Green Eyes (6 page)

I watch, fascinated, as his hands reach for my face slowly and surely. Then those rough hands are caressing against my cheek, cradling my face so gently that I’m surprised the big Aussie has it in him. Those perfectly symmetrical lips descend towards mine and suddenly my mouth is dry and my palms are sweaty. Suddenly I have never wanted anything more in my life than for his mouth to touch mine.

Our lips finally touch and while no fireworks go off in the background, something shifts inside of me. I’m no longer angry and confused by my actions. You see, he was trying to bury what he feels around me, just like I was doing. I didn’t realize I was doing it until right now, but I was. It’s why we haven’t spent time together outside of the set, because, let’s be honest, there’s not much to do around here. We are filming out in the middle of nowhere, so it’s not like we can really go anywhere. It’s also why I know hardly anything about him. I didn’t want to know because I didn’t want to like him.

Based on what I do know about him, it would end in disaster. He’s best friends with my father’s son, and he just got out of a six year-long relationship. Not to mention all the fucking baggage I have following around behind me.

His lips push against mine and then pull away slightly. His thumb smoothes over my skin oh so slowly, goose bumps following in their wake. Then he’s moving in again, those lips so gentle against mine. My hands have slipped up his chest and I’m clutching at his tux jacket because he just isn’t close enough. I hear a chuckle in there somewhere but we are going to pretend that it was my imagination.

“That’s good guys! You can stop kissing now,” Victor yells somewhere in the background.

Ryan’s lips leave mine, his hands slowly leaving my face. I take a step back, my hands slowly leaving his jacket going over his hard chest. My eyes slowly move away from his to look out at a sea of extras, all of whom are looking at us like we are crazy. Word seems to spread fast around here, so everyone pretty much knows that the two of us don’t get along, and here we are kissing like two love struck teenagers.

I’m fairly embarrassed.

Ryan takes my hand and kisses the back of it before lifting them above our heads. The crowd cheers and I find a genuine smile stretch my face. We just fooled the shit out of these people and we weren’t even pretending.

At least, I wasn’t pretending.

For the rest of the day we film while we act out activities that you do at a wedding. We danced, we took wedding photos, and we shoved cake in each other’s faces. All the while something so different was there now, between us. I know where he is at all times. I can feel him, especially when his eyes look at me. It’s intense and it scares the living shit out of me.

I was in love with Aaron. I would have moved the entire world for that man. In the end, of course, he didn’t want me, or I would be with him. The thing about it is, I never had this kind of connection with him as I do Ryan. I knew Aaron better, not as much as I would have liked to know, but I knew enough to fall in love with him.

This was a slow burn that took its sweet time in showing itself. At the beginning I wasn’t even attracted to him, considering his rugged appearance, but that’s where it sparked. Something inside of him, it sings to something inside of me. And now I feel like I’ve lost my mind. Here’s hoping I have because that makes more sense to me.

After all the filming and fanfare, I sneak away from everyone to my trailer. I find my pack of smokes hidden deep under my shoes in my suitcase. I do unpack my suitcases, but not my shoes. There is really nowhere else to keep them. I rush out the door and stand in front of my trailer, my hand shaking slightly as I light my cigarette.

Yes, I’m a smoker. And you didn’t know until now because I don’t advertise it. I don’t want some young girl seeing me smoke a cigarette and think it’s cool. I try not to be photographed with one in my hand. I also try not to do it around Talia.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” comes a deep Australian accent somewhere behind me.

I want to growl at him for sneaking up behind me and for catching me at a weak moment. The only reason I’m smoking this right now is because of him. “I do every so often. Mostly when I’m fed up with my life.”

“Hmm,” he murmurs, moving around behind me. “Your brother smokes.”

The words, spoken so casually, have me choking on the smoke in my lungs. I did not expect him to bring up my father’s other children. I thought it was unspoken between us, but still between us, not to talk about them.

I don’t bother to answer him. I don’t want to hear anything about them. I don’t care at all. It’s probably Jason though. He was always stealing my thunder, the jackass.

“You’re going to ignore me, then?” he asks as I hear his feet move against the ground.

I don’t answer that one either.

“So fuckin stubborn. Just like your brother. The two of you seem to have a lot in common.” His words bring out annoyance. I can’t believe that Jason told him.

So I turn around and look at him, dead in the eye even though it costs me. I kind of feel like a bit of my soul is taken every time our eyes meet. “I can’t believe he told you,” I say out loud.

