After the longest lunch ever in the history of all time—which was surprisingly calm after Caspian’s monologue—we got Mom packed up and off to Great-Aunt Wanda’s. Tom and Trina collapsed with a pitcher of much-needed early evening martinis, and now that I’ve changed into a dress that wasn’t soaked with mother-induced flop sweat, Caspian and I are on our way back to Manhattan, aiming for his hotel. Mom was right; the pickled eyeball smell is really clinging to him.
“I can’t believe you touched that stuff. And in your fancy suit.” I laugh beside him. “I mean, I had gloves, and I still wasn’t about to touch an eyeball.”
“I’m 90 percent certain they were eggs. Although one did appear to be looking at me.”
“Well, they proved successful as a diversionary tactic against my mother, so cheers to the eggs.”
“A charming woman, your mother.”
“She certainly has a presence,” I admit. “CiCi came home with me for Easter once and wore a shirt with a gemstone vagina on the front, and my mom had one of those boot things put on the tire of CiCi’s rental car.”
Caspian laughs. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t wear my bejeweled vagina shirt, then. That would have been terribly embarrassing.”
I giggle and catch a glimpse of the time on the car’s dashboard. “Ugh, I’m so sorry about all of that. I can’t believe she just showed up and hijacked you. How badly did it mess up your schedule for the day?”
Caspian waves his hand. “This wasn’t a set-in-stone meeting. I was advised to be seen with you in public, just the two of us, and I thought dinner would be easiest.”
“What does that mean? ‘Advised’ to be seen with me?”
“My handlers,” he answers, as if this is perfectly normal. “Especially leading up to a release date, they tend to become very bossy about my personal appearances and image. They seem to think you are beneficial to that image.”
Thinking back to my hideous McEnroe and Polar House interviews, I make a snort noise. “I know that feeling.”
He looks surprised. “Do you?”
“Well, getting the image boost, not the handlers. That’s weird.”
“It is.”
I slump in my seat a little and come clean about my frustrating job prospects.
“Did you take either job?”
“No. I mean, I need a job—like, a lot—but they didn’t seem to care what I was even capable of. I want someone to hire me because I’m damn good at what I do.” Staring wistfully out the window for a second, I reach over and poke him in the shoulder. “And I am, you know. Damn good.”
“I believe you,” he offers sincerely. “Geoffrey was quite taken with you. I think he’ll try extra hard to option that pirate book you spoke of now.”
“Really?” A surge of pride washes through me. “That’s great. The author deserves that. And if you’re working with him, I’ll assume he’s a good enough director not to screw it up.”
Caspian slaps his hand dramatically to his chest. “Was that...was that a compliment? The tides have truly turned.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t go getting too big a head,” I warn. “You still smell like eyeballs.”
We reach the hotel and make our way through the ever-present gaggle of photographers, then take the elevator up to the penthouse.
As I hang my coat up, Caspian says, “Make yourself at home while I un-eyeball.”
I’m grateful for that plan, as it was getting a wee bit hard to breathe in the town car. He heads into his bedroom, and I hesitantly stand by the elevator door for a few minutes before I work up the courage to meander about the apartment-like hotel room.
Glancing at the table full of scripts, which is now tainted by memories of awkward “can we hold hands?” agreements, I bypass the area entirely and head for the couch. There’s a stack of books sitting on the end table, and after I flop down on the squashy cushions, I peek at the covers.
Okay, so my first thought is that he’s got mildly pretentious taste in upscale literature. But my second thought is that he’s reading books, and I can’t fault a guy for that.
Well, maybe I can. Chaucer?
I hear the sounds of a running shower and take his invitation to make myself at home a little too seriously. The lunch/flogging with Mom has me beyond drained. Stretching as long as I can, I fan myself out over his couch.
“Oh, sweet, upholstered magic of the gods, this is a great couch,” I purr into the empty room. This is a magnificent couch. This isn’t even in the same universe as Gertrude. This is what all couches aspire to be in life.
