I fingered his beard. He was growing it out for a role as a scruffy biker, complete with long brown hair that he kept tied back in a neat little bun. I’d hated the change in his look when he’d first gotten the part, but lately it was really growing on me.
Anton was Hollywood good-looking, versatile, and ever changing but polished to gleaming, with perfect teeth, handsome features, and total control over every muscle in his face.
We’d met two years ago shooting a doomed pilot. The show had never made it on air, but at least I’d gotten Anton out of the deal.
We were so much alike that it scared me sometimes. He was basically a male version of me.
We’d dated for about five minutes, and I’d even been about one drink from sleeping with him, but then I’d realized that I actually liked him, so friends it was.
He grinned. “You’re starting to like this biker vibe I have going, aren’t you?”
“Fat chance, beardo,” I told him, making a face at him as I moved to take a barstool at the counter.
“Dante has a temper,” Demi pointed out from the kitchen, where she was staring at the cupcakes forlornly.
“Yes,” I said succinctly.
“But he’s not what I was expecting,” she added.
My lip curled. “He can be charming—”
“It’s not that. I figured he’d be charming.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. I knew you hated him, and I guess I just figured he hated you back. But he definitely doesn’t hate you.”
I waved my hand in the air as though warding off the notion. “It’s complicated. He’s as hostile as I am, he just hides it better, but don’t let him fool you—he's a fucking beast when it comes to breaking hearts.
She nodded, her eyes so solemn that I had to look away. “That I gathered. I’m sorry I said Anton was your boyfriend. I thought I was helping, but I made things worse, didn’t I?”
“On the contrary,” I assured her. “Your interruption couldn’t have come at a better time, so thank you.”
She smiled cheekily, shrugging, “Anytime.”
“What was he doing here?” Anton asked from the sofa.
I looked down at my hands, bracing myself for the pain of saying it aloud. “Gram died.”
They both gasped.
“Oh no,” Demi uttered softly.
“Not Gram,” Anton muttered, followed by a steady and vehement string of cursing.
Just like anyone important in my life invariably knew at least something about Dante, they also knew about Gram. She was the only person I considered family and talked about as such.
“What happened?”
“A fatal stroke. That’s why he was chasing me around. I guess he didn’t want to tell me over the phone.”
“But he didn’t tell you last night?” Demi asked.
Anton coughed and I glared at him.
“He didn’t.” I knew they’d heard what he’d said back in my room, or at least enough to suspect, but I had no intention of hashing it out.
“What can I do?” Demi asked, sounding so sincere and concerned that I could hardly stand to hear it.
I nodded at the open bottle of scotch I’d left in the kitchen earlier. “Hand me that, will you?”
There was only one thing to be done. Because crying in my room alone held no appeal, and crying in front of other people was even worse—I was throwing one hell of a drunk.
I was hoping this one was more successful than the last attempt.
Or, at the very least, less disastrous.
Demi and Anton didn’t hesitate to join me.
I stopped drinking out of the bottle (because we had company now) and made myself an oversized tumbler of scotch.
Anton and Demi did the same. Demi despised scotch, so I knew she was just being a good sport.
“I hope you can stomach this stuff,” I told Anton as he took a long swallow. “It was way too low class for Dante the Bastard.”
“I think it’s fantastic,” he told me, toasting the air.
“You don’t have to drink scotch for me, Demi,” I told her.
She shrugged and toasted at me. “It’s for your gram,” she said and took a long, painful-looking swallow.
We got good stinking drunk and watched reruns of our favorite reality show, Kink and Ink.
I nodded at the screen at some point after drink number three. “I’d go lesbian for a day for her,” I told an extremely drunk Demi and a fascinated Anton.
“I’d suffer through some pretty terrible things to see that happen,” Anton said.
Demi shook her head. “She’s pretty and I like her, but uh uh. Only boys for me.”
“What about this? There are only three people left in the world. You,” I nodded at Demi, “Frankie,” I nodded at the hot lesbian tattoo artist on TV, “and Justin Bieber. You have five seconds to pick.”
She didn’t hesitate, blurting out “Frankie!” before I’d even finished talking.
We couldn’t stop laughing after that, giggling our asses off.
“I vote that when we sober up we drive to Vegas to get tattoos at her shop,” Demi said at some point.
“It’s only a five-hour drive,” Anton pointed out. “Four if I’m driving. What kind of a tattoo do you want, Demi?”
She flushed when he said her name, and it was only in my drunken state that I realized for the first time that sweet Demi had a huge crush on jaded Anton.
Oh no.
I wanted to tell her to run in the other direction. He was too much like me. He’d had his heart ravaged by some sadist years ago and what was left of him ate little girls like Demi for breakfast.
I made a note to tell her such when I’d sobered up enough to be taken seriously.
“I don’t know,” she finally answered. “I’d have to brainstorm about it on the drive. Something pretty. With color.”
“What about you, Scar?” he asked me.
I nodded at the TV where someone was currently getting a heart with initials in the middle of their back. “I’d get the opposite of that. There are too many love tattoos. I’d get an anti-love one.”
Anton’s rueful grin came out to play. When I was in this state, it was really hard to remember why I’d never slept with him. He was way too good-looking for his own good, beardo, man-bun, and all. “Yes, yes, we know, Scarlett. You don’t believe in love. You’ve said it many times.”
For some reason, that set me off. I blame the scotch.
“I never said I don’t believe in love,” I said heatedly. “Trust me, I believe in it. I know love. It lives in me still. Like a cancer, it thrives under my skin, metabolizes in spite of all of my attempts to eradicate it.” I had to take a few breaths I was talking so quickly and passionately. “What I said was that if you feel yourself falling, you should run like hell. Avoid it. If it tries to set its hooks in you, rip them out. If it tries to shackle you, break the chain.” I was waving my hands around to illustrate my point. “Love is never satisfied with half-measures. It won’t take parts of you. It will own all of you, every single, longing piece.
“Love will make you its slave,” I stated venomously. “It will ruin you. Grind you under its heel until you don’t recognize what’s left.
“Love will take your soul.” I looked pointedly at Demi. “If you’re very unlucky, it might even turn you into someone like me.
“I do believe in love,” I reiterated. “I believe it’s the most destructive force on earth.”
When I finished my impassioned rant, they were both just staring at me.
Demi looked like she might cry. She was hugging Amos, her eyes huge with pity and sorrow. “Oh, Scarlett,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. Dante is such a bastard.”