Let's Try This Again Page 13

  “You BABE,” he squealed. “You could use some bright lipstick though, you’re very black. This is LA, not New York, honey.” I held up some options – bubblegum pink, rosy pink, purple pink. Purple pink it was. “Yes?” I smacked my lips together, pursing them for myself in the mirror.

  “Everything to me.” Trevor relaxed on my bed. I silently hated him for being able to recline, breathe, and not suck his stomach in…all things I wouldn’t be doing until this dress was off, later. “So this is, like, the first date! The first real, not in-his-bedroom, date, I mean.”

  A date? This wasn’t a date date. I’d thought about it after the initial invite. Carter hadn’t called it a date, had he? I was half asleep when he’d asked me to come. He told me about it, yes, but most of Los Angeles would be there, so it could’ve easily been just a courtesy invitation. Carter had not called it a date, I remembered that much. When I said all this out loud, Trevor shook his head.

  “Josie, the man has been told by you over and over again that you guys are friends. Him not calling it a date is probably just his way of trying not to scare you off. You’re the only woman in the world content with keeping Carter Coleman in the friend zone.”

  “It’s not like that, Trev. If things were different…” I shook my head. “I’m not ready to be anywhere but the friend zone. He didn’t ask me as a date, Trevor. He didn’t want to go alone. Plus, I’m sure it’s good press for him to be seen with his new music partner…music group…music-mate? Whatever. I don’t know what I am considered to be, technically.”

  It was like I could actually hear Trevor’s eyes rolling in his skull. I ignored it anyways.

  I stood from my vanity, checking myself out in my full-length mirror one last time. Smoothing a wrinkle, plucking off a piece of lint, posing in various ways to see how the dress would change when my leg was here or my arm was there. A girl scout is always prepared (for a photo op… Instagram can only do so much).

  “Whatever, girl, just don’t be surprised if he pays the bill, if you know what I’m sayin’.” Trevor laughed.

  “I…actually don’t,” I stated sincerely. “We’re on the same page with all of this…he basically knows my history with monsters, I mean men.” I smiled at him, thinking of that first day of our friendship with grilled cheese, and shooed this topic of conversation away.

  “You know what I think?” Trevor asked gently. I didn’t have to answer, I knew he was going to tell me anyway. “This being a date might lead to dating. For you, right now, that just sounds like the beginning of an inevitable, twisted end. Best case scenario, you’ll care about him as much as you cared about…” A nice warning glance stopped Trevor before he completely ruined my night with his name.

  “Which would mean,” he cautiously carried on. “Going through everything you’re just getting over, but in this case, completely without privacy. Have you ever read about any woman connected to Justin Bieber? Those girls get Twitter death threats.”

  Well, how was I going to enjoy this non-date-maybe-it’s-a-date now? “Trevor, I can’t even begin to think about caring for someone like that again. Not right now. Maybe not ever,” I said. I think it was the first time I’d really thought about my situation in those terms. I couldn’t think about Carter that way yet, even if I wanted to.

  “That’s fair, Josie. But you’re not the kind of girl who gives up on experiencing things just because she got a bad taste in her mouth. You’re too good for that, and you deserve more than that,” Trevor almost scolded. I kissed his beautiful little chipmunk cheek because he was sweet and because he was right.

  “Fine. I’ll play it all by ear. Take things as they come. Nice and slowly, though. Can you check my phone, see if he’s texted me to tell me he’s outside?”

  No sooner had Trevor grabbed my cell than there was a knock at the door downstairs. “AH! I knew it, Prince Charming knocks…never texts.” He leapt off my bed, backtracking for a quick second to smooth his hair and slap a little color into his cheeks, before I heard him open the door. “Carter! You look so handsome.” I raced down to meet them.

