10
Shane’s birthday fell in early August, which, for most of his childhood, had meant an opportunity to make new friends. It wasn’t that his birthday parties were anything special—if they even happened at all. But year after year, when he inevitably found himself yet again starting at a new school where he knew nobody, it helped to break the ice.
As an adult, he usually didn’t do much to celebrate. The big exception had been his thirtieth, when Serena had thrown an extravagant masquerade ball for him at her house. But as he’d floated through room after room filled with smoke and colored lights and more famous people than he’d ever seen in one place (except maybe at the Golden Globes), clutching an elaborate cocktail served to him by a dancer wearing nothing but body paint, he’d had a strange, queasy feeling, like the party wasn’t really about him at all.
He was turning thirty-five this year, though, so he felt compelled to do something. He’d rented out the generously sized back room and paid for an open bar at Gold Rush—the closest thing he had to a neighborhood haunt, considering how little he went out these days. It was cozy and unpretentious, while still a few steps above a dive.
Even though he’d been in L.A. for almost ten years at this point, most of his social life still revolved around Intangible, which was reflected in the guest list. He’d drifted apart from his party friends once he’d started dating Serena, who, like Lilah, had despised them—but unlike Lilah, she hadn’t even bothered trying to hide it, and since she was actually his girlfriend, her opinion held more weight.
He’d started to pull away from them even earlier than that, though—ever since his week of debauchery after he and Lilah had broken up. He hadn’t gone home with most of the women he’d taken out, but he’d still woken up each subsequent morning feeling grimier and grimier, more hungover, more strung out, more embarrassed, until he’d finally had enough. Anyway, it had been a distraction, not a cure. Lilah’s role in getting Devon fired from the show had only sped up the inevitable. Within a year, he wasn’t in touch with any of them anymore.
As he sipped his beer and glanced around the room, he was heartened by the turnout, cast and crew alike. At the same time, though, he couldn’t ignore the bittersweet pang at the thought that they’d all be going their separate ways after this year.
He’d invited Lilah, of course, but only because it would’ve been too much of a statement not to. They were supposed to be getting along now, after all. But it was the definition of an empty gesture. He knew she wouldn’t come.
Which was why, when he saw her stroll into the bar right as he was lining up a shot on the pool table, he was so startled that he sent the cue ball straight into the corner pocket. Shane glanced over at Dean on the other side of the table, who gave Shane an appraising look before retrieving the cue ball.
“What?” Shane asked.
Dean shook his head. “Surprised you invited her.”
“I invited everyone.”
“Guess things must be better, then. Since she came.”
“Or she’s here to start shit,” Shane grumbled. Even as he said it, though, he knew it wasn’t true. It wasn’t her style. She could be vicious, for sure, but she usually didn’t lash out unprovoked. The two of them had an uneasy truce. For now.
Shane caught Lilah’s eye. She raised her hand in a small wave but didn’t approach him.
In fact, she steered clear of him all night. Her motivations behind showing up became increasingly apparent, though, as he watched her work the room like a pro: gossiping in a corner with Margaux, refereeing an arm wrestling match between Brian and the key grip, conferring over the jukebox with Natalie before sending the Bee Gees blasting through the bar. As hard as he tried to push down his annoyance at the whole scene, it popped back up with equal force, like a beach ball held underwater.
Later in the evening, Shane handed the bartender a few hundred bucks in cash and told him to take a break before slipping behind the bar himself.
Even though he’d been working as a waiter when he’d been cast in Intangible, most of his service industry experience had been as a bartender. It was still his favorite job he’d ever had. All the sitting around he did as an actor was luxurious, but it was also incredibly boring. And now, as he sank into the rhythm of it again, his muscle memory taking over, he felt useful in a way he hadn’t in years.
Not that he romanticized getting people drunk as some kind of humanitarian outreach or anything. And he didn’t take for granted the enjoyment and escape that Intangible brought to the people who watched it. But there’d been a level of human connection with his customers that he could never replicate with some distant, faceless audience. And on slow nights, when he’d get drawn into a long conversation with a stranger or a regular, his relative anonymity allowing them to confide in him in a way they couldn’t with anyone else, he’d felt the most useful of all.
