Chapter Twenty-Two
Maddie twisted in her seat belt so she could lean against the backrest and watch Micah as he maneuvered the rental car. She had never seen him drive. Even on the rare occasions that they shared a call time, she always rode up with the crew or Fudge, maintaining the secrecy of their affair.
He enjoyed driving. She could tell. His body relaxed behind the wheel and he wore a silly boyish expression on his face as he jammed to the music coming from his iPod over the car’s speakers. She liked seeing him this way.
She liked seeing him period.
She smiled, recalling a conversation from a few nights before. They had gone for drinks and pool with the crew, and afterward as they walked down the hall of his hotel, buzzed from beer and the company of friends, Micah had taken her hand and said, “Is this what normal people do? Come home every night and be happy?”
And for a minute she believed that they could be normal people.
But that was before the Joss Beaumont evening. Before the conversation she’d overheard between Stu, Lulu and Micah. She’d been so thrilled for Micah the minute she heard he’d been offered such a coveted role as the lead in a Santini film. Then, when Stu said that Micah would have to be in New Zealand for the better part of a year, she felt crushed. Absolutely and completely crushed.
How had she let herself forget that was how the business worked? Films took actors and crew all over the world—to different parts of the world. They’d be separated. Of course they would be.
And then Lulu had encouraged Micah to take the part, as she should, and Maddie agreed with his mother’s stance. But the exchange still hurt. A lot. Especially when Micah was unwilling to tell his mother that his hesitations revolved around the way he felt for Maddie. If he couldn’t tell Lulu, if he couldn’t admit it even to himself, how could they have any hope of making a real go of it? If they had any chance of surviving long periods of time apart, they’d have to be strong enough to declare their feelings openly. At the very least, declare them to each other.
Micah glanced at her from the driver’s seat, interrupting her thoughts. “What are you thinking about?”
“Your sad choice of music,” she answered, steering clear of the topic they’d avoided the three days since the Joss Beaumont night. Not that they’d ever talked about a future, but now their avoidance of it was heavy and glaring at the periphery of every moment together.
He grinned. “Hard rock’s no good?”
“No good at all. In fact, it’s seriously making me reconsider our relationship.” Inwardly she cringed at the word relationship, hoping it didn’t sound like she was putting pressure on Micah to discuss their situation. With less than one week left of production, though, she should be putting pressure on him. Eventually they would have to talk about it. She knew she should bring it up, but every time she had the chance, she pushed it off, not wanting to ruin the moment.
“Fine,” Micah said, turning off the music. “Let’s talk instead.”
“Okay.” Now. Talk about it now. “What do you want to talk about?” God, she was a chicken.
“I don’t know. Uh, how’s your movie going?”
Maddie frowned. That was an odd question. He was with her every time she worked on it, and he usually watched and gave her feedback whenever she completed a section. He’d viewed everything she had done so far with his mother two days before. Maddie had backed out of their breakfast date at the last minute. She didn’t think she could spend another occasion pretending she wasn’t head over heels for Micah, especially not one so intimate.
“I haven’t done anything since the last time you saw it. Why?”
“I just love the theme of the movie. And so did Lulu, I know I told you that already. Freedom through flying. It’s really good.”
“Okay,” she said, drawing out the word. He had told her Lulu’d been very impressed, and Maddie had been proud of herself for it. But every time she thought of Lulu and her movie in the same sentence, she recalled Lulu’s comparison of Maddie to Micah’s ex. And she couldn’t bear that anyone might think she was using Micah for his film connections.
But all of those thoughts were miles off from whatever Micah was talking about now. She just couldn’t quite follow his direction yet.
“And how about heights? Do you have a fear of heights?”
“No,” she answered tentatively. “Do you?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why are you being so weird?”
“Weird? I’m not being weird. I just realized I didn’t know if you were afraid of heights or not. You know. Standard get-to-know-you question. I really should have already known this.”
“Uh-huh.” Maddie didn’t believe him. He was up to something.
“Do you have anything you’d like to know about me?”
She’d learned a lot about Micah in the last few weeks—things she never gleaned about him from the countless interviews she’d watched and read over the years—but she knew there was still more to discover. Everything. She wanted to know everything about him.
Like, for example, what would happen with them after the shoot ended on Friday? And where the heck was he taking her?
But she didn’t ask those questions. He’d told her that today was a surprise, had woken her at four in the morning on their day off, and told her to dress warm. He refused to say anything about it. After twenty minutes of probing, she’d dropped it.
Maybe that was why she couldn’t bring herself to steer the conversation to their relationship—she didn’t want to ruin his carefully planned surprise.
“Let’s see.” She searched for a safe but meaningful query. “Oh, I know. Did you always want to be an actor?”
“Seriously?” He turned off the main road they’d been following onto a smaller windy road. “That’s what you want to know? You can find that out from a good Google search.”
“In every interviews I’ve read you’ve said ‘yes’.”
“There you go,” he said, throwing his arm out dramatically.