  “Okay, Mom, that’s enough. No time for pictures,” I joked. Then I rounded the corner and saw Carter. He was in a casual suit, but he looked incredible. It’s very true—a well-tailored suit does for girls what our lingerie does for men. His hair was a little more structurally ruffled than I was used to seeing it. Usually, it was either flat and down because we were working and there was no need for him to get it done, or it was very ruffled because, what can I say, I like to run my hands through it and the scalp is an erotic zone (take notes, ladies). This ruffle had some gel to it. I liked it.

  “You guys are looking at each other like you’ve never seen one another.” Trevor smirked. I guess Carter had been taking in dolled-up-me the same way. My hair was usually in a state of flat-to-ruffled when I was with him as well.

  “You’re beautiful.” Carter exhaled like he’d just remembered how to breathe.

  “You ready to go?” I was blushing and tried to step outside into the darkness to cover it up.

  “Uh, yeah…let’s hit it,” Carter said, shaking Trevor’s hand bye and heading down the driveway in front of me. I thought it was a little weird that he sped ahead of me, but he just wanted to beat me to the car so he could open my door for me. It was so cute. The old me would’ve read into something like that, but the new me let things like that go, and so I just got in the car.

  We pulled around the corner of the block the venue was on, and, as expected, it was crowded with paparazzi. Lights flashed and people were standing in the street, or were on tip toes just outside the crowd, hoping for a glimpse of whoever the fuck was being photographed.

  “You want to drop me off here, and I’ll just walk in at the side of the building?” I asked as we were getting close to the front.

  “No,” Carter laughed. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because if we walk in the front together, they’ll photograph us.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Uh…together.”

  “Okay…”

  “And they’ll think we’re…”

  “What?”

  “…Together.”

  Carter’s eyebrows rose in amusement. “It’ll be fine. They’re not going to even ask us anything. It’s a two second walk to the door and most of them won’t even know who you are.” By now he had parked in front of the building and was rounding the car to get to my door, so even if it wasn’t fine, it didn’t really matter. “No offense.” He flashed a smile and held his hand out.

  Nothing to it, but to do it. I grabbed his hand, not as delicately as all those movie vixens do when a guy presents his hand for the taking. I was wearing high heels, and if I didn’t grab hold of something as I stood up out of the car, it was very possible I could take a tumble in front of fifty cameras. Then they’d know who I was.

  “Hold onto my arm,” Carter whispered, sensing my jelly legs. “If you need to.” So there we were, walking arm in arm, through a sea of paps, into a situation.

  As we reached the door, which took us what felt like a lot more than two seconds to reach, a reporter shoved a mic in my face, knocking it into my bottom lip. “Ow!” Great, a fat lip and probably smudged (dark) lipstick at my first true Hollywood event. Seemed about right.

  “Carter, is this your girlfriend? Are you two dating?” The annoying assailant asked.

  Carter was looking at me, concerned, as I rubbed carefully around my lip to ease the throbbing of the mic punch. “You know, right now we’re good friends. We’re having fun,” he answered, smiling. Then he wiped softly at the corner of my mouth, presumably to clean off the purple stain now smeared on my chin.

  Crowd. Went. Wild.

  Flashing lights, screaming girls, more questions (but no more mics, thank God) thrown at us. Carter waved to them all and pulled me inside.

  “You okay? Sorry, I really didn’t think there would be any reporters.”

  “Reporter? That boxer bitch was playin
g whack-a-mole with my face.”

  “Does it hurt?” He reached up to touch my face again, but I moved away this time.

  “It’s fine. They got pictures of you doing all that, you know. It probably looked…”

  “Who cares? No one is gonna run a story about me fixing your makeup.”

  “Have you ever been on Twitter? ‘Kim Kardashian eats two doughnuts in one day’ qualifies as news.”

  A waiter greeted us at the door of the dining room where a stage was set up at the far end. He had a tray of champagne, and Carter grabbed a glass for me immediately.

