Page 24 of Just for December

‘That’s exactly why I act,’ he whispers.

He reaches out a hand to her, and for a split second she lets herself enjoy it. The feeling of being understood. Seen. Heard. Appreciated.

Then she pulls away.

Men leave.

Don’t trust anybody.

She could never be enough, anyway.

This isn’t real.

‘It’s my bedtime,’ she announces. She’s rattled, the wine sitting heavy in her stomach. She can’t buy into what he’s saying – not to mention how he’s saying it. Okay so she’s googled some articles about him and had some thoughts about his arms. The fact remains, though: this? This ‘relationship’? It’s fake. He’s a damned good actor, though – shealmost reached out a hand back to him, almost laced her fingers through his. Is this why actors on sets always end up together when they’re filming? Because fact and fiction get so easily blurred? She picks up her laptop and shoots him a closed-mouth smile, and before he can say anything else she gets the hell out of there.

It’s maddening, then, that no sooner has she fallen asleep than she dreams about him.

15

Duke

‘Can I put my arm around you? Would that be okay?’ Duke asks Evie, shyly. They’re out and about after filming again, at the Christmas market, happy to be photographed.Hopingto be photographed! Marnie, head of production, has already reported back that the positive headlines about Duke and Evie are reassuring the investors, so everyone is pleased all around. They just have to keep doing what they’re doing. And actually, Duke can’t put his finger on why that feels better than it did, but yeah. He’s nothatingthe situation like he did. Evie seems to be more relaxed, now. Last night they even came close to a moment, before she bolted. Evie Bird is a mystery to him, and the more time he spends with her, the more he wants to unravel that mystery.

‘I think that’s realistic, don’t you?’ he adds. It’s an incongruous feeling, asking permission this way. But they do havetheir ground rules, after all, and this could almost break the ‘no unnecessary touching’ one.

Evie twitches her nose at the suggestion as if she’s displeased, and Duke expects her to decline. It shocks him, then, when she affirms that yes, he may. It’s not the way he’d like to be embracing a woman – none of this is exactly ‘fun’ when it’s forced – but if this has to be happening with anyone, there could be worse people than Evie Bird. She’s prickly, but he’s starting to sense the sweet centre to her.

‘I’m actually a bit chilly,’ Evie says, and so he loops his arm over her shoulder and she reaches up her far hand to hold his. They walk more slowly than they did before – both because the place is busier than ever, and because arm in arm and walking in step they physically can’t move as fast. If it were a real date, Duke would be pleased with the market as its backdrop. Everyone around them is in good spirits, and it’s a pretty sweet deal to be here shooting a Christmas movie surrounded by actual Christmas. He’s heard stories of summer blockbusters being filmed in late winter sun, and friends of his having to act freezing during heatwaves. He doesn’t have to do much work to feel festive when his actual job is to be festive, and vice versa: the full immersion festivities make him all the more cheery. He’s come a long way from the Duke who landed in Germany only a little under a week ago. Daphne who? His mood is much better than it has been.

‘What shall we do now?’ Evie asks.

This close to her, he can smell her shampoo. It’s coconutty.

‘Maybe it would be nice if I bought you something?’ he suggests. ‘You can pick out a bracelet or something – theysell those leather woven ones. It could be a moment, me tying it to your wrist?’

‘You’ve done this before,’ she titters, and Duke understands that he’s oversensitive, that the way she’s mocking the arrangement upsets him in a way he can’t articulate, but to infer that all his dates are manufactured hurts his pride.

‘Ouch,’ he replies. ‘I know you’re on a sugar high, but I do have feelings you know.’

She tugs on his hand. ‘I keep upsetting you, don’t I? I don’t mean to.’

‘No,’ he insists, though he’s quietly impressed that she’d be so direct. It inspires him to be as frank in return. ‘I just know you don’t want to be here. I get it, and it’s silly of me to feel rejected by that, but my therapist, she says rejection is my whole thing …’

‘Hell of a job to have when you don’t like rejection,’ she tells him, but that just proves she doesn’t get it.

‘The feeling when it all goes right though,’ he counters, ‘there’s nothing like it. Even when you know it’s empty and hollow and could all go away tomorrow, it’s like being addicted to heroin – I spend my whole life trying to top my very first high.’

‘Duke,’ Evie says, ‘you don’t mean that. Do you?’

She’s looking at him with those big brown eyes, circling something close to pity.

‘No.’ He smiles, changing his tone. Why did he think he could be honest? Why is he so desperate to feel seen by somebody, anybody, that he would say something like that to a virtual stranger? It’s her books. He meant everything he said about loving her books, loving their insights. But theauthor isn’t the work – that’s what he’s coming to comprehend. She’s beautiful and sharp and has a very specific sense of humour, and some of that goes into her work, but that isn’ther.Maybe it’s parts of her. The other parts are here, mocking everything he’s dedicated his adult life to, and actually, that’s not okay.

They get the bracelet and by the time Duke’s back at his hotel, citing a headache and a need to run his lines, the photos are online. Just as they’d hoped, there was a photographer there the whole time. He hates that he checked, and hates even more the sad, heavy feeling that develops in his stomach as he scrolls through. There they are eating, riding the rides, looking into each other’s eyes. There’s a photo of him gazing almost adoringly at her as she looks off to one side, and then perplexingly, considering she had a wry smile plastered to her lips for most of the afternoon, a photo of her looking at him in quite the same way. He’s reading a menu, or a pricing list, and her face is open and wide, her expression playful and sweet. It really does look like she’s into him. Duke wonders if she hasn’t missed her vocation. Apparently she’s quite the actor too.I want that look for real,he thinks to himself, before deciding he doesn’t mean that, that he needs to sleep, that he’d never want to be with a woman like Evie, forever feeling like he can’t keep up.

So why does he keep thinking of her?

‘You seem blue,’ Daphne says to him after their final scene, a physical comedy moment that involved an ice rink, a fall, and an almost-kiss. ‘I’m here, you know. If you need me.’

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