Chapter One
Ethan
"Hey, can you pass me the frosting?" I ask my six-year-old niece, Tallie, as we sit at the breakfast bar in her parents’ house, surrounded by the scent of fresh-baked cookies and the last remnants of the cupcakes that we’ve already decorated for tomorrow’s party.
She hands me the tube of baby-pink frosting, and I bite my tongue between my teeth as I start to draw out a little heart on the round cookie in front of me. She watches, her head tipped to the side just the same way her mother, my little sister Valerie, always does when she’s judging me.
My sister thinks it’s time I settled down, but how can I when I’ve haven’t met the right woman yet? It’s hard to find the kind of woman I crave when I’m always on a movie set. The ones I meet in the Hollywood scene are not the marrying type. And call me a sap, but a one-night stand won’t do. I want forever.
"What do you think?" I ask Tallie, lifting the sugar cookie up so she can see what I’ve attempted – but the cookie is so hot that the frosting nearly all slides right off. I laugh, shake my head, and hand the cookie over to her.
"Let me show you how," she tells me indulgently. I nod, and watch as she starts to get down to work, her eyes screwed up as she carefully traces out the shape on the cookie in front of her.
Valerie and her husband, Don, are out of town till Saturday morning, which is also Valentine’s Day. It's Thursday now – and I’ve been enlisted to help out so they can sneak away for a few nights as an early Valentine’s gift to themselves.
Not that I mind. Truth is I’m jealous. They are the epitome of happiness and I’m ready to get my hands on that kind of love.
And since I have a break between shoots, the timing worked out. They get some adult time, and I get to hang out with my favorite little girl in the world.
She always asks to see the movies that I’m in, and I have to keep telling her that when she’s older, she might be allowed to see them. Though I doubt that her mother is much interested in ever letting her watch the stuff that I’m starring in; I know that Val herself sometimes has a hard enough time accepting that people actually want to watch me take my shirt off, and she’s hardly going to expose her daughter to the same thing.
When I’m at home, though, when I’m with Tallie like this, I know that it’s the only thing that matters. Sure, I love my job, and sure, I’m glad that I’ve found something that makes me happy and that I seem to be good at – but these nights with my niece are about the best things in the world.
"So, do you have a date for the party?" I ask her playfully. We are preparing snacks for the little Valentine’s Day thing that her first-grade class is throwing tomorrow, though I imagine most of the kids are going to be more focused on the cookies and cupcakes than the hearts and flowers. She pulls a face.
"No!" she exclaims, wrinkling her nose up. "I don’t want to go to a party with any boy!"
I laugh. It’s strange to think that, in ten years or so, she’s going to be pleading with her mother to let her out with any boy she can get her hands on. That’s what it’s like, growing up, I guess.
Or what it’s like for most people. As Tallie and I clean up, and I put her to bed, I can’t help but wonder how long it’s going to be before I get to experience something like this for myself. It’s not that I’m unhappy with my life as it is, far from it, but there’s still this craving inside of me, something urgent and forceful, that tells me that I should be working towards something like this. A family. A partner. Someone I can come home to at the end of a long day. Someone I can take care of.
I check that Tallie is asleep before I retreat to the guest room, where I’ll be sleeping. I’m happy for my sister, I really am; I know that this is what she’s always wanted, that she has never craved the enormity of my life.
As I lie in bed, I stare at the ceiling, thinking about the frosted pink heart-shaped cookies in their Tupperware boxes, ready for Tallie to take to school tomorrow. I don’t have anyone to give those kitschy little gifts to. I wish that I did.
But I know that everyone I meet is coming at me with more than the purest intentions. Part of the game – ever since I got cast in the Mandolin series, I’ve been dealing with the stress of having to second-guess everyone who comes into my life. I get it, I do – with fame and power and money comes people who want to take a little part of that for themselves. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t bug me. And that doesn’t mean that I feel any better about being alone at night when I wish I could be spending it with someone else.