Chapter 15

 

Alexis

 

Waking up in Cody’s arms at the beach house was the only possible good thing about the previous twenty-four hours of my life. My shot at stardom was gone before it had even really got going. I was back to being a cliché secretary trying to find work in Hollywood.

Although I was upset over losing the show, I was also distracted by what was going on between Cody and me. He had stepped up his game and was there to support me while I was in emotional turmoil. I didn’t expect that from him but appreciated his effort.

The sun hadn’t quite filled the sky yet and suddenly I had an urge to run out to the beach and start my day there. I grabbed Cody’s t-shirt, slipped on my pants and hurried out the back door and down to the beach. I’d always dreamed of living at the beach. It wasn’t in my price range, but on that morning I was going to take full advantage of being so close to the water.

It was already warm out as I collapsed onto the soft sand and took in the start of the day. How lucky I was to live in such a beautiful place and have so many great friends, but I’d never managed to make it to the beach that early in the morning. It was peaceful and calm before all the people arrived. Although I was still feeling hopeless about my career, I did the best I could to see the positives I had going on in my life.

I was a good actress. Maybe I wasn’t the best but I was willing to continue to grow and learn so that was a positive for me. Perhaps I’d take another acting class or start picking up more commercial work. This wasn’t the end of my acting career. I still loved the profession and I knew deep down that after a little break I would get back out there and keep going with this dream of mine.

I had a good job. Working at the public relations firm had never been my ideal career; I always complained about it, but it was a good job. They allowed me the time off I needed to pursue my dreams and I got paid well, so I was grateful for the positives that came with my job. Plus, I had great friends at work that were really supportive of me no matter what I was doing with my life.

I was happy about Cody. There was still a lot to figure out and I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay married to him, but he was a good man and I was glad we were together. Maybe we could spend a little more time figuring out the two of us now that I wasn’t going to be so rushed with the show. We could date like a normal couple and see where this chemistry between the two of us was going.

Since I was a teenager I always remember feeling like life had a way of working out. Sometimes when I really wanted a boy and he didn’t like me, or I really wanted a job and I didn’t get it I’d remember that things worked out the way they were supposed to. As I took in the warm morning sun I couldn’t help but think that this was the start of something new and exciting that was supposed to be.

“Can I join you?” Cody asked, sitting down next to me in only his jeans and no shirt.

“Of course.”

Cody pushed in close to me and put his arm around me. We didn’t talk as we both sat and watched the ocean rush against the sand. The soothing rhythmic motion of the waves gave me a calm sense of satisfaction and I closed my eyes and leaned into Cody.

Sitting in silence I welcomed his touch. I was safe there with. Not many men had made me feel completely safe in a relationship, but there I was safe as could be with Cody, my husband. I wasn’t exactly sure what that title entailed but he didn’t seem to fit it just yet.

When people started to arrive on the beach Cody and I decided to go for a little walk and explore. He was shirtless, I was in utter disarray from our night together, but we still moved into the sidewalk area, so we could walk next to the shops.

“Do you want to go get dressed?” I asked.

“Nope, I’m good.”

“Don’t these shops have that rule about no shirt and no shoes?”

“Nope, they would never get any business with that rule down here. Most of them don’t care unless you’re sitting in a restaurant.”

“Alrighty then.”

Cody reached for my hand and our fingers intertwined into a perfect fit. The touch of his skin against mine excited me. It was a primal feeling that had me smiling while we continued down the walkway. We window shopped since many of the stores weren’t open just yet. He was right that no one seemed to care about his shirt though, we saw several men walking in and out of the coffee shop in just their running shorts.

“Noah should be home soon,” Cody said when we sat down at a table in front of the coffee shop. “I’d like you to meet him.”

“What did you say he did? His house is pretty amazing.”

“He works at the movie studio in finance stuff, but I bet he could get you connected with some sort of work there.”

“I think I need to slow that dream down a bit.”

“Alexis, no.”

“Not put it away, just slow it down. It’s just a lot to deal with right now.”

Following your dreams was harder than many people let on. Not only did I have to keep working to pay my bills, but I’d likely go back to doing commercials and extra work, which was exhausting.

“You look lost in your thoughts,” Cody said as he sat across from me staring at me.

“Yep, life is sort of brand new again. I think that will be the best way of looking at this. A fresh start at the bottom of another big hill.”

“Or a mountain?” He laughed.

“It might be a mountain, you’re right. I’m sure somehow I’ll manage.”

“How about we take a few days and just have some fun? The two of us could just hang out? When was the last time you had a few days off to relax?”

