Lucky Star: A Hollywood Love Story Read Online Free PDF

and found him was staring back, a horrified look on his face. I wanted him to say something, anything. And then I wished he’d never spoken.
    “We shouldn’t have done that.”
    I felt tears sting my eyes and the regret his words communicated left me feeling hurt and vulnerable. I didn’t say anything back. I couldn’t speak lest he hear it in my voice.
    “God … I’m such a fucker,” he groaned and sat up quickly, flinging his legs over the side of the bed, leaving me with a view of his back. A back I wanted to score with my nails, to mark as mine. But he wasn’t and never would be. His reaction confirmed it. I had to accept what just happened between us had been a one-time thing, a mistake – a beautiful, lovely, wonderfully heartbreaking mistake.
    He rested his head in his hands for a few moments and then dropped them to rest on his thighs. He didn’t look at me when he said, “I shouldn’t have touched you. I just …”
    As scared as I was to know what he intended to say with that hanging sentence, I deserved an explanation. “You just what?” My question came out barely a whisper and I was afraid I would break if I said anything more.
    “I couldn’t help myself.”
    He stood up rooted around for his clothes. The entire time he dressed he never once looked at me. The shame of his reaction over what we’d done tore my heart in two.
    Look at me, look at me, please look at me .
    He didn’t.
    Instead, he walked to the door of my bedroom, but then paused in retreat. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, not even bothering to look me in the eye when he broke me.
    And then he walked out.

 
     
     
     
     

     
     
    “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I slammed my fists against the steering wheel and dropped my head forward as my knuckles throbbed in response.
    A week ago I’d made the worst mistake of my life. Had it been finally touching Sarah the way I’d wanted to for so long, or was it the fact that I’d stopped? Neither of those things. It was that I’d callously walked away from her and hadn’t the balls to now make amends. That was my biggest failing.
    Normally I made a point of not drinking too much liquor in front of her because my mouth wasn’t to be trusted under the influence of hard alcohol. Too many beers and I’d generally be fine, but the second I started downing shots of tequila, all bets were off. It’d been that way since high school and even though I knew this about myself, I’d still let those shots of Patron slide down my gullet. By then I’d completely forgotten why it was a bad idea to drink tequila in the first place.
    That had been my first mistake of the night.
    When the bartender said we needed to leave, a voice in the back of my head told me I should put my ass in a cab and go home. But then Sarah grabbed my arm, her eyes glittering with laughter after having recounted the day we’d first become friends, and said there was no way I was going home as drunk as I was. Her lips forming a perfect O, like she’d just had the brightest idea ever, she exclaimed I should stay the night at her house instead. I’d stared at her lips as the words had formed and wrestled with how best to answer. I was stupid drunk by that point, but not so far gone that a small part of my brain hadn’t been blasting warning signals that if I did go home with her, I’d be crossing a line I hadn’t meant to cross. I knew it was a bad idea and yet I found myself following her out into the night anyway.
    It made sense to go back to her place since she only lived a mile or so up the hill from the restaurant, which meant we didn’t need to wait for a cab. Theoretically, once there we’d say goodnight and I’d sleep the tequila off on her couch. In the morning I’d walk back down to Maria’s to pick up my truck and drive home. I say “theoretically” because even though that’s what should have happened, the second we walked through the door I asked if she had any more tequila laying around. I knew she