Forever With Him Read online

  “I swear, we were together a couple times at most,” he’d told me again plaintively.

  “It only takes one time,” I said. I felt like a middle school sex ed teacher.

  “True. I’m always careful.”

  I believed him. He was a good guy. He didn’t do reckless things, and he wasn’t abusive to anyone’s feelings. I didn’t know his ex-girlfriend, but I already didn’t like her. I didn’t want to be suspicious and disdainful of another woman without knowing all the facts, but from what I knew so far, she sounded manipulative.

  At the same time, I wasn’t so evolved that I really wanted to hear all the details about their time together, something Chris felt the need to recount as he hashed out the scenario, going through the three—he’d decided there were only three—times they’d had sex. All three times, they’d used a condom, and all three times were in the month of March. That meant she was four months pregnant.

  A paternity test would quickly put her accusations to rest, one way or the other. “I guess there’s nothing to be done until that happens. A lot more digging will have taken place by the time we land. My lawyer will look at her social media posts to see if she has pictures with other men during the time she likely conceived. And they’ll subpoena a DNA sample for the paternity test. Then they’ll slam the tabloid with a cease-and-desist order, threatening suit for defamation without proof. Nothing will be printed without confirmation.” He grabbed my hand and brought it to his chest. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, but I haven’t really done anything except talk you down.”

  “That’s what I needed. You’re right. I can’t let it get to me. Again, if my assistant hadn’t called me all crazed, I probably wouldn’t have worried so much. I think I internalized her fear.”

  I decided I didn’t like his assistant. I knew I couldn’t go forward disliking all the women Chris interacted with, and that wasn’t my intention at all, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit protective of the man I’d given my heart to. I wanted our tentative beginning to unfold without drama. I wanted us to have a chance. I also knew none of it was up to me.

  He was a celebrity. His life was dramatic by default.

  The Air France jet landed gently on the runway in a feat that always seemed impressive for an impossibly heavy metal flying machine that defied my general understanding of physics. I’d barely felt the wheels touch down, and before long, the brakes slowed the giant bird to a quiet, uneventful roll toward the gate. It wasn’t until the plane slowed that I realized I’d been holding Chris’s hand in a death grip. I unclenched my sweaty fingers and unwrapped them from his.

  “You okay there?” He smiled at me in that way that went straight to my heart.

  “Just a reflex. I wasn’t scared, but your hand was there, so…”

  “Happy to have you use my hand for moral support.”

  “It was a reflex.”

  “It’s okay if you don’t love flying.”

  “I’m good with flying. Not so good with thinking about flying. Planes are metal and heavy and I don’t understand the aerodynamics that keep them afloat.”

  “You should learn about draft and lift. It would probably make you more comfortable when you fly.”

  I pulled his hand to my lips and kissed his knuckles. “Later, please teach me about draft and lift. For now, thank you for letting me crush your fingers.”

  Chris kissed my cheek like a parent reassuring a child that everything would be okay. I tilted my head and looked at the contour of his handsome face, outlined by the sun streaming through the airplane window, and the plush line of his lips, whose touch always left me wanting more. We were still taxiing, and I could see from the cloudless sky that LA had delivered another flawless summer day.

  I unwrapped the piece of chocolate I’d saved from the dinner service hours before and popped it into my mouth, savoring the last taste of French anything. At least I assumed it was French. For all I knew, Air France could source their chocolate from anywhere, and I would have been none the wiser.

  We agreed to set the paternity allegation aside until we knew more, so I did my best to let it go, and Chris did his best to make sure I was plenty distracted, mostly with his lips. I’d flown next to Chris for more than eleven hours, feeling blissed out and high on my overwhelming feelings for a guy who’d just made a huge life change and decided to move from New York to LA to be with me. I still couldn’t really believe he was thinking beyond the two weeks of vacation that I’d convinced myself were all we could ever have.

  While he’d napped intermittently, watched a couple movies, and read a couple scripts, I’d spent most of the flight lost in my thoughts, staring at him, taking in my surroundings in business class and marveling at a feeling I’d never experienced. My heart was so full it was in danger of spillage.

  Several times, Chris had looked at me, seeming a little curious that I wasn’t occupied, and asked something like, “You want to read something on my iPad? Watch a movie? Anything?”

  Each time, I’d shaken my head, zombie-like, needing to hole up with my thoughts and spend the flight just sitting there, taking it all in, and marveling at the impossibly gorgeous, too-good-to-be-real guy sitting next to me.

  But he was real. It had been a whirlwind couple of weeks with him, and I needed to process his sudden decision to move to LA. I still didn’t know what it really meant, and my mind had gone to all sorts of questionable places.

  Am I ready to have a guy move across the country for me? Do I know him well enough to think it could work? Can I handle media scrutiny? Will I need to?

  By the time we landed, I’d pulled myself together. I wasn’t one to shy away from challenging situations, and if dating a global celebrity was my only life hardship, I’d consider myself supremely lucky. Long before I met Chris, I’d learned an important thing about myself through my job and years of living on my own: I was comfortable in my own shoes, and I didn’t need approval from strangers for my own validation.