“Um, there was Las Vegas,” I laughed and gave him a playful wink.

“I’m fine with heading back there if you want.”

For a brief moment, I considered it. Las Vegas was the sort of place you could escape reality. No need to worry about real-life problems, just jump into the flashy life there and have fun.

“As much fun as that would be, I think I need to stay in reality right now.”

“We can have fun in reality too,” he said and winked back at me.

The way Cody looked at me made my body ache for him. His eyes glossed over with desire and I could practically see his heart pounding faster as he glanced down at his coffee and then back up at me.

Sexual chemistry was a tricky thing. Sure, Cody was handsome but I’d dated handsome men before and had zero chemistry with them. There’s more of a primal internal drive that is going on when two people have chemistry. Whatever that secret ingredient was, Cody and I definitely had it. Sitting across from him I felt my body pulse with a wet desire to have him inside me. He wasn’t even flirting very hard yet I wanted to jump into his lap and feel his throbbing body inside me.

“Should we head back?” I asked calmly, not letting on that I had big plans for what we would do with ourselves once we arrived back at his room.

“Yeah, I’m game,” he replied with a wry smile.

If I hadn’t known better I would have assumed that he knew exactly what I was thinking. Perhaps I had some sort of sexy look on my face too?

We sipped our coffee and walked back to Noah’s house. The warm morning breeze whipped in from the ocean and tossed a mix of smells our way. The salty air had a way of relaxing me and I could have stayed out there on the beach all day long.

Maybe Cody’s idea of relaxing for a few days was a good one. I had some saved vacation days and I wasn’t in the mood for working. Perhaps a few days of rest would be just what I needed to get back into my groove.

“Hey Noah,” Cody said as we came into the house. Noah was lying on the couch, he looked dazed as if he was high. I was no one to judge, but an executive at Warner Brother’s didn’t seem like the type of guy who should be going out partying mid-week and doing drugs.

“Hi Guys,” Noah slurred.

“Dude are you okay? Are you sure you should have been driving in this condition?”

“What condition?” Noah asked.

“You’re smashed,” Cody said.

“No, I’m sober.”

“Then what’s the matter with you?”

“Oh man, it’s a long story, but I think I’m in love.”

Cody burst out laughing so hard that I thought this was some sort of joke. Who laughs when their friend says they are in love?

“I know. I know,” Noah shook his head in disgust. “But this woman, she’s unbelievable. I’ve never met anyone like her before.”

“I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”

“I just met her last night.”

“Okay, I think you’re drunk. I’m going to make some breakfast and get food in your stomach. Are you sure you’re sick?”

By this time Noah was practically asleep. His eyes were closed, and he didn’t respond to Cody at all. The two of us just looked at each other and then back at Noah.

“He’s in love with some girl he met last night?” I asked trying to figure out if I really understood what was going on here.

“This man has sworn off love for years. He jokes around about the idea that he will never find anyone who can hold his attention. He likes to try and fix everyone else up, but I’ve seen him date women for months and still not say he loved them. Whoever this woman is, she must be pretty damn amazing.”

“I guess we can’t judge him.”

“Why not?” Cody laughed.

“Um, you and I actually got married after one long night together. I think him saying he is in love isn’t that big of a deal compared to what we did.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.”

I could have pretended to be offended by Cody not remembering we were married at that moment, but the truth was I hardly remembered it as well. We hadn’t been dating for months or had a long discussion about the future. Suddenly the two of us were just married.

“Look at him sleeping, he looks so exhausted. Just let him sleep,” I urged when Cody finished making breakfast and went to wake Noah up.

“He should probably eat something if he’s drunk.”

“I think he’s just drunk on love.”

We both laughed at the big smile plastered across Noah’s sleeping face. Whatever had happened to him that night and whoever this girl was, he certainly looked happy. Noah looked like a man who didn’t have a single care in the world, a man who was happier than he had ever been. Secretly I wished I was the one feeling that level of happiness.

In the absence of emotional satisfaction that my life was going where I wanted it to go, I was totally willing to settle for the physical satisfaction that I could get with Cody. Making love with him was amazing and certainly took my mind off the other aspects of my life at the moment. I took a couple bites of my breakfast and put my fork down on the table. As I walked down the hallway I expected Cody to ask me where I was going, instead, I heard him running up behind me.

“You’re not hungry?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m hungry,” he teased as we shut the bedroom door behind us.

