Sex Symbol by Laurelin Paige
He wanted to make it better, but he felt helpless. He didn’t have an answer to their situation, didn’t have words to take their pain away. Besides, if he went to her now, and she cried like that in front of him, he wouldn’t be able to hang on. He’d give everything up for her right on the spot. And that wasn’t the answer.
He had to reach out, though, had to tell her not to give up on them. He sent her a text. Counting the seconds til I have you in my arms.
It was several minutes before she dug in her purse, seemingly looking for a tissue, and opened her phone. He watched her read his message, a small smile crossing her lips, then she typed her reply.
You shouldn’t text in the theater. It’s rude.
Ah, sweet Maddie. Crying her eyes out in the lobby and she wasn’t letting on at all. He hated that he was glad. Wished she could be honest with him. Wished he wanted her to be honest with him. Wished he wanted to be honest with her.
He sent her a text that matched the tone of hers. Neither should you.
I’m not in the theater.
Neither am I. He hoped she’d look for him now.
She did.
She stood and crossed to the railing to look down on the lobby below her. Then she peered across the lobby on their level and their eyes met. His heart skipped a beat. She was so beautiful. Even tear stained and mascara streaked she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.
He took a deep breath and walked to her.
“Congratulations on the Santini film,” she said as he neared her.
He shrugged, his hands in his pockets. “I haven’t accepted yet.”
“You will.”
This was good. She’d opened the door for him to agree. He could just say it and that would be that. They could skip the more serious aspects of his conversation with Stu and his mother. He could take the out she was giving him so freely. It would be so easy…
She leaned on the railing next to him, close enough for him to touch her, and he did, reaching a finger under her eye to wipe at her mussed make-up. “What if I don’t want it?”
He met her eyes, tumbling into them as he always did when she gazed at him so trusting and soul piercing. “You do.”
Ah, she knew he wanted that role. Of course she knew. She saw him. Always. “I do.”
Her breath hitched as he put a hand around her waist and swiftly pulled her to him. “I want you, too,” he whispered, his nose circling hers.
“I know.” She wrapped her arms around his neck.
He cupped her face and kissed her lips, sweetly and softly. She tasted of tears and makeup and something else—sorrow or heartache, maybe. He didn’t want to taste that on her mouth, wanted to take her away from all his bullshit. Wanted to escape with her. “Let’s get out of here?”
“You can’t abandon your mother, silly.” She smoothed his black silk tie, and he wished she was removing it instead.
“Then let’s find some place more private.”
She glanced around, and he followed her gaze. There was an usher behind them and a woman leaving the restroom.
“There’re too many eyes here.”
Yes, too many eyes. Eyes that could make their moment a scandal in a minute. They shouldn’t even be holding each other like this, in public, not if he wanted to protect her from that. Still he couldn’t let her go.
After they’d held each other for much too long, she pulled away. “You should get back. You’ll be missed.”
In her words, he felt the chains that bound him, the constant monitor of the public that he wore like shackles. “Yes.”
She stepped to leave him, but her hand lingered in his, and he pulled her back to him, not wanting to let go. Ever. “Maddie, I—“
She searched his face and he almost finished his sentence, told her how he felt about her. But saying those words, there would be no going back from that. That would be his decision and he just…couldn’t.
“Kiss me again,” he said instead.
She delivered a light kiss. But he seized her lips with his own, his tongue possessing her with demanding need, claiming not only her mouth but her soul. With his kiss, he marked her as his, reserved her for a future that he wasn’t able to give her. Yet.
When he separated his mouth from hers, he leaned his forehead against hers, his chest rising and falling in her rhythm. “Maddie, I’m glad you’re here.”
Lame. He had given her nothing tangible, nothing that told her how he felt, no hint that he was confused about her—that he wanted what they had to become something more. The only words he had for her were, “I’m glad you’re here.”
Totally lame.
He vowed he’d give her a clue. And while he sat in his box seat pretending to watch the rest of Beaumont's interview, he made his plans.
Twenty-Two
Maddie twisted beneath her seatbelt so she could lean against the backrest and watch Micah as he drove the rental car. She had never seen him drive. Even on the rare occasions that they shared a call time, she always rode up with the crew or Fudge, maintaining the secrecy of their affair.
He enjoyed driving. She could tell. His body relaxed behind the wheel and he wore a silly boyish expression on his face as he jammed to the music coming from his iPod over the car’s speakers. She liked seeing him this way.
She liked seeing him period.
She smiled, recalling a conversation from a few nights before. They had gone for drinks and pool with the crew, and afterward as they walked down the hall of his hotel, buzzed from beer and the company of friends, Micah had taken her hand and said, “Is this what normal people do? Come home every night and be happy?”
And for a minute she believed that they could be normal people.