He nods. “He tells me everything. We’ve been through a lot together.”

I scowl at him before turning back around. “I guess it’s not really that big of a deal. We are two sides to a whole. It’s not really just my secret.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I had to pull it out of him. I couldn’t get past how much the two of you look alike.” I hear something click. I grind my teeth because I refuse to turn around and see what he’s doing.

“I shared a womb with him, a birthday, and my face. I guess it could have been a whole lot worse.” I puff out some smoke wishing I could just run in these dumb heels. I just want to be far away right now.

I feel a tug at the bottom of my dress, which finally has me turning around to see him on one knee cutting a piece of my dress off. He stands back up and puts the piece in his tux pocket. “At least it’s a beautiful face, Green Eyes.”

“I would say we were more handsome than beautiful,” I mutter, throwing my cigarette on the ground to stomp it out with my shoes. I bend over to pick it up and throw it in the little trashcan I have outside my trailer.

Ryan chuckles, backing away from me slowly. “You are a beaut and you know you are. Jason doesn’t need a bigger head though.” He pats his tux pocket saying, “Ta” before leaving and heading right for his trailer, which is across the way.

It takes me all of five seconds to realize he got me to talk about Jason, something I haven’t done in almost a decade. At least, not to someone I barely know.

He also got me to admit Jason and I are twins.

Chapter Six

Ryan

I wake up from a restless sleep only to find my best friend standing at the end of my bed eating a bowl of my cereal. I rub my eyes to make sure I’m really seeing the six foot two blonde cereal killer. I can’t get the image of Alexis in that dress out of my head. She looked so beautiful I almost fucking cried, like it was my wedding day or something. I couldn’t stop myself from stealing a little piece of that dress for my next project.

“Did you even knock?” I ask after I finally clear my head enough to think straight.

Then he shrugs. I fucking hate it when he shrugs.

I groan and flop back down onto my bed. A big yawn takes over my face and I think about going back to sleep but I know I won’t be able to with asshole over there eating my food. The crunch is driving me crazy.

“Could you eat any quieter?”

“Yeah, I just choose not to,” the moron says still standing at the end of my bed.

“Why are you standing there? You’re creeping me the fuck out,” I say, never even lifting my head to look at him. Just in case he shrugs again. I find myself in a bad mood so at this point I might punch him in the face. Now my hands kind of itch to.

“You’re the one still in bed while you have company.” It’s all kinds of wrong but he makes sense. You did notice he didn’t ask to be my company. He just showed up unannounced. Just like I knew he would.

“I kissed your twin yesterday,” I tell him out of the blue for the biggest shock value.

Cereal flies out of his mouth at my words. I know because most of it lands on my face. “Jesus, dude. You can’t just tell me shit like that while I’m eating.”

“That was the point, jackass,” I say while getting my ass out of bed and heading for the little tiny baby room where I’m supposed to shower. That’s the only thing I hate about my job. For a month or two I have to live in a crappy little trailer with a bathroom I barely fit into. My elbows knock against all three walls and the door no matter how I turn.

When I come out refreshed and smelling better, I find Jason with my bedding in a pile by the door. I look over to my little bedroom that only fits the stupid bed and find he’s found my extra linens and remade the bed. Such a good friend. “You didn’t have to do all that.”

“Yeah, I did. I wouldn’t want to sleep in a bed you spit all over. I might be disgusting but I always have a clean bed.” Then he winks from his position by the front door, his phone in hand. “So what are we doing today?”

“You’re not even going to ask me?” I push the towel I’m holding through my hair again, collecting the extra moisture.

“Dude. Just…yeah, I’m not even going to go there. I knew you’d have to kiss her, I just didn’t think you were going to talk about it. Lex is the one girl you can kiss and I will never ask for any details.” He frowns, getting that far off look in his eyes like he does every time Alexis is brought up.

“That’s all I wanted to know,” I say, slapping him hard on the back as I open the door and step outside.

Jason follows me out as I head for the food truck parked on the other side of the lot. Thankfully, I don’t have any scenes today. They seem to be finishing up all the scenes with Jessy and her family. The only scenes we have left to film are the ones involving Jessy and Wren alone.

About halfway to the food truck something makes me turn around. Jason is about ten feet behind me staring at something, wide-eyed. I retrace my steps to see what has him so shell-shocked. I find myself with the same exact facial expression.

