A Safe Space (Someone Else's Fairytale Book 4) (17 page)

“What happened?” Zach asks.

I tuck the picture in my purse, where it still sticks out too far for me to zip it shut.

“You okay?” Kyra’s eyes are wide with concern.

I shrug and turn to her. She’s much safer to talk to while I’m like this. Zach used to hold me when I cried, which isn’t appropriate anymore.

“What do you need?” she asks.

A friend
, I think, but I don’t know how to ask without sounding whiny. “I’m okay.”

“Does this involve Devon?” She puts her fork down and gets to her feet.

I glance at Zach then nod.

“What happened?” she presses.

“It all got really complicated.”

“You didn’t hook up with him, did you?”.

“No… That would’ve been less complicated.”

“Lizzie, come. Sit down,” she orders me. “Talk. You want me to throw Zach out?”

I shake my head.

“Should I know who Devon is?” he asks.

“He’s—” Kyra begins.

But I cut her off by pulling the picture out of my purse and laying it on the table. “That’s Devon. He’s the older brother of that girl I did the bone marrow donor drive for. He used to work at our gym and be all obnoxious to me and call me Veronica… Turns out, it was because he’s a fan who just didn’t know what to say. I almost saved his sister’s life, only I didn’t, because she was too sick, never got the transplant, and has been gone for years. I only just found out tonight.”

Kyra and Zach exchange a look.

“I failed,” I add.

“Right… I mean, no,” says Kyra. “No calling yourself a failure. But right, it’s complicated.”

Zach stares at the picture. “I remember that. You did that right after you and I became friends.”

“Okay, Lizzie and I are going to paint our toenails or watch chick flicks or do whatever she wants, and if she wants you gone, you leave,” Kyra dictates.

“I just want to get my mind off this,” I say.

“Would a chick flick help?”

“Sure. I guess.”

Kyra helps me pick one out on Netflix—I don’t really pay attention to the titles—and starts it up. By the opening credits, I’m lost in my memories.

The first day Devon was at the gym, he noticed me walk in. His head snapped around and he stared at me like a lot of my fans do when they spot me in public. It never occurred to me that
he
might be a fan. He was the wrong age and gender.

Instead, what I noticed about him was that gaze. It pierced me to the core with all the force of a laser shot from where he stood. The second thing I noticed was that he was gorgeous, and I assumed that’s why his stare gave me the chills that it did.

Ever since, I’ve had an inexplicable urge to see him as a nice guy, despite overwhelming evidence that he’s not. Now I get it, though. Deep down in my subconscious, I knew who he was.

My mind rewinds again, to the day I was walking through an airport terminal with my usual entourage and my personal assistant handed me her cell phone. “You’ll want to take this,” she said.

I put the phone to my ear and said, “Hello?”

“Um, hi. It’s Mackenzie’s brother.” His voice was so soft.

“Hey.” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Good news.”

“Yeah?”

“We have a donor.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “You do?”

“Yep. Just got the phone call from the bone marrow registry people.”

“So…she’s going to live? Your sister?”

“She’s got a chance, yeah.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “Wow, okay. Thank you for calling me.”

“Thank you for everything.”

“Let me know how it all goes, all right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Perhaps it’s my mind altering things, but now I hear a melancholy tone in his voice that I didn’t pick up on before. I was too blown away by the news that Mackenzie would live, thanks to me.

My memory shifts to our kiss. Now that I know our history, I hurt more than ever. That kiss was the one moment when things felt right between us. Stupid, stupid wishful thinking.

The next morning, when I arrive at the gym, Devon is there in the parking lot, leaning against his car.

I slow my steps and stare while fighting the urge to smile and run over to him. Maybe kisses are out of the question, but I’ll settle for getting the friendship back. Anything to keep him in my life.

“You still unhappy?” he asks.

“I…uh-”

“If you were to help me get my job back, how would you do it?”

“H
I,
” I
SAY
to the woman working the front desk. “I was wondering if I could hire Devon Schaller as a personal trainer?”

“He doesn’t work here anymore,” she says, without looking up.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, he quit.” She doesn’t sound too cut up about that.

“Well, do you know if he went to work at another gym?”

“I wouldn’t know that. But we’ve got other personal trainers.”

“No thanks. I just want to work with him. Do you know how I can reach him?”

She looks up at me. “No. I can’t give out that information.”

“Okay, well, thanks.”

“You do know that our personal trainers are not allowed to be involved with their clients? Romantically, that is.” she says.

“Um, yeah. That’s not why I want to work with him.”

“Just so you know.”

I nod and leave out the side door, which leads to the parking garage where Devon waits. “Call them now,” I say.

Midmorning, while I’m in my trailer, my cell phone rings.

“Hello?” I answer.

“Hey. It’s Devon.”

“Did you got your job back?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

He chuckles. “I expected this to go to your personal assistant.”

“Yeah, she just handles phone calls from fans and journalists and stuff.” I was finally able to start paying Cleo this week, which is one stress dealt with.

“Okay, so when I put your number in my phone, it showed that you called me yesterday.”

“Right. That’s how I figured out your last name. It’s in your voicemail.”

“Oh.”

I bite my lip.

“Okay,” he says. “Anyhow, you don’t have to hire me to work with you personally.”

“After the mean stuff you said about my warm-ups and form and all that, I guess I need your help.”

“I was being a jerk.”

“But were you lying?”

Silence. Then, “It doesn’t have to be me.”

“No, I hear you’re the best.”

“Personal question?”

“Yeah?”

He takes a deep breath. “Can you afford it? I mean, every morning—”

“Yes. I can. I get regular paychecks now.”

“Right, but every morning with a personal trainer—”

“Is not uncommon for someone in my line of work.”
And
, I think,
his fee isn’t exactly expensive in my universe.

“Sure.”

“I make five figures a week.”

“Oh.”

“Not to rub it in or—”

“No, don’t worry about that. Okay. Tomorrow at five?”

“A.M.?”

“Yeah.”

“Yep, I’ll see you then.”

“See you.”

We hang up.

I stare at myself in the mirror one last time. This is the first time I’ve worn lingerie—ever. I really have been a square all my life. When I read this script, I assumed they’d put me in something sheer and complicated, something I’d spend forty minutes wrestling with to put on, but no, this is just a short, silken nightshirt in a dusky-rose color that goes well with my complexion.

The scene I have doesn’t even require me to touch Kevin in any way. I’m just supposed to prance around in this in front of him while his character tries to edit Jess’s book, and when he asks me to put more clothes on, I just tell him that if he doesn’t like it, he needs to not come by anymore.

Kevin and I can bicker, no problem.

I put a robe on over it and head for the set.

When we arrive at the gym the next morning, Kyra sees that Devon is back and says, “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else?”

“You ready, Lizzie?” he says as if she’s invisible.

Kyra rounds on me.

I shrug. “He wanted his job back, and you said he was the best.”

“Excuse us,” she says, dragging me in the direction of the changing rooms. “When did this happen?” she demands once we’re out of earshot.

“Yesterday, when you were sleeping in.”

“Are you sure about this?”