I grab one of the obscenely soft pillows and smoosh my face against it. This could be upholstered with baby unicorn fur and stuffed with the feathers of fallen angels, and I wouldn’t feel even the slightest bit bad about drooling on it.
The exhaustion of my day is coupling with the bliss of this couch in an unfortunate way. If I don’t move soon, I’m going to pass out into the sleep of the dead. But at the same time, I haven’t been this comfortable in months.
“Oh, sweet, glorious couch. I shall call you Jasmine. When I sleep on Gertrude, I’ll be thinking only of you.”
“Shall I leave you two alone?”
I pull the pillow over my face. “Naturally you’d be standing in the room. Because of course you would. Damn it.”
“I can come back later if you need a few more minutes.”
I tilt my head back and see him standing a few feet away. Using all my strength, I fling the pillow at his head. He catches it easily. “Shut up. You’ll never understand the forbidden love of a girl and the couch of her dreams.”
“Should I be alarmed by your attachment to these objects you name?”
Trying to sit up from a couch caress while wearing a short dress isn’t as easy as I’d hoped. “We should probably all be alarmed. But you don’t know the horror of sleeping on a couch for weeks because you’re a loser and homeless and have to live at your little brother’s.”
He drops the pillow down beside me and comes to sit on the other side of the couch. His hair is still very damp, and he’s changed into what I suspect is an identical suit, but in a slightly darker blue color than before. Either way, he no longer smells like pickled eyeballs, so there’s improvement.
Actually, he smells like some kind of expensive men’s shower gel that is the olfactory equivalent of this couch.
“I do, though, actually,” he says, pulling me from the cocoon of shower gel and unicorn fur.
“You do what?”
“Know what it’s like to be a loser and homeless and sleeping on a couch.”
I throw the pillow at him again. “Playing a poor person in a movie does not a poor experience make, sir.”
He tosses the pillow back. “I wasn’t born a working actor, you know. It hasn’t all been fancy hotels and cars and big paychecks.”
His face is shadowed slightly by the expensive lamp on the end table behind him. It hollows his cheekbones, making him look more like the assassin in the Nebula Force movie posters plastered all over the city. But just beyond the sinister cheekbones are his lovely blue eyes, gleaming with sincerity.
“Didn’t I read something about one of your parents being an actor in England? They were famous, too, right?”
“And did you grow up wanting your parents to hand you all of your opportunities? Judging by your reaction to those publishers dropping my name and your outrage at your mother trying to finagle you a teaching spot, you’re the type who wants to make it on her own merits. We have that in common.”
I consider this. “Ohhh, I get it now. You tried to make it as an actor on your own, didn’t you? When you were nineteen.” My mind flashes back to the picture of young Caspian in the Cranson files, and my stomach flips uncomfortably.
“The day I signed that contract, I’d used my last dollar for train fare to an audition.” His eyes take on a foggy appearance as he remembers. “I was desperate. I could either call my parents and beg for help, or I could be a foolish, stubborn ass and make my own way, no matter how destructive that way would prove.”
“That’s really sad,” I offer quietly. “I saw the stuff from that...place, but I guess I never thought about what it would have been like to actually have to go through with doing it. It must have been so scary.”
“God, I was terrified,” he breathes. “Make no mistake—absolutely petrified. But I never got further than a booking. The day of my appointment, I got the call casting me in my first show. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to eat for a few weeks. Things came more steadily after that.”
“Oh my god, so you never had to...do stuff?” I wince a little. “Sorry, is that inappropriate?”
“You’re fine. And no, I took the coward’s way out and never showed my face in Cranson’s ever again. Eventually they stopped ringing, and I put it all behind me. I still think back to that appointment, though. Often. I’d been too afraid to even look at what I was being hired for. I thought I’d just deal with it once it came about. I think the sheer possibilities of who it could have been and what I would have done are a suitable punishment for my youthful bull-headishness.”
“Because it probably couldn’t have been as bad in real life as what you can imagine?”
He nods. “I tell myself that, but I sometimes feel as though even the darkest parts of my mind couldn’t possibly compete with the horrors of reality.”