Tonight, though, tending bar provided the perfect setting for Shane to hold court, flitting from one conversation to another. As he chatted with several of the writers, popping the tops off their beers in a series of fluid, practiced motions, he felt more at ease than he had all night.
But there was something off about it, too. It had been ten years since he’d been behind a bar for real, and he likely never would be again—unless he was playing a bartender. A photocopy of a real person, who ceased to exist when no one was looking at him or telling him what to do.
Anxiety gripped him suddenly at the thought that maybe the others would see it as some kind of smug joke. Look how out of place I am back here, ha ha. How ridiculous for me to serve rather than be served. Like he was gloating about a life he’d never have to return to, instead of grasping desperately at one he missed.
As if he’d manifested it out of the depths of his subconscious, he heard the opening notes of “Common People” cut through the room. He jerked his head up to see Lilah by the jukebox again, eyebrows raised mockingly in his direction before she turned away.
Of course she could tell exactly how he was feeling. She’d always had a preternatural ability to hone in on his insecurities—almost before he could name them himself. She’d think it was funny, naturally, to let him know she knew, needling him with a song about rich people playacting at being poor.
She was one to talk, anyway. He knew she’d grown up in a wealthy suburb and attended a private arts high school before her stint at Juilliard. Her childhood birthday parties probably had four-figure budgets.
He watched as Lilah returned to her game of darts with Dean and Rafael, forcing himself to tamp down the surge of betrayal he felt at seeing the three of them being so buddy-buddy. He knew Raf wasn’t that fond of her, but get a couple of drinks in him and he’d cuddle up to a rattlesnake. And as for Dean…well.
It looked like a close game, but Rafael triumphed in the end, Lilah throwing her hands up good-naturedly as he slapped her on the back. She collected their empty glasses—obviously her penalty for losing—and headed toward Shane.
“Bulleit neat, water, and whatever IPA Dean’s drinking. Please,” she said, dropping the glasses to the counter with a clink. She eyed the pitcher on the bar next to her, overflowing with tips. “This isn’t going to you, is it?”
He cleared the glasses and leaned a fresh pint glass under the tap. “Of course not.”
“Just checking.” She dug a twenty out of her pocket and dropped it in.
As he poured the whiskey, she turned away until she was in profile, pointedly ignoring him, scraping her hair into a makeshift ponytail with one hand. Over the past few hours, the temperature in the bar had crept up to somewhere between “muggy” and “stuffy,” leaving everyone looking like glazed donuts. He tried to ignore the flush staining her cheeks; the stray lock of hair, damp with sweat, that clung to her neck; the way the position of her arms made her breasts swell above the neckline of her tank top.
“What’s with the Miss Congeniality act?” Shane asked casually, placing Rafael’s whiskey next to Dean’s beer.
She raised an eyebrow, dropping her hair and turning back to him. “You mean being friendly to my co-workers? Who says it’s an act?”
Shane filled a pint glass with ice and aimed the soda gun into it. “I dunno. Seems a little out of character, working this hard to get people to like you.”
He expected her to bristle, but instead, a slow smile spread across her face, sending an unexpected (and unwelcome) surge of heat through his veins.
“Of course. Because if I don’t make an effort, I’m a bitch who thinks I’m better than everyone. But if I do make an effort, I’m being fake. What do you want from me, exactly?” She wasn’t drunk; he hadn’t seen her have a drink all night. There was nothing to explain the playful challenge in her demeanor—other than the possibility that she actually was having a good time and refused to let him ruin it.
“I’m just waiting for my turn in the sun.” He moved to put her water on the bar, but she held out her hand, so he passed it right to her. When their fingers brushed, he thought he saw something spark in her eyes. She looked away before he could parse it.
“You already had your turn.” She tilted her head back and took a long drink before placing the glass back on the bar, half-empty. He dutifully refilled it.
“It does make things easier, though. If we all get along,” he said. “That’s why you’re doing this, right?”
She glanced over at him and gave a long, exasperated exhale.
“Maybe I genuinely like them. Maybe they like me—as hard as that might be for you to believe.” She gracefully scooped up the drinks, meeting his eyes again, her gaze as chilled as the ice in the bin in front of him. “And maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
With that, she sauntered back over to the dartboard. Obviously, he watched her walk away, but he didn’t realize how intently he’d been staring until an unexpected voice next to him made him jump.