  That was, until we stepped off the plane.

  As we weaved our way through customs, I noticed how many people were acutely aware of Chris and, by association, aware of me. I looked down at my faded travel pants, which were really unflattering yoga pants I’d bought in the wrong size because they were on sale. As such, they were unfit for anything but sitting—heaven forbid getting fancy and bending anywhere. My hair was loose from its ponytail and made even more messy by Chris running his fingers through it while we made out on the plane… I knew I didn’t look like a celebrity’s girlfriend ought to look. Maybe I did want a tiny bit of validation.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Chris said, entwining his fingers with mine. Even after knowing me for only two weeks, he could see my comfort zone receding in the distance and kept a tight grasp on my hand.

  “How? How do you get used to people looking at you all the time?” My reaction wasn’t only about me. I found myself feeling protective of Chris. I wanted people to get out of his personal space and stop gawking. It felt unfair that he couldn’t do something as simple as pick up luggage at baggage claim without people snapping surreptitious selfies with him in the background.

  “Concentrate on what you’re doing and what’s in front of you, like a nearsighted person who isn’t wearing glasses.”

  “I am a little nearsighted,” I admitted.

  “Perfect. Focus on what’s in your immediate bubble… That would be me.” He pressed a kiss to my temple, completely at ease.

  “Looks like your bubble just expanded,” I said as moments later, he was agreeing to take a selfie with a female fan and her friend, who were grinning like they’d just gotten braces off their teeth after five years.

  “Would you mind?” one of them was asking me, handing me her phone.

  I backed up so I could get a better shot of the three of them, knowing to put the phone in portrait mode to get the most flattering shot. I didn’t fail to notice that when I was taking the picture, Chris was smiling at me, not lookin
g at the phone screen. I loved him for that.

  I handed the phone back, and Chris grabbed my bag from the carousel then tossed it onto a luggage cart. His bag came sailing along the belt right afterward, so in a couple minutes’ time, we’d left the fray and made it out to the sidewalk, where a town car was waiting.

  Just as a couple people began to notice Chris and point him out, we disappeared into the backseat while the driver loaded our bags into the trunk. Behind the darkened window glass, we were once again protected from the world outside. I knew it wasn’t realistic to stay there forever, but I loved the way we were together when it was just us.

  The idea of spending more days or weeks with Chris felt like the first layer of ice on a pond that could grow more solid as winter bore on. But until then, our fragility seemed beautiful and precarious, and it wasn’t something I was willing to risk just as my heart was starting to believe.

  “So in answer to your earlier question about how to get used to fans,” he said, putting an arm around me in the car, “I focus on what I’m doing and on the people I care about. I will always oblige and take a selfie if I can, but I try to stay intentionally oblivious to people who just want to stare. What good would it do me to tune in to that and feel like a zoo animal?”

  “That makes sense. But what about me? Do I need to up my game, so people won’t wonder why you’re dating an outlet mall shopper with bedhead?”

  He turned toward me, and I saw his expression shift from curiosity to sympathy. “You really don’t see yourself, do you?” His eyes roamed my face from top to bottom. “First of all, I’m digging your eleven-hours-on-a-plane look. And I’m not sorry I messed up your hair,” he said, raising an eyebrow at the memory. “But the idea that you could possibly reflect badly on me is an impossibility.”

  “I wasn’t fishing for compliments. You do have an image to uphold.” His words were lovely, but he needed to be realistic, or none of this was going to work.

  “Okay, sure. If I crash cars and get arrested and beat up photographers, I’ll catch hell for it. But who I date is no one’s business.”

  “I think you’re being naïve if you don’t think people care who you date.”

  “I don’t give a shit about those people. What I care about is you feeling comfortable when we’re together. That’s all that matters to me.”

  “I am comfortable when we’re together.”

  “Then to hell with everyone else. Seriously. I will work on this with you until you realize that when I’m with you, all I see is you. No one else matters.”

  The way his eyes slowly roamed over my face and down my body made me blush. I held tightly to decades-old insecurities about my curvy hips and bee-stung lips that only became fashionable years after I’d been roundly mocked for them in middle school.

  Then, as if he could read my thoughts, he wrapped his arm more tightly around me and bent to whisper into my ear. “My goal… is to get you to see yourself the way I see you. Because I can be objective. And what I see when I look at you is a beautiful, bright shining light with a gorgeous brain and a fuck-all sexy body.”

  He was gazing at me with a look of smitten surrender, and I made a decision: I would not ruin this by second-guessing his compliments and worrying constantly. Instead, I would hear him—really hear him—and believe him. Which was… wow.

  “I… don’t even know how to respond to that.” My heart knew, and it picked up its pace.

  “You say thank you… and you admit I’m brilliant.”

  I grinned at him. “Thank you. You’re brilliant.”

  He slid a hand along my thigh and bent to kiss me. It was a good kiss, hot and heartfelt with just the right amount of tongue to make me melt.

  And even though we’d spent about half the flight huddled into each other, kissing for so long that the flight attendants eventually stopped coming over to ask if we needed anything, I had no problem with the idea of his lips for another ten hours straight.

