The Hollywood Effect (26 page)

My heart had skipped a beat. Was this really happening, or was I about to wake up from a nap?
 

“Are you sure this isn’t just the happy sex hormones talking?” I asked after a moment, heart pounding.
 

Liam shook his head with a laugh. “I’m sure. Yeah, the sex is fantastic. Bloody brilliant, in fact. But no, it’s not just the sex. You’re brilliant and I want to be with you. Properly. Not sneaking around, or worrying that this is all going to end and be weird as soon as you step on the plane. I…” He faltered off and looked intently at me.
 

“Say something,” he said. I didn’t know how long we’d been staring at each other.
 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say,” I said, somewhat lamely. “I thought you were going to say the opposite.”
 

Liam frowned, then laughed softly and reached out to stroke my back. I closed my eyes for a moment.
 

“Why would you think that, you silly goose?”
 

I shrugged. “We’re from different worlds these days.”

“So?”
 

“So… I don’t know…”
 

Liam frowned slightly. “How do you feel about me?” he asked slowly.
 

“It’s not that,” I said. “You know I’m mad about you. I’ve been half in love with you since I was fifteen, I’ve been trying to ignore it for years.”
 

“You have?” he asked, hope lighting up his face.
 

I nodded. He leaned down and kissed me, slowly. I pulled back after a moment wishing I could savour the kiss and just ignore everything else.
 

“It’s not that,” I repeated. “It’s everything else.” As I’d been lying there, flashes kept popping through my mind. The incessant paparazzi attention. The horrible things those nasty people had written about me. The girls and women, and sometimes men, constantly hitting on him. The attention he got, almost everywhere he went.
 

“Everything else doesn’t matter,” Liam said softly. “The only thing that matters is you. And me. Us, together.”
 

I sighed. He’d always been a romantic git on the inside. “I wish that were true,” I said after a moment. “I just don’t know…”
 

“Know what?”
 

“If we can make this work,” I said.
 

“Why wouldn’t we?”
 

I just looked at him, flabbergasted. I waved my hand around. “This. Everything. You’re not just the boy next door anymore. Half the world knows your name, your face. They care about what you do, who you’re with. You get followed around everywhere. I don’t want to live like that.”
 

Liam looked at me sadly and pulled away.
 

“I can’t help all that,” he started.
 

“I know, I know. It’s just… I’m sorry. I don’t know. I didn’t even realise it bothered me that much until now.”
 

We sat in silence. I didn’t know what to say next. What was I doing? I’d dreamt about being with Liam for years. Now it was finally happening and I was turning him down.
 

“I love you, Liam. I do, really.”
 

“Then the rest of it shouldn’t matter,” he said in a small voice.
 

“If I’m with you, I’ll never be anything but Liam Burns’ girlfriend.”
 

Liam frowned at me.
 

I rubbed my eyes and put my arm over my face. “You’re my best friend, Burns. I don’t want to lose you.”
 

Who would have thought. I was the one giving him that dreaded line. I chanced a glance at his beautiful face and immediately felt bad. I reached out tentatively. He shrugged away from me and got up and went to stand by the window.
 

“Sorry, Jen. I just need a bit of time to process.”
 

“Okay…”
 

I slipped out of his bed and pulled my shirt back on. He was still standing, staring out the window with his back to me. I longed to run my hands over those smooth broad shoulders, but instead I snuck out the door and back to my own room.
 

I sank down miserably on the bed. I’d ruined everything. We never should have slept together in the first place. I didn’t want to lose my friend, that much I knew. The rest I couldn’t decide. I’d dreamed about that moment, more that once. More than a dozen times. Liam finally confessing his love to me.
 

And it finally happens and I turn him away. I groaned and pulled the pillow over my face.
 

I just knew I couldn’t handle all the craziness that was Liam’s life. Our lives didn’t mesh at all at the moment. Maybe one day…
 

I shook myself. He wouldn’t be single for long. Some beautiful young actress or singer or dancer or someone would come along and snatch him up as soon as I left. He’d be better off with someone who wanted this kind of lifestyle… wouldn’t he?
 

I didn’t know how long I lay there, rehashing and expanding the conversation over and over again in my mind, but I must have drifted off at some stage, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up to a knock on my door and sunlight streaming on my face.
 

“Come in.” I probably should have asked who it was first, but it was too late.
 

Liam slowly opened the door and stuck his head in. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all.
 

“Hey,” he said softly.
 

“Hey,” I said, sitting up, hand pushing my hair back out of my face.
 

“Did you sleep?”
 

“Apparently. Did you?”
 

Liam shook his head.
 

“I’m sorry,” I said and meant it.
 

“Yeah, I wanted to talk about that. Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. I don’t want to wreck things between us. We can just go back to normal, right?”
 

“Right,” I said, relief mingling with regret.
 

“Just… one thing… is it just the whole famous thing?”
 

“What do you mean?”
 

“If I was just plain old plumber or farmer or accountant Liam, would you still say no?”
 

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “No,” I said softly, after a moment.
 

“That’s all I wanted to know.”

“Liam…”
 

“I’m fine, really.” He gave me one of his famous, award winning grins. The ones I knew weren’t really real. What had I done?
 

I stretched awake. It was my last day in Los Angeles. I was really going to miss this bed, despite the fact I hadn’t done much actual sleeping in it the past few nights.
 