Across the way, there is a little girl playing on a purple swing set. She’d probably come up to my hip she’s so young and I don’t see anyone around her. For some dumbass reason this makes my heart race. Then it hits me.

All that blonde hair and lips the exact some shape as her mother’s. I can’t make out her eyes but I bet they’re green. The same green as the trees in Litchfield Park. My mum took me there on holiday once. I remember being shocked about how green everything was. I had the exact same experience upon meeting Alexis for the first time. Her eyes were the first thing I saw and I had trouble taking in the rest of her, as distracted as I was with her eyes.

Since then I’ve come to notice all the other wonderful things about her. Like the fact she has the most perfect lips ever created. The top one being smaller, like, way smaller, than the bottom one. It just leaves the bottom lip open to biting and sucking. Something I find I want to do a lot of to her mouth. Let’s not forget her breasts, because I clearly want to bite, lick and suck on those. They’d probably fit into my hands perfectly.

Her bum isn’t too far behind.

The girl spots us looking at her and I’m starting to feel like a creeper but, for some reason, Jason and I can’t look away. She looks at me first with nothing of note happening, but then she looks at Jason and her entire face lights up. I swear I can hear angels singing somewhere.

She jumps off the swing she’s been going back and forth on to run directly at us. A man appears out of the shadows calling out, “Talia!”

Jason repeats her name with something in his voice I can’t decipher. The little Talia doesn’t listen to the man and keeps her steady pace to Jason. Once she makes it to him she launches herself at him, wrapping her little tiny arms around his big neck. “Marley, I swear to God, I didn’t know,” Jason says to the other man.

I take in Marley’s big arms and barrel chest and decide that I’m not fighting for Jason in this one. I really don’t need a black eye while filming, besides, the man doesn’t look angry. He looks confused most of all.

“You look just like my momma but you’re a boy,” little Talia says, her voice like little bells ringing.

Jason reaches up tentatively and smoothes some of her hair behind her ear. “Your middle name wouldn’t happen to be Constantine would it?” He shifts her around until he has his arms supporting her bum so she doesn’t just hang off of him.

“How did you know? I think you might be my momma.” Then she knocks on his forehead. “Momma, are you in there?”

This has me laughing so hard I snort. That brings her attention to me. “Are you the pretty man?”

That has me raising both my eyebrows. I like where this is going. “Uh…I have no idea, baby girl.”

“I hope not. My momma said he’s a butthead. I can’t play with buttheads,” little Talia tells me. I like that Alexis has been talking about me, whether it be good or bad. She was still talking about me to her little girl, or around her little girl.

“Talia, we have to head back to your momma’s trailer now,” Marley says, his voice deep, yet soothing.

She reaches up and tugs on a strand of Jason’s hair. “But Momma’s here, we don’t have to go to her trailer.”

Marley hides a smile behind his hand. “That’s not your momma, Talia. I can promise you that.”

She squints her entire face at Marley and I don’t know if she looks more like a pissed off monkey or like she ate something sour. “But he looks just like her. Momma is just pretending to be a boy. You know, because it’s her job.” Then she moves her eyes to me. “It’s her job, you know. She pretends to be other people and they pay her a lot of money.”

“That sounds like an amazing job. Wish I had one of those,” I tell her, putting my arms behind my back so I can cross my fingers. I make it a habit when talking to kids. Cross your fingers, that way when you lie they can’t get mad.

She smiles at me. “You really should. Then you can take my momma out for dinner. She needs a pretty man or, at least, that’s what my Uncle Dylan says.”

This has Marley bursting with laughter. He even doubles over and coughs a bit. I’m kind of worried about him. Then his cell phone starts ringing. He gets a serious look on his face as he answers it. “You might want to head towards the swing set. Beware, you’re not going to be happy, but I’m trying to keep the situation calm for Tally.”

“Momma, you should take me out for ice cream. I’m hungry,” little Talia says with her arms still wrapped around Jason, her cheek pressed against his.

I hear heels clinking against the asphalt and turn to find Alexis running towards us at full speed. She’s so much shorter than the rest of the actors they make her wear heels constantly. I like it because you can hear her coming from a mile away.

“Talia, baby, what are you doing?” Alexis asks, her hand over her heart, her eyes as wide as saucers. I want to wrap my arms around her and shield her from the pain I can see seeping into her eyes.

Talia whips her head up, her eyes betraying the shock she feels. Then she looks back and forth between Jason and Alexis. “Momma! Okay, everyone, I’m confused.”

