Mistletoe & Hollywood (7 page)

“Oh, man. You shouldn’t try an English accent.” Jack laughed. He walked up to me and wrapped me up in his arms. “I love you so much.”

I loved him back. So much. And the depth of my feelings stole the smile off my face. “I love you too, Jack.”

Those words seemed inadequate.

“Say it again,” he said in a low voice.

I took a deep breath. “I love you.”

As I stared up into his eyes, I wondered if Jack thought love was enough.

WE WERE COLD
and quiet by the time we had trudged all the way back to The Grange. Charlotte was in the kitchen with an older lady with white hair, wedged in at the table holding a mug of tea with both hands. The older lady’s round face creased into a huge smile as we walked in, and she pushed her chair back to stand up.

“There you are.” Charlotte beamed just as Jack made a sound of surprise and hurried forward to practically lift the older lady out of the chair.

“Mrs. Eversea, I can’t believe it’s you. You never age a bit. What’s your secret?” Jack gushed.

She gave him a squeeze. “Oh tosh! You charmer, you.” But she laughed delightedly.

I was so happy when Jack told me he’d gotten reacquainted with Mrs. Eversea the last time he was in England.

Jack grinned. “Saw Nigel, he’s looking well.”

“So I heard. You’re a sweetheart for giving him the work.” She set him at arm’s length, inspecting him head to foot.

“Of course,” he assured her. “Though, I think he helps me out more than the other way around.”

Mrs. Eversea clucked and looked past Jack to catch my eye. I suddenly realized I was more nervous about meeting this lady who’d saved Jack’s life once upon a time than I was his mother. “So,” she said seriously and looked between Jack and me as he stepped to the side, putting a hand on my elbow about to introduce me. “This is the girl you’re going to marry?”

There was an instant of silence and the loud clattering of a spoon Charlotte was holding.

My heart seemed to stop and give one long, loud, thud.

And then Jack let out a sound. A cross between a breath and a laugh. Strangled and torturous.

A sound that gouged meat hooks into my heart. Painful.

“Oh, one day,” said Charlotte, casually picking up the spoon. “They’re still young. Keri Ann still has college.”

Charlotte. I could kiss her. But had Jacked talked to her about it? Had she talked him out of it? Into it? If indeed that was what he was planning. Aaaah, God, my head was reeling, my heart thudding.

Jack still hadn’t said anything.

Jack, still hadn’t said anything.

Shit
, this was my queue.

Since Jack was still standing in the minefield afraid to move, I stepped forward. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Eversea. I’m Keri Ann Butler. Jack’s told me so much about you.”

“Ha! That accent! I could listen to you all day. Come here,” she said and pulled me into a hug that smelled of violets and laundry detergent. “You’re a brave girl putting up with his shenanigans.” She released me. “Don’t know how you do it. All those blasted photographers. Absolute vultures, the lot of them.” She huffed and backed up her larger frame into the kitchen chair. “Don’t you dare let him tie you down ’til you’re good and ready. Give the boy a chance to get his life a bit steadier too.”

Charlotte set two steaming mugs on the table. “Here’s some tea for you both, you look frozen to the bone.”

“Thanks,” Jack said and pulled out two chairs for us.

“Uh, do you mind if I take my tea upstairs? I need to call my brother and let him know I made it here safely.”

Jack aborted his movement to sit down. “I’ll come up and get you my phone.”

“That’s okay. You stay and catch up.” I kissed him on the cheek and gave everyone a cheerful smile. “I can manage.”

Jack nodded and sat. He added milk and two spoons of honey to my tea and handed it to me. “We had a ‘run in’ with a bull,” he said to Charlotte and Mrs. Eversea and launched into our story as I quietly went upstairs. I would have actually liked to stay and be a part of that, but the need to be alone for a moment to clear my head was too overwhelming.

That’s exactly what I was. Overwhelmed. I hadn’t realized how much until right in that moment in the kitchen. I’d felt the full weight of the love his family had for him and the nervousness I felt about being accepted by them. And of course, the unspoken issue of our future. Jack was done filming in Savannah. He’d stayed as long as possible but had been back in Los Angeles doing post-production and voiceover work for sound issues. Soon, he would be on a publicity tour for the movie, and he was already in the planning stages of another movie he was scheduled to be in, shooting down in Uruguay. I’d been putting all of this out of my head, just making it through to the end of the semester and looking forward to having Jack all to myself for three weeks over Christmas break.

But I didn’t have him to myself, not really. It wasn’t just being here with his mother and Jeff and Mrs. Eversea. It was all the other weirdness Jack seemed to carry around with him here.

I grabbed Jack’s phone off the dresser and sat on the end of the squeaky bed to dial my brother’s number.

IT WAS LATE,
and I lay awake in the large cold bed alone. Apparently, Jack had left in Charlotte’s car sometime during my phone conversation with Joey and still wasn’t home. I’d stayed up as late as possible with Charlotte and Jeff. Jeff was charming and gruff, a handsome man with silver hair and friendly blue eyes. We’d had dinner and played scrabble but time ticked on. I was worried sick, as we all were, especially as he didn’t have his phone. Charlotte asked me twice if Jack and I were okay. Which was acutely embarrassing, despite the fact I knew she only meant it in the way of a concerned mother whose son has run off and she wants to make it right.

Finally, Nigel called and told us that Jack had called him from Hastings. He’d had too much to drink and couldn’t drive Charlotte’s car home and had asked Nigel to go and get him. It was over an hour’s drive away.

