Someone I Used to Know

chapter Ten

Declan


“Let’s do it again.”

“Easy there, Sparky,” she reprimanded lightly. Her breathing was ragged and shallow. I was momentarily sidetracked by the sight of her heaving bare chest.

Sweat had joined the rain drying on our skin, and I’d quickly taken the initiative to move our party to the bedroom and under my heavy bedspread, as soon as I got the feeling back in my legs again.

“I didn’t know you’d be that good at that – I didn’t know anyone could be that good at that,” I admitted. That was phenomenal. I’d never fully appreciated a dancer’s flexibility until Adley had shown me all the benefits.

I noticed how put-out she looked by my impressed tone, and tensed in preparation for the possible physical retribution. I’d learned the hard way that she wasn’t above violence, and I wouldn’t soon forget.

I couldn’t have been more surprised when she chortled with a burst of laughter.

“Some people are good at math…” She stretched her body out like a cat. “I suppose we all have our talents.”

There she went again, doing the very last thing I expected, and damned if I didn’t like it.

“You’re just kind of cold,” I backtracked, only realizing once the words had come out of my mouth that I’d only succeeded in digging my hole a little deeper. “Not what I meant! Look, all I’m saying is you can come across kind of prudish, in an innocent sort of way.”

Groaning, she rolled away from me, and my eyes were free to roam over the smooth expanse of her back, as my sheets slipped low on her hips.

“Please quit talking,” she grumbled, face down in a pillow.

“Quit talking?” I asked intrigued. “Isn’t this the part where we have a long drawn out conversation about what just happened and where it leaves us now?”

She jerked upwards like I’d slapped her on the ass (which I hadn’t, even though it was tempting). Her blue eyes were riddled with panic.

“You’re a lot more inexperienced than I thought if you don’t understand what just happened. We had sex. The end. And we –,” she pointed to me and then back to herself. “ – aren’t an ‘us.’ We’re two consenting adults who just had meaningless sex.”

Meaningless, huh? If that was meaningless I was a little confused about what I’d been doing all those years I’d thought I’d been having meaningless roots. I guess that meant I’d actually been interested in all the girls I’d fled from like my hair was on fire after a one-night-stand.

Getting away from Adley wasn’t even in my top ten to-do actions at that moment. Of course, numbers one through five were all various sexual acts, but even talking to her didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.

Who was I kidding? Talking to her – or, more accurately, fighting with her – had become a highlight of my days. I wasn’t in love with her or anything. No, no, definitely not. But I couldn’t deny I was fascinated by her. It was pointless. She was the single most surprising human being I’d ever known.

All her choices were backwards. By her own admission, she forced Cam to use their real names, but then despised all the attention his book brought her. I made my livelihood in an industry that considered all publicity to be good publicity, so maybe I was a little behind in what was considered ‘normal.’ Normal or not, Adley Adair was plenty unique to me.

I’d never met anyone like her. Her tongue was sharp, always more than ready to lay into me, and yet she could be thoughtful, bringing me my favorite kind of muffin. Who even remembered that kind of thing? I didn’t even think she was listening to me most of the time. She was hard, steely and unwelcoming, but when she danced, it was like seeing someone’s soul crack in two.

She was a puzzling contradiction. Trying to figure her out had become my new favorite pastime. On my last film I’d taken up Sudoku, but having sex with the author’s muse was turning into an inspiring hobby too.

Being interested in her was harmless, and the way I figured it, having as much sex with her as possible was the first step in getting her out of my system.

Besides she really was a crazy good root.

“Well, then we’ve returned to my original question.” My gaze scolded down her body suggestively.

Instead of answering she let her suspicious stare speak for her.

“Can we do it again?” I reached out to her slowly, giving her ample time to pull away, before my fingertips trailed down her creamy skin.

Her eyelids fluttered shut, and a sweet sigh that sounded suspiciously like innocence, breathed out of her full lips. It took her a second to come back to me, and when she did, the glassy sheen that painted over her irises was heavy with lust.

