“Or what? You’ll fire me?”
“You’d probably like that,” he says.
The funny thing is, I would. Not the actual firing part, that would suck. But as the end-of-contract with Emmett looms and that forty thousand dollars waves at me from the finish line, I really should start thinking about what I’m going to do next.
But as each day and date with Emmett goes on, as we fall deeper into this rabbit hole that is our quasi-relationship, the less I think about the future. My dreams are still as important to me as ever but I have a hard time focusing on them when Emmett seems to have taken over my life. It’s not that I would dare put it on hold again, it’s just that when I picture committing to the acting life, whether in Vancouver, LA, maybe even London, I see Emmett by my side.
It’s just such a self-destructive thought.
Whatever we have, whatever this is, half-real, half-fake, it’s going to come apart soon. There’s an expiration date to this relationship, a point where I get paid and we part ways.
God. Just the thought makes my heart feel like it’s coming undone, what once was a brick wall is now slowly crumbling to pieces.
Emmett is waiting at the curb when we pull up to his house, looking sexy as hell in his Timberland boots, his jeans, a faded Guns N Roses T-shirt that’s almost a size too small. His skin is bronzed from the sun, his muscles looking effortlessly strong. Just the sight of him is like a balm on a wound and when he opens the door and sees me, his smile nearly breaks me in two.
“Hey sunshine,” he says to me, throwing his bag in the back.
“Hi sugarbutt,” Will says. He gives Emmett an exaggerated wink over his sunglasses.
Emmett rolls his eyes, nods a hello at Jackie, and then slides in the backseat.
He immediately pulls me in for an impromptu kiss. Quick and sweet.
When we pull apart, Jackie is watching us intently. “Hey. I thought you two hated each other.”
Hate Emmett? That feels like so long ago. I try and put on a scowl but I end up smiling instead.
“Don’t forget I’m a pretty good actor, Jackie,” Emmett tells her as he buckles in. “I only look like I enjoy Alyssa’s company, but the truth is she’s pretty intolerable.”
“I hear that,” Will notes.
“Shut up,” I tell Will, and then smack Emmett on the arm. “And you shut up too. You’re not that good of an actor.”
“Ouch, my bleeding heart,” Emmett says mockingly, grabbing his chest. “So this is what the weekend is going to be like, huh?”
“Alyssa brought pot cookies,” Jackie points out. “So, yeah. That’s the weekend. You’ll all be high and drinking wine by the lake and I’ll be beached up on shore like a bloated whale.”
“Jackie, you’re barely showing and even if you were, so what?” I tell her. “You’re pregnant. You’re going to show. And you’re going to look absolutely beautiful every step of the way.”
“This is what I keep telling her,” Will says.
“You don’t get it,” Jackie says and then launches into a tirade about everything in her life right now that’s falling apart because of her pregnancy. I do know one thing, she’s moody as hell. One minute she’s so in love with Will, her son, the baby, the next she thinks the world is ending. I would have thought a second pregnancy would be easier but who knows.
What I do know is that Will, as usual, has the patience of a saint. Though I often give him a hard time for being too nice, too charming, too handsome, he really is an angel when it comes to her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy so excited and ready to become a father.
I look beside me at Emmett as the car pulls out of the city, heading along the highway that will wind for hours past raging rivers and towering mountain peaks. He might be a self-proclaimed thirty-eight-year-old man-child but I no longer see him as that. In fact, it’s hard to remember how I used to feel about him.
Of course, he’s still a bit of a scoundrel, entirely focused on sex most of the time, with a flippant attitude and a knack for pushing all my buttons, good and bad. I know those parts of him won’t change the more I get to know him. Because this last week alone, I feel like I’ve seen the real Emmett. The man behind the mask, living a life and not a role.
After his arrest in LA, where I spent the night waiting for him at the jail, praying that everything would turn out all right, he opened up in a way I’d never seen before. Every grimy, gritty detail of his life he shared with me, laid it all out on the table. As if that wasn’t vulnerable enough, he then actually showed it to me.
I’ll never forget that night. The east side is no place I would voluntarily go, I’ve been too afraid to face what’s down there, to confront the things that make you question your privilege, the things you’d rather sweep under the rug.
And to think he grew up there. I picture Emmett as a little boy, tall, lanky, with light hair and that same smile, living in that filthy building. Growing up around the junkies and the homeless and the whores, seeing things that no one should ever see. The fact that he found his mother when she overdosed…I can’t even imagine what that would be like.
The man has issues, there’s no doubt about that. I can kind of see why acting became an escape for him. I can also see why he doesn’t get close to many people. It’s not just that he’s got a past he’d rather hide, but that he had to lose the one person he loved in the most horrific way. How can you not fear you’ll lose everyone else?
But that’s Emmett. And that’s man I’m falling for.
He’s shown me his deepest, darkest parts and it’s only made me want him, admire and respect him more.
I don’t even want to put up walls anymore. I don’t want to keep him out. He let me in, I want to let him in, as scary as it seems.
And it is scary. It’s terrifying. I saw firsthand what my father did to my mother, how it destroyed her, us, the whole family. And I’ve been with men just like that, who care about you one minute and toss you aside the next.
Emmett is supposed to be one of those men. He’s supposed to be the player, the playboy, the love you and leave you type. He’s even said so much himself.
As the saying goes, when someone shows you who they are, believe them.
And yet part of me doesn’t think that Emmett is the one that’s real.
The one that’s real is the scared little boy with a dirty past and big shiny dreams. The one that yearns for respect, who wants passion over everything else.
But, god, please…if only he could also want me.
Want me, have me, not leave me…
Keep me.
It’s interesting being with Will and Jackie. They’re the only ones who know the truth behind the façade, know why we’re together and because of this, we’re free to just be ourselves. And in the backseat of the Land Rover, ourselves seem no different than the show we put on for the public. I lean against Emmett’s shoulder, he plays with my hair, our arms and hands tangle against each other. We are as physical and intimate as two lovers should be, lovers not bound by rule or arrangement.
The drive passes quickly, maybe because time inside the car seems to still. Summer is coming to a close. It’s already September. It’s a reminder that what we have is coming to an end too. I feel like I’m trying to soak it all up, every single inch of him.
It’s twilight when we arrive in my hometown of Penticton. The town lights twinkle, casting sparkles on the dark water of the lake. I’ve missed home so much, sometimes I forget how beautiful it is.
Penticton isn’t a large town, about 33,000 people, and nearly double that in the summer. But what it lacks in size, it has in beauty. Unlike Vancouver, which is built along the ocean, Penticton is between two lakes, Lake Okanagan on one side and Skaha Lake on the other. Both lakes are pristine and warm and clay hills rise on either side covered in sagebrush and vineyards. It’s hot, it’s dry, it’s fucking heaven.
We’re going to have dinner at my mother’s house tomorrow, who lives up on the hill just outside of town, so we stop at a grocery store for some camping provisions, pick up some booze and then get ourselves settled in.