Double Take: A Leading Man Romance (12 page)

Melanie and I fall silent and I wonder if it’s even my place to say anything at all. I think I’ve already done enough damage with Kylie. Maybe it’s my job just to help her pick up the pieces once it’s all said and done. Maybe it isn’t up to me to protect her. She’s a grown woman, and she’s capable of guarding her own heart.

It’s the makeup artist who speaks, piercing the silence between the three of us. “Jesus,” she mutters under her breath. “It’s like… there’s a new girl every project. I feel so terrible for Hannah.”

“Hannah?” Melanie asks before I can, though my attention is suddenly rapt again.

The makeup artist answers, “His wife.”

“What?!”
Melanie and I shout at the same time, as though we’d practiced it.

My heart is pounding in my chest, hammering like it’s trying to escape my ribcage, and I suddenly hear nothing except for white noise. Somehow, however, I still hear the makeup artist’s words loud and clear.

“Almost ex-wife, I guess, now. She couldn’t put up with all the shit he put her through. Show-mance is his thing. It’s terrible.”

She begins to trim my beard, but I put up a hand to stop her. “It’s under contract,” I mutter, understanding the absurdity of having a beard under contract. But I’m also suffocating, and I need to get out of this fucking chair before I let Rob’s fucking philandering drag me down. I’m out of the chair before I can stop myself, heading further into the house.

It’s one thing to have polyamory as part of the deal of a relationship. I’ve known couples, especially friends I’ve worked with in porn, who integrated others into their sex lives. It’s not my thing, but I get it. It’s another thing altogether to be sneaky. Underhanded. Manipulative.

Perfect Rob is by the camera, a hand at Kylie’s back as he reviews the continuity photos she took. She looks happy, and I’m caught at a crossroads because breaking her heart in the middle of the day on a film set seems cruel. But knowing what I know and letting Rob walk all over her seems worse.

I’m starting forward towards him when Melanie approaches and lays a hand on my arm. “Not the time,” she murmurs, and I realize that she’s right. I back up slightly.

Still, I can’t help myself. Rob calls for us to join him on set, and Kylie takes a step back for Rob to work his magic. He places me on my mark, and with a look that would strike him down if such a thing were possible, I say, “I hear Hannah’s lovely.”

Rob, for the first time since I’ve met him, looks panicked. It’s brief but it’s there, his eyes flashing when he looks at me. He sinks into himself slightly, face blanching, and I smile. There’s a look of near pleading on his face, and I know that I’ve got the upper hand for once with him. I’ve won this round.

“Careful,” he warns, though his voice is low and shaky.

I press my lips together like I’m considering the caution. “Don’t worry, Casanova. Your secrets are safe with me...all of them.”

Rob does his best to collect himself as he backs up to the camera. To his credit, he manages it pretty well, and once he goes through the rhythms of getting the camera up and rolling, he’s back to himself in no time. So much for Kylie’s knight in shining armor.

Rob is ignoring me.

It’s sudden, but the tension on set has grown thick. I wonder if it’s all in my head, but I realize that it can’t possibly be. Everyone is quieter than normal. Rob is in his own little world. Brett looks like he wants to kill something.

I wonder what I’ve done wrong, and realize I probably shouldn’t have put all of my eggs into Rob’s basket. My career, my personal life… both of those things were in his hands, and when one feels shaky, so does the other.

He doesn’t come home with me, but I’d expected that. He’d said as much. But it doesn’t quell the feeling in the pit of my stomach that something is terribly,
terribly
wrong.

Maybe I’m going to get fired.

That’s my main concern as I toss my keys onto my foyer table and make my way inside. I don’t want to be alone right now. I want to call Rob and ask him outright what’s going on, and if he’s through with me. I want to know if this was all just some game to him, or if I’m screwing up so badly that I’m unfixable. Maybe he just doesn’t have the heart to tell me that himself. Or maybe something happened on set that I didn’t hear about, and it’s actually worse than I thought.

I remember promising to call Brett. I can’t think of anything I want to do less
at the moment, except for sit around in utter silence. I pick up the phone, look through my texts for his number, and dial.

He answers quickly. “Hey, Kylie.”

