Page 63 of The VIP Doubles Down
He picked up one of the cups and set it closer to her. As he brought his arm back to his side, she caught a tiny flinch of pain. Guilt jabbed at her again.
Gavin rotated his cup with one hand. “I’m a desperate man,” he said, “but that’s no excuse. I overstepped when I pushed you about tonight.”
“Desperate?” Allie wasn’t sure what he meant.
He concentrated on the revolving cup. “The Christmas novella. You got me thinking about it. I had some ideas. Even thoughts about how to resolve the last movie’s cliff-hanger. Then I got pulled away for those goddamned meetings, and when I came back, you were gone.” He brought his gaze to meet hers, letting her see the bleakness in them. “I tried talking to Hugh about the story.” He shook his head and winced again, making her want to massage away the pain. Leaning forward, he turned his hand palm up on the tabletop. “I needyou.”
The baldness of the statement socked her in the chest. The uncomfortable angle of his shoulders tugged at her desire to heal.
But she’d nearly lost herself the last time she put her own needs aside because someone else’s seemed greater. She had to remember the lessons it had cost her a marriage to learn.
She forced a calm, rational tone. “We can work on the story all day tomorrow.”
He curled his open fingers into a fist. “My class meets tomorrow afternoon.”
“Gavin, I can’t just move in with you.”
“Why not? I’ve got room for a small army in my house. Pie can have the run of the place. A kitty-litter box in every room, if it ... she wants.”
He made it sound so reasonable. “I just got through a difficult divorce.”
“Please, tell me all about it. I want to understand you.” But what glittered in his eyes seemed as much curiosity as sympathy.
“I’m not a character in one of your books.”
“I know. You’d be so much easier to deal with if you were.” His lips curled in a rueful, lopsided smile.
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. “I can just imagine you writing me into your bed, then into your shower, then back into your bed.”
“I’d find much more creative locations than those.” But the light in his eyes went dark. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I was a desperate man. The writer’s block ... it’s not just about missing the deadline or holding up the movie production. Everyone thinks those external pressures are what’s giving me neck spasms.” He went silent.
“It’s prevented you from doing what you do best, hasn’t it? It makes you feel like you have no purpose.” She could relate to that.
His nostrils flared as he pulled in a breath. “What’s the point of getting up in the morning? To go to meetings about foreign rights and marketing plans? Other people are experts on that. I’m just there as a courtesy.”
“Do you feel like your creativity is all bottled up inside you and can’t get out?”
He fiddled with a sugar packet. “It’s worse. There’s no pressure at all. Just a vast, blank void. No world where I am in total control.” He looked up at her, his eyes pools of despair. “I wasn’t joking about wishing you were one of my characters. I’m not all that good with living, breathing people.”
The harsh fluorescent lights of the coffee shop accentuated the shadows of fatigue under his eyes and the unhappy lines bracketing the corners of his mouth.
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what words of comfort to use, so she reached across the table to fold her hand around his. It took him a long moment to drop the sugar packet and relax his fingers into her grasp.
“I’ve been told I confuse friendship with pity,” he said, “but I don’t want your pity.”
“What I feel is empathy.” And an almost overwhelming desire to help him, something she needed to be wary of. In battling his pain, he might unintentionally hurt her, lashing out with teeth and claws the way Pie had when Allie tried to give the little cat medicine that would save her life.
She must have made an unconscious movement of withdrawal, because he gripped her hand with a sudden urgency. “Tell me I haven’t scared you away.”
“My mama didn’t raise a coward.”
“That’s my Allie.” He traced her knuckles with his fingertip, sending tiny waves of delight dancing over her skin. “I know I’m cranky and overbearing, but I thought you could stand up to me.”
“When I did, you didn’t like it.”
He looked toward the plate-glass window that framed the dark, quiet street. “I panicked.”
“You know it’s not me who gives you the ideas, right? They come from within you.”
