After a while, I shifted my thoughts to something else because finding the flaws in my performances was painfully draining. Greyson had called me earlier that week to update me on the whiskey launch party, which I was sponsoring for him, and it felt good to talk to him.
Over the past few months, Greyson had been through some of his own hellish wars, and it was only recently that he began reaching out to me as opposed to me calling him day in and day out—all because of a nanny named Eleanor.
Ever since she came back into Greyson’s life, he was becoming more and more of the person I knew he was deep inside. He was waking up from the worst nightmare because that woman was willing to be patient with his brokenness.
The last time I’d spoken with Greyson, he’d made sure to note that Shay would be coming to the whiskey launch with Eleanor, seeing as how they were cousins. I would have liked to say I hadn’t thought about her over the past few years, but that would’ve been a straight-up lie.
When I thought about the defining moments of my life, Shay was at the top of my list. She was the first and pretty much only person who’d ever been able to wake me up from my deep slumber. Before her, I’d struggled so much with who I was, with my worth, with why I had been brought into this world. After a few months with her, she’d helped me see clearer. She’d opened my eyes to possibilities and made me dream of a future—a future I’d once thought I’d never get to experience, a future I almost missed out on living. I had left her side thinking someday I’d find myself, which would lead me back to her arms. I’d thought with some practice, I’d figure out the broken pieces of me and be enough of a man for her to love.
It turned out that wasn’t easy, and I wasn’t magnificent at self-discovery.
I failed time and time again, and as years passed by, I knew she was better off without the mess I would’ve left on her front door. I moved on, knowing she would be better if she did the same. There were so many times I wanted to go back to her, but I knew I couldn’t show up to her with my broken pieces, hoping she’d help heal them.
It came down to me not being selfish. It came down to me not trying to lean on her in order to keep me standing. It came down to me wanting more for Shay than I could’ve ever given her. She wanted all of me, yet my heart worked in phases like the moon. It shifted every few weeks, sometimes feeling completely full, other times looking like a crescent sliver.
Still, she crossed my mind every now and again. Now that Greyson had informed me she’d be in attendance at the whiskey launch that coming weekend, she was making an appearance in my thoughts much more regularly.
What was she like nowadays?
What did she do?
Were her eyes still as brown and full of hope as they were before?
Who did she love?
That question passed through me more than most—who did she love today, and who loved her back?
Most of the women I spent my time with never really stuck with me. I was known for my speed-dating persona because I never settled down, always moving on to the next. Most people probably thought it was because I was this Hollywood superstar who didn’t have to settle down. They probably thought I was only searching for sex, but that was a lie.
I was searching for anything that had a small resemblance to the first girl who’d ever loved me—the real me, the broken me, the scarred boy who didn’t know how to love himself. Iwas looking for parts of Shay in every woman who crossed my path, but they never got close to the way she sparked something intense throughout my entire being.
My dog, Rookie, crawled into my lap and began snoring with his heavy breaths. After Ham passed away years ago, it took me a while to consider getting another companion. Maybe individuals who weren’t dog people would’ve never understood the heartbreak that happened when a person’s dog passed away, but to me it felt like losing a best friend. Ham had stood by my side through the hardest periods of my life, both in my youth and in my career. Losing him almost destroyed me.
I put off getting another dog for the longest time. I felt as if I was somehow betraying Ham for moving on, but the moment I saw Rookie in the shelter, I knew he was the right one for me. He pissed on my shoes and everything. Ever since then, we’d been attached at the hip. He was a small toy poodle—a very manly man dog, obviously—and he was treated like a king upon kings. The next day, he and I would be headed back to Chicago for the whiskey launch party the following weekend. The next day, I’d be in pretty much the same city and breathing the same air as Shay. A few days after that, we’d be face-to-face.
I sat there in the silence of my New York penthouse, staring into the darkness as every single memory of Shay Gable came rushing back to me.
35Shay
My grandmother always joked that good men existed; it just so happened they all lived on the movie screen. I disagreed. I had personal experience with those movie stars, sort of, and it turned out all men were alike—awful. Some just had fatter wallets.
Normally I loved our Sunday dinners, but lately they felt like love’s battlefield, and Mima was trying to dissect my current relationship.
Mom was late for dinneragain, and that left the conversation wide open for Mima to be her nosy self, asking about my love life—or lack thereof. Sam and I had been dating for the past nine months. At least, that was what I’d been telling everyone. Sam, my boyfriend, was indeed made up. I’d just been hoping it would be enough to get Mima to stop grilling me about my dating life.
Her crown roast sizzled as she set it on the dining room table. After that, she brought out the mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. Leave it to Mima to cook a whole feast for a simple Sunday dinner for three. Steam rose from the meal, and the aromas of perfectly cooked foods filled the space as my stomach rumbled in anticipation.
“I don’t understand why we haven’t met him if you two have been dating for so long,” she argued, setting down a tossed salad. “You haven’t even given us a name.”
“I told you, Mima—I don’t want to bring him around if it’s not serious. Plus, it’s only been nine months.”
“That’s long enough to know if you’re into someone. People have children in nine months’ time. If they are able to bake up a whole human, you should be able to make up your mind about a man. If it is not serious by now, it’s not going to be serious. Besides”—she scooped up a big spoonful of her mashed potatoes (too much for me, but I’d definitely eat it all) and plopped it down on my plate—“I don’t think he’s the one for you.”
I laughed. “How would you even know? I hardly talk about him.”
“Exactly. If someone’s the one for you, you can’t help but feel ecstatic about it. You want to talk about them all the time. It spills out of you like lava, warming you from the tips of your toes to the crown of your head—which makes me believe this isn’t the one. There’s no passion behind it.”
It was weird how Mima believed in love so much when love hadn’t been the greatest for her. Even after all the heartache she’d been through with my grandfather, she still believed in happily ever afters. I wasn’t sure if that was idiotic or powerful. Maybe a mixture of both.