even close,” he said, his breath hot on my throat. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Would it matter if I said yes?”

“No,” he said.

He held me tightly, possessively, and turned me around to face the window. Outside, people walked down the sidewalk just feet from my window, separated only by a short hedgerow of shrubbery, and the faintly tinted window of my office. It wasn’t completely darkened, so passersby could see in if they looked hard enough.

The bustling crowds of people on their way to lunch or meetings or sight-seeing moved quickly down the sidewalk, not appearing to have the slightest hint of what was going on behind that tinted window, but if someone stopped and looked for more than a few seconds, they would easily be able to make out my hands pressed to the glass, probably my face, and maybe Max standing behind me, too.

“I think they can see,” I said.

Max lifted my skirt but didn’t say anything.

“Max…”

I felt his erection straining against his linen pants, pressed against my ass.

“Relax,” he said in a stern whisper. “I’ve got this.”

I trusted him, and honestly, the proximity to people walking by added more than a little extra thrill.

Max’s fingers slipped beneath the elastic on the leg-hole of my panties. He pulled them to the side, while simultaneously using one finger to brush over my sex, slipping through the folds, upwards, making a quick touch-and-go on my clit, sending a jolt of need through my body.

With both hands, he held onto my hips and pulled me back toward him. I wore heels, but still needed to get on my tip-toes a little as he lined up to enter me.

The head of his excited cock notched at my opening of my pussy.

And he pushed in with a long stroke.

I gasped and my eyelids fluttered in response, then I refocused on the view in front of me — people dressed for work, tourists dressed for a day of exploring, a postal worker carrying a large bag, a woman jogging by with a dog, families, individuals…a cross-section of people strolling by as I stood there impaled on Max’s magnificent erection.

“I can’t stay out of you, Olivia.”

I breathed heavily as he fucked me, deep and slow.

With one hand he bunched my hair in his fist, turning my head to the side. He craned his neck to reach me, and his tongue plunged into my mouth, sweeping through my mouth, a move he synchronized with each thrust of his hips, shoving inside me.

He was doing me harder than usual, his lust surely spiked as high as I’d ever experienced it.

“Max,” I said through a long exhale. “Fuck me just like that. Don’t stop.”

His voice like course gravel, he said, “I would never stop if I didn’t have to, Liv.”

“Oh, God,” I sighed, feeling the warmth of the first spurts of his come.

Max buried his face in my hair against the back of my head.

I reached up, behind me, and held onto the side of his face.

He kept pumping his hips as he pumped his semen into me.

“I’m going to come,” I said. “Make me come, please.”

Max kept going, not losing his erection at all after coming.

My legs got weak. Max noticed. He wrapped one arm around my waist and lifted me off the floor a few inches, turning us both around.

I hated the feeling of his cock slipping out of me, but it was only for a moment.

He hovered over me as he lay me on the desk. He worked my panties down my legs.

“I’m going to make you come all over my cock, Liv.”

I opened my eyes and they locked onto his burning gaze as he stared back at me, picking up the pace, driving into me so hard.

He wrapped my panties around both of my wrists, then pushed my arms up over my head. With one hand, he held my bound wrists in place, trapping me as he wanted me.

His hips got into a steady rhythm for a few moments, his free hand lowering down to my sex, as he massaged my clit with his thumb.

Then, a knock at the door.

“Olivia?” It was the voice of Kristen, my assistant. “Your lunch is here.”

A smile spread across Max’s face.

I was breathing heavily, almost gasping for air.

Max fucked me harder.

“Better answer her,” he said.

“A minute!” I said. It was all I was able to get out.

“Okay,” she said, barely audible to me now from the other side of the door, but also because my heart was beating so fast and hard it was the loudest noise I was picking up.

As Max thumbed my clit in circles, my stomach muscles started to contract and relax, and one of the most intense orgasms of my life began.

The clenching tightened around his cock as I arched my back and moaned.

Max came again. It was the first time I had ever had that happen with any guy, let alone Max, and now I knew an entirely new side of his potent virility.

Getting to know Monica and Loralei was good for me. It was nice to have some girlfriends and feel like there was more to my life than work and home. Not that either of those aspects of my new life with Max were lacking in any way. It’s just that sometimes you need space even from the things you value most.