I sit on the edge of my bed, wondering how comfortable I should get. “Hey. I said I’d call you, so I’m calling you.”

“Yeah, I just… wanted to tell you about what happened with Lori.”

I prickle. My back goes so stiff that it aches. I’ve been stiff enough recently. “I don’t need to know what happened with her.”

“No, I feel like you do. It was…” He takes a breath and lets it out. His voice is thick with emotion, and I almost feel sick for him. “I went to my trailer to clear my head and she was there, half dressed. I know she’s hot for me, she’s made it clear, but she crossed a line today. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

She crossed a line? I’m suddenly appalled, and pissed at myself for making a snap judgment. “Brett. Holy shit, you need to tell someone. If she’s hitting on you, as your boss, you have a case against that.”

“Don’t worry about me. Really, don’t. I can handle it myself. I just wanted you to know that it wasn’t what it seemed.”

I’m quiet for a few moments while I let that sink in. Why does Brett want me to know what it was? Why does he care so much about what I think? With nothing to lose, I ask him as much. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because.” Brett hesitates, letting the
because
linger for a few moments. I’m not even certain
he
knows why, but I’m hearing him, really
hearing him, for the first time and I’m surprised at how sensitive he is. “I just wanted you to know. I didn’t want you to have a warped opinion of me. I know you already do. I know what I do doesn’t make sense to you. Sometimes, it doesn’t make sense to me. But I don’t want you to have the wrong image of me when all I want to do is know you.”

I wet my lips and fall back so I’m lying in bed. My fingers dance over my stomach, like they did the first time I slept with Rob. I close my eyes, letting Brett’s words tumble over me and settle. “It sounds like you have a crush on me.” My words are teasing, but spoken softly.

Brett doesn’t respond to my comment. He, instead, finally presses, “Have you ever checked out Rob’s Wikipedia? Or any bio about him?”

My eyes fly open. I sit up again, and shift forward. I’m suddenly interested, and equally nervous. “Uh no, not really. I’ve seen his IMDB, but…”

“Check it.”

“What?”

Brett sighs. “I think you should check it.”

I don’t want to. I’m suddenly overcome with reluctance so real that it makes me sick to my stomach. The last thing I want to do is look at something that’s going to eviscerate the first really
good thing that’s happened to me in years.

“Why? What am I going to see there, Brett?”

“I’ll wait on the line, if you want.”

I stand up and move around the wooden divider into my living room, my heartbeat picking up so much that I can hear it thrumming in my ear. “Yeah, I’m going.”

Don’t do this, Kylie. Don’t do it. Whatever’s there, you don’t want to know
.

My hands are shaking as I open my laptop. Brett’s face contorted in pleasure is the first thing I see. I guess I hadn’t closed out of the page. I hurriedly type Rob’s name into the search box, and the image of Brett disappears completely.

I’m slow to type Rob’s full name.
Robert Mulligan
. I’m even slower to hit the enter key. But I do, and a few things come up onto the screen.

The first thing is a picture of an older man in a suit. The top web search is for
Robert Mulligan, Attorney at Law
. The second picture is of Rob, with the second search being his IMDB page. The third is his Wikipedia.

“I’m clicking on it,” I say, and I hear Brett exhale. He’s bracing himself.

The picture of Rob on the page is from his interview at Sundance this past year. The capture under the picture reads,
Mulligan at Sundance in 2015.
I quickly scan the rest of the information in that box.

Born
: 4 December 1985 (30)

Residence
: Los Angeles, California

Born
: Detroit, Michigan

Years active
: 2011 - present

Spouse
: Hannah Mulligan (m. 2013)

Awards
: Sundance: Directing Award: Dramatic - 2014

Sundance: Director Award: Dramatic - 2015

Something flips inside of me, and I’m not sure if it’s my heart, stomach, or some combination of both. I almost forget to keep holding onto the phone, but somehow, I do. But more than that, I feel so incredibly
stupid.

I must have been quiet for a long time, because I hear Brett’s voice on the other line. It’s soft, like he’s trying not to scare off a frightened animal. “Kylie… you there?”