But that was before the Joss Beaumont evening. Before the conversation she’d overheard between Stu, Lulu, and Micah. She’d been so thrilled for Micah the minute she heard he’d been offered a role as coveted as the lead in a Santini film. Then, when Stu said that Micah would have to be in New Zealand for the better part of a year, she felt crushed. Absolutely and completely crushed.
How had she let herself forget that was how the business worked? Films took actors and crew all over the world, to different parts of the world. They’d be separated. Of course they would be.
And then Lulu had encouraged Micah to take the part, as she should, and Maddie agreed with his mother’s stance. But the exchange still hurt. A lot. Especially when Micah was unwilling to tell his mother that his hesitations revolved around the way he felt for Maddie. If he couldn’t tell Lulu, if he couldn’t admit it even to himself, how could they have any hope of making a real go of it? If they had any chance of surviving long periods of time apart, they’d have to be strong enough to declare their feelings openly. At the very least, declare them to each other.
Micah glanced at her from the driver’s seat, interrupting her thoughts. “What are you thinking about?”
“Your sad choice of music,” she answered, steering clear of the topic they’d avoided in the three days since the Joss Beaumont night. Not that they’d ever talked about a future, but now their avoidance of it was heavy and glaring at the periphery of every moment together.
He grinned. “Hard rock’s no good?”
“No good at all. In fact, it’s seriously making me reconsider our relationship.” Inwardly she cringed at the word relationship, hoping it didn’t sound like she was putting pressure on Micah to discuss their situation. With less than one week left of production though, she should have been putting pressure on him. Eventually they would have to talk about it. She knew she should bring it up, but every time she had the chance, she pushed it off, not wanting to ruin the moment.
“Fine,” Micah said, turning off the music. “Let’s talk instead.”
“Okay.” Now. Talk about it now. “What do you want to talk about?” God, she was a chicken.
“I don’t know. Uh, how’s your movie going?”
Maddie frowned. That was an odd question. He was with
“I haven’t done anything since the last time you saw it. Why?”
“I just love the theme of the movie. And so did Lulu, I know I told you that already. Freedom through flying. It’s really good.”
“Okay,” she said, drawing out the word. He had told her Lulu’d been very impressed, and Maddie had been proud of herself for it. But every time she thought of Lulu and her movie in the same sentence, she recalled Lulu’s comparison of Maddie to Micah’s ex. And she couldn’t bear that anyone might think she was using Micah for his film connections.
But all of those thoughts were miles off from whatever Micah was talking about now. She just couldn’t quite follow his direction yet.
“And how about heights? Do you have a fear of heights?”
“No,” she answered tentatively. “Do you?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why are you being so weird?”
“Weird? I’m not being weird. I just realized I didn’t know if you were afraid of heights or not. You know. Standard get-to-know you question. I really should have already known this.”
“Uh huh.” Maddie didn’t believe him. He was up to something.
“Do you have anything you’d like to know about me?”
She’d learned a lot about Micah in the last few weeks—things she never gleaned about him from the countless interviews she’d watched and read over the years—but she knew there was still more to discover. Everything. She wanted to know everything about him.
Like, for example, what would happen with them after the shoot ended on Friday? And where the heck was he taking her?
But she didn’t ask those questions. He’d told her that today was a surprise, had woken her at four in the morning on their day off, and told her to dress warmly. He refused to say anything else about it. After twenty minutes of probing, she’d dropped it.
Maybe that was why she couldn’t bring herself to steer the conversation to their relationship—she didn’t want to ruin his carefully planned surprise.
“Let’s see.” She searched for a safe but meaningful query. “Oh, I know. Did you always want to be an actor?”
“Seriously?” He turned off the main road they’d been following onto a smaller winding road. “That’s what you want to know? You can find that out from a good Google search.”
“In every interview I’ve read you’ve said ‘yes.’”
“There you go,” he said, throwing his arm out dramatically.
“But I’ve always sensed you were hiding something.”
He peered at her. “How do you do that? How do you know me so well?”
Because we’re meant to be together. She shrugged.
“No. I didn’t always want to be an actor.” He looked at her as if gauging her reaction. “My mom was an actress, so she got me acting in commercials when I was about thirteen. And I hated it. We didn’t live in the film industry part of the city and no one in my school was into anything artsy. Kids picked on me, called me a fag, beat me up on a regular basis. In fact, that’s how I met Fudge. He stepped up for me and has been protecting me ever since.”
Wow. She had no idea.
“Do you know how he got his nickname?”
She shook her head.
“Because he used to scare kids so bad, they’d fudge their pants.”
She giggled.
“Anyway. Then I turned sixteen. My high school was putting on David and Lisa. I didn’t really want to do it, but my girlfriend—“
“Girlfriend?”
He ignored her. “—thought it would be super sexy if I was in it. So I tried out and I got the part of David.”
“Which is a great part. Definitely super sexy.”
