CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Paige watched Gannon as he speared a piece of bulgogi with his chopsticks. He was always finding reasons to see her off set and off hours. Tonight, he’d demanded a dinner meeting with her, and she’d offered to have it at her place. There’d be no public speculation that could get stirred up if they met at a restaurant, and she had a roommate, so they wouldn’t end up in bed.
Not that she wanted to go to bed with Gannon, Paige reminded herself. It was more a precautionary measure in case she had a weak moment and too much wine. It was harder to be weak when Becca might storm in at any moment.
So they settled on her couch, eating good Korean food off of an excellent coffee table and juggling timelines.
Gannon was so big, so male. His presence made her apartment feel even smaller than it was.
“Okay, so your voice work is scheduled for when?” Paige asked, scrawling notes on paper and trying to ignore how close his knee was to hers.
“Tuesday into Wednesday. Why they need two days for me to say ‘initial quality award’ is beyond me,” Gannon complained. “Sounds like a bullshit award anyway.”
Paige scooped up some kimchi and eyed him. “I’m sure it will sound impressive the way you say it.”
“Yeah, right.”
He’d gotten two endorsements since season two began airing, and Paige thought he seemed more uncomfortable with those than the filming of the show. “You didn’t have to say yes to these deals,” she reminded him.
He shrugged. “Pays the bills. Especially since I’m dealing with a money pit of a house now.”
“Well, you could cut back on what you deemed the necessities.” She pointed at him with her chopsticks.
“That’s an asinine idea,” Gannon countered. “We’re already in, doing the work. There’s no point in leaving it for later.”
“Because every bachelor in Brooklyn absolutely needs a six-foot walk-in steam shower.” Great. Now she was picturing him in the shower. She was going to have to take a nerve pill or show up drunk to work the day he finished the shower. It would remind her too much of the first time she’d seen him in all of his naked splendor.
“You’re just jealous because you live in a walk-in closet.” He spun a finger over his head, encompassing the cramped apartment.
“Ha. Okay. Maybe a little,” she admitted.
“Speaking of your tiny, ridiculous cabinet of an apartment,” Gannon said, reaching for his beer. “How the hell are you going to produce a documentary out of this space?”
She’d cleaned up most of her research before he came over—and changed into a nicer sweater and fussed with her make-up a little, too. But there was still a stack of binders and papers shoved into the corner under the TV. Her laptop perched precariously on top. Color-coded sticky notes littered the wall in an organized flow.
There wasn’t enough room to spread out and really dig in to anything. She’d hung up one of those portable whiteboards in their hallway, jammed in between a light switch and a bedroom door, but it wasn’t big enough to storyboard more than thirty minutes of film.
She shrugged. “We’ll make it work somehow.”
“If only you knew a generous, friendly, accommodating, handy friend who was about to have more square footage than he needs,” Gannon said, stroking his chin in mock contemplation.
“Work in your house?”
“Don’t look at me like I just came out of a lobotomy. You’d have to wait until it was done, first. So don’t even think about moving in now.”
“You don’t even have any bathrooms right now.” They’d gutted the one and only bathroom two days ago, and everyone was making due with the permitted porta potty in the courtyard.
“That’s why I said wait until it’s done. You and Becca could use the fourth floor.”
“You’re insane,” she shook her head and made a grab for her wine. Why couldn’t she stop looking at his hands? “You’re just trying to find a way to keep me around after the show.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re beautiful, talented, and astute?”
“Literally no one ever. And I’m not running my documentary out of your house, Gannon.”
“Why not? We’re friends.”
“You don’t want to be friends,” she pointed out.
“I don’t want to be just friends,” he corrected.
“Then it wouldn’t be fair of me to take advantage of your addled condition and take you up on your offer. The kindest thing I can do is keep my distance from you until you get over your crush.”
“Paige.” The teasing left his tone. “Don’t downplay what we have.”
“Had,” she corrected automatically.
He stared her down, heat flashing behind those deep hazel eyes. “Don’t downplay my feelings for you.”
That little shot hit home nicely, just as he’d probably intended. She was in the business of telling people’s stories, and to do that, she had to have a healthy interest and respect for their lives, their feelings. Gannon didn’t deserve the pot shot.
“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
He went back to his food. “Don’t make me take my Korean food and go home.” Playful again.
“I’m sincerely sorry. You didn’t deserve that. I’m just…” She wasn’t about to confess to him that his mere presence on her couch robbed her of her faculties. She could smell him, for God’s sake. The laundry detergent from his clean shirt combined with the spice of his soap was enough to drive her nuts. Smell-triggered memories for everyone. Unfortunately for her, Gannon’s scent triggered an endless marathon of X-rated scenes in her head that made sitting platonically next to him almost physically painful.
“I’m going to ask you something,” he announced. “Something you’re probably not going to like. But I’m asking it anyway.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“Do you honestly believe you have to choose between your career and a relationship?”
“In this case? Yes.”
“Why?”
“Gannon,” Paige sighed out his name. He put down his plate and leaned back, his arm on the couch behind her.
“Why do you have to choose when I don’t? We work for the same company in the same industry on the same show. We were interested in each other. We’re in the same, exact situation.”
“Except you have a cock.” One that she remembered in vivid, muscle-clenching detail.
