“A dentist?” I cough.
“Sexy, huh?” she agrees with a sideways smile. “I get Christmas cards every year with his whole office decked out in Santa sweaters.”
“I can’t believe you lost your virginity to a guy named Andrew Finkle.”
“I did love him, once upon a time.” A wistful expression falls over her face as she stares out toward the flickering lights of Mona’s pool. “But life was a lot simpler then.”
I consider telling her about Katie and being dumped at eighteen in the Greyhound bus station, but think better of it. “So who phones you all the time?”
“Jake Slater. We were on About the House together.”
Keeping my face neutral is hard: I’ve met Jake actually, though I never realized he was on Rebecca’s show. Certainly never realized he was her ex until now. I did some gaffer work on a cable movie of his back about eight years ago, a location gig upstate. I remember he was more interested in snorting coke on the grip truck than in doing a good job on set. A real playboy, that one.
But I keep silent as she continues. “He was one of those consummate bad boys you always hope have really changed.” She sighs, rubbing her eyes. “What can I say? I was na?ve and stupid. That’s really all you need to know about that.”
“No, I need more,” I insist. “You’ve gotten a hell of a lot more about my past out of me.”
She hesitates, folding her hands neatly into her lap. “He dumped me after I left the hospital three years ago. Maybe I’d been home for two or three weeks, I’m not even sure. I was so weak, drugged up. If my parents hadn’t been there to take care of me, I don’t know what I’d have done. Just walking to the toilet took everything I had.” She pauses, swallowing hard. “And then Jake shows up and tells me we’re through. Just like that. Over.” She shakes her head, almost like she’s still disbelieving. “I’d lost my career, my face, my health, and then just like that, I’d lost my boyfriend, too.”
“I better not run into him ever,” I say, feeling the rush of adrenaline—the male need to protect. “And if he calls you again on my watch, I’m gonna explain a few things to him.”
“Thanks, but I think he’s just having a life crisis or something. It’s weird, but I’ve actually forgiven him.”
“How’d you manage that?” I’m thinking of Robert Bridges and how my hatred toward him for killing Alex just never dies down.
“Because me going around bitter isn’t going to change the facts,” she explains with remarkable calm. “Jake dumped me because my career was over, and he didn’t think he could afford to be associated with that. Because, as he said, ‘In this town, you can’t be damaged goods.’”
“What an asshole.” I scowl in disbelief. “And you loved this guy?”
“I thought so at the time, yes. He could actually be quite charming.”
“Well, he was wrong, just so you know,” I say, wanting to be sure she really gets how I feel, that I’m not like this creep from her past. “You’re not damaged goods, Rebecca. You’re all the perfect I need.”
“But,” she reminds me in a careful whisper, brushing a hand over her heart, “you haven’t seen all the rest.”
I comb my fingers through her hair, revealing the part of her disfigurement that I have seen. “Yeah, that’s true, I haven’t seen the rest.” Leaning down to kiss her scarred cheek, I say, “But neither had Jake when he said that.”
For a moment, she stares at me wide-eyed, surprised, as if the thought had never even crossed her mind before now, that Jake broke up with her before the bandages came off.
Then she leans close, burying her face against my chest. We hold each other like that, me stroking her silky hair, feeling her heart hammering against mine, her arms wrapped around me. For once, I don’t even care what comes next.
That’s what I’m thinking when she whispers against my heart, “Maybe it’s just me who needs more time.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper back. “It’s okay ’cause I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
Chapter Fifteen: Rebecca
“Please tell me Johnny Jordan is actually smart in person,” Trevor says, grilling Cat about her current leading man in the film she’s shooting over at Universal. “He’s always mentioning Nietzsche and Neil Gaiman in the same breath during interviews. And you know what a turn-on intelligence is for me.”
Cat sips her martini, smiling slyly. “No comment.” I’m not sure if she’s referring to Johnny Jordan’s sexual orientation or his intelligence rating—and I’m not sure Trevor actually cares about either. Like the rest of America, he just wants tidbits. We once crashed a Christmas party up in the Hills because he’d heard a rumor that Johnny would be there.
“Is he… or isn’t he?” I laugh. “That is the question. Of course you have terrible taste in celebrities, so it hardly matters.”