Hidden Gem Short Story Collection (9781301405985) (19 page)

“
Alright.” Lucas balled a
napkin up and tossed it effortlessly into a nearby trashcan. He
smiled. “You’ve been quiet for long enough. Tell me about your
life. What have
you
been doing? Other than being a Hollywood starlet.”

Madison shrugged. “Just auditioning.”

“
How are you liking Los
Angeles?”

“
I love it,” she smiled.
“I know everyone says this, but the weather is enough to make you
stay.”

Lucas grinned. “And you’ve always looked
like a California girl.”

To her surprise, Madison felt her cheeks
flush. “Yeah,” she said in response, annoyed with her strange
inability to make good conversation. It was unlike her. Luckily,
Lucas helped her out.

“
You made a pretty
convincing Southern belle in
Carbine
too, though,” he said,
making her smile. “It was weird. I hardly felt like I was watching
you.”

“
That’s because you were
watching Dakota,” Madison said quietly, with a crooked little
smile.

Lucas’s hazel eyes gleamed as he nodded.
“True. You deserve some sort of award for that role.”

Madison blinked, her smile quickly falling.
“No,” she pursed her lips. “It was just Tyler with the nominations
and another one for best original screenplay. We didn’t win
anything though, but we were happy to get any nominations at
all.”

“
Well I thought you were
great,” Lucas said. He shot her a quick, genuine smile. “It was
actually the first movie I saw when I got back to the states.
Elisa’s still got a big crush on Tyler Chase.”

“
Yeah, Tyler,” Madison
laughed nervously, shaking her head. The topic of Gemma had yet to
come up, but she knew they were coming closer. Her heart actually
pounded with annoyed anticipation of it. The brief silence only
confirmed her suspicion.

“
Was it weird?” Lucas
finally asked.

“
What?” Madison asked,
knowing well where he was heading.

“
I’m assuming you saw
Gemma on set.”

Madison peered up from her fingers at Lucas.
She’d been hoping to catch some sort of glimmer in his eye upon
saying Gemma’s name, some sort of aching look that she could match
to Tyler’s expressions when he’d spoken of Gemma. But there was
none. All Madison saw was the same genuine interest Lucas had had
in every question he’d asked her thus far. She wasn’t sure how to
interpret that, but then again, she wasn’t sure why she was trying
to interpret anything. Clearing her throat, Madison straightened
her posture.

“
I did see
her.”

Lucas nodded. “And you two are cool
now?”

Madison stared at him.
“
Cool?
” she
scoffed despite her best efforts to keep her emotions under wraps.
“Ask her fans and that smear campaign they launched against me.”
Her jaw tightening, Madison watched as Lucas eyed her, studying her
piqued expression and daring to continue despite it. She could
hardly believe him.

“
Yeah, Elisa mentioned
that but I figured the tabloids were just – ”

“
You know what,” Madison
interrupted him, dropping her fork suddenly and holding up her
hands. “It
was
weird. Seeing Gemma was weird
.
And
this
is weird. That we’re talking
about it and pretending like it
wasn’t
weird.”

Lucas raised his eyebrows, simply sitting
back and observing Madison’s sudden reaction. He knew this side of
her – her often-explosive temperament. She had never felt
embarrassed to let it all out in front of him, to let his calm and
easy demeanor counter her. They had always been comfortable
together like that – at least until now, apparently, because upon
hearing the snappy words leave her mouth, Madison felt her face
flush. Sitting before the new Lucas made her anger feel suddenly
more like a child’s tantrum. She stared at the table for a moment,
dumbfounded.

“
Madison.”

Eyes fluttering, Madison looked down to see
Lucas’s hands taking hers by the wrists. They were as warm as she
had remembered but his skin felt just a little more calloused. He
rested her open palms on the table.

“
It’s been a really long
time,” Lucas said. “Since everything. So much has gone on since
high school that there are days when it feels like none of that
drama ever happened at all. I haven’t really seen anyone from
Beauford since coming back. My family’s all out in Phoenix and I
don’t know a lot of people in the city. When I saw you before, I
was so excited to see a familiar face that I… I don’t know. I guess
I just forgot about all the bad that happened between us. I was
just
happy
to see
you, Madison.”

Blinking, Madison sat stunned, seeing the
sincerity in his eyes. She nodded her head just once before she
felt her face crumple and her cheeks grow hot. She looked down at
her hands, which pressed hard against the tabletop around her
untouched entrée.

“
I’m sorry,” she cried,
softly. “I’m really sorry. I’m so embarrassed.” She took out her
wallet and pulled out enough cash to cover both their meals.
Tossing the bills onto the table, Madison rushed to her feet,
taking long and rapid strides out the door.

It was dark now and the air was crisper and
cooler than it was when she had first gotten out of the station.
She could still smell the spices in her hair and she could still
feel that long, pregnant pause between her words and his. Madison
couldn’t believe herself, couldn’t understand how quickly she was
unraveling. New York was too close to home, too close to those
moments that had spawned the days of questioning herself. If only
she still had that unwavering confidence that she once had at
seventeen. Perhaps that was the difference between getting
everything versus getting nothing. Four years may have passed but
just being back there, sitting with Lucas of all people, she felt
like she hadn’t progressed, hadn’t gone very far at all.

“
Madison!” She turned,
seeing Lucas jogging up behind her. Madison waited for him,
deciding it was too juvenile and dramatic a move to keep running.
She sighed, resigning to be the absolute mess that she could feel
herself becoming. Lucas reached forward, giving her shoulder a
squeeze.

