LA had been much as I remembered it; sunny, warm, beautiful people and no culture. I was bugged a thousand times to know who NM Lee was. Sad as reporters were, they never suspected it was me. They'd thought it was my father, they thought that it was my brother, or my three cousins. But they were wrong. All wrong.
I met with executives and laid down my demands. I'd live there starting in December to do a script with a real live screenwriter. That was the date Helen had warned me about and it meant just over a month more in England finishing up the editing on my current novel.
I didn't know what I'd come home to but I was scared. Legitimately scared.
I flew home contract in hand, ideas brimming, and slept for two days to get back on Greenwich Mean Time. The phone rang three times and I ignored it.
Finally at eleven on the third day I awoke to a loud bang.
I sat up in the bed and Ioan was in the doorway. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," I replied, blinking. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I told you I'd come. You've been hiding from me and I won't have that."
I yawned. "I've been sleeping off a 7 hour time difference and a bad vacation. Do you mind?"
He had the good grace to look contrite. "I'm sorry."
"Should be. Don't you have work today?"
"They're shooting around me. I won't have to return until the battle scenes in two weeks. You look like hell."
"Great, better than I feel. I need a bath, can you wait?"
"For a bath? God woman, they've invented showers, you know."
"Men," I shook my head. "Make yourself comfortable, put on some tea. I'm not doing anything until I've had a bath. There's a Wolves Dons game on."
"All right."
I brushed past him and shut myself in the bathroom. I heard sounds from the kitchen and a roar from a BBC channel as I drew the bath. I scented it, put in all the female things that made me happy and soaked. I lathered and smoothed, scrubbed and exfoliated. Finally I shampooed my hair and drained the tub, rinsing off with the wand. I slathered on conditioner and rinsed it out.
It took me thirty minutes but I rollered my hair and blew it dry, using body building mousse as I went. I put on makeup that was subtle and colorless, simply to shade my features and make me look polished.
I looked great, even wrapped in a towel. I came out and smiled at Ioan whose jaw reflexively worked, and closed myself in the bedroom. I chose more professional dress. Black chiffon pants in the exact measurements all my pants were tailored to and a midnight blue satin blouse with a sweetheart neckline and three quarter sleeves.
I put on my matching slipper shoes and my midnight blue y-necklace, a worthless bauble gift from a friend. I looked good.
I emerged to find him on the sofa, a cup of tea waiting for me, a beer in his hand. "You made me tea?"
He nodded, looking over his shoulder. "I don't drink it, but thanks."
I grabbed the cup and headed into my tiny kitchen.
"So why do you have it?"
I looked up to see he'd followed me. "For my British friends. I drink coffee, soda, and beer. But not before six PM."
"Religious objection?"
"Actually, yes. But I don't care what other people do."
He shrugged. "So I've been thinking, about what you said. And it makes sense."
I raised my eyebrow. He was agreeing with me?
"I guess we signed up for something very casual and to be honest, neither of us is in a position for more."
I had to stop him. "I should tell you something. I found out I've got to move back to the US in December."
"When?"
"The first week."
"Oh."
I nodded. "So you can see I'm really not in a position for anything more."
"I've gotten word I might be shooting another film. Ironically in America, but it won't be until Spring. I don't know when yet."
When I got done writing it. "Sounds unsure."
"No script yet, it's loose talks. But I think it's an NM Lee film."
I shrugged. "You'll get it, and yes, that is straight from the horse's mouth. Have you read the book?"
"When it first came out. Loved it. Had no idea I'd someday play Donovan Cullen. I believe that's the role offered to me."
Well, I knew. "All right then, our lives are progressing nicely. So what now?"
"Why don't we just go back to what we once were?"
Could we? I chewed my lip and popped the top on a coke. "I'm not so sure."
He folded his arms and crossed his legs at the ankle, leaning in the doorway. Short of crawling through the pass through there was no escape.
"What happened in LA?"
"I just locked in my future for the next several years. Looks like most of my time will be back there. But England is home now. American accents sound so flat, everything seems so loud and different. I miss the rain, I miss this place when I'm away."
