Page 25 of Double Standard

My heart says,No, don’t let me get hurt.

My mouth says, “Yes. Please,” and he drags his mouth down my torso.

XVII

Levi

Edwin and his Chrysler are failing to avoid the potholes on Hillsboro Road, and every time he hits one, it aggravates the lingering burn in my quads. Agreeing to a 7:30a.m. hike the day after a fourteen-hour shoot was not a good move, as yesterday’s call sheet had me riding a horse with a massive Greek spear in my hand. We ran the scene for thirty or more takes, covering all angles and ensuring the movement was accurate and compelling for each of the cameras. My body is spent.

“There’s still time to turn around,” Edwin says from the driver’s seat when he hears me groan.

“And disappoint Ana? Not a chance.”

“She’s something, isn’t she?”

“I’m pretty sure she’s everything.” The words come without conscious thought, and hearing them in my voice, from my mouth, startles me.She’s everything?God, I need to rein myself in.

“She must be if you’re up with the sun on your day off.That’s the best kind of sacrifice—making your woman happy.”

“She’s not...” I trail off. Am I going to argue that she’s not my woman? After our sleepover last week, it feels like she is. I want her to feel like she is. “She’s not hard to please,” I say instead.

Because now that she’s opened up to me the way she has, I can’t stand the rumors that she’s difficult. They’re lies. She’s not difficult; she’s guarded. She’s not inconsiderate; she’s pulled in a million different directions. She’s not prickly; she just has an instinct for self-preservation. The more she lets me in, the more I feel the bite of the way she’s often treated. How she’s been undermined by people who are supposed to be her peers. The closer she and I get, the more this knowledge gnaws at me.

“Hey, cowboy! You looked great on horseback yesterday.” Ana walks toward me in the Radnor Lake parking lot.

“We might be in Nashville, but I’m sure not a cowboy.” I pull her in for a quick hug. Wrapping my arms around her waist, my palms find the exposed skin at her lower back, below her cropped tank. “You sure this is how you want to spend the day?”

“Emily said this isbarelya hike. It’s just walking around the lake. It’ll be good to get some fresh air before it gets too hot.” She takes my hand and leads me in the directionof the visitor’s center, though it appears to be closed. We study the posted map and decide to try the South Cove Trail, a meager 1.4 miles. Ana leads the way.

The sun streams through the canopy of trees surrounding the lake, speckling the ground with shadows and bursts of light. A bit of morning dew lingers in the smell of damp earth. It reminds me of early mornings back home. I take a long, deep breath.

“You truly were so impressive yesterday.” She turns to meet my eyes. “Seeing you in your element, even just in the moments between my scenes, was really incredible.”

“It was a nice break from all the hand-to-hand stuff we’ve been doing, even if my hips are worse for it today. I may need a piggyback ride at some point.”

“At your service.” She stops in front of me and bends slightly at the waist as if I might actually climb on her back. It puts her ass in line with my pelvis, and a flash of possibility, of taking her from behind, clouds my vision. I give her a gentle swat on the butt to encourage her to keep moving, and I feel gratified at the choked sound it prompts in her throat.

“So, is this a typical Saturday morning for you? Going on hikes?” I’m desperate to redirect my wandering thoughts.

Her head tilts back and forth, like she’s weighing her answer. “Staying active is good for my joints and helps clear my head. To be honest, this sort of exercise—enjoying nature, not tracking the calories burned—is a reclamationof sorts. A middle finger to the years I spent trying to control my body. My teenage self would be proud.”

She goes out of her way to step on a leaf, keeping her focus on the ground as she presses it underfoot. It doesn’t crunch the way I know she wants it to.

“I imagine growing up in the industry made it difficult.”

She swings her eyes back to mine. “Want to hear something really fucked up?”

“Always. Don’t we all want to know the secret ugly stuff, if we’re being honest?”

“‘Ugly’ might be too tame for this.” She takes a deep breath and looks around to confirm we’re alone. This isthatkind of thing. I catch up to her so we’re side by side.

“When I was thirteen, just a year into my acting career, I had an agent named Roy. God, even the name sounds skeevy coming out of my mouth. He and my mom controlled everything about my life at the time—the roles I auditioned for, what sort of clothes I wore, who I was allowed to be seen with. And I get it. I was a minor. I needed adults to navigate the business stuff for me. But Roy was very concerned about how my body was changing as I entered my teen years. He made constant comments about mefilling outandgetting round in the hipsand shit like that.”

“A grown man was saying that to you when you werethirteen?” I feel my eyes narrow, my brows pinch. Bile starts to rise in my throat.

“And somehow that’s not the fucked-up part, if youcan believe it. Every morning, my mom would give me a protein shake. She said it would help me avoid growing pains because it had magnesium, maybe potassium, or something. I drank them for two years before I learned they were SlimFast shakes with a dose of laxatives. Roy and my mom decided they’d ‘keep me thin’ so I could continue to book roles—and make them money—playing younger than I was. Get the cute little sidekick jobs that had become my niche because, clearly, they weren’t confident I was cut out for anything else. It wasfor my career, they said.We were just trying to help, and all that bullshit. The minute I turned sixteen, I filed for emancipation and got a new agent.”

“You know that’s abuse, right?”