A Safe Space (Someone Else's Fairytale Book 4) (33 page)

“Okay.” There’s real relief in his voice. “All right. Listen, it’s really,
really
good to hear your voice again.”

“Yeah. Yours too.”

“I’m gonna… I’ve gotta get some stuff worked out here. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, all right? Though you can call me anytime.”

“Okay.”

“’Kay. Talk to you soon, Lizzie.”

I like that better than goodbye, but not much better. This is still Devon, after all.

The next morning, at the gym, he’s there. My heart jolts in shock to find him standing by one of the weight machines, talking to another guy. At the sight of me, he turns and holds up a hand in a half wave.

I have no idea how to react, so I wave back and go get changed.

When I emerge from the changing room, there he is, waiting.

“Morning,” he says.

“Morning.” I avert my gaze from his bulging pecs and those eyes of his.

“You want any help with your workout, just let me know, since you can’t hire me. I’ll tell the management that I want to be involved with you and that’ll be that.”

Though I know it’s an attempt at humor, I don’t smile. It takes a supreme effort to nod and walk past him like he’s just another person. Part of me wants to demand a closet conference, and the other part of me just doesn’t have the energy for another round of this with him.

Once I finish my workout, change, and exit the changing room, I hear his voice around the corner. Though I know it’s childish, I duck over by the wall to eavesdrop.

“…want to hang out sometime?” says a feminine voice.

“Thanks, but no.”

“You got a girlfriend.”

“Well…”

“Sounds like a no.”

“It’s still early days, so I wouldn’t use that word.”

“Oh.”

“But yeah, I want to be her boyfriend. I’m working on that.”

“Well…okay.”

“I’ll see you around.”

I don’t react fast enough, so I’m still there by the wall when Devon rounds the corner. At the sight of me, though, he doesn’t look angry or embarrassed. He just looks at me.

I’m not sure whether to try to explain myself or try to pretend like I didn’t listen in. For a moment, we stare at each other. Then he reaches out to clasp my arm and I can’t bring myself to pull away. I don’t let him pull me closer either.

His grip softens and he strokes the inside of my wrist with his thumb, his touch still able to make my heart race.

“Sorry,” he whispers.

I’m not sure if he’s referring to his conversation with that girl, the time he shut me down, or this moment now. I remember when he walked out the door after telling me that he was going to move to Billings, and I pull away.

He lets me go with a brush of his fingertips against the back of my hand. “I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Can I call you?”

I pause and turn. “Yeah. I’m working on a video game, so…it’s long hours. I may not be able to answer.” That’s not me being coy. It’s just the truth.

“Okay. Got it.”

The nice thing about voice acting is that I can show up wearing whatever I want. I opt for yoga pants and a comfortable T-shirt because I know I’ll have to sit for a long time. The producer is a youngish man named Jake, and he has dark skin and gray eyes. If I weren’t so messed up over Devon, I might find him distracting. As it is, I just exchange the usual pleasantries and follow him into the studio, where I take my seat and put my headphones on.

“First video game?” he asks me.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve done animation though, right?”

I nod. “But not even a full feature.”

“Oh, so this is baptism by fire.” He laughs.

A feature film is two hours of content. This video game will have almost a hundred. I nod.

“So,” he says, “as I’m sure you’ve figured out, if we did this to war prisoners, it’d violate the Geneva Convention. We’ll record up to five alternate lines for each step of the dialogue.”

“Got it.”

“Let’s do this.”

At least I get to have the script in front of me, and I don’t feel the same weight of judgment I did on
Clues
. It’s not the same safe space that
All About Veronica
was, but it’s a saf
er
space, and that’s the best I can hope for these days.

I take a deep breath, and when the sound engineer nods at me from the other side of the glass, I start reciting lines. The first twenty minutes are no problem. I act with my eyes shut, imagining my character in the game. After half an hour, it starts to become a drag. After two hours, I’m going a little stir-crazy, and after four, I agree with Jake’s comment about the Geneva Convention. I feel like I’ve been talking to myself in a nonsensical way for eternity.

I stumble home after eight in the evening and find a voicemail from Devon on my phone.

“Hey, Lizzie. Just calling to say hi. Call me back anytime.”

I consider whether or not I want to do that. As much as I want to talk to him, it’ll hurt less in the long run if I don’t, but then I might wonder what if… My mind is babbling. I’m too tired to deal with this right now.

The next morning, he isn’t at the gym, and although my heart sinks, I can’t say that I’m all that surprised. His car isn’t in the parking garage when I leave. Over the course of the day, two calls from him come in on my cell phone, but he doesn’t leave any messages. I just see his number in the “missed calls” list.

That evening, though, as I exit my apartment building to walk to the grocery store, there he is, leaning against the outer wall of my building.

I stop walking.

He waves hesitantly.

“S
ORRY IF THIS
seems all stalker,” Devon says.

“How long have you been here?”

“Not long. I was driving home and I ended up here. Wasn’t sure if I should call you or leave you alone.”

I notice his Honda parked by the curb.

“You busy right now?” he asks.

“I have really important grocery shopping to do.”

“You want to go see a movie? Get dinner?”

“I don’t know.”

“If your shopping can wait… Actually, I’d come to the grocery store with you if you’d let me, but I’m really trying to not creep you out. I just want to be around you.”

Remember,
I tell myself,
that he’s a charmer.
I can’t afford to get my hopes up. “You can come to the grocery store if you really want to.”

He jogs a few steps over to me, and together we walk down the street.

“How are things?” he asks. “How’s the video game?”

“A lot of work,” I say. “The voice acting part is, at least.”

“Do you get to wear the special motion capture suit and do martial arts or anything?”

I’m somewhat surprised that he knows what motion capture is, though maybe that’s a normal thing for even a non-show biz person to know. I have no frame of reference.

“I’m not doing the physical acting. They’re getting a martial artist to do that. I’m just the voice.”

“Gotcha. So that all you’re working on right now?”

“I’m going to be in another pilot. See if the series gets picked up.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yeah, though not all pilots get picked up. It could just go nowhere.”

“Sure.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets.

I almost walk right past the grocery store. I just cannot function while Mr. Most Gorgeous Man I’ve Ever Known is there, next to me, giving me his full attention. He doesn’t laugh when I make a sharp turn and almost run right into a grocery cart. He just takes the cart and says, “You shop. I’ll push.”