still the same Luca from eight years ago.
Maybe everything he’s said to me, shared with me, is utter bullshit.
“Wow.” It’s all I can say. The only word my mouth is capable of right now.
Tight like a rubber band, silence stretches between us until it becomes so taut, I snap.
“You know what I think?” I ask, the words sharp on my tongue. “I think you’re a coward. I think you’re scared and threatened by the possibility that you might not be right about every freaking thing, and I think when shit gets tough, you’re the type of person who runs away from it instead of facing it.”
“You couldn’t be any more wrong about me if you tried,” he retorts. “You don’t know what my life was like growing up. You don’t know what it was like having parents who were so goddamn focused on their kids becoming the next big star that they didn’t even have time to be parents. They didn’t have time to do shit but force us into acting classes and auditions. And when the auditions turned into jobs and the money started rolling in, their obsession with our success only grew. Instead of seeing me as their son, they saw me as a commodity. A fucking paycheck.”
“At least you had parents!” The words fly from my lips before I can even register them, and tears follow in their wake. “I’ve spent the last fifteen fucking years waking up every day, wishing my parents were still alive! Wishing they never would’ve gotten in that car! Wishing I could just have one more damn day with them!”
Tears drip down my cheeks, and I look down at my feet, staring at them but not really seeing them. My mind too consumed with this moment. “You know, maybe your parents did a shitty job being parents. And maybe they got too wrapped up in your and your sister’s careers. But at least they were there.”
I lift my eyes to his, but he doesn’t say anything.
How could he?
We’ve been reduced to shouting and screaming and slinging meanness back and forth. Gone are the soft smiles and affectionate touches. Gone are the laughs and inside jokes.
Just…gone. It’s all fucking gone.
And all that’s left is the rubble and debris of our harsh words.
“You were never a pawn in my mind,” I say quietly. “You were this insanely talented actor who would be perfect for this once-in-a-lifetime movie. You were someone on a TV show that my sister and I used to watch every day after school. Someone who was a part of a tiny bright spot in our lives after we’d gone through the absolute worst thing any child could experience. You were someone whose achievements and career I admired. And you were someone who made me wonder why a person would walk away from everything and isolate themselves—what that person had been through. You were a lot of things. A lot of fucking things, but you were never a pawn.”
He scoffs. “Yet I was the guy you just had to get to do a movie because your career was on the line. So much so, you came all the way out here, to fucking Alaska, to convince me. And I told you what I’ve been through—you know. But it doesn’t matter. You still won’t take no for a fucking answer. It’s just about the money to you, isn’t it? The career. The success. It’s been that way the whole fucking time.”
All I can do is shake my head and swipe at my cheeks.
There is absolutely nothing I can say that will change his mind.
And there is nothing he can say that will make me forget his cruel words and cold eyes.
My career might be on the line, but I’d rather go down in flames than stand here any longer and be in the presence of this man.
I’d rather go back to LA and face the career-death music than be near Luca Weaver and his self-destruct button for one more minute.
“Yeah, I think we’re done here, huh?” I question, but it’s most certainly rhetorical because I am fucking done.
I leave him standing in the kitchen and begin to gather all of my things scattered around his house—my dirty clothes in his bedroom, my shampoo in his bathroom, my smashed-up, useless cell phone, my shoes, and hiking backpack by the front door.
The entire time, Bailey is at my side, following me intently while I haphazardly throw everything I can find into my backpack.
Once I reach