That leaves us all silent because it’s not Marley, Jason nor my place to say anything. This one is all on Alexis. She looks like she’d rather throw up than admit that Jason is her brother. Her twin brother.

I always thought twins were super close, that they could communicate without words and that they always knew where the other one was. I can believe the second one right now though. Jason and Alexis are plainly having a conversation the rest of us can’t hear.

Anguish colors her face pale and Jason looks like he’s seen a fucking ghost. But he finally seems to snap out of his stupor. He bends down and sets Talia on her feet. He cups her cheek and looks right into her eyes. “My name is Jason. Once, a long time ago, your momma and I were very good friends. She had a dog named Constantine and I had a dog named Talia. They were twins you see, the dogs. There was this old man who owned the mother and he loved that dog with all his heart. She only had the two puppies and the old man gifted your momma and me with them. Your momma’s dog got really sick before you were born and died. I still have my dog though, and if your momma says it’s okay, you can meet her. How does that sound?”

Tears stream down Alexis’s face. She doesn’t do anything to stop them. Talia lets go of Jason and runs right at her mother. Alexis places her hand on her head and gives a watery smile. “You can meet his dog. If I remember correctly she’s the most beautiful dog in the world.”

Talia is a fifteen-year-old Australian Shepard that Jason has had since he was twelve. She’s getting old but she’s still just as playful as the day I met her five years ago.

Jason still jokes about how both his best friends turned out to be Australian. Now he has a complex and refuses to fall in love with a woman unless she’s Australian. I just hit him on the back of his dumb head.

“Cool!” little Talia says, jumping up and down. She runs back over to Jason and tugs on his hand. “Momma says I can have a dog when I’m older and I can take care of it. I still love dogs though!” And then, as if she had an afterthought, she looks back at her mom. “Why does Jason look like you? He had me fooled, I thought he was you!” She giggles, swinging Jason’s hand back and forth.

“Uh” is all Alexis can seem to get out. I don’t think she thought this situation would happen. It probably wouldn’t have if Jason hadn’t shown up. I hadn’t realized the kid was even here. I wonder how long she’s been keeping her hidden around here.

“Well, you see, your momma and I came from the same mom and dad but a long time ago your momma and I had a big huge fight. We haven’t spent much time together since then. That’s okay though, she can be a cranky pants while we hang out,” Jason explains while pulling Talia along beside him.

Talia looks behind her at Alexis. “You have a brother? That’s awesome!” She looks up at Jason while pulling on his hand. “I want a little brother or sister. I’m sorry Momma is mad at you. I don’t like it when she’s mad at me either.”

I start to follow them but Alexis seems stuck, not moving an inch to come with us. I walk towards her and then place my hand on the small of her back. I push her along with us. “Sometimes life has a funny way of showing us what we’re missing. It smacks us right in the face whether we are ready or not. Just go with it or you’ll piss off the cosmos, Green Eyes.”

Marley moves in behind us as we walk a little distance behind Jason and Talia. At some point Alexis reaches up and grabs my arm, holding on for dear life like she’s on a roller coaster or something. In her head, maybe she is. If I had a brother I’d ignored for the past decade, I’d probably feel like I was on a roller coaster too if he just showed up one day and found a friend in my daughter.

“This is the most bizarre movie-making experience I’ve had in my life and it’s not even over yet,” she tells me, her nails digging into my skin.

“At least you’re touching me today. That’s something I didn’t realize I needed to hope for.” I slide my hand back and forth across her back. “I have to admit it’s very nice. I could have sworn you hated me. Seeing as every person on this movie set has told me.”

Her nails loosen from my skin but she doesn’t move her hand. “I don’t hate you. Mostly, I hate that you were tossing down my ideas and being a complete jackass.”

“Ah,” I say, realizing she doesn’t understand why I was acting that way. “Well, after the first day, I got pretty tired of watching that old man touch your ass. So I started asking to be moved around so that you’d be moved away from him. Then that seemed to tick you off and you’d come up with the bright idea to move back beside him. Honestly, it was driving me crazy.”

I look down at her and see her eyes locked on my face. I swear, every time our eyes meet a little bit of my soul disappears and reappears inside those soul-deep green eyes. It’s almost as if she puts me under a spell. I’ll find myself reaching out to touch her when I really don’t have to. The contrast between the textures of our skin is amazing. I’ve never felt anything like it.