“Explain it. Same people, same situation, yet you’re saying you’d be punished for the relationship.”
“This is kind of the premise of the documentary,” she began. “There are double standards, some of them so subconscious we don’t even know we’re all behaving according to the double standards until someone points it out. When I’m having a shit day, or even if I’m concentrating, there’s gonna be a guy out there who thinks it’s okay to tell me to smile.”
Gannon said nothing.
“Think about it. Say you’re having a rough day on set, and Andy walks up to you and says ‘You should smile more often.’”
“I’d punch him in his smug ass face.”
“Because it’s a stupid thing to say, right? Someone thinks he can tell you how to feel. It’s condescending. But you know what happens when some guy thinks he can say that to a woman? Most of us smile.”
“Instead of punching him in his smug ass face.”
She nodded. “Double standard. It’s not okay to tell a guy how to feel or to not be pissed.” She was warming to the topic now. “So let’s move on to a specific example involving the two of us. When rumors about us started on social media, you were the stud with two women, and I was the slut breaking up a relationship. Same people, same relationship, but one of us is applauded for it, and the other’s slapped down. It’s the difference between penis and vagina.”
He nodded. “I get what you’re saying, but isn’t there another layer in play here? What about your responsibility for your reaction? If you smile when someone tells you to smile or you back out of a relationship that you want to be in because of the public opinion, isn’t that on you?”
She grinned. “Very good, Gannon. Feminism, sexism, misogyny, and confidence are beyond complicated. Yes, we do have a responsibility for our reactions. But some women aren’t in the position or don’t have the confidence to demand better treatment. Those of us who are in the position to need to be willing to pay the price for standing up.”
“And you want to bring everyone up together,” he supplied.
“Something like that. Yeah. What’s the fun of being on top when there’s no one up there with you? Who wants to be the only woman in the men’s club?”
“Did you like being with me?” The change of subject muddled her. “Did you see a future with me… at least before?” he amended.
Paige debated. She was walking a very fine line here. One misstep, and Paige could find herself either pissing Gannon her boss off or hurting Gannon her friend. But she owed him an honest answer.
She took a deep breath. “Before Meeghan showed up on set that day, I’d been planning on asking you where we stood and if you’d be interested in seeing me in the off-season.”
He looked incredulous. “Did you think we were having some kind of fling?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“We were in a relationship.”
“What?” Paige gaped at him. “We never talked about it.”
“Why do we have to talk about it for it to be a relationship?”
“That’s what relationships are! Talking to each other about stuff.”
“We talked all day long, every day,” Gannon argued.
“We worked together all day long, and then at night we… did other things,” Paige clarified.
“Relationship things.”
She snorted. “Are you telling me you’ve been in a relationship with every woman you’ve had sex with?”
“Of course not. I’m telling you we were in a relationship.”
“Well, it couldn’t have been a very good one if I had no idea about it.”
“How could you not know when my dick was in you every night?” He seemed more incredulous than mad. “I brought you coffee. I spent nights sleeping with you—not fucking you—because I wanted you safe. I let you slobber all over me on planes.”
Paige blinked. Gannon King had been in a relationship with her, and she’d had no idea.
He pressed on. “So to you it was a fling, but you still wanted to see if I’d be interested in something more?”
She shrugged miserably. “I don’t know. It was a thousand humiliating moments ago. It’s hard to remember exactly what I was thinking.”
“You wanted to continue things, and then fucking Meeghan shows up acting like an asshole and shames you, and then you’re just done.”
Shit.
“You’re a strong, capable, smart woman Paige. Yet you let someone run you off of what you wanted because you weren’t willing to stand up for yourself.”
“And now I’m making a fucking documentary about it. It’s relevant to me, okay? Happy now?”
“No! I’m not happy! I’m fucking miserable, Paige. I want to be with you, and the only way I can do that is through work because you don’t want to pay the price or accept the consequences. You don’t want to have to fight for it.”
“People are going to think I have this job because I slept with you,” she argued.
“So the fuck what? Every person? Every person in the industry who does hiring is going to think that? Do you want to work for people who don’t bother looking at your work and only listen to bullshit rumors?”
“The bullshit rumors were true in this case,” she reminded him.
“And did me being in your bed every night lessen your ability to do your job?”
“No, of course not. But again, if I were a man, no one would think twice about hiring me despite my sexual past.”
“I get that. And you’re right. It’s asinine. There’s definitely a double standard there. But what can you do about it? Roll over, walk away from someone who cares about you, so you can stay marketable to assholes who will judge you by who you slept with?”
He grabbed his beer, violence in the movement. “Look. I get it. I do. But who exactly are you helping by backing down from the fight? What do you gain from staying away from me? You’re in the position to be fighting shit like this, not bowing down to it and accepting it as law.
“Are you just going to do a documentary pointing out all the double standard shit? Or are you going to show women how to stand up to that garbage? From this penis-wielding guy, I think you’d be doing a disservice to your audience if you only show them how to identify a problem, not solve it.”
Paige flopped back against the couch and covered her face with her hands. “Part of me wants to argue with you, and another part of me wishes I was recording this so I could use it in the film.”
The silence dragged on, both of them wallowing in their own thoughts.
“Want more wine?” he offered.
“God, yes.”