What I didn’t plan on, however, was the revelation that occurred one day while the three of us were having lunch in Beverly Hills.

We were halfway through our meal when Monica asked about the new production company. I told her how hard Max was working, and she said, “He’s always been a workaholic as long as I’ve known him. But, trust me, I’ve never seen him happier, and it’s not just about the company. I can’t imagine Max ever being giddy about something, but you’ve almost made him that way.”

It was such a sweet compliment, especially coming from someone who had known him for years. I started to thank her, but Loralei spoke first.

“I agree. Even happier than when he was with Ty, and I never thought I’d see that.”

Monica looked at Loralei, then immediately noticed the quizzical expression on my face, and she probably saw me swallow hard, too.

“Oh, sorry,” Loralei said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No.” I cleared my throat and reached for my drink, desperately needing to wash away the sudden dryness in my mouth and throat. I’d never felt so jealous in my life. And Max had never mentioned anyone named Ty. “I don’t know who that is.”

The two of them looked at each other, as if they were engaged in some kind of telepathic rock-paper-scissors decision over which one should tell me about her.

Loralei said, “Tyler Morgan. She lived with Max for a year.”

“Just over ten months,” Monica added.

Loralei looked at Monica. “Close enough.” She looked back at me. “Anyway, they were pretty serious. But Max didn’t know she had a secret life going on.”

My stomach sank and I felt like I was going to lose everything I’d just eaten. I tried to keep a stoic look on my face, though. I didn’t want to give them any reason to stop telling the story.

“She was an up-and-coming actress,” Loralei said. “She hadn’t been in anything big yet, but her name was tossed around town for several projects by major directors. And one of those was Max.”

“But it never happened. She was heavily into drugs,” Monica said.

“I don’t know how she hid it from Max all that time,” Loralei said. “Or how she hid it from us. Nobody noticed a thing. Until the end…”

The end.
Those words were so ominous, I feared the worst. That somehow Max had caught her using, or she’d been arrested, or simply bolted and left Max with a broken heart.

“It all happened so fast,” Loralei continued, “everyone was in shock. Definitely not as much as Max, but…she OD’d one night outside a club in LA. Max was on a location shoot in south Florida.”

The waiter came by, dropped off the check, and Monica grabbed it. “So I get the call. I’m still not sure why that happened. But Carl and I went to the hospital and were given the news. Carl called Max and he flew home overnight.”

“Jesus,” was all I could manage, as I looked away from them and watched a droplet of condensation slide down my glass.

“I’ve never heard him say a word about it since,” Monica said.

Loralei’s expression agreed with Monica. “That’s probably why he never told you.”

Yeah, I thought. That could be why. But this was an aspect of Max’s life I wanted to know about. Not just because it was another girl he had loved, but I wondered if he was really, truly over her, and what, if anything, all of it had to do with his need to protect me.

After lunch, alone in my car, I Googled Tyler Morgan. I didn’t want to do that at the table in front of Loralei and Monica. I just wanted the topic to go away at that moment, and it did, but I was still immensely curious about her.

I could only find a few pictures. I immediately started to compare myself to her. She was taller than me, and had lighter hair. Her face had angular features, while mine were softer. In short, we looked nothing alike, and I found some relief in that.

I got to the office and found Max sitting on the couch. Papers were strewn everywhere — next to him, on the table, on the floor — but all in neat stacks, no mess. I’d seen it before. He was in script deconstruction mode, a process he always did that involved actually physically taking a script apart and playing around with rearranging scenes. He had done it a few times with screenwriting software, but gave that up, saying this method made him think better.

He looked up as I stepped into his office. “I thought you were spending the day with the ladies.”

I closed the door behind me, freezing in place as I stared at him.

He moved the papers off his lap and stood. “What’s wrong, Liv?” He could always read my face in a microsecond.

When he got close to me, I threw my arms around his waist, feeling myself enveloped in his strong embrace.

He kissed me on the forehead.

I looked up. “I’m sorry, but I have to know.” I swallowed hard as he looked down at me, a look of extreme concern on his face. “Tell me about Ty.”

Max’s eyes closed instantly as he let out a heavy, long sigh.

