Page 86 of Hello Darling
“Well, if it matters at all, Cate thinks she’s lovely.”
I squint at him. “You have a Google alert for my name, don’t you?”
“You don’t know me! Yeah. I do. It’s the only way your friends know what you’re up to.”
“That’s sad. For me. Not for you.”
“Yeah. We saw the photos. She is lovely, she just looks uncomfortable with getting her picture taken, and who isn’t at first?”
“Exactly! I tried to explain that to her. I think…I meant to. There was a lot that I meant to say to her, but we were just so busy fucking most of the time we were together.”
“Well, that is a shame.”
“I don’t mean for it to sound like that’s all it was, either. It was so much more than that. So much more. More than everything…I just…Fuck, Liam. How do you manage it with a normal woman? I mean, I know your life is significantly more normal than mine. You hardly ever have to travel for work unless it’s domestic, right?”
“Oh, I’m sure Cate would love it if I got out of her hair and the country more often than I do.” He places his hands on the counter and leans in towards me. “You do realize you have a unique outlook on long-distance relationships because of your parents and your vagabond actor life? You grew up with two people who were very much a couple—right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Even when they weren’t in the same country. You just need to show Stella what that’s like. And you need to reassure her that there’s no reason for her to believe that it would be better for you to be with another actor. It may make more sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. They still need to be reassured, these lovelies. Not in the same way as actresses, thank fuck, but they do. As soon I got cast in that play opposite Keira Knightley, I came home to find Cate packing up her stuff because she was thinking: ‘Right. That’s it for me, then.’ It wasn’t easy for me to convince her that Keira’s not my type, but she believed me eventually.”
He turns and gives me a slow, melodramatic side-glance and then we both burst into fits of laughter. Keira’s totally his type, but that’s not the point. Cate’s his person.
“You’ll sort this out,” he says. “I have no doubt. You just need to pull that handsome head out of your ass and try to see things from her perspective. Not that you’re as self-centered as they come, actor-wise. On a scale of one to ten, you’re like a…six?”
I don’t even ask if that means I’m more or less self-centered than the average actor, because we’re going to spend the next half hour talking about him. I won’t even think about Stella the whole time we’re chatting. I just hope she gets the chance to meet Liam and Cate one day soon.
When I wake up the next morning, my mouth is dry but my head is clear.
That’s right, you fool. It’s not you that she’s rejecting, it’s the life she thinks she’ll have to give up if she’s with you. For once in your life, be a man of action. Fuck words. Everything you say sounds like tits on toast to her—you need to show her what she means to you.
Thanks, Hugh. You’re right.
I know exactly what I will do.
But I only just have time to put things in motion with my business manager, before meetings with the director of my play, table readings, all this before the chaos of theFalloutpress junkets, and a photo shoot for Vanity Fair with Georgia.
Every time I start to write a text or email to Stella, I get interrupted. It’s for the best, really, because nothing I want to say to her should be said in a message or God forbid a voicemail if she doesn’t accept my call. I’m not going to start the conversation with her until I know I can finish it—or rather, until I know I can continue it for as long as necessary.
With my schedule, I never know. It might be in two days or two weeks, but I’ll show her what she means to me. I’ll show her that the real difference between her and every girl who came before her isn’t her job or her dress size or where she lives; it’s what I’m willing to do to be with her.
We’ll end each day in a blaze of glory together, even when my day begins hours and hours before hers.
Hang in there, darling.
This seaman will become the admiral of your seasick heart yet.