“You’re okay with this?” Each word was carefully placed, as if she was tiptoeing down a wire.

“Isn’t this every bloke’s fantasy? Sex with no strings?” My hand dipped below the sheet and rounded over her backside before easing all the way back up to her shoulder blades.

I wanted to distract her from my lack of conviction. She didn’t need to know I had ulterior motives. There were already strings for me; invisible strings, constantly at odds with each other, trying to pull me towards her, while I fought to keep my distance. But to deal with this very backwards girl, maybe a backwards solution was exactly what I needed. The sex wouldn’t just be about pleasure for me, at least. It was too late for me to avoid getting attached, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t use the opportunity to cleanse her from my system.

***

After I’d introduced her to my shower, and she’d introduced me to a wonderful little thing she could perform with her tongue, we stumbled down to the kitchen for sustenance. I was exhausted and starving from our extracurricular activities, shoving fork-fulls of the chocolate cake I’d found from Aurelia yesterday, in my mouth.

Adley nibbled on her smaller slice, as her spare hand played with the hem of the shirt I’d let her borrow. Her eyes skirted around the room with interest.

“You’re clean,” she nodded sensibly, stating her observation. “It’s not exactly the bachelor pad I was expecting.”

“That’s all Aurelia.” I gestured around to the spotless, stainless steel appliances and sparkling floors. “She keeps me straight. Otherwise this place would be disgusting. Actually you’d really like her. She called me a racist the first time we met, and she just adores calling me on my bullshit. You should meet her.”

I didn’t claim to be an expert on all things Adley, but I knew panic when I saw it. Her eyes were as wide as saucers, and her mouth pinched closed.

“I don’t need to meet your maid.”

I shrugged, trying to dismiss the tension with nonchalance. If she got that freaked out over the idea of meeting the hired help, I couldn’t imagine what she’d do if I tried to introduce her to my mom. The prospect almost made me chuckle.

I’d never taken a girlfriend home before. My family wasn’t exactly normal, and they certainly weren’t easy people to get to know. The idea of Adley meeting the Davies was appealing to me in a whole different way. Such an odd combination of so many overly spirited people would be entertaining, that was for sure.

My mother was notoriously picky. Stella James was Australia’s first international movie star, and throughout her illustrious career, she’d had many suitors, but none of them could compare to the dashing director who had given her her first big break, when she’d been nothing more than a fresh-faced teenager. Twelve years after their initial collaboration, Stella James married Mitchell Davies, and they immediately began making a family (in between projects of course). Fourteen years and five daughters later, I was born and they decided to call it day.

Along with her looks, my sisters had also inherited my mother’s pickiness. I couldn’t say the same for her talent. Don’t get me wrong, Mary-Rose might’ve been even more talented than Mom and Dad combined, with Oscars for both acting and directing, and Caaren and Amelie were damn good writers, but Brittany was barely passable on a television series and Jemma considered herself a professional celebrity.

Adley was the complete opposite of them. Actually, she was the complete opposite of the entire lifestyle that my sisters so wholly embodied. I loved them, but they were a bunch of snobs. I was their baby brother, and I’d been an important uniting factor in the close relationship they now got to share. By simply being born of the opposing sex, I’d given them something to bond together, against. Yet, despite my position at the bottom of the food chain in my family tree, I knew that no girl would ever be good enough for me in their eyes.

I tried to summon together a mental picture of Adley interacting with my family. My mind took me back to the last time we’d all been together two Christmases ago. Mom was sitting at the piano, dipping her fingers along the keys and belting a festive tune, with the spirit of a stage actress. Brittany was holding court at her side, filling in the words of the song that the nearly empty wine bottle in front of them persuaded her to forget. I had no doubt there were ulterior motives attached to my sister’s kindness (my guess was she was looking for a guest spot from Mom to get a little rating boosts for her show). Dad and Mary-Rose’s husband were discussing the fine turkey arranged for our meal, as if they’d had anything to do with bird’s capture or preparation.

