Page 10 of Snow Place Like LA
“Did you?”
“I wanted to, and I’m sorry I screwed that up.” He shook his head. “At the airport. I was trying and then I couldn’t find the words and we were kissing, and you had to get on your plane. And then I was a total mess when I landed in Paris. When I showed up to my new place the day I landed, the pipes were rusted in the apartment Astrid had helped me find. She’d literally taken a tour via FaceTime while I was in the air. Luckily, my ride from the airport was willing to take me out for the day while my apartment was de-flooded. Not to mention that my phone wasn’t working because I couldn’t connect to a French carrier right away.”
“I guess the internet doesn’t exist in France then. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been.”
Angel gave me a look. “By the time I got my phone figured out and settled, you’d blocked me everywhere.”
I narrowed my eyes, remembering that I hadn’t blocked him before I saw Blake’s post of them together at the Eiffel Tower. Blake must have been theride from the airport, which was also kind of galling on its own, because an ex who you trusted to battle an airport arrivals lane for you??? That was barely an ex! That was someone you might still adopt a pet with one day!
And flooded apartments and phone carriers aside, he’d still boarded a plane to another continent without telling me first. It was ghosting of the highest order. Mon beau fantôme!
“Andyou can’t even remember your own email address,” Angel added to his last reply.
“Email addresses are pointless,” I reminded him. “There are a million other ways for people to get a hold of me. Texts. Calls. Direct messages. And I do know my email address. It’s written down somewhere.”
“God, you’re worse than my dad. He keeps a Post-it with all his passwords in his wallet.”
“I would never put a Post-it inside my Hermès wallet. The adhesive could compromise the leather.”
He grinned the same way he always had when he thought I was being adorably ridiculous. His hands slid up my forearms as he checked his work. Goose bumps followed his touch, which was all the warmer for how cold my alcohol-dabbed hands were, and I hated that it felt so good when I was still so upset with him.
How could he not tell me that Paris was on the table?
How could he justleave the continentwith no word at all?
Andwhyhad Blake been there too? There was no way that windsock motherfucker had been interning at an animation studio too.
“You’d be shocked by how many people don’t realize they have a melon allergy,” Fiona said as she sashayed back through the sliding glass door of the pool house. “Oh, Angel! You’ve got him all cleaned up and ready for his bandages! And he was such a fussy patient. I’m impressed.”
“I’m sorry if acknowledging my pain is fussy,” I said in a venomous tone that rolled right off her as she shooed Angel out of her seat.
Angel watched intently as Fiona wrapped my hands in enough gauze and bandages that my hands were even more useless than they were before.
“How am I supposed to do anything like this? Especially my job!”
Fiona continued wrapping as she said, “Well, while you’re on set, you should be all bandaged up, but at home, let your hands breathe when you can. But be gentle with them! No heavy lifting. And be sure to apply triple antibiotic cream twice a day.” She patted my hands, which I couldn’t even feel. “All set.”
Slowly I lifted my bandaged hands. “My hands look like clubs,” I said. “My precious, genius hands. I can’t sew like this. I can barely even pick up a hanger.” The bandages were so thick that my fingers could barely move.
Fiona shrugged with indifference. “I can’t imagine a lot of clothing is actually involved on the set of a porn.”
I was on the verge of hyperventilating. Most days my job included thongs and ball gags—which were sometimes the prop department’s problem, depending on the scene. Also sometimes I was the props department. But with this movie, I had the chance to do something so perfectly suited to me. No one was out here trying to give me an award or any kind of recognition for my costuming, but this one was special. This one was something I could truly be proud of. But how could I possibly work without my—
“I’ll be your hands,” Angel said. “It can’t be that hard.”
There was no hiding the outrage on my face.
“No, no, no,” he backpedaled. “I just meant that the hard part is what you do in your head. It’s your taste and your vision. That’s the part you can’t teach me. But the sewing and the hanging and the organizing. That’s stuff I can do—with your help, of course.”
Fiona’s brows arched. “He’s got a point.”
How did I go from being so completely over Angel to being stuck with him on set to actually needing him? I wracked my brain for every possible alternative. Vanya was in Costa Rica for a breathwork retreat. Sunny was running this whole show, and Bee was on the set of her mainstream gig,Nunof Your Business.
I wanted more than anything for there to be another answer, but the thought of even holding a needle with the countless cuts in my hands made my eyes water.
“I guess I don’t really have any other option, do I?”
Angel shook his head. “You and me at the end of the world,” he said.
