I almost recoil from the comment. Can you stop, Jac? Do you have to overthink everything? Leave it, Jac. Said to me by boyfriends and fuck buddies and men who always had enough of me, whether it took hours or days or weeks. It was always too much.
And as much as looking at Marcus still does something for me, what would we do together? Could we ever sit and talk about something outside of his workout routine? I’m not sure.
Marcus, realizing he perhaps said something he shouldn’t have, pulls me closer, his fingers sliding over the thin fabric of my top to wrap around my hip. “I’m just glad to be out here with you,” he tells me, recovering as quickly as possible. “It’s always different than with the other girls. There’s something else here.”
“Yeah,” I agree automatically.
“Speaking of the other girls,” he continues, “how goes the house drama?”
“House drama?” I repeat. “We’re still talking about that?”
He shrugs. “I care about how that’s going for you.”
“Do the other girls tell you about it?”
Nonchalantly, he answers, “Sometimes. It gets to some people more than others.”
“Well,” I say dismissively, “not me.”
Nimbly, Marcus’s fingers skim under my shirt, touching the bare skin of my lower back. I shiver. “That’s my girl,” he says.
Girl. Always girl.
The hike is hell for the cameraman, a guy named Jose, and we stop quite a few times for him to wipe off the copious sweat beading on his brow, and drink water.
“This was a bad idea,” Henry observes, checking his watch.
“Well, you’re full of those,” Marcus says, his eyes glinting.
Henry ignores him. “Janelle, do you think we should scratch the drone shot? I think we’re going to get off schedule.”
“Oh, fuck no,” Janelle says. “That was a huge pain in the ass to set up.”
“He’s such a snake,” Marcus says as an aside to me, voice dripping with venom like it always does when he talks about Henry. Every time Marcus mentions him, it feels more personal.
“I don’t know that he’s a snake,” I say, glancing over but not staring long enough to draw attention. “He’s manipulative. They all are.”
Marcus raises an eyebrow at me. “Henry’s manipulation is different, though. He feeds off the girls loving him.” Marcus’s eyes are burning holes in mine, and I think he’s going to say something more, but Janelle calls, “Okay! We’re finishing this off. Shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes uphill, and we’ll be in place for the drone shot.”
Jose calls her a “bitch” under his breath and then we take back off.
There’s not much time for us to enjoy the beautiful view when we get to the top of the trail, but I try to close my eyes and take it in for just a moment. Breathe in, breathe out, find myself in space and time. The sun isn’t visible now, clouds gathered over it, but below us, a river cuts through the treetops as they sway in a gentle wind, an untouched quiet.
“It’s beautiful,” I say to Marcus.
“So are you” is the line that comes out, and then we’re contractually obligated to kiss or something, living in a flat love story.
It starts raining as if on cue, and then there’s an even bigger scramble. PAs take our mics off to keep them from getting destroyed by the water. Janelle demands that we still get the drone shot, and everyone has to back away and give us space. For the first time ever, it’s just Marcus and me, truly alone as the drone takes us in.
I look up at Marcus, his arms wrapped around me, and I feel something shift in him, a change in the temperature.
He leans forward, our faces inches from each other, the look in his eyes tender. “I know you’re fucking Henry,” he says.
It takes everything in me not to stumble back, away from him. “What—why do you say that?”
“The airport bathroom,” he says. “Pretty bold, Jac.”
His narrowed eyes surprise me then, the way they’re so much sharper than I’ve ever seen them. I purse my lips, studying him as the cameras record this moment from a distance. “You’ve been holding back on me.”
“At least you’re fun,” Marcus says. “Though of all the fucking people. Henry?”
“I should go home,” I tell him.
“Oh, fuck no,” Marcus says, keeping his face arranged to look perfectly pleasant to the surrounding crew.
“So, you’re actually the asshole the internet said you were,” I whisper back to him.
“Or the hero,” Marcus answers. “Depends on your point of view.” A chill runs down my spine, the realization settling in of just how much I have underestimated him. Each of his moves had been as calculated as Henry had told me, and now my fate is in his hands.
The buzz of the drone dies down. In a few seconds, we will be supervised again. “You don’t even want me,” I say, both a statement and a question.
“Unclear,” he says. “I did really like the hot tub.”
“Okay! That should be good!” Janelle calls. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Marcus leans forward and kisses me again. I don’t even think to flinch away.
A FULL MOON and starry sky are passing by outside the window, palm trees swaying lazily in the background. “Jac, are you even listening to me?”