“
I just want to say,”
Madison sighed, “that I was actually happy to see you too.” She
nodded, cementing the thought. “But you couldn’t have caught me at
a worst time.” She exhaled, shaking her head at herself. “I’m going
through a weird… transitional period, or whatever. I’m dealing with
these thoughts and things I’ve never had to deal with before.
Basically, I don’t know how to handle it all.” Madison pressed her
lips together, throwing her hands in the air. “I’m
pathetic.”

Lucas gave a simple shrug. “Let’s talk.”

“
There’s a lot to talk
about,” she laughed, bitterly. “Got the time?”

He stood unfazed by her sarcasm. “I do. So,
let’s talk.”

“
Here?” Madison surveyed
her surroundings incredulously. “In the middle of the
sidewalk?”

“
Well,” Lucas gave
somewhat of a smirk. He took the crumpled up cash that Madison had
left on the dinner table and put it back in her hand. “I already
paid the bill and we looked like we were running from their food,
so it might be kind of awkward to go back in there.”

“
I’d invite you over, but
I don’t want to explain to my roommates… I’ve already been ignoring
their calls.”

“
So yeah, let’s start
here,” Lucas said. “In the middle of the sidewalk. I don’t really
see paparazzi in this part of Brooklyn, so you’re safe until we
start seeing the flashes.”

“
Yeah, I’m not too worried
about that,” Madison snorted.

“
Talk to me.”

“
I don’t know where to
start.”

“
Start anywhere. The first
thing that comes to mind.”

“
The first thing that
comes to mind?” Madison repeated with a bitter laugh, feeling her
feet begin to walk away from Lucas. “The first thing that comes to
mind would be that last thing that separated us. Can you handle
that?” she asked skeptically. Lucas followed, casual as he slid his
hands into his pockets.

“
It’s been water under the
bridge. I’m fine to talk about it.”

“
Stop saying that!”
Madison spun around and pushed a hand against Lucas’s chest,
surprised by her own fury. But she continued despite it, feeling
her emotions bubbling up beyond her control. “Every time you say
that it’s something you don’t think about anymore, something that
you barely remember, you’re discounting just how much that incident
mattered to
me
.”

“
Why
does it
still
matter to you?” Lucas demanded, his hard expression one that
Madison wasn’t used to seeing on his face. “Why, when you have a
life that most people would kill for, does some stupid little
incident that should mean nothing in the grand scheme of things
mean so much to you?”

“
You
know
why. It’s not like it was some
clean cut-off. Gemma Hunter wasn’t just Gemma Hunter, she was some
international superstar that I would have to hear about, that I
would have to
hear from
again and again. It didn’t end in high school, it
didn’t end four years ago. Every time I saw her face again, whether
it was on some blog or some magazine or TV or
at my freaking audition,
I thought
about how she snuck around behind my back and went after you and
made
me
look like
the evil one.”

“
Nothing ever happened
between us.”

“
Bullshit!” Madison
yelled. Through the glass windows of a nearby café, a few faces
looked up. Lucas was unfazed.

“
Nothing ever happened
between us while you and I were still together.”

“
Hard to believe
considering you started dating her the moment I left for school,”
Madison muttered bitterly, staring at her nails solely to avoid
Lucas’s eyes. Her heart pounded when she felt him wrap his hand
over hers, placing it back at her side so she was forced to look at
him. Begrudgingly, she did.

“
I admit that I had
feelings for her,” he started. “Towards the end of our
relationship. I didn’t know what they were yet so I didn’t handle
them the right way. I’m sorry for that. But we never
did
anything. We never
crossed the line. And she was with Damian.”

“
You knew she was Queen
Bee,” Madison said accusingly. “You kissed her at her
party.”

“
I did know,” Lucas
nodded. “But I didn’t know the whole time.”

“
Yeah, and you don’t think
it’s weird that she told you and kept it a secret from everyone
else? You don’t think that she was trying to get close to you
despite the fact that she
knew
you and I were together?”

“
I found out my own.
Thanks to the fact that we were neighbors and that Elisa was a
diehard fan of Queen Bee. It wasn’t that hard to figure it out once
I began to suspect it. She never
told
me.”

“
She was seeing Tyler
while you two were still together. How about that?”

“
I don’t know what
happened there.”

“
And it doesn’t bother
you?”

“
We were teenagers. Every
year that passed between nineteen and where I am now feels like a
decade. I hardly recognize who I was then and I’m sure that Gemma
would say the same. Nothing that happened then bothers me anymore
because it’s not my life now. I left it all and I left it in peace.
Why are
you
having such a hard time separating yourself from all that?
What details, what aspects of it all haven’t you already worked out
that it’s still bothering you today?”

Madison stared at him, stunned. Her initial
instinct was to slap him, for coming back into her life without
warning and thinking he had any right to lecture her, to be so
condescending. But instead, she crossed her arms, digging her
fingernails into her skin as she took in his words and looked for
her own, hoping to answer his questions.

“
I don’t like my life
right now,” Madison replied. “Okay? I hate it.” Her own honesty
shocked her. She bit her lip, furrowing her brows as she felt her
words hang in the air. Lucas watched her as she stood there,
feeling more vulnerable than ever.

“
Tell me why.” He
continued to look at her as she stood there in silence, still taken
aback by the words that had slipped from her mouth.

“
I was supposed to
be
something.”

“
And you are,” Lucas
laughed. “You’re many things. Mostly good things.”

Madison smirked, actually appreciating
Lucas’s breeziness about everything. She’d always hated and loved
it and now, she loved it. It was what she needed to bring herself
down from her erratic thoughts.

“
I was in a movie that was
a sensation. I was
good
. I knew this myself but all the reviews and the critics,
they confirmed that for me. I
know
I was good and I’m still good. I know that right
now, I should be on a set somewhere with bigger names than Tyler
Chase and Liam Brody, doing all that again. But I’m
not.”