I am so relieved this meeting is over, even though I’m left for dead on the battlefield. All I won was getting Audrey removed from my life.

I lost everything else.

“Jesus, Jack. Why didn’t you tell me?” Devon is staring at me hard when I open my eyes. I’d been lying there on his couch like I was in a damn therapist’s office, letting the last five months of my life pour out.

“Tell you what?” I ask. “That I was a coward, and I should have fought harder? That I was too tired and depressed to really fight? That I was so relieved to get Audrey out of my life, that I let the person I really wanted to be with slip through my fingers?” I sit up. “Because I didn’t want to face the rejection? Because I’ve gotten what I want for most of my life, but I chose not to fight for Keri Ann because deep down I thought I would lose?” The truth hits me hard.

Devon is quiet a few moments. “Is that truly what you think?”

I pick up the water, wishing it were whisky and down it. “I don’t know. The reality is that Keri Ann is as far from the kind of lives we lead as one could possibly get. This bullshit is my life. I can’t see it changing in the foreseeable future. Maybe I don’t want it to. I enjoy acting. I don’t enjoy the BS that comes with it, but it’s the price, right? Is there really a place for her in that? A place she would want? Deep down inside me I think that if she had the choice, she would choose not to be in that place.”

“You think she’d choose not to a famous guy’s arm-candy over being her own person?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you’re right. It’s going to be damn hard to avoid that.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping me?”

“I am. That part is impossible and will take time. But it sounds like what she said was she doesn’t trust you and doesn’t want to risk you flaking out again. Based on what she knows and what the whole world got to see you get up to in England, I don’t blame her.”

“Did I?”

“Did you what?

“Flake out on her. Before? Could I have found a way around the contract?”

“Honestly, England aside, you probably could have handled it better, and told Keri Ann what was going on, but I know Peak, and they don’t mess around. What with the Internet and social media, their movies are mini-universes with interactive experiences, and that means the cast is part of that world too for however long they deem necessary. Gone are the days when people see a movie in a vacuum and go home from the theater to their movie-free lives.” He shakes his shaggy blond head. “Peak does it so well, their marketing machine is one of the best. And they meant it when they threatened you. I would have done the same thing you did—ride it out. I’d say the fact they even amended your contract with Audrey says a lot about the belief they have in you. Although, they did give you a failing project as punishment. They’d almost written it off …” He looks at me gravely. “But you brought it back from the crapper. I’ve seen the early cuts, and Jack? It’s pretty ‘effing’ awesome, despite your drunk ass. They’re talking awards season. You certainly showed them.”

“Seriously?”

“How is this a surprise to you?”

“It’s not. I heard from people. I guess I didn’t really believe it. I was so pissed about being set up and controlled, I may have gone off the deep end a bit.”

“A bit? Dude, I’d say getting drunk and publicly hooking up every night was a lot off the deep end, especially when you claim to be in love with someone.”

“C’mon Dev. I told you what happened with Audrey, that stuff was engineered. Staged. None of it was real.”

“I thought you all agreed to a couple of photo opportunities. What we’ve seen over the last few months seems like a lot more than that.” He sounds incredulous.

“It looked that way, I guess. I wasn’t trying to hurt Keri Ann. I think a part of me must have thought Keri Ann probably didn’t even care anymore. I mean it had been months. Childish, I know. Being there, in England, is tough for me. I don’t handle it well.”

“You don’t talk much about growing up.”

I glance at him. Devon has been a good friend. I don’t know why I haven’t told him until now how things ended with Audrey. But I’m definitely not ready to talk about England.

Getting up, I prowl to the glass wall overlooking the ocean. The low sun has cast an amber filter over the view. A few people are letting their dogs frolic in the surf. It doesn’t look like there are any photogs with high-powered lenses anywhere, but I didn’t notice one when I was here last time either.

“I thought … I thought that it would be a big ‘eff you’ to Audrey. And that it would help Keri Ann get over me, better that she hates me, right? But mostly I wasn’t thinking at all. I avoided thinking at all costs. I just threw myself into being on that set and getting involved in the movie and drowning my sorrows when the cameras stopped rolling.” I drop my forehead against the glass. “Being back in England does that to me.”

“Did you explain to Keri Ann the stuff about Peak, about why you didn’t come back here in December?”

“I tried, I wanted to.”

“But you didn’t because …?”

“Shit. Because I saw her … and because she makes me feel like I don’t deserve her, which I don’t, even though I crave her with every single fucking ounce of me. And I should have handled the situation last night better, but she floors me. I wish I had a script for how to be with her, but I don’t. And I’d basically be saying I chose a movie contract over her. That I let myself be manipulated rather than fighting for her.”

“Well, I can’t say I expect her to look past the last five months, but maybe if you can tell her the why’s she can decide whether to trust you again. And Jack, you weren’t choosing a movie contract over her, you were protecting her from what Audrey had planned. And maybe she should know that. I would’ve done the same thing.”

“It won’t make a difference. Anyway, she’s with someone else now.”

“At least you’ll have tried. And you know what? You can’t change who you are. If you guys are going to have any kind of future, then she will need to get used to the reality of your life. It’s not like you can hide from it. So why don’t you use it to get her back? Show her what life you could have together. Accept who you are and win her back.”

God, I’m losing sleep trying not to have thoughts about what we could have together. It’s a full time job keeping them out of my head lest they make me fucking crazy.

“I promised her I’d stay away.”

Devon shakes his head. “Why the hell would you promise something like that?”

“She said if I meant what I said about being in love with her, I would respect her wishes and stay away.”

“So you didn’t actually promise her.”

“No, but I did mean it when I said I was in love with her.”

In. Love.

What a nightmare.

I flash back to her fixing her tire yesterday on the side of the road, giving off sparks with her attitude. I wanted this girl. Like air. All the fucking way.