A Safe Space (Someone Else's Fairytale Book 4) (20 page)

I pull my hair off my neck and hold it to one side as I jump down through the force field and back into the world.

Devon gets to his feet, looking more than a little bewildered.

“Are we ruining the magic of television for you?” I joke.

“What was that?”

“Hmm?” I ask as I lead him off the set.

“There was no one else there. You actually shoot scenes without both people there?”

“Some of the takes, yeah. Not all of them, but you saw the ones Kevin and I shot together when you were watching the monitors.”

“So how long does it take to film a whole episode?”

“Seven days. Sometimes six. Like in really rare cases, six, but usually seven days.”

“Seven
days?
For a one-hour show?”

“Forty-two minutes with the commercial breaks, yeah.”

“Are you serious?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“So for Veronica—”

“That one was different,” I explain. “That one was done in front of a live studio audience, so they shot it all in one evening, like a play. Just took a few hours—the shooting, that is. The set design and the costumes and stuff took longer to set up. And then we had rehearsals and readings and all that.”

We’re nearly to the warehouse exit.

“Where are we going?” he says.

“My trailer.”

“Oh…right.”

W
E STEP OUTSIDE
and cross over to where my trailer is parked. When I open the door and usher him inside, he takes one step then freezes.

“I know, I know,” I say. “Over the top. Hollywood opulence and all that stuff.”

“This is nicer than my apartment.”

“It’s nicer than
my
apartment,” I quip, and I’m not really kidding. Although I could now get a plasma TV for home, I haven’t made any big purchases like that.

Devon moves out of the doorway and I squeeze past him.

“Sit down.” I point to the couch.

He does, but he looks around like he’s afraid the real owner of this trailer will appear and throw him out at any minute.

“You want an apple?” I ask, pushing the fruit bowl at him.

“Um…no.”

“So yes, my life is ridiculous. You thought I’d live like a superstar—here you go. For my job, they do treat me like a star, yes.”

“Does everyone have a trailer like this?”

“No.” Just thinking about the topic gives me a headache. “They’re all nice, but then there’s a lot of competition to merit the best trailer… Let’s talk about something else.” I flop down at the other end of the couch.

He looks me up and down. “All this stuff is paid for…” He lets his voice trail off, leaving the question open.

“By the network, who hope to earn it back with advertising revenues, which they only get if our ratings are high enough.”

“Okay.”

I take a deep breath. “Listen, when I was a kid, I signed, or had signed for me, a lot of bad contracts. I make no royalties from the Veronica Pryce albums, for example. I didn’t have a great agent or manager, so when my show wrapped, I took control. I got one of the top agents in Hollywood, which is saying something because there’s a new crop of child stars wanting to cross over every year, and she chose me to rep. I got a really good manager, but the thing is, good means aggressive. My agent drove a really hard bargain. That’s why I got the big trailer and the big paycheck, because that’s how you tell the network they have to invest in you, by making them go into debt to hire you in the first place. Then they work really hard to earn it back. It works in theory, but then there’s the whole issue of me having to deliver the goods. I do what I gotta do. I’m a cog in a big machine. I’m sorry if anything in the show offends you. This is all a lot bigger than me.”

His fingers fidget for a moment. Then he rubs his face. “Right.”

“And I’m sorry if you hate the show,” I say, “but I’m also fine with it, totally. Not a problem. Doesn’t mean I won’t be your friend.”

“Do you like your show? Is it the kind of thing you’d watch?”

“I don’t watch TV for fun.”

He raises both eyebrows at that.

“It’s work,” I say. “Would you go home and watch workout videos for fun?”

“I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

I shrug.

“But do you even tune in to see what you think is good?”

“Yeah, for research, to see how other people handle a scene and to pick up on techniques.”

“Okay.” His tone of voice says, “Clearly you are from a whole other planet.”

I don’t have time to slip into joke mode; they’ll need me on set again before too long. “Sooo…do you want to talk?”

“Not really, but I guess we should.” He clasps and unclasps his hands.

“If you just hate my show and don’t want to talk to me the day after an episode airs, that’s fine, and if that’s all that’s going on, sorry I overreacted.”

“Can I just be honest?”

“Yeah…” I brace myself.

“Your show’s awful. I mean, the writing is terrible and your costar chews the scenery. They treat you like a sex object. The outfits you wear, the way the second episode ended…”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Yeah, it is.” He shrugs an apology.

“I don’t write the scripts or design the costumes or control Kevin. I can only do what I can do.”

“It’s just hard to watch.”

“You don’t have to feel sorry for me.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “So…that…um, practice session we had?”

“In the closet?” I say.

“Yeah.”

“Right. That.” I bite my lip.

“What was that?”

The look he gives me makes it clear that he is not looking for a declaration of love. He wants to know what the hell I was thinking and why I’d jeopardize our friendship that way. Because it’s clear to me in this moment that this is what we are: friends, and not friends by default or by coincidence, not people who just happen to know each other and never bothered to become more. This has taken real work. He stayed in southern California when I begged him to. Now it’s my turn to do my part and explain myself, no matter how uncomfortable or inconvenient this may be.

“It was the evening after we filmed the last scene of the second episode—”

“I was afraid of that.”

