5.
ELLIE
I was exhausted by the end of the day.
All the feelings I'd ever felt in my life seemed to be trivialized by the past week.
It had been a complete roller coaster, and I was sure I wasn't even close to getting off yet.
Aaron was gorgeous; he was gorgeous and charming and he made my skin burn just by looking at me, but he was far from perfect. Or, our situation was far from perfect. He had a vindictive ex-wife, a media following that kept track of his every move, and a career that he obviously valued above everything else in his life.
But it wasn't just him. I had a promising career. Just twenty-two and I'd already landed a big budget role. I had job security for the rest of my life as long as I didn't make myself unappealing to people.
The problem was that if people thought I was fucking my way to the top, it might make me too appealing to some people, and I didn't want that burden.
It wasn't just the situation with Aaron that was tiring me out, though. The whole acting thing was draining my energy so rapidly I felt like I could barely stand up when I got home, never mind get through any of my paperwork, or deal with the PR things that Dana was constantly shoving in my direction. Talk shows and radio appearances. I just couldn't stomach looking at it.
By the end of the day today, all desire had disappeared, and frustration had replaced it.
Aaron, as much as he'd tried to get his head back in the game, was still angry about his ex, and he couldn't stop it affecting the filming. His anger only got worse the more we had to retake the scene, and I was surprised Dennis made it go on for as long as it did. It was inevitable that we were going to use one of the first three takes in the end.
The ones before we'd hidden in his dressing room and I'd sucked him off.
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek as I scrubbed the makeup off my face for the day. I must have looked terrible, on my knees with bruises and cuts painted onto my face, but he hadn't seemed to care. He'd been looking at me as though I was the most beautiful girl in the world, and the sound he'd made when he came still made a shiver run down my spine.
When he subtly asked me back into his dressing room at the end of the filming day, I was torn. Part of me wanted to just ignore him, pretend that I'd missed the cue and get home to a glass of wine and a takeout meal where I might finally be able to relax.
I knew this wasn't a booty call. He was still mad, and I had a feeling this was finally going to be us having a conversation about how unrealistic a relationship was between us, and that we should stop taking risks. Neither of us believed that having casual sex with each other was more important than our careers.
And I refused to believe that this was anything more than casual sex, because if I did it all became that much more tragic, and therefore that much harder to deal with.
He shut the door behind us, and I didn't bother trying to hide just how tired I was anymore. I practically slumped against the wall, pinning my hair back in a bad attempt at a bun.
Aaron frowned. "You okay?"
"Just tired."
"Yeah, I feel that. Tomorrow will be a better day."
"What is it you wanted to talk about?" I didn't feel like going over the details of my doubts and fears, not tonight, when I was already so tired. I just wanted to get this conversation over and done with, and put Aaron and I behind me.
He cleared his throat, and almost couldn't meet my eyes. I never thought that I'd see Aaron Palmer look awkward about something. It was incredibly endearing, and that wasn't helping anything. "I wanted to talk about us."
"Yeah, that's kind of what I guessed."
"I don't want to sound cold or selfish, but—"
I chuckled, cutting him off. "We're on the same page, don't worry about it."
His shoulders sagged, and I was sure it was relief not disappointment. "Good. It's not you, it's just with everything with Mindy, if the press got a hold of this it could be a disaster, and this is my first gig in two years. I don't want to risk making it my last."
My stomach was in knots, even though this should have been an easy conversation. A simple agreement between two people who hadn't even fucked yet that it was the right thing to do. But it hurt. It hurt so much that I felt tears stinging in my eyes, and that made me feel like a stupid, silly little girl who was in too deep too quickly. I'd let myself be naïve. "It's bad enough that I only got my part because my agent was fucking the director, I don't want people thinking I got it because I was fucking you, too."
His lip quirked, but he didn't look pleased. His anger had dissolved into dejectedness.
"I hope it doesn't make things too weird."
"It'll work itself out in a couple of days." After all, it had only taken us a couple of days to get to this point, why couldn't we go in the opposite direction?
"And I hope I haven't made your first filming experience too bad."
"You definitely haven't."
There was an awkward silence, and I hated it. Things had never really felt awkward between us before.
"Okay, well, I'm going to take off. I'm exhausted. I'll see you tomorrow, though?"
His smile was tight. "See you tomorrow."
I caught a cab home instead of driving. My head was in the clouds, and I was scared I'd crash if I got behind the wheel. I grabbed a fresh bottle of red from the cupboard and an oversized glass. Then I picked out an extortionate amount of food from the Chinese menu and found some trashy TV to waste my evening on. I had a missed call from Dana, but I ignored it. I didn't check my emails.
When the phone rang I only answered because I was expecting it to be the delivery guy telling me he was outside. When my mom's cheerful, "Hi, sweetie," came out of the receiver, I regretted answering at all.
"Hey, mom." I was forced to stand up and hover in the window to watch for my food now since my mom was on the line.
"How is it going? We haven't spoken since filming started."
I stared out of the window, waiting for my excuse to hang up to arrive. "It's going well. We've already gotten through quite a few important scenes. We're going to film on-location in two weeks."
"Where will that be?"
"New York."
"Exciting!"
My smile was weak, and I was glad she couldn't see it. "Yeah, it really is." I'd never actually been to New York, and I should have been excited about it, but if it was anything like filming now I'd be too exhausted to actually see any of the city anyway.
"You don't sound like you're very excited."
I held in a sigh, and stopped myself from spilling everything. It was everything my mom had always wanted, and saying that I was having doubts would be like rubbing that into her face. "I'm just tired today. You caught me at a bad time, that's all."
My mom hummed, but didn't question me further. "Okay. I know how stressful filming can be sometimes. Just remember that it's always worth it. I'll talk to you later then, sweetie."
She hung up just as the takeout guy stepped out of his car, and I slammed the phone down on my couch after putting it on silent.
I wasn't going to be disturbed by anyone tonight.