I pull the pillow up to my chest and squeeze it tightly. “And I’m the horrible bitch who left you a drunk message pushing it all back up in your face.” Burying my face in the pillow, I groan. “I am so sorry. Nothing like this ever occurred to me. I am a horrible person, Caspian. I’m sorry.”
The pillow is whisked away from my face and right out of my hands. “You’re supposed to call me Cas,” he says with a wink. “And remember, I already told you that I believe you. That you never meant to sell what you found.”
“I really wouldn’t have. I swear, Casp—I mean, Cas. I wouldn’t have.”
“I know.” He pulls at the seam of the pillow with his impossibly long fingers. “And, while we’re in such a contemplative place, I’m willing to admit that perhaps some of my initial anger toward you was possibly rooted in a bit of latent self-loathing. I’d always assumed that anyone who signed up for that life had to be in the same place I was—desperate, broke, hungry, scared. And I’m sure some are, but I met quite a few of the other escorts in a training program of sorts, and none of them seemed motivated by those things. They genuinely enjoyed the job. They were good at what they did, and they took a great deal of pride in it.”
He looks down at the pillow and swallows hard. “It made me ashamed. Not because of what I was signing up for, but because I’d signed up for all the wrong reasons. I was looking down on the job as an absolute last resort before I handed over what little dignity I had left by that point, when really, I’d made up an entire judgmental scenario in my head to punish myself when I could have easily swallowed my pride and asked my parents for help. The others... They seemed content—happy, even. They wanted to be there. Or if they didn’t, they did a spectacular job of hiding it. But I was just trying to hurt myself because I felt like I’d failed.
“This may sound ridiculous,” he says, glancing up at me through his eyelashes, “but the thing I was most afraid of when I got your voice mail was my mum’s reaction. She wouldn’t have really cared about the actual profession, honestly, if that’s what I’d wanted to do. But she would have been horrified that I was so fucking stubborn and dishonest with her and Dad. That’s what I didn’t want her to know. The bad choices I’d made based entirely on foolish pride. The idea of her being disappointed in me was just...too much.”
It feels like one of the couch cushions is stuck in my throat, and I can’t find any words to do the situation justice. The picture of kid Caspian, all gangly limbs and cheeks still sheltered by residual baby fat, is flashing violently in my mind, and it makes my heart hurt to think of how scared he must have been. But I’m also unspeakably sad about how he’s still punishing himself for youthful obstinacy. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t look back at their teenage motivations and cringe.
He continues, “That said, again, I’ve made damn sure I’m properly haunted by imagining all the outlandish scenarios that could have played out if I’d kept that appointment. Maternal disappointment or not, those possibilities make my blood run cold.”
Caspian finally raises his head, and for a moment, he looks almost startled. Like he forgot I’m here, or realizes what he’s been saying. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to pour all of that on you. I haven’t ever actually said any of that out loud before. Bit self-indulgent, isn’t it?”
I know he’s trying to defuse the tension, because he smiles a not-at-all convincing smile and resumes running his fingers over the pillow. I want to say something, anything, that would alleviate even some of the stress he’s put on himself, to apologize a thousand times over for the stress I put on him with that blasted phone call. But no matter what words I consider, they all seem woefully inadequate.
Accepting the absence of a “right thing” to say here, I calmly slide across the couch and wrap my arms around Caspian’s neck.
“I’m so sorry you’ve been carrying this alone,” I say quietly. “But I think holding a bitter grudge against yourself for over two decades is probably penance enough.”
It takes a few seconds, but eventually, he puts a hand on my back and rests his chin on my shoulder. “Thank you.”
We stay like that for a moment, and I find myself utterly confused by a myriad of sensations. My stomach is doing a little twist, my heart is beating faster than it should, and my skin feels tingly where his hands are resting.
I don’t have the extra brain space to sort any of it out at the moment, so instead I pull back to look him in the eye. “And thank you for telling me all of that. I’m glad you got it out. Do you feel a little better about things now?”