“But I’ve always sensed you were hiding something.”
He peered at her. “How do you do that? How do you know me so well?”
Because we’re meant to be together. She shrugged.
“No. I didn’t always want to be an actor.” He looked at her as if gauging her reaction. “My mom was an actress so she got me acting in commercials when I was about thirteen. And I hated it. We didn’t live in the film industry part of the city and no one in my school was into anything artsy. Kids picked on me, called me a fag, beat me up on a regular basis. In fact, that’s how I met Fudge. He stepped up for me and has been protecting me ever since.”
Wow. She had no idea.
“Do you know how he got his nickname?”
She shook her head.
“Because he used to scare kids so bad, they’d fudge their pants.”
She giggled.
“Anyway. Then I turned sixteen. My high school was putting on David and Lisa. I didn’t really want to do it, but my girlfriend—”
“Girlfriend?”
He ignored her. “Thought it would be super sexy if I was in it. So I tried out and I got the part of David.”
“Which is a great part. Definitely super sexy.”
“Yes, it is.” He slid his free hand over to grab hers. “But on top of that, my high school theater director was amazing. She taught us more than just memorizing lines and blocking. She taught us process, how to make choices in acting, how to create a character internally and externally. I fell in love.”
“I’m assuming you fell in love with the acting, not the girlfriend.” Not that she was jealous of a high school sweetheart. Not in the least.
“Totally the acting. I broke up with the girlfriend before the show even went up.”
“Awesome.” She grinned.
“I started taking classes outside of school—speech, movement, acting for the camera. I got a personal coach. Then an agent. Then I started doing indies, which I loved. Then I got Stu.”
“And the rest is history.”
“I suppose so.”
He was silent for several seconds. The morning light brightened, the sun just coming over the edge of the horizon. She let go of his hand and rummaged through her purse until she found her sunglasses.
When Micah spoke again, his voice was low and serious. “That breakup was because of the show, actually. Even back then, acting interfered with my relationship.”
“With your teenage girlfriend? How so?” She didn’t like what he was hinting at and was grateful for the dark of her glasses so he wouldn’t see the glare in her eyes.
“We broke up because she was jealous of my acting. She said I spent too much time away from her. We fought and fought about it. It was awful.”
Maddie cocked her head to look at Micah’s profile. Was this the reason he was so convinced he couldn’t have a girlfriend now? Because of a silly breakup when he was a kid? It was a ridiculous idea, but a bubble of hope began forming in her chest. “But you were in high school. Kids are selfish and self-centered. Most teenage relationships end for those sorts of reasons with or without acting involved.” Surely he could see that.
“It’s not just because of that girlfriend. There were others after. And then there’s my parents.”
“Your parents?” She was taken aback. What did his parents have to do with anything?
“All my life my mother tried to be an actress and it always put a strain on my parents’ marriage. When I was twelve, she realized that all the compromises she’d made to be a wife and mother had kept her from being as successful as she’d dreamed of being as an actress. So she left my dad.”
“Ouch.” The bubble of hope burst as pieces of the puzzle were beginning to make sense. Lulu had chosen career over family. No wonder she was so eager for Micah to do the same.
“It destroyed my dad. He loved her so completely. He couldn’t understand why Lulu had to give up on their marriage. I didn’t understand either until later.” He paused and gave Maddie a quick side glance. “Now I understand completely.”
Her body tensed, but before she overreacted, she needed clarification. “Are you saying you still have no faith in Hollywood relationships?”
“I’ve never said any differently.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. All the time they’d spent together, she’d thought it meant something. And now he was saying it didn’t change anything. “Then what are we doing, Micah?” Her voice was choked. “We said no preconceived notions about where we were going, but clearly you’ve already decided we’re doomed. So was I just something to fill your time?”
“No! Of course not, baby.” He took one hand off the wheel and ran it through his hair. “When we take one day at a time, yeah, it seems possible. But long term? I just…I still haven’t seen any evidence to change my mind.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed, stemming the pain before it could overwhelm her. Didn’t he realize how much his words hurt? Or was that his intent? Was he breaking up with her?
No, he couldn’t be. Or, if he was, she wouldn’t let him without a fight. She opened her eyes again and she slid her glasses on top of her head, turning to face him. “There are people who make it work, Micah. Successful people. Look at Angel and Brett. Didn’t Roberta Jules marry her cameraman? They’ve been together for ages.”
“But Angel and Brett do a whole lot fewer movies than they used to. And Roberta practically retired.”
“They chose to scale back.”
“Exactly. They chose their relationships over their careers.” Micah’s knuckles went white as he gripped the steering wheel. “Everything I say and do, Maddie, is a choice between my career or not my career. From deciding to take a shoot in another country to answering a question in an interview to sending a tweet on Twitter to whether or not I send flowers for Valentine’s Day.”
“If you send flowers to a woman, your career will be affected? Come on, Micah. That’s dramatic.” She didn’t even bother to hide her eye roll, she was so annoyed.
