Making Love (Destiny Book 1) (10 page)

I called my sister as soon as I got home, just to check that she and our mother were okay. Mum had calmed down, apparently, and was now looking forward to meeting Will.

Wonderful..

My phone had lit up with text messages the moment I turned it on but only a few were from numbers I recognised. I called my friends Laurie and Marie back and both women seemed to understand why I hadn’t told them the truth about Will, and were either thrilled that I had ‘landed such a hunk’, or that I had found ‘someone so nice’.

See? Now why couldn’t my mother react like that?

I was pretty jet lagged so as soon as I was mostly unpacked, I called Will, just to say goodnight, then crashed for 12 hours.

The next morning was something of a revelation.

First I checked the other text messages and my voicemail. They were almost all from the press, asking for confirmation of our relationship.

My email was similar but contained more detailed requests, some even included questions they wanted me to answer. Yeah, because I have nothing better to do with my time that tell perfect strangers about my personal life, to help them get hits on their gossip website. Some emails were clearly from fans, who must have got my email from my website.

Once such junk was deleted, I was left with only 20 or so work messages. Most of my existing clients knew I’d be away, so had just sent updates or notes that hadn’t required an immediate response but out of the rest, from new clients, many were… suspicious, worded slightly differently to the way most genuine requests were.

I wrote back to most of them anyway, keeping everything 100% professional, just in case they were sincere.

Next I checked social media and found that my Twitter and my Facebook pages had a load of new followers. One new follower on Twitter was Will though, which made me smile. He told me he couldn’t follow me before because anyone he followed came under scrutiny.

Suddenly I realised that there would be some plusses to being public, namely, not having to hide.

Most of the messages I’d been sent over social media were not work related. There were a lot of questions, like how long had we been dating, which I ignored. There were some sweet messages wishing us well, which was nice but weird, and there were some nasty messages (those users immediately got blocked) and some downright strange messages. Someone wanted to know what Will smelled like, while one chap was trying to warn me that Will was only using me.

He could be genuinely worried for me, or passive aggressive, or just a troll but either way, he was blocked. I do not need dating advice from strangers, thanks.

By the time I turned my attention back to my unfinished projects, it was gone noon and I doubted I’d get a lot done today. I reviewed them all however, so I was up to speed with my progress and ready to start drawing again tomorrow.

My phone rang about once an hour but it was all from the press. I simply answered ‘no comment’ as soon as they introduced themselves, and entered the numbers into my phone with the publication name plus ‘no’ before it, and I assigned them all a tweeting birds ringtone that was easy to ignore.

Will called at about 3pm, so I took a break and made some tea while we chatted.

“Lee wants us to go public,” he told me, after we’d made the requisite amount of small talk.

“What do you think?”

“I think we should. All the time we deny it, we’re just going to have people after us, trying to prove we’re lying.”

“Okay. How do we do that?”

“I’ll do a tweet about it.”

“It’s that simple?”

“It can be.”

“Okay then.”

“Do you want to say anything?”

“Not really.” I shook my head vehemently even though he couldn’t see me.

“Okay. Do you mind what I say?”

“I trust you. You’ve been playing this game for longer than I have.”

“Can I release a picture?”

“I suppose.”

“I don’t have to.”

“No, it’s fine,” I felt uncomfortable but I would get used to it.

“I was thinking I’d post that one Helen took of us at the premiere. You looked stunning that night.”

“Are you implying that I don’t usually look stunning?” I huffed.

“Of course not, darling,” I could hear the mirth in his voice. “You are always the picture of radiance, even when hungover and still wearing last night’s make-up.”

I laughed, knowing that I generally looked more like a zombie than a human being at those times.

“I trust you,” I said seriously. “You do what you think is best and if I don’t like it, I’ll just deny you sex for the next two weeks.”

He gasped. “You wouldn’t be so cruel!”

“Try me,” I teased, but I couldn’t keep the laughter out of my voice.

“What are your plans for the rest of the day?” he asked.

“Reviewing work, washing, drying, cleaning, more washing and drying. You?”

“Eerily similar,” he assured me. “I hate doing laundry.”

“Me too. One day, when I win the lottery, I am never doing washing again. I’m just going to buy everything new, wear it once, then donate it to charity.”

“What if you particularly like an outfit?”

“I’ll buy a dozen of them.”

“Sounds reasonable,” he agreed. “Do you feel like doing something tomorrow night?”

“I feel like seeing you but no, there will be no ‘doing’ of anything.”

“Not even you?” he teased, his voice alone turning me on.

“If you’re super well behaved and stop saying naughty things that only serve to frustrate me when you’re not here, then maybe you can ‘do’ me tomorrow night.”

He laughed. “Deal.”

***

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the big reveal of our relationship actually didn’t change very much between us. Sure, my email and social media went a little crazy for a while, trailing off over the next few weeks and yes, there were some articles about us that bore little resemblance to the truth (one said we’d met while taking Argentine tango lessons. What the hell!) but nothing we couldn’t shrug and laugh off.

I attracted a little more attention in public but without Will on my arm, I was still basically a nobody, and this state of affairs was fine with me.

At the beginning of July, I could put off a meeting with my mother no longer and Will and I drove up to Manchester to see her.