Caspian stares at me, his eyes moving across my face, and I start to wonder if I managed to say something horribly insensitive when I was going for comforting. That fear, combined with his unreadable expression, and the fact that I’m all but sitting on his lap with his hand on my back and my hands still resting on his shoulders is starting to feel rather overwhelming.
“What?” I ask finally.
“I just...” he says, his eyes still focused intently on me. “I’m trying to figure out if you’d actually punch me.”
“Wait—what?” I say, utterly confused. “Why? Why would you think I’d—” Then my mind bounces back to my first visit to this hotel room, and our discussion of boundaries.
I’d been very specific about what would earn him a sock to the jaw.
My stomach goes from a twist to a complete free fall, my heart takes on the rhythm of a hummingbird’s wings, and the tingle on my skin spreads far beyond where his hands still lie.
“Um,” I say, certain I’ve misinterpreted what he’s saying. “I’m not feeling particularly punchy at the moment?”
His hand slowly moves from my back and slides up to my jaw, and I am so stunned, I don’t know whether to gasp or giggle.
And then, quite suddenly, I am kissing Caspian Tiddleswich.
I’m kissing Caspian Tiddleswich on a couch called Jasmine while a unicorn fur pillow rests in his lap.
It’s more amazing and more odd than I can wrap my head around in the moment.
He kisses the way his voice sounds.
He kisses the way he says Cl-AHR-a.
Apparently, the universe does occasionally give with both hands.
I pull in a deep lungful of the scent of his luxurious body wash and allow my fingers to tangle themselves in his hair, still damp from the shower. He shifts slightly in his seat, and his free hand comes to rest on my waist, pulling me closer still. My breath catches in my throat, and my mind goes all cloudy.
I could happily do this all night.
But, very regrettably, I draw myself away. Only because I know if I don’t do it right this very second, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to force myself to detach.
I can feel the same stunned feeling that’s flopping around in the place where my stomach used to live playing out in real time on my face, and I’m gasping for air a little, but while he’s just as out of breath, his face is both amused and thoughtful.
“All right,” he says. His voice has a new, scratchy edge to it. “If you’ve rethought your position on punching, all I ask is that you try to avoid my nose.” One side of his mouth quirks up. “I have to do the Today show on Monday.”
I damn near snort. Instead, I reach over and steal the pillow back. “Stop taking my pillow. It’s made of baby unicorn fur, and it’s my friend.”
“If I wake up tomorrow and that pillow is missing, I know where to find you.”
“Okay, Mr. Creepypants.” We’re back to our easy banter, but on the inside, I’m hysterically giggling and fighting the urge to hide in his bathroom and call CiCi to share this most unexpected and surprisingly welcome development. “Now leave me alone. I’m going to nap with my new friends.”
He slaps his palms on his knees and stands up in a swift and fluid motion. It’s the first time I’ve seen him do it when it hasn’t been unnerving.
It is, in fact, kind of hot? Like in a way that makes me wonder how he might move in...other situations.
I try to casually lift the pillow up to my face until just my eyes are showing, because I definitely just set my own cheeks on fire.
“Alas, madam, I’m under strict orders for a public outing with my lady friend.” He holds his hand out to me. “A deal’s a deal.”
I clutch the pillow tighter and whine, mostly to give my blush a chance to flee my face, but also because the idea of leaving this couch makes me feel pouty. “But, but, but.”
He reaches down and takes me by the wrists, gently pulling me up from Jasmine and my unicorn pillow.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” he promises in a throaty voice, sending a delightful chill running down my spine. Leading me toward the door, he adds, “A late dinner, your choice of location, and I promise, absolutely no tables by any windows.”
I cock an eyebrow at him. “Ooh, I’m sold. But—and I swear, I mean this in a really normal way—but sometime, could I just sleep on that couch for, like, half an hour, tops? I’ll even pay you. Like, rent-a-couch!”
He helps me with my coat before pulling on a new one of his own that wasn’t involved in the eyeball fiasco. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
The elevator door opens and we step inside. Just as the doors close behind us, I call back, in front of Caspian, Jacob the elevator attendant, and Odin himself, “I’ll be back for you, Jasmine! Our love is real!”