Playing With Her Heart (Caught Up In Love #4)(20)
Author: Lauren Blakely

I give her a wink, turn on my heel and leave her standing there with her mouth open while I enjoy a small victory from getting the last word in. A victory that feels entirely Pyrrhic when I have to say goodbye to Patrick and Shelby since my clothes are wet.

Chapter 10

Davis

My sister takes a sip of the white wine she’s ordered. She nods approvingly at the waiter holding the bottle. He pours more into her glass and then tips the bottle towards me. I decline with a curt wave. I’m not in the mood tonight.

He bows and walks off.

Michele stares hard then imitates me, adopting a frown and then a standoffish little shrug that mirrors mine.

“Are we going there again?”

“Well, you’ve barely said a word.”

“We just got here five minutes ago.”

“Well, that’s five minutes of talking we could have done.”

“You talk all day long for your job. Don’t you ever want to not talk?”

“Surprisingly, I actually like talking. And I thought you talked too? Oh wait, you tell people what to do,” she says, then flashes me the biggest just kidding smile in the world, that makes it nearly impossible for me to stay annoyed with her. Because, honestly, how can I stay annoyed with my little sister?

“But isn’t that what you do, too, with all the little pills you prescribe?” I joke, giving it right back to her since this is what Michele and I do. We needle each other, poke, prod and get under the other’s skin.

“Touché.”

I take a drink of my water as Michele savors another swallow of her wine. She rolls her eyes in that appreciative way TV chefs have when they taste something delicious. “This is divine,” she says as she holds up the glass. “So what’s with the whole enigmatic, broody thing you have going on today? Crap day at rehearsal?”

I shrug, but I don’t want to get into the details of what happened in the stairwell this morning. Details I can’t get out of my mind. “It was fine.”

We’re at a too-cool-for-words restaurant on Canal Street, not far from my loft. This place is called The Cutlery Drawer and there’s not a matching utensil in the place. The tables are all black lacquer, the floor is charcoal gray tile and the utensils are a strange mixed-up mess. My sister picked it. I think it’s more fitting for a nightclub, but this is her hobby. She spends her days prescribing pharmaceuticals for all sorts of mental health issues and her nights researching the newest eateries in Manhattan for us to check out.

She narrows her dark brown eyes and leans across the table. “I don’t believe you, Davis.”

“You don’t believe that I had a fine day at rehearsal?”

“I know you. When you say fine it means shitty. Something’s bothering you.”

“I swear, some days I wish you weren’t a genius shrink at such a young age.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I was right then.”

I say nothing.

She softens her tone. “C’mon, Davis. What is it? I hate to see you all wound up.”

“It’s nothing,” I huff out, but we’re past the point of her believing me. “I don’t want to talk about me. Is Robert still giving you trouble?”

She waves a hand in the air dismissively at the mention of the jerk she went out with last year that cheated on her and then tried to grovel his way back into her heart. He kept showing up on the stoop of her building night after night, bearing gifts of apology: boxes of chocolate and red roses that all lined the trash can the next day. When she finally told me what he’d been doing, I was there the next night on the stoop to greet him, and make it clear he was never to come around again. “It’s over. It’s totally over. I told you. I haven’t even heard from him in ages.”

“He’d better not be calling, either.”

“He’s not.”

“I don’t even want you to respond to any texts from him.”

“He doesn’t text me anymore,” she says, raising her voice.

“Good. If he tries to get in touch with you, you need to let me know.”

“What, so you can hit him?”

“If I have to, I will.”

“I know,” she says, with a sigh. “I’m fine. You have to stop worrying about me.”

“What else would I do, then? I just want you to be happy.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“I am happy,” I say, even though there’s a hollow ring to the words.

“What about you? Are you being careful with your new show?”

I pick up a fork and twirl it between my thumb and forefinger, looking away. “Yes,” I mutter, because now she’s back to seeing right through me.

She presses her palms together, almost as if she’s praying. “Please tell me you’re not falling for some captivating young actress who’ll break your heart again?”

I drop the fork.

“Oh, Davis,” she says, worry etched in her features.

“Michele, I’m fine,” I tell her, because it’s up to me to look out for her, not the other way around. I look down at the menu, so she can’t read the expression on my face that clearly says I’ve been busted.

“I don’t believe you. I don’t want to see you get hurt again. I hate what Madeline did to you.”

“She just left, that’s all. Okay? Please, let’s stop investing this and her with so much monumentality. Besides, it was a few years ago now.” I don’t want to dwell on Madeline Blaine. I don’t want to revisit all the promises we made, all the things we said to each other. Most of all I don’t want to be reminded of how much it hurt when she walked away soon after the play we worked on together ended. You gave me my first big break and for that I will be forever grateful, but I don’t have time in my life for love. I need to focus on my career and only on my career. Then she went to LA and did just that.

It’s not like I expected a f**king plaque for having cast her, for having plucked her out of the pile of young hopefuls. That’s my job, that’s what I do. I would never expect her to owe me anything as her director.

As the man she fell in love with though, I had hoped for a lot more than a cold goodbye after the curtains fell. But that’s how it goes with actors. They fall in love with their roles, they fall in love with the show, they fall in love with you. Then it ends and they move on, because they know how to turn emotions on and off.

“I read she was in talks to do that new Steve Martin play. I’m totally not going to see it, even though I love his work,” she says, as if she’s making a solidarity statement by boycotting this show preemptively.