His eyes narrowed and she could feel his frustration rising, fueling her own. “It’s reality. If sending those flowers initiates a scandal, the director on the next film I want might say he doesn’t want to deal with that type of drama.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s how it is. You don’t know.” He gestured between the two of them. “This little life we’ve been living? This is a fantasy, Maddie. This isn’t how it is all the time. It’s not this easy. If I want to keep this career, the choices I have to make are hard and they’re painful.”
“Why do you have to choose your career every time? There has to be room for compromise without throwing away your career goals.”
“Not in this business. You have to fight every day. Even when you’re on the top.”
He was breaking up. Or he might as well have been. Every word that fell out of his mouth said he could never believe in them. That he didn’t choose her. She wiped at her damp face with her palm. “So you’re telling me that every day you choose your career? Every day you’d choose that over me?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Because as Maddie curled up against the door and stared out the window she noticed the landscape for the first time in several minutes. The mountainside they’d been following had ended, opening to an enormous field that was empty except for a van, three men, and a huge hot air balloon with a rainbow chevron pattern.
Micah slowed the car.
A hot air balloon.
“Oh, Micah!” Emotions whirled and warred inside her as the full realization of his surprise settled in. Her movie. Freedom through flying. His questions about fear of heights. He’d done this for her. Today, he’d chosen her.
Too overcome with emotion, Maddie couldn’t speak. Micah pulled the car next to the van and turned off the engine. Eyes focused on the colorful balloon, she stepped out, chewing on the knuckle of her hand to keep from crying again.
Still silent, Micah got out and came to her side. She met his eyes and he took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m scared,” he said quietly, and she knew he didn’t mean about flying.
“I know,” she whispered.
The next half hour was a blur of emotions and sensations. The quick thrill at the balloon’s lift off, the fire hot at her back, the pull in her stomach as the basket skimmed the South Platte River, the pounding of her heart as they soared higher and higher. All of it intensified by the feel of Micah’s arms around her.
When she’d finally gotten her air legs and was no longer overwhelmed by the spectacular view, her mind drifted to the possibilities that lay between her and the man embracing her. Micah had taken a lot of risks to allow for their flight to happen. The crew that set up the balloon, the pilot…any one of them could spread news of the star’s morning adventure, even though he’d required all of them to sign a confidentiality agreement. What did it mean for them that he’d done this? Because he’d chosen her that day, did it mean he’d be willing to choose her again?
Eventually, at almost two thousand feet in the air, riding the wind, the silence was so stark that the noises in her mind struggled to be voiced. Finally, she couldn’t hold them in any longer. “Micah,” she said, not turning to look at him, hoping that the pilot truly couldn’t hear anything with his thick headphones on. “Please, tell me the truth. Are you even considering giving us a chance after this shoot is over?”
He was quiet for a beat. Then he buried his face in her hair and whispered near her ear, “More than you know. More than I ever could have believed I would.”
She took a deep breath in, memorizing the moment, so focused on his words she almost missed what he said next.
“What about you?”
She twisted her head so she could look at him, surprised by his question. Was he seriously asking? She thought her opinion on the matter was a given. How crazy that he didn’t know. “Yes,” she said simply.
Still, even though her heart burst inside with a much more emphatic acknowledgment, she knew there was more to overcome. “But I heard what you said, Micah. I get it. I’m scared too.”
She turned in his arms to face him with her entire body, letting him wrap himself so entirely around her she felt joined to him. Resting her forehead against his chin, she spoke into his neck. “If we did continue to see each other, would you ever believe that we’d have a shot at making it?” This question scared her most. Or rather, its answer did. Because if he said he didn’t, then there would be no reason to keep seeing him.
He pulled back so he could look in her eyes, and his gorgeous smile took her breath away. “Maddie, look at us.” He spun her around so she her back was to his chest again. Then he nuzzled his head against hers, his arms tight around her waist. “We’re flying, Maddie. Flying! How can we not believe we can do anything?”
She melted into him. It was the perfect thing to say. Romantic, and maybe a bit vague, but she felt the truth in her words. As long as they believed that, how could their relationship not survive?
Beyond sentiment, his statements held weight. They showed a depth to his emotion that he’d never revealed in words. He still may not have been ready to say exactly how he felt about her, but she knew now that she meant more to him than a simple fling.
She also knew for certain how she felt about him. That night she told him, as she straddled his cock, burying him inside her. She slid herself up and down and when she quickly built up the pace, he sat up and steadied her. One arm wrapped around her waist, the other tangled in her hair, he taught her a new rhythm, slow and merciless.
Eyes locked on his, she moaned her surrender to him.
“Come for me,” he urged.
And she did. Over and over her orgasm rolled through her, overtaking her so fully that he had to support her.
“Shh,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”
With her steadied in his arms, he impaled himself into her, again and again, until she released anew. Then he joined her, as she gasped and burst around him, and she cried what she finally could say without doubt, “I love you.”