I step the rest of the way into my skirt and pull it up to my waist, suddenly needing very much to be dressed. “So, in other words, anything that happens with the camera on us would be just for the job?”
“Exactly. They’ll be like the scenes I have with any other woman. We should even be formal about it and go through the do’s and don’ts each time. I’ll wear a condom like the law requires. Just like every other shoot. Then you’ll be the only woman I’m with when the camera’s off.”
He isn’t saying anything that terrible. Not really. It’s logical. It makes sense. He’s thinking about the business in much the way I always have.
Still.
It sounds terrible. It feels terrible, and, while I’m not quite sure how to refute him, I know I don’t agree.
I offer the first thing that comes to my lips. “A lot of our most amazing moments together have happened on set. Lots of very real moments. I’m pretty sure I fell in love with you on camera.”
“I know, I know.” He steps toward me and puts a hand on each of my upper arms. Something about the gesture makes me feel the difference in our ages—makes me feel like he feels the difference. Like he thinks he has the better handle on the situation because he’s older.
When he speaks next, it just gets worse. “I’m not discounting anything that’s happened before, babe. I’m trying to fix things for the future. So that we can keep doing the jobs that we love. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? We aren’t the first co-workers who’ve fallen for each other. How do other people do it? I’m sure they have to draw similar lines.”
“But most other people’s jobs don’t require getting naked.”
“And that’s why we have to make what we do at our jobs different than what we do at home. As much as possible. We need to make things clear. Keep things separate.”
Separate.
He says it so easily, so matter-of-factly, that I feel like a jerk for not being able to comply. Or like I’m naive. It’s the same way I felt when Raven confronted me. Am I really that ignorant?
Maybe we’re both that ignorant. Because this solution of his is not a solution I can get on board with.
Maybe this relationship isn’t one I can get on board with either.
Don’t jump to conclusions, Devi. Talk it out. “Is this really what you want, Logan?”
He shrugs. “I think it’s what’s best. For us. It will make things easier. It will make it possible for us to keep seeing each other.”
I run both of my hands over my forehead, as if I could sort out my thoughts if I just rubbed hard enough.
Logan drops his hands and bends down to meet my eyes. “Devi? Tell me what you’re thinking, will you?”
I can’t. Because the air suddenly feels heavy and the walls seem like they’re pressing down, and what I’m thinking is that I need to run. Which isn’t like me at all.
“Air,” I say. “I just…I need some fresh air.”
Before he can stop me, I bolt through the patio doors to the backyard and stand at the edge of his pool, drinking the night air in deep gulps.
I’m so mixed up about what’s happened. When I came over today, I’d been wary, but then I saw him. I saw the way he looked at me, and everything wrong was right again. He’d taken me roughly, yet it was, in every way, making love. We’d been normal. We’d been us. And when he’d held me in his arms and told me about his poetry love, all my worries about us disappeared.
Then came the scene. And everything was different, and part of me wants to tell him that his idea is stupid and ridiculous and can’t possibly work, but another part of me realizes that I have no other option to give him in return. Because how things were wasn’t working either.
Tears burn at the corners of my eyes. I know Logan’s trying to guide me through this. Maybe he’s even the North Star my mother suggested I look for. I mean, I hope he is. I love him, and I want to be with him. So maybe I just need to do what he suggests. But how can I, when everything he’s suggesting makes me feel even worse than before?
I hug my arms around my chest and look skyward. It’s smoggy. Typical for this part of L.A., and it’s barely worth looking up. Except just as I do, a meteor shoots across the darkness. It’s beautiful and blazing and not unlike how my heart feels at the moment. Like it’s on fire, and, even as it burns down to nothing, there’s something incredibly exquisite about it’s final fall into nothingness.
Like the fool stepping off a cliff.
“Did you make a wish?” Logan asks from behind me. He wraps his arms around me, his body warm and inviting against mine. Not for the first time, I’m aware of how the world around us dims when I’m in his embrace. If only we could live that way always.
I turn my head slightly toward him then look back at the sky. “You know, that tradition started back in ancient Greek times. Ptolemy used to say that it meant the gods were looking down on us, and that when they peeked through the spheres, star matter would slip through and that’s what we’d see fall through the sky. Since they were already paying attention to us, it was presumably a good time to ask for whatever our heart most desired.”
He brushes his lips against my temple. “I thought I had what my heart most desired. But twice now you’ve walked away from me, and I can’t help but think I should be wishing on that star right now for you.”
It hurts to hear him say it because in that one line I can tell both how much he loves me, and how much it’s going to hurt when I say the things I’m just beginning to realize I need to say.