“I don’t talk about it.”

“Yeah, I kind of picked up on that.”

He paused, then said, “It’s in the past, Olivia. It doesn’t mean anything anymore.”

“It matters to me.”

“Why?”

I pulled him by the hand and we went over to the couch. Max sat and I lowered myself onto his lap, putting my arms around his neck.

“It’s a part of you,” I said. “I want to know.”

He shook his head.

“Is it too painful?” I asked.

“I told you, it doesn’t matter anymore. I worked through it and I’m over it. It’s like it was never part of my life.”

I got a chill down my spine when he said that. For some reason, I took it as coldly as one could possibly mean it.

“That sounds terrible,” he continued, correcting himself. “I don’t mean it like that. I had to move on, and the only way to do that was to not look back.”

Although the circumstances were different, that’s kind of what I had been doing with regard to Chris. There was nothing harsh about my decision to dismiss Chris from my past, and now I understood that Max didn’t mean it that way about Tyler Morgan, either.

And then, suddenly, without any prompting from me, Max reversed his earlier statement about not talking about her and he opened up. “She lived with me. It wasn’t quite a year. Did they tell you this already?”

“Some of it,” I said.

Max emitted a soft laugh. “Let me guess. Loralei slipped up.”

“How’d you know?”

“She’s always doing shit like that. Be careful what you tell her. I thought about telling you when Krystal was in real trouble.”

I hadn’t even considered a connection between the two. “Is that why you helped her?”

He nodded. “It happens all the time, especially in this town, but because she’s a friend of yours, it was too close to home and I knew if I didn’t try to help it would haunt me.”

“You saved her life.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said.

I pushed back from him, taking his face between my hands. “You did.”

I kissed him and we fell together — Max on his back, me on top of him. It wasn’t sexual, it was purely an emotional moment.

I lay my head on his chest, thinking about all that I’d just learned about him, and decided to let the silence continue for a few moments.

“I love this town,” he said, “almost everything about it. I’ve just seen that too many times, and with her…it was unbearable.”

I watched his face turn to stone as he stared at the window. I didn’t know what to say, which was fine, because I knew I needed to let him proceed at his own comfortable pace.

He looked at me. “I had a problem, Liv. For about six months.” He let it hang there without finishing.

“What do you mean?” I said.

He turned his head to look away from me again.

I put my hand on his chin and turned his head back toward me, and he offered no resistance. “Max, you had a problem…?”

“Coke. I had done my share of weed, but I eventually gave in to the temptation of coke. It was everywhere. Everyone had it, everyone was doing it, everyone was sharing or selling. I was at my weakest point in life. It was just after ‘Circus Daydream’ came out. A few weeks after, actually.”

He was talking about his one and only box-office flop. It was a script he had written hastily at the urging of the studio. Max had told me once that it was in the top three regrets of his professional life. He caved to their demands. They wanted to rush something else out that had his name attached to the project, and “Circus Daydream” was the only thing he had ready to go at the moment.

It was a script he had written when he was nineteen and had never gone back to do a rewrite on it. He made this clear to the studio execs, and they said they’d give him time to do a fresh draft. The time they gave him turned out to be two days. They rushed production, cast a relatively unknown actor for the lead, and the movie tanked upon release. It was one of the worst opening weekends for a highly anticipated summer blockbuster in the studio’s history.

“I was at a beach party in Santa Monica, and the stuff was everywhere. I was drunk and had hit a bong a few times, and then I tried coke for the first time. Before I knew it, that’s all I was doing. Staying up for days on end, missing important phone calls and meetings, lashing out at people — verbally, not physically — and I wasn’t myself. Carl and Anthony took me to a rehab center. I checked in willingly, by the way.”

“My God, Max. I had no idea.”

He huffed out a little laugh. “Yeah, almost nobody does.”

“Your mom?”

He put his head back on the seat. “No, I lied and told her I was on business for a while and that I’d be out of the country. She bought it. I was in rehab for 90 days. That first night was the loneliest night of my life. I stayed up visualizing my entire life being wiped away, everything I had worked so hard for.”

I lowered my head so our faces were close to each other. “You saved Krystal’s life like Anthony and Carl saved yours. Don’t you see that?”

“I just did what I could.”