Maybe it’s because I’m getting to know Matt more that I recognize the clench in his jaw, but only for a moment. A guy like Matthew Cole has to hate lying to the entire world like this. I squeeze his hand gratefully for saving my ass, but he doesn’t acknowledge me. We’re asked to take the last few shots together. He practically shimmers.
I don’t know what possesses me to say it. It’s been on my mind for the past few days, and it comes out with no warning now. “I’m sorry,” I mutter, leaning in closer. “If I hurt your feelings, I mean, in the hotel the other night.”
“Probably not the right time to talk about this, Gray,” he whispers back. He meets my eye, grins, then leans up. I swallow, but I can’t hesitate too long—I lean down, too, and kiss him. I would’ve thought that after making out with him for hours I would be tired of it, but the kiss sends a familiar spark through me, and I feel myself leaning closer to keep kissing him, keep touching him, even with so many people watching—but he pulls away, threading his fingers through mine.
We walk up the path, still holding hands, until we reach the front doors that lead to the hall, round tables set up with water glasses and flowers. The room is dark, even though the stage is lit up. Matt slips his hand out of mine, and under the cover of darkness, he stops forcing himself to smile at me every three seconds. It’s embarrassing to admit to myself, but I want him to smile at me again. I want to go back to acting like we’re in love.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings,” I mumble.
“Time and place, Gray.”
“Fuck time and place,” I whisper, leaning into him. “I’m trying to have a real conversation with you.”
That was the wrong thing to say. He turns, glaring, like he doesn’t give a fuck who sees or hears now. “No, that’s what I was trying to do, Logan. I was trying to be real with you, and you—”
He cuts himself off, like he suddenly remembers himself. It was nice to see some anger from him, but I don’t think he agrees. He stares forward at the stage expressionlessly, his face only lighting up when a woman taps him on the shoulder and says how much she loved him in Love Me Dearly. He thanks her, and when she leaves, his expression falls again.
“I was just trying to protect us,” I tell him. “Something like this…It can get confusing.”
“Are you confused?” he asks. “Because I’m not. I wasn’t, anyway, before…” He sighs. “Forget it. I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“I do. I’m tired of this awkward tension between us.”
“You probably should’ve thought of that before you treated me like shit,” he says, “at the hotel room, at the table read, and in that fucking interview.”
Matt stands up with no warning and pushes the chair in.
“Where’re you going?”
“Bathroom.”
And he leaves without another word.
Mattie
I hurry down the hall and to the bathroom, swinging the door open and shut behind me. It’s a private bathroom, flowers everywhere, even a couch along the wall. I grip the edges of the sink and breathe as I stare at myself in the mirror.
I shouldn’t have stormed out like that. Who knows if someone was watching, even listening to our entire conversation? But I couldn’t stand being with Logan another second. His apologies—God, it’s hard to believe anything with him right now, and it hasn’t helped that I haven’t been able to look at him all night without remembering the scene we shot yesterday. I could feel Logan glancing at me throughout the entire car ride, watching me like he was thinking of the scene, too. I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination, that I could practically feel his desire radiating from his skin. I had to keep shifting to hide my lap. It’d been torture, the hours of scripted foreplay without touching him the way I wanted to.
There’s a knock on the door. I take a breath and splash some water on my face. Another knock. I turn around and open the door with a smile that instantly drops. It’s Logan. His mouth is open, like he’s going to speak but he’s unsure of what he’s going to say. He leans in and kisses me instead, and I tug him closer by the waist. He pushes me against the wall, slamming the door shut behind him, and grinds a leg in between mine so that I gasp into his mouth.
He pulls away again.
“What the hell?” I say, but it’s more like a whisper.
“Sorry. I was just trying to make sure you’re okay.”
“That’s a hell of a way of asking.”
“Are you okay?”
“Why?” I ask. “You don’t care.”
He shuts his mouth.
“We’re not actually friends, remember?” I tell him. “We can’t forget that we’re faking everything.”
“Keep your voice down,” he mutters.
Even with the door shut, I know that he’s right, but I can’t stop my rising anger. Maybe that’s a good thing. “You’re confusing the hell out of me,” I tell him.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“What was that?” I ask him. “Why are you treating me like shit?”
“I don’t—” He pauses. He stops and breathes for a long time. And I stand there, watching him and waiting. It’s fine. I can be patient. He tries again. “I don’t think you’d actually want to have any sort of connection with me,” he says, “if you knew the real me.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” I tell him. “That’s up to me, right? And from what you’ve shown me, when you’re being real and vulnerable…I wouldn’t mind being friends with you, Logan. The real you. Not this person you pretend to be. Trying to hurt me on purpose? It was messed up of you to do that.”
He swallows visibly. “You have no idea who I am.”
“Then show me.”
His gaze drops. He seems so defeated. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I shouldn’t want to get to know him more, when he’s already proven to me what he’s capable of—the kind of cruelty that knocks the wind out of me, that leaves me feeling so unsettled and insecure. But I’m sure he’s feeling the same way. Is it wrong, that I want to help him? Is it bad, that I want to kiss him again?
“You’re not the monster you think you are,” I tell him. He won’t look at me. “If you don’t want to be friends, then—all right, fine. That’s your decision. But if you do want to try to have some kind of relationship outside of the acting and pretending to be boyfriends, then I’m here for it. But I’ve got a boundary, too. You can’t treat me like that again. Not like you did the other day. Okay?”
He glances up. He looks like a puppy that knows he’s done something wrong. “I do,” he says. “Want to be friends, I mean.”
When he says friends, I’m not sure which kind he means: the kind who sit together, chatting and laughing and sharing vulnerabilities? The sort who end up in bed together at the end of the night? Both?
He clenches his jaw. “We did the important job,” he says. “The red carpet. Do you want to leave? We can go somewhere else.”
The way he’s watching me, I get what he’s suggesting, what he’s offering. I stop myself from pressing against him again. “Where? The hotel?”
“We can get a ride to my apartment. It’s closer.”
I take a breath. This feels like such a bad idea. A part of me even wonders if this is why he apologized—to make me trust him enough to sleep with him before he drops me again. But I want to believe in him more than that. And besides—I’m on the edge of desperation, too.
“Yeah. All right.”