I tried to draw Adley into the picture, imagining her with us; maybe cooing over Caaren’s new baby or discussing Jemma’s latest attempt to get us to sign onto a reality show. Adley’s blond hair and slim figure blurred and shimmered out of focus though, always just out of my grasp. Not even my imagination could place her with them. It was as if they existed on two different planes of reality, impossible to combine or intersect.

“Where are you right now?” For once, her face was unguarded, as she pulled me out of my thoughts with a soft, curious half-smile.

“I’m back in the bedroom with that fantastically talented mouth of yours,” I lied, but it didn’t stop my body from responding positively to the seduction of my words.

She rewarded me by making my lie come true.

***

We lay together afterwards, and I watched her eyelids flicker in her sleep, wondering what kind of world she battled in her dreams. The sun had kissed the world goodnight a few hours ago, and I was surprised she’d stuck around after our latest coupling. She came across as the ‘hit it and quit it’ type. In her defense, we’d been going at it pretty vigorously for the past few hours. My legs felt like jello. I couldn’t have stood if I tried.

My body was satiated, but my mind raced restlessly. Maybe, I’d entered an alternate universe where the girl I’d just slept with only wanted me for sex and I couldn’t fall asleep because of my feelings. Surely, it couldn’t be real.

Adley’s choices weren’t the only ones that were backwards. She’d sucked me in, twisted me until I was tangled, and somewhere along the way, I’d become backwards, too. Something small had shifted within me, and I felt irrevocably different. The memory of my family lingered in the back of my mind.

Despite my choice of careers, I’d always been a little different than the rest of my family. We were from Australia, born and raised, but my family was undeniably ‘Hollywood’. They loved everything about our lives: their jobs, the spotlight, and especially the prestige and perks they were granted because of it. To me, my life was what it was. It was all I’d ever known.

I’d always done things my own way, even if I was walking a familiar path. I didn’t have patience for hangers-on or their sad, parasitic lives.

I lived with the extras of what I did. I didn’t live for them. I was indifferent. I’d thought my indifference was just simply part of who I was, like the color of my eyes or my preference for chocolate chip muffins. Adley forced me to see things differently. Indifference wasn’t a part of me; it was a matter of circumstance. I hadn’t realized how unfeeling I was, until she’d reminded me of what it was like to really feel something at all.

Existing wasn’t the same thing as living. My indifference was simply a symptom of existing.

I didn’t know I’d fallen asleep until I woke up, blinking rapidly to fight off the blunt sun stabbing through the open curtains I hadn’t remembered to close the night before. It wasn’t the light that woke me though. My sleeping partner was jostling the bed in her less than stealthy attempt to not disturb me.

“Isn’t the point of a no-strings-attached relationship so you don’t have to sneak out in the morning?” My voice carried a hoarse edge that I tried to clear away with a cough.

She looked back at me over her bare shoulder, still topless, but her jeans were back in place. I wanted to touch her.

“I’m not sneaking; it’s early, it’s Saturday. I was being polite.” She was unconcerned with my accusation, leveling her easy gaze on me.

“Polite? Never heard of it.”

I watched her laugh, enjoying the throaty sound. She was truly beautiful when she relaxed. Rolling onto my side, I examined as much skin as I could before she covered it with the same shirt I’d lent her before. There was a comfortableness between us that hadn’t been there before. It was nice.

“Where are you sneaking off to anyways? Usually girls are a little more reluctant to leave my bed.”

She gave me a look that told me it was nonnegotiable.

“Not that I care.” I quickly backtracked. It wasn’t like I wanted her to stay. “As long as you make it back in time for our plans tonight.”

“Plans?” The words held startled disbelief. “Don’t you understand what a no-strings-attached agreement is? We’re not dating. We have sex, that’s it. No cuddling, no hanging out, and there certainly aren’t dates on Saturday nights.”