  “And…‘we’re having fun?’” I pushed on, accepting the champs but not drinking it, which was a new move for me. “Everyone that has ever read a magazine knows what that means. It’s what celebrities say when they don’t want to say, ‘Yes, we’re dating,’ because they’re technically allowed to have some privacy but don’t want to say, ‘no, we’re not dating,’ for fear of upsetting the girlfriend.”

  “It doesn’t have to mean anything, Josie,” Carter shrugged it off, purposely not making a deal out of it to show me I was being dramatic. “I’m sorry I don’t know all the rules like you seem to.” It seemed as though maybe he was amused by my discomfort, and a little bit like he wanted me to feel foolish.

  Maybe I was overreacting, but I don’t know—I really felt like I wasn’t. Why couldn’t he have just said we were friends? Or, I was the girl working on his new music with him? And the gentle lip swipe? The press was going to eat that shit up – I had been a celebrity stalker long enough to know that much. Had we not been sleeping together, I probably would have loved the idea of being seen as Carter Coleman’s “mystery girl.” But now there was added pressure, like we were doing this thing that theoretically meant that at any second I could feel the right to pop up with the infamous girly question—“So, where is this going?” And I didn’t want Carter getting the idea that I wanted this to be more than what it was right now. Nice and slow was as much as I could take, just as I’d told Trevor. But if Carter wasn’t making a big deal about it…I guess I shouldn’t either.

  “Sorry. Sorry.” I finally tasted the champagne. “Oh, my God. It’s Britney Spears in liquid form.” Carter laughed, knowing exactly what I meant by that. It was HEAVEN. Like drinking something that tasted like eating pizza and that would never make you fat on an island where you would never get sunburned having sex that would only make you Victoria’s-Secret-Angel-sweaty, not gross-sweaty. Yeah, that’s my version of heaven, okay? Suck it.

  “I had it on this trip to Paris years ago, and once you made it clear how much you like champagne…I knew you’d like it. I told Max to get it for the party. I have to go find everyone and get ready and whatever, so hang out, mingle, get some appetizers because I know you’re hungry.” He poked my side and winked, attempting to fat joke me. In my sexy LBD. My L-L-LBD. That showed all flaws. But instead of making me intensely self-conscious, it relaxed me finally. Because that was our thing. Our we’re friends thing—he would never say something like that to a girl on a date. Or to a hook up he thought would hound him for more.

  Just a girl he knew could take a joke, like one of his boys.

  That he had sex with.

  Whatever, it made sense to me.

  ***

  From The Boys played so well it took me back to my bedroom and dancing with a hairbrush in my hand, and dreaming of kissing them all. If I’d known that later I would actually be kissing one—surreal doesn’t cover it. Not even close.

  “You were so great! So great,” I gushed when Carter came back out to work the room.

  “Thanks, it was fun to perform together again. A different rush than doing it with you, though,” he said. We both caught the double entendre, and I laughed, feeling light and floaty with bubbles. “C’mon, there’re some people I want you to meet.”

  I let him drag me by the hand, expecting to get introduced to boring producers, stylists, and managers he’d known and worked with. The people at this party were beautiful and sophisticated; I recognized some here and there and made a mental note to tell Molly that the girl from her favorite show drank gin and tonics just like her. We stopped in front of a beautiful, middle-aged couple. The woman’s eyes looked familiar.

  “Josie, this is my mom, Shannon, and my father, Todd.”

  OH. THAT’S WHY.

  ***

  “What was that about?!” I had kept myself very composed and polite in front of Mr. and Mrs. Coleman (Shannon, please. Call me Todd, Mr. Coleman is my father!) who had heard “so much about me.” I had to suffer through feeling trapped in my crazy brain all night; I couldn’t even enjoy basking in the glory that was meeting my favorite member of the band, Marcus (though I guarantee that that will be in the top five best moments of my life that flash through my head on my death bed). I had to keep a smile plastered on while the valet got his car because paparazzi were a real part of my life right now. But in the car heading home, I really let the fuck go. “Why would you ambush me with something like that?” This little opener made it kind of impossible for me to be taking things slow.

