Winter Jacket: Finding Home (14 page)

I rubbed circles in the small of her back with my free hand and drew her closer to me as we walked to the parking garage. “Anything you want. I only want to spend time with you.”

She slumped into my side and sighed. “Good. Because that commute sucks. Getting to the Minneapolis airport is a disaster and LAX is a zoo. And I feel like I’m still nursing the tail end of this cold from hell. Maybe I did get Ebola.”

I continued to rub her back as we walked toward my car. “I’ll make it up to you this weekend.”

She leaned her head against my shoulder and my arm instinctively wrapped around her waist. “I missed you.”

I pressed my lips against the top of her head. For having been on an airplane for the past four hours, she smelled amazing. She smelled like sunshine. “I miss you all the time.”

A short drive later, I carried her wheeled luggage up the three flights of stairs to my apartment.

“What’s that smell?” she asked as we walked inside.

“Chicken noodle soup.” I’d left the pot simmering on the stovetop. Luckily the apartment hadn’t caught on fire. “I made you my mom’s recipe with the homemade heart-shaped noodles.”

“You’re adorable.”

“I wanted a do-over,” I shrugged. “I still feel bad that I wasn’t able to nurse you back to health.”

“Don’t. You can’t beat yourself up every time something like that happens. It’s all part of having a long-distance relationship.” One hand curled around my waist and the other played with the waves that framed my face. “Besides, I can guarantee that wasn’t the last cold I’ll ever have,” she assured me. “And hopefully when next I’m sick, we’ll be back together.”

I nuzzled my nose against her warm cheek. “Just don’t go running in rainstorms, trying to get sick on purpose, okay?”

“Okay,” she softly agreed.

“Are you hungry?” I asked, letting my arms fall to her waist.

“Later,” she husked. She leaned in and ran her nose along the side of my face until she reached my ear. Her wet, warm breath tickled me, and my body temperature immediately spiked. “I promised you could take care of me when I got here, but soup wasn’t what I had in mind.”

I had been looking forward to bringing Hunter to the lot and introducing her to some of my work colleagues, but there was no rush. She’d be out here again soon enough. I was content to spend time with her, just the two of us, within the four walls of my bedroom. It wasn’t quite a mountainside cabin, but we did an admirable job of avoiding the outside world.

We periodically tumbled out of bed for bathroom and snack breaks. Troian called on Sunday morning during one of those interludes. My instincts told me to ignore the call, but I answered any way.

“Hello?”

“I’m calling an emergency meeting. How quickly can you be at the studio?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought everyone had signed off on the next episode, but now the network is asking for major revisions. If I don’t get something back to them today, we won’t be able to have the table read on Monday, and the entire shooting schedule will get pushed back.”

I flicked my eyes in Hunter’s direction. She stood in front of the open refrigerator door, braless in a tank top and running shorts. “Do you really need me to be there? Hunter’s only here for the weekend.”

“I know. And I’m sorry the timing sucks, but I wouldn’t be calling if this weren’t an emergency.”

“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath. “Give me half an hour.”

“Thank you, Bookie. I owe you big.”

I hung up with Troian and trudged into the kitchen.

Hunter had pulled some fruit and vegetables from the refrigerator and had begun cutting them up on a wooden cutting board. She paused long enough to pop a slice of sweet, crisp apple into my mouth. “Who was that?”

“Troian,” I said around my bite of apple. “She needs the writers on lot to work through some emergency revisions.”

“She knows I’m here, doesn’t she?” Hunter frowned.

“She does,” I confirmed. “But she still wants me to come in.”

Hunter’s frown deepened. “For how long?”

“I don’t know,” I said apologetically. “She didn’t say what the network hated or wants changed, so I have no idea how long it will take.”

“I suppose you don’t have a choice.” Her eyes became downcast.

“Do you want to come with?” I offered. “You’ll probably be bored out of your mind, but at least we’d still be spending time together.”

Hunter tugged on her ponytail. “I really don’t want to meet your work friends for the first time, looking like this.”

“Why not? You’re beautiful.”

“I feel greasy, and I probably smell like sex,” she complained.

“The other writers aren’t fancy or snobby, I promise.”

“I’d rather not.”

I knew it had been a stretch the moment I had asked. If there was one thing I knew about my girlfriend, it was that she needed to look her best, especially when meeting new people. It was a compulsion nearly as strong as my fear of being late.

“Okay,” I conceded, albeit with disappointment. “I won’t force you.”

My mood proceeded to sour as I drove into work half an hour later. Of all the days to be called in to work, why did it have to be this weekend? When I’d originally accepted Troian’s job offer, I’d been naive about how often Hunter and I would get to see each other. My time with her was proving to be precious and rare. I’d been living in California for over a month, but I’d only seen her for a few hours at the bachelorette party, and now even our first full weekend together had been interrupted. I had to figure something else out. This arrangement wasn’t working for either of us.

I was one of the last people to arrive at the writer’s trailer. Troian, Edward, Guillen, Gloria, and Sonja were already seated around the writer’s table when I came into the room.

I took a vacant seat beside Sonja. She was dressed normally, but her makeup was heavy and her long red hair was more curled than usual.

“Are you going to Prom after this?” I teased as I settled into my chair and began to unpack my workbag.

“Funny.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m supposed to be working a party later today. Who knows when we’ll be done here, so I figured I’d come ready for job number two just in case.”

“Where’s Aviva?” Edward asked, looking around the writer’s room.

“She’s Orthodox,” Gloria noted. “She’s not allowed to work or use machines or something.”

“Christ,” Guillen complained. “Why couldn’t I be Jewish today, too?”

Once everyone finished voicing their complaints about having to come in on a Sunday, we worked efficiently and with more cooperation and focus than usual. Maybe the secret was to only have us work Sundays.