What fun it was to be away from everything for another day. Playfully, we made love again. He took his time with me and was gentler than he had been the night before. His sweet licks and kisses devoured my stress and left me trembling with exhaustion. I was getting addicted to the orgasms Cody could give me. Every time we were together I exploded harder and longer than I ever thought possible. Certainly, we couldn’t continue on like this. Somehow, sooner or later, the sex would get boring; wouldn’t it? Maybe this is what a life with Cody would be like. Maybe we had such amazing chemistry that we’d have amazing sex for as long as we lived? It was a nice thought.

The two of us collapsed from exhaustion and ended up sleeping most of the day. It had been the longest twenty-four hours of my life and I was happy to rest and recover as long as I could. I’d already called into my boss and taken the rest of the week off. There was no way I wanted to face everyone at work. I’d been talking about my new show for months. The utter terror of having to explain why I actually didn’t get to do the job was not high on my list of things to do.

“Are you two up?” Noah said as he knocked on the door around four in the afternoon.

“Yes,” I replied since Cody was still sleeping.

“I ordered Chinese food and it will be here soon. Do you guys want to come chill and eat a late lunch?”

“Yes, we will be right out,” I replied as I pushed Cody to wake up. He tossed and turned a little and then put his mouth around my breast and started teasing me.

“Sorry I was so out of it this morning. I’d been up all night long,” Noah continued to talk to me through the door.

I pushed Cody to let go of my nipple but that only drove him to suck me into his mouth harder. The delicious feeling made it nearly impossible for me to concentrate. I could hardly catch my breath as I tried to respond to Noah without sounding like we were in the middle of having sex or something.

“No problem. We will be right out,” I managed to say just before Cody slid two of his fingers inside of me and started playing with me.

“Give us a couple minutes,” Cody added while taking a quick break from teasing me.

He curled his fingers rhythmically inside me begging my body to release so quickly that I couldn’t contain myself. I thrust my hips against him and grabbed the sheets of the bed as my body delighted in his touch. Faster and harder he played my body to perfection.

“Did I tell you guys about the woman I met?” Noah just wouldn’t leave the door.

“No, but I can’t wait to hear about her,” Cody said as he repositioned himself between my legs. “How did you meet her?”

“What are you doing?” I whispered to Cody. “Let him leave. Stop talking to him.”

“No this is more fun,” he laughed. “Shhhh, don’t make a sound or he’ll know what’s going on.”

Cody wrapped his mouth around my clit as he forced me to give in to him. I reached for a pillow to cover my whimpering moans as I listened to Noah try and tell the story about how he met this girl.

“I was at the bookstore. She was sitting on one of the chairs in the corner and had all her luggage with her. Something was obviously wrong. I walked past her and then watched her. I wasn’t going to go talk to her because she was beautiful. Not like a normal girl beautiful, more like a supermodel. Then finally I got the nerve to go…”

I couldn’t hear Noah anymore over my own panting and moaning in the pillow. Cody wasn’t releasing me. He continued to play with me. He continued to bring me to more and more releases. I wasn’t sure if Cody was listening to Noah’s story at all, but I was totally ignoring him as I listened to the sweet desires of my body.

“That sounds crazy,” Cody said so calmly that it surprised me. “We will be right out.”

“Ok, I’ll grab a bottle of wine for us from downstairs.”

I let the pillow off of my face as Cody finally pulled out of me. I had drenched his sheets. I was soaked in sweat and passion. There was no way I was going to be walking out to the kitchen anytime soon.

“That was a terrible thing to do,” I laughed and playfully punched Cody in the arm.

He slid his fingers into his mouth and tasted my juices as he smiled down at me. He looked so smug as he stood up and put his shirt on. Cody was proud of the orgasmic destruction he had leveled against me.

“Hmmm, it didn’t seem terrible. I’ll get the shower started for you, but you’re going to have to walk yourself in there,” he winked and playfully touched my legs that were still shaking.

“Oh, I’ll get you back, mister. Trust me on this one. I’ll get you back.”

“I can’t wait.”

Cody leaned down and gave me a soft kiss before going to the bathroom to start the shower. When he came back out, he kissed me again and then stood by the bed watching my naked body wiggle with the aftershock of what he had done to me.

“What?” I laughed. “Why are you staring at me?”

“Because you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and I love you,” he shrugged his shoulders and slipped out of the room before I could even respond.

The emotion of the moment caught me off guard. I felt a tear running down my cheek and I wiped it away before I could let another one come down. He just said he loved me. He didn’t say it like he wanted or needed me to say it back to him. Cody told me he loved me purely because he wanted to.