  Kissing him was always a good idea.

  The town car snaked through the airport traffic, which was deplorable regardless of the time of day. It felt strange to be back home after two weeks, which felt like two months. What I’d seen on the walls of museums and what I’d eaten in fabulous restaurants made coming back to the same old, same old feel like a letdown. Every street I’d walked had been new to me. The language had challenged me. The blue waters of the Cote d’Azur and the green Seine had mesmerized me. Looking out the window now at billboards, parking structures, and fast food restaurants depressed me. I felt like the city had stagnated while I’d had a worldly adventure. Everything was exactly the same as when I’d left two weeks before.

  Then I felt Chris’s arm around my shoulder. Well, not everything.

  I tried not to react to seeing Chris’s face on a city bus and two billboards between the airport and the freeway. Eh, whatever. Doesn’t everyone look up and see their boyfriend’s face on a fifty-by-twenty-foot billboard? Yeah, no. There was no way around it—it was weird.

  And… I was getting worked up again. It wasn’t just the staggering contrast between his fame and my beloved anonymity. We’d only known each other for two weeks. I was a sure and steady soul. I made logical decisions. Bringing Chris home with me was not logical.

  The feel of Chris’s fingers massaging my shoulder did a little to calm me down, but not nearly enough. Until he spoke, I hadn’t realized I was shaking.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” he said, but when I turned, I saw his look of concern. I wasn’t sure that even he, the eternal optimist, so comfortable with his fame that he generally ignored it, really believed we could transfer our vacation romance to the real world without the wheels falling off the cart.

  “This is crazy, right? I mean, what makes you think we can seamlessly meld our lives together. I mean—”

  Chris put up a hand to stop me. It turned out his look of concern was for me, because he was already anticipating my concerns. Then he closed the privacy screen that separated us from the driver. “What? What are you worried about?”

  “I’m worried that you’re not allowed to do this. To date me. It seems like you should be getting permission from the celebrity gods or your handlers or whoever’s gonna ding your career for moving here to be with me. It’s gonna cause stress, and people are going to talk, and you’re going to have to answer for your choices. And I’m not sure I’m worth all that. So I’m just sitting here, waiting for you to figure all that out.”

  I hadn’t even articulated it in my mind before that moment, but once I said the words, I knew I’d finally hit on the heart of the issue. I didn’t feel worthy of being the reason he was changing his life. I didn’t want to meet his gaze for fear that it would confirm I was right, but after a few moments of staring at the floor in silence, I had to look up.

  What I saw in Chris’s pale eyes was a combination of amusement and maybe a little bit of hurt. “Are you done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, great.” He turned to kneel in front of me, which was no challenge in the spacious backseat of the town car. “Phew. I was worried you were gonna wait until we got back from the airport to freak out on me. But now I see you don’t waste time with anything.”

  “Please take this seriously,” I said.

  Chris was great at lightening the mood, but I didn’t want light. I wanted to jump out of the car and run away before People wrote an unflattering story about my stretched-out fire-sale yoga pants.

  “Oh, I am,” he said, but the tone in his voice still told me he found my whole diatribe amusing. He picked up both of my hands and brought them to his lips, where he kissed each one before pulling me forward to rest my hands on his shoulders. “Listen. All that stuff you’re worried about… just… try not to, okay? Let me deal with my job and whatever the tabloids feel like writing. I told you, I don’t read them, anyway.”

  “Maybe you should. Then you could be a crazy person like me.” I tried to match his lighter tone, but my words felt heavy.r />
  “This is me.” He held my hands solidly against him. “The same guy you’ve spent the last two weeks with. Nothing is different between us except the location.”

  I wanted to believe him. I wanted to think we could continue falling for each other the way we had every day of our time together. I didn’t want that to end. I never wanted it to end.

  I looked out the window, where I could see the early-afternoon traffic already backing up on the freeway. In some ways, all the recognizable clutter of cellphone-repair shops, pizza takeout places, and cars was comforting. Always cars in LA. “It’s hard to believe you’re really here,” I said, wanting to fathom some scenario in which our disparate lives could mesh. Maybe I was even starting to believe it—a crack opened just enough to let some light in.

  “Believe it. I’m only here for you.”

  Yes, but he was Chris Conley, a global mega-film star with a gorgeous face and sculpted abs. I didn’t make sense in his private-jet, champagne world. I almost felt it was my duty to make him see the madness of his ways.

  “I know that, but—”

  “No. I don’t think you do,” he said. He looked into my eyes, hypnotizing me with his stare and his words. “Listen to me. I’m here because this is what I want. You didn’t force my hand or give me an ultimatum that I’m going to resent. I chased you down on the plane because I can’t stand the thought of being anywhere other than with you.” He shrugged like it was that simple.

  I nodded as his words sank in. If it was going to work, I had to believe him. I wanted to believe him. “I want to be with you too.”

  “So stop worrying.”

  “It’s in my DNA.”

  “Then worry about other things. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m crazy about you, and that’s all you need to know.”