CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell."
~Joan Crawford
PRESENT
I took my shaking self to the bathroom the instant Dante had left my room. I gripped the counter and told myself to breathe, my trembling limbs barely holding me up.
I told myself that the shaking was relief at his absence.
When it passed, I went into the living room. I smiled in spite of myself when I caught sight of the mystery man.
Ah. Anton. I should’ve guessed.
“Hopefully Demi didn’t get you punched in the moneymaker with her little stunt back there,” I said in greeting.
The tall man that lounged comfortably on our oversized sectional rose at my entrance, his rueful grin a familiar, endearing sight. “It was a close thing, I think, but despite her best efforts, I seem to be unharmed.
I hugged him briefly, air-kissing both of his cheeks while he bent down far enough to real-kiss mine.
“So that was the guy, huh?” he said, his trained actor’s voice steady, his knowing eyes something else.
I shrugged dismally. I hated to give Dante that much credit, whether he’d earned it or not. “He was a guy, one I prefer not to talk about.”
I fingered his beard. He was growing it out for a role as a scruffy biker, complete with long brown hair that he kept tied back in a neat little bun. I’d hated the change in his look when he’d first gotten the part, but lately it was really growing on me.
Anton was Hollywood good-looking, versatile, and ever changing but polished to gleaming, with perfect teeth, handsome features, and total control over every muscle in his face.
We’d met two years ago shooting a doomed pilot. The show had never made it on air, but at least I’d gotten Anton out of the deal.
We were so much alike that it scared me sometimes. He was basically a male version of me.
We’d dated for about five minutes, and I’d even been about one drink from sleeping with him, but then I’d realized that I actually liked him, so friends it was.
He grinned. “You’re starting to like this biker vibe I have going, aren’t you?”
“Fat chance, beardo,” I told him, making a face at him as I moved to take a barstool at the counter.
“Dante has a temper,” Demi pointed out from the kitchen, where she was staring at the cupcakes forlornly.
“Yes,” I said succinctly.
“But he’s not what I was expecting,” she added.
My lip curled. “He can be charming—”
“It’s not that. I figured he’d be charming.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. I knew you hated him, and I guess I just figured he hated you back. But he definitely doesn’t hate you.”
I waved my hand in the air as though warding off the notion. “It’s complicated. He’s as hostile as I am, he just hides it better, but don’t let him fool you—he's a fucking beast when it comes to breaking hearts.
She nodded, her eyes so solemn that I had to look away. “That I gathered. I’m sorry I said Anton was your boyfriend. I thought I was helping, but I made things worse, didn’t I?”
“On the contrary,” I assured her. “Your interruption couldn’t have come at a better time, so thank you.”
She smiled cheekily, shrugging, “Anytime.”
“What was he doing here?” Anton asked from the sofa.
I looked down at my hands, bracing myself for the pain of saying it aloud. “Gram died.”
They both gasped.
“Oh no,” Demi uttered softly.
“Not Gram,” Anton muttered, followed by a steady and vehement string of cursing.
Just like anyone important in my life invariably knew at least something about Dante, they also knew about Gram. She was the only person I considered family and talked about as such.
“What happened?”
“A fatal stroke. That’s why he was chasing me around. I guess he didn’t want to tell me over the phone.”
“But he didn’t tell you last night?” Demi asked.
Anton coughed and I glared at him.
“He didn’t.” I knew they’d heard what he’d said back in my room, or at least enough to suspect, but I had no intention of hashing it out.
“What can I do?” Demi asked, sounding so sincere and concerned that I could hardly stand to hear it.
I nodded at the open bottle of scotch I’d left in the kitchen earlier. “Hand me that, will you?”
There was only one thing to be done. Because crying in my room alone held no appeal, and crying in front of other people was even worse—I was throwing one hell of a drunk.
I was hoping this one was more successful than the last attempt.
Or, at the very least, less disastrous.
Demi and Anton didn’t hesitate to join me.
I stopped drinking out of the bottle (because we had company now) and made myself an oversized tumbler of scotch.
Anton and Demi did the same. Demi despised scotch, so I knew she was just being a good sport.
“I hope you can stomach this stuff,” I told Anton as he took a long swallow. “It was way too low class for Dante the Bastard.”
“I think it’s fantastic,” he told me, toasting the air.
“You don’t have to drink scotch for me, Demi,” I told her.
She shrugged and toasted at me. “It’s for your gram,” she said and took a long, painful-looking swallow.
We got good stinking drunk and watched reruns of our favorite reality show, Kink and Ink.
I nodded at the screen at some point after drink number three. “I’d go lesbian for a day for her,” I told an extremely drunk Demi and a fascinated Anton.
“I’d suffer through some pretty terrible things to see that happen,” Anton said.
Demi shook her head. “She’s pretty and I like her, but uh uh. Only boys for me.”
“What about this? There are only three people left in the world. You,” I nodded at Demi, “Frankie,” I nodded at the hot lesbian tattoo artist on TV, “and Justin Bieber. You have five seconds to pick.”
She didn’t hesitate, blurting out “Frankie!” before I’d even finished talking.
We couldn’t stop laughing after that, giggling our asses off.
“I vote that when we sober up we drive to Vegas to get tattoos at her shop,” Demi said at some point.
“It’s only a five-hour drive,” Anton pointed out. “Four if I’m driving. What kind of a tattoo do you want, Demi?”
She flushed when he said her name, and it was only in my drunken state that I realized for the first time that sweet Demi had a huge crush on jaded Anton.
Oh no.