As soon as the changes had been made and Troian dismissed us, the other writers quickly dispersed, not wanting to spend any more time on set than needed. We’d have to return in a handful of hours, anyway.

“Thanks again for coming in today,” Troian said as I packed up my workbag in preparation of going home. “Can I make it up to you guys at dinner tonight?”

“I have to ask Hunter first, but I’ll let you know.”

The sounds of the television greeted me when I returned to my apartment, but I saw and heard no further evidence of my girlfriend’s presence.

“Baby? I called out, closing and locking the apartment door behind me.

Over the noise of the television, I heard a muffled laugh coming from outside. The wide-slatted vertical blinds were partially drawn, but I could see Hunter standing on the balcony, smiling.

I pushed the blinds to the side and slid the balcony door open. “Hey, I’m back,” I greeted. “What are you doing out here?”

“Talking to me.”

I twisted my head in the direction of the male voice. A mustached man in jean shorts and a white t-shirt stood on the adjacent balcony, smoking a cigarette and drinking a can of beer.

“Oh, hey.” I hadn’t met any of my neighbors yet. I didn’t plan on living in this place forever, so I didn’t imagine I’d be making lifelong friends with the other residents in the complex.

“Frank’s been keeping me company,” Hunter stated.  “He’s from Canada, so we were sharing snow stories.”

“Your girlfriend tells me you write for a TV show,” he said. “That’s pretty cool.”

“It is when they’re not calling me in on a Sunday to work,” I complained. I turned my attention back to Hunter. “Troian wants to know if we want to do dinner with her and Nik tonight. I told her it was up to you.”

Hunter looked momentarily thoughtful. “I suppose I could be persuaded.”

“We’d better clean up though if we want to make the reservation time.”

“Okay.”

I turned back to my neighbor. “It was nice to meet you, Frank.”

He saluted me with his beer can.

I ushered Hunter back inside with my hand in the small of her back. “You’re too friendly for your own good,” I said, sliding the glass door closed. “This isn’t Minnesota, you know.”

“He’s harmless,” she insisted.

A shared shower later, we were putting on the finishing touches to our makeup and outfits. One of my favorite activities was watching Hunter get ready to go out. I didn’t consider her high maintenance, but her hair required blow-drying and flat-ironing whereas I only needed to let my wavy hair air dry after a shower.

“You’re looking very edible in that dress,” I admired from the hallway just outside of the open bathroom door.

The green jersey material of her dress clung to her slender curves. I loved the color green on her. It complimented perfectly her skin tone and the color of her hair.

She smiled at me through the mirror as she applied her eyeliner. “I thought about packing that skirt you seemed to like so much.”

I returned her smile and leaned against the doorjamb in the bathroom. “Remember our first double date with Nik and Troi?”

“And the sex hurricane that happened right before they showed up?” she laughed. “No. I don’t remember that at all.”

I left Hunter to finish getting ready so I wouldn’t be tempted to distract her further. While I waited in the living room, my phone rang with a second call of the day from Troian.

“Hey, where are you?” I asked.

“In your parking lot.”

“Aren’t you guys coming up?”

“No. You live in a crack house; I’m not getting out of the car.”

“Have you always been this overly dramatic, or is Hollywood rubbing off on you?”

“Just hurry up,” Troian ordered. “I don’t like the look of your neighbors.”

We found Nikole’s SUV idling in the parking lot. As we approached, the passenger side window rolled down and I heard the sound of someone clapping. As we got closer, I saw Troian hanging out of the window.

I made a face. “What are you doing, weirdo?”

“I’m impressed,” she said, continuing her slow clap. “I thought you two would be boning the entire weekend, and we’d never get you out of there.”

“We’ve got to keep up our energy somehow,” Hunter spoke up. “Besides, I heard you were paying for dinner tonight.”

Troian’s hands stopped mid-clap. “I don’t know if I should hug you or punch you,” she quipped.

“Yeah.” Hunter’s gaze dropped to the pavement. “Sorry about that.”

I glared in Troian’s direction. “Was that necessary?”

“I’m sorry, I get it. You miss your girlfriend. I’d probably do the same thing if I’d been in your shoes, with a few more expletives and threats of violence.”

The car horn honked and we collectively jumped. Nikole leaned across her girlfriend and flashed a white, even smile. “Get in the car. You two can make up later. They won’t hold our dinner reservation forever.”

I climbed into the backseat of Nikole’s SUV with Hunter. The air conditioning was on full blast, hitting us with cool, stale air, that even I had to admit was a reprieve from the heat we’d endured just on the short walk from my apartment to the car.

Troian turned in her chair to look at us. “You know, I’m still kind of amazed by you two.”

“In what way?” Hunter asked.

“You put up with a whole lot of grief, some of it from me.”

“Is that your way of apologizing for being an asshole before?” I asked.

“Yeah, I guess it is. By the way,” Troian noted, “your woman’s first script has been shaping up quite nicely. You should be proud of this one.”

Hunter’s hand settled on top of mine. She squeezed my fingers and gave me an encouraging smile. “I always am.”

We made it an early night knowing that Hunter had a morning flight, and I wanted to squeeze in as much alone time as possible. Dinner had been pleasant, but not where I wanted to be. I always had fun hanging out with Troian and Nik, but there were certain things I couldn’t do with them around.

Back at my apartment, I woke up alone. The covers on Hunter’s side of the bed were pulled back and light from outside showed the empty space where she usually slept.

I pulled myself out of bed and tumbled the few steps out of the bedroom to investigate. I had yet to completely memorize the lay of the land; I couldn’t navigate the darkened apartment without walking into walls or stubbing my toes on things.