Page 35 of Hello Darling
10
Stella
There’s a kind of day in the Pacific Northwest—I don’t know what meteorologists call it, and I’m sure the Native Indians have some beautiful term for it—where it’s completely overcast and you can just feel the moisture in the air, and all this pressure is building, but it doesn’t rain. Part of you is like, “OH MY GOD JUST START RAINING ALREADY!” Part of you doesn’t want it to start raining, because this time of year, once it starts it may never stop and soon you won’t even remember what it was like before everything came crashing down. That’s how it feels between Evan and me now. The swelling pressure. The engorged tension. That’s also how it feels in my lady bits. All. The. Time.
Evan Hunter has been here for one week, and I have spent one week trying mightily to deny my attraction to him. For the past six days I’ve been coyly waving at Donovan the cute assistant location manager when I see him pass by outside the gym, and felt exactly zero flutters in my stomach when he grins back.
I have to admit I do enjoy this flirtation with Evan, if that’s what it is. The super masculine guys I usually go for don’t exactly flirt with me, and they definitely don’t converse to such an extent with me. It’s more like they stare me down until I’m ready to go back to their motel or Airbnb room and then we have sex and then we watch TV and then I go home to my cat and a good book. I’m not complaining. My family and the gym and this town are all I need. But it’s nice to have this kind of attention.
Word has gotten out around town that a movie star has been spotted on Main Street, but so far it seems people are keeping a polite distance. I haven’t seen him quite as much the past few days. He has moved from the hotel to some secluded rental house, so he doesn’t pop round as much.
Every minute spent in Evan’s presence has become excruciating as I fight the exhilaration of feeling his gaze and hearing his voice and wondering if he makes every person he talks to feel like the center of his universe, or if it’s just me. I know the answer to that, of course. He’s an actor. It’s an act. But I get it now. I get why people like it. Every minute spent away from him, I see nothing but his bright blue eyes burning through me no matter where I look, and hear his deep velvety voice echoing through my addled brain.
Evan Hunter has no idea that after I leave the gym, where I still play the part of a woman who is immune to his charms—the woman I very much used to be—I go home by myself to watch him on TV so I can stare at his face and listen to his voice without him realizing what it does to me. After Day Three, I totally caved and binge-watched every Evan Hunter film and limited BBC TV series that’s available to stream on Netflix and Amazon.
I’ve never watched anything on screen where I knew one of the actors before. Unless you count the commercials that my brother’s dog starred in. I’ve felt nervous and excited every time he was on screen. I’ve had a ridiculous smile on my face the whole time and my whole body was vibrating. A rush. It’s a rush! I don’t know what it is about seeing someone on screen that makes them seem so much more crush-worthy. I even enjoyed watching the actionHamletmovie that I used to hate.
He wore so many beautiful suits in that movie. So not my thing, but he looks good in suits. Really good. Even better than he looks in fitness apparel.
I may also have watched approximately one hundred clips of his interviews on YouTube, and video footage of hordes of young women losing their flipping minds at premieres of his films in Tokyo. Hunterhoes, his fans call themselves.
I mean.
I would never.
He’s so charming and likable with everyone it kind of makes me angry. I don’t know if it’s because I just don’t have that switch that turns on the charm or the instinct to be charming with people. Or if it’s because I hate that he makes me feel special when he’s talking to me and now I know for sure that he does that with everyone and everyone—I mean everyone—falls for it. Billy is not the only guy with a man crush on him. Every late night talk show host and interviewer seems to be positively smitten with this guy. Although…He’s always a perfect gentleman with everyone on camera. Everyone says so in the written interviews.
While he’s always polite and kind, with me—in private—he’s sort of a naughty gentleman. I’ve never seen any hint of that in him with other people. It used to confuse me, but now it just makes me feel good.
Oh, did I mention I also read about fifty interviews? Not one of them mentioned hearing muttered dirty side comments that left them confused and wondering if they heard him properly, or if they misread his intense gaze. But maybe it’s a well-kept Hollywood secret?
Whatever it is, I’m convinced he’s a warlock.
But that didn’t stop me from seeking out my former English teacher Mrs. Greer—well I didn’t seek her out, but when I saw her at the grocery store I asked her if I could borrow her copy of theRomeo and Julietthat he was in.Boy, was that a mistake. He was an impossibly beautiful teenager, and so good at playing one who’s ridiculously in love. That shameless show of eternal romantic love that had seemed so outrageous and unreal to me when I was a teenager who thought she was in love, now seems so achingly real, but fleeting.
It’s so much easier to fall in love with someone on screen, even when that same person has been standing right in front of you. Maybe it’s because on some level you know that what you’re feeling for the person on screen isn’t real, and if it isn’t real then it can’t hurt you.
And now, Billy has invited Evan Hunter along on a little family outing on our day off. It’s the least sexy or romantic outdoor adventure imaginable, unless you’re into young Brad Pitt and watchingA River Runs Through It: fishing.
While my dad takes my place as manager at the gym today, and some excellent non-Starkey trainers teach our classes and otherwise look after our members, Evan has enthusiastically agreed to join me, Billy, Keaton and Chet on our last fishing trip of the year, because there will be a fishing boat scene in his movie. So it’s research. He is a dedicated actor on location and we are the locals who just happen to be helping him to get ripped and understand his character.
Billy and Keaton and Chet picked me up in Billy’s SUV long before the butt crack of dawn and now we’re on our way to pick up Evan Hunter at the house he’s renting. Billy is being all secretive about the address, which Evan wrote down on a piece of paper for him. Because Billy and Evan are bros, and Billy must protect his famous bro’s privacy at all costs.Puh-lease.Like I’m going to post the address on Twitter or something. He’s ridiculous. I’m just annoyed that Prince Fancysweatpants didn’t give me the address so I can update our files.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
We are only a few minutes drive from downtown, but in a sparsely populated residential area with large private properties that are surrounded by evergreens and nearby beach access. When Billy turns into a long crushed gravel driveway, towards a two level mid-century modern house, I realize that I know this property. This is one of my landlord’s listings. He showed me the website for it when it first went on the market months ago, but due to its high asking price, it hasn’t had many viewings. He leases it out for the owner on a week-to-week basis. I wonder if this is the house that I saw Whit and Brett leaving to clean that first day that Evan was here.
It’s still dark out, and the small but exquisitely designed landscape in front is lit by accent spotlights and path lights. The front entrance light is on, and when Billy brings the SUV to a stop, we sit in silence for a moment.
“Well?” says Keaton, tilting his head back towards me from the passenger seat.
“Go get him,” Billy says.
“Did you tell him we were on our way?”
“Yeah, he’s ready. Go get him.”
I shake my head as I unbuckle my seatbelt.