“So, who dumped who?”
He turned to see Natalie nursing the end of her whiskey sour.
When Natalie had first joined the cast, he’d reflexively kept a polite distance from her, not wanting to make the same mistake twice; however, once they’d established they weren’t really attracted to each other, the two of them had become good friends. Shane had even introduced her to her now-husband, a private chef he’d met through Serena.
They’d never discussed the specifics of his history with Lilah, though.
He cleared his throat, taking a sip of his own beer behind the bar. “Sorry?”
“Come on.” She slid onto the barstool in front of him. “The last time I was on a set this tense, the director was in the middle of divorcing the star. He tried to fire her, the producers intervened, it was a whole thing. They wouldn’t even speak directly to each other, they just had their assistants pass messages back and forth.”
Shane winced. “Are we that bad?”
Natalie’s expression turned triumphant. “So it is true.”
He paused. He’d never told anyone who worked on the show about him and Lilah—besides Dean, of course. That didn’t mean other people hadn’t figured it out on their own, but it was still probably best to play dumb.
“What’s true?”
“You two. You had a thing way back when, and that’s why you hate each other now.”
Shane looked down at the bar. Suddenly, he was struck with a need to confess, to confide. Who was he protecting? Lilah? Himself? Whatever they’d had back then was long dead and buried, even if its ghost refused to leave them alone. It didn’t seem like it would make much of a difference at this point, finally confirming what everyone had already assumed.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. But it wasn’t anything…” He trailed off before starting again. “It was over by the second season.”
He held out his hand for Natalie’s glass, and she passed it to him. She rested her chin on her hand. “Wow. So that was, what, seven years ago? And you’re both still this weird around each other? Not that your little Scenes from a Marriage role-play isn’t fun for all of us, but it kinda seems like it’s time to get over it.”
Shane hunted around for the sour mix, considering. He shouldn’t say anything else. He shouldn’t.
“It’s not just about that.”
“What, then?”
He mixed Natalie’s drink thoughtfully, buying some time. He didn’t want to seem like he was trying to turn her against Lilah. But it was the truth. It wasn’t his fault if it made Lilah look bad.
“She slept with Dean.”
Shane placed the drink in front of Natalie, but she ignored it, her eyes wide with shock. “What? When?”
“At her last wrap party.”
Her jaw dropped. “At the party?”
“After, sorry. After. They left together. That was the last time I saw her. Until upfronts.”
He still saw it, sometimes. The two of them headed toward the exit, Dean’s arm slung around her shoulders. He must have had a few too many at that party, though, because he remembered it two distinct ways. In one version, she glanced back at him, making sure he was watching. In the other, she didn’t bother.
Three and a half years later, he still wasn’t sure which one was worse.
Dean had stumbled home the next morning, shirt inside out, shamefaced, mumbling about how nothing had happened, unable to meet Shane’s eyes. That was the thing about Dean, though: he’d never grown out of that little kid impulse to lie his way out of trouble.
Shane had forgiven him, obviously. Eventually. But he hadn’t believed him for a second.
“Damn.” Natalie craned her neck to look across the bar, and Shane followed her gaze. At that exact moment, Lilah and Dean were dancing to the eighties hair metal playing on the jukebox—in a manner that was decidedly goofy, not sexy. Not even touching. Still, Shane felt something hot flare behind his rib cage, and he quickly looked away.
“Can’t blame her for having a type, I guess,” Natalie mused.
Shane shook his head a little too emphatically. “It was only that once. She just did it to get back at me. They both did.”
“Get back at you for what?”
His mouth tightened. “Doesn’t matter.”
Natalie’s eyebrows were in her hairline as she sipped her drink. “It matters what they did, but not what you did?”
Just then, Margaux came to his rescue, appearing out of nowhere with a plate bearing an array of cupcakes, “three” and “five” candles stuck haphazardly into the two in the center. Shane ducked out from behind the bar as the rest of the group crowded around him, singing “Happy Birthday” boisterously in a variety of keys and tempos.
“Make a wish!” someone shouted.
He didn’t put much stock in birthday wishes. Even so, as he bent over the candles, he racked his brain, only to come up empty. At the very last second, he glanced up, catching Lilah’s eyes in the back of the crowd right before he blew them out.