Hollywood Remake (A Celebrity Love Story)

Chapter 33: Roxanne

“Wait, so you’re going back to New York already?”

“In a couple days,” Kate nodded, turning her head to look at Paul from the other end of the hotel room couch. “I fly back on Sunday.”

Paul met her eyes with a brief look of surprise, before returning his attention to the slice of pizza sitting on a plate in his lap. “Damn this stuff is like crack,” he said, taking another bite. “Why is this so good?”

“NY-style,” Kate replied. “Here, have another slice.”

“NY-style, huh?” Paul lifted his plate to receive the slice of pizza Kate held out to him. “I guess New York beats LA for pizza… and bagels.”

“And cheesecake,” she added.

“Sure,” he agreed. “No contest. But the tacos don’t hold a candle.”

“I guess I’m not all that into tacos.”

They each took another bite and chewed in unison as the silence grew. Paul glanced down at his watch. “Are you sure I’m not keeping you? I can go—”

“No no,” Kate said, reaching out a hand and touching his arm. “Aidan will be back soon. Annette said she’d have him back here in an hour. And you shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“Nah,” he shrugged. “I’m fine. Really.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He looked over at her. “It’s not that big a deal. Honestly, Kate. It’s not like she was the love of my life or something.”

“But you didn’t see it coming at all?”

Paul shook his head slightly. “Probably should have. I mean, Hal didn’t exactly have the longest attention span in the world.”

“When did she tell you?”

“That she was dumping me?”

Kate nodded.

“She texted this morning. Apparently, she’s seeing Aldous Snow now.”

Kate let out a disbelieving laugh. “She texted you that?”

“Hey, he’s a good catch for her. Lead singer. I’m just a guitarist.”

“But Paul—“

“Listen," he said, holding up a hand to stop her in mid-sentence. "I knew going into it that I was just a rung on her ladder.”

“Then why did you go out with her?”

He took another mouthful of pizza. “Usual reason,” he laughed.

Kate screwed up her face at him. She wasn’t buying this act. Not from Paul. He might try to play it off like he didn’t care, but she knew him better than that. He’d always been the sensitive one. The guy who’d lock himself in his room with nothing but an acoustic guitar for hours on end – practicing the same melancholy chord progression over and over – whenever some girl he was trying to pick up at a bar turned him down.

Paul shrugged and looked down at his plate. “It’s not that easy, you know,” he said softly.

“What?”

“You think – when you’re just a kid in a band – you think if you could only make it big, it would be so much easier. Getting girls. I mean, that’s pretty much the whole reason guys start bands.”

Kate smiled at him. “Not the whole reason.”

“Maybe like 90% of the reason.”

She laughed. “And it isn’t easy?”