The pattern on the bedspread was suddenly incredibly interesting as Gabe ran his fingers over it. He was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and feeling a lot better, physically at least. The bed spins were gone and that churning sea in his stomach had died down to a small, lapping wave. The fumbling and groans coming from the bathroom let him know that Lesley was having a tough time getting herself cleaned up.

“What the hell did you eat, Gabe? This is so gross!” she shouted.

“I’m really sorry. I don’t really remember. I think I might have ordered some room service spaghetti or something last night,” he shouted back.

“Oh sick! It’s all over my freaking hair, Gabe.” She sniffed and then wretched, but thankfully there was no tell-tale splattering sound. “I’m going to have to take a shower. I will end up puking if I have to smell this all the way back to my place. Do you have some clothes I can wear or something?”

Standing up, he walked over to the dresser and picked out a pair of long boxers he thought she might be able to fit and a t-shirt. He knocked on the door and Lesley’s hand shot out, grabbing for the clothes. He put them in her hand and stepped back as she closed the door in his face.

“Seriously? This is all you have? What about some of Alex’s stuff?”

“She left me, remember? She packed it all up and headed out last night.”

All the fumbling stopped and she cracked open the bathroom door, “I’m sorry, Gabe. I wasn’t thinking. It will be okay. We’ll get through this.”

“What do you mean we?”

“These press tours are brutal and if they are loving this series and getting great feedback, it means we’re going to have to be on the road for months on end until this thing comes out, and then onto filming and then the tour starts all over again. Having one another to lean on will make things so much easier,” she said with her face mushed between the door and the doorway.

“Lesley, I’m in love with Alex,” Gabe said, sitting on the bed, holding his head in his hands, thinking about how much he had screwed everything up.

“Well, duh. I wasn’t talking about in that way. At least us pretending means there will be less people asking you dating questions that might be hard to answer. I know it sucks. It really sucks,” she said with her gaze drifting off. “Have you told her yet? I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

“No, I haven’t told her and, by what happened yesterday, I don’t think she’ll really care about how I feel about her,” he groaned.

“I highly doubt that, Gabe. We will keep things strictly business, but we’re going to be together a lot. I can talk to Alex, if you think that would help,” Lesley offered.

He thought about Alex and how he screwed up. She was not someone who forgave and forgot. He knew she was never going to take him back, especially after getting no response to all those calls and messages.

“I don’t think she would go for that. I’ll try to think of something.” He lay back on the bed and covered his eyes with his arms.

“I’m going to take my shower now. I think I’m starting to get used to the smell and that can’t be a good thing. I need to make sure all of this is off me before I leave this place. I’m sure the photogs would have some pretty interesting names for me if I was wandering around smelling like puke.”

“Knock yourself out. I’m just going to lie here and try not to think about how I have absolutely screwed things with Alex.” She popped out of the cracked open door and sounds of the shower turning on filled the room.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m sure things will work out eventually. And if they don’t, I know not to offer you a drink when you’re feeling down.”

Gabe draped his arms over his face, dreading everything that was to come. This was supposed to be one of the best days of his life, and he hadn’t even called his family to let them know about this yet. All he could think of was Alex and that look on her face just before she’d left the room. Devastation. He’d done that to her. Maybe it was for the best, since he kept fucking everything up. Maybe she’d made the right choice; he was a mess.

* * *

Alex left her bags down in the lobby and headed up to his suite. She stomped down the hallway, determined to talk things out with him, just like he wanted. Feeling sheepish for running away after her talk with Jen and a good night’s rest, she was determined and ready to hash things out.

It was time to face things head on, let him know her fears and let him know that she loved him, but she wasn’t going to let him treat her like crap. She grabbed her key card out of her pocket and waved it in front of the door. The light turned green and she slid into the room, careful not to make any noise in case he was on a call or something. The shower was running and she made her way back toward the bedroom. The scene in front of her stopped her in her tracks. He was lying down on the bed in nothing but his boxers. His muscled chest was bare and he had his arms flung up over his head.

“Gabe, can you call down for some more towels? The ones in here are all dirty,” Lesley called from the bathroom. It was like time froze in that instant. Her mind went blank before a rushing roar filled her ears and she stumbled back into the living room. She held her fist up to her mouth—biting it—to keep her cries back. Her eyes were overflowing with tears and she choked back a sob as she backed up across the living room.

“Yeah, sure,” Gabe called out from the bedroom.

He had lied to her. She wondered if the relationship clause was even real or if that had been his way of breaking things to her. Sorry Alex, but I’m going to be a movie star now. You couldn’t really think I’d want to be seen with you? So stupid, she’d been so stupid to make this mistake. She needed to get out of here.

Alex backed up until she hit the table in the living room, causing one of the glasses to fall over. Not wanting to see a look of pity from Gabe or Lesley, she ran for the door before anyone could come out. She broke down in the hallway half way to the elevator, sliding down the wall and bringing her knees up to her chest. She held onto them and rocked herself back and forth. She sobbed against them, trying her best to keep the noise down.

In less than twenty-four hours, he was already bedding down with Lesley. He’d said how they were just friends and there wasn’t anything more to it. He’d also said how much he cared about her and would never hurt her. Lies, it was all lies!

Someone from hospitality was walking toward the room with towels in their hands. She knew she had to get out of there now before Gabe—or worse, Lesley—opened the door and saw her there. She scrambled up and sprinted down the hallway, pressing the elevator button and hoping it opened before the towels made their way to the room.

Thankfully, the elevator doors opened just as the staff person rang the doorbell for the room. Alex pressed the close button and leaned her head against the wall of the elevator, her tears dripping off the handrail. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her knuckles and tried to compose her face. She looked at her reflection in the elevator doors; she looked like she’d been hit by a two-by-four right in the face, which seemed appropriate because that’s the way everything was hitting her at that moment. A total gut-punch had her sprinting into the lobby looking for the nearest trash can, where she promptly lost the entire contents of her stomach.

She went to the lobby bathroom to rinse her mouth and try to compose herself a bit before retrieving her bags, then made the sad trek back to the hostel she’d seen earlier. Buying a last-minute ticket back to the East Coast was probably going to cost her a quarter of her semester savings, but what were her other options? Dragging her bag down the street, she stood completely paralyzed as she thought about how much things had changed over the past twenty-four hours. At least now she knew that things couldn’t get much worse.