about the change, and he simply said he couldn’t really explain it, but he was okay with a sad ending when it was fictional as long as he didn’t have to face the same thing in reality. I was too sleepy to give his reasoning the attention it required, but I was getting used to the fact that his idea of business hours was nonexistent. He would be a good fit if he ever ended up working with Lennon. She broke the news that she was considering him as a client, and instead of feeling territorial over my agent and friend like I assumed I would, I was actually excited for him to get someone to help him manage his crazy workload.
He was reading scripts until dawn, planning projects with Jeno when most people were dreaming, and if none of that was enough to occupy his thoughts, he would play video games until the sun came up.
I’d woken up more than once to him tapping away on his phone screen. I’d also woken up and discovered him simply watching me with a look that could only be described as wonder on his face. He made it pretty clear through both his words and actions that he was amazed that I let him back in my world after so many years of accusing him of ruining it. It might’ve come across as a lot, or suffocating, but because it was Salinger and he was shockingly honest in everything he did these days, I was flattered and a little bit touched that he viewed being with me as something special and precious.
I learned that while he outwardly still looked like a rebellious bad boy who played by his own rules, he was actually a lot more careful and cautious than he had been as a teenager. He was a homebody and very much a guy who kept to himself. He did his best to stay out of the limelight. He didn’t party or go out. He didn’t drink or mingle with the pretty people like he used to. One might actually consider him boring these days. It was evident that his struggle with addiction had left scars and very deep impressions all throughout him. He mentioned it wasn’t so much regret over the fact he nearly died on more than one occasion that finally brought him around; it was the realization that he was hurting the few people who loved him unconditionally over and over again that woke him up and forced him to change. When he talked about the past, I could see how deeply he regretted his actions and how apologetic he was. I knew he was close to his stepbrother already, but now that I was in the picture pretty permanently, I understood that their bond went as deep as any brotherhood could go. Jeno saved Salinger’s life, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for the younger man—including putting up with his insufferable mother.
During our time together, I’d figured out I wasn’t the only one who’d held a grudge and didn’t want to acknowledge that Salinger might have made major changes in his life. He said he had actual enemies who were out to get him and teased that my dislike of him when he originally came back into my life was barely a blip on his radar. I didn’t like hearing he was so easily hated, but he assured me he had the situation under control. He just had to be careful because whatever went down, he didn’t want his relationship with Jeno to be affected. Salinger learned to take responsibility, even bearing the weight of wrongs that weren’t his, for the sake of his younger brother.
He was a righteous man.
I never thought I would think of him in those terms: a really, really good guy or a grown man. But here I was. Fooling around with him felt beyond good and made me feel beautiful and powerful, but I knew if I wasn’t careful, I would fall for him, which was problematic on so many levels. I kept telling myself to focus on ‘it’s all fun and games’ and ignore ‘until someone gets hurt.’ I could keep things light and breezy when Salinger wasn’t around. It was a lot harder to get my heart to behave when I saw how much he cared about me, and when his every action toward me was filled with so much more kindness than the man I’d married had ever