Hollywood Remake (A Celebrity Love Story)

Chapter 22: Splash

Kate clicked the bedroom door closed, letting out a sigh of relief. Her headache from before had eased, but that wasn’t the reason she’d left the room full of Aidan’s friends to come lie down. She just couldn’t bear one more moment of self-conscious awkwardness.

Everyone had come back to Aidan’s suite after the rehearsal session except for a couple of the assistants, who were sent out on a dinner run. They’d come back half an hour later with six-packs of Corona and a cardboard box full of cheap Mexican from some taco truck in East LA. The whole crew had pounced on the food the moment it arrived. Kate had done her best to share in the feeding frenzy, randomly picking out one of the lukewarm containers and sniffing at the foil pouch inside.

It was an amazing sight to behold, really – a room full of multimillionaires sitting around a luxury hotel suite in Beverly Hills, eating dinner with their hands out of styrofoam. She could well remember nights just like this, back when they were all a bunch of penniless kids. A celebratory dinner back then meant greasy gyros and falafel from some New York City food cart. Kate used to eat it with them back then too – no problem. But it had been years since she’d eaten like that. Nowadays, dinner from a food cart meant a guaranteed case of indigestion.

Zoe and Halley appeared to have no such reservations. They munched away contentedly at the tacos without so much as a sideways glance. Clearly, these little fiestas were not an unusual occurrence. The two of them were nearly keeping pace with the boys, downing one taco after another and licking the sauce from their fingers between bites. All those rumors about models eating nothing but celery and rice cakes? Not true, apparently.

Kate had picked at the food, not wanting to look like a spoilsport. But of course, it was too late for that. She knew what they thought of her, after that conversation she’d overheard earlier. She didn’t fit in. She looked to them like an imposter – a fish out of water.

No one had batted an eyelash when she left her food half-eaten and went to stand by herself at the window, nursing her beer. Only Aidan had reacted when she’d tried to slip out of the room entirely.

She hadn’t wanted him to spoil his fun on her account. Easier to lie and say she still had a headache. “I’m just going to close my eyes for 15 minutes,” she’d told him. “I’ll be right back.”

She had no intention of going back out there, of course. It wasn’t as if any of them would miss her.

She sat down on the bed instead, turning on a bedside lamp and flicking open her laptop to catch up on work emails. She sat staring at the screen, but it failed to hold her attention. Her mind kept going back to the conversation she’d overheard. What had Zoe called her? “That old chick.” Kate tried to summon up some indignation, but she knew she was kidding herself. Zoe had put it a little bluntly, but deep down inside Kate knew that it was true.

Maybe she and Aidan were the same age, but it didn’t feel like it when she was out there in the other room just now. All these years, she’d been growing older, and he’d been staying the same. That was why he kept dating the 21-year-old Darryl Hannah look-alikes these days. It made perfect sense, with the life he led – the VIP section at the hottest club in town one night, followed by beer and take-out from a food truck the next. The fact was, she and Aidan didn’t go together. They didn’t match. They lived in two completely different worlds. There was a time, once, when they made sense together. But that was a long time ago. They’d been moving in two different directions ever since.

Kate shut her book with a sigh, and set it back on the night table. On a whim, she stood and meandered over to the closet, peeking inside at the cocktail dress she’d hung there earlier. She ran her hand along the hemline and lifted it up, watching it catch the light as she slid the liquidy fabric back and forth across the bare skin of her arm.

She had fooled herself for a minute there, wearing this dress in the three-way mirror at the Gucci store. She’d convinced herself that this thing with Aidan might be possible after all. She might be able to pass for the type of mythical being who belonged in his world. Maybe all she needed were some new clothes.

But she hadn’t even managed that without making a mess of everything. No, it was pointless, trying to pretend to be someone else – someone who made sense next to the man that Aidan had become.

She’d known it from that first disastrous night she’d spent here in LA. Afterward, she’d tried to kid herself that maybe she was wrong. When she and Aidan were alone together, she didn’t feel so out of place. It felt right when they were alone – like slipping into a comfortable old pair of favorite jeans.

But you can’t have a relationship that only works when you’re alone together. That just means it isn’t real. Just like the “proposal” that Zoe had accidentally witnessed this afternoon. Just Aidan messing around. Just play-acting.

She needed to tell him to cut it out with the marriage proposals. This was the second time he’d done it now, and he hadn’t meant either of them. He didn’t realize how it made her heart stop in her chest when she saw him go down on one knee like that. He didn’t understand that seeing him like that – even as a joke – reopened a very deep wound. Reminded her of something precious she had once held in her hand and threw away – a dream she once had of how her life would turn out, now irretrievably lost.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the bedroom door opening. Kate turned to see Aidan poking his head into the room. 

“Hey, come on," he said as he stepped inside. "We’re all going to hit the pool,”

She glanced down at her watch, startled to see it was already past ten o’clock. “Isn’t the pool closed at this hour?”

“Exactly.” He grinned at her, reaching out to take her hand and lead her toward the door.

She pulled to a stop, and he turned back to look at her. “Come on, it’ll be fun,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m not wearing a bathing suit.”

He laughed. “That’s kind of the point, Kate.”

“Aidan!”

“Don’t worry,” he smirked. “Hal and Zoe aren’t wearing bathing suits either.”

“Oh no,” she shook her heard. “No way.”

“What?” he asked, trying and failing to keep the frustration out of his voice. “What’s the big fucking deal?”

“I draw the line at—”

“—you draw the line at being in the same room, apparently, since you’ve been hiding out in here for the past hour.”

“I’m sorry!” she snapped back. “I’m just not in the mood, OK?”

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

She shook her head. “I’m just tired.”

“Do you want me to make everyone leave?”

Yes, she thought. Yes, that’s what I want. But she could tell he didn’t really mean it. She shook her head instead. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really. You go and have fun.”

He stood watching her for a moment, pressing his lips together, before he turned and headed for the door. But he stopped short just before he left the room and spun back around to face her again. “Kate, you’re being rude.”

She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Aidan.  It's not like they care whether I come or not.”

“Of course they care! They came here tonight to hang out with you!”

“No, they came here to hang out with you," she replied. "So go ahead and have fun.”

“What am I supposed to tell them? What? You’re sick?”

“I don’t care,” she said. “Tell them whatever you want. Tell them I said I was too old to go skinny dipping.”