Despite our little talk, saying that things would go back to normal, yesterday had been kind of awkward. I kept wanting to touch him, make him laugh, hold him. But I couldn’t. Not without sending the wrong signals. But were they wrong? Was I being a stubborn fool? I didn’t know anymore. I needed some space to think. Although I had a feeling that if I changed my mind, I really didn’t have long. Liam was never short of female attention, he’d move on soon enough. But would I?
 

I pulled the cover over my face and groaned. We should never have slept together. It was too confusing. I was much more used to me just pining and dreaming in secret and not actually having to face a reality where Liam might actually feel the same way.
 

I really wanted to talk to my Mum.
 

I briefly entertained the idea of talking to Dan about it all, but he’d always been pretty useless at relationship advice, and I wasn’t entirely sure it would be fair to Liam to blurt it all out to our mutual best friend.
 

After lying in bed and getting to no resolution, I figured I should get up and try and enjoy the last day of my holiday.
 

It was another perfect, sunny day. Warm, but not too warm.
 

Dan was pottering around the kitchen, making something that looked like had the potential to be pancakes.
 

“Morning,” he said, cheerfully.
 

“Morning,” I mumbled.
 

“You okay?”
 

I nodded. “Fine.”
 

“Frustrated, insecure, neurotic and emotional?”
 

“Oh, shut up.”
 

“Burnsy told me what happened,” Dan said and passed me a glass of orange juice.
 

“He did?”
 

“Yeah. I think you’re making a mistake, if it’s worth anything.”
 

I frowned into my orange juice.
 

“You don’t understand.”
 

“Dude, you guys are obviously crazy about each other. Even I can see that. What’s the problem? Really?”
 

“I just want a normal life,” I said after a minute of contemplating my juice. “Nothing about Liam’s life is normal anymore.”
 

“He’s still the same old Burnsy, the same guy you’ve been half in love with since high school.”
 

I shot him a look. “You knew?”
 

“Jen, everyone knew.”
 

God damn it. I thought it had been my little well-hidden secret. First Mel and Sammy, then Jacinta, now Dan.
 

“I just… I just can’t do it right now.”
 

“Why not?”
 

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth.
 

“Sorry, I’ll stop pushing. Just think about it though. He’s Terang’s most eligible bachelor after all.”
 

“What about you?” I asked with a weak smile.
 

“Accountants aren’t nearly as glamorous as actors.”
 

“Where is he anyway?” I asked, belatedly.
 

“Went for a run. Said he needed to clear his head.” Dan shot me a sympathetic look. I rubbed my face. This was going all wrong.
 

“Are you going to see Isobel again?” I asked, wanting to change the topic.
 

Dan shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll see.”
 

“How much longer are you here for again? Sorry, I know you already told me…”
 

“Another week. Then back to London.”
 

“How much longer are you going to stay there?” I asked.
 

Another shrug. “I might come home next year. We’ll see. Or maybe I’ll go live in Italy or Germany or something.”
 

“You’re so lucky having an EU passport. I’m so jealous. I’m one generation out.” A few of my friends had ancestry visas or passports to Britain or the EU or the USA. I’d always been envious. My family had been in Australia too long. My most recent migrant ancestor was Mum’s grandfather, who came out from Scotland in the 1920’s. Apparently he’d almost gone to Canada instead, but changed his mind at the last minute. I was awfully glad he had - I wouldn’t exist otherwise. Mind boggling, thinking of all the random choices made over the eons that led to me being born. It was slightly terrifying, thinking how easily something could have played out differently at any point in time. Not just big things like my great-grandfather deciding to migrate to Australia instead of Canada, but even small things, like going to a party or not. Or maybe some amorous couple getting interrupted and someone’s not conceived. The fact that I was born, me, and not some other collection of cells and brainwaves is so terrifyingly wonderfully random. No wonder people liked to believe in fate and destiny. It was a much more comforting thought than the utter randomness of reality. It was hurting my brain to think about too much, and made me glad that time travel didn’t actually exist. But then I thought about all the utterly horrible things that have happened over time, like the Holocaust and felt guilty for thinking that.
 

“Hello? Anyone home?” Dan waved a hand in front of my face.
 

I shook myself. “Sorry. Got lost in a thought spiral.”
 

Dan just shook his head and didn’t ask. I supposed he was used to me doing that.
 

“Pancakes?”
 

I wrinkled up my nose. “Are they going to be edible?”
 

Dan narrowed his eyes at me. “Of course. I’ve learned a bit in the past couple of years I’ll have you know.”
 

“Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it.”
 

“Challenge accepted.”
 

The front door banged open. “What smells so good?” Liam came into the kitchen, red faced and sweaty.
 

“Dan’s actually learned how to cook,” I said. “Even if it is only pancakes.”
 

Liam shot me a quick, small smile. See, we can be normal, it seemed to say.
 

“Awesome.”
 

“So what are we doing with Jen’s last day?” Dan asked brightly, expertly flipping the pancakes in the pan.
 

Both boys looked at me. I shrugged.
 

“What do you want to do?” Liam asked.
 

“I don’t care. Just chilling with you two sounds pretty good to me. It’s been a pretty action packed week,” I said. I accepted the plate of pancakes that Dan passed me. “Maple syrup?” I asked, hopefully. Liam got up and rustled around in a couple of cupboards.
 

“Huzzah! I knew I had some somewhere.” He held up the maple syrup triumphantly.
 

We ended up venturing out for a late lunch at a brewpub, talking about anything other than relationships or feelings or anything like that. I was starting to get used to the extra attention Liam got. When we had to wait twenty minutes to leave, because Liam was surrounded by a pack of Japanese tourists who all wanted individual photos and autographs, I felt like I’d made the right decision.