Tangled Web (7 page)

But now I had stooped to a new low… even for me. I knew Sebastian was in town, and I think he had tried to call me. Two days ago I saw I had a missed call from the downtown Hyatt Regency, and since I don’t know anyone staying at a hotel, I was almost positive it was Sebastian. There hadn’t been a message, which made me even more miserable than I was before. On one hand he had tried to call, but on the other hand, he felt the need to call me from a hotel-room telephone rather than his cell phone. Obviously he didn’t want me to know who it was.

Walking along the cobblestone street, I spotted cameras and cameramen poised on top of something that looked like a ladder. Sebastian had said he was shooting a movie here in Savannah, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist, or in my case a computer nerd, to find out the name of the movie and get a location map for where they would be filming. So here I was, sneaking around like the paparazzi. Approaching slowly I saw a film crew standing around a long folding table and chatting. Over to my left, I saw a crowd of locals standing around watching the action. I couldn’t risk Sebastian seeing me, so I walked over behind the group and tried to squeeze my not-so-skinny ass behind a tree.

I didn’t have to wait very long before I saw Sebastian standing in the doorway of a trailer near the set. He was dressed in a period costume, which was appropriate since the title of his movie was
The Colony
. My heart skipped a beat as he stepped out into the bright Georgia sunshine He was breathtakingly beautiful, and I was overwhelmed with feelings of loss. He was fiddling with his massive billowing sleeve as a lady rushed over to him. I moved a little from the tree so that I could watch as the lady covered his face with more makeup. After she walked away, someone yelled his name, and he glanced over at the group in front of me. He seemed to hesitate, and for a second I thought he saw me. I quickly jumped back behind the tree and turned to face the other way.
Please don’t see me… please don’t see me
, I thought as I slightly freaked out. I listened as a few girls called out his name, and I closed my eyes and held my breath as I heard him speaking to them.

Damn, I miss him
, I thought as my heart threatened to explode.
I have to get out of here. This was a mistake.
I stood behind that tree for what seemed like an eternity before I heard someone from across the road call out his name. I gave it a few minutes, and then I peeked out from around the tree. Sebastian was nowhere to be seen. I gathered up my courage, and all that was left of my shattered heart, and walked down the street, away from Sebastian.

I managed to make it back to my apartment before I really let myself feel the pain. The man of my dreams, my friend, was here in Savannah, and I wouldn’t be able to see him or talk to him. I spent the rest of the afternoon holed up in my apartment, lying on the sofa trying to get past this heartbreak. But nothing was working. I couldn’t get him out of my head. How had I allowed myself to mess up this badly?

By that night I was miserable and starving. I had just placed my online order for some Chinese soup, and now I was aimlessly looking around the Internet. I felt lost. Ever since New York, I hadn’t been able to go on Sebastian’s fan page. I tried once, but all it did was remind me of how things used to be, and frankly, it hurt too much. Patricia and Celeste had both tried to contact me, but I had ignored all messages. It took too much energy to answer them.

The ringing of the doorbell jarred me out of my self-imposed seclusion. Grabbing my cash to pay the deliveryman, I walked to the door. When I opened it, I did a double take. Sebastian was standing right there in the doorway.

“Hey, Ashley. May I come in?” he asked in a quiet voice.

Without speaking a word, I slowly backed up, giving him room to come inside. Sebastian walked in and looked around at my kitchen, covered in take-out boxes, and my living room, covered in trash and blankets from when I had tried to sleep on the sofa. Looking back at me, he said, “Are you okay?”

Finally I found my voice, “Yeah, I’m fine… can’t you tell?”

Sebastian looked at me, sincerity in his eyes. “Ashley, I came to talk. Is now a good time?”

“Depends on what you want to talk about,” I said, my voice shaking.

“I want to talk about us,” he responded.

I have to admit, my heart started doing that thing again. The one where I felt like I couldn’t breathe because it was pounding out of my chest, yet anxiety was squeezing it back in.

“Okay, let’s go into the living room,” I said as I abruptly turned in that direction and started tossing blankets off the sofa so he would have someplace to sit.

Sebastian followed me into the room and sat down on the far end of the sofa. I took a seat at the other end, putting my hands between my knees so he wouldn’t see me wringing them in nervousness. I looked everywhere in the room except directly at him.

Sebastian broke the silence. “I saw you today….”

My stomach lurched as I realized he knew I had scouted him out. “Uh… well this is embarrassing.” Looking him in the eye, I asked, “Would you believe I was just passing by?”

“No,” he responded, raising his eyebrow.

“How about if I told you I stumbled upon your movie set?”

“No… but it doesn’t matter why you came, I’m just glad you did,” Sebastian said turning to completely face me.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

He smiled for the first time. “I’ve missed you, Ashley,” he said quietly.

My heart nearly stopped as I continued to look at him. He dropped his head to stare down at his hands. “What did you say?” I whispered. Surely, I had heard wrong.

Sebastian looked up to meet my eyes and said softly, “I said I’ve missed you. I miss our chats, our jokes… I’ve missed all of it.”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I blurted out the obvious. “Then why haven’t you tried to contact me?”

“I tried to call you the other night, but you didn’t answer.”

“I thought that was you…. Why didn’t you leave a message?” I asked as I tried to read his expression.