Mum was fairly well behaved when we had dinner and with Will being his usual charming self, the evening went quite well. I even found myself warming up to her new husband who until now, had viewed us children with a sort of quiet suspicion, as if we were his competition for Mum’s affections. You’d think after nearly 10 years with her, he’d realise that her priorities were herself, her man, her daughters, in that order.

A week later we flew out to Detroit so Will could shoot a new film called Kismet. Not only was it a 16-week shoot, there were at least three locations, so I had decided it would just be easier to go with him from day one, rather than flying out to different places for a snatched few weeks together. Will was thrilled but I had to admit, I was not looking forward to moving quite so frequently.

I knew it wasn’t really ‘moving’ but we would be living in these new locations, at least briefly, and I still wasn’t over the Sentinels’ press tour. Logically I knew that the two weren’t comparable, but nevertheless, I wasn’t warming to the idea of being a nomad, until we got to Detroit.

I fell almost instantly in love with the city though. You might think that strange since the urban decay was all people reported on, but I found it fascinating or more specifically, I found the stories behind these crumbling facades fascinating.

I spent a whole morning just wandering around and photographing the Michigan Theatre, once one of the grandest buildings in the city, maybe even the state. Now they couldn’t even afford to pull it down so it had been turned into a car park. When I found these places, I then felt compelled to look up their history online, which led me to more stories and new places to hunt out.

We had a serviced apartment of rooms in a hotel this time but come the evenings, I didn’t leave the hotel. Crime in Detroit was just too high for me to feel comfortable wandering about alone and even with Will beside me, I’d felt intimidated by gangs of youths.

I have to admit, I began to feel a little lonely, which was one reason I went out and about so often. Will went to the set every day and was surrounded by people but I had no one here; no friends, no workplace, just a laptop and to be frank, Skype was a poor substitute for real interactions with my friends back home.

When Will had a few days of night shoots, the loneliness really began to set in. He slept until about 3pm, then headed to the set about 2 hours later so if I wanted to see him that day, I had to be back from my wandering early. The evenings I spent alone because the hotel bar was just depressing on my own and I was sick of getting hit on. Sometimes I visited the gym since I generally prefer working out when it’s quiet, and it was virtually deserted in the evenings, but I could hardly work out all evening. I also couldn’t call home because the time difference meant it was the middle of the night in the UK.

I worked a lot, mostly in the evenings on those nights so that I had my days free to wander, but the whole situation was getting me down.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you for days,” Will said on a rare day off, wrapping his arms around me while I pottered in the kitchen.

Our cycles were still out of synch and he hadn’t gotten up until mid-afternoon.

“Well that’s not my fault.” I replied, slipping out of his grasp. I know I sounded tetchy, because that’s how I felt.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, his tone also hardening.

“Nothing,” I said with a sigh. Yeah, I can be passive aggressive. I’m not proud of it.

“No, something’s bothering you,” he insisted, crossing his arms as he leaned against the kitchen side.

“How would you know? We never see each other.”

“Is that what this is about? It’s only been a week, Elle and these night shoots will be over soon.”

“I honestly don’t know why you wanted me here with you when all you do is work. Even when you’re not shooting nights, you’re gone for ten to twelve hours!”

“You knew that when you agreed to come.”

“Oh yes, of course, it’s my fault I’m stuck in a strange city without a single friend and virtually under house arrest once darkness falls!” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Well maybe you’d have a friend if you’d accept some of the invitations you get.”

I knew he was right, most of the cast and crew were staying in the hotel and I wasn’t the only partner who had tagged along. I didn’t want to hear that my loneliness could be my fault though.

“So is this to be my life now? Wondering from city to city like some nomad, making friends in each new place, only to have to leave them behind when it’s over?”

“Elle…” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. Although he was in sweats, he looked very handsome with his stubble and his hair still mussed from sleep, but I wasn’t in the right mood to appreciate that at the moment. “I don’t know what to say to you, I thought you understood how my life worked.”

He was infuriatingly calm, which made me angrier and I wanted to provoke him.

“Why is it always
me
fitting into
your
life?” I demanded. “Why am I the only one who has to make sacrifices for this relationship?”

“What do you want me to do?”

I wanted him to make more time for me. I wanted to be as, if not more important than his career. That sounded incredibly needy though and I prided myself on not being a needy person, so I didn’t say that.

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “You just go on living your life, Will. Why don’t you text me when you can fit me in.” I left the kitchen, picked up my bag and headed straight out.

By the time I got to the lobby, Will had caught up, having found shoes, a hoodie and then caught up in record time. Ladies, if you want to make a quick escape, never date a runner.

“Elle, wait, please.”

I didn’t answer.

“Where are you going?”

“Out. The same thing I do every day while you’re off with your friends.”

“I’m not ‘off with my friends’,” he said as the doorman held the door open for us. He grabbed my arm once we were outside “Please, let’s not fight in public. Come back to the room and we can talk.”

“Right, because what really matters in life is what other people think.” I yanked my arm out of his grasp and kept on walking and Will did this weird kind of sideways walk so he could look at me.

“Please, Ellie, I’m sorry. Let’s go somewhere and talk. Please.”

“I don’t want to talk, Will.”

“Then what do you want? Do you want me to quit my job? What?”

Even when angry, I couldn’t ever ask someone to do that.

“I just want you to… want me to be here!” What? He’s the one who’s good with words, not me.