  “You know exactly why, Josie.” Carter calmly steered on, like I wasn’t an inch from his face, probably spitting on him. He flicked his blinker on. When I am furiously venting, or in an argument, or feeling anxiety in any capacity, the last thing on my mind is signaling. It seemed he was interested in letting the drivers around him know his next move, which struck me as funny because he clearly had no interest in telling me.

  “What the fuck does that mean? Stop being all the mysterious musician guy and give it to me straight. For fucking once don’t wrap it in a cute little joke.”

  “You’re one to talk. You are the biggest mind-fucker I’ve ever met. You see me every day, practically live at my house. We work together, eat together, sleep together…yet the idea of being on a date with me was panic inducing.” He took a charged breath, and his aggravated voice sounded rushed, like he had wanted to say this for a very long time. “You haven’t got a clue what’s going on in your brain, and you’re too busy acting like you’ve got it all figured out up there to actually figure it out.”

  “First of all, I do not have anything figured out. That’s kind of the whole point. So what…you wanted to force me into a date without telling me just because you thought I might be too scared to say yes? I mean, if you wanna really examine things that sounds a lot like date rape.” And there we go. I had said some stupid phrase that wasn’t even really what I had meant to say, but now we both had to pause and come out of our angry fogs to figure out what the fuck was even going on right now.

  “What?” Carter laughed. That made the angry fog come back, and now I was even more furious. He had a habit of doing that.

  “Not date rape, but like date rape. You know what I’m saying.” Like I had been forced into a date. Not forced into sex by someone I knew. It was my brain working faster than my mouth and way too many episodes of Law & Order: SVU culminating into a phrase that turned my basically valid, yet angry point into one that took us out of the emotionally heavy moment.

  “You’re right, I do.” His voice had a smile in it that wasn’t showing on his face. “I always know what you’re saying, even when you’re not saying things that make sense. Or saying things that aren’t even really words. And yeah, I thought that taking you out on a date without technically calling it that might help you ease into the idea.” He sighed, the smiley tone gone, clearly resolving that his plan had backfired.

  “Typical. You know I’ve heard that men have three objectives: to fix you, to save you, or to fuck you. It would be so much easier if you were just the last one. The other two are so condescending, so self-righteous, so goddamn annoying. I’m not that broken. I’m not fixable even if I am. And I can take care of myself, I don’t want to be saved,” I preached. I was that broken, and I didn’t want to give him the job of fixing me. Even more than that, I didn’t want him to be one of those wimpy, puppy dog guys that get off on doing that.
Which is why I softened when he spoke next.

  “I don’t think either of those things would be possible. None of those things are what I want. The thing is, I want to date you.” Carter had stopped at a light and his face was bathed in red. He shrugged like he had just said he wanted pasta for dinner when I had suggested Chinese—a simple observation that held no real consequences. I barely had time to soak that in before he said, “No, you know what? I love you. And that means a little fixing, a little saving, and a lot of fucking. Deal with it.”

  The light changed, and he straight up vroomed. I was catapulted back into my seat, away from the nagging, forward lean I had been rocking in. I didn’t say anything for a couple minutes. We pulled up in front of my house, but I didn’t get out.

  “You really have nothing to say?” Carter finally asked..

  “I’m…dealing with it,” I said pretty unconvincingly.

  “It’s not like I’m expecting you to say it back. I know this whole thing was not something you were looking to get into. I know there’s baggage there. But I couldn’t not say it anymore. I wake up and look at you sleeping, a lot of the time with your mouth open and drooling, and I still want to be with you all day. That just hasn’t happened for me before.”

  The problem with all of this was…while I did have feelings for Carter, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to forget that it had happened to me.

  “The first time you sang for me, your voice was just heavy with feelings, with homesickness for one single memory…and I had to know you. More than I did. I had to have you feel that for me—to know that someone had that enormous a capacity to just feel. I wanted to be part of that. I want to be what makes you sing like that.”