“Because when you didn’t answer, I decided I should talk to you like this—face-to-face.”

“Are you going to storm out on me again?” I asked hesitantly.

Sebastian smiled as he responded, “I sincerely hope not.”

“Seb… about my big fat lie… I wish I could take it all back. It’s been torture these past few months. I really wanted to tell you, I swear I did. I just didn’t want to risk losing you. But, as I see now, not telling you is the real reason that I’m losing you.”

“About that, Ash… I’ve been thinking about everything you said, both in New York and in our conversation that night. If I face the truth, I did lie to you as well. I may not have flat-out told you that I was gay, but I damn sure led you to believe that I wasn’t. I’m as guilty of lying as you are.”

I began to relax a little. “Sebastian, can I ask you something?”

Sebastian motioned with his head for me to go ahead.

“If I had told you that I was a guy from the beginning, would you have allowed yourself to get so close to me?”

Sebastian shifted so that he was facing me directly. “Ash, I came here to be honest, so if I’m being honest about that question, the answer is no. I wouldn’t have contacted you nearly as much, nor would I have continued the friendship much past the first few encounters.”

I was taken aback. Wow… I knew I had been right about that. But it didn’t make sense. He’s gay, he’s single, why not chat up a guy online?

“Okay—” was all I could get out before Sebastian interrupted me.

“You were right, Ash. I felt more comfortable with the idea of chatting with a girl. Mainly because I knew I didn’t need to worry about feelings or attraction becoming part of the equation. However, when I started having feelings for you, I couldn’t believe it. I know that I’m not physically attracted to women, so what the hell was I going to do with all these feelings for you? Hell, it was a strange kind of relief when I found out you were a guy.”

All I heard was the one line. “You have feelings for me?”

“That’s what I came here to say.” Reaching out to grasp my hand, Sebastian continued, “I have missed you so much. I feel lonely because I haven’t been able to talk to you every night. I miss how funny you are and how adorably neurotic you can be. I guess you could say I’ve been miserable for the past few weeks.”

I looked into his beautiful blue eyes and grabbed his other hand. “Join the crowd. I’ve never been so miserable. That’s why I came to the set today. I just wanted to see you, even if it was for just a minute.”

We sat there, smiling these goofy grins at each other. Finally, I asked, “So what does all of this mean?”

“I hope it means that while I’m here in Savannah you’ll spend time with me. I won’t have a lot of free time, but when I do, I want you there with me. I want to get to know the real you… the man….”

My heart swelled as goose bumps tickled my arms. “I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want that.”

“You do realize I’m assuming you’re gay?” Sebastian said with a smile.

Slowly pulling him to me, I said, “And your assumption would be 100 percent correct.”

With our faces close together, Sebastian reached over and placed those perfectly shaped lips on mine. I pulled his face closer to mine as I opened my mouth and accepted our first kiss. After a minute Sebastian pulled away and murmured, “You do realize you catfished me, right?”

I pulled his mouth back to mine as I said, “Technically, we catfished each other.” Smiling, I continued, “Let’s not use that word. Let’s just say that we made it through a very tangled web. Now, come back here. Your man has missed you.” Sebastian grinned and fell into my arms.

Ever since arriving in Hollywood, Skylar Murphy has been loving life. He’s starring in a hit television show and on the verge of grabbing the lead role in the most anticipated movie of the decade. Poised on the edge of superstardom, he doesn’t want or need any complications to distract him from that goal. Whether he’s sleeping with a woman or a man, his noncommittal, no-strings-attached love life suits him perfectly, and despite his rep for playing gay roles, the world still thinks he’s straight.

At the launch party for his new show, Skylar meets Aiden Moore, an openly gay firefighter by day and cater waiter to the stars by night. Skylar is immediately attracted to him, but Aiden rejects him. When an arsonist appears to have targeted Skylar, their paths keep crossing. Always up for a challenge, Skylar works to win Aiden over, and he agrees to a date. Soon enough they can’t stay away from each other. Despite hiding their relationship away from the ever-present paparazzi, they’re happy together until a jilted fan joins forces with the arsonist to sabotage their future.

S.A. Ozment was born and raised in North Carolina. From day one, she had stars in her eyes, and by the time she hit high school, she wanted to move to NYC and sing on Broadway. The fates (her parents) had other ideas, so she was hustled off to college and four years later, she was an accountant and had pushed those dreams aside.

For many years, in her time off, S.A. worked with different actors and singers in various roles such as a fan club president for a country music band and as a forum manager/social media promoter. Today, she is again an accountant by day but still finds time to promote a few actors (some officially, some not so officially) at night.

In 2013, she was laid off from her accounting job of twenty years. While looking for another job, she had free time to do other things. She had always loved to tell stories and therefore, she decided to use some of her experiences and write a book. Once the writing bug hit her, there was no stopping it.

Most nights, you can find her curled up in the recliner with her laptop either writing or working on some type of promotion. Unless
The Walking Dead
is on, then she will be captivated by the television.

You can reach S.A. Ozment at [email protected].

Facebook: www.facebook.com/saozment

Twitter: @saozment

Blog: saozment.wordpress.com

Illusions

Tangled Web

Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS

www.dreamspinnerpress.com