I stared at her blankly, feeling more offended than I should have at her assumption. “It’s a good thing I’m not taking you on a date then. Did you or did you not agree to help me interview people to take on as an assistant?”

“Oh.” Her cheeks were enflamed. “I forgot. Yeah, I’ll be back then.”

She darted away without apologizing, and I listened to her hurried footsteps echo down the stairs and out of the house.

It was much earlier than I typically got up during the weekend, and after a shortened work-out in the home gym and a swim in the pool, my entire Saturday routine was finished. I took the time to go through the small stack of applicant resumes that had been sent over by the agency I’d contacted to find a personal assistant, but it was dreadfully dull, leaving me with little hope I’d actually find someone capable of helping me out.

Adley was right though. I needed some help, no matter how I felt about the idea of an entourage. If things kept slipping through the cracks like they had been, I was going to end up missing something too important to apologize for. I’d come to accept that it was a necessary evil.

The sun crept across the sky, teasing me with its slow descent into late afternoon. I was bored. Or at least that’s what I continued to assure myself. Watching the clock tick away had nothing to do with Adley.

She was supposed to be back by 5:00. The first applicant beat her there at 5:45.

I opened the door to the immaculately dressed man, searching over his shoulder for her late arrival. The only thing behind the twenty-something bloke was a clean white car of some American design. I sighed. I shouldn’t have been surprised she was ditching me. It was a very Adley thing to do.

“It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Mr. Davies.” A manicured hand stretched enthusiastically across the threshold.

I shook it, inviting him in while assessing him with a quick eye check. His light brown hair was carefully parted to one side, framing his boyish face, and I had to admit, he was dressed smashingly (though his pants were a little on the tight side).

We settled in the living room, bypassing the more formal setting of the dining room. If I was going to be spending copious amounts of time with a person, then I wanted to know I could be comfortable around them.

“Wow, your house is super chic…and clean. Who would have thought?” He sat opposite of me, on a chair I hadn’t picked out. I was starting to be a little off-put by everyone’s shock that I wasn’t treating my house like a trashcan or brothel. Did I really come across as such a slob?

I hid my real feelings with a smile, choosing to hear his question as rhetorical.

“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself –,” I glanced down to the open folder resting on the coffee table between us, “– Tad.”

“First off, you should know that I have a huge amount of respect for your work, Mr. Davies. Your portrayal as a teenage runaway in Letters to My Former Self changed my life.” His voice was layered thick with emotion, and I almost shuddered under the intensity of his gaze. It was like he was trying to hypnotize me with the directness of his eye contact. I found it disconcerting.

“Er…Thank you.” I said it as sincerely as possible, but even still, the sentence peaked at the end, like I was asking a question rather than asserting a sentiment.

“I was born in Ohio,” he said in a much lighter voice, turning on a dime from creepy to chirpy. “I come from a big family and it taught me a lot about responsibility. It also taught me how to organize…”

It didn’t bode well for mine and Tad’s relationship that I zoned out after the second sentence. I didn’t need an admirer as my assistant anyways. If you surrounded yourself with people constantly blowing hot air up your ass, your ego could float away with you. My sister, Brittany, was practically trailed by a fan club of minions, and she’d once had the audacity to submit her name for Emmy consideration for her work on a half-hour teen soap opera. She was such a joke.

I had to give it to Tad though; he was a sharp dresser. And even Adley would have been impressed by his posture.

F*cking great! How did she sneak back into my thoughts? Mentally, I gave her a great shove, and tried to refocus on Tad. He’d moved onto his college experience and how it taught him perseverance.

“Look, mate…” I cut him off suddenly. “I don’t think this is going to work out.”

Much to my surprise, in the face of rejection, Tad neither recoiled nor saddened. In fact, he looked delighted by the turn of events. Warning bells chimed in my head like noon at a clock tower, as the slightly smaller man slid off his chair and onto the sofa beside me with a pleased grin.