Concern gave way to anger and simmered away inside me.

I heard the sound of a car on the gravel sometime after midnight. The dull thud of the front door. The murmuring voice of Jeff, clearly upset we’d had to get ourselves so worried. The trudge of a heavy booted foot up the creaking stairs and hallway to our bedroom. And past our bedroom toward the Blue Room. Was he fucking serious, right now?

I slapped back the covers and ran straight to the bathroom and through it to the door on the other side, wrenching it open. I stood, my chest heaving as Jack froze halfway in from the hall.

The Blue Room was smaller than ours by far and had a single bed coming out from one wall, and an armchair in the other. Jack dominated the space.

He squeezed his eyes shut at the sight of me and pressed the door closed behind him, sealing us in.

I could smell the whisky across the ten feet separating us.

“Not tonight, please,” he muttered, slurring. He was still in his jeans and shirt he’d worn earlier and a pair of heavy, undone lace up boots. “You’re mad. You have every right to be mad. I didn’t want to wake you and have you be… more mad.” He swayed, and I unfolded my arms on a sigh and stepped toward him.

“I’m fine.” He staggered back from me.

“Jack, just let me help you. Okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said again and stumbled toward the bed where he fell face down, his feet off the end.

I stood still a moment, the energy behind my anger completely gone. Then I went down on my knees to loosen his boots and pull them and his socks off. I took a moment to press a kiss to my fingertips and transfer it briefly on the small sea turtle that was inked into the skin of his foot. Jack stirred and turned his head, his eyes finding mine and watching me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice muffled. Then he closed his eyes.

Standing, I grabbed a blanket that was draped over the corner armchair and laid it over his body. His breathing was already deep and even. He’d need water.

I went back to our bedroom, pulled my shoes on, and headed downstairs in my flannel pajama pants and long sleeved Henley.

Charlotte and Jeff were at the kitchen table, talking in low voices. I stopped, uncomfortable. “Sorry, I was just going to get Jack some water.”

She smiled at me in welcome, and Jeff cleared his throat and got up. “I’m heading to bed. Early start again.” He leaned down and kissed Charlotte’s forehead. “I’ll be glad come the weekend, then a nice break for Christmas. Good night, Keri Ann,” he said as he went past me.

I walked to the table and sat down. “Does he always act like this when he’s here?” I asked. “Disappearing off and coming home drunk?”

Charlotte sighed. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Not really. Not since we’ve been together anyway.” I twisted my fingers. “He says he finds it hard to be here, in England. Maybe that’s what it is.”

“Maybe. I also think he’s feeling insecure.”

“About what?”

“You, I would imagine.”

“Me?” I asked, taken aback. “Why?”

“Honey, I’ve never seen Jack in love before. There was this girl in New York, when we lived there, a silly teenage crush. Not that there weren’t other girls, mind you. But it’s the only other time in his life I’ve seen him close.”

Sharp jealousy pricked at me.

Charlotte fiddled with the edge of a placemat still on the table. “But of course, he was young and she barely acknowledged his presence,” she was quick to add. “He’s never given his heart away easily. He’s always been closed up so tight; I wondered how on earth he’d survive in Hollywood. It still baffles me. But I’ve come to realize he literally has two personalities. One he’s created, and the one he is inside. I worry that his outside one has reinforced the feeling he doesn’t believe he has much to offer anyone beyond glitz and glamour.” She took a sip from her mug.

I sat still, hanging on her every word.

“I’m sure that’s one of the reasons you and he work so well together. That’s the one part you have zero interest in. But I’m wondering if perhaps that could also be part of the problem.”

My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Just that you’ve given him direction and meaning and become such a large part of his life I think it’s made that other part of him even emptier. Made him aware of what it would mean for him if you suddenly weren’t there for some reason. If he… lost you. I think it terrifies him.”

My heart squeezed. I thought of how I shut down conversations about our future all the times he brought them up. Not because I didn’t want a future with him, but because I felt if we fixed our future too tight, it was more likely to break. We needed wiggle room. Flexibility to grow and change together. I just wanted to take things a step at a time. Make sure I wasn’t losing myself and my dreams along the way. “I get scared when he brings up our future,” I admitted. “You said it yourself, I’m still young. I still haven’t figured out my dreams, beyond my art and finishing school. I’m scared I’ll wake up in a few years and be in this life he created for us and have had no hand in what it looks like. I want to make sure we are living and growing together, shaping our dreams together. And he needs to be in California for his career and…” I swallowed as I geared up to admit the truth out loud. “I hate it there, Charlotte. I hate who he is there. I can’t stand seeing him don that weird empty facade and pretend he likes half the people I know he hates. I don’t ever want to live there.” There, I’d said it. God, I was so selfish. I just wanted Jack to fit into
my
life and not fit into his. My eyes burned with the urge to make tears.

Charlotte squeezed my hand. “So you don’t really accept that part of his life?”

“I’m never going to relish getting spied on and misquoted. Let alone, get over the insecurity I feel every time I go out with people, wondering if I’m good enough for him. But I do accept that part of his life, or I wouldn’t be here with him. I haven’t done a very good job of proving that though, have I?”

“Maybe he does need to know you can exist in both of his worlds. And you know what? You
are
young, but your words tell me you are probably a lot wiser than your years. I feel sure you two will get it worked out.”