He nodded. "I lived there for a year and missed home every day of it."
"It's just depressing."
He ignored the fact that I had ignored the question. "Well, that's a month away. More than. We can enjoy the time left, can't we?"
"I guess."
He smiled. "Then come with me to a Guy Fawlkes party, that's all. And we don't have to do anything you don't want to."
"All right."
"All right? That quick?"
"I make up my mind fast and I try to stick to it. All right."
"But you haven't heard my conditions yet."
"Conditions?"
He nodded. "First, if you get scared just tell me and we'll slow down, or I'll back off, whatever it takes. No more hiding. I won't stand for it."
"Fine."
"And..."
"And?"
"Rhys has been asking about you. He'd like to see you again. But I'll understand if that's too much for you."
"It's not. He's a great kid."
"He wants a hot dog and his mother is baffled as to where celery salt goes on it."
I laughed. "It's a Chicago thing."
"Is that where you're from?"
I stopped smiling and nodded, taking a pull of soda.
"All right, too much I guess. You never talk about your family and it used to make me wonder, but now I assume you have to protect NM. I understand."
"Thanks."
We chatted about the game and were too nervous to have sex, though both of us would have denied that. I came over to his place that night and as a concession, I slept over after our lovemaking. He made me breakfast, something Welsh and damn near inedible. I smiled but refused the blood pudding. On that I would not give.
The next month passed lightly, little concessions between me and him to each other. Every time Rhys spent the weekend with him we'd go out and have fun. We went to amusement parks where the coasters were much smaller but the fun rides were better than back home. Ioan got sick on anything that spun so Rhys and I would go and bedevil him with taunts afterwards.
It was scary, but on those days we were like a family and no one hid anything, overanalyzed anything, or held anything back. It was shockingly intimate even when we didn't touch. Maybe because we didn't, so the longing built up. And when Rhys went to bed we'd lock the door to Ioan's room and the lovemaking was sweet and total.
Those times I didn't stay over; I didn't want Rhys to realize what we were doing.
Strangely it didn't hurt when the day to leave came. I thought it would but I felt bolstered, saved from myself perhaps. Rhys and I had said goodbye the weekend before, the night before Helen and Danny had given me a small party laced with complaints as to how much time I was spending with Ioan.
So it was when I came home to a near empty apartment where my suitcases should have been waiting, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was more than a little tipsy, and weaved my way up the stairs.
It took three tries to get the keys into the door but I managed.
It didn't look like my apartment. There was a lot of stuff, so much so that at first I thought I'd walked into Mrs. Asprille's apartment again.
I started to apologize when Ioan stepped out into the room. It hit me then. There was an array of implements. Candelabras and things that looked vaguely like a dungeon setting from a movie. In the back my beaded kitchen was covered by what looked like some plastic palm fronds.
"What is this?"
"You're pissed."
"No, not angry, just so long as I don't have to haul it out."
He frowned. "I mean drunk. You're drunk."
I shrugged and tossed my purse on the couch, which had been covered with a blanket and Arabic pillows. "Jeeze this place looks like the Mustang Ranch."
"What's that?"
"Ritzy legal brothel in the states."
He smiled and I realized he was dressed differently. His pants were dark and tight, material indeterminate in the dim light. His shirt was black and flowy, the open neck cut deeply, ties that should have held it together sagged over his firm flesh. He was dressed like a wet dream and I gulped.
"So what is this?"
"How drunk are you?"
"Helen bet me fifty pounds she could out drink me. I won." I gave him a grand smile and felt my body weave a little.
"Congratulations, but that doesn't answer my question."
"I'll probably sober up in another hour. Maybe two, if I don't pass out."
He folded his arms. "You drink too much."
"I never used to until I moved here. I had to. I used to smoke and it was hard but I kicked the habit. Everybody here smokes and drinks so I had to do one."
"Interesting logic."
"So what's with the 'it's a small world' getup?" I looked around the room to see a variety of scenes. A jungle, a harem, a possible Grecian temple.
"Movie sets."