“I hoped you would feel it too.” His hand came to rest on my knee above the fabric of my jeans, and my eyes zeroed in on it with paralyzed incredulity. “I don’t believe in mixing business with pleasure either.”

Tad moved closer, and I’d become just about shocked silly. It wasn’t the first time I’d been come on to by a man, but it was the first time it had come so out of the blue.

“Umm…am I interrupting?” The blond who had fled my bed hours before asked from the doorway. She’d forfeit the option of jeans, in favor of a pair of cut-off shorts, and I couldn’t say that I was complaining about the change. Her golden legs went on for kilometers. There was a more golden hue to her skin and a rosy flavor on her cheeks that hinted towards a long day in the sun. The theory was only proven more accurate by the even messier than usual wave to her long hair, which looked like it had been hand-dried by the beaming sun.

“Adley!” I rushed towards her, pouring a million thanks into the expression on my face. She’d just made extricating myself from the situation I’d just stepped in, a whole lot easier. I didn’t like to hurt people’s feelings. Even with the girls I’d been with, I much preferred to slip out of bed unnoticed than have to face their wounded feelings. Tad seemed like a nice (if not presumptuous) bloke. “Sweetheart, I’m so glad your home.”

She made a horrified face which I hid from Tad by laying a sloppy kiss right on her lips. With her arm shackled tightly in my grip, I turned back to the third party in the room with a bright smile, happy to pretend nothing at all had happened and let him have his pride.

“Thanks for stopping by, Mr. …” I trailed off. I’d never gotten his last name so I was forced to fill in the blank with the next best thing, “Tad.”

He looked suspiciously between Adley and I, and I willed her to look pleased standing at my side. Even I knew that was a long shot. She spent ninety percent of her time looking displeased, but thankfully the rejected applicant had no choice but to accept it. He didn’t miss another opportunity to touch me though, with a farewell handshake. Adley and I were silent until the click of the door echoed from the foyer to our ears. Quick to put distance between us, she went to the sofa, lifting the next folder with nonchalance as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

“If you ever call me sweetheart again, I’ll cut off your balls.” Her eyes never left the papers she scanned.

She didn’t deserve the satisfaction of my wince.

“Don’t worry; I only have pet names for girls I actually like.”

A small twitch pulled up the left side of her upper lip in the utterance of a smile, pleased with my cutting comment. It was official. I’d never known a single creature as magnificently backwards as Adley Adair.

“You were late,” I told her, not ready to play nice.

“I was sunbathing and fell asleep,” she admitted, explaining the slightest sunburn kissing her cheeks, nose, and forehead. “And I’m doing you a favor, remember? You’re lucky I’m here at all…Although from the looks Tad was giving you, I’d say I just interrupted you from getting real lucky.”

“Jealous?”

She scoffed. “Even if I was the type of girl who got jealous, I can assure you that you will never be the boy who pushes me to it.”

There was too much conviction in her words. They begged me to prove her wrong. She felt something for me. The kind of sex we had didn’t exist in a world of indifference. Whether it be lust, love, or hate; Adley felt something. If I was willing to admit it, then why couldn’t she?

The doorbell chimed, and she shuffled the papers of the next folder into a neat stack again.

“That must be Ms. Candace Harris.”

I greeted the next candidate at the door alone. She was blond, dyed to an icy white sheen, with big Bambi eyes and even bigger boobs. I thought she looked like a Barbie doll.

“Hi, I’m Candace!” She bypassed the handshake that Tad had offered and went right for a hug, her feminine curves pushing up against me in all the right places. I’d always gone for more exotic looking girls, but I wasn’t one to turn down a free pet either.

“Call me Declan.” I let her pass me and my eyes settled on the heavily tanned skin just below the end of her frayed jean skirt.

Nope, she wasn’t my type at all. But Adley didn’t know that. I smirked.

Alright, Adley Adair, let’s see just how much of the not-jealous-type you really are.

Game on.