I wanted to tell her to run in the other direction. He was too much like me. He’d had his heart ravaged by some sadist years ago and what was left of him ate little girls like Demi for breakfast.
I made a note to tell her such when I’d sobered up enough to be taken seriously.
“I don’t know,” she finally answered. “I’d have to brainstorm about it on the drive. Something pretty. With color.”
“What about you, Scar?” he asked me.
I nodded at the TV where someone was currently getting a heart with initials in the middle of their back. “I’d get the opposite of that. There are too many love tattoos. I’d get an anti-love one.”
Anton’s rueful grin came out to play. When I was in this state, it was really hard to remember why I’d never slept with him. He was way too good-looking for his own good, beardo, man-bun, and all. “Yes, yes, we know, Scarlett. You don’t believe in love. You’ve said it many times.”
For some reason, that set me off. I blame the scotch.
“I never said I don’t believe in love,” I said heatedly. “Trust me, I believe in it. I know love. It lives in me still. Like a cancer, it thrives under my skin, metabolizes in spite of all of my attempts to eradicate it.” I had to take a few breaths I was talking so quickly and passionately. “What I said was that if you feel yourself falling, you should run like hell. Avoid it. If it tries to set its hooks in you, rip them out. If it tries to shackle you, break the chain.” I was waving my hands around to illustrate my point. “Love is never satisfied with half-measures. It won’t take parts of you. It will own all of you, every single, longing piece.
“Love will make you its slave,” I stated venomously. “It will ruin you. Grind you under its heel until you don’t recognize what’s left.
“Love will take your soul.” I looked pointedly at Demi. “If you’re very unlucky, it might even turn you into someone like me.
“I do believe in love,” I reiterated. “I believe it’s the most destructive force on earth.”
When I finished my impassioned rant, they were both just staring at me.
Demi looked like she might cry. She was hugging Amos, her eyes huge with pity and sorrow. “Oh, Scarlett,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. Dante is such a bastard.”
Even Anton didn’t look right. His mouth was twisted bitterly, eyes boring into me, something powerful moving behind them. “That fucker,” he said succinctly. “Excuse me.” He got up and left the room.
Getting his rage in hand, I knew. He was another one with a wicked temper. So my type.
Why hadn’t I slept with him again?
“You’ll find love again,” Demi told me tremulously, sounding like she really believed it. “Just when you least expect it I bet you’ll run into some wonderful man that makes your heart race again.”
I knew better, but I kept my piece. Demi could stay sweetly naive, her soul light and beautiful. I didn’t want to take that from her.
But she couldn’t have been more wrong.
There is only one heart in this universe that calls to mine, and it does call. Constantly, relentlessly, it sings out to me in a captivating, resonating voice.
Day after day, year after year, it calls to me.
But I won’t listen to it. It belongs to a liar.
When Anton returned, he seemed more or less back to normal, and we didn’t comment on his absence.
We were still huddled on the couch watching people get tattoos, and he rejoined us without a word.
“There’s like a six month waitlist to get ink in her parlor,” I pointed out in true buzz-killer style. I liked crushing dreams. It was a hobby of mine. “And from Frankie herself? Who knows. Probably years. You’d probably have to know somebody.”
“Well, poo,” Demi said.
Anton and I shared a smile. She was way too adorable for her own good.
Meanwhile on Kink and Ink, someone was crying as they described the reason for their angel tattoo.
“I hate it when this show gets emotional,” Anton said, rising from the sofa to refill our glasses.
“Why does the term emotional have such a negative connotation?” Demi asked him, sounding riled. “Humans are emotional creatures. I’m emotional but that doesn’t mean I run around crying all the time. I’m more likely to laugh and love harder because I’m emotional.”
I blinked at her after she’d finished her own little rant. I liked this sassy side of her.
I sent Anton a sideways glare because he seemed to like it too by the way he was looking at her. I made a note to have a talk with him at some point. He was not allowed to mess around with Demi. She was too innocent for him.
At some hazy point Leona came home. I was pretty numb by then and so it didn’t hurt quite as bad to tell her about Gram.
“Oh Scarlett,” she said, coming to sit beside me, taking one of my hands into both of hers. “What can I do? Do you want to talk about it?”
I thought about that. “I do not. The scotch is helping. This show is fucking awesome, so that helps, too. You drinking with us?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
Even later than Leona, Farrah showed up and joined us in over-toasting my gram.
At some point I was so sloppy drunk that I even confessed to Leona, “I slept with him last night.”
Her eyes widened and I could see by how horrified she was that she was far from as drunk as I was. I was at the drunken stage that was incapable of horror.
“You what?”
I nodded, giving her what I imagined was a thoughtful look. “What indeed, my friend. What indeed.”
I thought she was going to drop the subject, and I thought that was odd, but eventually she came back with a stunned, “You slept with him?”
How to explain? I thought about it and, “It’s complicated.”
“Clearly,” Anton drawled.
“Are you guys in a better place, then?” Leona asked.
“Not fucking likely. It’s complicated.”
“Sounds that way,” Leona said, still giving me worried eyes.
“We have history.” What a light, little sentence that was to hold such clenched, fathomless, unabated pain inside of it.
“I still can’t believe you slept with him,” Demi added.
I shrugged. It was hard to articulate sober, harder now. “Have you ever done something that hurts you just because you know it hurts the other person, too?”
They were all just staring at me. I shrugged again. “I hate his lying, conniving guts, but sex with him can be a religious experience. He remembers things about my body that even I forgot.”
“Ah.”
“Oh.”
“I see.”
That they seemed to get. The universal understanding of phenomenal sex. Go figure.