“This is cruel,” I say. “Cruel and unusual punishment!”
“Don’t be mad, Mommy!” Maddie yells across the apartment. “Maybe Daddy will give it to you later.”
She’s talking about the script, I know, but dang it, I blush when Jonathan glances back at me from the hallway, cocking an eyebrow. “Maybe Daddy will.”
I give him the middle finger.
He laughs again.
I’m flustered, no doubt about it, and parts of me still ache, but when I hear Maddie’s excitement as they start reading, I’m overcome with this sense of peace.
I can’t help but smile.
It’s all I’ve wanted for years.
Getting up, I go to the kitchen and cook dinner. When it’s finished, they take a break. The three of us eat together at the table. Afterward, they jump back into it, and I make my way to my bedroom.
Picking up the discarded copy of Hollywood Chronicles, I tear out a photo from the cover, the one where Jonathan is smiling. The rest of the paper, I throw in the trash. Pulling out my broken box of old mementos, I set the photo in. As strange as it may seem to keep, it’s our first real picture together as a family.
“You want to run some lines with me?”
It’s after dark when Jonathan reappears in the doorway to the bedroom, leaning against the doorframe, holding the script. I’m sitting in bed, propped against the headboard, knees pulled up and notebook in my lap. “Don’t you have a daughter for that?”
“She fell asleep,” he says. “Must’ve bored her unconscious.”
“Must’ve,” I agree. “So, what, you think you can just come crawling back to me? Think I’ll welcome you back with open arms? Give you yet another chance?”
“Was damn sure hoping so. I’m banking on the fact that some part of you actually likes me.”
“Most parts of me like you.”
“What part doesn’t?
“My brain, usually.”
He laughs, strolling closer, his brow furrowing when he sees what I’m holding. “Are you writing?”
“Just thinking,” I say, closing the notebook when he sits down beside me on the bed. I take the script from him, and he doesn’t resist this time, letting me flip through it.
“I used to wonder what could possibly be worse than being invisible,” he says, and I know he’s reciting a line, because it’s word-for-word from the comic. “What could be lonelier than always being by yourself?”
“I think I know now,” I whisper, turning a few pages until I come to the scene.
“Worse is loving someone who disappears and never knowing if they’ll come back. Because how do you move on if you’re not even sure they’re gone? The answer is—you don’t. When you spend most of your life chasing ghosts, eventually, you become one.”
I smile. “I always liked that part.”
“I know,” he says as he moves closer, grabbing my legs. I yelp as he tugs me down the bed, climbing on top of me once I’m lying flat on my back. “That’s the part we’re filming Monday.”
I want to ask him questions about that, but then he starts taking off my pants and I can’t think of much other than his hands. They’re all over me, followed by his lips as he kisses and touches and loves, going lower and lower and—
“Oh god,” I gasp, tossing everything aside to fist handfuls of his hair when his mouth finds its way between my thighs. He doesn’t tease. He’s not playing around. He gets right down to the nitty-gritty, almost aggressive about it.
I’m writhing, gasping, moaning his name, feeling the tension building, gripping hard as I try to pull him closer. He hits that spot, the one I desperately need, and I feel the sudden rush of pleasure.
Back arching, my breath catches as orgasm tears through me. He doesn’t stop until I relax against the bed, the sensation fading.
Sitting back, he pulls off his shirt, stripping. In a blink, he crawls between my legs, hiking my knees up, his lips crashing into mine as he pushes inside. I cry out into his mouth, his kisses swallowing the noise as he thrusts deep, hitting hard, over and over.
My hands are shaking, the earth around us quaking, as every inch of me is consumed by him. Our bodies are tangled and my heart is so mangled that it doesn’t know how to beat the right way anymore, but some part of me must know something, because everything about this feels so perfect. Me and him, here, like this, and I don’t want to admit it, but ugh…
Ugh…
Ugh…
I love him.
He moves, pulling back a bit to gaze down at me, as if the man is psychic and knows I just thought the words he’s been trying to hear, but I can’t say them, not yet, not until I know this isn’t a fluke.
I’m in love with this reckless, starry-eyed fool who, in two days time, is going to walk out my front door, and all I can do is trust he’ll come back with that same look of love in his eyes, because if he doesn’t, it’s going to break more hearts than just my own.
And if he breaks hers, I’ll never forgive him.
Sunday night.
The sun is going down outside.
Every second that ticks by makes my chest feel tighter, my shoulders heavier as the weight of the outside world comes down on me. Jonathan has to go soon.
He hasn’t told her.
Maddie has no idea.
She sits at the kitchen table, surrounded by crayons, making a card for her Aunt Meghan—it’s her birthday tomorrow. Swinging her legs, she hums to herself, oblivious at the moment.
“Mommy, how old is Aunt Meghan gonna be now?” she asks, as I stand at the sink washing dishes... scrubbing the same glass for the past ten minutes.
“Thirty,” I say.
“Whoa,” Maddie says before mumbling, “That’s a lot.”
I turn, glaring at her for that. I’m not far off from thirty. I don’t say anything, though, because my eyes catch sight of Jonathan as he steps into the kitchen, carrying his bag.
Maddie looks up, hearing his footsteps. Her legs stop swinging. She blinks at him with confusion before asking, “Are we going away?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He freezes, so she looks at me, like she trusts that I’ll tell her since he isn’t.
“No, sweetheart, we’re not going away,” I say, wanting to shake some sense into him, because silence isn’t going to help. “But your daddy is.”
“Daddy is what?” she asks, and I know she already knows the answer, because she clutches her crayon so hard it snaps.
“Going to work,” he says, finally chiming in. “I have to finish making the movie, so I have to go away for a little while.”
“How much is a little while?” she asks. “'Till tomorrow?”
“Longer than that,” he says.
“The one that’s after that?” she asked. “Will you be back on that day?”
“Uh, no,” he says. “It’ll take about a month.”
“A month?” She gasps, looking at me again when she asks, “How many days is that?”
“About thirty,” I tell her.
I see it, the panic that flows through her. That’s a lot of days for such a little girl. She frantically shakes her head, throwing her crayon down. “No, that’s too many! I don’t want you to do that!”