“Yes, it is.” He slid his free hand over to grab hers. “But on top of that, my high school theater director was amazing. She taught us more than just memorizing lines and blocking. She taught us process, how to make choices in acting, how to create a character internally and externally. I fell in love.”
“I’m assuming you fell in love with the acting, not the girlfriend.” Not that she was jealous of a high-school sweetheart. Not in the least.
“Totally the acting. I broke up with the girlfriend before the show even went up.”
“Awesome.” She grinned.
“I started taking classes outside of school—speech, movement, acting for the camera. I got a personal coach. Then an agent. Then I started doing indies, which I loved. Then I got Stu.”
“And the rest is history.”
“I suppose so.”
He was silent for several seconds. The morning light brightened, the sun just coming over the edge of the horizon. She let go of his hand and rummaged through her purse until she found her sunglasses.
When Micah spoke again his voice was low and serious. “That break-up was because of the show, actually. Even back then acting interfered with my relationship.”
“With your teenage girlfriend? How so?” She didn’t like what he was hinting at and was grateful for the dark of her glasses so he wouldn’t see the glare in her eyes.
“We broke up because she was jealous of my acting. She said I spent too much time away from her. We fought and fought about it. It was awful.”
Maddie cocked her head to look at Micah’s profile. Was this the reason he was so convinced he couldn’t have a girlfriend now? Because of a silly break-up when he was a kid? It was a ridiculous idea, but a bubble of hope began forming in her chest. “But you were in high school. Kids are selfish and self-centered. Most teenage relationships end for those sorts of reasons with or without acting involved.” Surely he could see that.
“It’s not just because of that girlfriend. There were others after. And then there’s my parents.”
“Your parents?” She was taken aback. What did his parents have to do with anything?
“All my life my mother tried to be an actress and it always put a strain on my parents’ marriage. When I was twelve she realized that all the compromises she’d made to be a wife and mother had kept her from being as successful as she’d dreamed of being as an actress. So she left my dad.”
“Ouch.” The bubble of hope burst as pieces of the puzzle were beginning to make sense. Lulu had chosen career over family. No wonder she was so eager for Micah to do the same.
“It destroyed my dad. He loved her so completely. He couldn’t understand why Lulu had to give up on their marriage. I didn’t understand either until later.” He paused and gave Maddie a quick side glance. “Now I understand completely.”
Her body tensed, but before she overreacted, she needed clarification. “Are you saying you still have no faith in Hollywood relationships?”
“I’ve never said any differently.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. All the time they’d spent together, she’d thought it meant something. And now he was saying it didn’t change anything. “Then what are we doing, Micah?” Her voice was choked. “We said no preconceived notions about where we were going, but clearly you’ve already decided we’re doomed. So was I just something to fill your time?”
“No! Of course not, baby.” He took one hand off the wheel and ran it through his hair. “When we take one day at a time, yeah, it seems possible. But long term? I just…I still haven’t seen any evidence to change my mind.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed, stemming the pain before it could overwhelm her. Didn’t he realize how much his words hurt her? Or was that his intent? Was he breaking up with her?
No, he couldn’t be. Or, if he were, she wouldn’t let him without a fight. She opened her eyes again and she slid her glasses on top of
“But Angelina and Brad do a whole lot fewer movies than they used to. And Julia practically retired.”
“They chose to scale back.”
“Exactly. They chose their relationships over their careers.” Micah’s knuckles went white as he gripped the steering wheel. “Everything I say and do, Maddie, is a choice between my career or not my career. From deciding to take a shoot in another country to answering a question in an interview to sending a tweet on Twitter, to whether or not I send flowers for Valentine’s Day.”
“If you send flowers to a woman your career will be affected? Come on, Micah. That’s dramatic.” She didn’t even bother to hide her eye roll, she was so annoyed.
His eyes narrowed and she could feel his frustration rising, fueling her own. “It’s reality. If sending those flowers initiates a scandal, the director on the next film I want might say he doesn’t want to deal with that type of drama.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s how it is. You don’t know.” He gestured between the two of them. “This little life we’ve been living? This is a fantasy, Maddie. This isn’t how it is all the time. It’s not this easy. If I want to keep this career, the choices I have to make are hard and they’re painful.”
“Why do you have to choose your career every time? There has to be room for compromise without throwing away your career goals.”
“Not in this business. You have to fight every day. Even when you’re on the top.”
He was breaking up. Or he might as well have been. Every word that fell out of his mouth said he could never believe in them. That he didn’t choose her. She wiped at her damp face with her palm. “So you’re telling me that every day you choose your career? Everyday you’d choose that over me?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Because as Maddie curled up against the door and stared out the window she noticed the landscape for the first time in several minutes. The mountainside they’d been following had ended, opening to an enormous field that was empty except for a van, three men, and a huge hot air balloon with a rainbow chevron pattern.