It took me nearly a half of an hour to manage the strength to finish my shower. I pulled on a t-shirt and shorts from Cody’s dresser and made my way out to the kitchen to enjoy the dinner with the guys. If Noah knew why it had taken me so long to come out of the bedroom he certainly didn’t let on when I reached the table.

“Noah, this is Alexis. Alexis, this is Noah.”

“I think I remember you,” Noah said with a suspicious look at he shoved a piece of sweet and sour chicken into his mouth.

“I should hope so,” Cody added. “She was the most beautiful girl in the entire college.”

“Wow. You are sucking up big time today,” I winked and sat next to Cody.

We all caught up a little and reminisced about college and how horrible it was. Cody and Noah did most of the talking while I sipped on my water and tried to get some nourishment into my system as quickly as possible. It seemed like I hadn’t eaten a real meal in days. In fact, as I tried to remember the last two days, I wasn’t sure I had actually eaten a whole meal at all.

“So you’re an actress?” Noah asked just as I’d shoved an extraordinary amount of noodles into my mouth.

“Yes,” I mumbled and covered my mouth while I tried to finish chewing.

“I have a list of agents that Warner Brother’s works with all the time. That might be a good place to start. I can email it to you if you’d like. Cody told me about losing your reality gig, but I suspect you’ll find lots of work if you can get in with one of these agents.”

“I probably already know most of them. They don’t like working with people who just do background work and commercials.”

“Then stop doing background work and commercials,” Noah replied so matter-of-factly that it caught me off guard.

“What do you mean?”

“If that’s not the kind of work you want to do then stop doing it. There are tons of students who need actors for their films. Take one of those for free and build your acting reel so you have some long-form samples. Then I’ll put in a good word with an agent from the list and we’ll get you into films.”

I literally stopped chewing midway through what he was saying. Noah’s way of looking at this whole thing was so simple and yet I hadn’t considered it at all. No, I didn’t like being an extra in movies! No, I didn’t like doing commercials! I wanted to act.

“Okay, I’ll do that,” I managed to mutter, still in total shock at how this one conversation had changed the way I looked at my acting. Not only could I grow my skills, but I would be helping someone else who was following their passion for movies as well. It was a win/win situation and if Noah could help me get my acting reel into the hands of one of the good agents in town, I might just get a role in a movie.

“A good actor will stand out. I’m not guaranteeing you a job, but if you’re good, you’ll start getting work. There are too many bad actors out there, everyone is begging to hire people who can show they have put in the time and effort to really learn the craft.”

“Thanks, Noah. This is amazing. I’m going to check out the call sheets at the film schools right away. I was really concentrating on getting paid work, but I can see how doing student films is more important since that’s the sort of acting jobs I really want. You don’t even know how much this has helped me. Thanks again.”

“No problem.”

“Now tell us more about the love of your life,” Cody added.

“I’d love to, but I actually need to run into the office. I called in sick, but I have a few things I have to get done before tomorrow. I’ll fill you two in later. Oh and Cody, maybe you should finish that thing we were talking about?”

“Okay,” he replied.

Noah grabbed his things and left the house and Cody looked at me with a serious expression. It was similar to how he had been looking at me when we were at the restaurant when he first arrived in L.A.

“What?”

“There’s just something I wanted to straighten out with you. It’s no big deal.”

“Okay,” I waited to see what this was. He looked so serious. He looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

The silence was heavy between us. Cody wanted to say something, I saw him thinking about it, his eyes looking up as he tried to put his words together. My heart sank, this had to be something really serious if he was taking this long to figure out how to say it.

“I meant what I said earlier,” Cody started. “I love you. I know it seems crazy because we haven’t really dated, and we still have to get to know each other. I just want to tell you I meant it. I don’t want you thinking that I blurted that out without knowing what I was saying.”

“Oh, okay, thank you,” I smiled and hugged him. “I have feelings for you too. I know this has been a crazy time. Thank you so much for being there for me after I lost that job. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Um, there was…” he started to say something and then stopped himself. “You’re welcome. I’m glad it’s over and I’m glad that Noah was able to help give you some ideas for going forward.”

The awkwardness continued between us. It didn’t seem like Cody had actually said what he wanted to say to me. He looked away from me instead of making eye contact, but as we hugged and gave each other a kiss, it was clear that Cody wasn’t going to tell me whatever he had first intended on saying.

Something was going on. I’d felt it when we were out to dinner before and I felt it in that moment. Cody was clearly there for me. He had dropped his whole week to come out to Los Angeles and try to figure this thing out. But his reticence to tell me what he needed to say was putting me ill at ease.