Falling into Forever (Falling into You) - By Lauren Abrams Page 0,68

everything, right? You’re perfectly aware of your limits.”

“Are you trying to say that I can’t handle myself? Fuck you, Marcus. And your little dog, too.”

Just as the elevator doors start to close on his face, I realize that I have no idea where I’m going.

“Hey! Where’s my room?”

“1235. I’ll see you tomorrow. Try to actually get your ass to the plane on time. Not like last time.”

I shove my middle finger in his direction and try to make myself stand up straighter. Hallie. Where’s Hallie?

I tap each of the doors as I pass them. 1234. 1236. What the hell is the number again? And where is my fucking key? I dig through my jeans, and I can’t even find where my wallet is supposed to be, so I knock again and again on the door that seems like the right one.

“Hallie. Open the goddamn door.”

I hear a click. Hallie is standing in the middle of the door frame, curly puffs of long hair floating all around her face. She looks pissed. Very, very pissed. She moves aside to let me in before shutting the door behind us. With a slightly disgusted look, she takes a step back and then another.

“Hallie. My love.”

I cross the distance between us, pick her up and swing her into my arms. I start to cover her face with kisses, but she’s wriggles against me. I’m knocked off balance and she sways precariously in my arms.

“Chris. Put me down. Put me down now.”

“Nope. Not until I get what I came for.”

“Chris. Now.”

I lock my arms tighter around her body and push my lips into her hair.

“You smell like honey. Why do you always smell like honey?”

“It’s called taking a shower. You should try it.” She manages to free herself and the lack of weight in my arms throws off my equilibrium. I stumble backwards and she flicks the light switch on.

“You’re drunk.”

“Good guess! Twenty points to a Miss Hallie Caldwell for being such as astute judge of drunkenness.”

I kick off the shoes I’ve been wearing and toss them in the trash can. I never want to see those goddamn shoes again.

“I’m glad I get points for being such an astute judge of your particular kind of drunkenness, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess that you would come home drunk. You’ve come home drunk every night we’ve been in London. And we’ve been here for almost three months.”

“You got to give the people what they want, baby.”

“And tell me, how exactly is you being drunk every night giving the people what they want? What exactly is that supposed to accomplish? Enlighten me.”

“I’m living the dream. Just living the dream. The people want to see someone who’s doing that. And I am.”

I flop onto the bed and try to forget that the world is not actually rotating. I mean, it’s rotating, but my world isn’t. Something like that.

“Is this what the dream is supposed to be? Tell me, Chris. When exactly did this, you drunk in some hotel room, become living the dream? I thought…” She bites her lip and looks away from me. Instead of actually telling me what she wants to say, she picks up the jeans that I threw on the floor and folds them neatly.

“Never mind what I thought.”

“No. Tell me what you thought. You’re going to say it anyway, so tell me what you really think.”

She turns to me with her hands on her hips. Everything is spinning and her face is slightly out of focus.

“I think you’ve been drinking too much. No. That’s an understatement. I think you’ve been drinking so much that you need to get help before it’s too late. I think you’ve let the James Ross and the Ecstasy success go to your head. You used to laugh about being a big movie star. Remember? You told me that you were afraid that this,” she motions around the hotel suite, “was going to change you, that playing all of these different characters was going to make you forget yourself. You were afraid that maybe you wouldn’t like the person that you were becoming.”

“Well, I was fucking wrong. I fucking love this. I fucking love me. Who wouldn’t?”

“I don’t. I don’t love this. This isn’t a movie. You’re not playing a character right now. It’s just you and me.”

“This is me. This suite, and this life, those things are all me. I’m sorry if you can’t accept that, if this is too much for you to handle. I