“And that, technically, was my first kiss. Ever.”

The look he gives me is pure astonishment.

“I’ve never held hands,” I say. “I’ve never been on a date that wasn’t, like, set up by my publicist for some event or other. I’ve never done any of that.”

He stares at me, absorbing this.

“And this doesn’t excuse what I did, but…it was an awful week.”

“I remember.” His sidelong gaze is steady. He’s listening.

And I pause a moment to consider how much more to say. “I used to always be able to talk to Zach, you know, Wechsler.”

He nods.

“But then he fell in love with Kyra and I helped get them back together, and I’m not mad at Kyra or anything, but she takes all his time now. Zach’s mad at me because my career’s still on life support while his isn’t, even though he still has the money he earned and…we don’t even talk these days.” I shake my head. “Long story short, I didn’t have anyone to turn to and I just wanted…” I shut my eyes. “I wanted to have a first kiss I’d…actually enjoy, with someone I chose. But I used you, and I’m sorry.” I bite my lip and look at him.

His eyes narrow. Then he inclines his head. “It’s okay.”

Lizzie
, I think,
you are extremely
lucky
right here, in this moment
.
Devon is now, without question, the best friend you’ve ever had.

“Story for my grandkids,” he says. “You know, when you’re still a superstar and I’m just, you know, me.”

I smile because I have to, because that’s how this conversation needs to go if we’re going to get through it, but his words sting like a knife to the chest. I do not want to think about him settled down at last with some hypothetical other person. I don’t want to imagine a day when we’re not in each other’s lives anymore, even if that’s what’s most certainly going to happen. He can’t stay here in California to keep me company forever, and eventually I need to grow up and move on to someone who actually wants me.

“Was I okay?” he teases.

I nod.

His smile is pure kindness, and it lessens my pain more than I’d expect. His whole demeanor says, “You can be yourself around me, Lizzie. I like the real you, even if you’re nuts.”

In that moment, I don’t have a crush on him anymore. I’m completely and utterly in love.

He leans forward and snags an apple from my fruit bowl. “I’m sorry to criticize your show.”

“But you actually hate it, so it’s fine.”

“Hate’s a strong wor… No, I do hate it.” He shrugs apologetically and bites into the apple. “I mean, you’re being dressed by men who look at you the wrong way.”

“Sex sells.”

“Are you aware of
how much
sex you’re selling?”

“I’m young. I work out. I have this amazing personal trainer—”

“Guys will look at your outfits and not notice anything else about the show. And that magazine cover you did that came out this week? The way they got you to look at the camera is… Guys read that expression in a certain way.”

“I literally know nothing about this. At all. I’m just trying to keep my job and trying to keep all these people here employed and make my agent happy and…I am totally dodging responsibility… Sorry. That’s bad.”

He takes another bite of apple and nods. “Everything you say is true.”

“But I should stand up for myself more?”

“I don’t know. Honestly? If I were in your shoes, I have no idea what I’d do. In my brain, though, you’re my little sister’s best friend and her role model. So I don’t like seeing you do stuff that I wouldn’t want her to do.”

“Right.”

“You can call me a chauvinist an a hypocrite if you want.”

“No, I get what you mean.”

“My sister didn’t get to go to junior high or date or any of that stuff, but in a way, she did through your show. Or she would have. I know Veronica didn’t date until season three.”

I do not remember this, but I have no doubt it’s true.

He munches more of his apple then looks sidelong at me again. “That pink sweatshirt I got all uptight about?”

“The one from my tour?”

“That you gave to my sister, yeah. You know where it is, now?”

I shake my head.

“In Billings. About six feet underground. She wrote her own will in marker and she took everything with her. Your pictures, the swag, all of it.”

“Um…wow.”

He smiles though. “So my last memory of that sweatshirt’s a good one.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. Her wearing it, with your posters and autographed photos and the picture of the three of us and the glitter pens and the duffel bag—everything piled around her. She had a kind of smug smile, or that’s the way I remember it. She was like, ‘I may have to leave this world, but I’m taking this stuff with me.’”

I hold back a chuckle until our gazes meet, and I know I have permission. “I’m glad it made her happy.”

“Me too. I know it also makes me a little neurotic about Veronica Pryce and other characters who look exactly like her.”

“So was your mother a part of that? Her burial and stuff?”

He shakes his head. “No. I didn’t tell her Mackenzie passed away.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know if she knows. I went to Billings to arrange all that stuff, and I haven’t been back since. When I saved enough money for the headstone, I just ordered it online. I haven’t seen it in person.”

“You’re a good big brother.”

“Damn straight. I may screw up in every other aspect of my life, but I’d never forgive myself if I’d messed that up. She was an eight-year-old kid. She had no one else.”

I nod.

“Except you, of course.”

“I just wish I’d been able to do more.”

He smiles at me and finishes off his apple. “Anyway, I should go.”

“Okay. Well, now you’ve seen my world.”

“Ye-ah.” He drops the apple core into the wastebasket and gets to his feet. “It’s been an experience.”

“Very diplomatic of you,” I say, getting up.

He laughs, steps across the distance between us, and gives me a hug. I hug back, careful not to be too enthusiastic. It feels like heaven all the same.