“Uh huh…” My breath is quicker. I can feel my chest rising and falling with it. Maybe I’m going to pass out again. Maybe I’m just going to hyperventilate. I’d thought I was different and special, but why would I be?

“Kylie… listen to me. Directors like him… they’re a dime a dozen, and they’re just in it for themselves. You’re so much better than that. You’re better than him.”

I can tell how much he hated giving me this news, but I’m glad he did. “Can you come over?”

“Text me your address. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

This isn’t how I pictured my first trip to Kylie’s apartment.

I’d played it out a few ways in my mind, most of which involved dropping her off after a date and kissing her in front of the door before making the very difficult decision to go home myself.

I realize now that my chances of being with her are slim to none. I was the one who delivered this news to her. I was the one who was on the phone with her when the bottom dropped out. I’m now the friend
she calls to come over to cope with the situation.

But I also realize that I would rather sacrifice a relationship with Kylie than see her dive any deeper into a relationship with Rob and have her heart mauled any more than it already is.

I find her apartment building easily. I take the stairs three at a time then knock on the door. I don’t know what kind of state she’ll be in, so I steel myself and prepare for the worst. The door opens and Kylie looks oddly calm, like the eye of a hurricane.

“Hey,” she says, pressing the door open farther so I can enter.

“Hey,” I answer as I step inside, closing the door behind me.

Her place is small. It’s barely big enough for a Pomeranian to live in, much less a grown woman, but she seems to make it work. She’s got sparse decorations, but any more stuff and it would close her in like a trapped animal.

I’m afraid to ask, but I do anyway. “Are you… okay?”

She nods and shuffles to her couch -- which is inches away from her kitchen -- flopping onto it and pulling in her legs. Her chestnut hair is down and it reaches her shoulder blades. I wouldn’t have guessed it would be that long. She looks so open and honest right now. Vulnerable, but resolved.

“I’m fine,” she answers. “I don’t know why, but I’m fine. But the idea of being alone was just…”

“I get it. I’ve been through breakups, too.”

I’m standing awkwardly, unsure of whether or not I’m invited to make myself comfortable, but Kylie pats the cushion beside her, and I ease onto it. I pull up a leg so I can turn to face her better.

God, I want to kiss her so badly.

“I didn’t take you for the relationship type,” she says, though her voice is dull. I think she’s glad not to talk about herself at the moment.

“I don’t know that I was in the past,” I say, agreeing. “But the girlfriends I had couldn’t get past the porn thing. They were always self-conscious, like they weren’t good enough for me because I fucked professionals.”

“Were they?”

“Of course they were. But nothing I said could convince them otherwise. People are their own worst enemies.”

Kylie nods, her eyes unfocused but unmoving. She’s off in another universe right now, but it’s not my job to fetch her and bring her back. It’s my job to be here waiting when she comes home on her own.

And she does, a few minutes later, her eyes darting back up to meet mine. They’re slightly red -- I can see it even through her glasses -- like she’s been avoiding crying the best that she can. “Why did you get into porn?”

I’m clearly the distraction she needs and I don’t hesitate to fill that role for her. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“That’s okay.”

“Alright.” My arm settles across the back of the couch, and I don’t take my eyes from her. “I went to college and majored in political science. I had this great idea that I’d go into politics and change the world.”

Her eyebrows knit. I can’t tell if she’s looking right at me, or right through me. “Really?”

“That was the plan. But when I got out of college, I had racked up a shit ton of student debt. I figured it was the same for everyone, so I started temping for LA City Hall, basically as their errand boy.”

“You were the
me
of City Hall.”

I smile. “Yeah, and I was way too good for that place, too.” That pulls a small upturn of her lips, and I take it as a victory before I continue. “I was there for about a little less than a year when my parents moved. My dad was a doctor and my mom stayed at home, but they downgraded into a one bedroom place that was completely beneath them. I found out through some digging that they’d paid off my loans, but had to sell their place to do it.”

The pieces are starting to fit together for her. She looks at me again, mercifully distracted. “Holy shit.”

“I was pretty pissed, and felt guilty as hell. So I went out to blow off some steam. I found myself at a bar, because that was the most typical place I could think of to pretend like my problems didn’t exist. I was on my third drink when Lori came and sat down next to me.”